Rose Madder

“Boo, you old sonofabitch,” he said softly.

“What you doing here?” The stone father made no reply, but his wife did.

“Norrrr-mu

“Bitch,” he said in a thick, trembling voice.

“Oh you bitch.” He wheeled away from the stone face in the grass, resisting an urge to go back and spit on it the way he had on the jacket… or to unzip his jeans and take a piss on it. No time for games now. He hurried up the cracked steps toward the black entrance to the temple. Each time his foot came down, it sent agonizing pain up his leg, up Ms back, into his violated lower jaw. It felt like only the mask was holding his jaw in place now, and it hurt like a mad bastard. He wished he’d brought the Charlie-David cops” aspirin with him. How could she do that, Normie? the voice came whispering up from deep inside. It still sounded like his father’s voice, but Norman couldn’t remember ever hearing his father sound so unsure of himself, so worried. How could she dare do that? What’s happened to her? He stopped with his foot on the top step, face aching, his lower jaw feeling as loose as a tire with the lug-nuts working free. I don’t know and I don’t care, he told the ghost-voice. But I’ll tell you one thing, Daddy-if that’s who you are-when I find her, I’m going to unhappen it in a helluva hurry. That you can take to the bank. Are you sure you want to try that? the voice asked, and Norman, in the act of starting forward, stopped again, listening, head cocked. You know what might be wiser? it asked. It might be wiser to just call it a draw. I know how that sounds, but I’m giving you the benefit of my thinking just the same, Normie. If I was the one with my hands on the controls, I’d turn around and go back the way I came. Because nothing’s right here. It’s all hinky as hell, in fact. I don’t know what it is, but I know what it feels like-a trap. And if you walk into it you may have a lot more to worry about than a wiggly jaw or a mask that doesn’t want to come off. Why don’t you turn around and go back the way you came? See if you can’t find your way back into her rented room and maybe wait for her there? Because they’ll come, Daddy, Norman told the voice. He was shaken by this ghost’s insistence and surety, but would not admit it. The cops will come and they will take me down. They’ll take me down before I so much as smell her perfume. And because she said fuck to me. Because she’s turned into a whore. I can tell it just by the way she talks now. Never mind how she talks, you idiot! If she’s gone rotten, leave her to spoil on the ground with her friends! Maybe it isn’t too late to shut this thing down before it explodes in your face. He actually considered it… and then raised his eyes to the temple and read the words chiselled over the door. SHE WHO STEALS HER HUSBAND’s BANK CARD SHALL NOT BE SUFFERED TO LIVE, they read. Doubt fled. He would listen to his craven, crotchgrabbing father no more. He passed through the yawning doorway and into the damp darkness beyond. Dark… but not too dark to see. Powdery shafts of moonlight fell steeply in through the narrow windows, illuminating a ruin that looked spookily like the church where Rose and her folks had worshipped back in Aubreyville. He walked through drifts of fallen leaves, and when a flock of whirling, squealing bats descended through the moonbeams to flutter about his face, he only flapped his arms, waving them away.

“Get out, you sons of whores,” he muttered. As he emerged onto a small stone stoop through the door to the right of the altar, he saw a fluff of something hanging from a bush. He leaned over, pulled it free, held it up in front of his eyes. It was hard to be sure in this light, but he thought it was red or pink. Had she been wearing clothes of such a color? He thought she’d had jeans on, but everything was mixed up in his mind. Even if it had been jeans, she’d taken off the jacket the cocksucker had loaned her, and maybe underneath-There was a soft sound behind him, like a pe

“You’re great at killing bats, Norman.” Jesus Christ, that was close-that was right behind him! He spun around so fast this time that he almost lost his balance and tumbled off the stone stoop. The ground behind the temple sloped toward a stream, and standing there halfway down, in what looked like the world’s deadest garden,. was his sweet little rambling Rose-just standing there in the moonlight, looking up at him. Three things struck him in rapid succession. The first was that she was no longer wearing jeans, if she ever had been; she was wearing a minidress that looked like it belonged at a frathouse toga-party. The second was that she had changed her hair. It was blonde and pulled back from her face. The third thing was that she was beautiful.

“Bats and women,” she said coldly.

“That’s about it for you, isn’t it? I almost feel sorry for you, Norman. You’re a miserable excuse for a man. You’re not a man, not really. And that stupid mask you’re wearing will never make you into one.”

“I’ll KILL YOU, YOU BITCH!” Norman jumped from the stoop and sprinted down the hill toward where she stood, his horned shadow trailing along beside him over the dead grass in the bony moonlight.

For a moment she stood where she was, frozen in place, every muscle in her body seemingly locked down as he rushed forward, screaming inside the hideous mask he was wearing. What got her moving was a sudden gruesome image-sent by Practical-Sensible, she had an idea-of the te

Norman saw her fall and laughed. She was going to get wet, it looked like. Don’t worry, Rosie, he thought. I’ll fish you out, and I’ll pat you dry. Yes indeed. Then she was up again, clawing at the bank and casting one terrified glance back over her shoulder… except it wasn’t him she appeared to be afraid of; she was looking at the water. As she got up, he caught a flash of her butt, as bare as the day she’d been born, and the most amazing thing happened: he started getting hard in his pants.

“Coming, Rose,” he panted. Yes, and maybe soon he’d be coming in another way, as well. Coming as she was going, you might say. He hurried down to the stream, trampling the delicate prints of Rose’s feet beneath Hump Peterson’s square-toed boots, reaching the edge of the ru