Welcome to the Family

Welcome to the Family

Christopher

BLOODWORTH

OTHER BLOODWORTH TITLES

HANDBOOK FOR A TEENAGE ANTICHRIST

BEDTIME STORIES FOR THE DAMNED

BOOTHWORLD INDUSTRIES EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS

DARKNESS BLOOMS

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For Gabe, Nat, Ognob, and Gartter.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Free Book Excerpt

Other Titles

Dorothy: Now which way do we go?

Scarecrow: Pardon me, this way is a very nice way.

Dorothy: Who said that?

[Toto barks at scarecrow]

Dorothy: Don't be silly, Toto. Scarecrows don't talk.

Scarecrow: [points other way] It's pleasant down that way, too.

Dorothy: That's funny. Wasn't he pointing the other way?

Scarecrow: [points both ways] Of course, some people do go both ways.

-The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Chapter 1

You up, kiddo?

Jesse yawned as he poked his head out from under the covers. Light raced across the room when his mom flicked on the lights, burning his eyes before he had a chance to squeeze them shut.

Mo-ooom, Jesse whined, burrowing back under the covers, down into the warm little nest he’d made overnight.

Jess-eeee, his mom mimicked back at him. First day of school, kiddo. Up and at-

Jesse didn’t hear the second part of what his mom said. It sounded like she’d taken a swallow of water midsentence, then there was a heavy thump on the wood outside his door.

Stupid, crummy laundry basket with more clothes he’d have to hang up and fold.

Great, he thought. It was the very first day of first grade and he was going to have to do chores before he even got out of the house.

Jesse felt his mom’s footsteps through the mattress as they got closer, and tightened into a ball in preparation for what he knew was coming. The covers tightened around his feet for a moment as his mom gripped the sheets, then the sheets went racing off his tightly curled body.

The cold struck him immediately and his teeth started to chatter. The kids in his kindergarten class had called him Chatterbrains after the same sort of thing happened out on the playground on a cold day.

He hadn’t really minded it. It wasn’t like Susan Robertson’s nickname; that one was bad. She’d received the nickname last year in kindergarten, same as him.

Jesse had been sitting in class, coloring pumpkin decorations (green and black and pink ones, because orange was just plain boring) for the upcoming Halloween party when his friend Ben flicked his ear.

Jesse turned around, ready to flick Ben back, but Ben just pointed at Susan. Jesse looked over at her and started giggling.

Susan was sitting at her desk, coloring the same pumpkins he was, but there was a huge snot bubble hanging out of her nose. It looked like one of those big sudsy bubbles he sometimes blew through the colorful plastic wands at Grandpa’s.

This made him laugh, and several of his classmates turned to look at him. Not Susan though. She was too focused on the pumpkin she was coloring.

Ben pointed Susan’s snot bubble out to the expanding group of classmates that were looking at Jesse.

Susan finally looked up, confused about why everyone was laughing at her.

What’s so funny? She asked. The snot bubble hung from her nose, expanding with each breath Susan took.

Mrs. Jones had walked back into the class then. Her strict frown froze everyone and silenced the class. Silenced everyone except Susan, who started to bawl.

Jesse and all of his classmates watched, amazed as the bubble grew to the size of a lemon.

Holy- Ben started to say, but then the bubble popped and everyone was laughing again.

Everyone except Mrs. Jones and Susan.

Jesse and Ben were kept inside from recess. It wasn’t fair. Everyone had been laughing. Everyone.

From that day on, Susan was known as Susan Snotface, so Jesse couldn’t get even a little upset that his nickname was Chatterbrains.

Jesse was living up to his nickname that morning on the first day of school. His teeth chattered so hard they began to hurt. He knew he would have to get to the shower to warm up so he sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes.

When he got them opened enough to see, he stared at his mom, confused as to why she was standing at the foot of his bed, dressed up for Halloween in August.

She was dressed as a scarecrow, wearing dark denim overalls with a red t-shirt underneath. Both of her arms were extended out and her head was cocked to the side, like she could hear someone calling her from far away. Over her head, she wore a dark brown burlap sack with rips where her eyes and mouth were. The burlap was frayed around the rips and Jesse couldn’t see his mom’s eyes, but the way she was just standing there with her head cocked to the side, arms out, not moving, not even breathing, scared him.

Stop it, mom, Jesse said, standing up on the mattress and walking to where she stood at the foot of the bed. You’re scaring me.

At the foot of the bed, Jesse was face to face with his mom in her scarecrow costume. His heart beat faster and he breathed harder. He didn’t notice that his teeth were still chattering despite not being cold any longer.

Mom, stop, Jesse said in a squeaky voice, reaching out a hand to touch the burlap mask. It was coarse and scratchy. It felt like the carpet at school, but it was warm. He could feel the heat baking out through the chunky weaves of burlap. Jesse saw that his mom was breathing harder as well. Was she as scared as he was?

Mommy, why are you doing this? Jesse asked, feeling tears well up in his eyes.

Because, a deep, male voice whispered from behind the burlap mask.

Jesse tried to scream, but the scarecrow clamped his hand over Jesse’s mouth before he even got enough breath to scream. Before Jesse could try anything else, he was jerked from the bed and carried out of the room.

The scarecrow held something to Jesse’s mouth that smelled too sweet, kind of like the bluish-green cat litter looking stuff the janitors poured over vomit if some kid puked in class.

Jesse kicked at the man as hard as he could, but his feet only touched air. When they got to the back door, Jesse put his feet on the wood and pushed back as hard as he could.

The scarecrow chuckled from under the burlap mask, turning around to walk out the door backwards. The sweet smell from the cloth was starting to make Jesse feel like he’d been spinning around in circles on a tire swing while staring down at the ground.

As Jesse’s eyes began to slip shut, he saw his mom lying on the wood floor of the hallway.

It was strange.

There was an extra mouth below her normal mouth, only this new one was ragged, glistening with a dark liquid, and across her throat. There was a pool of the same glistening liquid under her head.

As the scarecrow swung Jesse out the back door, Jesse realized that the liquid was blood, and that he was never going to see his mommy again.

Jesse’s eyes slipped shut.

Chapter 2

You up, kiddo?

Jesse burrowed deeper under the covers. He’d had a terrible dream the night before. A dream so real it felt like an actual memory.

You up, kiddo?

Jesse opened his eyes in the darkness under the covers.

That wasn’t his mom’s voice. Although the voice sounded muffled from under the covers, Jesse could still hear the scarecrow’s deep voice clearly.

Jesse tightened into a ball, remembering the glazed look of his mom’s eyes as she lay in a puddle of her own blood.

You up, kiddo? The scarecrow asked again from the other side of the covers, less than an inch from Jesse’s ear.

Jesse’s teeth started chattering and the scarecrow chuckled his deep chuckle.

Soon, the man breathed. Soon.

Jesse didn’t think he ever wanted to wake up again. All he wanted to do was shut his eyes and be back in his own bed with his mom in his doorway asking if he was up.

Jesse lay still, even though his teeth kept chattering in the darkness of the covers. He waited for the sound of the man’s footsteps to retreat. Eventually they did just that, even though it seemed to take hours for the man to start moving away from the place where Jesse lay curled.

There was a metal rattle from far away, a clanging noise, and then the sound of a door sliding open. It sounded a little like the sliding glass door that was the back door to Ben’s house.

Apartment, Jesse corrected himself. His mom always made sure that he called things by their proper name. She always told him-

A sob escaped from Jesse’s throat. He pressed his face into the mattress as more sobs wracked his tiny frame. He wailed into the mattress as he thought about the way his mom always made sure he knew the right-

Jesse screamed into the mattress as he corrected himself again.

His mom always made sure he knew the correct words for things.

Jesse squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the image of his mom’s glassy eyes staring into his as the dark mouth on her neck wept.

As Jesse cried into the mattress, he drifted off and slept.

Chapter 3

Jesse woke with a start.

He was drenched in sweat. The mattress and sheets were soaked.

Throwing off the covers, Jesse looked around through bleary eyes that burned from all the crying.

He was at the center of a room that was double the size of his room back at home. To his left was a staircase that led up. Surrounding him on shelves and on top of small wooden drawers were heads. Pale mannequin heads without any features painted on, just the bumps where the noses were and depressions for the eyes and mouth.

Jesse looked around, more frightened than before.

He rubbed the sweat from his forehead with the crook of his elbow.

Why was it so hot?

A vent on the wall opposite of the stairs began to blow cool air into the room. Jesse stood on the bed and held his arms out straight to either side, feeling the cool air run over his body.

I probably look like a