Gilchrist: A Novel

by Christian Galacar

  Corbin switched the inhaler to the other nostril and did that side, evening himself off. His pupils widened as large as gun muzzles, the light in the bathroom taking on a vivid, electric edge. The boost the inhaler gave him felt good, but it was a counterfeit, hollow kind of energy that felt all too much like an imposter of the sleep he really needed. It worked in a pinch, though; he wouldn’t argue that.

  He slid the inhaler back into his pocket and looked in the mirror again. His face had drained to the pallid color of the porcelain sink. His stomach was coming up. He bent over the toilet and vomited dark, yellowish liquid, a mixture of stomach bile and the half cup of coffee he had substituted for a real breakfast.

  7

  Billy regarded the shape under the sheet as he sat alone in the morgue, hands clasped anxiously atop his knees. Hank had excused himself a moment ago to make a phone call to the coroner’s office, leaving Billy with the stiff. His eyes were glued to it, agape with that disgusted and horrified look of fascination that always seemed to be saved for those who want to look away but cannot, held hostage by their own morbid curiosity. He tried to find something else to focus on, but the machine of his imagination was already winding up, running away with itself and firing horrific ideas into his mind’s eye.

  The scenarios came, each one hardening the knot in his gut a little more. What if it sits up? What if it isn’t dead? What if that’s actually me under there, and I’m dead but just don’t know it? What if the sheet moves… just a little, then a little more, then a lot? What if…

  He slid his feet out a few inches in front of him and started tapping the toes of his boots. Deliberate sound always seemed to push away fear. Like how sometimes, when he was kid, he would take extra-loud footsteps on the stairs when his mom had asked him to get something from the attic. Or how he would cough really loudly when he switched on the light. Maybe if he gave the scary things time to hide, they would appreciate it and not feel obligated to terrorize him.

  He laughed to himself. It was one of those desperate laughs that was really supposed to show anything that might be watching that he wasn’t afraid. “Jesus, Bill, get a grip, would you?” he said. A regretful thought followed: It’s already bad enough I puked in front of everyone.

  Billy wished he could take back that part of the evening. It’d been so embarrassing. Corbin had been nice enough about the whole thing, but once the other guys—especially that prick Dave Blatten, who’d been a bully in his youth and had carried the act right on into adulthood—got wind of the news, it would be all hands on deck. He would never hear the end of it.

  God, he hated Dave. But he had good reason to.

  He sighed and stopped rubbing his hands on his knees. He removed the gum he was chewing and stuck it under his chair. It was a bad habit he had been trying to break since childhood. He didn’t even realize he was doing it half the time. Growing up, he used to get yelled at for sticking it under the coffee table in their living room.

  The overhead lights dimmed and flickered, the fluorescent bulbs crackling. Billy looked up, startled. The temperature in the room had plummeted, too. His breath was coming out in small wisps and breaking apart in front of his face. The lights gave another series of flickers and pops. Then they went off. It was dark, but enough streetlight filtered in through the windows to leave everything a shadowy orange. The hollows of the room grew very deep very quickly.

  “Little Willy William, you want a piece of haaard caaandy?” a voice called out. “I got the hard stuff for you. Just don’t tell your mother I let you spoil your appetite. Don’t tell annnyone.”

  Little Willy William? The only person who used to call him that was… He didn’t want to think about it. But that voice, it was different than he remembered it, but he still recognized it. This version of it sounded muddy and rotten, as if it’d traveled through a clogged drain.

  “Jesus Christ. This is not happening,” he whispered, looking around frantically, waiting for something to show itself. The logical part of him told him that it had to be a person, someone playing some kind of joke—but how could they know?—while another more suggestible part of him offered a far more terrifying explanation than any rational idea he could come up with on his own.

  “Want to get under the covers and plaaay?” the voice croaked again. “Just don’t tell Mommy and Daddy. Don’t tell anyone, or I’ll cut it off.”

  Billy closed his eyes, his jaw starting to tremble. In that moment, he was ten years old again.

  Then everything stopped, and the room fell away to a deafening silence as if a giant glass bell jar had been placed over him. The only thing he could hear was the thick pulse of blood in his ears and the shallow whine of his panicked breaths.

  “Just a taste, it’s okay,” the voice whispered, filling the eerie silence. Somehow it had come from behind him, even though his head and back were against the wall. A surge of adrenaline snapped him into action.

  He opened his eyes and stood up. “Who’s there?” he said, feeling foolish. But feeling foolish didn’t seem to make the fear any less terrifying—or any less real. “This isn’t funny.” He tried the light switch beside him, but it did nothing.

  He heard the dry, soft scratch of stiff cloth being dragged across something rough. He looked at the body on the table ten feet away from him. Where Danny Metzger’s groin would be, the sheet was standing at attention. “Popping a tent,” he and his friends used to call it when they were kids. Something was slithering under the sheet. Not slithering. The whole body seemed to be writhing slowly, gyrating at the hips. A hand, gray and bloated with clotted flesh, dropped out from underneath the sheet. It had a big gold ring on the pinky finger. Billy would’ve bet his life that if he looked closer, he would see the little blue Masonic Square and Compasses symbol on the ring, just like his uncle Lonnie used to wear.

  The voice returned, this time with a mean, angry edge to it: “Get the fuck over here, boy, and take what I got to give you. And if you tell, I’ll kill your mommy and your daddy. Then I’ll cut yours off and put it in a blender.”

  “Stop it!” Billy cried, and a single sob escaped his mouth like a gob of pudding.

  The hand became animated and moved down the body, starting to touch itself in bad places. It started moaning sick sounds of gross pleasure and taunting him.

  “I’ll cut yours off, I’ll cut yours off, I’ll cut yours off…” There was a pause—a terrifying moment of silent hostility. “Then I can give you mine!” the voice shrieked.

  Billy didn’t remember tearing his eyes away or going for the door, but now he was looking down at his hand as it fumbled with the doorknob.

  8

  Corbin was coming out of the bathroom when there was a loud bang, followed by a high-pitched squeak and a rattle as the door to the morgue flew open up the hall, crashing against the wall.

  Billy burst out in a hurry, looking around frantically like a man trying to figure out where he was. He spotted Corbin, straightened, hitched his pants, and seemed to gather himself.

  “Everything all right, Billy?”

  Billy was breathing heavily, his hand pressed over his forehead. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m… I’m fine,” he said, standing in the middle of the hallway. He turned and looked into the morgue through the open door. He went over and shut it.

  “You sure?”

  The kid hesitated, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

  “I thought you said you’d be fine.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Billy said. “That room gives me the creeps.”

  “Yeah. I don’t like it much myself. Let’s get out of here.”

  “We done?”

  “Yeah, for the night. I need to get some sleep. You should do the same.”

  9

  Meryl was sleeping when Corbin came in. He took a seat on the chair in the corner of the room and unlaced his boots before slipping them off one at a time and gently setting them on the floor beside the dresser. He looked at the alarm clock on his nightstand. It was 4:57 a.m. H
e was exhausted and could still feel the dirty energy of the Benzedrine in his system, but it didn’t stand a chance against the sleep he needed. He removed his clothes until he was wearing only his boxer shorts and a white cotton T-shirt with yellowed armpits and a stretched-out neck. He caught his reflection in the mirror on the wall. There was something sad about the picture. His belly stuck out farther than he had remembered. It’d gotten bigger over the last couple of years as his metabolism finally started to dig in its heels. The ass of his boxers sagged, making it appear as though he might be wearing a giant diaper beneath. His legs were skinny and pasty. The anemic morning light only added to the grimness of it all. He looked like a character out of a Russian novel he’d never read.

  Sunrise was still an hour away, but already the sky was a dark bruise. The birds had started their morning routine. Corbin sighed, and crossed to the windows on the far side of the bedroom. They faced east, looking out over his backyard. There was a small fenced-in garden, a little twenty-by-twenty lot near the back, where he spent many a day off tending to a small variety of crops. Mostly he grew tomatoes, corn, and squash, but this year he’d added cucumbers and carrots. A gopher had managed to sneak in under the chicken-wire fence, but for two nights, Corbin had sat out there with his .22 rifle, a case of Budweiser, and a sack of beef jerky until the trespasser showed up and he plunked the darned thing right between its beady little eyes. The carrots had stopped going missing after that.

  He pulled down the roller shade on each window to keep the sun from blaring in when it came up. He shut the curtains, too, adding a second layer of defense. If he was lucky, he would be able to get at least five good hours of sleep before he had to get back to work. He didn’t even want to think about that at the moment, but it was impossible not to.

  He got into bed and lay on his back, arms behind his head, fingers interlaced. He was thinking about the kid’s mangled body. That wasn’t an image he would soon forget.

  Then Meryl slid over to him and put her hand on his stomach, and he wasn’t thinking about any of that at all. “Tough day?” she asked softly, never opening her eyes.

  “Tough day,” he answered.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Get some sleep. I’ll make you breakfast and coffee when you get up.” She slid her hand farther down and slipped it into his boxer shorts. She took him in her hand gently and drifted back to sleep holding him. She did that often, and Corbin thought it was just about the funniest thing in the world. He kissed the top of her head. Her hair smelled of lavender soap.

  Corbin closed his eyes, and he was asleep.

  Chapter Five

  SHADY COVE

  1

  Peter and Sylvia were on the road by seven o’clock in the morning on Sunday. The car was packed full with groceries and suitcases. On any other vacation—this was really more of a convalescence of sorts than a vacation—alcohol, and lots of it, would have been a standard provision. But he hadn’t brought any. It was going to be a sober three weeks while they were there. Time to touch down and get grounded. That included abusing prescription medications, which meant Sylvia was no longer in charge of her Equanil intake. Peter had scoured the house and found every bottle he knew of on Friday night, even the ones he knew she thought were superbly hidden. He was rather surprised at how well she’d taken it when he told her he wouldn’t allow her to self-administer her pills anymore. She would get one pill every four to six hours as needed, and he would make sure she actually took them so she couldn’t squirrel away too many nuts and then take them all at once.

  They passed into Gilchrist just after eight o’clock. The sky was a tall and clean electric blue. Not a single cloud. It was going to be a hot day, but the air held the dry edge of autumn six weeks out—the kind of weather a high-pressure system brings when it decides to park itself over New England at the tail end of summer. Sylvia was staring out the open window, hands folded in her lap as they passed the sign welcoming them to town.

  ENTERING GILCHRIST

  Inc. 1889

  MAYOR EARLY CRAWFORD WELCOMES YOU TO THE TOWN OF GILCHRIST. STAY AWHILE, YOU’LL LOVE IT HERE.

  Since having that strange dream a few nights ago, Peter had found himself turning the bizarre details over in his mind at odd moments. Usually it was after seeing something that reminded him of it, like the elderly man in line at the grocery store yesterday. That had drummed up recollections of the aged reflection of himself. And then there was the hose at the gas pumps that had reminded him of those oily snakes. Or the stoplight that had looked a little too much like that brooding red sky. It was always little things, the artifacts of everyday life. His mind was waiting to latch on to any excuse to remind him of that dream. And every time it did, a trace of free-floating anxiety drifted in its wake.

  Seeing the sign welcoming them to town had drummed it up this time.

  Gilchrist, he thought. The snakes whispered it to me. Why?

  His palms started to sweat, and he began to squeeze the steering wheel a little tighter… then a little tighter.

  “You okay?” Sylvia asked.

  He looked over at her. “Huh?”

  “Your face is a little gray.” She reached over and touched his arm.

  And when she did, Peter was hit by a bright flash followed by a scream that was abruptly cut off. The feeling was vaguely familiar—a distant cousin to the other knack he had for finding things he had no business finding when they were lost. But it was also a very different feeling. Truth be told, he had never experienced anything quite like it, and he was glad when the sensation faded.

  He looked over at her. “I’m okay. I should’ve eaten before we left. I’m starving.”

  “That makes two of us,” Sylvia said. “How much longer?”

  “We’re almost there.” Peter cleared his throat. “I’m pretty sure, anyway.”

  Sylvia didn’t say anything more, but she slunk down in her seat with a content look on her face. She seemed to have brightened and smoothed out in the last twenty minutes or so, as if some invisible hand had tuned the internal strings of her spirit. She inhaled deeply, let it out as a sigh, and leaned her head out the window, her face angled up to the sun. She closed her eyes as the wind ran through her hair. Before they had left, she’d let it down, doing away with the tight updo she’d been fond of for so many years. Now silky ribbons of her auburn hair swam around her face, kissing and whipping the shoulders of her white blouse. She looked the way she had when he’d first seen her in the college library a decade ago. They both had attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and she’d been wearing a white blouse that day in the library, too. In his mind’s eye, the image of her sitting at that huge library table, stacks of books surrounding her, and chewing on the end of a pencil, was as clear as anything he’d ever seen.

  “The air reminds me of something,” she said, dropping her arm out the window and letting her hand ride the wind up and down.

  “The smell?” He watched her face flicker in the bars of sunlight as the road narrowed.

  “Yes,” she said, her eyes still closed.

  “Me too,” he said.

  Peter knew exactly what she was talking about. He had smelled it the first time he had visited the town, and he smelled it again now. It was the faint smell of woodsmoke. It reminded him of the fall and itchy sweaters. And suddenly that powerful nostalgic feeling returned. The feeling that he had spent a lifetime here.

  2

  Lakeman’s Lane was a scabby dirt road with a grassy crown between two tire paths that’d been worn to deep ruts over the years. Rocks and twigs plunked the undercarriage of the Dodge. The car dipped and rocked as Peter carefully navigated potholes, occasionally bottoming out. Every so often a driveway would appear on the right, and on some tree near the entrance a small wooden sign would be hung, always with a name painted on it.

  Eventually they came to a large tree with a sign that showed a faded number 44 painted on it. Peter stopped the car in the middle of the road. Below the number
were two words: SHADY COVE.

  “I think this is it,” he said, leaning forward and squinting at the sign. “Home sweet home.”

  “I don’t see a house. Where is it?” Sylvia sat up, peering around.

  It was cool and gloomy on the road. The sunlight couldn’t penetrate the thick tree cover. A pleasant lake breeze rustled the canopy overhead and passed through the car. The name Shady Cove made sense.

  “From the pictures I saw, it’s right down on the water. My guess is it’s set back off the road a piece.” All of the land on the right side of the road slanted down at a steep angle and went on for about two hundred feet before flattening out near the bottom and meeting up with a dark, sandy shoreline. “We can go explore the property once we get settled. The guy said there was a boat. Maybe we could take it out… if you feel up to it.”

  “Don’t do that,” Sylvia said, not angrily but firmly.

  “Do what?” Peter said. He knew exactly what she meant, though; he had heard it himself as the words left his mouth.

  “Don’t treat me like that the whole time we’re here. If that’s what this is going to be, you walking on eggshells around me, then you can take me home now. What’s the point of getting away from it all, if you’re going to be carrying it with you the entire time and waving it under my nose?”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” Peter said. But he thought, Cut me a little slack, okay? He thought, I deserve at least that; it wasn’t you who came home to find me at death’s door, having taken a fistful of pills. He thought, You didn’t have to search me for a pulse to make sure I was still alive.