CHAPTER F0UR

"COREY? THAT YOU?"

Ralph had heard him come in. Corey had meant to hold the door but the wind snapped it from him and slammed it with a bang. He heard his father coming, floorboards creaking under his weight, his walking stick tap-tapping. Corey froze there, waiting in the half-light.

Ralph lumbered into the kitchen.

"There's my boy. You got the whiskey, son?"

Corey edged back without even realizing.

"Give it to me, son."

"I ain't got it, pa —". He couldn't get the words out fast enough. "The man at the liquor store wouldn't sell me none —"

Ralph didn't say anything and that made Corey talk even faster. "I gave him the money but he wouldn't take it. But I got this for you, pa—"

Corey pulled out a paper bag from under his coat. Ralph snatched the bag from him and stripped away the paper. Inside was an economy size bottle of Bayer aspirin.

Ralph was speechless but his eyes betrayed the calm.

Corey just kept on talking, his breath coming fast, the words tumbling out. "The lady at the drugstore said this was the best stuff for your arthurightiz—"

And then Corey stopped talking because that's when Ralph broke, wailing with blind rage. He smashed the bottle against the wall. Glass and aspirin exploded, flying like shrapnel, showering Corey.

"Where's the rest of the money!"

Corey turned out his pockets, pennies and nickels spilling onto the floor.

"Is that it! Is that all you got left?"

Corey fought back the panic and tried to gauge the anger rising in Ralph's eyes. He could see the needle swinging into the danger zone.

"I told you not to stop for nuthin' else, din't I! You don't listen, boy. I'm sick and tard of you not listenin"

Ralph started for Corey, moving toward him like a snail on the edge of a razor. Corey closed his eyes to make himself invisible. But when he opened them he knew he wasn't, because Ralph started to raise that terrible stick.

That's when Corey made a mad run for his bedroom. He got around Ralph, but not by him. Wood split, cracking like bone, when Ralph slammed the walking stick across the open doorway before Corey could reach it.

Corey spun. Tried to dive for the hall. Crash! — the hickory stick was there again blocking his escape.

Ralph had him. He grabbed a handful of Corey's soft auburn hair and snapped his head back with his twelve-inch wrists. Corey yelled out against the vicious tug. Ralph's face dove at Corey like the mouth of the whale that swallowed Pinocchio, so fast that Corey thought he would faint.

Ralph looked dead into his son's eyes. "Know why we named you Corey? Do ya!"

Corey's heart hitched.

"Cause you're rotten to the core!," Ralph bellowed. "Bad through and through. Just like an apple in the cider house gone to rot! And you know what happens to rotten twerps like you? Sorry little morons who don't heed their parents?"

Corey knew. That's why all the air rushed out of his body, and his voice was thin as tissue when he said, "Chanks gets 'em —"

"You know it, boy! Chanks gets 'em! He's a monster, Corey boy — Lordie, yes! The mere sight of him can stop your heart like that!" Fingers snapped. "Face all white like a skull, teeth sharp as a grizzly's, blood pumpin1 through his veins cold as January, and horns growin out the top of his head big as antlers, sharp as plow blades —" Ralph was caught up in his own whiskey-inspired imagination now, all those lizards in his head coming alive, "— dresses all in black like he's forever goin1 to someone's funeral. Got a long black beard to match, hair centuries old, and danglin' off them whiskers like some gypsy, are these brass bells. And its those bells you hear that warns you he's oomin' for ya. It ain't much of a warnin though cause by the time you hear them it's already too late —there ain't no place to run! You can hear them bells janglin' below your feet cause that's how he travels — underneath the earth, through these catacombs they got down there. Drives a sleigh just like Santy Claus does 'cept instead of them sissy bucks his is drawn by these eight blood-thirsty wolves. Timber wolves, big as cows, black as sin!"

Ralph was mugging, making animal faces, his head bobbing as if his neck were a spring, his eyes spinning like pinwheels. Corey never saw his daddy's teeth looking so sharp.

"For three hundred sixty-four days a year Chanks stays holed up in his house on the other side of the world, on top of the highest mountain they got there. You go straight down through China as far as you can go from the civilized world, a place where the sun never gets at, and that's where you'll find him.

"Only comes out but once a year. Just for a night. And you know what night that is, don't you, Corey?"

Corey knew it. Dreaded and feared it. It was tonight — Christmas Eve.

"It's tonight, Corey — Christmas Eve! And every Christmas Eve Chanks goes on the prowl looking for all those bad kids. Smells 'em out like a hound does a scent, sniffin that stink of badness crawlin1, through their hearts." Ralph started inhaling, hard, sniffing the air, nostrils quivering. He screwed his face up, closing his eyes. "Whoeeeee! What a stink! You're reekin1 of it, ain't you! He's gonna have no trouble findin you at all—"

"And when he does he's gonna come up outta the ground and snatch you up! Stuff ya in his black sack and drag you down to his house on the dark side of the world. And you know what he does when he gets ya there?"

Corey knew that too.

"He cuts ya open like a shoat hog, throws ya inna pot of boilin1 blood along with some garbonzo beans to flavor your rotten hide the way he likes and cooks you up inna chowder along with all the other rotten kids. Then, when their flesh is nice and tender, and their brains are soft enough to suck out through their eye sockets, Chanks sits down and has himself a feast."

Inspiration hit Ralph. "He got your baby brother, Willalee, two months in the crib. Swallowed him whole. Drank him right down. It's been a year since then, Corey. A whole year since he ate last. Chanks got his appetite back now. I imagine he'll be comin here tonight to pay you a visit. Say hello to him for me."

And with that Ralph made an about face, putting out his walking stick as he turned to go, aspirin crunching under his heavy feet, with each step he took.

Corey watched as he went, eyes round with terror, eight years of his growth scared right out of him. Even after Ralph was gone he was still there in Corey's eyes – like the ghost of a blinding light after it had been turned off. He stood there shivering, his pants dripping from where he had wet himself, the urine hot on his legs, his pants sticking, plastered to his leg, the fluid running into his boot. Ashamed and disgusted that he had lost control, the tears came, now and he stood there shaking in his perspiration and piss and tears, sucking his thumb, watching the floorboards, waiting for them to split and yawn open, watching and waiting for Chanks.