Nightscript 1

by C M Muller

  Gary slowed to a stop, Gamble already huffing, panting, drooling, mincing an anticipatory dance in the confines of the backseat, his ID tag jingling against the clip on his collar.

  Courtney, when she’d walk Gamble around their subdivision, had consistently used a leash on the animal.

  Gary glanced over on the passenger seat—the leash there, more of a perfunctory tool than a necessity. Gamble was clumsily kind, oafishly obedient.

  Next to the leash was the brown bag. He’d never taken a day off from work for an illness, let alone as an excuse to get drunk as a means of self-pity capitulation.

  Gary craned his neck, wondering of the possible presence of some security guard or errant maintenance man on the grounds, before slipping the bottle from the bag, paper crackling as he withdrew the pint of bourbon. He gazed at the warm, amber-hued liquid, catching sight of his long, gourd-distorted reflection along the edge of the bottle.

  Gary peeled away the plastic ring and twisted the cap, the whiff of distillation filling the space. He again glanced around the deserted back lot before raising the bottle to his lips and taking a small pull. He winced, grateful no other males were present to provide any sort of casual shaming. Gary allowed the liquid to descend, savoring the swift-spreading scorch as it traveled down to his empty stomach. Inhaling, exhaling, Gary immediately followed up with a larger gulp, which was better after the previous primer. He wiped his lower lip with the cuff of his windbreaker. The physical thrill of absorbing the spirits mixed with the deviant awareness that he should be at work right now—being responsible, being a teacher of children. He thought about the marriage counseling, about the guy at Courtney’s office. His mind cut to the chase; he wouldn’t, couldn’t, rehash the details. There were only so many ways to depict domestic depravity.

  Gary took one more sip. It was shaping up to be a beautiful morning.

  Gamble was whimpering now, his nails tapping at the window frame.

  Gary capped the bottle, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the car. Still midmorning, the sun slowly adding thin layers of warmth, he went up on tip-toes, stretching his arms, the movement felt as if he were allowing the alcohol into far-reaching cells of muscle fiber. He peeled off his windbreaker and tossed it on the driver’s seat, rolling up the sleeves of his flannel.

  Gary scanned the parking lot of the elementary school, the adjoining playground with its rusted array of disused and outdated equipment. There was a small baseball field on the far side, now overgrown, weeds and ivy crawling up the chainlink backstop.

  Hemming the school in on the west side of the property was the ever-present railroad tracks, which separated the property from the ever-present fields and forest. Up beyond that, set on a small bluff overlooking the tracks, was the house.

  When they were students here, Gary and the other kids called the house “Corpse Cottage,” though it was evident that, back then, it was inhabited by a family. Prone to typical embellishment—no one had ever died there, no crime (of which Gary was aware) had ever taken place.

  Later, when high school boredom compelled teens to countryside excursions, Corpse Cottage became a regular haunt. Of course by this time the house was clearly abandoned—shingles sloughing off the ragged roof…paint peeling in oak-leaf-size portions. As a child, Gary’d heard tales that the house had been a hideout for transients and squatters from the railroad. Not for the first time he acknowledged that the house’s location—set up on a low-sloping bluff, almost hanging over the tracks—would be ideal for transients searching for a place to seek shelter. Gary stared at the house, its gray exterior covered with a netting of limb and autumn-leaf shadow.

  Gamble barked sharply. Gary flinched. “Sorry about that, old boy,” he said, opening the back door.

  Tongue lolling, the dog spilled out of the car and trotted across the parking lot, panting, pausing to sniff the air, Gamble’s collar and ID tag jangling as he ran, roaming a curious weave throughout the skeletal playground.

  Gary took the opportunity to reach back in through the open window and pluck the bottle off the seat, giving panoramic appraisal—nothing, of course…everything in the school yard fringes was tranquil, desolate. He swallowed and looked at the bottle, startled by how little liquid remained.

  Carl, their therapist—or marriage counselor or whatever humiliating term was being used at one time or another—had suggested during one of their sessions that adultery was really about anger. This initially baffled Gary. For two reasons really—one, he had no idea what his spoiled-to-the-marrow wife had to be angry about; and two, if he were indeed the source of that anger, then what the fuck had he done precisely?

  He shook his head, already feeling the gliding, gut-warming sensation of inebriation. Need to take a break, pal. He capped the bottle and nestled it beneath the driver’s seat.

  Gary glanced toward the playground. No dog. The only thing moving was a tepidly swaying swing.

  He straightened, eyes darting. “Gamble!” he shouted, stepping away from the car. Gary cupped his palm to his mouth. “Gamble!” The word skipped, doubling on itself as the echo drifted across school grounds.

  Gary heard him before he saw him. In the distance came the metallic jangle of the dog’s ID tag. Gary swiveled in the direction of the baseball diamond. Gamble was nosing around the weed-threaded backstop, tail wagging, inspecting the space where home plate would be.

  Gary sighed, half-smiling as he looped the leash around his knuckles and started slowly for the baseball field. Keeping his eyes on the dog, he mumbled, “All right, bud, enough fun…time to go.”

  Though Gary hadn’t raised his voice, Gamble raised his head—ears erect, the set of the animal’s body suddenly rigid. His muzzle pointed directly at Gary, two black eyes staring. He actually chuckled. “Sorry, my man…but we’ll have plenty of days to run around at the park.”

  His voice held the intonation of a father speaking to a child. Like most young couples, everything was a “starter”—starter home…starter savings account. Starter pet in preparation for a starter family.

  They’d never articulated the dynamic, that taking care of a dog was a tacit-collaborative barometer for their parental potential as nurturers. But they’d sensed it, particularly when Gamble was a pup. Though, as Gamble aged, he became more of a prop in a two-person play. As time went by, Gary was more and more at a loss for how the script read.

  Closing in on the dog now, Gary considered his limited threshold for the thespian nature of noble husband—his wife had crossed the line. She’d made groveling attempts to apologize, which Gary summarily rejected, only accepting the invitation to counseling as a matter of pre-separation perfunctory. Courtney had sworn it was a one-time mistake—something she regretted and could not account for.

  The dog’s legs were set sturdy beneath it. Slowly, it lowered its head, its upper lip curling to show the warning gleam of teeth. A low rumble.

  Gary didn’t come to a full stop but slowed a bit. “Gamble?” he said, some disbelief at this strange response from the gentle dog. Gary stifled the urge to raise his hands in a plaintive gesture. He just needed to get close enough to attach the leash. Soothing: “You want to stay a while, we’ll stay a while—okay?”

  Gamble, as if stung by something on the hindquarters, twitched, breaking its stare with its approaching owner and whirling in the opposite direction. The dog froze.

  Gary did too. Scowling, he examined the outer stretches of the property, out beyond to where the dog had now trained its attention; but before he could gather any sense about what had happened, Gamble barked once and bolted, taking off toward the railroad tracks.

  Gary hissed, “Damn it,” and began chasing the dog in a dead sprint.

  “Gamble!” Gary called out, the sun warm on his neck and shoulders. Gary reached the tracks, but the precariousness of the large rocks and wooden ties slowed him a bit. He shouted the dog’s name again just as the animal veered left into the underbrush, loping up the steep slope toward the house.
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br />   It took Gary a few seconds to catch up to where the dog had cleaved through the weeds, leaves made hashing sounds, wand-thin branches snapped as Gary ungracefully navigated the incline of the small bluff, finally pushing against the bole of some anemic trees to get his footing where the ground leveled off in the refuse-littered backyard. Panting, he almost shouted again, but could hear the dog’s rapid barking—it sounded as though it were coming from inside the house. For just a second, Gary thought he heard a reedy whistle.

  He frantically scanned the exterior. All details, of course, were worse up close (a lesson he’d learned from his demanding inquiries into Courtney’s adulterous dalliance). Three-stories worth of neglect—flaking paint exposed scuffed planks…sagging gutters overloaded with dead leaves and debris led to fractured downspouts barely clinging to the side of the house. The grounds were littered with an assortment of age-varied trash. Again, like a stuttery newsreel, Gary thought of the rumors that this place had once been a stopover for train-hopping transients. The crooked railing on the L-shaped porch contained broken or missing spindles, and except for the very high attic dormer, all window glass was missing, each transom broken.

  Jogging, Gary rounded the side yard, trying to determine where the dog had gained access. On the back end of the house was a partly open door. He pressed against the door—some resistance there. Pressing harder, shoving with his upper body and craning his neck to see what was on the other side, he saw that two duffle bags—faded green, the Army fatigue variety—were stacked against the door, but had been scooted away, providing a narrow margin of access.

  He shoved the door and slid into a narrow corridor, still hearing the dog’s barking—Damn it…he’s upstairs.

  The smell of engine oil was heavy here; and the idea of oil was a pervasive thing—whereas a tint of sepia tiredness may seem noble in some cases, here it imparted a sense that the nicotine-tinted surfaces were coated in grease. A filmy, hibernating scent of nesting insects.

  The sound of movement up on the second story—capering claws clicking on the floor overhead. “Come on, Gamble…get your silly ass out here,” Gary called out, using the most authoritative tone he could conjure. He began clapping his hands together and whistling as he walked toward the deeper interior of the house, shattered plaster and dead-leaf detritus crunched under his sneakers.

  Though the windows were bare, little light seemed to filter into the shadow-curtained house. Just as Gary was about to emerge from the corridor, Gamble abruptly stopped barking. Gary held his breath involuntarily. After a few seconds of silence he said, “Gamble?” Quiet. Gary strode forward and around the corner.

  Just a few feet to the left was a staircase, flanked on one side by a wall and a broken railing on the other.

  The dog was standing at the top of the stairs. Gamble’s body was crisply profiled with his attention trained on something to the left. (The dog could have been an insignia on one of Puckett’s designer shirts, the notion coming as a mental sneer.) Now, Gary’s voice was nearly a growl. He placed one foot on a riser and said, “Damn it, Gam—”

  From the second floor came a string of short whistles, each ending with an unsettling chain of cheery notes. Gamble’s growling reemerged, grinding up to reverberate down the stairwell.

  With his hand on the wobbly railing, Gary almost swayed when the whistling ended with a series of sloppy kissing sounds—a male voice, threaded with something unsteady—said, “Come over here, Gamble…”

  Skittering as the dog sprang forward, nails clacking and scraping. Gary followed, pounding up the stairs.

  The commotion was to the left, at the end of a long, shadowed hallway. Gary bounded into the passageway, all doors were closed here, allowing for insufficient light through the rectangle tunnel.

  Gamble was on top of someone—a struggling figure, one forearm angled over his face.

  Gary kicked through garbage and newspapers, getting within reaching distance of Gamble and the person he was attempting to maul. He leaned in and grabbed Gamble by his collar, the band of fabric vibrating against the dog’s growl-rattling throat. As Gary was struggling to peel the dog away, he caught a better glimpse of the feeble-framed, rag-clad figure.

  Just then one of the man’s arms shot out, thin fingers clutching the dog’s collar.

  Gary assumed the man was simply trying to gain leverage to get to his feet, but the pull was strange. Gary slid an arm under the dog’s neck, trying to get between the two, almost immediately feeling the slick sting of teeth in the flesh of his forearm, Gamble’s snapping jaws snagging on skin. Gary cried out, heaving backward, and in one tug-of-war lunge tore the dog loose. He landed hard on his hip—Gamble still growling, still flailing—and skidded back into the hallway and into the light, not far from the stairway corridor. Still holding the dog in a sort of feeble bear-hug, Gary got his legs to the staircase, looking over only once: a mistake which forced him to falter.

  The man was sliding on all fours. As he emerged into a weak shaft of light, Gary first noticed that the guy’s skin was pallid, waxy-gray, a tint associated with wasting disease. His fever-rheumy eyes glittering in deep-set sockets ringed dark, as if he’d been rubbing his eyes with coal-dusted fingers. Nearly bald, a few oily strands, resembling limp silk from a sick cornhusk, clung to his pate.

  The man’s cracked lips were smile-stretched, the grin showcasing a rotted cavern of mouth—Gary’s attention was arrested by this detail: his front teeth, the incisors, were missing, but on either side of the gap the canines were shockingly long and sharp.

  Gary’s terror-pause at seeing the man had been too much. Like most revelations, the ability to immediately rectify his errors came far too late. The sick man edged forward, his long, filth-grimed fingers grabbing the dog by the collar. The smell coming from the man was something from a flesh-fouled trench. Gary tried to scream as he watched the man, almost playfully, open his lip-cracked mouth—the missing incisors making everything more black there—the long, sharp canines—and watched the man’s jaws close on the dog’s throat, petals of blood blossoming on fur.

  Gamble yelped—a sharp, helpless sound that renewed Gary’s strength and he hoisted.

  The dog’s collar snapped in the sick man’s hand as Gary fell backward, Gamble in his arms, both tumbling down the stairs. They hit the floor hard, though still Gary hefted the dog to his chest and broke into a shuffling run toward the door.

  They spilled into the yard. Fresh air—Gary sucked in the late-morning air, staggering, rounding the house on his way to the bluff and the tracks.

  The sound of laughing. Gary twisted, his eyes tracing the laughter to a second-story window. The sick man was standing there, smiling, chin smudged with blood. Those teeth—the missing incisors…the pronounced, rot-tinted canines.

  Gary winced—from the weight of the animal, from exhaustion—as the man lifted his hand, the dog’s collar dangling there, Gamble’s silver ID badge catching sunlight—a jolly ornament. The man’s expression bore a taunting sort of intent.

  Gary turned, doing his best to manage the steep hill and the thick undergrowth along the bluff, sliding the final six feet down the slope. He glanced down at the blood-matted fur along Gamble’s neck, crimson glistening in the sunlight. Then the railroad tracks were underfoot, racing over the ties and thick stones.

  The run across the baseball field was a mishmash of panting and nonsensical encouragements: Hold on, old boy…few more…car…get you patched up…

  And then they were there—Gary sweating, breathing taxed. He gently laid Gamble in the shadow of the car, trying to keep the dog comfortable. The dog’s respiration had gone wheezy. Gary reached over, suddenly seized at the sight of blood trailing from his own arm. In the struggle Gary had been nipped by Gamble—no—not right. Gary whirled around, clawing at the back door of the car to retrieve a bottle of water; he uncapped it and poured the liquid over his forearm. Clearing away the blood validated the worst—the puncture wound now clear, literally in his flesh: a ragged
bite…two distinct canine punctures with a gap between.

  His mouth was dry. It hadn’t been Gamble. His eyes darted around, lighting on playground equipment, acres of harvest-ready fields. The ruined house up on the bluff above the train tracks. He sunk down to one knee, pouring the remaining water over Gamble’s neck. Useless. A wide pool of blood had gathered under the dog’s upper body. Breathing had stopped.

  A barbed ripple of pain pulsed along his forearm. The water bottle in his hand was empty—the bottle. Gary yanked at the passenger side door of the car, retrieving the bottle of bourbon from beneath the seat. He was clueless whether it would help, still he fumbled the cap off and poured the liquid over the wound—an electrifying sting forked along his ulna.

  Gritting his teeth, he dropped the empty glass bottle, swiped an old t-shirt from the trunk and wrapped it around his arm, falling back on his backside against the side of the car and sliding down to a seated crouch.

  Thoughts—call a sheriff…call an ambulance—fluttered in the weak breeze of his mind. The one that stood out was Courtney—how was he going to tell her what had happened.

  Losing the dog. Eyelids shuddering, Gary tried to focus on the rotting house in the distance, his attention eventually falling to the playground equipment as his vision began to blur, beads of sweat glistening on his brow. And as he slid sideways, his eyes closed, accepting the tightly scoping darkness on the fringes of his vision, Gary Mountjoy heard the hush and hiss of the breeze in the trees, the wailing sound of a distant train threaded in the wind.

  We’ve explained already—it was a pretty unexceptional entrance.

  It was very near dark now.

  He was thirsty—the need for water was demanding. He’d have to get the shovel soon.