Sometimes a writer swings and misses, and sometimes a writer swings, misses, trips over his own feet and impales himself with the baseball bat. That's what happened here with a short story I wrote in fall 2018 and subsequently pitched to three publications. They all said no -- some politely, some not so politely. No one knew what to make of it.
I'm tired of shopping this cursed little story -- it's 1,000 words because it was meant to be "flash fiction" -- so I'm publishing it here, on my little website that looks like it was made in 2006. Enjoy. Or don't.
The Arrangement
by C.D. Carter
Malcolm told me he was scared out there in the fields with the monsters, and I said I knew how he felt. The monsters in the house had been snapping and biting a lot lately. Malcolm asked why we didn't move the monsters outside, to live with the other monsters, or just kill them, so the people in the field could come inside and live with us.
All the people, living together.
I don't know, I told Malcom, but mom and dad say this is just the way it is. They called it Jack’s arrangement. Malcolm asked what an arrangement was. I said I didn't really know. I think it's some sort of plan people make for other people. Is the plan good, Malcolm asked. I shrugged and told him I didn't know. The people inside the house seem to think the arrangement is a good one. Who am I to say otherwise?
That's when we heard footsteps. I hustled up the house's porch stairs and Malcolm hurried back to the field, lit by a full moon in a cloudless summer sky.
I don't like to think about the time after the sickness began to spread throughout the neighborhood, turning our friends and family into monsters. It makes my stomach sick and my chest tight, like I can't breathe. Sometimes I can make the thoughts go away. Other times the thoughts stay in my head and get louder and louder until my legs get tingly and I feel like my heart is going to beat out of my chest. I have to lie down when that happens. Mom usually puts a cold washcloth on my forehead and strokes my hair until I calm down. Sometimes she gives me a pill that makes me sleepy.
I like talking to Malcolm about the the time before -- when we were in sixth grade together and our worries were less about people-eating monsters running through the streets and more about our kickball team during gym class, and that time Malcolm kicked two home runs in a row. It’s nice to talk about the past with Malcolm because the present is so ugly and the future probably won’t be much prettier. Malcolm disagrees. He thinks the future can be better than today, but only if all the people can live in the house together, without the monsters -- and without Jack. This isn’t what we usually talk about though. We discuss the past, which was perfect even though we didn’t know it was perfect. I wish someone would tell you when the present is good. People never know.
I’ll admit that things today are better than they were right after the sickness started to spread. The military came in with their tanks and helicopters and fighter jets as my family hid in the basement. There were a few nights of explosions and gunfire out in the distance. I got used to it. Then the military went away. When we ran out of the food my parents had brought down to the basement, we had to leave. My sister needed her medication too. My parents tried to get the medication at the nearby pharmacy, which we found in flames. My sister died a couple days later. I don’t like to say (or write) her name. I’d rather forget she ever existed. I figure that’s how mom stopped crying.
We joined a bunch of our neighbors who had come out of their homes after the monsters had gone somewhere else for food (people) and walked and walked and walked. Jack (who had the biggest house in the neighborhood and a bunch of fancy cars and a pool he never used) became the guy in charge. Everyone seemed fine with that arrangement. We eventually found a small blue bus and rode that until we were in the countryside, where you’d only see a monster here and there, alone, roaming through the cornfields. We drove until the blue bus ran out of gas and walked for a day and a night until we found the big white house with big white columns in front.
It was at the big house that Jack changed. He got mean and started treating the women really meanly. He called the women names and raised his hand to them anytime they had a suggestion about how the house should be run. Malcolm’s dad one evening confronted Jack, and after some shouting, Jack beat Malcolm’s dad with a baseball bat he had carried with him since leaving our neighborhood. I turned away when I saw Malcolm’s dad holding a bunch of his own teeth. There was dark red blood everywhere. No one said anything.
No one questioned Jack after that. He began splitting up our group, talking about “natural abilities” and “god’s plan” for different people. Jack said some humans weren’t meant to live with other humans. My parents told me that was wrong, but they never told Jack. My mom said they’d speak up. Just not today. That’s when Jack’s arrangement was announced to the group: some people were to live outside and work the field for vegetables and crops, while others would live in the comfort of the big white house.
Jack’s arrangement didn’t change even after we were attacked by a pack of monsters who had walked through the fields and found our little community. People inside and outside the house were bit. They got the sickness and turned into monsters. My dad was among a group who begged Jack to kill the monsters or cast them out of the house. Jack refused, instead chaining the monsters to the walls and telling us to be careful. There might be a cure one day, he said. He told the outside people to chain their monsters to the wooden shed if they didn’t want to cut off their heads. Jack didn’t care about a cure for the outside monsters.
Tonight I watched through my bedroom window as Malcolm walked back to his family in the field, his shoulders slouched. I wished Malcolm had light skin, like me. That way we could live together in the big house. Jack says the outside people aren’t pure enough to live among us. Everyone in the house seems to agree with him. I don’t though. I know Jack is wrong.
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