Nighttime Ritual

Delia flits around the house like a horsefly in a hot barn. Dust this room. Vacuum that room. Check the pot on the stove. Dusk is settling in, the sun turning in for the night and the moon about to start its evening rounds. So much to do and so little time left to make sure things are just right for this perfect evening.

A harsh buzz sounds in the background. Was that the dryer that just went off? Yes, yes it was. She runs to the laundry room and scoops out an armload of warm clothing, smelling of a spring meadow or some such thing. She dumps the payload on the bed and starts furiously sorting, folding, stacking, arranging. One pile of her dresses and skirts, one pile of Jim's business attire, and of course, one pile of onesies, bibs, and tiny socks. Everything has crisp edges, color coordinated to perfection. Delia steps back to admire her handiwork and favors herself with a satisfied nod. Not a stain to be seen! The lady on the TV sure was right about that new detergent.

The kitchen timer beeps down the hall and Delia snaps back to attention from her infomercial reveries. She power-walks to the kitchen, high heels clacking, past her husband seated at the kitchen table, and bee-lines to the stove where her orange Le Creuset Dutch oven sits bubbling; two elaborate candlesticks holding tallows, lit and dancing happily, rest on the counter next to the range, her thick cookbook in between. She moves the book and candles aside carefully and pulls the lid off the heavy cast-iron pot with a dishrag; steam leaps up from the pot. Delia inhales deeply and smiles.

She stirs the thick contents of the pot with a wooden spoon, looks closely, and turns to her husband. "Jim, have you seen the cloves? Oh, silly me, here they are. Gosh, I'd lose my head if it weren't attached. Don't bother yourself." Jim is much too hard at work to be bothered with such trivialities anyway. She adjusts the proportions and replaces the Dutch oven's lid; the candle flames gutter for a heartbeat and then leap back to life.

This final batch still has a few minutes left to simmer -- just enough time to put Lily down to bed. Delia heads to the nursery and stops midway down the hall and puts her fists on her hips. "Honey," she says in a playfully exasperated tone, "you've left the light on in the baby's room again. We don't own stock in the electric company. Besides, how is she supposed to sleep with the lights on?" Without waiting for a response she strides into Lily's room and dims the light that glints off the bars of the white Munire crib. Only the best for our Lily, Delia thinks, beaming at the cradle as she approaches. Her wide Stepford grin, white teeth gleaming, is unfazed by the vague static in the air that her brain doesn't quite register.

She leans across the crib's railing and stares down inside, resting her chin on her fist. Such a beautiful sight, she could almost burst with happiness. She hums vaguely and then starts to sing "Rockabye Baby." What strange lyrics, she finds herself thinking, but such a classic. She repeats the song over and over and over until she is satisfied that Lily is comfortable.

Delia steps back from the crib, unconsciously swatting at the air as she retreats to the door. She turns out the light and turns back to look at the darkened room. A night light activates itself in the absence of overhead light, casting shadows in the corner of the room. They seem to swirl a bit, congeal. They pulse, darkening momentarily.

"Yes, yes," she whispers, "almost done, almost there. But, shhhh. Don't wake the baby!" She exits the room with a high-pitched giggle and closes the door behind her. Back in the kitchen, the timer again announces its task is complete. It's so close to being finished; this will be the perfect ending to a beautiful night, and the benchmark for more beautiful nights to come. But as she turns off the flame below the simmering pot and starts to stow her tools of the trade -- spoons, tongs, kitchen shears, and knives -- a pounding at the front door causes her to pause, and her smile flickers.

"Jim, would you get that? I'm trying to finish our special concoction for tonight." Jim, leaning over his papers at the kitchen table, doesn't respond. Delia sighs, frowning as the banging continues and intensifies. Now someone is shouting. Delia's pulse jumps and she grips the rubberized handle of a large chef's knife, knuckles turning white. She straightens up, knife still in hand, and stomps to the front door, all her prior mirth bleached away. She can't make out what the male voices outside are shouting but the rage is now buzzing in her head like a swarm of angry red flies. They're going to ruin everything, she thinks. She'll let them have it -- how dare they interrupt this sacred routine?

Delia throws open the door and brandishes the knife and, just for an instant, her vision clears. In that split second, she sees with total comprehension her neighbor, an elderly man in a blue tracksuit, holding his hands to his mouth having dropped his cell phone, and three uniformed officers, now rearing back and pointing drawn sidearms at her. "Oh, shit," she says as the gun barrels light up the falling dusk.

Blue and red lights flashing behind him, a young cop in a police windbreaker strides into the house, through the foyer and into the nursery. He immediately covers his nose and mouth with his forearm. He retches as he watches in horror as hundreds of flies hover around the faded and chipped crib, dozens alighting on the edge of the rail just to jump off again, circle around, and find their latrine on the stained mattress. A flow of glistening white maggots spills out between the crib’s slats. He catches a glimpse of the carnage on the small bed, a sickening mix of colors and shapes he doesn’t care to identify. He decides to leave that to the coroner so he doesn’t leave his lunch at the crime scene, and promptly exits the house, wondering if law enforcement was the right career choice after all.

An older officer, grizzled and weary, finds his way to the kitchen and sighs, rubbing his salt-and-pepper stubble. He stuffs his hands in his pockets to find his iPhone. He starts snapping pictures and marking the floor and the table with little yellow pyramidal evidence tags. He examines the man slumped over a stack of papers on the kitchen table. The poor bastard is missing the entire top of his head and most of his gray matter. From the looks of him, he's been there for days. The ID in his wallet says he's James Turner, presumably the husband of the newly deceased Delia Turner. The cop marks the 12-gauge pump-action shotgun resting against the kitchen table and the spent red buckshot shells on the ground, trying not to disturb the pools and spatters of dried crimson now fading to rusty brown.

He notices the orange Dutch oven on the stove next to a book and a pair of dying candles. He inclines his head, sniffs the air, and crinkles his nose. Something doesn't seem right. Not that anything in this house, on this night seems right, but still. He steels himself, the ancient reptilian part of his brain screaming that, even after 25 years on the force, he doesn't want to know what's in that pot.

It's his job, though, so he suppresses the primitive instincts like he always does and slowly shifts the lid of the Le Creuset. It's all he can do not to heave, faint, scream, or run away, both from the stench and from the sight. What parts or who exactly they came from are not clear and would probably never be clear, and in that moment he isn’t inclined to parse through that brown-gray muck or move aside those bone fragments poking out of the festering pool.

He looks away and notices that the candles next to the range are flickering hot and bright, thin wisps of smoke rising from their eager flames. He could have sworn they were just about spent a second ago. And the heavy black leather-bound book between them is open. Hadn't it been closed before? He sees strange symbols and diagrams, and a language he doesn't recognize as anything remotely Western, a blood-red silk bookmark nestled in the crease between the pages like a snake lying in wait. His eyes start to blur and cross when he tries to decipher the code. His head starts to hurt.

In his haze of confusion and what feels like an oncoming migraine, the officer doesn't notice the shadow slither from the corner of the kitchen and rise behind him, twisting and writhing in silent serpentine grandeur. The shadow reaches a blackened pulsing tendril out to the officer's ear.

Someone has to finish the ritual, complete the final batch, and add it to the ones in the basement. Perhaps tonight can still be beautiful after all.