The Keeper (22 page)

P
ower went out at around eight
P.M.
in Bedford, and Danny Willow stayed at the police department to answer the phones. He received two complaints about Susan Marley. The first was placed by little Andrea Jorgenson. “I saw her in the park,” Andrea said. “I thought you should know. Please don’t tell my mom I called. She says I shouldn’t talk about it. But I like Liz. I always did.” The second call was anonymous, but Danny recognized Montie Henrich’s voice. “That crazy dead bitch followed Paul Martin to the park,” Montie shouted into the phone, like he thought maybe Danny had gone deaf since Paul had slugged him in the throat. There were other calls, too. A rabid dog was spotted drooling its way down Main Street, Susan Marley’s apartment had been trashed, and someone had even seen Ted Marley tilling the flooded soil in the garden behind his old house.

Danny was pretty sure this was the result of mass hysteria and booze. But he sent Roger Tillotson over to the cemetery to check on Susan’s grave anyway. People had certain ideas about that girl. A few of the local loons might have taken a can of spray paint to marker or worse, dug her up. Roger radioed in to say that while there was no graffiti, Susan Marley’s body was missing. The rain had shifted the levels of the ground, unearthing several of the coffins in her row. “You think there’s some sick fuck running around?” Roger asked. “Maybe,” Danny answered. “But we’ve got bigger worries right now, Roger. The state troopers are working on a jackknifed petroleum truck on I–95, and Central Maine Power won’t be able to get through with this flood. There’s nobody around but us.”

Twenty-eight of the seventy-nine people who lived in the Halcyon-Soma Tent and Trailer Park had once worked for Clott. Some had retired quietly, others learned about their severance packages over the phone tree just this week. There were the black sheep of the area, who did not pick up after their dogs, or who drank during the day. There were the dreamers, like Kate Sanders, who got dressed up every Sunday and then sat on her stoop, waiting like Persephone for a kind or not so kind stranger to carry her away. There were families who broke bread together on picnic benches during the summer, and children who played tag at night by the headlights of the trailers. Most often, they played the waiting game. They waited for jobs to open up, they waited for résumés to be considered, they waited for their shifts at empty restaurants to end, they waited for morning to come, and then for night, and then for another day. As with every place, there was happiness and sadness, though not always in equal measure.

At seven o’clock Wednesday night Danny Willow came to them with blushing cheeks and a bruise on his throat that made his words sound like whispers. He knocked on each door, taking off his hat and refusing to come any farther, refusing to intrude any more than necessary. He said that he did not know how much longer the land would hold, how much longer before their homes sank, how much longer before a mud slide came and took them all away. It had already flooded much of the valley. It had already uprooted the cemetery.

Thomas Schultz watched as Danny approached. Thomas had lived in Bedford for forty-six years, and though he still looked like a man in his prime, he felt old inside. It was the winters in this town, and the way the cold took root inside him and made everything still. It was the cans of Rheingold that he drank in the evenings with his friends, when always he felt there was something better for him someplace else. It was this contented life he lived (populated by the comfort of people he knew, and his two Siberian huskies Jack and Pete), and this town he understood, in which he was not at all content. But he was too old for regret, and too smart to tell himself that the fates had conspired against him.

He’d never wanted to be an artist, like the man who lived in the trailer next door and wrote poetry at night. He’d never had a true love or even a calling. But long shifts at the mill had given him enough time for fishing on the weekends and hunting in the fall. He hadn’t bothered to send out résumés or move to another town after the mill closed. There might be jobs yet here, or at the hospital in Corpus Christi. And he was in no hurry. Things moved slowly in Bedford, where there were no decisions really to make, because you did not know yourself what caused the burning in your stomach, or how to make it go away.

Thomas watched Danny knock on each door, mentally preparing himself for each person, making sure to remember every name, always taking off his hat. Just like a nervous bride. Would they please come to the church? Please? Danny asked them. He promised that there would be no looting; they could take whatever possessions they wanted and would be driven to Our Lady of Sorrow where they could wait this thing out. The church had its own generator, and there was power enough for heat and light. It was safer there, he promised. If it had been anyone but Willow, they would have shut their doors on him. No one but Willow had enough humility for the job.

Danny came to Thomas’s trailer last. He had instructed his deputies to wait outside the entrance of the park so that they did not intrude any more than was necessary: strangers on a land that was a kingdom of its own. Danny smiled uncertainly. He held his hat in his hand. “They’re not sure. I think if you go, it’ll be easier to get the rest,” he said.

Thomas shrugged.

“Maybe you can help me with Kate. She’s drunk,” Danny continued. And Thomas understood that if he did not help, that at some point they all might be forced to leave. That their trailers really might topple in the mud. Still, Thomas hesitated.

“Please,” Danny said.

“Yeah, I’ll help.” Thomas packed some things. Then he joined Danny and the two of them talked Kate into coming. “Here,” Thomas said, showing her the bottle of Smirnoff vodka he’d taken from his freezer, “I brought this for you. A present. Danny’ll let you take it to the church, won’t you, Danny?”

“Sure,” Danny said. “I could use some myself.”

They helped Kate onto the bus. The others followed. They sat quietly, with their bags of belongings in their laps, and not one person complained about the heaters that were broken, or mentioned the trinkets or wool socks or photo albums they had left behind.

When they got to the church, they were not surprised when their thoughts turned to Susan Marley, and things long dead came to life. They knew intuitively what the lucky cannot fathom: Sometimes things don’t work out.

W
ith a few very notable exceptions, not a soul was outdoors in Bedford by eight o’clock on Wednesday night. No one walked the streets, or tried to rescue trash cans rolling in the wind. They did not open shops on Main Street, or call friends, or admonish their children that although school was closed, there were still chores to be done and math lessons to be completed. Many had left Bedford. They’d gone on vacations to Florida, or on job-hunting expeditions, or fishing the coast for flounder, or they’d left for good, packing cars to the brim with loose items and speeding out of town. They told themselves they left because the timing was right, and because they needed a break from the long and bitter winter that had rendered them numb. But most of them had left for another reason. They were consumed by an inexplicable fright.

Bedford became something less than solid after Susan Marley broke her mirrors. The town filled with cold water and winter threatened like an impolite guest to stay forever. The earth flexed its muscles, tearing concrete and asphalt to bits. Trees fell into houses and slashed power lines so that by eight
P.M.
, everything was dark. The river gushed like a swollen artery. Houses moaned.

The same fear that compelled some to leave held others captive in their homes. They waited for the rain to end. They waited for light to return. No use repairing basements, roads, the cemetery, the sidewalk on Main Street that had been uprooted. They waited for what they thought they deserved, and when Susan Marley came walking down their streets, and shadows in their rooms became flesh, they were not disappointed.

T
he three of them. They could see through Susan Marley’s eyes. They saw a park at night, they saw the place where they were going, they saw a fire, they saw themselves buried underground.

Louise let the boys take the lead, because it let them feel in charge. Owen to her left, Steve to her right. They walked through the knee-deep rain, and past the uprooted pieces of sidewalk and lawns that now floated. They walked past ghosts; an old woman still angry at her parents for acts committed and imagined. She was all wrinkles and gray skin, and she banged on her father’s front door, even though the man was long dead. They walked past a rabid dog whose mouth foamed, and a crippled tree stained by old blood. They walked past William Prentice, who tried to hide the blood on his hands with fine white gloves, but the gloves turned red. They saw a woman in the park who walked in jerking motions, and they knew it was Susan Marley. Louise probably should have been frightened, but she wasn’t. She liked it. So the boys looked back at her and she smiled, they pretended not to be frightened, too.

At the mill the voices were strongest. A thousand voices, all saying one thing. The mill told them what to do. What they had always known, on some level, they were meant to do. The boys hesitated, and she walked to the entrance. Mud had slid into the valley and jammed the door, and she tried to force it open with her hands. Then the boys followed, taking turns. They rammed their shoulders against the heavy wood. Owen’s arm made a popping sound, but Louise did not wince. Steven was next, and then Owen again. They switched turns until the door flew open, and they went inside.

Water sought its lowest level. It ran down the steps and into the basement where dead ghosts screamed. Wet rats climbed atop tables. Old lockers opened and closed. On pieces of masking tape adhered to each metal door were names like O’Brian and McMullen and Willow. In some were sweaters and safety goggles that had never been claimed.

Voices filled the place. Old voices, new ones, too. Shadows of men who’d founded Bedford lined the sides of the room. They were trapped here, like all the dead. From the basement were even more voices. And below that, far underground, were even more. They shouted in a language (Indian?) she’d never heard, but still, she understood. “Burn it,” they said.

Against the vat were three industrial-sized canisters of the stuff. Sulfuric waste products. Owen and Steve were already opening them. The control box for the auxiliary generator was along the wall. She knew this. She’d been here before. In her dreams, Susan Marley showed her everything. In her dreams, she and Susan were the same. She opened the box, pulled two levers up, pressed the buttons below them, and the panel lit up red.

The lights went on. The conveyor belt began to turn. A flame ignited underneath the vat. The boys climbed the ladder and emptied the canisters into the wide hole. For a moment, there was nothing. But then something popped, and black smoke poured out from the vat. It funneled through the pipe of the mill, and into the atmosphere of Bedford. At first it was a little furl, and then a tuft wafting in the wind, and then like ink in water, in stained the air black.

The room filled with smoke, and Owen and Steve started coughing. They climbed down the ladder and tried to pull her with them outdoors. The voices in the room began to scream as if in pain. As if they were alive, watching the mill consume them.

Owen and Steve grabbed hold of her arms. Their plan was to run to the top of Iroquois Hill. To watch as the smoke circled Bedford. Then they’d clear a path through the woods and keep going until dawn. Maybe make it out. Maybe not.

She saw her future ahead of her. A clear vision. Even if this night had not happened, things would never be the same as they were in this moment. In five years she’d be a veteran waitress slowly losing her looks. There was no better time for her than now. “I’m staying,” she said. She’d planned this, too.

“What?” Steve shouted.

She smiled as pitifully as she knew how. Her lower lip quivered. “Please…” she said, “Don’t make me stay by myself.”

“Louise,” Owen begged, “it was a mistake. Something made us do it. Please let’s go.” The smoke was so thick that everything looked blurry. It burned her nose and ears.

Louise shook her head. “I can’t. I’m scared.”

“Shut up and let’s go, Weese,” Steven said. He yanked her arm and she slapped him. He froze. Then he narrowed his eyes at her and ran. He did not look back.

Owen kept coughing. “You’ll stay, won’t you, Owen?” she asked. There was water in his eyes, and she was delighted to see that it was not from the fumes.

She saw he understood what this meant, that he would die for her. She saw that he liked the idea of this, of loving someone so much you could not bear to live without them. “Okay,” he said.

Soon, the air became so thick that they could not see, and so they held hands as they stumbled into the locker room and finally sank to the floor. In every corner she saw a face, someone who’d once worked here, or laid the concrete for the building, or cut the trees, or been murdered for the land. They all sounded the same now. All one voice, shouting, screaming.

She’d thought that it would be quick. A tuft of smoke like the hand of God wrapping its fingers around Bedford and putting it to rest. An explosion. But instead the stuff crept into the air, withering it like nylon on fire. Instead, this hurt.

They sat together with their feet pointed out from the wall. They held hands. He rested his head in the crevice of her neck. “I know what you are,” he whispered. He was coughing, and so was she. His nose bled. She watched with interest as the hairs on his head and knuckles slowly withered into ash.

“You’re worse than
her.
You’re a monster inside,” he whispered.

A fit of coughing overcame her, and she covered her mouth with her hand. When she took it away she saw that her palm was full of black phlegm. Strange to think she was dying. She had expected someone to save her by now.

His body went into a spasm, kicking and jerking. He squeezed her hand so hard it cracked. Something smelled, and the legs of his trousers turned brown. In his last act, he took his hand away from her. Then he was still. His face was frozen forever into narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow. A look of hate. She tried to push herself away from the wall and toward the open door, but her legs were like noodles. She’d lost the energy to cough. Around her, the room was screaming.

She knew now why she had done this. It wasn’t just her dreams, or Susan Marley, or Bedford, or even wanting to have the boys in a way that no one else could. It was wanting, just once, to feel. Her life emptied out of her body, and still, she felt nothing, even as she realized, too late, that this was not what she’d wanted, after all.