Flash Fiction: Lambs of God by Patricia Abbott

The first time Kyle Murmer’s mother tried to kill him, he was nine. But he couldn’t remember a day when he didn’t worry about it. At night, he asked God to smite her, but he had no hope this would happen, and it did not.  

 “Let me see your teeth.”

Her personal supply of dental tools twinkled fiercely in the transparent case on the top medicine chest shelf. Her left hand held his chin as the right one forced his mouth open.

“People not much older than you have lost all their teeth.”

The desire to bite down on her fingers was nearly overpowering.

On the days when she got up early enough for a frenzied completion of household chores, she hadn’t taken her medication. On good mornings, the ones when the perphenazine made her sleep late, his father fixed them a bowl of cereal and they tiptoed out of the house, sharing an embarrassed smile.

She was waiting for him when he came home from school in October of fourth grade. Hair curled, makeup applied perfectly, neatly dressed in a khaki skirt and white blouse, she wrapped panty hose around his neck. It happened with such speed, he wondered if she’d practiced it on the back of a kitchen chair.

“Where have you been?”

Her nails were inches from his face, and beads of spit, scented with dental wash, shot into his eyes. He wasn’t surprised. His life so far seemed exactly like a place where such things might happen. A place where mothers might practice lassoing kids in their off-hours.

 “At school.”

“Liar,” she said, dragging him around the kitchen by his neck. “The Devil has you in his grip.”

“I was at school,” he repeated, trying to wait out this bad stretch.

That’s what his father always called it—a bad stretch. Bad stretches happened regularly at the Murmer house. Kyle and his father were always waiting for the other shoe to fall—another phrase his Dad used a lot.

“They called and said you weren’t there. Said your desk was empty, no coat on your hook.”

“That was on Monday.” His mouth was so dry, his voice scratched it.

Her eyes looked like the dead blooms on an African violet and a sort of eggy smell began to radiate from her mouth.

“You forgot to call the attendance line and they called here. On Monday,” he repeated.

Her grip on the panty hose loosened. Then she was sitting at the table, collapsed and sobbing. “Don’t tell your father. I wanted to lift you up to God.” She raised her arms and he tried hard not to flinch. Her arms dropped on the table with an awful thud.

But he did tell his father; how could he not?

“Let me see your neck,” His father ran a light finger over the bruises. “Your mother means well, but she gets confused.  Must’ve been a hormonal thing. Maybe the thought of having another kid just broke her. Probably flushed her meds.”

Another kid—no one had told Kyle. In fact, he understood none of what his father had said, but knew he’d have to be even more careful.

His father also told Kyle he’d also found signs she tried to kill the baby.

At the Church of the Living God, even birth control devices were forbidden— an impediment to the holy duty of women to bear as many children as possible. Children were the lambs of God. Abortion would mean expulsion.

When Kyle was sixteen, his mother attacked him while he slept. Her fists were hammers on his head. In her pocket was a small knife. She tried to carve Aramaic words into his forehead.

“The devil will flee once you’re marked.” She’d flattened a crumpled piece of paper with the proper marks on his bedside table. A flashlight shone on it.

His mother was jailed for several weeks, and he went to school with two strange marks on his forehead. Nobody asked about them. Such things were not unheard of at his school.

“This can’t happen again,” his father said.

Kyle wasn’t sure if his father meant the beating and scarring or his mother’s imprisonment.

Kyle began college in Ann Arbor and never came home if he could help it.

“I have to work at the library over the break,” he told them. “I need to study for finals—I’m helping out at my church.” The last was a lie. He’d given God a chance and been turned down.

“Kyle.” It was his sister, Jolene, whispering on the phone. “Mom thinks I’m having sex. I don’t—I don’t even know what having sex means.”

Lambs of God didn’t need such information. Information led to experimentation, ruin.

“I’m locked in my room. She’s looking for a way in.”

He borrowed a car and drove home, feeling more and more nauseated as he neared the house. His mother was in the garage, looking through his father’s tools.

“Kyle,” she said. “Can you help me find something to jimmy a lock? I hate to use a blowtorch. The wood’s oak. Maybe we can remove it with a screwdriver.”

Her eyes were fixed and dull, dead moths again. The torch was in her hands. “Jolene doesn’t understand I’m trying to lift her up to God.” She looked at him closely. “Like I did with you.” She smiled beatifically.

He put out his hand, and she gave him the blowtorch. He used it without hesitation, watching her cheap acrylic blouse go up in a flash, her face melt away. Her screams seemed inconsequential coming from a black hole as they did.

She was cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

He didn’t try to deny it when the police arrived, didn’t try to run or to hide. He’d heard about Judgment Day often enough to recognize it when it came.

***

Patti Abbott is the author of a collection of stories, MONKEY JUSTICE (Snubnose Press). Recent stories have appeared in PULP MODERN 2, D*CKED, GRIMM TALES, DEADLY TREATS, SHOTGUN HONEY, FLASH FICTION OFFENSIVE, OFF THE RECORD and BEAT TO A PULP-HARDBOILED. Visit her at http:pattinase.blogspot.com

R Thomas Brown

R. Thomas Brown is the Flash Fiction Editor at Spinetingler and writes the Short Thoughts on Short Fiction series. His writing appears around the web and links can be found at his website. "Hill Country" will be coming out in 2012 from Snubnose Press. When not writing or reading, he is a clueless husband and father of three inspiring and exhausting children.

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