Alex and The Gruff

  (a tale of horror)

  C.SeanMcGee

  Alex and The Gruff (a tale of horror)

  “politeness is the discipline of abuse”

  Copyright© Cian Sean McGee

  CSM Publishing

  ‘The Free Art Collection

  Araraquara, Brazil 2014

  Second Edition

  All rights reserved. This FREE ART ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, the reader is not charged to access it and the downloader or sharer does not attempt to assume any part of the work as their own. Free art, just a writer’s voice and your conscious ear.

  Cover Design: C. Sean McGee

  Interior layout: C. Sean McGee

  Author Foto: Carla Raiter

  This story was influenced by the following albums

  Charge – Metallica / Metallica

  Earth – Sordal / Pale Horse Waiting

  Editing – Gazpacho / Demon

  "Infants never learn to soothe themselves to sleep. They learn, abandoned in seclusion, that no matter the volume of their despondence, no matter the force of their tears, when they are alone and frightened, no-one will ever come to their rescue. Infants do not soothe themselves. They merely surrender. And it caged in their cribs where the infants learn, in the face of their demons, to remain silent and submitting"

  For keli, nenagh and tomás

  CHAPTER ZERO

  Alex clung to the seat. He had his hands between his legs and his fingers bending over the curve with his nails scratching at the red plastic. He was hardly able to contain the excitement that he felt and hoped that no-one else could see. He sat watching the entrance to the classroom with the open door letting the afternoon light and cool breeze flood in and he dreamt of escape.

  He looked around at his classmates, all of them busy packing away their colored pencils and zipping up their bags. Some of them were laughing and some of them were pinching and punching each other on the arms, but all of them completely unaware as to the grand conspiracy in his thoughts.

  And so he looked around with acute awareness thinking everyone was looking at him. He looked to his left and he looked to his right and he tried to keep cool about everything, but it was all so very hard.

  Surely they knew.

  Surely they were onto him.

  Surely, at any moment, so would she.

  “He really is a delight” said The Teacher.

  She was talking to one of the grown-ups, a mother of one of the boys. Alex looked at the boy. He didn’t know his name. He didn’t know anyone’s name. The boy’s hair was neatly combed and it wasn’t brown and it wasn’t blonde, it was a mix of the two and the boy had his hands in his pockets and he was standing by his mother’s leg, looking at a picture he had painted that was hanging on a wall beside them.

  Alex was looking past the boy, at a tiny space between him and his mother, where he could escape out the front door. There was enough space for him to squeeze through if he was fast and agile, like a cat.

  He would have to be quick though.

  Outside the door, there was a set of concrete steps that led down to a concrete path and there was lush green grass on one side and on that grass was a sign and the sign read, ‘Children cannot play here’.

  And at the end of that path was a large gate and guarding that gate was large man; a giant of a man with great catching hands like a fisherman’s net, a face like a shrunken balloon, eyes like two massive dirty plates and a grumbling voice like an airplane landing.

  And the giant’s name was Horace. And like all giants, he sat high on his throne and he looked down on everyone that wanted to come through the gates and he made all the grown-ups wait in a line and he let them in one by one and they were always so polite when they passed him and the children, they were always terrified.

  And who wouldn’t be?

  Giants ate children.

  “Well thank you so much” said The Teacher, waving at the boy’s mother as she took her son under her wing and turned to walk down the steps.

  “Now” thought Alex.

  The timing was perfect. They would never see him coming. The Teacher’s back was turned and the boy and his mother, well theirs were turned too and if he left now, if he ran while nobody was looking, he could catch a breeze in their wake and even use them to shield his escape.

  He could do it.

  He could get away.

  His heart was beating so fast as he rocked back and forth on his chair. Right now was the only time that he had, but right now was quickly slipping away.

  The Teacher turned away from the door and the children all followed with their begging and adoring eyes. Alex looked at them, all of them, while they all looked to their teacher. His heart was beating so fast.

  “Wait” shouted the boy from down on the path.

  Alex turned back to the door.

  They all did.

  Thirty smiling faces stared smiling at the door.

  The Teacher slid her feet on the floor and turned before they stopped, like a dancer. She always moved like a ballerina, swishing her feet this way and that and prancing and turning on the tips of her tippy toes. The girls all thought she was a princess, just like the dolls that they kept precious at the tops of their desks and the boys, well they didn’t really think of anything other than football and video games but they didn’t hate her and she was kind of funny, but all girls were like that.

  The Teacher met the boy with her arms abreast and a terrific adoring smile upon her face and the boy rushed to her embrace and she wrapped him tight in her arms and she lifted his little feet off the floor and he whispered ‘goodbye’ and she whispered ‘goodbye’ too and then all of the other children, they all watched with wishful smiles on their faces and they all mouthed the words ‘goodbye’, imagining that it was they, not the boy, in her embrace and their little mouths closed so that their lips gently touched and it looked as if they had all blown a silent kiss.

  Alex looked at the other children and he couldn’t name a single one. He didn’t know any of their names and if he had to talk about his day, he would speak of them as ‘that boy or that girl’, ‘at school’ or ‘on the bus’ and he couldn’t imagine himself making a friend of a single one.

  “I’m sorry.” said the boy’s mother. “He really wanted to come back and say goodbye.”

  “That’s fine” said The Teacher, holding the boy in her arms as if her were her own.

  The boy looked at The Teacher and he must have spoken something that only she could understand because immediately, she looked surprised as if she had just remembered something terribly important.

  “That’s right” she said. “I didn’t show you Timothy’s painting.”

  That was his name, Timothy.

  Alex didn’t hear it at all. The moment they started talking, his heart started beating wildly again and he started to look around the room, at where The Teacher was standing, where the boy and his mother were and how distracted they might be and then, back to the open door that led to the concrete steps that ran down past the lush green grass on which the children were not allowed to play and out to the giant gate guarded by Horace the Giant who, like most giants, probably only saw giant things, like big cars and from out of them, big people.

  Alex focused on the tiny gap and he was like a sprinter, crouching at the starting line with his heart pounding as he waited for the moment to run. And he rocked back and forth and his nails scratched at the red plastic below his seat and his toes curled, so that, like the sprinter, they were on their tips and they were ready to bound.

  “Wow, Timothy this is wonderful” said the boy’s mother.

  The Boy, Timothy, looked at her. He knew she was overdoing it. Mothers always did. I guess it’s what they thought children wanted to hear. It was just a picture. It wasn’t very good. He knew that, but his mother, she either didn’t know art very well or she was just being polite.

  “Actually, this is Timothy’s picture here. It’s wonderful.”

  “Oh” she said. “It’s very nice Timothy. Aren’t you a smart cookie?”

  She was being polite. The picture was terrible.

  “What is it? What did you paint” asked his mother.

  The Boy, Timothy, said nothing. He was nervous, shy or embarrassed. He looked to The Teacher and he held her hand.

  “He’s very shy” the boy’s mother said.

  “I know’ said The Teacher. “Aren’t they all at his age?”

  Both grown-ups turned and smiled at the adoring children seated at their desks watching them adoringly.

  “The children had to paint whatever they wanted; whatever they thought expressed the words happy and safe.”

  “All the paintings look very similar” said the boy’s mother.

  Both grown-ups looked along the wall at every hanging colored paper and though some were painted with more skill than others, they all looked so relative.

  ‘Is that mummy?” asked the boy’s mother to her son.

  The Boy, Timothy, was still silent, shy maybe. He looked to The Teacher, holding her right hand with his left and staring at her with helpless eyes, without word and looking to her for some explanation and some definition.

  “It’s me” said The Teacher, a little embarrassed.

  She looked to the boy and smiled and he smiled b
ack.

  The boy’s mother looked at the pictures and they were all the same, each child standing next to a tall and slender princess with each child holding their princess’ hand and feeling safe and happy. And she looked at her son and he was doing just the same.

  “They really adore you” said the boy’s mother.

  “They really do and I adore them too” said The Teacher.

  Both of the grown-ups smiled and as the boy left The Teacher’s hands and went to his mother’s, Alex saw his opportunity.

  There was no time, he had to go.

  So he jumped up from his seat and swung his bag over his shoulder and he ran past The Teacher and he ran around the boy and he ran around his mother too. And he slipped through the legs of the grown-ups that were about to knock on the open door and he ran down the steps towards the concrete path.

  And the steps, they were so big that he had to dive onto each one and he was so sure that someone was going to stop him, someone was going to put their hand on his shoulder and say “hey what are you doing kid?’ and drag him back into class.

  And there were lots of grown-ups waiting by the giant gate and there were more now, being allowed past Horace the Giant and they were walking up the path and they all had massive smiles on their faces and none of them saw Alex, even though he was right there in front of them. They all walked past him as if her were a broom or a bucket, left unattended on the path.

  Alex dodged and he weaved and he made sure, in his escape, that he didn’t step on the lush green grass on which the children weren’t allowed to play and when he got to the gate, he stopped behind Horace the Giant.

  And he waited.

  And his heart beat so fast.

  And he took a breath.

  And he could see the shape of every second being born.

  And each second looked so old.

  And he wanted to run.

  But he couldn’t lift his feet.

  He knew he would be caught. The other children, they would have seen him run. They would have given him up by now. They couldn’t be trusted.

  He could hear a siren sounding in his mind and it could have been the because the school day had ended or it could have been The Teacher realizing he was gone and pressing a red button and he wouldn’t have long now, before Horace the Giant looked down and found him, ensnared him in his catching hands and carried him back to the classroom.

  “Where are you mum?” he thought to himself.

  Why wasn’t she here?

  Why did he have to do this alone?

  And his heart was thumping so loud.

  It was beating so fast.

  He saw a chance. He ran past Horace, through the gate and around the corner and past the rows of idling cars and he turned another corner again and he backed up against the wall and he dropped his bag to the floor and raced to catch his breath as the cool air swept up his fringe letting a bead of sweat run into his eye.

  And no-one had noticed a thing.

  “Alex?”

  Alex turned. His mother was standing at the gate, about to step through when she caught sight of his bag on the ground. He himself could have been any child, curled over into a ball, his head tucked in-between his legs, blocking out the world entirely.

  “What are you doing here?” she said.

  It felt like he had fallen upon shelter in the midst of a storm. He looked up and saw his mother’s concerning face looking down on him, the one where her eyes narrowed and the skin on her forehead wrinkled like an old man and her eyebrows raised like a drawing bridge at first and then, when surprise begat concern, they squiggled and squirmed about like two wriggly worms and her mouth then closed and her lips almost smiled, but not a happy kind of smile. It retracted like a firing pin of a rifle and soon she would either yell at him or she would take him in her arms.

  She had the same look as that time that he accidentally swore. It was a while ago but he could still feel the wraps she gave him around him bum when he thought of it. She had the same look now as she did that day, except then, her almost smile became a spanking hand.

  This time though, his mother crouched so that she was looking into his salty eyes and she wrapped her forgiving arms around him and pulled him close to her chest. Alex cared for nothing more than this, to be wrapped in the blanket of his mother’s love and affection and he felt so infinitely small for a second and it felt good to feel that small and it felt so good to feel that incapable and it felt so good to feel so secure, under his mother’s protecting wing.

  “What are you doing outside? I’m supposed to pick you up from the door. Did the teacher let you out?”

  Alex said nothing.

  The two walked along the wall with Alex holding onto his mother’s left hand while sucking his thumb and hoping that when they reached the gate, Horace the Giant wouldn’t notice them. But when they were about to cross the road, it wasn’t Horace who called them back, it was The Teacher.

  “Mrs. Stein” she called out.

  She didn’t sound angry. She called out his mother’s name as if she had seen her in passing at a shopping mall and wanted to say hello and not because this boy had escaped from her class and made her look like a fool.

  “Please don’t turn” Alex thought.

  But his mother couldn’t read his thoughts and so she turned and she walked back across the road towards the gate. Alex squeezed on his mother’s hand so tight that she flinched and she gave him a look. And so he sucked on his thumb harder and harder hoping something would change in the next second, hoping his mother would just walk in the other direction or that he’d suck so hard that his thumb would pop right off and his mother would have to rush him to the emergency room to stick it back on and they’d never get to know what she wanted.

  “Hi, Mrs. Stein, is it?”

  “Yes. Call me Chrissie. You must be Alex’s teacher then.”

  “Yes I am. My name is Ms.…….”

  Alex shut his ears.

  He saw their mouths moving and he saw them smiling and nodding their heads from side to side and every time The Teacher spoke, he could see her reach out her long skinny hand and just gently touch his mother’s elbow and they were probably becoming friends but he couldn’t tell, so he unblocked his ears.

  “But why was Alex outside? I was told the children couldn’t leave without a parent or guardian to escort them. Did he run out?” asked Mother.

  She looked angry now, not at The Teacher or at the school, but at Alex because this made him look troubled and undisciplined, which reflected on her morals and her parenting. And it made her look poor.

  The Teacher looked at Alex and rested her hand on the top of his head. It felt gentle, like a warm breeze and not at all like his mother’s that was squeezing his own so that it was bright white and crimson red.

  “It’s really difficult for kids at first to find their feet but it doesn’t take them long, does it?” The Teacher said, brushing his hair with her soft hand.

  Alex looked up to her and she was looking down at him and she wore those adoring eyes and her soft hand slipped from the top of his head down onto the cusp of his shoulder.

  “Say you’re sorry Alex” said his mother.

  He looked to The Teacher and she looked like a princess and she was smiling so gracefully at him and her smile said ‘don’t bother, you don’t need to’ and ‘I know that you care’ and Alex, he looked to his mother and he wanted so much for her to lift him up in her arms and to carry him away but instead, her hand tightened against his and she looked down at him scornfully and she looked as mad as his dog did, whenever he took its bone away. He tried to say something but he couldn’t speak and if even he did, he knew she wouldn’t listen.

  Mums never listened.

  “Alex, say you’re sorry now or there’ll be big trouble mister.”

  His mother pushed him forwards so that his chest pressed against The Teacher’s knees. Alex shut his eyes and he started to cry but it only made his mother’s voice more barking.

  “Don’t you cry. You will apologize to Ms. …”

  He shut his eyes and he closed his mouth and he blocked his ears. He held his breath and he imagined a vast stillness, a cool blanket of vacuity, swamping his thoughts and carrying him away, like a tiny fish, fractal in its vast ocean as it dangled from the palm of a child’s hand.