Puttin' Mama Down

“...ergency radio network. Normal broadcasts have been temporarily discontinued. Stay tuned to this station for emergency information until such time that we are no longer able to be on the air. Law enforcement agencies are advising you to remain in your homes. Keep all doors and windows locked or boarded shut. Use all food, water, and medical supplies sparingly. Civil defense forces are attempting to gain control of the situation. Stay near your radio and remain tuned to this frequency for more information. Repeating that, all citizens are being instructed to remain in their homes until further notice. Up to the minute reports inform us that the dramatic situation first documented in the midwestern section of the country has now spread across the nation and is in fact world-wide. Medical and scientific advisors have been summoned to the White House, and reporters on the scene in Washington inform us that the President is planning to make public the results of that conference in an address to the nation over your civil defense emergency network. According to sources, the nuclear option may even be being considered, especially for densely populated portions of the country such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. So, by all means, keep your radio tuned to this station for all future updates from the Em…”

“Oh fer shit’s sake, Gar’, can we just shut that damn crap off?” Dora Ann said, her voice being one that, after having been ravaged by a three pack a day habit of smoking Winston Lights for a decade or two, was the aural equivalent of a kick in the ‘nads. It was no wonder she still wasn’t married. But even with her caustic tone, her speech still shook a bit from the fear currently rampaging through her heightened nervous system. “None of that shit they’re talkin’ is makin’ a lick of sense anyways. Every damn one of those people on the radio…” She clicked her tongue dismissively, waving her hand in the air. “Buncha lib’ruls making it all up anyhow, I tells ya.”

“We need to think of a fuggin’ plan,” Auntie Barb repeated emphatically at anybody who would listen, attempting to subtly redirect the conversation back around toward something that might actually help them. Exasperated, she finally got up from her seat and went over to turn the radio down a little, returning to the table once she had done so. As she was getting comfortable again, she lazily tossed another sugar cube into the rapidly-cooling cup of coffee that she had sittin’ there on the table in front of her. Not because she wanted it any sweeter, but simply because she was bored and it gave her hands something to do.

Gary Cohen sat in the chair at the head of the kitchen table, silently wondering how everything in the world could have gone to hell so goddam quickly. See, Mama, Dora Ann, Auntie Barb, Uncle Gene, and Mama’s Friend Beth had all been at the church carnival over at St. Anthony’s. The event had been scheduled and prepared for by the members of the Knights of Columbus, everybody working hard on it for that last few weeks. And then, in the next few seconds, a bunch of these strange people, their faces all scraped and bloodied, came flooding into the church’s tar-covered play yard from all directions.

The mob of people – and there had been a lot of them, which was surprising given how small their town was - came racing across the asphalt, grabbing hold of anyone they could get their hands on as they flowed like water toward the church. The grocer at the A&P, Arnold Stanford, was one of them and he’d gone right at Uncle Gene, dragging the old guy to the ground, Uncle Gene screamin’ and cussin’ the whole damn way. And once Mr. Stanford had him in his gnarled fists, he’d bitten into Gene’s throat like the old cuss was Thanksgiving dinner.

It was the most goddamedest thing anybody had ever seen.

Almost immediately, many in the congregation, the small, the elderly, and the infirmed, fell like sickled wheat before the gnashing teeth of these aggressive interlopers. The ones that remained unharmed raced toward the church’s open back door for safety. And damn if they didn’t almost make it. Unfortunately, they were met by a separate stream of the same kinds of people as they came pouring out into the yard from the chapel.

Pandemonium ensued almost immediately, and it was only by sheer luck that the Cohen’s and their remaining friends made it out of the churchyard. Well, except Uncle Gene. He was still back there some-a-wheres, spread over the asphalt like a dropped jar of strawberry preserves. Once their group had gotten clear of the fence though, they’d run like cats with their tails on fire down the road all the way to their house, moving along just as fast as their legs would carry them.

It was only once they’d gotten everybody inside the house that Dora Ann noticed the blood on the arm of the Dale Earnhardt memorial tee shirt that Mama had on. After they’d gotten her sleeve pulled up, they saw the teeth marks and bruising on her skin. It was then that they’d all realized that Mama had been hurt somewheres along the way.

Living out in the boonies where they did, there wasn’t really anywhere close for them to take her to get her fixed up. The nearest hospital was forty miles away. And with them things runnin’ around out there, there was no way the walk-in clinic on Poseidon Street would be open.

No way in God’s own hell.

And that was yesterday afternoon.

Today, Mama lay upstairs in her bed, a fever raging like brushfire through her brain. There were now thick lines of infection running up her shoulder from where the bite was, bruising coloring down her arm to her wrist. Everyone had been doing what they could to make her comfortable, but really… the only thing that they could do was wait, either for some help to arrive, or to see if Mama died from the bite. Just like everybody they were hearing about on the radio. They could do little else to help her feel better, but sit and listen for news on what to do next.

And try’n figure out how to help defend themselves.

The night had passed slowly, and the obsidian darkness held only fear for all of them. Then, early this morning, after they’d all had a fitful night’s sleep, Mama’s Friend Beth put on a pot of coffee and Dora Ann got out a box of Nillas from the cupboard, and they’d all gathered around the dining room table for a makeshift breakfast. As they silently ate, they all watched the hands of the clock as they went ‘round its face, shaving off slivers of time. It had been Auntie Barb who’d finally turned the radio back on.

“Hypotheses as to the origins and the aims of the infected have to this point been so varied and so diverse that we must only report these factors to be unknown. Teams of scientists and physicians presently have the corpses of several of the... aggressors, and these corpses are being studied for clues that might negate or confirm existing theories. The most overwhelming fact... is that these creatures are infiltrating through urban and rural areas throughout the nation, in forces of varying number, and if they have not as yet evidenced themselves in your area, please... take every available precaution. Attack may come at any time, in any place, without warning. Repeating the key facts from our previous reporting... There is an aggressive force of unexplained, unidentified humans that have appeared in world-wide proportions. These beings are aggressive, and irrational in their violence. All citizens are urged to take utmost precautionary measures to defend against this insidious force. These beings are weak in physical strength and are easily distinguishable from humans by their deformed appearance and unnatural gait. They are usually unarmed but appear capable of handling weapons. They also seem not to be led nor are they organized, without any apparent reason or plan. Indeed, they seem to be driven by the urges of an entranced or obsessed mind. These people appear to be unthinking, despite remaining dangerous. They can, and I repeat, they can be stopped by immobilization: that is, by removal of the infected individual’s head, or by the destruction of their brain. If someone in your home has been bitten or has died, you MUST employ one of these methods in order to be safe. Your loved ones will not, I repeat, they will NOT recover. And you must attend to them quickly and with great prejudice, or this contagion will continue to spread. On the average, they are weaker in strength than an adult human, but their threat lies in their numbers, in surprise, and in the sheer fact that they are beyond our normal realm of understanding. They appear to be irrational, noncommunicative beings and they are definitely to be considered dange…

“Hand me a few more of them Nillas, wouldja Dora Ann?” Gary asked, his mind clearly elsewhere.

Dora Ann slid him a handful of cookies across the table, being careful to only give him two or three. And then she sat back in her chair and once again got herself comfortable, the wood beneath her creaking like ship’s rigging. After a moment, she picked up her coffee cup and drained what little there was left in it.

Dora Ann was Gary’s sister and, well… truth be told, they’d never really gotten on. She was younger than Gary, pretty in her way, still in her twenties, and wearing a beat-up pair of jeans and an old Nirvana tee. Gary and she had never been able to agree on much of anything, much less ever see eye-to-eye. Over the years, they’d managed a very delicate truce, mostly for Mama’s sake, but the two of them disagreein’ was something you just had to expect; like the coming and going of the tides. She sat across the table from him now, both hands wrapped like a blanket around her coffee cup so’s the residual heat from the ceramic could warm her cold fingers.

Gary looked across the table at Auntie Barb. Barb was Mama’s sister, just a year older than her, and she had always looked a lot like Mama. ‘Ceptin’ Mama had been way prettier. Of course, that was just Gary’s opinion, and he admittedly biased. People oftentimes went as far as to say that the two of ‘em looked like twins. It’d take Mama getting bit by a crazy person, gettin’ a high fever and an infection, and then going damn near comatose, to make them look alike now.

Auntie Barb sat there at the table, looking a little shell shocked, in her lime green Adidas running suit and sneakers. Nilla crumbs littered her lips and the front of her shirt like gravel, and her eyes had taken on this empty stare that was kinda unnerving. Now, what with what had happened to Mama, it was uncomfortable for Gary every time he looked over at her.

“Well, how the hail we gonna know if she’s gonna come back alive ‘er not?”  Mama’s Friend Beth asked, her voice heavy with the vibrato of fear. She held a napkin in a tight, white-knuckled grip, strangling it like it was the neck of a chicken.

“Well, first off… she ain’t dead yet.” Gary looked over at her solemnly and did what he could to calm her worries. “But we’ll know… believe you me, we’ll know.”

“Well, who’s gonna, y’know… do it if’n she does?” Dora Ann asked over a mouthful of cookies. “I, well… I just cain’t.”

Gary sighed and drank down the dregs of his coffee, grounds littering the bottom of the cup like black sand. He wondered what his future held for a second, but then he remember that was tea leaves, and he set his cup back down sadly. He let his gaze drift lazily around the small room, marking the three women, and instinctively understanding that there was no way any of them would be able to perform the deed when, and if, it became necessary.

“I’ll do it,” he finally said in a soft voice.

Gary reluctantly got up and went over to wash his cup out in the sink, dumping out his agnostic coffee grounds, and setting the cup in the rack nearby to dry. He stood there for a second, feeling the buzz of adrenaline in his veins as he watched what passed for his future swirl down the drain along with the water.

With a sigh, he looked out the kitchen door at what remained of his family sitting there at the dinner table. Jesus, he thought, how many of Mama’s meals had they all had here, gathered around that banged up square of mahogany? How many times had Mama sat right where Gary had just been sitting, acting as matriarch to their clan? Especially after Pa died. There was so much history in the house, so many memories.

It just wasn’t fuckin’ right.

…assign little credibility to the theory that this onslaught is a product of mass hysteria. Authorities advise utmost caution until the menace can be brought under absolute control. Eyewitness accounts are currently being investigated. Corpses are presently being examined by medical pathologists, but autopsy efforts have been hampered by the mutilated condition of the bodies. Security measures instituted in metropolitan areas include enforced curfews and safety patrols by armed personnel. Residents are again urged to remain in their homes. Those who ignore this warning expose themselves to intense danger from not only the aggressors, but from the armed citizenry whose impulse may be to shoot first and ask questions later. More… as the situation develops. I’m Richard P. Rubinstein… and this is News Radio, WGAR.

Gary stepped away from the sink. The women continued their talking, but they all kept an eye on him through the door as he swung open one of the kitchen cabinets and pulled down what was left of a fifth of Jack Daniels, and a squat, bar glass. He turned, raising the bottle in a sort of silent toast to the ladies, and walked into the living room without saying anything more to them.

He went over to the coat closet, setting the glass and bottle onto a small end table that had a framed picture of Mamma posing in front of some boats on it. As he pulled the closet door open, his eye was caught by what he’d always called their family’s Rogue’s Gallery. He stopped a minute, allowing his eyes to drift over the array of photos that were hung there on the wall, picture frames suspended by small carpet brads. There were his and Dora Ann’s high school graduation photos. Next to them were faded and yellow-with-age photographs from their parent’s wedding. A picture of Pa, standing by his prize ’57 Buick. Every image sparked another memory in Gary, and they each broke his heart all over again.

Returning his attention to the business at hand, he reached up to a small shelf that was there at the back of the closet. Upon the small platform lay various board games like Parcheesi, Life, Monopoly, and the like. The Cohen’s used to play them every so often when the weather was bad out and they needed something cheap and nearby to keep themselves amused. There were some small boxes of photos next to them, as well as an old, dirty shoebox, which he grabbed.

Gary went over to the couch and sat down, setting the shoebox onto his lap. The carton smelled like mothballs and something greasy, and it was a lot heavier than you might think by its size. He sighed again, looking back up at the mugshots on the wall. A seven-year-old Dora Ann stared back at him, the two big teeth in the front of her mouth gone missing. It was her school photo from like First or Second grade, he rightly couldn’t remember which. She’d been mortified when the package of photos finally arrived home from school. Being her brother, Gary had laughed himself into a coughing fit when he got a look at them.

That was the year that Pa first got sick, the year pretty much everything changed.

Gary lifted the lid on the shoebox, peering reluctantly inside. There, he saw something that had been wrapped in a soiled blue cloth, and a box of .38 shells. He picked up the bullets and set them aside. He then took out what was wrapped in the blue fabric, and he put the box onto the couch cushion on the other side of him.

Unwrapping the bundle like an unwanted Christmas present, Gary finally had in his hand the thing he’d been looking for, an all-black Taurus model 85 .38 revolver. He hefted the weapon in his hand, feeling the weight of it. He remembered when they’d gotten the damn thing. There had been a bunch of robberies in the neighborhood and Gary knew a guy at work who’d sold it to him on the cheap. At one time in his life, Gary had taken the pistol to the range with some of his buddies nearly every weekend. They even used to go quail and dove hunting every once in a while. But then, the cost of ammo started going up and that shit just got too expensive.

Now satisfied that he had what he’d come for, he set the empty box onto the coffee table, next to a pile of Mama’s Readers Digests. He then picked up the gun, the shells, his glass, and the JD and carried them all upstairs.

Upstairs… to Mama’s room.

-*-

The hallway at the head of the staircase was dimly lit, which did nothing to help Gary’s ability to see. Nor did it do much for his sense of rising terror. He’d seen the way those people at St. Anthony’s had gone after poor ol’ Uncle Gene. He couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for the old fella. The idea of Mama actin’ like that, well… it really shook Gary to his core.

Knowing the way up to Mama’s room like the back of his hand though, he moved to the end of the corridor with a certain amount of grim determination. There was a pile of laundry in a basket on the floor outside Dora Ann’s room, a small air purifier on the floor by the bathroom, and a table on which sat the Chinese Money Plant that Gary had gotten last Christmas from his cheapskate boss in lieu of a bonus.

Christ, he thought, he’d always hated that fuckin’ plant. He’d purposefully not watered it, hoping the damn thing would wither and die. But then, Mama would come along and drown it in tap water. It was a wonder that the damn thing was now going to outlive her.

When he finally got to the door of Mama’s room, he stood there a second and tried to regroup. Was he really going to be able to shoot Mama like they were sayin’ to do on the radio if’n he had to? Like put a round right between those rheumy green eyes of hers? The same ones that had watched over them since birth. Maybe… He didn’t rightly know what he might actually do if she died and came back from the dead like them others, but it sure looked like he was gonna find out. And if he felt like he couldn’t go through with it, then that was what the Jack Daniels was for.

After taking a few more breaths, he shook his head to clear it, and then he knocked on Mama’s door. Why he knocked, god only knew. It wasn’t like she was going to get up and come answer it, or even call for him to come on in. Still, it felt a might disrespectful not to at least knock first before entering her private bedroom. When no answer came, Gary turned the doorknob and gently pushed on the flat plane of wood with his knuckle.

The door lazily swung open like a pendulum in its frame, inward into the dim room. Once it was open wide enough for him to see, Gary peered cautiously inside. From the look of things, it was clear that Mama liked her things neat; neat and orderly. She kept a bed, a dresser, one small sittin’ chair, and a nightstand in her room and that was about it. Her clothes were all either hung up in the closet or neatly folded in the bureau. She was like that, always cleaning and trying to make the house look more respectable than it really was. His somber eyes took it all in, somehow avoiding the dark form that lay on the bed.

Gary sighed and forced himself to finally look at Mama as she lay there in amongst the bedding. They’d pulled her powder-blue, fleece blanket they’d gotten her from the Old navy store at the mall up to her chest, her arms laying on top, folded over her wide breast. She lay there with her mouth open, her eyes staring up at the same spot on the ceiling without ever moving. Gary stepped closer to the bed, setting the items he had in his hands on top of the dresser. He then bent down to get a closer look at her, to try and see if she’d passed yet.

Mama’s normally rosy face looked drawn, her skin as yellow as a legal pad. She wasn’t blinking and her chest was about as still as a library. The smell of coffee and the perfume she wore to the church social – Emeraude – drifted upwards to tickle Gary’s nostrils. He felt his eyes abruptly well up, remembering all the times he’d smelled them in the past. The scent had become Mama’s signature over the years, and anytime he smelled it, he was always reminded of her.

He continued to stare at her face for a long time, repeatedly pushing away the notion that Mama could be dead, much less expirin’. Determined to go through with this though, he carefully gathered up his things from the top of the dresser, and pulled the sittin’ chair over to the foot of the right side of the bed. Steeling himself, he gently took hold of Mama’s hand, and noticed how cold she was, and how gnarled her knuckles were by her rheumatoid arthritis. The skin on the back of Mama’s injured hand was tinted with the deep red of infection. Her nails were already getting cloudy, blue shading the flat surface of the nail plate. And her fingers… had already become so stiff that they felt like a bundle of twigs in his grip, stiff and motionless.

Reluctantly, he let go of her hand and reached over to pick up the glass and the JD. Opening the cap with his teeth, he poured a good two or three fingers of the dark liquid into the crystal, knowing now that he was gonna need it. Recapping the bottle, he set it down onto the floor with a thump, and took a long pull from his glass. The liquor bit his tongue, warmth spreading through him from deep within his belly.

As he sat there, quietly sipping his drink, swirling the acrid liquid around in his mouth like mouthwash, he let his gaze once again drift back to Mama’s face. Jesus H, he thought, how many times had he looked at that face in his lifetime? A thousand, at least. Mama had been a formidable figure in all of their lives, someone who’d not only raise them, but had served as a model for how to be a strong and caring person. Everybody loved Mama. Mama was, well… like everybody’s mama, and the people in town all flocked to be near her just for that.

All of a sudden, something on the bed, something under the blankets and out of Gary’s line of sight, twitched. The movement wasn’t much, maybe just the spasming of one of her toes, but it was there nonetheless. And it was enough - enough for Gary anyway.

He quickly downed what he’d had in his glass and lazily set it onto the floor alongside the bottle of whiskey. As he rose back up to a sitting position, he picked up the pistol, still wrapped in its cloth, and then he grabbed the box of shells. Setting the bundle into his lap, he opened the small box of bullets at one end. He knew that the pistol held five rounds, so he shook as many out of the container into his hand as if they were Tic Tacs. He then reclosed the box and set it gently onto the floor as well.

With a heavy heart, he thumbed the release on the side of the weapon, freeing the cylinder. A circular metal drum swung out from the main body of the handgun; five drill-outs around a central axis. He pressed the extractor out of habit to clear the weapon. Then, he sat back in the chair.

Mama lay right where she had been a second ago, her cloudy eyes still staring holes in the ceiling. She was dead all right, Gary thought. No matter how much he didn’t want to admit it, she hadn’t moved once since he’d first come into the room. Her lips looked dry, and they were starting to come apart from dehydration, her dentures shining unnaturally bright in the dim light.

Reaching over, he held his hand near her mouth and nose in the hope that she was still breathing, but felt nothing, even after he licked his palm to get it wet. Nope… Momma, his momma, was gone. Dead as a doornail, as they say. And now, all he had left to do was to wait to see if she came back to life. Like them others had. Taking the first of the shells in his fingers, he slid it into the first hole in the .38’s exposed cylinder.

Mama and Pa had bought the house back when Gary was still a kid. Dora Ann had just been born and, what with the new baby and all, they knew they’d need more room before long. All of Gary’s memories about this house and his parents were good ones, loving ones. Pa had been head-over-heels for Mama even after such a long time being married, and he wasn’t shy about showing it. Gary remembered how he was always hearing Mama’s friends tell her how lucky she was that, even after all the years they’d been together, her husband still loved her so.

Picking up another bullet, he loaded the next round into the cylinder of the gun.

Growing up, Gary and Dora Ann had both been a handful, staying out late, sneaking around, runnin’ with the wrong crowd. The same ol’ song and dance. Man, Pa used to tan their hides over that shit. But then Pa got sick again, the cancer having returned with a vengeance. Pa started droppin’ weight, becoming so skinny that he looked like them POWs you saw on the History Channel. And by the time Pa had become bedridden, you could see Death’s hand already resting possessively on his shoulder.

After Pa finally did die, Gary settled right the fuck down. He knew that Mama was gonna need help now that Pa wasn’t there to provide anymore. So Gary had gone out and gotten a job downtown, working at the framer’s store there. Dora Ann kept up with her usual shenanigans, and that soon became the wedge that fractured their relationship forever. He’d always thought that Mama was gonna need both of them to be there for her, and her runnin’ around wasn’t doing anybody any good.

Gary put another bullet into the mouth of the third slot of the cylinder and let it go, allowing it to slide into place on its own.

In many ways, Mama and Pa’s relationship became a model for Gary as he grew up and took on more and more of the house’s responsibilities. The way he had it figured, he’d find the right girl one day, get married, and do what he could to emulate the same kind of relationship his parents had. But he’d always had an eye for Trouble, especially when it came to dating. And when the girls he went out with failed to live up to his ideal, he dumped them, thinking Miss Right was still out there, somewhere right around the corner. Well, he thought to himself as he looked around Mama’s bedroom, if she had been out there someplace, she damn sure kept herself scarce.

Just then, just as he slid the fourth bullet into place, something else moved beneath the blanket on Mama’s bed. The motion had been another small tremble, like that shiver that happens just as you’re finished peeing. This time though, Gary saw it plain as day, just as he was reaching for the last of the five rounds.

But truth be told, Mama had always been there for them, both of them, even when Dora Ann was at her worst, even when Pa was mad as hell at ‘them damn kids.’ Heck, even… when Pa was dying. She’d cooked for them, cleaned for them, cried for them… Seeing her like this now, all dead and rising up to try and maybe eat somebody, well… it just didn’t seem fair. Like, was there really no dignity to it all when you got right down to it? Was this how we were all destined to end up now? Not the ‘being dead’ part, everyone did that eventually… but the ‘coming back and trying to eat everybody’ part.

He gingerly picked up the last round, holding it up to the dim light and watching as the sparse illumination in the room glimmered off of the casing. Setting the last of the one hundred and twenty-five grain rounds at the portal of its slot, he let it slip from his fingertips, once again allowing the bullet to shimmy itself into position. With a quick flick of his wrist, he snapped the cylinder closed and gently drew the hammer back with his thumb.

On the bed, sweet Jesus… Mama was miraculously showing more signs that she was slowly coming back to life. Her eyes were still open, but they rolled around wildly in their sockets now, not exactly focusing on anything, but just looking around the room, searching for something. She groaned, and her breath smelled of black bile, souring the air in the room.

She raised her head from off of the pillow a little bit, and slowly tried to sit up. As she did, her eyes finally fell upon her son sitting in the chair immediately to her left. Almost instantaneously, the old woman became agitated, thrashing her feet in the bed, trying as hard as she could to get her legs clear of the blankets so she could get up and make a run at him. Gary wiped away a tear from his eye with one hand as he raised the pistol with the other, Mama’s snarling face coming into focus over the .38’s gunsights.

“Now you listen here, Mama,” Gary said, his tearful voice breaking the fragile silence within the room. “I think it best you just lay there a minute. You were pretty darn sick here a second ago, and we need to figure out what’s wrong with you. So, you just rest, ya hear, and I’ll try and get Doc Robinson…”

Mama, well, Mama didn’t so much as scream as she… she shrieked in absolute fury, her back coming up from the bed like one of them spook show scares that jump out at you when you least expect it. Gary had never heard of anything quite like it, not had he ever seen her move so fast. Then, she sprang up, sliding her fat legs beneath her, her onion skin whispering as they dragged themselves across the soiled sheets.

Crouching on top of the mattress as a frog might, she snarled at him again, growling and tossing her head like a dog gone mad with rabies, her eyes staring intensely at Gary from where she was on the bed. Drool dribbled from her lips onto her chin in syrupy ropes, and even a blind man could see that she was positioning herself to pounce.

Gary, not exactly bein’ a dummy, kept the gun trained on Mama the whole time. His one eye was closed and the other sighted along the barrel, putting the flat of his mother’s forehead right between the prongs of the gunsight. For a fraction of a second, he almost couldn’t do it, almost put the gun down. Was he crazy? Was he really about to blow his own Mama’s head off with the family .38?

And all because of something he’d heard on the radio?

What about that whole War of the Worlds thing that had happened all those years ago? What if this was some kind of crazy hoax like that? Then again, after everything they’d seen at the church, after what had happened to poor ol’ Uncle Gene, he knew... this was no fuckin’ hoax.

And now that he had one of the damn things right in fuckin’ front of him, even if it was Mama, he took a second to look at what was goin’ on with her up close. She’d had gone from the peaceful sleep of the infirmed to that of a raving lunatic, shriekin’ and snarlin’ like some kind of animal so quickly, he thought. He couldn’t imagine what it would have been like had she gotten her hands on him. The mere thought of it was goddam petrifying. All things considered; he was happy that he brought the gun along.

“Now… now you listen here, Mama,” he said sternly, edging back a little in his chair. “I’m your son and I love you, but I need you to settle back down, okay? Else I’m gonna have to put one of these here bullets in you, and it’s gonna hurt, goddammit. Now, I don’t want to do that. I really, really don’t. But I swear to the baby Jesus up in Heaven that I will, if’n you don’t lay your fuckin’ ass back down in that bed – ‘scuze my French.” He checked to see what she was up to over the gunsight and she looked like one of them lions in the circus right before it tried to eat its trainer. “So come on now, like I been telling you… just get back into bed and we’ll see about gettin’ Doc Robinson over here to check in on you just as quick as he can, okay?”

Mama raised her head and once again raged to the Heavens. Okay, more like she raged at the popcorn ceiling, but man was she ever pissed off. Gary had never seen her so angry, not even at Dora Ann. She tossed her head and her gray hair fell out of the bun she wore, the strands spiraling around her head like them pinwheels you get at the travelin’ carnival.  Gary suddenly thought of those winged harpy things he’d seen as a kid in that Jason and the Argonauts movie, for some reason.

Despite his arm getting a little tired from holding the gun up, Gary kept the pistol out in front of him and he felt his finger tighten slightly on the trigger. He saw the muscles in Mama’s thigh suddenly tense up the instant just before her addled brain told the rest of her body to leap. He watched, as if in slow motion, as her toes indented the surface of the mattress. Then, on the bounce, she leapt into the air, coming directly at him, like an eagle swoopin’ down for a mouse. Gary, who again had been a longtime hunter of both quail and dove, shot her once on the fly.

Mama’s body jerked backwards from the force of it like she’d just hit the end of her bungie cord. Her head slapped back, spewing blood and brains like bean curd all over the pillows at the head of the bed. Her body spun in the air and twisted on its axis, landing her on her back half on and half off the bed. The sound of her spine breaking was like that of a bullwhip cracking in church. Her body struck the floor, catapulting her face into the wall and leaving a bloody skid mark there that looked like one of those blow-up dolls you saw on the Internet.

Gary got to his feet and came around the bed, pistol still at the ready; just in case she still wasn’t, y’know… dead-dead. But no, Mama lay face down on the floor, her back bent the wrong ways, like an ‘L’ pressed up against the wall. Blood stuck to the painted drywall, and dribbled like snot all the way down to pool on the floor. Nope, she wasn’t going anywheres, not any time soon anyway. Gary reached out and took hold of Mama’s shoulder, pulling her over onto her back. The sound she made when he moved her body was like someone cracking their knuckles. And when she landed, she gave out a prolonged wheezing sound like a tire losing air, which about made Gary drop a log.

Gary was shocked when, as he got closer to her, he saw that she wasn’t in fact all the way dead quite yet. Like, being shot in the head and her back being definitely broken, wasn’t enough to put Mama all the way down. Her eyes kept doing the same rollin’ around they’d been doing before, like a gumball machine in an earthquake. Seeing the condition she was in, Gary figured that his job here was only half done. Her body may have been incapacitated, but, regrettably, there was still enough of her brain left to insure that she still lived on. Kneeling down onto the floor, he pressed the barrel of the gun against the back of what was left of her head as softly as he could.

“Mama,” he said, and his tears had begun to flow by now. “I want you to go to sleep now, and I want you…” He swallowed hard. “…to dream of Papa. I want you to know as you fall asleep though that me and Dora Ann, Auntie Barb, and Beth… Uncle Gene… well, we all love you. It’s…” he choked up, his words sticking like burrs in his throat.

Mama glared up at him and bared her yellow, coffee-stained teeth, her rheumy eyes continuing to overflow with hate.

“It’s time for you to rest now, Mama,” Gary said, hearing the muffled sound of presumably Dora Ann and the others coming up the stairs and down the hallway, the sound of the gun shot undoubtedly having piqued their interest. “It’s time now for you to go and be with Pa.”

And as his tears began to fall in earnest, he closed his eyes, and gently squeezed the trigger.