Why by CS Jones

Why by CS Jones

“Why is the sky blue, Daddy?”

That helpless smile came across his face, the one that was never easily defeated. He pointed toward the fountain of water no more than fifty feet from where they sat at the park and answered, still with a little wavering in his voice.

“Because sweetheart, just as the water glistens blue below, so does the sky up above. I heard that the angels wanted it that way.”

She didn’t seem satisfied but nodded her little head to let him know she’d reluctantly accepted his explanation. Seeing a rogue drip of melting chocolate ice cream break over the rim of her cone, she stopped the mini liquid escape with a quick catch of the tongue.

“Why are those flowers so pretty?”

He looked down at the little one and back to his own ice cream, taking a second to think about how to get out of this while he licked a few spots around the rim of his cone. Then he remembered something he had been told so many years ago and decided to stick with that, even though it might just spark more of these questions.

“Because sweetheart, they need to attract the bees so they can help spread around more colorful plants all over the world…I suppose they also keep the air smelling nice and our eyes always looking for more pretty flowers, right?”

Again, she didn’t seem satisfied, looking at a patch of lilies near the small building where they had gotten their ice cream cones. She didn’t see any bees and wasn’t really catching any nice smelling air floating her way. She let go a nod just as before and went in for another lick of chocolate.

“Why do you always lie to me, Daddy?”

He was taken off guard a bit by this question, as it hadn’t been asked thus far that day – at least to him. He feared she would start up again, like yesterday and the day before; well since he had known her really. He cleared his throat and leaned over another few inches toward the little one.

“Honey, I’m not lying to you. This is what I know and so, I am passing my knowledge down to you. See how that works?”

She could see that he was starting to sweat already. Not from the early afternoon summer heat coming down from the bright, wavy sun that was piercing its way through the blue sky; not from the light glistening off the slightly rippling water nearby and slowly overheating the lilies in their patch; not from the fear and tension building inside of him that always found its way out of the adult once she started down this path. She knew he was sweating because he didn’t want to be just another dead daddy.

“Why didn’t you let me take more than two bites of Mommy earlier?”

He tried to swallow but only got a thick vanilla wad of artificial flavoring stuck in his throat. His cone had started to get out of control in the past two minutes of summer heat. He wasn’t focusing on catching all the growing drops of dripping cream with his tongue. Looking around at the others – the college-aged worker at the ice cream parlor, the man decades older than himself looking at his phone next to the fountain, the two teenage girls walking around the path leading into the open field of the park – he hoped that these would not be the last things he ever saw.

“Well sweetheart, I thought you would like some ice cream aft…after what happen…happened at lunch. And…and we just got you all clean…cleaned up.”

She could see the lies getting stuck in his throat as he stuttered out another stupid response. Just like this morning’s mommy.

Liars.

She did not want to be around liars. Licking all the way around the edge of the cone, she caught the sharp crease at the only dry part that remained on the sugar ice cream holder, which cut a tiny nick out of her tongue. The blood mixed with the chocolate cream and she let go with a smile. She didn’t particularly like ice cream, not the way she loved, she craved, she absolutely needed fresh blood.

“I’m sick of ice cream, Daddy! I want to eat again!”

She spoke louder this time, stomping her tiny shoes onto the cobblestone underneath the bench where they sat. He had given up trying to calm down, as he noticed the slight redness around her lips drip down to her chin and along her neck. Her grown up teeth had begun to come out again.

“Honey look now, you need to calm down here. We are okay, just enjoying the afternoon. Not like the other mommies…not like the daddies before. I can get you something better to eat. I can!”

His collar was drenched in sweat at this point, having decided that out of who was available, the old man on his phone seemed the easiest and most distracted meal for this little one. This little monster, this unknown beast disguised as an innocent.

Only two days ago he had been forced into this arrangement, as all her eventual meals were, and knew that he could not think rationally or conventionally about this abomination sitting next to him. A six-year-old girl she was not, and he was surely not ready to die by her hand, or her bite. He didn’t even know her name.

“My name is Samantha! And I am hungry!”

The bite came like a gust of wind that swung through from nowhere to knock you off your feet.

First, he saw her mouth stretch open, all the way around to her tiny ears. Then he saw her jaw unhinge and the separate rows of teeth fall from a pocket of flesh under her nose and rise from the ridge of bone under her chin. Then it was too late, for half of his face was missing.

Though the heat of the day was nearing one hundred degrees, somehow the gaping wound that ran from his right eye all the way beyond his left ear felt cold and vented, as if he had left the window open on a chilly autumn evening. Of this attack on the bench, not another soul noticed.

The last memory he had before succumbing to the loss of blood was picturing his own father sitting on the edge of his little boy bed, wrapping him up in a blanket when he had been quite sick as a child. He had asked his father, all those years ago, when he would get to be a daddy too. He never expected that job title would be the very death of him.

During a break from the bundles of teenaged giggles, going back and forth checking Snapchat on Melanie’s phone and Instagram on Chelsea’s, a little girl suddenly sprung up into the space between their strides as they walked across the grass.

“What’s so funny? Can I see what’s so funny?”

Both the girls, soon-to-be juniors in high school, looked down at the precious little one and simultaneously up into each other’s eyes as they slowed their pace into the park.

“OMG! She is so cute!”

Melanie used her phone and her free hand to cover her mouth in surprise at the unexpected guest. Chelsea reverberated her best friend’s sentiments and brought her phone to the sides of her face instead of the front to over-accentuate her surprise as well. The little girl was so cute, with her big eyes and what looked like strawberry syrup messed all around her mouth and cheeks.

“OMG! Isn’t she the most adorable little girl? Did you get into some treats back there at the ice cream shop?”

She looked up at the two older females and decided right then and there that they were perfect. She fluttered her eyelashes and gave the widest smile that almost looked too big for her mouth.

“I’ve never had two mommies together before – will you both be my mommy?”

The teenagers had never felt such warmth and togetherness from a random stranger before and the increasing heat of the day was not to blame. They both put their phones away, looking at the little girl and then back to each other, not too far from shedding tears at the flush of random emotion they’d encountered at the park. Melanie grabbed her chest and knelt to the little girl’s level.

“Of course, sweetheart! Oh my God, I think my heart is going to just melt away.”

She looked over at the new mommy who’d gotten down to her height and quickly stuck out her lip a little in disappointment. She didn’t like that thought – melting away – it was just like the stupid ice cream she’d had, and she didn’t particularly like ice cream.

Next the other new mommy went and did the same, crouching down, going as far as to tuck a bundle of her fine blonde hair back behind her little ears. Both were caked in blood, just like most of her face and her lower lip, which was all the way puffed out now.

“Why…”

Melanie could see that not only was the little girl’s face and hair covered in the red, gooey substance, but a portion of her sundress was as well. Even one of her cute little shoes had fallen victim to the redness.

Chelsea noticed something odd as well from her side, as if a part of the little girl’s chin were beginning to come apart – to open inch by inch. She leaned back a bit after releasing the slight touch she’d had on the blonde hair and asked with a little wavering in her voice…

“Why what honey?”

The little girl smiled as her grown up teeth reset themselves to their proper places for feeding.

“Why do mommies…always…have to…lie?”

—

Chris is a writer of Realistic and Science Fiction, as well as Horror and Mystery stories. Ever since publishing a poem in grade school in a hefty compilation of young writers for The National Library of Poetry titled, A Delicate Balance, he has felt the urge to create, though mostly on his own time. While working full-time as a property manager in Northern Virginia, Chris still finds time to create new worlds and stretch what his imagination can generate on the page as he turns 40 years old. This passion of Chris’s has urged him to begin publishing again, releasing his first novel, Simon’s Shadow on Amazon and now striving for his shorter stories to find a home with online publications.