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The Unwinding House and Other Stories

Page 16

by Jared Millet


  Gertrude was the storm to watch. She came to a boil deep in the Atlantic and was already a Category Two by the time she swept Cuba. Labor Day approached, but so did the monster. The longer Lindsey tracked it, the more she grew convinced that this would be a Big One.

  She meant to leave before it hit. She’d planned to be well on her way to Indiana, or at least as far as Birmingham, and would have if not for Mrs. Babineaux’s sudden heart attack on the eve of the evacuation. The ambulance got the old woman to the hospital in time for the doctors to stabilize her, but they didn’t dare move her from the ICU.

  That left Lindsey to ready the gallery. The art show wouldn’t happen – delayed indefinitely on account of rain – but someone had to protect the artwork. The theater was sturdy, but the roof couldn’t be trusted. Once she knew she’d be staying until the last minute, she phoned Tony and told him to get Ray the hell out of Craft.

  The first of the rain bands struck as Lindsey triple-bagged the last of the canvases and sealed it with duct tape. There wasn’t any thunder, just an insistent, gentle hammering. On cue, the radio let out three high-pitched beeps and the robotic voice of the National Weather Service announced Gertrude’s location.

  Tell me something I don’t know. She stacked the last canvas in the ladies’ changing room, which was the closest thing in the building to a vault. When she closed the door behind her, the office phone rang.

  “Art Center,” she answered.

  “Lindsey? It’s Tony. Have you seen Ray?”

  Ice ran down her throat.

  “I thought I told you to get out of town.”

  “I work for the power company; I don’t get to leave. I gave him to my neighbor to take with her kids to Atlanta.”

  “And?”

  There was a pause.

  “And I called to check on him, and she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Says she hasn’t seen me in a week. But I know I sent Ray with her. I remember putting him in the car.” There was a tremor in his voice as if he was trying to convince himself.

  “You’re not sure.”

  “I’m not. I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve been dreaming about that woman you showed me. Do you think she got in my head?”

  Lindsey was already pulling on her poncho.

  “Look, we know where Ray’s going. I’ll meet you at my house in ten minutes.”

  The rain wasn’t heavy yet, just a statement of intent. Her grandmother’s house hunched beneath its surrounding oaks with no lights, no cars in the drive, and its lawn uncut for weeks. The place looked downright sullen. Lindsey stopped just short of the carport and waited. There was no sign of Ray. She’d called Officer Rice’s dispatcher, but there was no sign of the police either.

  Tony pulled up in his company truck and together they approached the house. Something growled inside and this time Lindsey couldn’t pretend it was the weather.

  “You think he’s in there?” said Tony.

  “God, I hope not.” Last time, she’d been certain Ray’s life was in danger. She hoped they weren’t too late. The door was locked, so she turned the key and pushed it open.

  Frigid air washed around them, along with a smell of liquor and tobacco. Someone shouted in the distance. Lindsey froze, but Tony took her hand. Together, they squeezed through the door.

  “Get that trash out of here.”

  “Trash!” Savannah clutched the wriggling bundle to her chest. “That’s your grandson, you stupid old man.”

  “That thing is no blood of mine and you’re no daughter. You should have stayed in California. You should have died in some drug den with the rest of the filth. That would have been better than bringing this disgrace back to your family.”

  Silent, Savannah’s mother wept. Lindsey’s mother, a girl of no more than fifteen, whimpered in the corner. In Savannah’s arms, a baby bawled. They were all drowned out by her fury.

  “You. Evil. Bigot. You pathetic little man.”

  “Get out.” Savannah’s father lifted a vase and smashed it against the wall. Her mother screamed and lunged for his arm, but he shoved her away. With his other hand, he gripped a porcelain shard like a knife. Savannah didn’t back down.

  “Oh, I’ll get out. I’ve got my own family now, and once Ray and I show our baby boy around town, everyone’s going to know what a black-hearted bastard you are.”

  Lindsey’s grandfather roared. The sound wasn’t human. He charged, the broken shard of vase like a knife in his bleeding fist. Savannah turned and ran, fear finally showing in her eyes. She barreled past Lindsey and Tony as Savannah’s sobbing mother shouted, “No! It’s not safe! The storm…”

  Lindsey and Tony staggered back outside.

  “What the hell was that?” said Tony.

  “Memories.” The house was full of them, more so than Lindsey had realized. She looked at Tony anew, suddenly understanding – the thin nose and angular face, a dusky reflection of her aunt. The familiar set of his eyes, just like the ones she saw in the mirror every day.

  “My god, Tony,” she said. “You’re my cousin.”

  He shook his head, more in shock than denial. “My mama.”

  “You said your father raised you alone. What was his name?”

  “Ray,” he answered. “My mother died when I was a baby and Pop said I was better off not knowing about her.” The ghost of their grandfather roared in the house. Under the carport rain pelted sidewise as the wind blew with a new fury.

  And there were Tony’s mother and son, standing in the yard. Little Ray wobbled in the wind, but somehow managed to stay upright. His face was as slack as his waterlogged clothes and his eyes were dazed and unfocused. Beside him, her white dress untouched by wind or rain, Savannah Destrehan ran her nails lovingly through his short, black hair.

  “Mama?” said Tony.

  With his shroud as the mountain snow, she said, larded with sweet flowers, which bewept to the grave did go with true-love showers.

  “Enough with the Shakespeare,” said Lindsey. “What do you want?”

  I want my baby. She pulled Ray close. He’s grown so big.

  “He’s your grandson, Mama,” said Tony. “I’m standing right here.”

  The ghost cocked her head. Lindsey didn’t think that her aunt understood. How could she, when she was nothing but a memory?

  Let’s go see your granddaddy, baby, she said. I can’t wait to see the look on his face.

  “No,” said Lindsey. “You already did that, remember? He killed you for it.”

  The ghost took Ray by the shoulder and walked him slowly toward the house. Tony grabbed him, but a blast of wind bowled Tony over and howled through the open door. Lindsey fell to her knees as a sheet of raindrops as sharp as needles stuck her in the face. Through the blur, she watched her aunt pluck Ray from Tony’s arms. The door to the house flapped like a monster gnashing its teeth.

  Lindsey dove at Savannah. It was like wrestling a waterspout. The storm rushed into her lungs and for an instant she was drowning. Then the ghost gripped her by the hair and yanked her away. Rain cascaded down Lindsey’s face and poured from her sodden clothes.

  Don’t keep me from my baby.

  “I’m your baby, Mama.” Tony rose to his feet again. “I’m your baby, not Ray. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you, but you gotta let him go.”

  Something clicked behind the ghost’s eyes and all the rage drained away. Tony? Little Tony?

  The door slammed shut and Lindsey looked around. “Oh God, where’s Ray?” She already knew the answer.

  The wind held the door closed. Lindsey braced her foot on the frame and pulled will all her strength. It ripped open for a split second and she darted inside before it sealed shut again.

  “Ray!”

  Windows rattled. Anger seethed around her, filling the house with shadow. She flicked on the lights, but they barely broke the gloom. Something heavy crashed in the living room. She was there in a heartbeat.

  The child lay on the floor, unmoving. He stared
upward as his brown skin took on a hue of purple. Lindsey’s heart lurched as she realized Ray couldn’t breathe. She ran to pick him up, but an unseen force flung her back. Her head dented the wall and her ears rang from the impact.

  GET THAT TRASH OUT

  “He isn’t trash,” said Lindsey as she tried to orient herself. “He doesn’t even know who you are. Why can’t you let him be?”

  NO BLOOD OF MINE

  “That’s right.” She lunged for Ray again, and once more the thing in the room flung her back. She could see it now: a hulking shadow like a child’s drawing of an ogre. Its humanity gone, there was nothing left but the memory of her grandfather’s hate.

  Memory. The house rattled again. As Lindsey braced herself, she saw that none of her grandmother’s knickknacks had moved. Despite all the violence, not one of them was scratched. If the house was full of memories, then there they were in solid form.

  On an end table sat a clock with a bronze frame. She picked it up and threw it at the shelf of figurines above the TV, smashing them into dust.

  Her grandfather roared. He swept toward her, so she grabbed the nearest lamp and swung it at an arrangement of commemorative bottles. They shattered with the smell of an old man’s mouthwash.

  The shadow thing pushed her off her feet, but it was weaker than before. Lindsey pulled herself up, then grabbed the footrest next to the lounge chair and swung it at a curio cabinet. It smashed, sending bits of glass into her knuckles as photos, medals, and dolls tumbled to the floor.

  The shadow ripped the footrest from her hands and flung it across the room, then struck her in the chest with all of its force. Her breath blew out as she fell on the coffee table. On instinct alone, she rolled to the side as another blow made the room shudder. With all her strength, she lifted the heavy oak table and threw it at her grandmother’s last wall of shelves, crushing snowglobes, vases, candlesticks, and old school trophies, sending the mess to a broken pile.

  Ray cried out as the thing let him go. Lindsey scooped him off the floor. Darkness swarmed around them as she dashed through the sitting room. Shadows tightened around her throat, halting her short of the door. She couldn’t reach it without dropping Ray. The thing that had been her grandfather tightened its grip. Her eyes swam and her lungs emptied and her knees shook and the child was so heavy.

  Light flung open the door. A mother’s anger in the shape of Savannah whipped through the air, and the shadow let Lindsey go as the whirlwind of her aunt’s rage tore the ghost away. The howls of battling spirits mixed like the roars of two steam trains. Lindsey dared a glance behind her, and the house began to grind. Couches, tables, lamps, and the old television lifted and plowed into each other in the ever-growing maelstrom. The very ceiling trembled and the walls began to bow.

  Tony stood in the door and shouted for her to get out. Behind him, police lights flashed. Lindsey didn’t need any urging. With her nephew in her arms, she ran past his father into the light of the oncoming storm.

  ~

  Despite the destruction, the Destrehan property glistened in the post-Gertrude sun. The house was a pile of rubble, flattened save for mounds where appliances lay buried. Bits of wood, brick, and drywall lay scattered across the yard. The trees were as bare as in winter, the force of the storm having torn off their leaves, but the grass and azalea bushes twinkled with the first dew of autumn.

  Ray played with a toy dumptruck in the driveway. Lindsey kept an eye on him while Tony surveyed the damage. After telling Officer Rice the truth – the whole truth – he’d closed her case file and promised to keep it under wraps.

  Even with Gertrude a week in the past, most of Craft was still without power. Tony had managed to get away from repairing electrical lines only long enough to see her and Ray off.

  “Thanks for taking him,” he said. “I’ll still be at work for a month before they let me go.”

  “You turned in your resignation?”

  He nodded.

  “We can’t stay here. I’d be too worried.”

  Lindsey understood. Despite the house being wrecked, who knew what phantoms still lingered? Better to take the insurance money and sell. Maybe the land would make a good place for a gas station. She didn’t know or care. She planned to leave all the money for Ray, but she hadn’t talked to Tony about it yet.

  “Where are you going to go?” she asked. “You guys could come to Indiana. In a few more months, Ray could build his first snowman.”

  “I might do that. Sounds as good as anything.” His cell phone beeped and he glanced at the caller ID. “Well, I’m back on the clock. You be good for Aunt Lindsey, little man.”

  Ray nodded and hugged his father’s knees. Tony leaned over and kissed his head.

  “You two take care.”

  “Same to you,” said Lindsey. She’d leave as soon as he did. Looking back at the house, she considered shuffling through the wreckage, maybe finding some undamaged trinket to take with her as a keepsake.

  On the horizon, clouds marred the sky like bad memories. Some were worth holding on to, she thought, but others were better off lost in the rain.

  Dying's Easy

  Stop me if you’ve heard this.

  A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says “Why the long face?”

  The horse says, “Don’t even start. We’ve got trouble. A priest, a rabbi, and an atheist are about to walk inside any second now.”

  “What?” says the bartender. “Here? How’d they get across the road?”

  “How do you think,” says the horse. “They followed the damned chicken.”

  It’s a pale horse. He thrashes his tail while the barkeep weighs his options.

  “Right. They’ll have to be sorted, then. Where’s your partner?” He nods at the horse’s empty saddle.

  “All things considered, he’d rather be in Philadelphia.”

  “Cute. Get lost before they see you.”

  The horse backs into a dark corner as the door swings open and three men enter, shuffling as if they’ve already had too much to drink. The bartender wipes a glass and looks around the edge of the men’s shadows to see what brought them to his place.

  There it is: a car bomb in Haifa, on their way to a conference on religious tolerance. It was over so quickly that the poor bastards still didn’t know what had happened. That was good. It would make things easier.

  “What’re you having, friends?”

  The priest slumps onto a stool and orders a beer. His voice is tired and Irish. The barman pours a stout from the tap, giving it a perfect, frothy head, and the priest takes a sip.

  “Begorrah! If that isn’t the best tasting Guinness I’ve ever had. I must have died and gone to heaven.”

  And poof, like that, he’s gone.

  The rabbi doesn’t seem to notice. “Excuse me, sir, but do you have any kosher wine?”

  “I have a Flam. Care for a glass?”

  “Yes, please.” The rabbi sips and says, “Oy, that’s so good you’d think I was in the World To Come.”

  And poof, like that, he’s gone.

  The atheist glares at the void where the rabbi had been and says, “What is this, a joke?”

  “What do you mean?” The barkeep holds an empty glass, waiting.

  “I remember the flash. It was a bomb, right? Now I’m in a bar, no idea how I got here, and my fellow panelists just vanished in a puff of smoke. Not to mention there’s a horse playing hide and seek by the dartboard. Is this really the best my subconscious can come up with?”

  “Your subconscious?” The bartender wishes the third man would order his drink. As long as he doesn’t accept his surroundings as real, there’s still hope for him.

  “Then again,” says the atheist, “what if this isn’t a dream? Dying in an explosion wouldn’t leave much time for hallucinations, and this one’s going on for a while.”

  “Look friend,” says the barman, “are you going to order something already or not?”

  The atheist shakes his head and
takes a stool. The bartender sets aside his glass.

  “Okay, so maybe I was wrong,” says the atheist. “Maybe there is some kind of afterlife. But this ain’t heaven, and I haven’t seen my childhood flashing before my eyes, so I’ll ask you again: Is this all some kind of joke?”

  The bartender leans forward. “You want to hear a joke? Here’s one. A priest, a rabbi, and an atheist are driving to a peaceful conference. Some whacko blows them up in the name of God. The end.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Here’s another. A priest, a rabbi, and an atheist are on their way to heaven, but the atheist cocks it up because he can’t so much as order a drink without questioning the nature of existence.”

  “Now you’re just being an ass.”

  “One more. The whole human race sits alone in the dark. They hear a noise. Knock, knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  The barman doesn’t answer. The silence stretches on.

  “So that’s it, then,” says the atheist. “Life really is a joke.”

  “No.” The bartender pours himself a shot of Jameson. “It’s a joke without a punchline. All setup and no payoff.”

  The atheist shakes his head. “It stinks to be right.”

  “Almost,” says the barkeep. “You were on your way to finding out what the payoff really is, but you made a wrong turn in Albuquerque and ended up here. Too bad for you.”

  “Why too bad?” The atheist eyes the whiskey as the bartender slugs it down his throat. The bartender sighs.

  “Because a punchline doesn’t work if you see it coming. So now you’re stuck here.”

  “Could be worse.” The atheist looks around. “Where am I, exactly?”

  “The bad joke factory. The substrate of human consciousness. This is the shared level of human experience where mankind tries to make sense of the senseless. It’s a lot of work, let me tell you, but I could always use someone to bus tables.”

 

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