The Dead Marigold

Hubert sat on the kitchen chair, swinging his legs back and forth. Smeared across his feet and up his pajama pants were crusted bits of chocolate. In fact, it was the very same chocolate that sat temptingly in front of him; an impressively large double-layer chocolate lava cake.

Where the young boy would normally be clambering across the table to shovel cake in his face by the handful, he now sat and stared at it with the desolation of a man far older than he was.

One would never guess it was his birthday.

The sound of slow, dragging footsteps made Hubert stiffen up, but he refused to look behind him even as they got closer and closer and closer. A heavy hand fell on Hubert’s shoulder, and his father’s perpetually exhausted face came into sight. Hubert had to swallow down the coppery taste of blood from where he’d bitten clear into his cheek. The pounding in his ears faded enough for him to hear his father ask “Have you seen her?”

“Her, who?” His father frowned hard at him. “Your mother, of course. Who else?”

Hubert tried not to let his voice wobble when he said “I don’t know where she is.”

His father furrowed his brow. “Well, she’d hardly miss your special day -” The doorbell rang.

Hubert jumped to the floor, leaving a bit of smeared chocolate on the clean tile. “I’ll get it.”

His father’s eyebrows raised to his receding hairline, lips parted in absolute befuddlement at the child who never wanted to see anyone but the ice cream man. However, he didn’t follow the child as he opened the door.

A mailman stood there, an oddly apprehensive look on his face. “Hubert Olivia Harvey?”

Hubert rolled his eyes and snatched an old brown box with a crumbled note inside it. He snatched it out of the mailman's hands. He kicked the door shut with his heel, ignoring the surprised exclamation from the man on his porch.

Hubert sat down right then and there, crumbling the note and scooting the box toward himself. He scowled at it, just knowing it was from some great aunt or a second cousin he’d never heard of. He didn’t care about his crotchety supposed relations on a good day let alone a day like …

Well, he wasn’t sure how to describe a day like today.

However, that didn’t lessen his curiosity. He grabbed onto the line of tape that was already beginning to peel and wrenched it up. While he certainly wasn’t expecting anything worth his time, he definitely wasn’t expecting what was inside.

There were an absurd amount of marigolds. However, none of them held rich oranges or yellows. They were all grayed out and dry. Hubert felt through the box, feeling the petals crack and break beneath his hands.

Nothing but dead flowers.

He snatched up the crumpled note, smoothing it out. His face fell, his skin going chalk white.

I know what you did.

Hubert wasted no time.

He opened the door and tossed the box outside, flowers spilling like blood across his porch. Then he raced to the kitchen and snagged a garbage bag.

He had to get rid of the evidence.

Yet, standing at the closet door made his knees go weak. His mind replayed the sick, wet sounds as candy teeth chewed and crunched and broke before the little pieces were swallowed down, too. Hubert knew what was behind the door.

With a trembling hand, he turned the doorknob.

The monster wasn’t there.

But someone was.

It was human-shaped but only just barely. It was tall and gangly, almost as if it had been stretched out like an old piece of gum. All it wore was a long jacket that was far too short for the absurd height that made it have to hunch over to avoid the ceiling. Hubert couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman, but he couldn’t care less when he saw its smile.

The only thing on its face was a big, twisted grin, but Hubert had a distinct feeling it was watching him.

“Hello, Hubert Olivia Harvey,” it said. Hubert scrambled backward, going for the bedroom door, but it stretched one long arm out and blocked the boy’s escape.

“Wh - What do you want?” Hubert stuttered.

“A very bad boy,” it replied. “One that fed his mother to a beast to save his own skin. You wouldn’t happen to know a boy like that, would you?”

Hubert’s lip trembled. There was no way out this time.

Its grin curled in on itself like a twisted cartoon character.

Both it and Hubert were gone by the time his father, confused and just beginning to look concerned, marched into the room.