The Horrible Gift

The Horrible Gift

By Lane Lofton

Pete sensed nothing dreadful about the silent, still air of his home until he saw Barry. Barry was standing at the kitchen island, washing dishes. But there was no sound coming from the sink, where the clink and clank of dishes, or the white noise sound of the running water would fill the kitchen like a heartbeat.

He didn’t understand why it was so quiet. The TV wasn’t on and no music or podcast was playing from Barry’s phone, as he often did when doing kitchen work. Why couldn’t he hear that damn water running?

Pete blinked hard, trying to reset his senses. The quiet wasn’t right. His ears rang faintly, and he felt the weight of silence like pressure before a storm. For a moment he wondered if something in him had broken. His pulse quickened.

He cupped his hands over his ears, pressing his index fingers against his earlobes. A muffled ocean sound filled his head, like the conch shell his dad once held to his ear. Only now his heartbeat pulsed beneath it — a steady thud, thud, thud that gave the sound an eerie rhythm.

“Hey Pete!” Barry’s voice cracked the silence. Pete’s ears weren’t deaf. His skin tingled. Something was very wrong.

Just as the waves of the beach had assuaged the quickening pace of Pete’s heart, Barry’s shrill call had once again caused the deep, ceaseless beating in Pete’s ears surge louder and faster. Understanding crept in like a cold tide. The reason he couldn’t hear the dish water was that Barry wasn’t running any water. He was just standing over the sink, smiling at Pete with a blank, gaping vacant look in his eyes. Pete became unsure whether Barry was looking at him or at the television, which was hung on the wall just above his left shoulder.

Pete was kind of hoping Barry had been staring at the black, powerless TV screen so that he could retreat unnoticed to his bedroom upstairs, away from the thick awkwardness that lingered here. What Pete hoped more than anything was that Barry wasn’t fixing his gaze on him. To test this, he took two large steps to his right, and Barry’s eyes continued to follow him while his head tilted forward slowly, menacingly.

“Hey Barry. How’s it going?” Pete asked. But Barry did not react to this question. His face had become frozen and still. Some drool that had been forming at the corner of Barry’s mouth slowly dripped down his chin, forming a wet line straight down across his five o'clock shadow. The drool plopped into the sink. Barry had the sleeves of his sweater pulled up above his elbows and his hands were deep into the sink, giving his posture the slightest downward curve. Even though no water was running, he still appeared to be mimicking the motions of washing dishes. Pete’s curiosity was great and he took a step toward the kitchen to see just what he was doing in that sink. Then Pete heard a sound. A dangerous scraping sound.

Pete locked eyes with Barry. The peaceful, clean roommate he once knew was gone. That person had been replaced by a crazed man well past wits-end wielding a chef’s knife. And he was moving toward Pete with a determined pace and his chilling gaze locked on to Pete.

“What’s wrong, buddy boy?” Pete croaked out of his cotton-dry mouth, still trying to maintain a friendly tone, but his voice shook and his feigned chuckle became a whimper before he could finish the sentence. Barry did not respond, but brandished the knife above his head, and moved fast and dangerously toward Pete like a scorpion poised for attack.

Pete was taken aback by the suddenness of it all. Barry mentioned nothing this morning about murdering him after work. He might have prepared himself more, had that been the case. But on this dreary Thursday, Pete drove home with a smile stuck on his face and a food order growing in his head for the release of the new episode of “Ramona On The Beach" that aired at 8:30. The inconvenience of the situation was shaping up to be unbearable. He would have nothing to talk about with the folks at the office tomorrow if he doesn’t watch Ramona tonight, and he might even have to avoid talking to people for fear of spoilers. This would mean falling a day behind on the watercooler talk. But worse, a day without getting to start his morning going on a walk to the coffee shop with Anna.

Anxiety grabbed hold of Pete, but Barry’s loud, grunting approach snapped him back into the present moment. The look of pure rage in Barry’s eyes made his intentions crystal clear to Pete. This was life or death.

Barry was a couple inches taller than Pete, and Barry was in great shape from his CrossFit classes. Whatever confidence this knowledge might have given Barry was negated by his wild, reckless swinging, and his wide-open eyes that telegraphed to Pete his next moves. Barry desperately dove at Pete, chef’s knife outstretched. Pete dodged to the left, falling to the floor, while Barry flung wildly into the couch, impaling a decorative pillow with the knife, sending a cumulus of feathers into the air as he ripped the blade free from the fabric.

Barry sprang back to his feet, pillow feathers sticking to the sweat on his face and arms like ash. Some drifted from his shoulders as he breathed heaving, desperate gasps. His eyes gleamed wide and hungry through the white tufts. For a moment, Pete thought Barry looked less like a man and more like some furious, molting thing. Barry screeched an awful warcry and aimed a deadly strike toward Pete’s heart which now beat so loud and fast that it could ripple the ocean waves, disturbing even its peaceful white-noise with the war drum THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.

Pete swung his right knee up to his own chest and quickly unloaded the heaviest kick he could manage in an outward thrust, landing right in the soft of Barry’s belly. Every bit of oxygen was knocked out of Barry’s lungs. His fingers lost the chef’s knife and fell, missing Pete’s heart and landing a couple of feet away from his head on the floor. As Barry collapsed like a crumpled blanket onto the couch, Pete grabbed the chef’s knife and his adrenaline quickly pulled his body up from the floor. He now loomed over a ragdoll Barry like a butcher at the abattoir.

Barry’s attack only lasted a few seconds. The house would have been silent again, but Pete wouldn’t allow for the silence anymore. The raging rushing sound of the ocean flooded his mind now. He didn’t have to cup his ears or hold a conch shell up to hear it. His heart beat so fast and loud, like an earthquake that rattled every inch of his being. Pete mounted himself atop Barry on the couch. With each thundering beat of his heart (BEAT) he raised the knife and then (BEAT) brought the knife down again into Barry’s chest. BEAT. BEAT. BEAT. BEAT. Pete robotically thrust the knife into his attacker. The same mad fire that burned in Barry’s eyes just moments ago now burned even brighter in Pete’s eyes. In his furious assault, some of his wild swings missed Barry and the knife sunk deep into the pillows and couch cushions instead, spouting more flares of feathers into the air that covered the entire gruesome scene like fresh snow.

Barry no longer moved or resisted Pete. The wild, wide, hungry eyes had closed forever. Pete’s bloody hands finally rested and loosened their grip just enough that the heavy knife slid from his slickened fingers and fell to the eggshell white carpet.

Pete slumped there on the floor in awe of what just happened. He reached for his backpack and retrieved his phone from the front pocket. He unlocked the home screen, dialed 9-1-1 into the keypad, then paused to take in the silence of everything.

In the silence, Pete’s mind gave him haunting ideas. Why did Barry do this? Why did I do this to Barry? The look in his eyes after I kicked him… could it have stopped if I had stopped?

Will the police believe that this was self defense? He attacked me! But how would they know that I’m telling the truth? What if I get arrested? What horrible gift have you given me today, Barry?

Holding the silent phone, Pete’s head slowly turned to the left and beheld the bloody mess that used to be Barry. He shuddered at the sight. He determinedly pressed the call button on his phone and it started ringing. Pete set the phone down on the end table. He didn’t have anything to say. He just wanted help to come now.

Silently, he walked through his home, taking in this little life he had built, maybe for the last time. The house felt impossibly still, as though everything inside it were holding its breath. His framed photos, his furniture, the half-finished book on the nightstand—each thing seemed to belong to someone else now. He felt no pride in what he had made here, only the hollow ache of what he hadn’t. He imagined Anna hearing about what happened, and knew that whatever had been alive in him for her was gone now too. The house felt colder and lonelier than ever.

A police siren cried out in the distance, faint at first but it was coming closer. Pete could hear it while standing at the empty sink in his kitchen. He walked in a daze toward the front door to meet the police when they arrived. On his way, a vision startled him in the front hallway. A dark figure he didn’t recognize flashed in his right peripheral. Pete took a step back and turned and found himself facing a large mirror. The figure he beheld had terrifying, crazed eyes, and was drenched in red blood and feathers. It was Pete. The feathers had stuck to his face, neck, and hands, giving him the appearance of some avian predator. The blood kept the feather coat fastened to him, and the feathers had soaked up the dark red color.

The siren grew louder and Pete knew that in just another minute or two, police would arrive to bear witness to this wicked scene.

Could this really be me?

Pete stared deeper into the mirror. He flapped his wings, but they would not carry him away. Blood specks and a few loose feathers grossly slapped onto the mirror and slid down, dragging red streaks over his reflection. In disbelief, he covered his face with his hands, but the blood and feathers glued to them burned and stabbed his eyes.

He laughed at the absurd sight of himself. It started as a chuckle, a small spark of laughter that would soon explode. Pete couldn’t hear the sirens, or the knocking on the front door, or even his own screaming laughter. His ears were flooded with the whoosh of the ocean and he needed no conch shell to hear it. He tried covering his ears to listen to his heartbeat again, but the angry storm coming from inside him wouldn’t turn off.

The pounding on the front door aligned with his own pounding heart. Soon, his front door burst open, and the house was filled with light and laughter once again.

THE END