Expiration Date

Years from now, the neighbors would come forward with all kinds of details. Like how they remembered Vincent putting out ten paper bags of dirt for each weekly garbage collection. Didn’t even dump the dirt in the backyard; he put it out for the trash guys to pick up. Neighbors would also remember hearing sawing and hammering—and, once in a while, screaming. But they just thought it was a cowboy or science fiction show on TV. Maybe a war picture. Nothing to worry about.

Couldn’t they hear Patty’s screams now? Why didn’t they pick up the telephone and call the police—if nothing else but to put their minds at ease?

There was a harsh, bright light from above as Vincent turned on a light in the laundry room. Instantly I felt like I was going to throw up. The light again. Light did not like me. I inched backwards, trying to tuck myself back into the shadows. Of all of the Achilles’ heels in the world to have, why did mine have to be the thing the planet is bathed in half the time? And could be summoned with the flick of a switch?

Two brown work boots landed on the dirt, along with two legs clad in muddy denim. Then his whole form crouched down. Dennis Michael Vincent was a tall man. Ruddy-cheeked, big-boned with sideburns gone wild. His eyes were too close together, like he’d grown up while the upper half of his face stayed frozen.

“Shhhh now little girl,” he said. “We talked about this now. You don’t want to get the belt again do you? You want me to bring the belt into the pit?”

I lunged at him.

It hurt like hell—my other bones colliding with his real ones. But I think it hurt Vincent, too. And confused him. He grunted and spun around, squinting into the near darkness. I hissed at him, trying to sound as monstrous as possible.

“Get out of here now.”

Let him worry. Let him freak. Let him run screaming from his own house. Maybe then the neighbors would do something.

“Who is that? What the—”

I didn’t know if he could hear me. I didn’t care. It made me feel good.

“I’m the Devil. I’m here for my daughter.”

I charged him again.

This time, though, Vincent managed to grab me for a few seconds—how, I have no idea. But the light from above burned my back. I felt like I was going to throw up and fry to death at the same time. I twisted and rolled across the dirt, hearing Patty’s screams and Vincent’s fevered grunts as he searched for whatever was attacking him.

The opposite corner of the pit was pitch dark. I crouched there for a moment, trying to catch my breath and fight the dizziness I was feeling. Not yet. I couldn’t wake up just yet. Just a little while longer. Just until she’s free.

“You’re doing that, aren’t you? You’re doing that, aren’t you, you little whore?”

Patty screamed, but the cry was broken in half, like she’d been throttled halfway through.

“You’re doing that because you’re the daughter of the Devil! You stop it! You stop it or I’ll use the belt on you until your bottom bleeds!”

There was a slap. I charged him again. I didn’t care if I burned alive down there. I needed this man to stop hurting this child.

Vincent’s head struck pipe. There was a dull bonging sound and a second later he cried out in agony. Then he went scrambling up out of the pit. I grabbed a sheet from the kiddie mattress, draped it over my head and then climbed up into the laundry room, not stopping until I was safe in the darkness of the living room. He was in there, too. I could make out his dim form among the shadows, mouth agape, eyes bulging, trying to figure out what the hell was chasing him.

“I’m still here.”

I snarled, then smacked a lamp off a table.

Vincent screamed, stepped backwards.

I moved in closer, looking at his body, wondering where I could strike that would do the most damage.

“Go outside. Call to your neighbors for help. Tell them to send the police. Tell them the Devil has come for you.”

Vincent stumbled backwards until he bumped into his living room wall. He was panting. Shaking his head.

And then he reached over and flicked on the living room lights.

I threw my right arm up in the air. For a moment I must have looked like one of the scenes from 1950s movies about people caught in the flash of an H-bomb explosion. As if a forearm and bicep can hold back sheer atomic hell? I didn’t black out, but I think I stopped recording conscious memories, because the next thing I knew I was huddled beneath a coffee table. Vincent was taunting me:

“Devil don’t like the light, does he?”

My right arm was paralyzed by agony. Physical pain is one thing. As bad as it gets—like, say, torture room bad—you can always go into shock and retreat inside yourself. For whatever reason, this felt like soul pain…pain you couldn’t hide from, ever. So long as your soul exists.

I couldn’t take it anymore so I darted for the only available darkness—the kitchen. Then under the table. Sliding across the linoleum. Shaking badly. Ready to throw up and pass out.

“I’ll give you light, Devil!”

Another click. More light, all around me. Where the hell was I? Right. Kitchen. There was cool linoleum beneath my fingers—the remaining fingers of my left hand, that is. I didn’t know where my right hand was.

Two brown work boots appeared in front of me. The table above me began sliding to the left. Then two table legs lifted up from the floor. The shadow line raced toward me. And with it, a wave of murderous light. It was endgame time.

So I charged at the son of a bitch with all of my remaining strength.

Momentum propelled me forward, forward, forward. There was a crashing sound and I felt like I’d tumbled into a Black & Decker food processor. Skin, shredded; bones, ground to dust. Nerves, sliced open and prodded with hot needles.

But somehow I was still alive.

And in the cool, soothing darkness of night once again.

Dennis Michael Vincent lay next to me, gurgling, on the concrete path on the side of his house. We had gone through the kitchen window, and now pieces of glass were sticking out of his neck and forearms. Blood squirted from the right side of his throat in small, urgent beats. He moaned. Cursed the devil with the little bit of voice he had left.

There was a burst of yellow light to my right. The sound of a wooden door creaking open. A neighbor.

I crawled backwards until I felt a metal chain-link fence behind me. I tried to use it to stand up, but something weird was happening. I couldn’t seem to grab hold of anything. I heard a noise, then looked back at the house.

Patty Glenhart was standing on the back porch. She saw me. I guess only kids and psychos could see ghosts.

She screamed and turned and ran back into the house.

I glanced down at my right shoulder. My arm was completely gone.

The neighbors next door were calling out. Is everybody okay? Does anyone need help?

Meanwhile, Dennis Michael Vincent choked on his own blood.

I tried to forget my missing arm and used the three fingers on my left hand to pull myself up the fence until I was standing. Then I staggered along the side of the house, completely thrown off-balance. I turned right and walked a block, trying to make it to Frankford Avenue before I passed out.