The Drayton Chronicles

by Bertauski, Tony

  XII

  The StairMaster was spotted with sweat, dripping from Carrie’s nose, chin and elbows. Her stomach pumped in and out, heaving beneath her ribs. Minutes earlier, she forced herself to drink a can of Ensure to keep up calorie intake. She hadn’t eaten solid food in days. Not by choice. She just couldn’t keep it down. Everything tasted spoiled.

  She couldn’t stop moving, either.

  Had to keep the furnace burning. Had to keep the fires stoked, to incinerate the thoughts, the feelings, the things lingering inside her. She was sure she’d scare the kid in the garden, make him shit himself in fear. He was just a kid. But whatever the fuck happened in those five, ten, twenty minutes, she was trying to forget. It turned her inside out.

  You’re nothing.

  All her life, her personality sat firmly on a foundation forged from a long line of successful Currents. They weren’t all millionaires by accident. It took fortitude, will, and strength to be good. It took a foundation of bedrock to get what they wanted. And, goddamnit, Carrie wasn’t about to let the cracks in that bedrock get any deeper. She’d power through it. She reset. She’d come back burying fists and knocking skull, if that’s what it took. She’d mowed over anything or anybody that ever got in the way. This was no different.

  He was just a kid.

  Nothing.

  She needed a little time. Needed to get back on track. Her real estate deal in Italy was coming together and she could focus on that for a few weeks. A little victory was what she needed. She would fly out to finish the deal. She’d planned on getting out of the country, forget about things, and return refreshed and renewed. Return the same old Carrie and deal with Grandmother. That was before the family lawyer called that morning: Your grandmother just fired me. Out of the blue, she dismissed his services after thirty years. Now Carrie would have to go back and sort that out before Italy.

  Nothing.

  She pumped the steps harder. She didn’t like the cold swell in her stomach. The tang of acid in her throat. Sweat streamed from her elbows. Hot air streamed from her nose.

  She squeezed the spongy handle grips. Dipped her head. Dug in.

  Someone tapped her arm. Said something. She pushed harder.

  Nothing.

  The first convulsion hit her in the gut. A fountain of creamy vomit splattered the machine’s panel. Her knees buckled. She hit her head on the way down when the second convulsion hit. She covered her mouth but sprayed more liquid vomit between her fingers.

  She lay on the floor, the StairMaster dripping. People gathered.

  She stumbled out of the room, jerking away from help. Running from the thought that vibrated through her like a tremor.

  Belt buckle.

  XIII

  Drayton placed the shovel on the shed wall and latched the door. He stood in the shade. The beds had been prepared, the flowers replanted, the roses blooming and the irrigation repaired. Birds had returned to the neglected houses. He remained still, watching the dragonflies hover over the lilypads in the pond, seeking a meal. It had been months since Drayton had fed, as well. He was not pained, but he was beginning to ache.

  He had not seen Condor or Carrie since he’d shared lunch with Ms. Ruth. Nor had he spoken with Ms. Ruth. Instead, he tended to the garden, letting life unfold as it needed.

  Soon, he would be needed.

  The chambermaid exited the house. She wandered through the formal garden, the paths lined with boxwoods, past the fountain and toward the shed.

  “Madam is ready for you to join her.”

  “Thank you, Melanie.” Drayton bowed. “You’ve been very kind.”

  Melanie the chambermaid could not help but smile.

  XIV

  Ms. Ruth was waiting on the veranda that overlooked the gardens.

  There was a small table and chair next to her. A cup of tea.

  Drayton sat, crossed his legs. He took the cup and saucer. Together, they watched an egret soar over the sand dunes. The sun was setting behind them, casting the house’s long shadow across the yard and over the pool.

  “Tell me about your life, Drayton.”

  Her hands held each other on her lap, shaking. She looked at them, could not stop them. So she looked back to the garden. The shadows a bit longer.

  “The time of my birth is too far back for even my memory,” he said, thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps we were not born.”

  Drayton had considered this before. He had no memories of growing up, only the vague memories of hunger and strength. Of anger, power, and death. He did not just appear on this planet. No, he felt certain he was born.

  “I believe, at one time, I was human. Something happened.” Now he looked at his hands. “And now I am this.”

  “What is that?”

  He remained silent. Drayton did not know the answer.

  “I see.” Ms. Ruth wrung her hands.

  “My earliest memories are primal. Thirst, satisfaction and pain. I slept in wooded areas, drank from streams and fed on the blood of deer and elk.”

  He was stronger than all the animals in the forest. He was faster. Smarter. In the beginning, his skin was light and he ran amongst animals, fed on the smaller and weaker ones, like rabbit and fox. But as he grew stronger, the animals began to fear him and he took down larger prey, choking them with his bare hands, tearing out their eyes with his nails, biting open their throats.

  Then came the settlers. They cut down trees and built their houses. Their children played in the woods and the men hunted animals and the women stayed at the homes. Drayton felt the pang of curiosity, seeing creatures shaped like him. Their skin was much more fair, since his had darkened with time. He stalked them at night, watched them during the day. He imitated the sounds they made until they become words.

  He eventually began to hunt them.

  “But you are no longer this beast?”

  “I am not.”

  Ms. Ruth studied the darkening sky. Drayton sipped his tea. She was looking at her twisting hands when she said, “Will I have that opportunity? When I die, will I have the chance to become something more than a beast?”

  Drayton did not answer. He had the luxury of hundreds of years to learn compassion. He learned the cycle of suffering that resulted from carnal desires. He understood his being, his mind and heart, understood the interconnected nature of the universe. Perhaps it took such a long life to achieve such a state of ordinary enlightenment. A luxury humans did not have.

  “What will become of me when I die?” she asked.

  “Who are you?”

  She chuckled. Drayton sensed the letting go inside her. The answer to that question was in the question itself. “I see,” she said.

  They remained quiet until night had completely fallen. There was the song of frogs. The night breeze. The moon illuminated the ground. Drayton’s tea was long since cold when Melanie came for Ms. Ruth.

  “I will require an escort tomorrow evening,” she said. “You will meet on the sand dunes when the sun has set. After all, that is why you are here. Is it not?”

  “It would be an honor.” Drayton bowed.

  Melanie had no idea what they were talking about.

  XV

  Carrie chased the little pill with water. Her trainer gave her the antidepressants after the gym episode. She always refused pills. She liked control. She didn’t want to rely on pharmaceuticals to make her feel herself. But Carrie was a realist. She was not in control. The puke-scented Stairmaster was proof.

  Her head was a little buzzy, but she was herself. And she liked that. The pill was helping her get back to who she really was, helped her find herself. She’d put off the lawyer fiasco long enough, but now she was ready. Besides, she was leaving for Italy in a few days and she needed to get a handle on the family finances. She had a friend that knew how to wrestle control from older family members when it came to important decisions concerning the estate. Especially ones that would affect her.

  She got in the car, ignoring the fe
ar swirling in her belly, clamping her chest.

  That’s just the pill. Not me.

  XVI

  Condor didn’t hear Carrie’s car stop in front of the house. He didn’t see the headlights flash across the windows or hear the door slam. He was buried deep in his closet, wrapped tightly in a sheet beneath the glow of an iPad.

  “Mmmmmmmmmmmommmm,” he hummed to himself. “Mmmmmmy…”

  XVII

  Drayton waited atop the sand dune, the sea oats brushing against his legs.

  He was breathing, his mind empty. His breath empty.

  There was the water. The sand.

  Night had come.

  And then there were the soft sounds of footsteps behind him. Ms. Ruth was holding her white dress bunched in her hands, her bare feet pushing through the sand. The wind blew the sheer fabric of her dress against her naked body beneath.

  Drayton offered his hand and she took it.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  And they journeyed to the beach where the waves slid over their feet.

  XVIII

  “What’d you mean she went for a walk?” Carrie’s lips pulled over her teeth. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Madam insisted,” Melanie said, shrinking.

  “So you just let an 85 year old woman wander off on her own?”

  “No, ma’am. She went with Mr. Drayton.”

  “You did what? ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?”

  Melanie stepped back. Carrie was grateful the chambermaid was out of reach. She needed to strangle something. She wanted the old woman to disappear, but on her terms. No telling what the gardener would do with her.

  “Where’s my dipshit brother?”

  “His room.” Melanie held her hands to her chest, sort of pointed in the direction of Condor’s room.

  “Jesus Christ.” Carrie’s footsteps thundered down the hall.

  XIX

  They walked about three hundred yards. Ms. Ruth stopped. Her breath labored.

  She was looking at a ship on the horizon, its lights flickering against a backdrop of night sky. Her mouth hung open, then smiled.

  “My grandfather was a fisherman,” she whispered. “He started with one boat, then had two. He eventually owned half a dozen. But he worked those boats to the day he died. If the sun was up, my granddaddy was working.”

  She stepped toward the surf and let go of her dress. The water wicked up the fabric. Drayton walked with her, holding her hand. She squeezed back.

  She looked down, reached into the water and pulled up a handful of sand, letting it slip between her fingers. “My daddy bought this land before it was a resort. He provided the best for us, Drayton. He wanted only the best for the world, you understand. He was an optimist. He believed in mankind, that we were better than animals.”

  The sand plopped into the water.

  “We let him down, Drayton.” Her eyes were wet.

  They watched the ship disappear over the horizon. Ms. Ruth clung tightly to Drayton’s hand. Her fingers were quivering.

  XX

  “Grandmother!” Carrie threw open the back door and ran through the garden.

  She stood on the sand dune and cupped her hands over her mouth.

  “GRANDMOTHER!”

  Clouds had moved over the moon. The water was as dark as the sky. Carrie couldn’t see anything that resembled an old lady.

  She ran back to the house, cursing along the way. She didn’t bother brushing the sand from her feet as she stormed through the kitchen and down the hall. “Goddamnit, Connie!” she screamed. “GODDAMNIT!”

  She ignored the ugly lump growing in her stomach. The sour taste in her throat. The haunted feel of the house. She ignored all that because she kept her sights trained on her pathetic, sniveling shitturd brother. This was his fault. Why couldn’t he be anything like a Current? Was the asshole adopted from a pot of retards or did her parents win him at the circus?

  “Connie.” His door was locked. She knocked. “Connie, open the door. Open the door, Connie, I want to talk to you. Did you know your grandmother went out for a midnight stroll? Huh? Did you know she’s been talking to lawyers ABOUT THE FUCKING WILL, YOU BRAINLESS FUCKHOLE!”

  She jerked at the doorknob. She pounded on the door, but nothing. She went down to Daddy’s office and pulled an ivory bookend off the shelf. It took three swings to knock the doorknob off and a layer of skin from her knuckles.

  She kicked the door open. The radio played softly, but the room was empty. Clothes were strewn over the bed and heaped in piles. “Shit!” She chucked the bookend at the radio. She started to leave, but stopped when she heard the murmuring. A fan was blowing inside the closet.

  “Connie?”

  That’s when she noticed the hole in the closet door and the blue glow inside. She stopped on the other side of the door and listened. There was a rhythmic chant. She stepped closer, the door slightly ajar. The stench of smoke made her jerk back. She looked again. An iPad screen illuminated the back corner. Connie was snuggled up, humming.

  “Mmmmmmommmmmommma…”

  Carrie threw the door open, light spilling inside. Connie’s eyes went wide, but he didn’t have a chance to defend himself. Carrie grabbed a handful of hair and dragged him from the closet. His pants were around his knees. The iPad fell off its pedestal and was kicked onto the bedroom floor, the erotic scenes in full detail. Carrie hardly noticed. She dropped a fist into Connie’s nose, felt the crack of cartilage beneath her skinned knuckles. She brought her knee into his groin, heard him choke. And each time she swung, his belt buckle jingled around his knees.

  You’re nothing.

  She punched his chest when he covered his face.

  Jingle.

  She cracked his left orbital when he covered his chest.

  “Fuck you, you son of a bitch. Fuck you. FUCK YOU!”

  It kept going. And going.

  Until she heard Connie’s sobs. He was crying through bloody fingers.

  Nothing.

  She stood up, looked at the blood on her hands. Blood on the floor. She didn’t see her brother.

  She started down the hall for the office.

  XXI

  The sand wrapped around Ruth’s ankles as the undercurrent washed toward the ocean, gently pulling her with it. The waves gently lapped against her stomach, now. The water was warm. She was cold, inside.

  Drayton held her hand. He did not move, only supported her efforts.

  Ruth knew she had died long before this day. Long before Drayton pulled her from the hospital. She was never quite interested in the living. All her life, she was always getting and having this and that, maybe it was property or power, or the delicious emotion of victory or the touch of a stranger. She had the money to satisfy every desire.

  But it meant nothing. Worse, she had a gnawing sensation inside, ever since Drayton brought her back. It was the emptiness of a wasted life. She would leave this world no better than she entered it. She hurt people, she took from them. Worse of all, she gave the world her grandchildren that would continue sucking on the world’s tit.

  The end was near. And nothing in the world could stop it.

  She drew closer, put her arms around Drayton’s neck. In one sweeping motion, he cradled her so that she was floating on the water. He began to walk deeper. She closed her eyes.

  XXII

  Condor was unconscious on his bedroom floor.

  The iPad continued the erotic streaming, flashing against his cheeks, illuminating the sheen of sweat and blood. His eyes were partly open, but he didn’t see the action. He had escaped to a dreamy world that was numb and sweet. Far away from the ache of his life. Not the physical pain, so much. More the sinking weight that seemed to fill his chest, the block of emotional ice, a frozen chunk of self-hate and loathing and fear.

  In the dream world, he was a baby. His mother had him cradled in her arms, her breast exposed. Condor fumbled the nipple into his mouth and felt the warmth of his mother’s love gush down hi
s throat. Fill his belly.

  He belonged in this world with the nipple. That’s where he wanted to be. He wanted to stay in that baby world. He didn’t want to grow up. Didn’t want to be an adult. He wanted someone to take care of him, change his diapers and make the bad feelings go away.

  But all dreams end, even when you’ve been knocked unconscious. He awoke to screaming pain knifing through his groin. Fiery throbs in his nose. He tried not to move but the pain was not going to leave. It would be like this the rest of his life. He would never get to be a baby again.

  With great agony, he rolled on his side, paused to catch his breath, then got to his knees. He crawled to the night stand by the bed, opened the bottom drawer, retrieved a brown bottle.

  XXIII

  Carrie bent at the knees, lifting her father’s oak desk. The drawers slid open and all the shit fell on the floor. She dumped it with a crash, then began pulling all the books all the shelves, ripping out pages and throwing trophies and pictures at the wall, through the window.

  The fuck. Her father, the fuck.

  Belt buckle.

  She craved to put her hands around his neck. To put an elbow into his jaw. To open his veins, to suck out his life. She wanted that fuck dead, dead, dead. She wanted to be the one to do it. And every knick-knack that had been carefully in place in his office, the space he did his business, preserved since the day he died so they could all pretend the fuck was still alive, everything she destroyed. She broke, crushed, flung until she was exhausted.

  Heaving, she dropped to her knees.

  Around, utter chaos.

  And when she realized the weight of her father pressing down on her, the jingle of his belt buckle, the crushing words he spit, his curly chest hair in her face, the smell of sweat and musk and hate and power and… and…and…