The Prince of Apes

Prologue

James Hughs was a sane man. He was a sane, God fearing man who had always been loyal to his wife. He had always thought less of any man who had dared break so sacred a vow, until a month ago when one harmless phone call had come in. Sarah Jennings, that first crush that made a young boy blush had decided to pay him a phone call. Now Sarah Jennings was a name that no one in Iron Mound Minnesota had given more than half a thought about for years on end, unless they were her own blood. It had been just proud of a decade since she had left her family’s orchard to pursue that white whale in far away Tinseltown.

It wasn’t a mystery to anyone in town that she was talented, her singing voice was the talk of the school plays growing up. She had serenaded most every boy in school–As the new blood blossomed a few girls got drawn by her charms as well. Then she dared to bring her shining presence to far off California and she became an anecdote to most people. Most assumed she had become some waitress with delusions of grandeur. Innovatively finding clever ways to leech off of her affluent orchard. Others thought she had quietly made a gamble with the wrong man. They expected she may return eventually with a strange child. But at the end of the year long game of speculative telephone her mother proudly pranced into Church with a magazine. The image was unmistakable, Sarah Jennings was the hottest breakout television star and Mother Jennings beamed. She bragged so much that the following Sunday’s sermon had miraculously been changed from a celebration of plenty, to a stern lecture about Pride. Regardless, Martha Jennings was the Queen of town for a time as her daughter ascended to stardom.

It was with each passing year that Sarah’s fortunes swelled and Martha bragged for her. Sarah’s first show received a guarantee for another season and then another. Soon she had made appearances in too many television films to count before she reached the silver screen after just five years. The drama drew in more eyes than Leslie Howard and it made more money than her too. Suddenly talent agents had descended from their west coast high horses to prospect in as much midwestern mud as they could stomach, and the suits called her Midas.

Of course it wasn’t necessarily that James had ever expected or even wanted this call from Miss Hollywood big-shot. It was just an unexpected pleasantry at the time, a novel coincidence even. A woman calling the dusty old landlines in her town, and striking just the right one at the right time. James was no longer the awkward boy in men’s clothes she left among the crowd of well wishers. He had grown to finally become a suitable heir to his father and his farm, and of that he was very proud. He said as much to Sarah, who in her busy schedule of parties and pleasures could absorb little of Iron Mound except from the careful excerpts from her mother. Soon James had lost the first hour of many exchanging stories and oddities from the two stark worlds the two now inhabited. Such pleasantries came with a cost.

Through the following weeks he exchanged too many laughs and spent too much time enjoying himself. Unknowingly, he had lit a spark of unfounded suspicion in the beloved and fiery worrywart he had married. By the time James had come to his senses and attempted to regain some distance between him and Sarah, Chen had become suspicious. Chen, the most handsome, intelligent, addictive, intoxicating, and eldest among the Gao clan’s girls had proved to be the most insecure of them all. That was an ugly truth that had come ringing into James’ poor ears in the middle of an October day while his boys were at school. In an attempt to break the tension and explain himself he had stumbled into a line of questioning that made the two descend into nonsensical agitation. The agitation became anger, and the anger led to shouting. He had thanked God that the two finally had gotten too hoarse to keep at their apish argument by the time the boys returned from school. They were a cool presence after the exchange, and forced the two to act as adults. The school bus became James’ sentinel at 4:30 in the afternoon, and his condemner at 8:00 in the morning.

It was about another week into the guerilla war of Chen’s unfounded suspicions that an old investment bore rotten fruit. The cheap truck that James had hired in order to help bring his farm’s wares to the city, now splayed across the interstate just like its idiot driver. Flat on its face, scraped across the asphalt with gallons and gallons of its cargo staining clearly against the highway. In the case of the driver his blood might as well have been vinegar. The frothy pink concoction that he and the truck made as they bled together spelt nothing but more trouble for James.

It was at this point that the vice around him for the terrible crime of answering a phone call had begun to squeeze. Their savings had to be syphoned to cover the misfortune. Penalties and fees had piled up for the small oversight of not asking enough questions about the driver, and the company. Just when he thought he could recover he had made the mistake of answering one more call from Sarah to gently push her away, and not slamming his phone into the counter hard enough to flatten it.

A wedge between him and his love pushed them apart, and dark dreams once dismissed became the rule. He never imagined he would have to explain to his ten year old why he was sleeping on the couch, or ever having to wonder where his wife was. Her suspicions had become a terrible seed in his mind, as whether or not Chen had decided to right their marriage with a new wrong. Any escape from their troubles was impossible. The money he had to pay had killed any chance of escaping elsewhere, even if just briefly between the two of them. If there had ever been a glimmer of hope, it was drowned in bloody milk.

On a particularly chilly November night the situation had gotten bad enough that the arguments had leaked into the boy’s Thanksgiving break. Poor belittled James decided to head into town in his worn red pickup. Chen had glared at him through the doorway as he left their room like a wolf watching its prey escape. She couldn’t pursue without bringing the ugly into their boys’ laps. When he passed through the living room and saw them watching a rerun of some old adventure shows, his eldest son stopped him.

He was like looking into a mirror. His blue eyes, black hair, and his nose completed a miniature image of James. The two were so alike that when Chen saw the boy’s eyes she abandoned all of her previous machinations to name him after his grandfather. That honor fell to their second son Charlie, and instead their eldest became known to the world as Junior. Junior was always acute, sharper than his old man had ever hoped to be. His ears were like a dog’s, and his demeanor was that of an older boy. With a stoic and knowing look and damp eyes he asked a piercing question.

“Where are you going, Dad?”

It was a blow to the heart. His elder boy’s damp eyes held the knowledge that something was very wrong between Mom and Dad. James thought up a canned response and was disgusted with himself.

“A friend of mine’s just got some problem with his headlights. I’ll be back for dinner kiddo. I’ll even see if I can get some more bread for stuffing tomorrow.”

The cascade of lies stunned James as he vomited them out, and part of him was mortified as he kissed his boys on the forehead. The younger of the two, the seven year old Charlie was more blissfully ignorant than his elder. And so he sat perfectly content watching a black clad avenger swashbuckle and merely said a toothy “See ya Dad!” As he left. Seeing the younger of the two innocently send him off with his mother’s brown, almond eyes let off a twang of regret, which James was determined to drown somehow. He stumbled into his truck and drove.

The drive into town didn’t feel as long as it should’ve. He refused to let himself be alone with his thoughts. So with the aid of every Christmas singer that came far too early into November, James suddenly found himself neatly sitting on a lonely barstool. He never realized that he had even stopped driving until he was in the parking lot at Sal’s. As he entered the smell of cinnamon, cloves, and cream assaulted his nose as he watched waitresses rush around with the latest pumpkin themed drink. James didn’t mind as much, he just wanted to drown. Sal’s was a nice place even if it was a cheap bar. It was one of those places that James didn’t realize was a novelty. When he and Chen had bounced around the country for their Honeymoon he found that far too many holes in the wall were more like gunshots or dark caves. Not cozy nooks to have a conversation in.

Sal’s was different obviously. The Maniscalco family who owned it had taken homeliness very seriously, mostly because it was beaten into the descendants by Grandmama Liliana, the original Sal’s daughter. James had watched in horror as she had terrorized her children and grandchildren at various ages for a spectrum of impoliteness. Forgetting to offer food, water, not taking a coat or cleaning crumbs, etc. Her almost abusive training had rubbed off most on his friend, Salvatore III Maniscalco. As James sat at the bar Salvatore eyed him carefully, and for once he actually allowed his staff to attend the other customers. Before the usual graveyard rush could stampede in, Salvatore studied James.

“You alright there Jimbo?” Was what broke the ambience of scattered conversations.

Salvatore, a heavyset man with a clean shave and a widow’s peak of oiled black hair was an aggressively friendly bear of a man renowned for his conduct. He was known to make friends out of drifters in about an hour. There was an ongoing gag among his closest circle about trying to bully him into running for office. James’ had been honored with being the closest in Sal’s circle since grade school, and had never known Sal to have a loose lip. He was an unorthodox gossiper that way. He eagerly soaked and filed the information that passed through his bar and put most reporters to shame. In James’ mind Salvatore knew everything before anyone, even if they told him. In spite of that James feared Sal’s long memory, and was too ashamed to confide in his friend. Instead James’ answer to Sal came after a pause of unsuccessful calculation.

“I’m ok Sally. Just let me sit here a minute and think.” James knew that Salvatore saw through him, but Sal for the first and most inconvenient time had decided not to press.

Instead Sal left a shot of Pandemonium, James’ favorite, and went back to puttering around the bar and entertaining his guests before the midnight hordes came. Of men James had considered to be Chen’s possible mystery lover, Sal was suspect number one. The man had crushed on her all through high school, though his short lived tryst with Chen ended quickly. Even without tears to the shock of all involved. The idea came in weak intervals as James stewed in his frustrations. He always knew that Sal was a good man, and his loyalty superseded any of his own machinations. Sal had lost piles of money from his own honor. He'd always been content with keeping his place rather than profit and step on a friend’s toes. Salvatore Maniscalco was friends with everyone. James simply opted to quietly stare at his drink as his life’s sudden unraveling perpetually replayed in his mind. It left a sinking feeling in his stomach to be brought back so many paces in his life and to have his woman dress him down or baselessly accuse him rather than want to help. His marriage had devolved into espionage, animosity, and distrust.

James scanned the sparse population of the bar as he pondered his position in life. The wait staff outnumbered the customers at least three to one as they maintained their busywork to prepare for the graveyard rush. Among the few he saw drinking was Daniel Mannheim, a tailor who picked his pocket clean the week before his wedding. Most people called him ‘Fishermann’ behind his back since he was with his fourth woman from Duluth. The others hailed from Saint Paul, Minneapolis, Edina, Grand Marais, Milwaukee, one even as far as Quebec. Daniel was infamous for his various visits to the cities to take measurements for lawyers and budding politicians with suits as soft as their hands. That was the bulk of his money, as the rest went to competing with fast fashion to keep his family’s business alive in town. If someone wore new clothes, chances were he made it. If they wore vintage, chances were his father or grandfather made it. In spite of Danny cleaning out James, he respected his fleeting honor. He had at the very least given James the decency of sewing his father’s burial suit for a penny as his family always had.

His girlfriend laughed and smiled on the other hand, chewing a half living hunk of beef. Puppy love James thought. That or a woman appreciated a full pocket. A less popular nickname was for his home above the shop that his family owned. The ‘Dannymann Motel’ was renowned for hosting city women who got very close to the illustrious Daniel. The women usually left after discovering that his roots were set, and that Iron Mound was non-negotiable. No one understood why Daniel passed up the girls his age in town. The working theory was that he preferred skinny women with soft hands, and softer hearts. He mocked them in his mind as he pulled his dagger eyes from them and back to his drink. He scanned again once or twice, he wanted to make sure that Daniel hadn’t seen his scowl. Worse yet was for Daniel to think he was inviting conversation at all, and for him to approach with the newest contestant on the “Break Dan’s heart” show. As James scanned again, his eye was caught by a woman. She was another stranger among neighbors. A beautiful if somewhat gaunt woman with auburn hair and a petite figure. She wore a short black dress with a leather duster lined with fur. For a moment James tried to recount and see if he had missed one of Daniel’s previous women, but the count came up short and the mystery dame sat alone with her seltzer.

James’ mind began to wander, and descend into dark places. He wondered if the auburn matched upstairs and down, and scanned her petite measurements like a predator. He wondered if she liked dairy farmers who drank bourbon, and if he could get away with it. The scales of his mind weighed the fury of a validated Chen, and the approximation of the nude woman in his mind. The strain on their relationship had made their bed into Chen’s personal nest of nails while James was stuck on the couch. Water in the house that would not be drunk or drink for itself, at least with him. He pondered for a moment, and in his blank stare his eye caught the woman observing him. She had the look. The wordless “Try your luck, I’m open” written on her face. If Dan could switch them like gloves, why couldn’t he? James thought for a moment. It was far too easy, and that made him think of High School.

He was bored to death that year, stuck in a class that everyone knew was poppycock with a teacher brought in from Ontario to teach it. He had sat in that dreadfully uneven and cumbersome chair contemplating the needless complexity of it when he noticed her. Chen Gao, the girl who would be his wife. At the time he didn’t quite realize, but he had made the resolve to marry her over hell or high water. Her quiet demeanor at the time had driven him mad with curiosity. The bell’s dismissal of the class was like the sounding of a horn. The hunt was on. Of course the ‘hunt’ had really consisted of a year of developing his courage and dodging other girls until he finally asked her out. To think back to when he and Chen first went out as awkward teenagers. How the anxiety didn’t leave until they were married. Her pure white veil made it so that her stern father had to guide her personally. Her Father’s definitive stoicism began to crack as tears streamed down his face while Father Burnham took the vows of the day. The smile she gave him as they swore their fealty to each other glued his heart to hers.

James tried to ignore the glimmer of the past and focus on the dingy present, until he remembered the day his father died. Cancer had conquered what was once a robust man and made him into a tired, stretched husk. In spite of it all the man wore his smile even into his death. It was a horrible sinking feeling walking into his father’s house, but the emptiness was exorcised by Chen’s warm heart. The house that had been made too quiet by the death of his mother had been reduced to a cold empty tomb. But with Chen it was reanimated into a refuge with love blazing from the hearth like an inferno. That day of death had become a night of life when they conceived their first son. All the while Salvatore was nothing short of Olympian in the weights he bore for him. Salvatore listened to every doubt, every sob, and every hairbrained scheme as James picked up his father’s dimming torch with violent anxiety. Salvatore even planned his father’s funeral and took up half of its costs. Him and Josey, and Jack, all expecting nothing in return. The people around him were too good for him by far.

James mind then fixated on himself, how cowardly he had been by using his sons as a shield. Junior’s demeanor and fear filled eyes became burned into James’ mind. This was no way to father his sons. He had run to a bar with his tail between his legs after failing to win a screaming match with his wife. His wife who had been with him through every rough patch so far. James knew no man could call himself a good father or a good husband after such cowardice. Not unless he were a deadbeat. James balled his fist and felt his knuckles whiten with shameful rage. His jaw ached as he clenched his teeth. He could remember now. Every peek around the corner, every uncertain glance as she had watched him pay more attention to Ms. Big Shot than his own wife. How he dared to ponder the wiles of a strange woman like a dog. His shame filled his veins with hot blood as the realization of his neglect fully took hold. His face burned with hellfire as he abruptly turned and shot from his stool.

“Sally!” He shouted with a fist slamming into the bar.

His angered bellow summoned the ever loyal Sal, with an expression serious as a heart attack. That expression quickly soured as James blew wind into his face.

“Christ. The hell was that for Jim?” the discombobulated Sal asked.

“Smell any booze Sally?” James asked lightheartedly.

“No, you barely touched the drink. Goddammit Jim, you eat too many onions.” Sal replied with a sneer.

“Blame Chenny. Now listen here Sal, I’ll tell you all about this later, but I need you to know that I’ve been a fool for the month. Now when I get home Chen’s gonna bite my head off, and I hope she chews too.” With that he took a crumpled bill and tossed it onto the table to pay for his drink. It didn’t matter much if it had been a five dollar bill or a single. As far as James figured his tab ran up hundreds of dollars for what he had drank away in his youth. But in any case he wanted to be a good guest and pay for once. Sal confusedly took the bill and placed it in the waitstaff’s tip jar. Jim walked off, scant pairs of eyes watching him as he carelessly left with a smirk.

“The hell are you yappin’ about Jimmy?” Sal blinked confusedly and sipped the shot in a search for an irregularity.

“Sally if you’d known half of it you’d beat me purple. But if Chen asks about me on the way home, tell her tell her that I-I’m gonna lasso her the moon if she wants it! Or the sun!” James had begun to talk so fast that he was tripping over his tongue as his brain struggled to keep up. “Hell I may even wrestle mars down for her if she really wants it.”

“Why not Jupiter too?” Sal asked with his arms crossed.

“Too far Sal, be realistic will you?” James said sarcastically.

“Whatever you say Jimbo, but to call the joint when you get home. It’s colder than a witch’s tit out there, and slippery.” Sal ordered as he fingered buttons on the bar’s landline. New patrons began to flood in and chatter.

James turned and with a smirk hastily nodded to acknowledge Sal’s order before turning to push through the horde that began to trickle in for the graveyard rush: Younger men and women desperate for a stiff drink on the eve of a day off. As he pushed through the ocean of people, briefly hoping Josey or Jack would be in the crowd. He saw the strange woman from earlier as he pushed past. Not willing to be embarrassed by him writing her off, she found another drifter to flirt with. James overheard a mumbled exchange between her and the other new face, a passing construction type in worn clothes. Something about a hundred dollars that didn’t matter much to James. As he finally escaped outside and stumbled toward his truck, the fresh falling snow greeted him with a slip and a stumble.

“Shit!” James cursed under his breath as he involuntarily split and caught himself on the sidewalk. He chuckled. It had to be God or one of his angels letting off a warning shot.

He picked himself up as the beautiful snowfall became his adversary. He trudged and slipped his way to his truck as he pondered if trace fumes could lead to drunkenness. The thought entertained him as he unlocked the door so he could start its engine and warm the truck. No, James Hughs was merely drunk off of temporarily escaping his own idiocy and finally going home to apologize. After hearing the pickup’s decade-old heart roar to life he switched the truck’s heating to its maximum and gingerly shut its unlocked door. His frigid fingers pulled his phone from his pocket to call home. He hadn’t realized that he had stewed in an angry hunch on the stool for two whole hours. He chuckled, pondering what his personal eureka must’ve looked like to an outsider. As he scrolled to the contact of his wife he spent a brief moment admiring her picture. How beautifully her eyes sparkled through her sunglasses and how her lips were just slightly pouty. It was no matter what Hollywood or the world or even Chen herself thought. To James Macintosh Hughs she was the most beautiful woman on planet Earth, perhaps even in the whole universe. As his nostrils began to frost he suddenly remembered his purpose and called. The phone never rang, instead going straight to voicemail. James didn’t mind. He figured she was already asleep or on the phone, or still angry with him. He fantasized himself creeping into their home quietly and waking her with a kiss, kneeling by the bed and begging her forgiveness. He decided to leave a voicemail.

But as he was about to start talking he heard a voice next to him. A woman’s voice. There on the back passenger door leaned the woman in black. Seeing her up close she was off somehow. As if her forehead sat just a bit higher than it ought to, or how her eyes were unnaturally glassy. How she seemed to be caked in makeup and that her nose was wrongly shaped, and that her breath didn’t catch in the air until it was a foot away from her mouth. But that wasn’t anything compared to what she said.

“Who was that, Baby?” She asked. Her voice was insultingly sultry, a purely pornographic imitation of affection and sensuality.

She said it as if she were familiar with him somehow. As if they had been known to each other for years in some sort of secret relationship. The way she stared at him with her strange eyes felt more and more unnatural by the minute, and her lack of a smile was uncanny compared to the affectionately hungry tone of her voice. Before James had even the slightest moment to respond he felt something prick deep into his neck as a strong leathery hand with too few fingers gripped his mouth and nose. The hand didn’t even smell right, and he felt the cold liquid flow into his veins. The numbness followed quickly. As he quietly failed to struggle against his unseen assailant, the woman calmly took his phone from him. Each movement from James came marred with some new malfunction. Soon his fingers stopped responding, his feet felt like lead. His arms began to sag as each muscle lost its tension. Finally he watched in horror as the woman licked his cheek, and spoke at the phone.

“I know a place, baby. For a Benny of course.” Was all she said.

Her candy scented voice’s smug satisfaction was completely incompatible with her frown, and as James finally could barely breathe on his own she killed the call, and his lifeline with it. As the paralysis won and his eyes became the only thing left to his control, he desperately searched for a savior. The red curtains on Sal’s bar left only the silhouettes of human beings, and they seemed to taunt him. As James fell to the ground he saw the thing that had grabbed him. Drawing his eyes up he noticed the thing’s legs. It had been too skinny to pass for a man, so it wore padding in its pants. Just beneath the padding its horrid thin, hairy limbs could barely be seen. As he drew further up he saw its suit jacket, and the iron bars and motors that ran the length outside of the sleeves. It looked down at him, with far too many eyes. Soon the woman’s boot came down and wrenched his head to her, and he saw her razor sharp teeth in a terrible smile. James’ hardfought breaths stopped for a moment in fear. Each tooth was like a white scalpel. Her smile faded back into the uncanny scowl as his gaze returned to her, and she knelt down to hold his face in her hand as her accomplice scurried into the back of the pickup cab.

“Finally, a moment alone.” She said in a mismatched pleasantry as she locked something along his numb, lifeless limbs.

James felt his skin crawl as his limbs began to move on their own. He was on his feet again, his arm leaning against his truck and over the woman. Her face made an artificial smile as she twirled her long auburn hair with her smug glass eyes staring into his. Then she scowled, victorious as she studied him. Now to be seen was to be condemned by his neighbors. The woman said something again, whispering into his ear as he strained his mind to release himself from whatever held him.

“Your scarlet letter is here. But don’t fret Beloved. Scarlet is a far finer color for you.” She growled.

It was a guttural sound that no human larynx should have made. She bit his ear hard enough to draw blood. James could make no outcry. Soon his traitorous limbs had opened the door for the woman, and smacked her bony ass on the way in. He had seen the motorized bars of steel that now made him the woman’s marionette as she climbed into the truck. Each movement felt unnatural, rehearsed. Soon they were driving North and Iron Mound was becoming a distant memory. The creature in the backseat watched like a voyeur as the woman tore his sleeves apart with a cruel looking knife and carved marks into his right arm. Pain seemed to be the only thing he could feel. It wasn’t long after she had begun to carve into the bones in his arm that the searing pain was finally enough to force him to black out. His final waking moments on Earth were spent thinking about his family. Who would raise his boys, and what Chen would think of him?

~

When he awoke he found himself in a giant steel box. The box was well lit with floodlights. The pristine lights contrasted sharply with the dingy room that was caked with dry blood and the stale smell of urine, fresh and dried alike. Through one of the few small portholes behind him he glanced and saw the earth. Bewildered, he tried to stand and get a better look, only to find that he was collared with steel. His arms were cuffed and the chains linked them to his collar and then to the floor. A disgusting Iron mask restrained his jaw and prevented him from doing much more than mumbling, it reeked of bleach. He saw glimpses of his home through a window the way he’d only seen in pictures. Surrounding him in the cold steel box were about two dozen more men and women all chained to the filthy floor and to each other. No one person carried themself the same. Men and women of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Some of the more sinewy ones looked like they hadn’t slept in days and James wondered if they had been worked half to death somewhere on earth before they were shackled. He saw them all cower when a door opened near the end of the box. Seemingly the devil himself strolled in, smiling with sharp yellow teeth and wearing decorated black armor. His horns were long and curved forward, his poreless flesh red and shiny with something. His eyes were nothing but black globes of malice and where a nose ought to have been he had two wide slits. He lapped at them with a long sharp tongue and growled.

“You sit, you screamy apes!” He bellowed in broken throaty English.

James desperately ignored him and pulled against his chains. He felt his muscles strain for longer than they should’ve before a bright blue flash blinded him. Out of the corner of his eye James noticed the Devil’s arsenal as he struggled. On his studded belt was a cruel looking sword and in his fist was a coiled whip. The whole length of it looked to be braided metal. All it took was a crack of that unnatural whip and James felt warm blood pour down his cheek. His vision became flooded with bright empty blotches. He blinked rapidly to see again and desperately tried to ignore the stinging pain. Soon he and all the other people in that disgusting box were sitting perfectly obediently. James Hughs sat there and desperately wanted to believe that he was a sane man. He thought he had feared and loved his God enough, and that he had been loyal to his wife. He wanted to think he had passed some trial to return to her. But now he couldn’t be sure, because he was just given to the Devil, and the Devil was laughing.