Free Prodigal Blues by Gary A. Braunbeck Page B

want to hurt you…"
    "…honest, Mark, we do not…"
    "…oh, no…"
    "…but this is something we cannot do by ourselves…"
    "…not like this…"
    "…not the way we are now…"
    "…so safe in the dark because Grendel was not there…"
    "…because we were discourteous…"
    "…we were lazy in speech and manner…"
    "…and did not know any better…"
    "…until Grendel…"
    "…our Eternal Lord Grendel…"
    "…taught us what we needed to know…"
    "'…Grendel, they called this cruel spirit…'"
    "…I hate him…"
    "…he came with the coming of night…"
    "…oh, God, how I hate him, too…"
    "…cut them off…"
    "…and I know it is wrong to hate someone like this…"
    "…but I do not think he was human…"
    "…always lonely…"
    "…he just wore a really good mask that made him look that way…"
    "…I thought he had a nice face when I met him…"
    "…cut them off…"
    "…he smiled and told me not to worry…"
    "…do not cry…"
    "…I will help you find your mommy…"
    "…that is what he told me, too…"
    "…you do not have to be scared…"
    "… he cut them off!   HE CUT OFF MY LEGS! " screamed Thomas from his wheelchair, wrenching forward with such anguished force he almost fell face-first onto the floor, but Arnold was there in an instant, grabbing him underneath his arms, steadying Thomas as his body shook, wracked by sobs as he reached up and tore away the mask—
    —and revealed his burned, terrible, ruined face.
    I did not blink at the sight of him.
    I did not look away.  
    I did not gasp, cry out, groan, or whimper; to have done any of those things would lessen me in his eyes—his eye , his one, perfect, azure-blue eye—and I did not want him to think ill of me; I wanted his understanding, his strength, his respect and blessing:   I was looking at a face that had known more pain, horror, and suffering in its few brief years on this earth than any ten people who lived to the age of ninety would ever know or imagine or turn away from when confronted by.
    So I did not make a sound; that act, and that act alone, may be the only moment of genuine grace I offered the world in my entire life.
    But I did weep; the tears formed instantaneously in my eyes and just as quickly streamed down my face and I did nothing to stop them.
    I wouldn't allow myself to.
    Because even though all their confusing words were still swimming around in my drug-addled brain, even though I still didn't know for certain what was happening because no one had yet said it outright, even though I was still scared shitless and wishing now I'd never agreed to make the drive down to Kansas, some dimly-lighted corner of my mind was whispering the truth of what I was witnessing but did not want to accept.
    "Can we please take it off now?" asked Rebecca.
    False-Face looked at me, picked up his gun, then nodded his head.   "I do not know how you are going to take this"—he rose to his feet and stepped to the bed, pressing the business-end of the silencer against my jaw—"but if you try anything, I will harm you."
    I was still looking at Thomas as he wept into Arnold's chest; Arnold stroked the back of the boy's scar-clumped head, whispering, "It is all right, Thomas, it is, I promise, there, there, it will be all right, you will see…."
    Rebecca exhaled with relief as she pulled off her wig to expose a moist, jagged, discolored scalp, speckled with a few tufts of stringy hair, that covered only two-thirds of her head; the rest was a slightly dented metal plate.   She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders in a girlish, oh-well way, then reached up and slowly, carefully, with precise and clearly practiced movements, began removing the sculpted prosthesis that was her nose; underneath was a set of exposed sinus slits that bubbled with thick, colorless mucus every time she breathed.   Setting the nose into a clean handkerchief beside her, she reached into her mouth and took out the partial plate; almost every one of her upper teeth