Infernal Affairs

Sonja Cuchilla sits at the foot of a twin bed on the second floor of a Tudor-style house nestled in the heart of Montevideo, Minnesota. Specifically, she is criss-cross apple sauce with a laptop in her, well, lap, in the bedroom of Nathan Lake.

A cold, radiating digital light covers her face as a giggle escapes her lips as she watches some pathetic sandwich shop owner beat the shit out of “Blaze Claymore’s crotch with a meat tenderizer.

“Not much meat there to beat, Steve,” Sonja thinks to herself as she raises a steaming cup of hot cocoa to her lips and takes a sip.

Nick Stuart: GALLON OF MILK FROM BEHIND RIGHT INTO CLAYMORE’S HEAD!!!

Sonja throws her head back, cackling, as she watches the competitive fire in Nathan’s eyes begin to fade, standing there, soaking in milk, before trying shooting chocolate syrup directly in his opponent’s mouth.

All she can think is “Good. Lash out. Fight. Then let it all fade….”

The newly-appointed Community and Learning Development Coordinator for Montevideo takes another sip of her sweet drink, pretending to wince as Lemieux cracks Nathan across the skull with a portable grill before running the shopping cart down the aisles toward the check out counter.

“Such a shame…” Sonja coos. “Don’t you think?”

Her eyes flicker toward one of the dark corners of Nathan’s room as she points a claw-like nail toward the screen. Sonja lets it run down toward the keyboard and hits pause just as the cameras lock in on “Blaze Claymore” standing outside of Steve Lemieux’s shopping cart.

Sonja smirks and hits the arrow key, going frame by frame, as she watches Nathan’s head drop lower, and lower, and lower.

“Yes. YES!” she chants in her head, the response to a dark sermon being broadcast directly into her brain.

Then her expression sours as she sees “Blaze” raise his head - a smile on his face - as he extends a hand toward Steve Lemieux.

“No. NO!”

This she says outloud, first a whisper, then a shout. Then, with a violent grunt, Sonja slams the laptop shut and shoves it off the side of the bed with more force than necessary. It falls with an anticlimactic, soft thud to the carpet below.

“What is it going to take to break you?” Sonja thinks as she raises the hot chocolate to her lips and finishes her drink. Her eyes move from one dark corner to another, scanning the room she had made her base of operations ever since Nathan had so willingly, and naively brought her here and then, even more naively, invited her in.

The tip of a pink fingernail, sharpened like a pick, clicks against the side of the mug – tapping against the “W” “World’s Best Mom” painted on the side – as Sonja’s eyes travel the ceiling she had stared at nearly every day during her nearly three months in Montevideo.

Filling the vaulted ceiling was nothing more than a teenager’s altar to what every chad in the mid-2000s qualified as a “great” film

Fight Club Boondock Saints Napoleon Dynamite The Departed

Okay, granted, that last one was great, but a true cinephile would have Tony Leung and Andy Lau looking down at them from above, not Leo DiCaprio and Marky Mark. Such a damned shame so much of “middle America” closes its walls off to anything that isn’t whitewashed and formulaic.

Then again, it was “Blaze Claymore” we were talking about — Wonder Bread without any of the wonder.

Sonja lets out a dry laugh as she kicks her legs off the side of the bed and stands up, the hem of her hot pink, silk nightgown dropping to her ankles as she slides her feet into a pair of similarly gauche slippers. She makes her way to the bedroom window and peers through the curtain.

The streetlights were out. No longer needed since she had convinced the mayor after Nathan’s last infiltration attempt to issue a mandatory curfew – for the safety of the town, of course – with Montevideo’s finest — and dumbest — patrolling the streets after the sun went down.

No one was safe after dark, she told the Mayor - and then the City Council, which was true.

Just not in the way they thought.

A smirk emerges at the corner of her lips, as she looks down toward her empty cup and remembers.

She wasn’t the only one due for a refill.

💄💄💄

*tick* *tick* *tick*

The grandfather clock that Amy Lake’s grandfather owned - the one she remembered staring at during every visit to their house in Salem, and the one she somehow inherited when her own mother passed suddenly more than 30 years ago - chimes away in the background like a metronome begging for a concerto or symphony to match its rhythm. Instead, it only receives silence as a pair of eyes — open but vacant — look out into the pitch black of Montevideo on a cold, early December evening.

For all intents and purposes, Amy Lake is there. Somewhere, but what had begun as sporadic mid-day naps and missed alarms turned into long stretches of missing time. Was it October, still? Or was it already January? She didn’t know and could barely muster the strength to think about it more than a fleeting awareness.

She would float in and out of consciousness in waves - like a gale crashing against the rocks of the coast of Beverly Cove. Crackling lightning in the distance and a dark cloud overhead, but no light to guide the ships safely ashore.

“Oh Amy. Don’t do that; you’re going to hurt yourself.”

That voice. That THING’S voice. Sonja’s voice. All the same. Stacked on one another like the levels of Dante’s Inferno but presented as a layered cake from Ms. Emmett’s bakery.

Amy’s mind, what little of it could focus, follows the voice as the floorboards of her house scream and gasp under Sonja’s heel as she walks into the sunroom. A sunroom filled with night.

The footsteps stop directly in front of Amy, but even as her mind sounds the alarm, her body barely registers the warning. She feels Sonja’s cold fingers, her sharp nails, grab at her chin and yank her jaw downward.

A warm liquid coats her tongue and then her throat as her chin is forced upward, her mouth shut.

Hot chocolate. Marshmallows. And a cloying, medicinal bitterness.

A tear rolls down Amy’s cheek from her unseeing eyes as the warmth of the chocolate turns into a numbing sensation, and then a buzzing in her ears. A fog horn calling out in the darkness for something - anything - to guide her out.

“Your disappointment of a son lost again. In a match he designed the rules for no less.”

Amy’s heart skips a beat.

“I sure hope you weren’t planning on any grandchildren, Amy.”

A giggle.

“It is pretty funny though. Especially given he dedicated the match to his mother.”

Amy tries to claw herself out of the darkness, but every rock, every ledge is battered by the storm as layers of bile and grease ooze from their crevices.

“Just one more thing Nathan has lost… along with his sanity… his friends… his title… and soon to be his mother. All the result of decisions of his own making. I’d call it tragic if the whole thing weren’t just so fucking ironic. The Main Event? The Lighthouse? Nathan isn’t anyone’s savior – he’s a tumor. A malignant growth with form but no function other than to drain the life out of the people around him.”

Sonja’s voice sounds like a radiator letting off steam as Amy can feel Sonja’s claw-like hand on her immobilized leg.

“The world gives fuck ups like your son second, third, fourth, and even fifth chances to reinvent themselves while people like me are pigeonholed, told we are too old, too ethnic, too … difficult to work with. That’s not a sane world. Not a rational world. And in a world like that… sometimes you need to get a little creative with your methods, wouldn’t you agree?”

Amy feels her head being moved up and down at Sonja’s hand, forcing her to nod along.

“I knew you would. That’s why we’re so close, you and I. Like we share each other’s thoughts and finish each other’s…”

A pause. Silence.

“...sentences. Yes. Exactly. Because you know, Amy - you’ve always known what Nathan is: A failure propelled into relevancy by sheer inertia and apathy. An entire generation of try-hard, incel cucks obsessed with being famous for nothing more than existing. That is who Nathan Lake is, Amy.”

Amy screams internally. Atonally. To herself. And to no one else.

“And it is why he is the perfect avatar for what comes next — a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Not a blank canvas, but a knock-off Pollock painting where instead of every color of the rainbow being violently thrown into choreographed madness it is just a slurry of sadness, failure, and broken promises."

Sonja’s voice begins to become more distant.

“The people of this town hate Nathan Lake because he reminds them of themselves. Lost. Alone. Failures. And deep down they want to see him punished. Made an example of. Even you.”

The blackness. The nothingness. Amy feels it swallowing her. Suffocating her. The last thing she hears, now barely a whisper, is Sonja - talking to someone, or something, else.

“I’ll leave the rest to you. After all, I’ve got a big day tomorrow.” ☕☕☕ Lori Kilpatrick puts her hands on her hips, surveying the spread of hors d'oeuvres for the first December meeting of the Montevideo Reading Circle.

Artichoke dip? Check. Finger sandwiches? Check. Deviled eggs? Check. Chex Mix? Chexed!

All she could think was that this was not her — not the old her anyways. Lori had always been a homebody to begin with, but when Larry passed due to complications from COVID she really hadn’t been inspired to do much of anything, let alone have people over to her house.

But the Lord works in mysterious ways — as they say — and so, when this young, gorgeous woman named Sonja ran into her after Rev. Mark’s service last month, well it just seemed a bit like fate that she was putting together this book club deal. And Lori had always heard of book clubs and oh how she knew that if she was in a room of like-minded women she would impress them and maybe - just maybe - feel like she was something more than Mrs. Larry Kilpatrick.

Then Sonja was named into an important government position and she thought that it was all going to fall apart again, but when Sonja asked her to host in December? How could she turn her down?

*ding dong*

Lori claps her hands together and takes one last look at her immaculate dining room - untouched and unused in nearly five years - before sashaying to the door. She opens it to find Sonja, dressed head-to-toe in an immaculate pink dress with matching pill-box hat. It was like looking at a photo of Jackie Kennedy if she were alive and, you know, Hispanic.

“Lori! Am I the first one here? Please tell me I am.”

Lori ushers Sonja into her home, a 1940s Cape Cod revival with 1980s wallpaper and 1990s appliances. She watches with hands to her chest and breath caught in her throat as Sonja looks around, surveying decades of decor choices.

“It’s lovely, Lori! Thank you for agreeing to host on such short notice.”

Lori smiles and grasps at Sonja’s hands - they were cold. Then again - it was December.

“No, thank you, Sonja. For this opportunity and…”

Lori looks back toward the empty doorway with a frown.

“...is Amy not joining us?”

Sonja flinches slightly but then brushes at her hair and lets out a shaky sigh.

“No, I’m… I’m sorry. She’s still feeling ill - the poor woman. I think it’s all brought about by Nathan’s absence, truthfully, and with the news from last night…”

Lori scoffs, shaking her head.

“What an awful, awful situation… poor Amy. And oh, my dear, how are you holding up? I can’t imagine. Just awful.”

She watches as Sonja nods and forces a smile, putting on a brave face.

“Well, I understand a mother’s love for her son, but I am just … glad that this town is realizing what kind of person Nathan truly is,” Sonja says. “And why… well - you’ll see with this month’s book, specially chosen by yours truly. It will be a true chance for us to help this town heal and move on. Amy too.”

Lori beams with pride and joy, welcoming Sonja into her home like some sort of guardian angel.

Amy and her had always been close, but when Nathan left for Hollywood, it was clear how much it hurt his mother. But, to Lori’s shock, rather than retreat like Lori did when Larry passed, she pushed herself into the lifeblood of the town - volunteering, organizing community events, attending city council meetings. It was all wonderful, but somehow it just made Lori feel less connected to Amy - and the town. But now was her opportunity to make up for lost time.

*Knock* *Knock*

Lori’s attention snaps back to her front door as she skitters over and finds Noni Greenwald and Becca Charleston at her door holding crockpots with beaming smiles.

“Oh Lori! The house looks beautiful!”

“This is too much food! I’m going to burst!”

Lori turns back to Sonja who raises a glass of already-poured wine in a cheers motion as Noni and Becca place their meals on the table and then, in sequence, Mary Donaldson, Paula Goodwin, Donna Norwood, and Trisha Buckmeister all arrive carrying casserole dishes and tupperware containers.

As the women exchange gossip and pleasantries, Sonja watches from the corner. Lori blushes as Sonja winks, finishing her glass of merlot before calmly walking over toward her vintage loveseat and suddenly pulls her floral curtains closed.

Lori watches, soon joined by the other book club members, as Sonja continues to make the rounds, tugging close the dining room windows next, then the singular portal window in the entryway, and finally reaches into her clutch to pull out a silk cloth, which she uses to cover the arched stained-glass window on Lori’s front door - shutting out nearly all the sunlight from outside.

“Sonja, what…”

Mary speaks up first, but Sonja is quick to interject.

“Atmosphere, my dears! This month we are going to delve into something… forbidden.”

The women turn to each other, squinting their noses together in mock horror and giggling with curiosity. But not Lori. She keeps to herself, weakly thumbing at the stem of her wine glass as her friends titter and squeal like school children, gathering around Sonja in her living room, finding seats on and around the furniture.

Sonja looks up.

“What’s the matter, Lori? Don’t you want to find out what this month’s book is?”

Lori’s heart begins to race and her face begins to flush.

“I just… what did you mean, Sonja? When you said… forbidden?”

Sonja smiles sweetly and lifts a pink suitcase up from the floor that Lori hadn’t remembered her walking in with. She reaches down to the latches of the case and holds her fingers over them, almost as if she were playing a game - teasing Lori.

“Oh, I was just being silly — it's just something old and unusual is all. Historical.”

“Ugh, this isn’t going to be some boring philosophical crap is it, Sonja?”

Paula scoffs and elbows Donna who looks at Lori and gestures for her to come over.

“Come on, Donna! We had to read ‘The Shack’ as your choice last month – at least Sonja’s choice might have a little bit of skin in it.”

“Or on it,” Sonja mutters.

“What was that?” Lori asks.

“Just… stop being a baby and come here!” Sonja says, her voice deepening. “Or do we need to kick you out of your own house?”

Sonja’s tone is sharp; sharp enough to jolt Lori out of the corner, cautiously moving forward to find a place to sit on the edge of her couch. She watches as Sonja clicks open the suitcase, lifting the cover to reveal a collection of smal,l novella-sized booklets bound and wrapped in what looked to be dyed black leather.

Lori looks up and sees Sonja’s smile widen.

“Ladies… I give you your next obsession.”

Suddenly, all the lights in Lori’s house go out. As the women scream in shock, Sonja’s voice overpowers them all, shaking the walls as it booms from every corner of Lori Kilpatrick’s house.

The last thing Lori remembers is seeing something emerge, crawling from the shadows as Sonja holds one of the booklets high above her head, eyes wild and rabid. “The Jul'hoc Anillas!” 💀💀💀

When you decide to be something, you can be it. Frank Costello “The Departed”