Hell Within -- Chapter Eight: The Becomming -- Scenes 1&2

-Chapter Eight: The Becoming-

-1-

The smell of bacon permeated through the hallways near the kitchen, and Ben, still not awake, was drawn to the aroma like a fly to a light. He walked into the cavernous, old-fashioned kitchen and found his Uncle Rudy standing over the old gas stove in the center island frying eggs.

"Rudy?"

Rudy looked up at him, grinned, and shook his head.

"Bout time you dragged your ass down here. I was beginning to think that you crawled up somewhere and died."

Ben walked in and sat down at the brass and glass table that once served as the dining table at his apartment, and gazed across the room at Rudy.

"You’re lookin rough. You hit that bottle a little too hard last night?"

Ben shrugged and looked down at the white placemat before him.

"Where’s Amy?"

Ben shook his head. "She decided she had better things to do than spend our anniversary with me."

Rudy scooped the eggs out of the frying pan and deposited them on two plates. "Like what?"

"She spends all her goddamn time in Gainesville. Every time I turn around she’s coming up with an excuse. This time, she had to go to some all-weekend concert with Shelly. -- She thinks I’m stupid."

Rudy carried the plates over to the table and sat one before Ben.

"What do you mean?"

"She’s got a boyfriend, and I know it. The only reason she hasn’t left me is the money."

Rudy rolled his eyes. "You’re a rich man now. That means you don’t have to put up with any bullshit. She ain’t that good-looking, and I don’t think any judge in the world is gonna give her half of your inheritance."

"I wish it were that easy."

Rudy sat down at the table. "You have Shelly’s number?"

"Somewhere."

"Well, if you’re that damn worried about it, why don’t you give her a buzz and check out Amy’s story?"

Ben nodded. "I’m afraid of what I’ll find out."

"Hell, you can’t go on like this. You’ve gotta do something."

Ben frowned and looked Rudy in the face. "How did you know where to find me?"

Rudy chuckled. "It has been a hundred years and I am gettin old, but my memory ain’t that bad."

"We haven’t talked since I lived in Gainesville."

Rudy nodded. "I tried to get a hold of you last week. I couldn’t get you at your home number, so I called Amy’s cell."

"Oh."

Rudy looked around. "I’d forgotten how big this place is."

"You knew about the house?"

"Shit my brother only lived here for two years. -- It’s usually a pretty big deal when your brother’s wife inherits a few million dollars and Buckingham Palace."

"Why didn’t you tell me?"

Rudy shrugged. "To tell you the truth, I was hopin you wouldn’t inherit the place. It sorta drove your mother nuts, and you are your mother’s son."

Ben glared at him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You have a short memory. Do you not recall that whole mess that happened a while back when you disappeared for a month without tellin anybody anything?"

"That was different. I just had lost everything I owned."

"Was it?"

Ben frowned. "And that’s another thing, why the hell did you tell me Mom and Dad died in a car crash?"

"You want me to tell a five-year-old that his mother went bonkers?"

"What really happened?"

Rudy sighed. "What the hell difference does it make?"

"It makes a difference to me."

Rudy smirked. "You mean to sit there and tell me that the way your parents died changes who you are?"

"I would like to know."

Rudy speared his sausage with a fork. "It’s just old gossip, and I don’t want to ruin my breakfast."

"Rudy!"

"What?"

Ben glared at him. "I have a right to know."

Rudy dropped his fork on his plate and sat back. "Your mother came from a fucked up family. Her father was a doctor, and one day he decided to find out what his wife and two of his kids were like on the inside. He would’ve gotten your mother, too."

"What happened?"

"Ted didn’t say much about it, and I didn’t ask. The connotation was that your mother killed him."

"What?"

"Small wonder she was fucked in the head. Of course, most of those artsy-fartsy types are."

"Well, if she was that screwed up, why did Dad marry her?"

"She wasn’t always like that. Hell, most of the time she was an extra-terrific girl. She didn’t get bad until they moved here."

"There had to be a reason."

Rudy smirked at him again. "Other than the fact that this is the house where her mother, brother, and sister were murdered?"

"Didn’t Dad see it coming?"

"Sure he did. He sent her to a head-shrinker who put her on a whole bunch of pills, but then she got pregnant. You know how women are. If they have any personality flaws, they become evil bitches when they’re expectin."

"Really?"

"They had to stick her in the loony-bin twice while she was pregnant."

"Why?"

Rudy took a bite of his eggs, chewed them and sat back.

"I don’t know if I want to tell you that."

"What difference does it make?"

Rudy shrugged.

"She insisted that you weren’t Ted’s baby -- that she was raped by some spook that lived in this house."

"What?"

Rudy nodded. "She didn’t get any better after you were born, either. You know, she tried to kill you two times."

Ben’s mouth fell open.

"Yeah, Ted walked in on her doing something strange the first time, and she explained it away. He didn’t believe her totally, but he didn’t have any other choice. The second time, Trent caught her dead to rights."

"Who’s Trent?"

"He was the caretaker of the mansion. He walked in the nursery and caught her trying to strangle you."

"Damn."

"That’s when you came to live with me. It was s’pposed to be temporary, but oh well."

"Damn." Ben repeated.

"She only got worse after that. They stuck her back in the loony-bin, and she came out worse than ever. The only option they had left was to put her away permanently, and Ted didn’t want to do that. He caught a few things up, and took a month off work. He was gonna take her up to a cabin her family owned on the lake. He thought maybe a little fresh air, and some distance between her and this house would help her get her act together.

"But he didn’t come back to work when the month was over. One of the lawyers at his office went up to the lake cabin to check on them, and found ‘em both dead."

"Son-of-a-bitch."

Rudy took a bite of bacon and then grinned back at Ben humorlessly. "Bet you could’ve lived fifty or sixty more years without knowing that."

Ben stared down at his plate.

In a moment, Rudy’s eyes were on him again peering with disdain.

"Could you please eat your fuckin breakfast? I’d like to go fishin sometime today."

-2-

They dragged an old wooden boat out of the garage behind the house, lugged it out to the pond, and before long they sat in the middle of the water. Ben wasn’t doing much fishing. He baited and tossed in his line, and he sat motionlessly, staring at the water.

The cold air stung his face just as it had the morning before. As a general rule, Ben didn’t drink so early in the morning especially after a night like last night, but given the situation, he’d picked up his cooler where he’d left it yesterday and brought it along.

Rudy cast his line.

"Shit," he said.

Ben looked at him, and Rudy began yanking his line out of the reel.

"Fuckin bird nest." He looked at Ben and smirked. "I’m pretty sure the devil has a special pitch fork reserved for the bastard that designed these bait casters."

Ben looked back at the water and took another sip of his beer, and in a moment, he felt Rudy’s eyes on him again.

"Hey."

Ben looked at him.

"You gonna reel that bitch in or just let it sit on the bottom all day?"

Ben tossed him an irritated glance and then began reeling it and tugging the line.

"Rudy?"

"Yeah?"

"What were my mother’s symptoms?"

Rudy sighed. "I wished to god I’d never told you that shit. You’re gonna be a whiney bitch now."

"What were her symptoms?"

"Jesus Christ, give me a break! I’m not a doctor."

Ben shook his head. "What did she do that was so weird?"

"You mean besides trying to kill her own baby and shooting her husband in the back of the head?"

Ben rolled his eyes, but Rudy looked back out over the lake and pretended not to notice.

"When I first knew her she wasn’t all that bad -- moody maybe. Some days she was fun to be with and others, she’d be about like how you’re being right now, a total pain in the ass."

Ben gave him a hard look, but Rudy wasn’t paying attention to him.

"Toward the end, though, she started accusing people of off the wall shit. She was seeing and hearing things -- talking to people who weren’t there."

Ben looked back out over the water, lined up and cast again.

"You know," Rudy said lighting a Lucky Strike, "Whatever the hell she had was not unlike some of your famous episodes."

Ben frowned. "I have no idea what you’re talking about."

Rudy smirked at him. "You don’t remember them locking you up in the loony-bin for a year?"

Ben shook his head. "I haven’t even thought of that in years."

Rudy gave him a disgusted look. "I have every day since."

Ben squinted at Rudy. "You know, I don’t even remember that very well."

"You wouldn’t."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Rudy huffed at him. "You’re not the one they called an unfit guardian."

Ben rolled his eyes. "I’m not gonna spend my whole life apologizing to you."

Rudy waved him off. "The point is, you’re a high-maintenance motherfucker."

"What’s so high-maintenance? I get up every morning, take a shit, eat breakfast, and struggle like hell to find ways to keep myself busy until I go to bed."

"Bullshit! You’re sittin there right now worrying your ass off about everything."

"Oh yeah, like what?"

"You’re worrying about how your folks died. You’re scared to death that your wife, the same woman you’ve been comin home to for the last twenty years, is tip-toeing through the tulips."

"I have good reason to worry about that."

"Have you asked her?" Rudy snapped.

Ben looked away from him. "You don’t understand."

"What, ‘cause I’ve never been married?"

"Exactly."

Rudy eyed Ben’s beer. "If I were you, I’d stop drinkin that horse piss, and as soon as I got a chance, I’d get on the horn and talk to Shelly."

Ben nodded. "Yeah, but what if I’m right?"

Rudy shook his head. "Goddamn your stupid! Amy ain’t that good-lookin, and you’re rich. You go get yourself a lawyer, and then go find yourself some young play-thing who don’t mind a man who’s a bit fucked in the head."

Ben glared at him.

Rudy gave him an innocent look. "I’m just tryin to wake you up! Most likely, Amy doesn’t have another man; she just doesn’t want to hang around you because you’re a big, fuckin crybaby."

"Damnit Rudy!"

Rudy smirked at him. "Oh, woe is me! We’re all born, someone pops us on the naked ass, then we get shat on for seventy years, and if we’re lucky, then we croak!"

Ben ground his teeth.

"If you weren’t my uncle. . . ."

"But you know what? I am your uncle, and I’m also right."

(Continue to scenes 3-5)