Building 22 “The Thresher”

“My father has a house out in the woods that I lived in most of my life. It's a long and narrow building with a barn connected in the front where we keep the car. In the barn is a thresher. We aren't allowed to touch it.

It was my mother's.

I came back yesterday after being gone for some time. Years ago I went to college, and I simply couldn't bring myself to come back. Now I am sitting at the kitchen table, with stains from when my mother was still alive. The moon is full and bright, even with the branches of the woods to break up the light.

The things in the woods lurk just outside the screen door. Watching me. They know they are not allowed to come in.

If the path were clear I am certain they would try.

My dad taught my brother and I to shoot after what happened to our mother. I am a good shot now, even though I am out of practice. Even though I hate guns.

They whisper to me. They tell me I should open the screen door and let them inside.

The smell of the fire in the pit I sat around with my father so many times reaches me from the breeze, coming in through the mesh of the screen. I smell the fire and the swamp that sits further down the hill. I smell something else as well. Something I have never been able to put into words.

I see their eyes in the dark , their stringy hair pierced by pinpoints of light. They are all dressed in black.

They are all smiling.

My brother was supposed to come out to the cabin as well. I talked to him the other day.

He refused to come back.

When I moved away, I always knew there was a possibility that I would eventually come back to this place. At the very least to settle up. Always needed to do that...

However, long ago my brother moved away, and that was that. Even with the way things have changed tonight, I highly doubt he will come back. Maybe that is for the best. I don't think he will forgive me for what I have done, or what I will do.

I slide open the screen door only slightly. Stick the tip of my rifle out and take a shot at the leg. I hit my mark, and he moans with pain.

They do not descend upon him or me.

I pull back the gun and set it back on the table, then close the screen door again as I watch as they watch. Those things in the dark, that are likely more honest than my father ever was, or is.

My father is still next to the fire where I left him, tied up just before sundown.

It is night now, and one of their spent needles, filled with whatever starts the process, is on the ground.

My father chose an interesting way to teach me how to shoot. I am very good at it. And I admit, it is much easier when the target didn't used to be your mother. I imagine he thought if I could kill her, then I wouldn't hesitate to kill any of the rest.

Even from this distance, I can see his body reacting to the conditioning. His skin is blackening and he has stopped shivering or reacting to the pain. His eyes are narrowing, taking on the familiar glow.

I think they will do what I want. He is becoming like them, but I think they want him to hurt as bad as I do.

When morning comes, I will go to the barn and drag out that thresher. I will bring it out to the fire pit where my father, brother, mother, and I, had so many fires. And I will grab what was once my father and put the thresher to good use.

He may have been right. To kill her. Maybe he was even right to have me be the one to do it. After what the conditioning turned her into, I don't blame him for making them his enemy.

But this isn't about being right or wrong.

It isn't about revenge.

It never was.

I just want to put the thresher to good use.

I miss my mom.”

Letter was addressed from a house in the woods, not far from where I camped all that time back.

Back when I was drinking.

I went to the house to talk to the person, but the home was abandoned. There was a thresher in the back. Black stained. Still smelled something awful.

Needle was gone. Maybe he cleaned up. Maybe they cleaned up.

I left before sundown just in case. Thought I saw one of them while I was driving away. Thought it waved. Could be seeing things. Stressed mind.

I was unusually cool last night.

Really hot today.

Considered going out to the family farm.

I remembered it doesn't belong to my family anymore.

Thought Loyd was bleeding today.

Wasn't his blood.