What else?
Yes.
A bar.
Good. What did the marquee boast?
I don’t know. That’s a ridiculous question!
You don’t remember the sadness you felt at the name of … the name of …
Of what?
The name of the band?
The band?
You read the name of a band slated to perform on a date already two weeks past. What was it?
I’ll never remember the name of the band.
Right, but the feeling?
I don’t remember.
Yes, you do. The feeling.
I was sad. I was scared.
What’d they do there?
What?
At the bar. What’d they do there?
I don’t know. They drank. They ate.
Yes. What else?
They danced?
They danced.
Yes.
And?
And what?
How did they dance?
I don’t know.
What did they dance to?
They danced to music. They danced to the band.
Malorie brought a hand to her forehead and smiled.
Right. They danced to the band.
And the band needed microphones. The band needed amplifiers.
Tom’s ideas lingered in the house like ghosts.
Just like we did it, Tom might say. Just like the time Jules and I took a walk around the block. You weren’t able to partake in a lot of those activities, Malorie, but you can now. Jules and I rounded up dogs and later used them to walk to my house. Think about that, Malorie. It all kind of happened in a row, each step allowed the next step to happen. All because we weren’t stagnant. We took risks. Now you’ve got to do the same. Paint the windshield black.
Don had laughed when Tom suggested driving blind.
But it’s exactly what she did.
Victor, he would help her. Jules once refused to let him be used like that. But Malorie had two newborns in a room down the hall. The rules were different now. Her body still ached from the delivery. The muscles in her back were always tight. If she moved too quickly, it felt like her groin might snap. She got exhausted easily. She never had the rest a new mother deserves.
Victor, she thought then, he will protect you.
She painted the windshield black with the paint from the cellar. She taped socks and sweaters to the inside of the glass. Using wood glue found in the garage, and duct tape from the cellar, she fastened blankets and mattresses to the bumpers. All this in the street. All this blindfolded. All this while enduring the pain of being a new mother, punished, it seemed, with every movement of her body.
She would have to leave them. She would go on her own.
She would drive a quarter of a mile in the opposite direction from which she arrived. She’d turn left and go four miles. Then a right, and another two and a half. She’d have to search for the bar from there. She’d bring food for Victor. He would guide her back to the car, back to the food, when she needed him to.
Five or six miles an hour sounded reasonable. Safe enough.
But the first time she tried it, she discovered just how hard it would be.
Despite the precautions, driving without seeing was horrifying. The Wagoneer bounced violently as she ran things over she’d never be able to identify. Twenty times she struck the kerb. Twice she hit poles. Once, a parked car. It was pure, horrible suspense. With every click of the odometer, she expected a collision, an injury. Tragedy. By the time she returned home, her nerves were shattered. She was empty-handed and unconvinced she had the mettle to try it again.
But she did. And on the ninth try, with the Wagoneer severely banged up, she found it.
She found the Laundromat on the seventh try. And because she remembered it from her first drive to the house, it gave her the courage to try again. Blindfolded and scared, she entered a boot store, a coffee shop, an ice-cream parlour, and a theater. She’d heard her shoes echoing off the marble floor of an office lobby. She’d knocked a shelf of greeting cards to the floor. Still, she failed to find the bar. Then, on the ninth afternoon, Malorie entered an unlocked wooden door and immediately knew she had arrived.
The smell of sour fruit, stale smoke, and beer was as welcome as any she’d ever known. Kneeling, she hugged Victor around the neck.
‘We found it,’ she said.
Her body was sore. Her mind ached. Her tongue was dry. She imagined her belly as a deflated, dead balloon.
But she was here.
She searched a long time for the wood of the bar. Banging into chairs, she knocked her elbow hard on a post. She tripped once, but a table saved her from falling to the floor. She spent a long time trying to understand equipment with her fingers. Was this the kitchen? Was this used to mix drinks? Victor tugged at her, playfully, and she turned, banging her stomach against something hard. It was the bar. Tying Victor’s leash to what she believed was a steel stool, Malorie stepped behind the bar and felt for the bottles. Every movement was a reminder of how recently she’d given birth. One by one she brought the bottles to her nose. Whisky. Something peach. Something lemon. Vodka. Gin. And, finally, rum. Just like the housemates once tried to enjoy the night Olympia arrived.
It felt good in her hands. Like she’d waited a thousand years to hold it.
She carried it with her around the length of the bar. Finding the stool, she sat down, brought the bottle to her mouth, and drank.
The alcohol spread through her. And for a moment, it lessened the pain.
In her private darkness, she understood a creature could be sitting at the bar beside her. Possibly the place was full of them. Three per table. Watching her silently. Observing the broken, blindfolded woman and her seeing eye dog. But right then, for that second, she just didn’t care.
‘Victor,’ she said, ‘you want some? You need some?’
God, it felt good.
She drank again, remembering how wonderful an afternoon at a bar could be. Forget the babies, forget the house, forget everything.
‘Victor, it’s good stuff.’
But the dog, she recognized, was preoccupied. He was tugging at the leash tied to the stool.
Malorie drank again. Then Victor whined.
‘Victor? What is it?’
Victor was pulling harder on the leash. He was whining, not growling. Malorie listened to him. The dog sounded too anxious. She got up, untied him, and let him lead the way.
‘Where are we going, Victor?’
She knew he was taking her back to where they came in, by the door they had entered. They banged into tables along the way. Victor’s feet slid on tiles and Malorie bashed her shin on a chair.
The smell was stronger here. The bar smell. And more.
‘Victor?’
He’d stopped. Then he started scratching at something on the floor.
It’s a mouse, Malorie thought. There must be so many in here.
She swept her shoe in an arc before it came up against something small and hard. Pulling Victor aside, she felt cautiously on the ground.
She thought of the babies and how they would die without her.
‘What is it, Victor?’
It was a ring of some kind. It felt like steel. There was a small rope. Examining it blindfolded, Malorie understood what it was. She rose.
‘It’s a cellar door, Victor.’
The dog was breathing hard.
‘Let’s leave it alone. We need to get some things here.’
But Victor pulled again.
There could be people down there, Malorie thought. Hiding. Living down there. People who could help you raise the babies.
‘Hello!’ she called. But there was no response.
Sweat dripped from under the blindfold. Victor’s nails dug at the wood. Malorie’s body felt like it might snap in half as she knelt and pulled the thing open.
The smell that came up choked her and Malorie felt the rum come back up
as she vomited where she stood.
‘Victor,’ she said, heaving. ‘Something’s rotting down there. Something –’
Then she felt the true scorching sensation of fear. Not the kind that comes to a woman as she drives with a blackened windshield, but the sort of fear that hits her when she’s wearing a blindfold and suddenly knows there is someone else in the room.
She reached for the door, scared she might tumble into the cellar and meet with whatever was at the bottom. The stench was not old food. It was not bad booze.
‘Victor!’
The dog was yanking her, hungry for the source of that smell.
‘Victor! Come on!’
But he continued.
This is what a grave smells like. This is death.
Quickly, in agony, Malorie pulled Victor out of the room and back into the bar, then searched for a post. She found one made of wood. She tied his leash to it, knelt, and held his face in her hands, begging him to calm down.
‘We need to get back to the babies,’ she told him. ‘You’ve got to calm down.’
But Malorie needed calming herself.
We never determined how animals are affected. We never found out.
She turned back blindly toward the hall that led to the cellar.
‘Victor,’ she said, tears welling. ‘What did you see down there?’
The dog was still. He was breathing hard. Too hard.
‘Victor?’
She rose and stepped away from him.
‘Victor. I’m just stepping over here. I’m going to look for some microphones.’
A part of her started dying. It felt like she was the one going mad. She thought of Jules. Jules who loved this dog more than he loved himself.
This dog was her very last link to the housemates.
A torturous growl escaped him. It was a sound she’d never heard from him. Not from any dog on Earth.
‘Victor. I’m sorry we came here. I’m so sorry.’
The dog moved violently and Malorie thought he’d broken free. The wood post splintered.
Victor barked.
Malorie, backing up, felt something, a riser of some kind, behind her tired knees.
‘Victor, no. Please. I’m so sorry.’
The dog swung his body, knocking into a table.
‘Oh God! VICTOR! Stop growling! Stop! Please!’
But Victor couldn’t stop.
Malorie felt along the carpeted riser behind her. She crawled onto it, afraid to turn her back on what Victor had seen. Huddled and shaking, she listened to the dog go mad. The sound of him pissing. The sound of his teeth snapping as he bit the empty air.
Malorie shrieked. She instinctively reached for a tool, a weapon, and found her hands gripping the steel of some kind of small post.
Slowly, she rose, feeling along the length of the steel.
Victor bit the air. He snapped again. It sounded like his teeth were cracking.
At the top of the steel rod, Malorie’s fingers encircled a short, oblong object. At its end, she felt something like steel netting.
She gasped.
She was on the stage. And she was holding what she had come for. She was holding a microphone.
She heard Victor’s bone pop. His fur and flesh had ripped.
‘Victor!’
She pocketed the microphone and dropped to her knees.
Kill him, she thought.
But she couldn’t.
Manically, she searched the stage. Behind her, it sounded like Victor had chewed through his own leg.
Your body is broken. Victor is dying. But there are two babies in boxes at home. They need you, Malorie. They need you they need you they need you.
Tears saturated and then spilled out through her blindfold. Her breath came in gasping heaves. On her knees, she followed a wire to a small square object at the far end of the stage. She discovered three more cords, leading to three more microphones.
Victor made a sound no dog should make. He sounded almost human in his despair. Malorie gathered everything she could.
The amplifiers, small enough to carry. The microphones. The cords. A stand.
‘I’m sorry, Victor. I’m so sorry, Victor. I’m sorry.’
When she rose, she thought her body couldn’t take it. She believed that if she had one ounce less of strength, she’d fall down forever. Yet, she stood. As Victor continued to struggle, Malorie felt her way with her back against the wall. At last, she stepped down from the stage.
Victor saw something. Where was it now?
There was no stopping the tears. Yet, a stronger feeling took over: a precious calm. Motherhood. As if she were a stranger to herself, operating for the babies alone.
Crossing the bar, she came close enough to Victor to feel some part of him rub against her leg. Was it his side? His snout? Was he saying goodbye? Or had he thrown her his tongue?
Continuing through the bar, Malorie made it back to where they’d come in. The open cellar door was near. But she didn’t know where.
‘STAY AWAY FROM ME! STAY AWAY FROM ME!’
Struggling to carry the gear, Malorie stepped once and felt no ground beneath her shoe.
She lost her balance.
She almost fell.
And she righted herself.
Her voice sounded like a stranger’s as she screamed before exiting the bar.
The sun was hot against her skin.
She moved quickly, back towards the car.
Her thoughts were electric. Events were happening too fast. She slipped off the concrete kerb and smacked hard into the car. Frantic, she loaded the things in the back hurriedly. When she got behind the wheel, she wailed.
The cruelty. This world. Victor.
She had the key in the ignition and was about to turn it.
Then, her black hair wet with sweat, she paused.
What were the chances something had got into the car? What were the chances something was seated beside her in the passenger seat?
If something had, she’d be delivering it to the children.
To get home, she told herself (even the voice in her mind quivered; even the voice in her mind sounded like it was crying), you absolutely have to look at the odometer.
She flailed blindly about the car, her arms smacking the dashboard wildly, hitting the roof, thrashing against the windows.
She tore her blindfold off.
She saw the black windshield. She was alone in the car.
Using the odometer, she drove the same two and a half miles back, then four to Shillingham, then a quarter mile more to home, hitting every kerb and sign on the way. Only five miles an hour; it felt like eternity.
After parking, she gathered what she’d found. Inside, the door secure behind her, she opened her eyes and rushed to the babies’ bedroom.
They were awake. Red faced. Crying. Hungry.
Much later she lay awake shaking on the dank kitchen floor. Staring at the microphones and two small amplifiers beside her, remembering the sounds Victor made.
Dogs are not immune. Dogs can go mad. Dogs are not immune.
And whenever she thought she was going to stop crying, she started again.
Malorie is in the upstairs bathroom. It is late and the house is silent. The housemates are sleeping.
She is thinking of Gary’s briefcase.
Tom told her to be more of a leader in his absence. But the briefcase is bothering her. Just like Don’s sudden interest in Gary bothers her. Just like everything Gary says in his grandiose, artificial way.
Snooping is wrong. When people are forced to live together, their privacy is essential. But isn’t this her duty? In Tom’s absence, isn’t it up to her to find out if her feelings are right?
Malorie turns her ear to the hall. There is no movement in the house. Exiting the bathroom, she turns towards Cheryl’s room and sees the shape of her body, resting. Peering into Olympia’s room, she hears her softly snoring. Quietly, Malorie descends the stairs, her hand on the railing.
She goes to the kitchen and turns the light on over the stove. It is dim and hums softly. But it’s enough. Entering the living room, Malorie sees Victor’s eyes looking back at her. Felix is asleep on the couch. The space on the floor usually occupied by Tom is vacant.
Passing through the kitchen, she approaches the dining room. The stove’s muted light reaches just far enough so that she can see Gary’s body lying on the floor. He’s on his back, asleep.
She thinks.
The briefcase leans against the wall, within arm’s reach of his body.
Softly, Malorie treads across the dining room. Floorboards creak under her weight. She stops and stares intently at his bearded, gaping mouth. He wheezes a bit, steady and slow. Holding her breath, she takes a final step towards him and stops. Hovering above him, she watches closely without moving.
She kneels.
Gary snorts. Her heart flutters. She waits.
To get the briefcase she must reach across his chest. Her arm dangles inches from his shirt as he slumbers. Her fingers grasp the handle when he snorts again. She turns.
He is staring at her.
Malorie freezes. She scans both of his eyes.
She exhales softly. His eyes are not open. Shadows fooled her.
Swiftly, she lifts the briefcase, rises, and leaves the room.
At the cellar door, she stops and listens. She hears no movement from the dining room. The cellar door opens quietly and slowly, but she can’t help the whine of the hinges. It sounds louder than it usually does. As if the whole house is slowly creaking open.
And with just enough room to enter, she slips inside. The house is silent again.
She slowly descends the stairs down to the dirt floor.
She’s nervous; it takes her too long to find the string for the light bulb. When she does, the room gushes with bright yellow light. Too bright. Like it might wake Cheryl, sleeping two floors above.
Glancing around the room, she waits.
She can hear her own laboured breathing. Nothing else.
Her body aches. She needs to rest. But right now, she only wants to see what Gary brought with him.
Stepping to the wooden stool, she sits.
She clicks open the briefcase.
Inside she sees a worn toothbrush.
Socks.
T-shirts.
A dress shirt.
Deodorant.
Bird Box Page 16