The Graveyard Shift by Brandon Meyers, Bryan Pedas Page A

her cancer, perhaps things would have been different. But she had not, and I told myself not to dwell on once future dreams now broken. Things had turned out the way they were going to turn out and the sooner I came to terms with that, the better.
    I had just discovered something about myself. With Peter and Alison Dunkle gone, headed to parts unknown with their rotten brood, I realized that I was capable of doing more than just self-maintenance and upkeep. I was capable of protecting myself. It was an unexpected revelation, given that I had spent my entire life with the Evertons as a silent helper, a mortar-winged guardian angel of sorts. Never before had I ever imagined hurting someone living within my walls. With my old family, such an act was unthinkable. But, as I unfortunately came to realize through experience, there would never be another family like the Evertons.
    Within two months another family took ownership and residence of Eastlake Manor. In all fairness, there was nothing particularly bad about their manners, but I couldn’t let them stay. They were foreigners, and their native tongue droned endlessly through me like buzzing bees. It drove me to madness within two days. Coming from a superstitious culture, they were gone in three.
    Next came the Bandini brothers, with deep pockets and high hopes of stripping my body of its antique finishings for the purpose of resale. I upended their beds in the middle of the night, dragged them down the grand staircase into the main foyer, and offered them a closer inspection of my fine Tiffany chandeliers by dropping one inches from the elder brother’s head. They left that very night. The bank man came the next day for their bags. He turned to cast a wary look at me as he walked down the drive.
    The next time the sign came down, it signaled the arrival of the Lindberg family. They were grotesquely fat, all of them, including the solitary child. And to match their gluttony, they were vile people, loud and obnoxious and ignorant to their own coarseness. Therefore I felt almost no remorse when I attacked them during their first piggish dinner in the kitchen. I turned the room into a tornado of flying utensils and food. The missus took a serving fork in her back fat, and her husband caught a rogue paring knife in his thigh. The child was knocked unconscious by a flying apple, likely the first one he had ever touched in his life. And just as they had begun to attend to their wounds and count their blessings that the event had stopped, I started it all over again.
    That family, in particular, drained me of energy. Or rather it was what I had done to them. You see, I learned that my unusual exertions—the ones beyond standard maintenance—took their toll on me. It took days for me to recover fully from the kitchen table maelstrom. My memory had become hazy trying to recollect the rest of that evening, and the subsequent day. But, fortunately, by the time I did leave my convalescence I found that, like the evictees before them, the gluttonous Lindbergs too had left.
    They all left eventually.
    There were the Morleys and the Andersons, neither of whom stayed longer than a week. Then came the absurdly foolish Bradys, who didn’t stay two full hours. They were followed by the veterinarian, Dr. Rodriguez, whose pups dared to piss on Mrs. Everton’s favorite imported rug.
    And then there were a handful of others. But all of them were dealt with summarily. I did what had to be done in order to protect both myself and the honor of my family. And the more I did it, the easier it became. When one watches the heirlooms of his past tampered with and carelessly destroyed for long enough, he will come to understand the true purpose of wrath and the beauty of vengeance. One day, I ceased feeling bad about the occasional broken finger or mild maiming. I never inflicted undeserved pain on my temporary tenants. And I certainly never killed anyone.
    But the entire ugly process began to wear me