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She ran ragged stumps over her calamity of a face. “You’re a bad, bad boy, Leonard. It was such slow work putting all my pieces back together. And my knowledge of anatomy isn’t all that it should be. I’m afraid it’s going to take a lot of experimenting before I’m seamless again.”

She sighed, a sound that came out more like a dry heave due to the numerous patchy openings in her throat. “Despite all the pain and frustration you’ve brought me, Leonard, I find that I still can’t bring myself to dispose of you once and for all.”

Hearing her words, Leonard was torn—almost literally—between hope of reprieve and a baneful wish to finish it—just finish it, you bitch—and end his suffering.

“Because you’re my one and only son, I’ll spare you this one last time. But this is the last time. One more act of treason and I’ll see to it that you suffer for all eternity. For now, you’ll just get a taste of that punishment.” Her diatribe complete, Mother mushily snapped her fingers at Leonard, and he collapsed in a silent heap.

Vaguely, Leonard felt the scraping and bumping of steps beneath his back and realized he was being dragged down to the cellar. The always-locked-and-bolted cellar, guarded by Mother like Cerberus at the Gates of Hell. At least I’ll find out what’s so damned important down here, a voice whispered insanely in his head.

The sounds of his arrival seemed to awaken other denizens of the cellar. A voice croaked from the distant corner of the blackened basement, rasping as though its very vocal cords were being stretched on a rack: “Leonard! Have you come to free us?”

“Yes, yes, is it finally time?” echoed another, burbling and gurgling through a liquid prison of some sort.

“Dad? Sis? Is...is that you?” Leonard’s voice cracked.

He was looking around, trying to make sense of the darkness when another voice, one that seemed familiar yet somehow altered, came from everywhere and nowhere.

“Dear Agnes. It’s so nice to see you again.”

A gasp. From Mother, it seemed.

“You’ve been so distracted with your little facelift, you’ve forgotten all about me, haven’t you?”

Perhaps more whimper than gasp in response this time. And Leonard was sure that response came from Mother this time. And he thought maybe he recognized the voice of the other speaker as well, although it...it just couldn’t be.

But just then Mother released her grip on him, sending him sliding past her down the stairs, his head performing a particularly sharp ricochet off the bottom step. Colored lightning zig-zagged across his vision and Leonard had a moment to wonder whether the light was real or he was literally seeing stars, before consciousness slipped away.

Some time later, awareness seeped back. Leonard felt cold stone beneath his back, a sticky wetness oozing around an epicenter of pain on the back of his head.

“Hello, Leonard.”

That voice again. He was sure now that he knew it.

“N-nana? Is that you?” He struggled to raise his head.

“Oh, Leonard. I’m so touched that you remember your grandmother after so long.”

“Where’s Mother? Have you...? Is she gone?”

“She is quite gone. I think it’s safe to say she won’t be plaguing you any further.”

“Oh, Nana...Thank you! Thank you!” Leonard was embarrassed to realize he was starting to cry, but the relief he felt...oh God, free at last.

“I wouldn’t be thanking me just yet.”

“Why?” Leonard asked. “What do you mean?” He tried to raise his head again, realized there was more holding him down than just bruises and stiffness. A moan came from somewhere in the darkness behind him.

“Your Mother was right about one thing. You’ve been a bad boy.” Her wizened, desiccated face loomed down at him out of the darkness. Whether spent alive or dead, the years had not been kind to Nana.

“A very bad boy. And you must be punished.”

Leonard heard himself whimper. The sound was echoed by a second whimper from elsewhere in the cellar. His grandmother’s face vanished back into the gloom, her steps echoing through the cellar as she tottered away.

“Nana! W-wait! I...”

“Oh don’t worry,” came the fading reply. “I’ll be back. Eventually.”

Leonard felt something like a fat, cold snake slither across his chest, and he started to scream.

He was still screaming when a weary but satisfied Grandmother closed the cellar door, her family together again at last.

Roger Range

HADN’T READ RICHARD Laymon’s work until some friends convinced me that I had to—they were right, it’s amazing stuff. Unfortunately, that was only recently after his death, so I never got a chance to meet him. But after hearing so much about him, that’s at the top of my list of Life’s Greatest Regrets.