Paleo / The Doomsday Prepper

by David Liss

  “My condolences,” he said, flopping on the couch next to her, letting their legs touch. He was not about to be drawn into a fight.

  Jenny shoved herself away from him, a short, quick reflex like a snake lashing out. “He told me you’re being sued.”

  Pete said nothing for a good long time. He stared ahead, trying to figure out how he was going to finesse this, trying to figure out why, exactly, his buzz was gone when only seconds before he’d felt pretty good.

  “Well,” Jenny demanded.

  A rapid succession of thoughts flashed through Pete’s mind. He could tell her to mind her own damn business. He could explain that he was the man of the house, that he earned the bread, and that he didn’t have to tell her about what went on with his work. Was he supposed to report on every rusty nail that scraped his arm, every time he breathed in a lungful of asbestos? These all seemed like reasonable approaches, but they weren’t the way he wanted to go.

  “I didn’t want to worry you,” he said, his voice soft.

  “Goddamnit!” she shouted, slamming down her glass. She stood up and began to pace around the room. “Just how fucked are we?”

  “I have it under control,” he said, knowing that the key here was to believe it, so as to make it believable.

  “That’s not what Rick says,”

  “How the hell does Rick Hudson know, and why is he telling you?”

  “A friend of his, a lawyer, mentioned it to him at the health club.” A place you never go, was implied there, given that she didn’t know anything about the ass-kicking he’d taken today at HyperStrong. “He thought maybe, as your wife, I ought to be informed of this sort of thing. This is my life we’re talking about.”

  Pete just shook his head. It occurred to him that there was no sympathy here. There was no, Oh, honey, you can tell me anything. It was all about her. Jenny wanted to know how Pete’s personal and professional ass-fucking was going to affect her ability to buy useless garbage. Pete had tried to do this the nice way, to be all emotional and communicative, but that wasn’t getting him anything. Doing what other people wanted him to do was never going to get him anything. Maybe it was time to stop trying.

  “Rick says—” Jenny began.

  “What do you say we tell Rick to mind his own business?”

  “What about my business?” Jenny demanded.

  Pete got up and went over to the fridge to grab a beer. “Couldn’t tell you,” he said. “When you actually have some, you be sure to let me know.”

  * * *

  Pete stayed up drinking hours after Jenny stomped to the bedroom and turned out the light. Each can he put back felt like an act of defiance, against Jenny, against William, against sneering Jordanette, and against the caveman spirits. While he was at it, he was defying Candi Watson and Rick Hudson as well, though how was not quite clear to him. Not that it mattered. Fuck them. When he finally went to bed, it was with the feeling that he had no idea what could happen next.

  It turned out to be a ghost dog. That’s what could happen next.

  It jumped on him in the middle of the night and, contrary to what Pete would have expected from ghost dog teeth, tried to tear his throat out.

  He awoke with the sudden feeling of a weight landing on his chest, and then the head of breath bearing down on him. He knew it was their dead dog, Howard, though he couldn’t have said how. It was just something he understood – that it had returned, and it was angry. There were slashes, painful tears, as claws scrambled for purchase, tearing through his pajama top. In the ambient light of the bedroom, Pete could see there was nothing there, but he could feel it and he could smell it, and he knew exactly what it was.

  Pete put out his hands defensively as this thing, this mass of pressure and will and anger, moved toward him. Sharp teeth grazed at the skin of his throat. The stench of rot and sour breath filled his nostrils. This thing he couldn’t see was moving in to kill him. He knew he must have looked ridiculous, lying in bed, flailing around next to his impossibly still-sleeping wife, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want her to wake up and find him, his throat torn out, lying dead next to her. The thing strained toward him, its teeth moving in for the kill, and in a sudden burst of power from his HyperStrong-sore muscles, Pete managed to toss the animal off him, to his left, which happened to be Jenny’s side of the bed.

  In spite of Pete’s struggles and his grunts, Jenny had still not stirred, but the dog’s ghost nails raked her cheek as it flew, cutting three big gashes in her flesh. Jenny awoke with a start, sitting up, shouting.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded, putting her hand to her cheek. She switched on the light, glaring at him, the jagged lines across her left cheek just beginning to bloom.

  Pete, who knew he must look crazed, with his hair wild, his pajamas askew, said nothing at first. He listened, waiting to hear the ghost dog, to figure out what angle it would choose for its next attack, but nothing came. Jenny started to speak again, but he shushed her, holding up a hand.

  There was nothing. Just the distant hum of the air conditioner and his own panting breath. Howard had gone.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jenny demanded.

  Pete opened his mouth, but he knew the ghost dog story was not going to carry a whole lot of weight. Instead he shook his head and gasped for air like a freshly caught fish.

  “I had a dream,” he finally managed.

  “A dream?” She pressed a finger to her cheek and looked at the glistening drops of blood that jiggled on the tip. “A dream?”

  “That’s what I said,” he told her calmly, like she was the crazy one, like his own clothes weren’t torn and he didn’t have bloody scratches covering his chest. “I’m sorry I got you.”

  “No you’re not,” she insisted. “This is – what? Payback?”

  He reached out for her. “Jenny…”

  She backed out of bed, like he was some kind of a sicko, like he’d scratched her in her sleep to be cruel. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “This is… this is abuse.”

  “It was an accident,” Pete said, feeling himself get angry that he had to lie about it. It wasn’t even as much his fault as if it had been an accident, and she ought to believe him. What, in all their years together, would make her believe he would deliberately, in the dead of night, scratch her cheek? It should be obvious to her that he wouldn’t hurt her, and if he were going to, is this really how he would go about it? “Let me help you clean up.”

  “Fuck you,” she said. “I’m calling the police. And this much I promise you. This is the last time you’ll ever do this to me. And don’t expect to be let near Addison ever again.”

  “What?” Pete cried. “I’d never hurt Addison.”

  “But you’d hurt me?”

  Pete felt overwhelmed by her logic. He couldn’t find words.

  “Don’t worry, Pete,” she said, mustering all the bitterness at her disposal, which was not an inconsiderable amount. “You won’t have the chance. I’ll make sure you never see either of us except through metal bars.”

  He watched, helpless, as she picked up the phone. There was blood on his own fingers, he didn’t know if it was hers or the dog’s, and he stared at it dumfounded as Jenny pushed three buttons on the phone.

  A strange kind of clarity overtook him. This was real, here and now, and she was actually doing it. She was calling 911, and they were going to arrest him. He was going to be fingerprinted and put in the county jail, and he would have to get a lawyer. There would be more financial ruin, and his life, as he knew it, would be over. No matter how things shook out, no matter if the charges were dropped, he would still be the guy who attacked his wife. His marriage was done. Could Jenny really keep him from seeing his daughter? Even if she couldn’t, his relationship with Addison would never be the same again. Her revulsion toward him wouldn’t be simply ordinary adolescent hormonal irritation. She would think her father was a creep and a psycho, someone to shun. Pete was watching everything he cared about unravel.


  He didn’t know why he did it – some weird instinct, a memory of something powerful and effective – but while she held the phone he quickly moved his finger on the headboard, making the same symbols William had made on the stone altar. Using his own blood he made the three spiraling circles, and in their center, a handprint. Even as he was doing it, he felt like he was being foolish, giving Jenny more ammunition to claim he was insane. He was painting in his own blood! But it also felt like taking care of business, like doing what had to get done, so he finished the task.

  “Nine-one-one,” he heard over the line. “What’s your emergency?”

  “I’m sorry,” Jenny said. “I made a mistake.”

  She hung up the phone as if in a dream. She sat there, her hands in her lap, looking at Pete, and suddenly not angry. She looked – he didn’t quite know – like she was waiting for something. Orders, maybe? It was worth a shot.

  “Can I help you clean up that scratch?” he asked her.

  “Please,” she said.

  He took her hand and led her to the bathroom. With a washcloth dipped in warm water, he gently dabbed at the scratches. He had deliberately chosen white washcloths to see if she’d complain about staining them, but Jenny said nothing. When he was finished, Jenny stood over the sink, impassive, while pink water swirled down the drain, and then remained still while Pete dabbed on some antibiotic cream. The scratches were broad, but not deep, and they would be healed in a few days.

  They both changed into fresh night clothes. They straightened out the bed clothes, making the scene of the crime look neat, like nothing had happened. Jenny fell asleep crying, letting Pete hold her.

  * * *

  The next morning, the magic caveman symbol was hard to discern on the wooden headboard, but the power still seemed to be in effect. Jenny walked around in a daze, getting breakfast for her family, making small talk, smiling, but seeming to be distracted. She had loaded a ton of makeup on top of her wounds, and they were all but invisible unless you knew what to look for.

  Pete was glad she wasn’t angry with him anymore, but she was also not terribly communicative. He didn’t mind the end of hostilities, but Pete didn’t want a robot wife. He wanted the old Jenny back, and if he had to keep making caveman symbols in blood to do that, it was a price he was willing to pay, but all the paleo magic in the world couldn’t make her into something she wasn’t. Pete had the feeling the Jenny from the previous night – angry, resentful, nasty – was still in there, trapped beneath this creepy compliance, pounding on the invisible glass of her consciousness. He had turned his wife into a prisoner in her own body.

  He felt like crap about robbing his wife of her free will, of making her, against her nature, a servant to his whims, but he’d deal with that later. Best to take things one step at a time.

  Addison got off to school, and Jenny went off to the bedroom to sit quietly and stare into space. Her face had begun to twitch, like the power of the symbol was wearing off, so Pete figured it was time to get the hell out of there before she realized he had used some sort of evil trick to help her clean her wounds. Then the yelling would begin again. Pete got into his truck and made it as far as the end of the driveway when he stopped.

  Something didn’t sit right with him about the argument from the previous night. It made no sense that Rick Hudson would call Jenny to tell her about the lawsuit. What would make him assume she didn’t already know? Pete turned off the car and took out his phone to call his private detective friend, Grant.

  Checking up on your wife, Grant assured him, is pretty much always a bad idea. There was almost never anything good that came of this sort of thing. Pete, however, didn’t want to live in ignorance. He put in the order. He then told Grant about the other business he wanted looked into.

  “That’s a lot of leg work,” Grant said. “I can give you a cut rate, but I still have to pay labor.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Pete told him. “You’ve got to spend money to make money.”

  “More people should have that attitude about their marriages,” Grant said.

  Just as he ended the call, here was Douchebag William coming out of his house and walking toward his car. Pete got out of his truck and ran over to him.

  “Hey,” he said. “The spirit of my dead dog attacked me last night.”

  “Huh,” William said. “That’s weird.”

  “Weird,” Pete said. “Jesus Christ, man, what the hell is going on?”

  “That’s just how this shit works sometimes,” William said with a wait-until-next-season shrug. “You ever open a door for some hottie and a fat chick also comes through, like you were holding the door for her all along? That’s what happened. You opened a door, brah. You can’t keep things from walking in and out. The only way to stay on top of the situation is to live right, like the cavemen did. Stay away from carbs. Work out hard. That’s the key.”

  “So, my dead dog attacked me because I ate a quesadilla?” Pete said.

  William shrugged. “None of us are experts in this. We don’t know exactly how it works, but we know what we’ve had success with. Living like cavemen is what keeps us powerful, and what keeps these spirits or powers or whatever it is in line.”

  “Living like cavemen didn’t really help the cavemen, did it? They’re all gone.”

  “You’re thinking too narrowly, man. You’ve been straining against the way. I get that. Old habits are hard to break. But you’re in this now, and you have to stick with it, or this is going to completely fuck up your life.”

  “What do you mean?” Pete said, though he was beginning to suspect he already knew.

  “Like I told you, man. Open doors. And the thing about some doors is they’re easier to open than they are to close. You’re going to have dead dogs or psychopathic shamans or vengeful car spirits or whatever up your ass 24/7 if you don’t get your shit in line. You think you’re being all badass and defiant by drinking beer and eating carbs, but you’re not fucking with me, Pete. You are fucking with cosmic forces. You either make those powers do your bidding, or they’ll make you their bitch.”

  Pete stood on the driveway, blinking against the still-rising sun, trying to process all of this new information. And that was the thing. It was new. “Why didn’t you tell me all this before we started?”

  William shrugged. “I guess I forgot.”

  * * *

  Pete managed to make it through the rest of the day, but it was all nagging at him. Was Jenny having an affair – with Rick Hudson of all people? Was he really stuck dealing with beerlessness and dead dogs for the rest of his life because William forgot to tell him about the caveman pact?

  He was driving home, deciding he needed one of those beers he was supposed to be avoiding, when he passed a bar he’d always been curious about. It was a smoky, windowless concrete block on one of the major streets he passed regularly. He’d gone by it a million times but had never gone inside. What the hell, Pete thought. He didn’t want to go home, and if you’re going to drink alone at a bar, it might as well be one where no one knows you.

  Not surprisingly, there weren’t a whole lot of people inside. It was still just four in the afternoon. There was a table where three guys in their forties sat talking in hushed tones, and there was a Mexican guy, in his thirties and fat as shit, sitting at the bar. Pete took a seat at the bar about as far from the fat Mexican as he could manage and ordered a Coors from a balding bartender with white hair who looked like he’d passed retirement age a few decades back. Then, because why the hell not, he ordered a shot of Jack. Then he repeated the whole thing a few times because his life now included the kind of shit that made you want to drink.

  After a while, he began to wonder if there was maybe something wrong with this place. A few more people had come in, and they were all looking at him like he was some kind of an asshole, which he had given them no reason to suspect. Then he noticed the fat Mexican guy kept glancing over at him. Somehow he’d moved a few stools closer. The guy
was still looking after the bartender set down Pete’s fourth beer and whiskey combo. That was about as much as a guy could reasonably be expected to take. Pete turned his neck and met the guy’s brown eyes square on.

  “Help you with something?”

  The guy got up and sat next to Pete. “I’m Mike,” he said with a kind of sideways grin.

  “Yeah?” Pete answered, taking an aloof drink of his beer. “Is that a fact?”

  “Hey, I’m just being friendly, man,” Mike said, showing his puffy hands. “No need get all hostile.”

  “Go be friendly somewhere else,” Pete said. “I’m not here to talk.” That wasn’t necessarily true. When Pete had first thought of heading into a bar, he’d imagined himself making friends, laughing, eating pretzels, and watching a game on TV, but it had turned out to be a solitary experience, and he was settling into that. He didn’t really want it disturbed. Besides, something about this guy and his big eyes and his soft spoken manner rubbed him the wrong way.

  “You have a rough day?” Mike asked.

  Pete shook his head. He didn’t know where to begin, but he knew he didn’t want to even make the effort with this guy.

  “Sometimes it helps to let off a little steam,” Mike proposed.

  “I told you, I’m not here to talk,” Pete told him.

  Mike grinned. “We don’t have to talk if you don’t want. We can go out to my van.”

  Pete felt his shoulder pulling back so he could punch the guy, but then he suddenly realized what was off about the place. No windows. Just men. This was a gay bar. He was in a gay bar. Him. Pete. He was being propositioned by a guy who thought a dick in the ass was the sort of thing you should be cheerful about. The guy wanted to go out to his van so they could do what? Have some kind of butt sex? Give each other blow jobs? Fondle one another’s testicles?