The Keeper (24 page)

T
hey were growling again. He didn’t like the sound.

Thomas Schultz was circling the periphery of the churchyard with his dogs. Was this hallowed ground out here? Blessed by priests? Sanctified? He chortled to himself. The same cranes that had dropped the cornerstone for the church had built the paper mill. Like the rest of Bedford, this place had been blessed by no one. Godforsaken, as a matter of fact. How else to explain this night?

Jack and Pete were restless. Lumbering beasts, his boys. They’d started foaming at the mouth over the scraps of leftover donuts being served in the rectory, and he hadn’t liked the way they’d growled at little Andrea Jorgenson, so he’d taken them out here to run their fears ragged. Right now they were speeding around the church grounds, lap after lap. Soon, they’d be so tired they didn’t care about the strange sounds of the night. This buzzing. Or the smell of this rain, like old socks set on fire. What was that? Couldn’t be good. Sometimes he wished he was a dog.

The sounds of the night lulled him. He watched the dogs chase their tails, around and around. Dumb dogs. Good dogs. He’d grown up around animals, and he understood them. They were honest creatures. Loyal. But when they were cornered, they tended to attack. A frightened animal is the most dangerous kind.

As a kid, he’d found his black Labrador Curlie chewing on a bone in the kitchen. It was from bad meat he’d helped his mother put in the trash, and he’d grabbed Curlie’s mouth to take it away. Curlie bit down hard, and Thomas had screamed loud enough to wake the dead. Wearing pink curlers, his mother had come sauntering into the kitchen like every day was another problem she was perfectly capable of fixing. She’d kicked the dog in the gut until it let go of Thomas’s mangled hand. A tragic-comedy in one act, “Frick and Frack meet Frankenstein,” the story was named when retold over the years. Thomas’s tendon never fully healed, and even now he couldn’t make a fist all the way. The dog never forgave his mother, and always kept its distance after that. And his mother, playing along, told people that her foot was never the same:
Just doesn’t kick as good anymore.

Anyway, once he let go of Thomas’s hand, Curlie was cowed. He abandoned the bone and followed Thomas across the room, all the while whining over all the blood Thomas was dripping onto the floor. Probably didn’t even remember that he’d been the cause of the harm. Dogs were like that. Simple. That’s why Thomas liked them better than people. Their motives were easy to read.

Jack and Pete made another lap. They moved with grace through the rain and dark. Their eyes shone. Jack took the lead. He was the more nervous of the two. He barked when Thomas was gone too long, and he had a habit of catching birds and laying their husks across the threshold of the Gulfstream Conquest. Pete was the older one. His eyes were going, so mostly he sat by the stove.

They came charging toward him, and suddenly Thomas was afraid. Their eyes shone bright and otherworldly, as if they knew the wrongs he’d done. These perfect beasts.
They are godforsaken, too,
he thought. But then they slowed, panting and out of breath. They took their places on either side of Thomas and he pet them to let them know that by tiring themselves out they’d done good.

Through the gutter windows, he could see people sitting on cots in the rectory basement. They sat still as corpses, listening. There were sounds in the dark. Voices. There were so many that it was hard to understand what they said. Hard to cobble together his own thoughts, like sand that keeps sliding downhill because it has no foundation.

The dogs were growling again. He didn’t like the sound.

—Funny, the thought belonged to him, but he didn’t remember thinking it. Like a prescient’s denied confession, it lingered.

To assure himself of their innocence, he patted their heads. They quieted, and he realized they’d been growling. Some nights when he was down, he found himself wondering why he had such a hard time letting a woman stay with him for more than a month, when there had been a fair number now that would have suited his needs. He knew he lacked something. Some vital thing that made him need another person. Even Georgia O’Brian, when he thought about it, would have been a solid choice. That night she called, he still could not explain why he’d pretended not to know her. He guessed the boy might be his son. Strange to think. His life could have been very different.

On nights when he was down about these things he did not know how to fix, the dogs kept him going. They nosed their way to the edge of his bed and licked his feet.

Through the church window, he saw the people of Bedford. Their eyes were blue. Blue?

He thought about the things holding him to this town and knew there was nothing. He could go now. Tonight. Make his way to the top of the hill and through the woods. He’d been an Eagle Scout once upon a time. Moss on the north side: It wasn’t rocket science. Should he get the woman and the boy? Claim them as his own and leave this place? Right now? The idea excited him. Thrilled him. Yes. Leave right now. What was holding him here? And then the idea burst inside him. He was older than his years, and the woman by now wouldn’t want him. Leave now, what would be the point?

“What do you think, boys?” he asked the dogs. They looked up at him, warily, as if they didn’t recognize the sound of his voice. He knew then that they were hearing the sounds of the night, too. They were hearing the same things he was. But the buzzing was confusing them, and they were afraid. His mind played a trick on him, maybe, and he thought their hazel eyes had turned blue. Blue?

“Yeah. I think we’ll go. An adventure. You’d like that.” He rubbed Pete’s thick coat. The dog bristled.

He headed toward the hill, and the dogs followed. One on either side of him. Up north was town, and then the cemetery, and behind that the woods. His jeans were soaked. He shivered. This wasn’t so bad. He could do this. Didn’t mean he was going anyplace. Just walking.

They were growling again. He didn’t like the sound.

Pete began to growl again. These dogs weren’t as good as Curlie. Inbred, he guessed. That happened sometimes. It had taken him longer to housetrain them. Longer for them to learn to offer a paw or endure the attentions of a rough-handed toddler. Still, they were good company.

He walked, and he began to notice the night. Things crept. Shadows. But he’d known that. A part of him had known all along. Even before she’d been born, he’d expected a girl like Susan Marley to come. Chuck Brann was stuck inside a spider’s web. The more he struggled, the more he got stuck. White fabric like a bride’s gown enveloped him.

Thomas stopped. What the hell?

The Hodkin house was covered in ice. The street was flooded. The paper mill spouted smoke.

What the hell?

He picked up his pace. He’d spoken to Georgia O’Brian only that one night, but he knew where she lived. If he found her, he’d know what to do. It didn’t matter if she knew him, or even liked him. It he found her he’d have someone to protect.

He broke into a jog, and the dogs became alarmed. They barked. Siberian huskies are big dogs. They don’t need to bark, and when they do they mean business. The sound spooked Thomas and he started running. Something tugged on his jacket. He kept going, and then, suddenly, he was on the ground. Jack was on top of him, pinning his shoulders so he couldn’t move. Drool dripped from the dog’s jowls. Its blue irises moved in waves, in and out. The dogs did not recognize him. They looked at him like he was a predator after their food.

He knew animals. He knew these animals. In just one night, they’d gone feral. It had happened right before his eyes. Yesterday they’d been licking his toes and now they were wild. He knew what was going to happen now. A frightened animal is a dangerous animal. He knew what they were going to do. The voices told him so.

Pete bent forward. His jaws opened up to a black cavern that smelled like meat. Thomas tried to speak, “Calm down, bo—” he started to say, but the sound of his voice sent the dog into a rage. Pete gnashed his teeth and ripped out Thomas’s throat.

It hurt only for a moment, and then the adrenaline of a dying man filled his bloodstream, and he felt nothing. He watched with horror as the blood bubbled out from his windpipe, and the dogs began to feed.

They growled as they ate, and he didn’t like the sound.

B
ack inside the church, Andrea Jorgenson sat on a cot next to her mother. She’d
told
Liz something was wrong today, and even called Danny Willow, but no one had listened. They didn’t think a girl like her, a slut with high-heeled boots who lived with her mother in a trailer, was worth listening to. But she could feel something inside her. Something bad. She could feel Susan Marley inside her, and she wanted to get her out.

She started for the rectory bathroom. She’d taken something from the RV, kept it hidden inside her coat. Shiny and new. Its edges certain and perfectly defined. At night it called to her like a lover. In school she thought about it. The things she could do when she got home. The things no one would guess. When she was alone.

The insides of her thighs were a testament to her hurt. Things she never said. Things pushed down so deep she had to cut herself to remember them. She locked the stall in the bathroom and sat. Took out the shears. So big. But this was a big hurt. A big night.

Do it,
a voice told her.
You know you want to.

Was it her voice, or Susan’s? She couldn’t tell. Andrea’s eyes tonight had turned from brown to blue.

This would cut Susan out of her like a dark mole or a tumor of the breast. She knew how to do this. Unlike sex, she’d done it before. She pulled down her jeans. So tight that the zipper had imprinted itself on her skin. She wasn’t a slut. It was Bobby Fullbright who had started that rumor, and told everyone at school they’d had sex in the Kmart parking lot. Not that she cared. That wasn’t why she liked sharp things. She liked them because they were dependable. Solid. If you pushed your skin against them, you knew what would happen.

In the grand scheme of life, this meant nothing. A little cut in a world where people got sick, aged, and died. She would grow out of this. A stage, like any other. These cuts were nothing, and so was she. Insignificant little scabs. When she was afraid she could pretend to hide inside them.

She drew the shears in a line from the seam of her thigh to the underside of her knee. Longer than any cut she’d ever drawn before, but this was a special night. A tiny dribble of blood. Hardly enough, if she applied a little toilet paper, to soak through her jeans. So she went over the line once more, pressing deeper. Just a little. A little deeper. And on the other leg, too.

Only once had she really hurt herself. One time, the blood had not stopped for half an hour. Too close to an artery. The whole thing had terrified her, and she’d promised never to do it again. But one day she’d been alone at home, the safety pin had looked especially shiny, the old fears had faded like healed scabs, and she had started all over again.

Now she was bleeding, just like that time once before. It ran down her legs, all over the white-tiled floor. She looked at her thighs and caught her breath. Gaping wounds. So big. Her open skin like sails flapping in a sea of blood. They’d all know. Everyone in the church would know.

But they knew even now, didn’t they? Even now, they guessed. They could hear. They could hear everything. Then why didn’t they come to stop her? She was nothing, that’s why.

Do it. You know you want to.

She started to cry, and tried to mop the blood with toilet paper. It made the paper flower like red roses, and then disintegrate. Nothing. She tried to put down the shears, but they were stuck to her fingers.

Do it. You know you want to.

But did she? Maybe. Maybe she did.

As she watched, the scissors came to life. They were hot in her hands, metal coalescing around her fingers. Their grips held her firm. The blades became sharper. So sharp they sparkled like diamonds. So pretty.

Was this happening?

Of course it is.

She sobbed. The shears were melted to her fingers and she could not let go. Against (against?) her will they sliced. Her arms, her pretty face, her stomach, her crotch. Open wounds. Red. Arteries. Cut the long way, so that they would not heal. She couldn’t get out of the bathroom. She couldn’t stand. And then she was dizzy. And then she felt and heard the crack of her skull as it hit the floor. And then everything went red.

H
e hated the smell of burning. The very thought turned his stomach.

Steve McCormack panted, his lungs sore and out of breath. He’d made it home from the mill. Why Louise had wanted to stay, he had no idea. But he’d been wanting to get away from Louise for a long time. It was only tonight that he’d realized why: She was out of her fucking gourd.

And the fire, what was that all about? He hated fire. Hated the smell of burning. It was the worst thing in the world.

At his house, he started to pack a bag. Then he hollered for his brat of a little brother. “Joseph! Get your ass in here!” he screamed. The smoke would be thick soon. There wasn’t much time. They’d go to the woods. He hadn’t planned to take Joe with him, but now that he was in the house, he knew he would. Dad was off fishing for the week on the coast, and he’d been left in charge. The kid could whine like a little bitch, but he was family, which counted for a hell of a lot more that Louise Andrias’s easy cunt.

“Hey, shithead, shake a leg!” he yelled. He grabbed his bag and started down the hall. Where was that kid? Not in the room they shared, or the kitchen, or even the attic he was so terrified by (“I heard
rats
up there, Steve,
rats
!” he’d babbled last week like a little scuffling overhead was a sign of the apocalypse).