“It’s a loon,” said Jared.
Tom sat back down.
“You want to wake her up? You’re the police officer. Do it at your own risk. But can you make it quick? I got to work later on. I need some sleep.”
“Where do you work?”
Jared shot him a look of mild indignation. “Right here. I’m refurbishing this place for my family. Like I said.”
“Good for you.”
Tom stood up again. He glanced at the shotgun, then at Jared. “Well, you two have had an ordeal, so I’ll let you get your rest. Come back in the morning?”
“Sure,” said Jared, rising too, obviously relieved.
“I’m sorry for your trouble, Jared, and thank you for talking to me.”
Tom held out his hand.
“Sure,” Jared said again, looking down at the floor. He took Tom’s hand and shook it, and his eyes darted up once.
Tom cocked his head toward the gun on the loveseat.
“Can I ask, sorry, before I go — you get any of the coyotes with that?”
Jared’s face brightened a little with pride and residual anger. “Yeah,” he said, “three of them.”
“Where are they?”
“In the shed.”
“You cleaned up nice in here.”
“Well,” said Jared, either gracious or not comprehending Tom’s slightly skeptical inference, “one was in the kitchen, at the back door. Two were right in here. Came in through the window.”
“That window?”
Tom pointed to the single window to his right, past the fireplace, adjacent to the broad porch windows.
“Yeah.”
“You replaced it already?”
“I did. We’ve got spares in the basement. Spare storms.”
“Well that’s good. It’s cold tonight. Unseasonal. So much for global warming, huh?”
Tom gave Jared a broad smile. He felt more tired than ever. His lungs were a kiln. He needed to go home. To sleep. One last thing first.
“You mind if I just peek in on her? Make sure she’s okay?”
Jared studied Tom with undisguised, unmistakable indignation this time.
“Of course, officer.”
“Thanks. This way?”
Jared nodded as Tom pointed at the stairs then got the hint to lead the way.
The sickly sweet smell of night-old booze followed the young man in a wake as he brushed past Tom, leaving the Mossberg on the leather loveseat.
They went up the stairs, creaking. The wind gusted some, and Tom heard the birch trees clacking together, the evergreens groaning as they swayed.
At the top of the stairs was the bedroom, with a pitched ceiling. It was cold in the space. Tom saw plastic covering over the window. Bits of tree branches were scattered over the carpet.
“Tree,” said Jared.
In the corner of the room was Elizabeth, presumably sleeping. Tom watched the rise and fall of the blankets. Her face was covered; only her hair was visible, fanned out across the pillow.
“Okay,” Tom whispered. “Tomorrow.”
He put a hand on Jared’s shoulder and then started back down the stairs.
* * *
Jared Kingston had let Tom show himself out, a conscious lack of hospitality, Tom was sure. He didn’t blame Jared. The kid might not be the freshest apple in the basket, but Tom didn’t think he was up to anything sinister. Stupid, maybe. Rabid coyotes? And you’re not worried about the gash on your neck? Something wasn’t out in the open, but Tom felt he’d done all he could for the moment.
Back on the dirt drive, he started over to the shed, passing the white Jeep Cherokee. Another splash came from the other side of the house, down at the pond. Tom stopped, listened. Silence. Only the trees clattering together in the brittle morning wind, boughs scraping and trunks creaking.
He resumed the walk to the shed.
There was a latch on the door, and a lock. He thought about going back and asking Jared for the key, but already he could smell the blood and incipient rot. It was too soon for the coyotes to start decomposing — and cold enough to slow the process significantly anyway — but the scent of offal was unmistakable.
Tom left the shed and walked the road. As he walked, he heard another splash, now for the third time. A loon, Jared had said. Sure, Jared had said, also three times. “Sure,” said Tom to the trees, and saw his breath plume out in front of him. He was feeling punchy again.
He reached his Chevy Blazer, got in and started it up. After the engine turned over, he scratched at his balding head, and lit up a cigarette. He drove away from the Kingston place. To go home, to go to sleep. Thank God, to go get some sleep. Insomnia? What insomnia. Prescription: uncanny events and mysterious Goth-kids acting as incendiary devices, inciting a potentially wild goose chase about star-crossed lovers.
Guys like Christopher Handler, appearing in town out of nowhere, showing up at the spot Tom sometimes sat late hours, watching the phone booth next to the gas station. Christopher, showing up right before all of the weird shit started to go down.
Then disappearing.
Tom turned onto Donna’s Road and drove away, drove home, thinking of sleep, and thinking of the baby in the hospital, and the nurse singing her sweet, low lullaby.
PART III
VOICES
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
And the rain will heal his eyes.
Liz tossed in her sleep.
Dry. Dry as a bone, she slept-thought. It had been dry for days, ten days, and then the rain came, and then the snow, and then—
She blinked open her eyes. Rain drummed the roof over her head. She was disoriented, not just about where she was, but about what time it was. She’d dreamt it was snowing.
Was she back home? Back in Connecticut? Back in her childhood room? Back before any of it had ever happened?
She rolled over, half-expecting to see the poster of Ani Difranco on the wall next to the bed, or the rosette from Bliss, her stabled horse, hanging there on the iron lamp. The thought of Bliss calmed her, and she drifted.
The drumming rain flooded her thoughts. She saw a ripple, a glissando of concentric circles rolling outward, and a diving loon, as though she were submerged herself. Underwater and free, her arms and legs unrestricted. She tried to follow the guy loon, to dive down after it, chase it through the cool, sapid water. In front of her was a constellation of particulates, tiny floating bits like stars in space. She kicked with her legs and pulled with her arms. She smiled as she swam, bubbles popping out from her teeth forming contrails behind her, the loon disappearing in front of her.
She swam like this until the blackness below her changed. Until it somehow shifted, as though the thick, rubbery floor of the pond, murky and slick, had come to life. She drew a startled breath, taking in the water.
* * *
Liz opened her eyes and made a gasping sound. She sat up in bed, gagging, her hand at her throat. It passed quickly; there was no water in her lungs. She looked around her. Jared was not in the bed.
It had been snowing. She remembered that the rain had turned to heavy flakes during the night, but with the sun it had gone back to rain again. There was a small clock ticking in the medicine cabinet. She got out of bed, fully clothed. She slid the door back and looked at it. It was almost noon.
Well, that made some sense.
She closed the cabinet and looked at her reflection in the mirrored panels.
Her eyes were bloodshot, her blonde hair was rumpled and matted to her head on one side. I must’ve slept like the dead, she thought, probing the skin beneath her eyes with two fingers, pressing on the puffy bags there. When had she gone to bed, exactly? She couldn’t quite remember. She recalled that Jared had come home, done some stomping around with his gun, and complained of . . . what? Coyotes.
Otherwise, the previous night was vague. That was one of her gifts, she thought, her terrible memory. Her ability to blot things out. Or, was it possible she’d fallen asleep in the chair outside?
She’d been sitting there, yes, listening to the sounds of the night.
“Verrega,” echoed a voice deep in her mind. “Vishnu. Parratu. Deigine”
Liz stepped away from the mirrored cabinet, leaned in over the tub and turned the shower on. Her hands were shaking. She stood up and started to undress.
“What else were you thinking about?”
The voice made her jump and let out a squeal. She spun around, expecting to see Jared standing there, expecting, for some reason, to see him with black hollowed eyes, ragged blood-torn clothes, the rifle hanging in his grip.
It wasn’t Jared.
“You were thinking about the baby, too.”
Christopher stood a few steps back from the bathroom doorway. He removed his denim coat, folded it, and laid it on the rumpled covers of the bed.
Liz crossed her arms over her breasts, she was only wearing her camisole top.
“Chris, what are you doing here? If Jared finds you—”
“Jared’s not here.”
He looked at her levelly. He stood with perfect posture, his hands at his sides.
The bathroom started to steam up around her. She turned, and reached in and felt the water. It was scalding hot. She turned off both knobs and the shower head shut off, the faucet below it belching out the remaining water, dripping, and then ceasing. She turned back to Christopher. He was now sitting on the bed next to his jacket. Liz took a towel from the rack and wrapped it around her torso, above her breasts, tucking it in tightly, and she walked to the doorway.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. The Jeep is parked on the edge of the woods. But he’s gone.” Christopher’s eyes dropped down to her neck. “You shower with it on?”
Elizabeth reached up and touched the locket there.
“Well, he could be back any minute. He won’t be happy if you’re here. He won’t be happy at all.”
“Don’t be afraid of me.”
Liz laughed. “I’m not afraid of you, don’t be ridiculous. It’s you who should be afraid of Jared.” She leaned against the doorway between the bathroom and bedroom. She realized she was acting a bit haughty, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Who do you think you are, just coming in here?”
“Liz. Stop.”
That ticked her off. She walked into the room and stood in front of him, where he sat on the edge of the queen-sized bed she’d been sharing with Jared for the last six months. “Stop what? You stop. Stop coming here, stop showing up. What right do you have? What makes you think you can just walk into someone else’s house?”
“Extenuating circumstances,” said Christopher, his face hard to read. Still he looked at her with his marble-green eyes. Liz remembered that last night he hadn’t looked at her. Hadn’t looked at her at all. He had just bled water all over the floor.
Elizabeth suddenly felt hot all over, and then sick. Nausea hit her in the stomach like a punch, and she turned and went quickly back into the bathroom, dropped to her knees and proceeded to throw up in the toilet.
There wasn’t much in her system. The vomit was a yellowish, viscous liquid. A strand of it hung from her bottom lip when the convulsion passed, and she wiped it away, waiting for another wave to hit. When it didn’t come, she straightened up on her knees, expecting Christopher to be there right behind her, to help her to her feet, to try and comfort her in his oft-irritating, conciliatory way. He wasn’t. As she got to her feet she saw that he was still sitting on the bed, in the exact same position.
Liz felt lightheaded, but she walked back to the doorway and decided to continue as though nothing had happened. “What kind of trick was that last night? You have a hose up your sleeve or something?”
She realized she sounded ridiculous, and had to suppress hysterical laughter. She put her hand to her mouth, the knuckles shiny with a bit of spittle, pressing the flesh against her teeth. To laugh like that — she might not stop.
“Liz. You have to remember what happened. It’s important that you do.”
“Are you kidding?” She removed the hand from her mouth, the urge to laugh had passed. There was no more suppressing what had happened. “I remember enough about last night, thank you for bringing it all back. You showed up and wouldn’t look at me, you acted all fucking creepy-weird, and after you left, Jared got home. There were some coyotes around, and he had to take care of them. Why were you here? Why are you here now?”
“Not last night. You have to remember what happened when we were together.”
“What happened?” Liz looked at him, gave him her best you’re-crazy face, and walked across the bedroom to the desk and sat down at it. She thought she saw something in the corner scurrying along between the edge of the roll-top desk and the wall. A rust-colored blur. But then there was nothing.
“We had a time, it was a special time, but we were both messed up, Chris. We parted ways. What do you want me to say? I would’ve stayed your friend, but you took off.”
“I didn’t just take off.”
“Yeah,” she said, “you did just take off.” She picked up a pen and clicked and unclicked it. She started to draw on her hand, stopped, and wiped away the traces of vomit with her towel. The pen wouldn’t write on her wet skin. She scrubbed at it again, blew on it. She took the pad from the desk and got the ink going again. It was a ballpoint pen. Useless. But she returned to her hand and started drawing.
“Liz, I need you to come with me. I need to show you something.”
“Where? You got a car? You never had a car.”
“We’ll get a ride.”
“I don’t think so.” She pointed the pen at the ceiling. “You hear that? It’s raining. I’m not hitchhiking with you.”
He continued to look right at her with that level gaze, his expression still hard to read. What was he thinking? Was this some sort of ploy to get back together with her? Or was he just trying to hurt her, to punish her?
“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” she said.
“Because you can’t run from everything. Not this.”
“Not what?” Her voice had taken on a sharp rise.
She glared at him, the smug son of a bitch. Who did he think he was? Her father? Her jailor? Her shrink? She put the pen down, the drawing on her hand not quite complete, and stood up. “Christopher, you better get going. I’ve got to take a shower. I’ve got things to do. Jared will be back soon.” She started across the room for the bathroom.
“No he won’t. Not exactly.”
She stopped, once again in the doorway between the two rooms. “Excuse me?”
Now Christopher stood up.
“Liz, I need you to remember everything. Painful as it may be.”
“Go away. Get out of here, before I call the police.”
He started walking to her, slowly. She noticed that his black button-down shirt was torn along one side, under the arm.
“Whatever,” she said, and turned away from him, and once more cranked the knobs in the bathtub so that water came rushing out of the shower head.
“You’ve never been able to forget it. You’ve never forgotten our child.”
“Shut up, Chris, get the fuck out of my house.”
Her back was to him. She adjusted the water. Too hot, too cold. Her mind was racing, but she couldn’t hold on to any of her darting thoughts. There was only the still center, unavoidable. A picture in that center.
“You always blamed yourself, too.”
“Stop it!” She wheeled on him then, towel falling from her, and hit him in the chest, slapped at his face. He was in the bathroom with her, and she battered him back out the door. He did nothing to defend himself, letting her pummel him. They ended up toppling backwards, falling through the doorway, feet tangled over the threshold, the rain pounding and the shower hissing and shushing; the world a chorus of white noise and beatings.
She was on top of him and he tried to hug her. The smug fuck. As if this was his great moment, as if he had broken through and now she would weep in
his arms. Weep, come clean, confess all, say oh, oh Christopher I’m so sorry — all after he’d stabbed her with this, after he’d reached into her and ripped.
Instead, she rolled off him and got up. Then she stalked across the room to the roll-top desk, to the other side of it, where the rifle was propped in the corner. She picked it up, swung around, and pointed it at his chest.
“Get out of here,” she said.
Christopher slowly got to his feet. He resumed his perfectly upright posture. She saw that he had a scratch on his cheek from where her fingernail — not long, by any means, but a fingernail nonetheless — had nicked him.
“Hurry up, you asshole, and get out of here.”
He made no move to leave. He only looked at her, into her. She cocked the rifle by pulling back the slide. Jared had taught her.
“Go ahead and shoot me. I’m the one who’s guilty. I’m the one who sucked you back in.”
“Get out, or I will.”
“I can’t make you do anything, Liz. I’m not a threat to you.”
“What are you babbling about? Leave. Now.”
“We were too young. It wasn’t time. Shoot me if you need to.”
The rain seemed to strengthen. The sound of it was loud enough for Liz to have to raise her voice.
“Don’t think you’re calling my bluff. This is no bluff. I’m well within my rights.” She parroted this last line, it sounded like something Jared would say.
“I just want you to shoot me. Maybe it will show you.”
“Show me what, you fucking psycho? I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You’re just a fucking weirdo with no life. Get out of mine. What, you’re invincible? What about that blood on your face, Superman?”
He took one step toward her then brought his other foot in line with the first so that he was still standing like a soldier, his legs shoulder-width apart. He blinked. She was aware of this because it felt like the first time she’d seen him blink at all.
“This whole town is going to be taken,” said Christopher. “That’s what’s meant to be.”
“Get out, weirdo.”
HIGHWATER: a suspense thriller you won't be able to put down Page 11