The Keeper

by Barr, Clifford

  Jolie looked Carol over.

  The machines around her said she had a pulse, but a weak one at that. Why would Robbie not want them to call the ambulance? Jolie was running circles around that thought in her head, when Robbie was bounding back down the steps again.

  “Robbie,” Nigel said, “We have to call a—”

  Nigel’s words stopped when Robbie’s fist dug itself deep into the left side of his face.

  The man fell over and leaned up against the wall.

  “No time, no time . . . better than nothing,” Robbie muttered under his breath.

  In his hand was a syringe.

  Before Jolie asked him what he was doing, he pressed the syringe into Carol’s heart.

  And nothing happened.

  “Jesus, man, what are you doing?” Nigel yelled.

  “I had to try,” Robbie said.

  “You’re gonna kill her,” Nigel said.

  “She was already dead,” Robbie said.

  The front door opened, and people rushed into the house. Jolie heard Matt’s door open, and the subtle slow crawl of his wheelchair over the wooden planks of the hallway.

  The hair on the back of Jolie’s neck rose.

  All of the air in the house went still.

  A bright light started to run around the underside of Carol’s skin. Her eyes and mouth opened, showing only pure light, as though heaven itself was crawling out of her face. The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees in an instant.

  Everyone was quiet, everyone watching.

  And then the lights swallowed everything, and they would not wake for some time to come.

  Chapter Ten

  I’m not sure what the future holds. The NaUs have started to come back. All of the people I’ve infected . . . I don’t know how to feel about that. I suppose I don’t have time to feel bad about it, though. I’m not God, but I’m pretty damn close.

  Though I doubt God has to worry about having a conscience.

  -Robbie’s Journal

  “It would have been easier if you didn’t meet them,” Rebecca said.

  Walter looked up from the ground. He had walked along this cement path to the rest stop many times before, ranging close to a thousand at this point. However, not one of those other times had he felt such a heavy weight on his shoulders.

  “What would have been easier?” he said.

  “To hate them,” she said.

  Who was Walter in this situation?

  Walter felt like he was on a precipice, on a road that had only two ways to go with no alternatives. If he turned back from the stop, from Rebecca, and went out to his truck, would the others follow him?

  He could attempt it. He could get back into his truck and leave Rebecca and her family here to deal with their own problems. What the hell was he supposed to do anyway? According to her, he was a few years away from a slow death via a brain tumor, and normally he would have ignored something like that, but when the person telling you that can do all of the weird things that Walter had seen all of them do over the last day, then he figured it was best to listen, regardless of what they said.

  So he couldn’t do anything. If he left, he might be taken hostage. These people didn’t seem like awful kids, but they seemed desperate to Walter, someone who had seen what desperation looks like at every AA meeting he had attended over the years. He knew how dangerous that sort of thing was. They might not like what they were doing, but when it came to desperate people, liking things and what they might do doesn’t have to be on the same menu, or even in the same ballpark. All you had to do was look at the local addict to know that, and these kids were addicts of the worst and most desperate kind. They were addicted to the one thing that is intoxicating above all else, the one thing that no one can resist.

  They were addicted to life.

  And now Walter had to decide which side he was on. Why did this have to be him? Truly, God could have set the day’s actions and events in a different motion. He hadn’t had a drink in almost thirty years, though he thought about one every day. There was no going around that. He had been faithful to Beth, hadn’t even thought of trying to remarry. He paid his taxes, even the high New York state ones, stayed out of other people’s business, and tried to leave good tips whenever he ate out (the times of which in the last few years he had done so by himself and not with buddies from AA were less than the number of fingers he had). He helped people, tried to steer their lives back from the place of no return, to one where their dark seeds would have to be carried with them, but they could at least still walk their path to the future.

  And for all of that, he got placed into this whole conundrum.

  His heart was beating fast in his chest. It was only right that he should die of a heart attack right here and now, with these kids to bear witness.

  The blizzard didn’t look like it would be stopping anytime soon. The plows would be out, but they wouldn’t stop at a rest stop now. And besides, Matt’s gang had blocked off the road. No one would be coming to save them come till morning, and even then, who knew what would happen. Even if Walter got the police, what would he tell them that a group of kids with lava lamps under their skin were causing havoc at his rest station and that it would be best if they came out here and took care of them? Even if they did believe him, the people on the other side of the force field would have no problem dealing with a few cops. They might not like what they were doing, but they were desperate. Of everything they told him, and everything that Rebecca told him, he felt the desperation in the air.

  “Oh, Beth,” Walter said, “If only you could be here now.”

  He didn’t usually like to say that about Beth. His wife had reached the odd precipice and moment in one’s life where death seems to come only naturally to them. She died quickly in her sleep. No pain, no nothing. The doctors said that she had a blood vessel burst in her brain when she slept, and that she didn’t feel anything. She went to bed one night with him and then drifted off into the unknown.

  Beth might have known what to do in this situation. It was one of the reasons that he both loved and eventually married her. She had a knack for keeping him on track, and knowing full well that whenever someone was in the rough and wrong that the best thing you could do for them was to let them dig themselves out of that ditch. He might never have stopped drinking if Beth had made him stop. She knew that change could only come from the inside and not the outside.

  And that’s why, deep in his heart, he knew he wouldn’t survive the night.

  Beth might have been able to do it, might have been able to convince Becca to either turn herself over to the people on the other side of the force field, or perhaps she could have convinced Matt and his gang that Becca living was the best scenario for all of them. She could have bridged that divide.

  That wasn’t Walter.

  “Who knows,” he said, laughing a little. “This could all still be a dream.”

  He could still be hunched over in his office at the moment, dealing with a stroke or one of the hundreds of other illnesses that seem to plague someone when their ticker is past expiration. Maybe a blood vessel of his own had burst in his brain, and all of this was the result of it.

  He looked into the sky.

  In the distance, the sky had turned bright blue, as though someone had shot light up into the clouds. The clouds in some parts seemed to be burning, which was an odd enough image. They were water vapor, after all.

  The road he was on might go in two directions, but it was a road all the same, and if he stayed in the middle of it without choosing which way to go, he’d likely get run over by someone or something else that had already decided on its destination.

  He already knew which way he was going to go, though. That’s why he hesitated. He pushed off from the side of the building, opened the door, and entered.

  Rebecca was there, sitting at one of the desks. His James Patterson book was in her hands. She was looking through it.

  “Made up your mind yet?” s
he said, not looking up.

  He walked over and grabbed his coffee, which was now quite cold. He took a few sips of it and placed it back on the desk.

  “Almost,” he said. He brought up a chair and sat down across from her. She raised an eyebrow and set down his book.

  “I need to know more,” he said.

  “It’ll be easier the less you know,” Becca said.

  “I know,” Walter said.

  “No,” Rebecca said. “It’ll be easier to hate me, the less you know.”

  “I don’t know very much at the moment,” Walter said.

  “You know what my brother told you?” Rebecca said.

  “Does he have good reason to lie?” Walter said.

  “Do I?” Rebecca said.

  “Well, why don’t you tell me your side?” Walter said. “I’ve heard from your brother. Now you. What happened that led you and all of the people outside of this current moment?”

  “A lot of things,” Rebecca said.

  “Then stick to the basics,” Walter said. “Your friends out there seem reasonable enough. But I want to hear your side.”

  “Why?” Rebecca said.

  “Because,” Walter said. “I’ve gotten myself tangled in all of this, and the only way out is through.”

  “You don’t care about any of us,” Rebecca said.

  “Do you need me to care?” Walter said. “Or do you need me to help? Either or requires you to tell me how we got to this point, how, when on a normal day I would have gone through checking the rest stops and not been involved in whatever the hell this thing is. Throw me a bone here, or whatever you kids use for terminology these days, and tell me why your brother wants to kill you.”

  “For my NaU—”

  “Good, start with that. Why do they think killing you will save them?”

  For a moment, Rebecca didn’t speak, and Walter was afraid that he had been too obtuse and aggressive with her. She was after all a victim in all of this, just as he was. But then she cleared her throat.

  “It all started the night I killed Matt’s father.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Voice Interview of Mr. and Mrs. Blassey

  Nigel: Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.

  Mr. Blassey: And don’t waste our time Nigel. Why the hell did you even want to meet in the first place?

  Nigel: Well, sir, I just wanted to talk to you about the recent odd behaviors that have been affecting our children. My son has been acting differently, and I’m sure Jolie has been acting oddly as well.

  Mrs. Blassey: No more than usual, and what our daughter does or doesn’t do is none of your business.

  Nigel: Forgive me. I’m trying to figure out what’s best for our children.

  Mr. Blassey: I won’t have my daughter being used as a pawn in one of your fights with Robbie. Sure, Jolie has been acting differently, but it shouldn’t matter to you or anyone. She’s a senior in high school. She’s already signed on to play for Albany this upcoming season, and almost a full ride. She and your son are going there, and frankly, I think that’s a wonderful thing.

  Nigel: I know that, but would it not be better for Matt to stay behind. Why does your daughter need to drag my disabled son around like a pet?

  Mr. Blassey: What our daughter does is none of your concern. She likes the boy, and frankly, so do we. We’re not going to do anything that hurts him.

  Nigel: Well, I suppose she never told you about the NaU?

  Mr. Blassey: The what?

  Mrs. Blassey: Is that a tape recorder?

  The audio becomes mixed and mumbled.

  ****

  Becca sat by the edge of the clearing, watching her brother fly.

  “It’s not really flying,” her father had told them before they set out. “It’s more like levitating, if not anything else.”

  Well, whatever it was, Matt was doing it and having a heck of a time at it.

  His smile went from ear to ear as he floated around the clearing in the woods. Jolie was laughing and standing next to his wheelchair, whose use had all but vanished over these last couple of weeks.

  Matt zipped from one tree to the other, through the sky, and then back down. He had the grace of a ballerina or other trained dancer.

  “Your brother’s going to hurt himself.”

  Her mother raised a thermos to her mouth.

  Of all of the changes that had affected their entire group, everyone who had the NaU placed within them, Carol McCarthy, was the most drastic. She still had no hair or eyebrows, but she wore a wig that looked close to how she had been before cancer had caused the chemo to take it.

  “He can’t hurt himself,” Becca said. “None of us can.”

  In the clearing, Jolie rose up to the sky to fly around with her boyfriend. Green sparks of energy whirled around her as she did so. The two of them embraced in the meadow above them, seeming almost to dance it the limitless and resistance-less air. They looked free.

  “I wish I had gotten the one to allow me to fly,” her mother said. “Of all of them, that seems like the most fun.”

  Of all the people in that house that night when the NaU was released, somehow, Becca had been spared from the nanites. It didn’t make much sense, since if the distance was a factor, Kent had been upstairs when it happened, and now he had powers. Her father couldn’t make two cents of it.

  Maybe it was for the best. Sure, she wasn’t able to fly, or move things with her mind like her brother, or heal any injury like Peter, or lift cars like Danni, or shoot a beam of pure energy out of her mouth like her mother.

  Even Nigel got something, and that bugged Becca to no end. If the man hadn’t been there that night, then maybe his ability to make swords come out of his hands would belong to Becca and not him. It was an odd thought, but it kept her warm on these nights.

  Her father’s Parkinson’s, like her mother’s cancer, seemed to now be nonexistent. The NaUs seemed like a miracle drug, and her father asked everyone affected not to tell. All of them agreed, but only one did it with any resistance.

  “I think that we should show this to the government or something,” Nigel would say. “We could do some good, be superheroes or something.”

  “Dad,” Matt said, “there is no such thing as superheroes.”

  “Says the boy who can fly.”

  Levitate, almost everyone in the room wanted to correct the man but didn’t. Nigel might not like it, but at least he was able to keep quiet about it, for the most part. People were saying that Nigel was acting differently, interviewing people, and overall acting odd. But for the time being, it seemed harmless enough, so no one took action to stop him.

  “Get a room,” her mother yelled beside her. Matt and Jolie were now embracing, slowly spinning in a circle above the tree line.

  Her mother, seemingly able to do the one task that all mothers could do, regardless if they had any NaU running through their veins; she seemed to read her daughter’s mind.

  “Hey,” she said, turning Becca’s face toward her own. Even though it had been close to two months at this point, seeing her mother be able to talk, even express something on her face, was like a gut punch every time for Becca.

  “I know you wanted something like what they have,” Carol said. “Or I have. But if you have powers or not, you are still important, and we all love you. Besides, I’m sure when Robbie does more research, he’ll be able to give you something really special.”

  Becca wasn’t sure she wanted anything special. Her life being at peace was a gift in it of itself, and if that meant she wasn’t able to turn invisible or shoot lasers from her eyes, she would be happy. There was nothing wrong with boring.

  “Oh, are we interrupting?”

  Danni and Peter were walking into the clearing.

  “Yeah,” Danni said. “There’s only room for one couple in this meadow at the moment.”

  “Besides,” Carol said, “I doubt that you two could beat what’s going on up there.”

  Peter and
Danni laughed.

  “Oh well,” Peter said. “We’re flexible. I’m sure we could come up with something.”

  Matt and Jolie slowly descended to the ground. Matt kept levitating, though, not letting his feet touch the ground.

  “It doesn’t feel right,” he had told Becca a few weeks after the initial incident. Even though Matt’s legs were fine and good, he still preferred to go around in his wheelchair, or when no one was looking, levitating slightly off the ground. Matt described his powers as a feeling that he could feel everything that was around him. Her father chalked that up to him being able to use his NaUs to move things in the physical presence. They went out of his body and say, held up to make it look like he was levitating, or whenever he wanted to move something else, they would come out of him and be used to move other objects. It wasn’t telekinesis per se, but in Becca’s view, it was about as close as they were going to get.

  All of Matt’s friends were different in their own ways. There seemed to be an edge of fun to them that Becca hadn’t seen before. They seemed happy or content more than anything. Getting superpowers might do that to people, but Becca thought there was something else, something deeper etched within their psyches because of their NaU. She wished that she could join them.

  Jolie and Matt stopped.

  The tall girl was clutching her chest and seemed to be leaning on Matt, who was now at her eye level since he levitated. She stopped for a couple more seconds before continuing to walk over.

  “Sorry,” Jolie said. “Sometimes, when I fly, I feel nausea afterward.”

  “Understandable,” Peter said.

  Becca could see a change in Peter too. While he seemed fully aware of where he was and able to do whatever he needed to, there was something going on with him.

  Peter’s NaU allowed his body to be reconstructed from any injury. They had tested it. He could survive getting hit by a car, falling from a great height, being stabbed, and even being half set on fire. The last one was a mistake, though Peter still felt bad about it. His body regrew each time.