Gilchrist: A Novel

by Christian Galacar

After he had dragged his father’s body behind the woodshed and covered it with a tarp, he had gone inside. His mom had been sitting in the living room, combing her hair in the reflection of a cloudy window. Peyton Place was playing on the television. Watching that show was the last thing Nate and Barbara Osterman did together. Of course, in public, Nate said the only television he watched was reruns of The Honeymooners or Gunsmoke.

  “Hi, Ricky,” his mother said. “Your father doesn’t like my haircut. Do you?”

  “Yeah, Ma,” he said, and kissed the top of her head. “I gotta take care of something. You’ll be all right now, huh?”

  “Of course, sweetie.” She stopped combing and looked at him over her shoulder. “Want me to make you some eggs? I know how you like breakfast for dinner.”

  He had when he was much younger, before her accident.

  “No, Ma. Not hungry. Some other time?”

  “Okay.” She returned to combing her hair, a dull look in her dark, glassy eyes.

  Ricky left, feeling an odd sensation he couldn’t place. Then he drove to his father’s shop, hid his Biscayne out back among the rows of junked cars, covered it in an old canvas, and fell asleep in the backseat almost immediately. At some point in the middle of the night, he awoke to the sound of a car driving slowly through the front parking lot, tires crunching across gravel. When he peered through a tiny flap in the canvas, he saw taillights pulling away. And he could’ve sworn they belonged to Chief Delancey’s cruiser. The guy had been so close, but he hadn’t fully committed to his instincts. The excitement of it had overcome Ricky to the point where he had been forced to pull his pants down and jerk off into an empty beer bottle. After that, he had fallen back to sleep and dreamed colorful dreams.

  But that all felt like a lifetime ago as he breasted the hill and came up on his hideaway now. It was thirty yards or so in the distance. He stopped, pulled the pistol from his waistband, and leaned up against a tree, setting down his duffel bag of supplies. He surveyed the scene, making sure there weren’t any surprises waiting for him. He got the sense that Grace was clever, but after what his car had done to her foot, she was more or less immobile, even if she had somehow gotten free of his knots. And he doubted that very much.

  Still, he stayed there for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the woods. Two crows were perched on the sagging, mossy roof of the pump shed. His father hadn’t taught him much, but one thing he had said to him that had always stuck was: If you’re going to do something, you might as well do it right. He tried to adhere to that adage as much as he could, not because he had respected his old man, but because it made sense. He didn’t want to screw this whole thing up for one little measly oversight. So he would be cautious.

  When he was convinced nothing was lying in wait for him, he picked up the duffel and headed down the hill, pistol still at the ready. Bit by bit, he cut off the angle to the pump-shed doorway, until he broke into the sightline. Two terrified eyes glared out at him from the darkness of his hideaway. All knots appeared to have held fast. Relief mixed with excitement, creating a satisfying warmth in his chest.

  “Gracie, how the hell are you?” Ricky said as he moved toward her. “Did you miss—” A loud explosion cracked in the distance and echoed through the woods. He ducked, stuttering forward a step. Fleets of roosting birds burst from the treetops, their panicked wings beating the sky. “Hot shit! What the hell was that?” He looked up and around, trying to determine which direction the sound had come from.

  It seemed to have issued from the direction of Gilchrist. It was a powerful sound, and it excited him. He didn’t know what it was or what had caused it, but he liked it much in the same way a shark liked any trace of blood it smelled. “Must still be blasting. Damn, Gracie, I think I nearly just pissed my pants,” he said, and laughed.

  He entered the shed, dropped the duffel beside her, and squatted down to meet her eyes. Grace breathed slowly, steadily, her gaze following him but not reacting to him. He didn’t think she looked scared. Hollow was the best he could think of. Had her night out there alone broken her already? He hoped not. He had wanted to watch her break, to be there to catch the moment.

  “You get any visitors last night? Sometimes coyotes come for my souvenirs.” He gestured vaguely to the animal carcasses on the walls. “They sure woulda liked a fresh, tasty thing like you.”

  She didn’t respond with anything other than a quick blink.

  “All right, well, I brought some food. If you’re nice, I’ll let you have some. If I take this off”—he ran his finger over the winds of rope securing her mouth to the pipe—“are you gonna be a nice girl? I don’t want to hear any yelling. No one can hear you, and it’ll just give me a headache. Then I’ll have to give you one.”

  No response. Not even a blink.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  He stood, went around behind her, undid the knot at the back of her head, and unraveled the rope. He wound it into a loose coil around his arm, then dropped it on the ground in front of her. It landed with a ropey splat. She backed her mouth off the pipe, slowly moving her jaw up and down to work out the stiffness. Her teeth had left scratch marks in the rust. No longer attached at the head, she carefully adjusted her legs so that she wasn’t kneeling anymore and instead was sitting with her legs out in front of her.

  “Water. I need water, Ricky,” Grace said hoarsely. “Unless you plan on having me die of thirst. In which case, you might as well just shoot me.”

  Ricky looked at her closely. “I ain’t gonna shoot you. No, ma’am. What kind of a sendoff would that be?” He picked up the duffel and set it on an overturned crate. He opened it, pulled out a metal canteen, and unscrewed the cap. “Open up.”

  Grace tilted her head back, opened her mouth, and stuck out her tongue. It was white and filmy, with a brown tint running down the middle from the rusty pipe. He dumped small sips into her mouth and let her swallow in between.

  After five or six, he said, “That’s enough. I don’t feel like filling it up again. You want a beer? Some whiskey? Maybe that’ll loosen you up a little. We’re gonna spend a little time out here, and I don’t need an uptight bitch bringing me down.”

  “Which one is better for pain?” she asked.

  Ricky smiled. He’d half expected her to flat-out refuse it. “Whiskey. Want a tug?”

  “Okay,” she said, wiggling her nose.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “My nose itches, Ricky.” She glanced at one of her bound hands. “And I can’t exactly scratch it.”

  “Rub it on the pipe.”

  “I’ll pass, thanks.” She kept wrinkling her nose.

  “Knock that off. Here.” Ricky dragged his knuckles roughly across her upper lip and nose. She winced, but it seemed to stop the twitchy nose thing that he didn’t like.

  “Thank you,” Grace said.

  Ricky turned and pulled a bottle of Old Grand-Dad bourbon from the bag. “Open.”

  “What’s it taste like?” Grace asked, and worked her jaw from side to side again.

  Ricky uncapped the bottle, took a long sip, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Like dog piss. Last chance. Open.”

  To his surprise, she opened her mouth. He splashed some on her tongue.

  She pulled her head away and grimaced, but she held it all in and eventually swallowed. “It burns.”

  “Yeah, it burns,” Ricky said, grinning. “That means it’s good. More?”

  Grace nodded. “Yes.”

  He tilted the bottle, and a thick stream jetted into her mouth. Her cheeks puffed out like a greedy chipmunk, but she didn’t spit it out. She steeled herself and swallowed it all.

  “Hot shit, Gracie. I didn’t think you had it in you.” He capped the bottle and put it back in the duffel. He bent and peered out the one window.

  “Ricky?” Grace said.

  He wheeled around on his boot heel. “What?”

  “Are you going kill me?” she asked.
<
br />   He let out a small laugh, then dropped back down on his haunches. Their eyes were level again. “Oh, Gracie. Gracie, Gracie, Gracie. Yeah… probably.” He winked at her and then flicked her forehead. “And maybe, you know, maybe I lied about that other thing. Maybe we can do that, too. We got all the time in the world, beautiful.”

  She rested her head against the pipe and started to cry, but she didn’t make a sound. They were silent tears.

  Ricky pulled a little battery-powered radio from his bag, turned it on, and started to dance. “Hot shit, Gracie,” he said. “I love this song.”

  It was “Paint It Black” by The Rolling Stones.

  6

  Peter awoke in a hospital bed with a gnawing headache behind his eyes. Sterile colors and antiseptic smells surrounded him. Unreality and reality duked it out in his first waking moments, oscillating between crippling sadness and a false relief that it had all been some terrible nightmare. In the end, reality landed with gruesome finality, and the full weight of tragedy settled over him to stay. If he could’ve turned away from it, he would have.

  This is what he knew: there had been some sort of an explosion at the church, and Sylvia had been inside when it had happened. These two intersecting thoughts were part of a bigger truth he didn’t want to face but knew he had to. So that was what he intended to do.

  He looked down. His shoes were still on his feet. They hadn’t put him in a gown. That was a good sign, he thought. His pants were covered in specks of black and a few tracks of blood. He looked at his arms. No IVs. He wasn’t connected to any machines, either, so far as he could tell. He pushed himself up, confirmed it, squeezed his temples, and checked his wrist. He still had on his watch. It was twenty past two. They had been in the church at around one o’clock, which was just over an hour ago. But the hour seemed huge from his current viewpoint—a Grand Canyon gap in his life.

  Peter glanced around the room. The windows were streaked with thin silver slugs of rain. The bed beside him was empty. Fuzzy memories flickered in his head: people standing over him on the sidewalk; being lifted off the ground, jostled; then a speedy ride in the back of a car.

  He swung his legs off the bed. When the head rush had subsided, he stood. The floor was tilted. His balance was shaky at best, but he could manage well enough. After a moment, everything seemed to level out. He went into the hallway and spotted a nurses’ station with a group of nurses behind the desk. He made his way up the corridor, his hand pressed across his forehead. He had never felt such a headache in his life. Each step he took brought up the urge to vomit.

  When he was about ten feet away from the nurses, one stood and rushed around the counter to him. She was tall and thin, with a pretty face. “Sir, you shouldn’t be up and walking.”

  “Where am I?” Peter asked, steadying himself against the wall. The nurse tried to take his arm, but he shook her off. “I’m fine.”

  “Gilchrist County Hospital,” she said, watching him carefully. “They brought you in an hour ago.”

  “County hospital? Am I still in Gilchrist?” Peter angled his head down and winced. It felt like a shard of glass was trying to make its way through the arterial tunnels of his brain.

  “No. You’re in Hammond. Gilchrist is a few miles away, the next town over.” The nurse lowered her head, trying to find Peter’s eyes. “That’s where you were. Do you remember anything?”

  Peter lifted his gaze. “A little. What happened?”

  “You really should be lying down. You’ve likely suffered a concussion, Mr. Martell.”

  Frustration was starting to boil up in Peter. “What happened?” he repeated, almost snapped.

  “They don’t know. There was an explosion. That’s all anyone’s told us so far.”

  “Where have they taken everyone?” Peter looked around. The place didn’t appear particularly busy given the circumstances. “It doesn’t seem like it’s here.”

  “You were one of the lucky ones. Most are being brought to Worcester General or Boston. They’re better equipped to handle something like this. You should be happy you woke up here. That means you’re going to be fine.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “You were driven. Not sure by who. They just said they found you unconscious on the sidewalk. They went back to keep helping.” She tried to take his arm again and lead him back down the hall. “Let me take you back to your room. Doctor Graves will be in when he’s finished stitching up another patient. He’s the attending at the moment. You’re going to be okay, Mr. Martell. That’s a good thing.”

  “I need to find my wife,” Peter said. Voicing those words brought up a thicker wave of nausea mixed with anxiety.

  “Your wife?”

  “Yes. Her name is Sylvia Martell. She was in the church.”

  The nurse looked as if a cold hand had gripped her from behind. “Mr. Martell… I…” She didn’t know what to say.

  Her sudden look correlated with what he feared he already knew. “I have to go,” he said.

  “But Mr. Martell, you—”

  “I said I need to leave. Look, I appreciate whatever you’ve done to help me, but either call me a cab, or I’ll start walking. And I’d really rather not.” Peter winced again as another shard of pain squirmed through his brain. “And could I get something for my head? It’s killing me.”

  As it turned out, the nurse wouldn’t call him cab, but she understood enough to know he wasn’t going back to his room, either. So she gave him the number for a local cab company in Hammond and let him use the phone. Ten minutes later, a taxi arrived out front.

  Before Peter left, the nurse approached him in the front lobby. “I shouldn’t do this without the doctor’s consent,” she said, “but these should help with your head. I hope your wife’s okay.” She handed him a paper cup. Inside were three Darvocet.

  “Thank you,” Peter said, and swallowed them dry.

  He went outside and got in the cab.

  7

  The Massachusetts State Police were on the scene when Peter returned to downtown Gilchrist. Troopers were everywhere. Their vehicles lined the street. And in all the commotion, he didn’t see a single uniform from the Gilchrist police force. A horrible thought hit him all at once: what if they were all dead? The church had been full of Gilchrist’s finest, who had been there helping plan the search for the chief’s daughter. In such a small town, that might’ve been half the force, probably more. And if none of them had made it out alive, then…

  Peter shook his head to push the thought away because of the inevitable conclusions it forced him to draw about Sylvia.

  She’s gone. I can feel it. But I need to see it. I need to see…

  The Darvocet hadn’t begun to work yet, and the motion of his head fired off a flare of pain behind his eyes. He grimaced and pressed down on his temples. That offered a brief respite from the gnawing pain.

  The cab stopped at the intersection up the street from where people were gathered behind orange A-frame barriers. All Peter could see were people’s backs, everyone looking in one horrible direction. Many appeared to be crying and consoling each other.

  “This is as far as I can go, pal. Looks like the road’s blocked off up ahead.” The cabbie leaned forward over the steering wheel, squinting. “What the hell happened here?”

  Peter dropped five dollars over the seat and got out without saying a word. He looked across the roof of the cab before shutting the door. Fire trucks from three different towns were parked in the street and around the block. Whatever familiar, cozy feeling the town had once held was gone. It felt like a foreign and dangerous place now. It was a threat and always had been, but he had been unable to see it.

  He didn’t remember starting, but he was running up the sidewalk, the rain smacking his hot face. Each footfall sent a vibration up his legs that ended as an excruciating sliver of pain in his head.

  Why am I running? I already know what I’m going to find. Please, dear God, let me be wrong. Let this all be a mis
take. Maybe it was the building beside the church. Maybe…

  The closer he got, the harder the truth hit. The sidewalk shimmered dully with shards of broken glass. All the storefront windows along Main Street had been shattered. The road was covered in debris. Pieces were scattered as far back as the intersection where he had gotten out of the cab. And the scattering grew denser the farther up the road he went. Mostly it was splintered wood and pieces of crumbled brick. And the worst part was that he recognized the brick. It was the same shade as the church, if he remembered correctly. And he did. It seemed impossible how much there was. The road, the sidewalk, and the cars were littered with it.

  Each piece that he marched past as he made his way closer to the crowds of people brought back a recollection of how powerful the blast had felt. It had been like getting hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. One moment he had been talking to Chief Delancey, and the next he had been looking up at the sky, slipping into unconsciousness. All of these pieces, his own mental debris, were coming together, and as each interlocking thought joined the bigger picture, his hope broke apart. It hadn’t been some small accident. And it wasn’t something a person could just walk away from.

  Peter stopped when he reached the edge of the crowd and could see what they saw. Suddenly he felt as if an invisible rubber mallet were playing against the base of his spine. Hardly anything remained of the church. What still stood looked like a two-dimensional slice of the back wall. The entire front had been reduced to a heap of rubble crawling with police and firemen, presumably looking for people buried beneath. The steeple had fallen forward and was in pieces across the front lawn. On a small patch of grass to the left, a dozen or so white sheets covered small mounds. At first Peter wondered why they were making little piles of bricks and covering them with sheets, but the absurdity of that thought gave way to the realization that those sheets hid bodies. And then came a worse realization: one of those piles of bricks was probably his wife.

  The back of his throat ached, but he swallowed the urge to cry. This wasn’t the time for it. Instead of trying to make his way through the crowd, he skirted it until he found a young-looking state trooper standing at a gap between a brick wall and the crowd. On the other side of the trooper was the beginning of the church’s granite front steps. Peter glanced at the name tag below his badge: B. CONWAY.