The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [99]
He lies on the ground, body still. He stares at the light bulb.
Slivers of plaster scatter the floor. He raises his broken face. His father's face leans into his own, warmly. His father tugs on the rags covering his face, tearing free a shard of plaster. He turns the shard in his hand, flicks it aside.
"What has happened to your face, Brey?" asks his father. Brey turns his face away. He father reaches out, cups his son's chin in his palm. He forces his son's face to look at him. "Stand up, Brey," his father says.
Brey does not stand. His father grabs the straps of his harness. His father heaves on the straps, raises him slightly off the floor. Brey stiffens his body. His father lets him fall.
Moving back a step, he kicks Brey in the temple. Brey grits his teeth.
His father stoops, inspects the side of Brey's head, caresses his temple. He rises, takes Brey by the boots, drags him down the hall. Brey bends his knees, kicks them swiftly into his father's stomach.
His father lets go, stumbles bent and staggering. He stands wide-legged above Brey, catching his breath.
"This is for your own good, Brey," says his father.
Grabbing his straps, he drags Brey down the hall. Brey digs his fingers and heels into the floor, shaking his shoulders until his father releases him.
"I have given you slack, Brey," says his father. "But too far is too far."
His father kneels. He removes a set of keys from Brey's hooks, casts it aside. He removes another, casts is aside. Another, another, another.
He continues to remove keys until Brey bites his hand. Cursing, his father rises, departs.
Comes a pressure on one side of his face. He does not move. A shape crosses his eye, rubbing against the eyelid. It moves to cover the other eye. Where it touches his face, it is warm, soft. Covered with hair.
Rat.
He struggles to move his legs. His legs are bound in fishline. They do not move. He tries to lift his head but the rat is too heavy. He twists his neck sideways. The rat claws at cloth and shard, sliding off his face.
The rat squats close to his face, cheeks asquirm. The tail is bare. The feet are grayish pink as are the eyes. The body is covered with matted grey hair. The head tapers to a blunted snout. Below the snout, the tips of two teeth.
The rat clambers up the bridge of Brey's nose, onto his temple. Brey moves his head slightly. The rat slides off in a heap. The rat sniffs his face, clambers atop his head. It sits upon his ear.
He slowly lifts his arm. He moves his hand up his body. He touches the rat's tail. He brushes his palm over the rat's body to touch the head.
He curls his fingers in a basket around the rat's head. He tightens his fingers until the knuckles whiten. The rat sucks at his hand, breathless, scrabbling and clawing the side of his face. It entangles its claws in cloth and plaster. His fingers tighten.
He opens his hand. The rat slides off his face and onto the floor, quivering, its eyes floating and misdirected. He rolls onto his side, carefully knotting the rat's tail. He ties a double knot, leaving a slight loop. He forces the loop over a hook on his harness, hanging the rat as if a set of keys.
The rat lolls off to one side, its neck twisted, its head lying turned against the floor.
He stares at the light bulb until it is blotted out. His father stands above him, dark-faced, head surrounded by a fiery nimbus of hair. His father holds the rat's tail pinched between thumb and forefinger. He dangles the rat in the air.
"Your idea of a joke, Brey?"
"Joke?" croaks Brey.
"No joke?" says his father.
"Rat?" says Brey.
"Rat?" says his father, hooking the creature back onto Brey's chest. "Where?"
There is his father, lifting him, lifting him.
For His Own Good.
A bank of twelve lights in the ceiling, five of which have expired. He turns his head. He sees that he is lying on a mattress. Four walls, a single door. He has escaped the rats.
No doubt, the rats will find him. Yet, before they arrive, he will devise traps. He will bait the traps with peach preserves,