Cinnamon

(3,198 words)

It was February when we found her. A Wednesday night, if memory serves.

I was hanging out with my brother Sean in his room. We had Korn Live in the DVD player, and Sean was smacking the side of the TV whenever it started to go fuzzy, which was about a couple times a song.

“Fucking stupid-ass piece of shit,” he grumbled, grinding his teeth.

“How much would it cost to get a new one?” I said.

He turned his head, looked at me like what a dumb question. “Not cheap.”

“I have forty dollars saved from my birthday money.”

“And what? You’re offering to pitch in?”

“Yeah.”

He exhaled slowly. The screen went scrambly again and he hit it with an open palm. “Thanks, Ash, but that’s not your job.”

Sometimes Sean let me smoke cigarettes with him in his room. He used to steal them from our dad because he wasn’t old enough to buy them himself yet. But he got caught doing that a while back, so after that Sean got them off a guy called Jay-Mo at the woodshop he works at on the weekends.

I liked the way it made me feel. Not the smoking—getting to hang out with my brother. Whenever his friends were around, he pretended I didn’t exist, which I guess made sense since I was three years younger than him. Just his fat, annoying little sister. But when it was just the two of us, he let me hang out on the edge of his bed while he sat in the La-Z-Boy. We ate toaster pastries and watched movies and we blew our smoke through a toilet paper tube stuffed with dryer sheets that we passed back and forth so the smell didn’t get out under the door.

It was nice.

One thing about Sean’s room was that he liked to keep the window open at night, even in the winter. Since the window was pretty much right behind the TV, you caught these glimpses of yourself moving in the glass. These glances always managed to pull my focus on account of what if there’s someone in the yard? But it was always just one of us, shifting our weight around or taking a drag off a cig.

Except this one Wednesday night in February.

Right around the halfway point of the Korn DVD, I caught a flash of movement that definitely came from outside. My heart went into high gear and I looked over at Sean. His eyes were already searching my face, wide with surprise like did you see it too?

“The heck was that?” I said.

Sean rocketed up out of the chair and stuck his head out the window.

I stood up after him, craning my neck but struggling to look over the rounded hump of his back. “What do you see? What do you see?”

“Oh shit!” he said, pointing. “There’s something—”

I put my hands on his shoulders and pulled myself up to my tippy toes, just managing to catch a flash of something pale and white slipping into the sagebrush past where the lawn ends.

“It’s some kind of fucked-up possum,” Sean said. “All white and bloated and shit.”

I didn’t think we had possums out where we were. But if Sean said we did, then he was probably right.

“Should we go see what it was?” I said.

Sean turned around, looked at me like what the hell are you talking about.

“You know, like, what if it’s sick or something?”

“How you gonna help a sick possum?”

“I dunno,” I admitted, sad.

Sean saw the look on my face and snorted. He pulled away from the window and put a knee on the cushion of the La-Z-Boy. He reached down between the armrest and the wall and pulled up a hammer from the floor. An old antique one, with a mallet-like head and a thick wooden handle. The one he likes to flip and catch in the air while he watches baseball.

“Fine,” he said. “But I’m bringing this.”

* * *

Dad hardly noticed us as we shuffled through the living room on our way to the back door. He was firmly planted in his chair, watching Cops, chuckling as four officers tackled a homeless man to the ground. It wasn’t until he heard the metallic scrape and stutter of the broken sliding glass door that he said anything to us.

“Your mom’ll be back soon,” he grunted.

“Okay, and?” Sean shot back.

“Be back in time to help her unload the groceries, or I’ll tan your damn hide.”

We stepped out onto the weathered, sagging porch, and I wished immediately that I’d put on a jacket. It was freezing. I hugged my bare arms to my chest and shivered, watching my breath slip out like fog through my chattering teeth.

“What are you, cold?” Sean jeered.

“No,” I said. A lie.

He led the way across the lawn, crunching through the top layer of frosted snow with each step. I followed in his tracks to keep the snow from spilling over the tops of my shoes. As we came up on the edge of the property where the BLM land started and the grass gave way to the sagebrush, we heard something:

Rustling, just on the other side of the brush line, followed by a wet guttural bleat.

Grrrrrllllgrrraaaahhh!

Both of us stopped.

I’d never heard anything like it, and judging from the look on Sean’s face, neither had he. He gripped the hammer tight and I fell back behind him, making sure as much of his body as possible was between me and the possum.

Sean took a cautious step forward. Then another. He stepped around the sage and peered behind it. Suddenly my brother was cussing and I was screaming and both of us were scrambling to get away.

“What?” I huffed. “What is it?”

“Fuck! I dunno!” Sean whisper-shouted.

I sensed an opportunity to impress Sean with my bravery and took it. With careful steps I approached the bush and peered around. What I saw took my breath away.

There was something there, wriggling around on the ground and grunting in distress. We hadn’t brought a flashlight, but even from the faint light of the moon I could tell right away this was no possum. This was something different. Like, different different. It looked similar to one of those fat grubs people find under the bark of dead trees, all pale and fleshy and tube-like—only this thing was the size of a small dog.

It had stubby little caterpillar legs along the length of its body and this little scrunched-up face with two big, glassy eyes and a mouth with thick rubbery lips wrapped over little nub-like teeth. It curled into a defensive ball and peered up at us as if begging for mercy.

“I’m gonna kill it,” Sean barked, taking a step forward and raising the hammer into the air.

“No, don’t!” I shouted, grabbing his arm.

I won’t lie—just looking at the thing made me sick. All bloated and hairy, with that wrinkly little face. Even so, I was overcome with the urge to protect it. Dad and Sean always talk about animals like they deserve to die—or at least like it’s our God-given right to kill them. That way of thinking always made me flinch.

Sean stared down at the creature, the tension in his body slowly uncoiling, and let the hammer fall to his side. “That thing ain’t right, I can tell you that much.”

I knelt down and reached out my hand. It shrank away. “It’s okay,” I cooed to it. “It’s okay.” The creature groaned in terror when I stroked its pale flesh. But when it realized I was not going to hurt it, it started to settle down a little.

“Ew, don’t touch it,” Sean said. “Fucker probably has all kinds of diseases and shit.”

“Let’s take it inside,” I said.

Sean gawked. “Are you joking?”

I continued petting it. “No, I’m serious. I think it’s cold and scared. I wanna help it.”

“And how the hell are you gonna get it past Dad?”

I bit my lip, thought about it for a second. “We wrap it in something and then just carry it right in. What’s he gonna do?”

Sean scratched his leg with the hammer and sighed. He took off his shirt and tossed it down to me. “Fine. But I ain’t gonna be the one taking care of it.”

* * *

Dad did a double take when we trudged back in through the sliding glass door. I can’t imagine what went through his head as he watched Sean come in from the winter cold with his shirt off, belly hanging over the top of his jeans, with me behind him holding a swaddled bundle in my arms like a baby.

He screwed up his face, eyes little dots behind the lenses of his glasses. “Now, what in the Sam Hill am I looking at here?”

“Snake nest,” I blurted.

Sean turned slowly and gave me a look like are you crazy.

Dad squinted his eyes even more. “What?”

“Nothing in it,” I added. “We just thought it looked cool.”

“I don’t give one lick if there’s nothing in it or not,” Dad said. “You ain’t bringing no goddamn snake nest into my house!”

“Come on, Ash,” Sean said. A defiant frown grew on his face as he ignored Dad’s order and started through the living room anyway. I followed close behind him.

“Hey!” Dad hollered as we scurried past. We ignored him and kept on walking.

He’d be pissed, but it wasn’t like he was going to come after us. Or at least not right away. Dad is big enough that he doesn’t get up from his chair more than he absolutely has to. So we knew we had some time before he came to chew us out. At least until his next bathroom break.

At the end of the hall, I ran headlong into Sean when he stopped suddenly in front of the door to his room. The creature in my arms let out a phlegmy groan.

“No way,” Sean whispered. “Not my room.”

I nodded and opened the door to my own room instead. He followed me in, closed the door behind himself, and folded his arms across his chest. I set my bundle down on the floor and looked up at him for approval. He gave me a quick nod, and I gently unwrapped his shirt so we could get a better look at the thing in the light.

It squirmed and writhed like the grub it was, its tubes and organs and whatnot visible through its pale skin. I had to fight the urge to recoil. It was disgusting. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but giggle when it rolled up onto its feet and started waddling around my room, trying to burrow under the piles of clothes on the floor.

“It’s a fucking alien, you know,” Sean said matter-of-factly.

My heart fluttered in my chest. “What? You really think so?”

“Ash, just look at it. I mean, what the hell else would it be? You ever heard of anything that looks like . . .” He gestured at the creature. “. . . That?”

“No,” I admitted.

And when I thought about it, it made sense. That it was an alien, I mean. After all, I’d always had a feeling that I was going to be someone important. That important things were going to happen to me. And then bam, just like that, I now had a dang alien in my room. It all tracked, as far as I was concerned.

“It needs a name,” I decided. “And some food.”

Sean left and came back a minute later with a quarter jug of orange juice and a box of cinnamon toaster pastries. He unwrapped a pair from the silver foil and handed them over.

“What about Fuglord?” he said.

“What?”

“For its name. Cause it’s the lord of fucking ugly.”

I frowned. “We’re not calling her Fuglord.”

“Her? How do you know it’s a her?”

“Just a feeling.”

I set one of the toaster pastries down on the floor beside her and tried to coax her to turn around. It took her a while to notice it, but when she finally did, she whipped around and leaned down close to inspect it. A pair of antennae unfurled from some hidden compartment in her face and danced over the cinnamon icing, leaving a gel-like residue behind. Then, with a throaty gurgle, she wrapped her lips around the whole thing and inhaled it like a vacuum.

“Disgusting,” Sean groaned.

“Look, she loves it!” I giggled. “I’m gonna call her Cinnamon.”

I handed her the second toaster pastry, which she greedily took from my hand and inhaled just as quickly as the first. Then offered her some orange juice. Sean never came any closer, but eventually he did at least sit down cross-legged on the floor and hang out with me for a while as we watched Cinnamon explore my room.

“This is insane,” he said at some point, shaking his head in disbelief. “I mean, what the hell are we doing here?”

“We’re taking care of a creature in need,” I said.

Sean snorted. “We ought to put it out of its misery.”

“What misery? She’s doing great.”

We both looked over at Cinnamon just in time to see her pop out from a pile of clothes and look around, one of my bras draped over her head. I giggled and glanced over at Sean. He folded his arms and looked away.

* * *

Mom forced me to go to school the next morning because she could tell I was lying about being sick. It was torture—leaving Cinnamon alone in my room like that without anyone there to make she didn’t get into any mischief and got enough to eat. I had a stomachache the entire day from all the worrying and could barely eat my lunch, even though it was pizza day and they had out the big pump jugs of ranch.

The day dragged on endlessly. When I finally made it to fifth period, I spent the entire time glued to the clock, bouncing my leg and counting down the minutes until three-thirty when the bell would ring and I’d be free. Mr. Benson was droning on and on about something really boring and all I could do was visualize the exact motions required to shove all my papers and books into my backpack and rush out the door with maximum speed. With five minutes left before the bell, Mr. Benson began handing back last week’s quizzes. When he set my paper on my desk, he leaned down and whispered in my ear for me to please stay after class.

I still don’t know why I did. If I had run out the door with the bell, maybe none of what came next would have happened. But I stayed, and sat through five excruciating minutes of:

I’m worried about your grade in this class, Ashley.

Are you getting the support you need at home?

Do your parents know how close you are to failing this class?

“Yeah, uh huh, okay, Mr. Benson,” I said. “But I really gotta go.”

He sighed and told me to have a nice afternoon. I thanked him and turned around and sprinted out the door as fast as I could, racing down the hall and shouldering my way through the front doors. But I was too late— bus nineteen was already driving away without me.

This meant I’d have to take the five, which wouldn’t come for another ten minutes. Plus, the five took half an hour longer to get to my stop than the nineteen, which meant I’d be getting home around four-thirty. That would leave me barely fifteen minutes before Dad got home from work to fix any of the problems Cinnamon might have caused while alone and unmonitored all day.

But I had no choice. So I waited. I ground my teeth and paced back and forth. Mercifully, the bus eventually came.

* * *

Dad’s car was home already.

“It’s gonna be fine,” I told myself.

I sprinted up the driveway, then barreled into the house and made a beeline for my room, shedding my backpack in the hallway along the way. When I threw open the door to my room I felt like the Terminator, scanning for any sign of movement. When nothing registered, I dropped to my knees and started digging through the piles of clothes on the floor. But I found no sign of Cinnamon. I peered under the bed. Nothing. I tore my closet apart like a crazy person and still there was no sign of her.

“No way she got out. No way!”

I inspected my door for any signs of damage, but there was nothing. Not so much as a scratch along the bottom, so there was no way she chewed her way out. She certainly couldn’t reach the handle, even if she knew how to use it, so she must still be in here somewhere.

I panicked, giving my room a second scan, and it wasn’t until about halfway through that I looked out my bedroom window and saw them outside. Dad and Sean—standing shoulder to shoulder out in the sage.

What are they doing, I thought. But then I saw the hammer in Sean’s hand and I knew.

I was already holding back tears as I threw open the sliding glass door and ran across the lawn. Sean noticed me first, tapped Dad’s chest with the back of his hand, and nodded in my direction.

“She’s home,” I heard Sean mutter.

Dad turned to face me, still out of breath from his trip across the lawn.

“Now, Ashley—” he started.

“Freakin’ move!” I shouldered my way past them and fell to my knees as soon as I saw Cinnamon’s mangled body there in the blood-spattered snow. She was so thoroughly ground up that I remember thinking she looked like a pile of raw hamburger.

“You killed her!” I sobbed, dizzy and nauseous.

I looked at the hammer in Sean’s hand, blood still dripping off the gore-slicked head. He moved it behind his back and when I looked up at his face he turned away, unable to meet my eyes.

“You lied to me,” Dad said.

I threw a finger toward Sean. “Well, he did, too!”

“Yeah, but he came clean about it.”

The edges of my vision started to darken, and I felt a sudden urge to flee. To get as far away from the horror of the moment as I could. So I stood up, chest heaving between sobs, and started running back to the house.

“Ash!” Sean shouted after me when I was halfway across the lawn.

I stopped and turned around, dragging the back of my hand under my eyes.

“He’s just trying to teach us a lesson.”