Hush

by Matt Hollingsworth

Dad undid’d his buckle. His yelling hurted worser than his belt. I scrunched up my face and covered my ears. But I never ever cried or talked or maked a peep ’cause noise hurted. Prob’ly even the sound of my own voice.

Me not crying drived Dad crazy. His eyes got super red and his breath stinked and he called me bad names and he yelled louder. I chomped my tongue ’cause of his loud loud loud voice.

—thunder hisssss growl—

My head hurted. I see’d me and Dad through red. Red like ketchup.

Then Dad was gone.

Mom whispered that he leaved and was never ever coming back. She knowed talking louder hurted me. “We’re better off without that asshole, Gailen.” Her swelled eye looked like a fat plum.

She gived me a bath and the water turned red ’cause of the blood from when I chomped my tongue. I heared howls outside. What if I was on a Africa safari with wolfs or high-eenas. Or small ky-o-tee puppies—four years old, same as me. Their barky yaps sounded happy and not like people yells or hurty noise. They telled me they protect me and kill anyone that hurted me and gobble them up with their ky-o-tee fangs. I howled back and Mom smiled ’cause I never ever talk. Mom and me howled together. Arooooo!

I choked and stopped howling. Mom sticked her fingers in my mouth to pull out meat and a gold ring that looked like her ring. Like Dad’s ring.

“You’ve done nothing wrong, little man.” She kissed my cheek.

I hated school worse than kindergarten, hated all the noise, and mean kids calling me Dumbo. “Why don’t you talk?” they said. “You’re not normal. What’s wrong with you?”

I wrote in my notebook and showed them. Leave me alone. You are a butthead.

Getting beat up didn’t bother me too bad. I tried to explain to Mom that man-made noise hurt the worst. I guess she never understood, but she pulled me out of school in fourth grade.

Staying home was way better. When Mom went to work, I watched Star Trek reruns on Channel 13, or the fly swarm of TV static, with the volume off and earplugs stuffed in my ears, and I made up my own stories about Mistress Revenger and her sidekick Smash Boy. I copied drawings from comics and read mythology. Circe was my most favorite goddess or witch or whatever. She transformed Odysseus’s men into pigs, but, you know, they acted like pigs, so they deserved it. In my version of the story, she pan-fried the pig-men and ate them. Bacon is the best.

I would close the drapes in my room and turn on the lava lamp. Waxy balls inside it swirled around, joined together, split apart. I fed my Sea Monkeys. Everything glowed red from the light, and the brine shrimp in that plastic tank looked like tiny, happy people swimming in blood. Noise didn’t hurt them.

When Mom got home from work, she taught me social studies, arithmetic, sign language. At first, I sucked at talking with my hands, but I told her the stories I’d made up, and she called me her little chatterbox. She looked proud.

I didn’t deserve her pride. Worthless, dumbass mute, retard—Dad’s words still sounded true.

In 1980, on my twelfth birthday, Mount Saint Helens erupted. Where we lived, in faraway Los Angeles, volcanic ash fell from the sky like feathers settling after a pillow fight. I ran outside and opened my mouth to catch ash on my tongue—flavor of powdery fire. Imagine Hephaestus deep in the heart of the volcano. His rage rumbles and explodes, and lava flows down the mountain and burns the world, killing everyone dead.

That year, the Fourth of July was super loud, so I hid in my room. I put on headphones to listen to my Walkman and fast-forwarded past recordings of rain and ocean waves until I reached the sound of coyotes howling. Their pretty singing calmed me but couldn’t totally shield me from the fireworks outside, the whistles and booms. A war zone. I smothered myself with a pillow and begged God or the Devil or whoever to kill the noise.

—a thunderclap, a hiss, a long growl in my skull—

Out of nowhere, many cold, slimy arms hugged me.

I struggled to break free, and the pillow tumbled from my face.

A manlike creature wormed around on top of me. Some kind of scary monster: twice my size, white as paste, slimy and warty as a toad, with too many arms that squeezed me hard.

I peed.

The monster’s entire head was a gigantic mouth, and its lips bulged as if holding back braces on its teeth. It had no eyes, no ears, no way to see or hear. The monster opened its head to reveal a whole bunch of broken fangs. A snake tongue flitted out, tasted the air, and the mouth slurped and gulped.

I squirmed.

The city’s sound faded like the monster was slurping up the noise. All gone. Peaceful. The strange creature licked my face, hugged me, and settled into a silent purring that rattled my bones.

I stopped freaking out and breathed normal. Time slowed. I melted into a quiet so deep I’d never dig my way out. A quiet so comforting, I didn’t want to. The monster wasn’t so scary after all.

After that, it wrapped me in its slimy arms every night, ate noise, drooled on my face, and purred me to sleep.

I woke up some mornings with the flavor of blood in my mouth and found chewed meat in my bed, or torn-off fingernails, or teeth, or an eyebrow clinging to a flap of skin. I got rid of the remains by grinding them in the garbage disposal, but once I found a gold tooth, and I dropped the treasure into the Sea Monkey tank to add to their underwater kingdom. They swam happy somersaults.

The July after my sixteenth birthday, a guy moved into the apartment next door, some douchebag who blasted his stereo. I spent a shitload more time hiding in my bedroom refuge.

Mom, she knew I had an aversion to noise and always did her best to shelter me. She complained to the landlord, but he didn’t give a crap about the loud music. When she called the cops, the neighbor turned down his stereo only until they left. Then he cranked the volume. Late one night, Mom finally lost her shit and stomped over there to confront the dickhead.

I retreated to my room. My Walkman’s batteries were dead, so I couldn’t listen to rain or coyotes to block the noise. I killed the light and crawled into bed.

Heavy metal music: buzzing distortion, machine-gun drums. My heart skipped beats.

—a thunderclap, a hiss, a drawn-out growling in my skull—

The monster lay atop me, shielded my ears with many shriveled hands, and wrapped me in a cocoon of slimy, warty arms. Even though the creature slurped and gulped the neighbor’s godawful music, the noise throbbed through that protective shell. I clenched my jaw.

Must escape.

I broke free of the monster’s embrace and staggered from my room. Our apartment door hung open. So did the neighbor’s, and his crappy music blared out into the hall. Mom stood with her back to me, getting in his face. He yelled at her to fuck off.

I sprinted toward the building’s exit.

The neighbor’s angry yells changed to terrified screams.

I halted, turned, and gaped as the monster tore off the neighbor’s arm and clubbed him with it. Blood trailed off the arm and spattered the walls, the floor, and Mom.

Holy shit. I ran to her.

The neighbor collapsed, red spurting from the stump on his shoulder. He shrieked. Unending shrieking. Unbearable shrieking. Make the noise stop! The monster twisted off his head, lifted his body, and aimed his neck so blood erupted into its mouth.

“Gailen, let’s go,” Mom whispered.

Paralyzed.

Heavy metal still blared. The monster tossed the neighbor’s corpse against the wall and scuttled into his apartment. Crashing sounds. The stereo died.

Silence.

Release.

Relief.

Inside my head, I heard chewing. The monster gnawed on the fingers of the neighbor’s torn-off arm.

Mom grabbed me and turned me toward her. She signed: Snap out of it.

Apartment doors creaked open. Other neighbors peeked out at the bloody hallway, at Mom and me drenched in red, at the headless corpse, at the monster eating the arm, and—quick as fuck—they shut their doors.

I hawked up a mouthful of blood.

A foul stink filled the hallway. The corpse must’ve shat itself. My stomach cramped.

Mom tugged me into our apartment. She closed and latched the door and peered through the peephole. “Jesus,” she whispered. “It’s distracted. If we hurry, that thing won’t notice us leaving.”

I gagged and burped bile, then hunched over and puked my guts out. With each convulsion, my ribs ached. Barf flooded my sinuses. The stink made me puke more, solid chunks that choked me until the dam burst and my gut spewed out its contents. Sweaty chills. Dry heaves. I huffed.

Mom put her hand on my back. “You okay?”

I studied my barf on the shag carpet: a pile of freckly meat and knucklebones. Did Mom see what I saw?

“We have to get out of here.” She grabbed her purse and led me to the window.

I trembled as we climbed down the fire-escape ladder. Barf dripped from my chin. Don’t think about the knucklebones.

Of course our Honda wouldn’t start. When Mom turned the key in the ignition, the car made a grinding sound, and a red light on the instrument panel flickered on.

Sirens wailed.

“Don’t you die on us now,” Mom said and tried again. Same grinding.

The sirens were getting closer. I covered my ears and winced.

Mom petted the dashboard affectionately. “Come on, baby.” She pumped the gas, turned the key, and—a miracle—the car started. We sped off before the cops arrived.

Hell if we knew where to go or what to do. We raced through late-night traffic to the Pacific Coast Highway and headed west, past Santa Monica, past Topanga Beach and Malibu.

Mom didn’t talk. Instead she offered me an awkward smile.

I rolled down the window. A cool breeze blew into the car. The full moon reflected off the black ocean, and silhouettes of midnight surfers cut through the waves.

I had an itch to run into the surf, up to my knees, up to my chest. The heavy liquid would slow me, slow the world, but I’d keep going, and the breakers would wash the blood off me, and beneath the surface, the inky water would block all sight, all sound, and salt water would fill my lungs, and my ears would pop and implode as I adjusted to the underwater environment, and salt water would fill my skull, and I’d lie on the sea bottom, the weight of the ocean pressing down on me, protecting me, crushing me.

I couldn’t stop shaking.

Had the monster eaten our neighbor’s entire body? Had the cops discovered the bloody scene and put out an APB for our arrest?

I’d die in jail. Imagine guards clacking a nightstick against the bars as they march past your cell—ka-tang, ka-tang, ka-tang—prisoners screaming, alarms blaring. To escape the noise, you make a noose of bedsheets and hang yourself.

We drove onward to Ventura—population seventy thousand loud humans, ninety minutes from Los Angeles—then continued north another half hour to Ojai, population six thousand. Far fewer humans.

On the way into town, we passed a Circle K with its glaring, cold light, plus a McDonald’s and a Kentucky Fried Chicken, both closed. So much for my small-town dreams. I’d hoped for forests and mountains, not convenience stores and fast-food chains.

The Honda shuddered, and the red light on the dash lit up. Fuck. Not now.

A cop parked on the side of the road didn’t chase us, but with both of us soaked in blood, being the only other car out at this hour was a seriously bad idea, so we turned onto a smaller street and meandered along a twisting country lane beside a creek. Our headlights raked across white picket fences and ranch houses with pickups in the driveways. The pavement tapered off to a gravel road that snaked into the woods, trees on all sides forming a tunnel of branches, windows open to the smell of eucalyptus, the sound of a burbling creek. We cruised through ghost pockets of cold air and emerged into a moonlit canyon.

Mom parked and killed the engine.

A lone house lay nested among the forest nearby, the windows dark.

Silence.

Wonderful tranquility. I inhaled fresh air, cleaner than LA’s smog and without such heavy light pollution. I leaned forward to look up through the windshield. Countless stars dotted the cloudless sky.

Mom pointed out constellations and whispered their names—Cygnus, the Swan; Aquila, the Eagle; Ursa Major, the Great Bear. I wished I could travel to distant nebulae. Space is soundless. Imagine floating in the black, unable to hear your own breathing, unsure if, in that vacuum, you are breathing.

Mom took a handkerchief from her purse, wet it with her tongue, and wiped blood from my face. She signed: We need to talk.

I nodded.

The thing back there that killed the man—you’ve seen it before?

I nodded and signed: When the world gets too loud, the monster comes to my room. And protects me.

She raised her eyebrows. Protects you how?

It makes noise go away. I already missed the monster’s embrace. Such a weirdo. I have no idea how, but it eats noise. And sleeps with me. Ever since I was little.

Mom paused as if digesting this new information. I’ve seen it too. Years ago. She looked me in the eye. Remember the day your father left us?

I remembered her bathing me in bloody water.

That beast, it split off from you. Like, I don’t know. Tore away from your skin? She bit her lip. Her hands trembled as she signed. It killed and ate your father.

I remembered choking, and her sticking her fingers in my mouth to pull out meat and a gold ring that looked like her wedding band.

The abusive bastard had it coming, Gailen. Once the beast finished eating him, it shoved me out of the way and sort of, I’m not sure how to describe it, melted into your head? She made a face like she tasted piss in her Cheerios. You giggled as if it tickled. Then the beast was just gone. Never saw it again, till tonight.

Am I possessed by the Devil?

Come on. The Devil doesn’t exist, but I can’t explain what that thing is.

It’s me, that’s what it is. Me. I’m evil. I ate Dad.

Did you force the beast to attack the man tonight?

He played his music too loud. And I couldn’t stand it.

You did not kill that man. She squeezed my hand. Or your father.

Then how come whatever the monster eats ends up in my mouth?

It is not your fault.

I puked up the neighbor’s knuckles!

Maybe the beast defends you when you’re at your most vulnerable. Bats swooped past the nearby house’s porch light, hunting insects. And, you know, maybe we escaped it. Left it behind in LA.

What if, because of me, the monster’s rampaging through the city, attacking people? Or waiting inside me for you to be loud so it can kill you?

She pulled me in for a hug and whispered, “Or what if we figure out a way to control the beast with meditation or something?” Then she stopped talking and got back to cleaning blood off me.

I mean, I appreciated her mothering me, but we’d never control the monster. It would kill again. I would kill again.

Coyotes howled. Not the terrible man-made noise of helicopters or lawnmowers, but heavenly sounds, like my nature recordings, and wilder than dogs howling in the city. Imagine them, a mother, father, and son, and the father doesn’t wear a belt because coyotes don’t wear belts, don’t beat their young, and they live a normal coyote life together, tearing through the woods, the only sound their yips and yaps as they run into the black, black night.

Noise woke me—booming music, laughter. The sun burned high overhead, bright as fuck.

Where was I? Steering wheel, Honda, Mom. My mouth tasted of barf. I remembered: monster, blood, escape. Even after our journey, even out in the countryside, we’d ended up right the hell next to more loud assholes—a party house. Jamming my fingers in my ears didn’t do shit to block the thump and grind of dance music, the joyous cackling, the horrific celebration.

Mom signed frantically: Hold on. Breathe. I’ll drive us up into the mountains. She turned the key, but nothing happened. The car was dead. This time, there’d be no racing off.

—a thunderclap, a hiss, a rippling, sustained growl in my skull—

My body quivered, and my head felt cleaved in half. The monster peeled away as if shedding me. It pummeled the car door and punched through. Shattered glass and crumpled metal. The creature scented the air with its snake tongue as though licking its way up a trail of noise and shambled toward the party house.

In a daze, I bolted past the monster. I lumbered through the gate to a crowded swimming pool and stood there, gesticulating wildly, using sign language to warn the people about the monster.

Everyone ignored me. Men and women splashed in the pool or danced on the deck, a bunch of people in bikinis and swim trunks who chugged from red plastic Solo cups. The DJ had headphones over one ear. All oblivious.

A hot wind blasted me; the hellish bass of subwoofers pounded me. A garden overgrown with spiny cacti and stabby agave surrounded the deck. Pinwheel wind spinners whirled and scattered razor beams of light.

The monster plowed through the garden. Cacti stuck to it.

I bled.

Screams.

The monster clawed open a woman’s rib cage and plunged its face into her. The slimy, warty creature shook the woman, and her body flopped around like a bloody doll.

You are the monster.

Flavor of iron in your mouth, fire in your belly, mire in your brain

grind bones with your teeth, chew cartilage, scalp, and hair

pluck off arms, legs, and heads

blood, muscle, sinew

shut up, humans, shut up

die, humans, die

feast on entrails, gorge yourself on the dead.

Allow it to happen. Afterward, you will feel better.

No music, no laughter. In the garden, the wind spinners whirled. The bright sky reflected off the swimming pool’s red waters. Blood spattered the sunbrellas, the patio, the remains of the DJ booth. The monster had torn everyone apart and was now devouring the scattered corpses, ripping into bellies, the party noise replaced by the sounds of slurping and chomping and the cracking of bones. The stink of intestines made me gag. I burped, had a hard time keeping my food down—another toe, another nose, an eyeball. Chew. Swallow.

Screams. Mom’s voice.

The monster stopped gnawing on her breast and slithered its tongue down her throat. She gurgled.

I charged the monster and threw fists into its face. Each blow knocked my head back as if I’d punched myself. Fuck! I had to stop it from killing Mom.

What if I were deaf? Would the monster kill to protect me from noise I couldn’t even hear?

I stopped chewing and spat out a hairy nipple.

I yanked a wind spinner out of the garden and snapped the wood stem. Sharp enough.

Mom screamed. Blood soaked her shredded blouse.

My hand trembled as I eased the spike into my right ear. The pain would last for only a heartbeat. You can do this.

Mom hammered the monster with her fist, and my head jerked to the side, driving the wooden spike into my eardrum.

The monster shrieked.

Pain knocked me on my ass. Then came a whoosh and a hot trickle of blood when I pulled out the spike. A spasm arced down my spine. Dizzy. Bloody slobber dripped off my chin. I heard Mom’s screams only in my left ear. And sirens.

The monster bled. It shook off like a wet dog, its arms flailing, and red droplets showered Mom. I had hurt the creature, but not enough.

Quick! I stabbed my other eardrum. Muffled wind, a high-pitched ringing, then a blissful void. I laughed silently. A door had closed as if I lay hidden in my bedroom refuge, safe from all sound.

Even though I couldn’t hear, and noise presented no threat anymore, the monster hadn’t vanished.

Mom’s mouth gaped, and she screamed inaudibly as it shambled toward her.

How could I stop that creature? If it was really part of me—

The monster lunged at Mom.

I pounded the spike and drove it into my brain. Convulsions wracked my body. My skull emptied, and blood pooled around me. Each time I twitched, my head struck the blood puddle, and the spike twisted in my brain. My body went cold, tingly. Numb. Nice not to feel.

The monster thrashed on the deck, shuddered, stopped moving.

Mom dragged herself over and cradled me in her lap. Her tears and blood dripped onto my face.

Overhead, the sunbrellas glowed with strobing red and blue, but I heard no sirens. No coyotes. Imagine them: a mother and son. The wild pair howls and runs into the black, black night.