The Caretakers

by David Nickle

  “I believe you.”

  Amy’s voice sounded very small and much younger than Evelyn knew her to be. She was not a child, not really, but she was inhabiting one, perhaps remembering those nights when she lay awake in a cold bed, with emptiness gnawing like a rat in her belly … in a home where the only notion of escape was intertwined with death, where hope was death because that was how poverty was for a child …

  “Now can we talk a moment, just you and I?”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you afraid of Miss Erish?”

  “I’m … I don’t know. I’m creeped out by her.”

  “I see. Can you be a bit more specific?”

  “It’s the way…” Amy trailed off into silence.

  “Does she telephone?” Evelyn prompted. “At odd hours?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Can I ask what she calls about?”

  “Different things. Sometimes, she asks me if I’ve read a book she’s reading. She has a story she likes to tell—about the river, right?”

  Evelyn felt herself smile. Miss Erish first told Evelyn that story on her eleventh birthday, and brought it up from time to time, quite often. It was, as Miss Erish herself described it, foundational. “I know that story too.”

  “It’s—” Another pause. “—It creeps me out.”

  “Miss Retson told me that you thought Miss Erish was a vampire.”

  Silence now. Evelyn supposed the girl was distracted, shooting daggers at Andrea as she must have been.

  “Amy,” said Evelyn, sternly, “where do you suppose you would be now, if not for Miss Erish’s generosity? Amy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Miss Erish likes to talk. Sometimes she calls in the evening.”

  “And when she calls—we come, right? No matter what?”

  “That’s the deal, Amy.”

  “I can’t fucking do it.”

  Now Evelyn was silent. Amy—amwilson7@gmail.com, that was the name that Evelyn really understood her to have; this humanizing business of Amy was only an hour or two old, she reminded herself—was so very unsuitable to Miss Erish. Really, the foul-mouthed little slut—there was no other word for her, a little slut—might be better off tramping out through the blizzard with her wallet and her boots and her filthy mouth, finding a bus back to the apartment that she would soon find herself unable to afford, and leave the rest of them to restore the balance. Evelyn swallowed hard.

  “You can” was what she finally said.

  “Hey.” It was Andrea. “Amy gave me the phone back. It’s me.”

  “Put her back on.”

  “She’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “To the ladies’,” said Andrea. She sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “No,” said Evelyn. “Maybe you should just come back. If little Amy wants to leave…”

  “What? Let her?”

  “She’ll see how it goes,” said Evelyn. “She’ll see the consequences.”

  “She has a boy,” said Andrea, “or a girl. She hasn’t said as much, but I’m sure of it.”

  Evelyn thought about that. If that was true … well, then that was another thing.

  “All right,” she said. “Let me talk to her again when she’s back.”

  “Look, my battery’s dying. And I don’t think it’s going to do much good, you talking to her. Let me work on her.”

  “No. Let me—” started Evelyn, but Andrea had already disconnected. Let me talk sense into her.

  Evelyn dropped the phone back in her purse and wondered: had there been another text from her daughter? She resisted the urge to check and made her way back to the bar, practicing what she would tell Miss Erish: that Andrea was having a talk with Amy … or that Amy was out of sorts … or that Amy had simply proven ungrateful, unsuitable, and that Evelyn wished she could say otherwise … Evelyn had no easy thing to say, and she worried.

  As it turned out, she needn’t have. When she rounded the corner, floor lamps made lonely pools of light in the dim space, while behind the bar a young man fussed over a tray of glasses. As for Miss Erish, and Leslie, and Bill, they were nowhere to be seen.

  Evelyn returned to the sofa and chairs where they had been sitting. She sat down in the spot where she had been earlier—the spot between Miss Erish and Leslie. The cushions to her right still held Miss Erish’s cinnamon-clove scent. Was the cushion where Leslie sat still warm? Evelyn’s hand lingered there.

  “We’re closed,” said the bartender. “Bar opens at three.”

  “I know,” said Evelyn. “I was here earlier. Did you see where my friends went?”

  The bartender shook his head. “Haven’t seen anyone,” he said. “You’re welcome to sit there,” he added a moment later when Evelyn didn’t move.

  She pulled her phone from her purse. There were no new messages on it. Not from Miss Erish. Not from Leslie, or Bill, or Andrea. Not from her daughter.

  She began to compose a text—to her daughter, at her home. Not at home. She would likely be on her way to school now: on the bus, heading along the township road to the middle school.

  I LOVE YOU, she texted. She didn’t send that one right away. She wanted to add something to it: I DO THIS FOR YOU, maybe. I CANNOT STOP IT was probably more to the point, or WE ALL MUST PAY OUR DEBTS. But her daughter wasn’t ungrateful, selfish Amy—and Evelyn was in no position to chide or even invoke a guilty conscience in her child. Evelyn’s daughter was blameless.

  She pressed SEND.

  Red flashing lights inched across the highway, but it was hard to tell more than that: the snow flew thick over the river, swirling in eddying winds. Andrea and Amy would not be back soon in that, not both nor one nor the other.

  Evelyn texted Leslie next: WHERE R U

  She waited a few minutes and thought about texting Miss Erish but couldn’t quite, so she gathered her things and left the bar. She hurried through the lobby to the elevator, and from there to the meeting room where they were all to have met that morning.

  There was no note tacked to the door. It was shut but not locked, and when Evelyn opened it, she was assailed by the smell of ammonia. She saw that the dry-erase board had been turned to the wall. A housekeeper was wiping the conference table down, bucket on the floor beside her.

  “We had the room this morning,” said Evelyn when the housekeeper asked if she could help her.

  “You leave something? I didn’t find anything,” the housekeeper said.

  “I’m looking for my colleagues,” said Evelyn.

  “I didn’t find anything,” the housekeeper said again. “You don’t have the room anymore. I have to get it ready.”

  “All right,” said Evelyn. She stepped toward the dry-erase board. The housekeeper moved to intercept her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I just want to see if perhaps one of my colleagues left a note on that board.”

  The housekeeper looked at Evelyn straight on. She was a small woman, stout without being fat, probably quite muscular, given her vocation. There was something serious in her look but not thoughtful. For a moment, it seemed as though she might actually physically prevent her from getting to the board. But the moment passed, and she looked away.

  “I have to get this room ready.”

  Evelyn said that she wouldn’t be long, and moved the easel out just far enough to see, and as it turned out, she wasn’t long. The board had been polished clean.

  “Thank you,” she said, and returned to the hall, and summoned the elevator.

  As the doors closed on her, she stood still listening to the wind howl at the top of the shaft. She debated a moment where to go and finally elected to return to her room. From there, she would try to text and then, if that failed, call Leslie, and then Bill, and finally Miss Erish. The elevator engaged and took her to her floor, and she waited barely an instant before she got off and returned to her room—trying to ignore a growing feeling during her march that she would not need to call or text an
yone, because of course Miss Erish would be waiting there. Evelyn somehow knew that even before she caught the scent and slid the room card into the lock. It had happened before. Not always, but enough.

  Miss Erish was seated in the low armchair next to the desk. The tablet was propped up in its case at her side. Evelyn could not see the screen, but it bathed Miss Erish in the same yellow light as it had in the bar.

  Evelyn put her room card on the nightstand by the bed. Miss Erish’s eyes flickered between the screen and Evelyn, as Evelyn sat on the edge of the bed.

  “I am alone,” said Miss Erish.

  “Yes,” said Evelyn. The room was empty—undisturbed—in the state she had left it. With the curtains drawn, it might still not have been dawn yet. She checked the washroom, just to be sure, and it was so: just her and Miss Erish.

  “Where are the others?” said Miss Erish. Evelyn started to answer, but Miss Erish raised a hand.

  “Would you sit down, please,” she demanded.

  Evelyn sat down at the foot of the bed.

  “You took too long,” said Miss Erish.

  Evelyn did not think that she had, but she knew there was no use arguing.

  “I do apologize,” she said.

  “Don’t speak,” Miss Erish said. “Don’t breathe.”

  Evelyn drew in a breath and held it there.

  “I didn’t breathe,” said Miss Erish. “Underneath those cold waters of the Great River, how could I? Why should you?”

  Miss Erish leaned forward and drew herself to her feet. She withdrew the veil from her face, her fingertips making a squeaking noise as she caressed her own cheek.

  “It was a gift, a gift of breathlessness. I didn’t know what a gift it was at first, as my lungs burned and I sank into the silt. My anger, it burned also, oh, how hot in my breast! It caught me afire; that is how it was. On fire in the midst of extinguishing waters. Do you think you will suffocate if you keep that up?”

  Evelyn made as to draw breath, but Miss Erish raised a finger: not yet.

  “You will not,” said Miss Erish. “No matter how you may wish it—no matter how strong your will, your flesh will betray it.”

  Evelyn let her breath out and heaved another in.

  “And yet. Your will, it might be stronger than that,” Miss Erish reproved.

  Evelyn dared say nothing.

  “The river gave me up, too. Eventually. It drew me, still and furious, through villages and the great golden cities, across a broad delta beneath palms, and through reeds, and on the tide to the sea with the fisher-boats. I was a great beauty then. More beautiful than you. Can you imagine?”

  Evelyn simply nodded. Miss Erish arched her back as though preening. Her eyes never left Evelyn.

  “There was drinking last evening,” she said. “You didn’t attend, did you? I know that Mr. Hunter would have preferred you had. He thinks about you a great deal. He is in love with you. There. It is out.”

  Miss Erish finally turned to look at the screen of her tablet.

  “Did you encourage him?” she asked softly.

  “Once,” said Evelyn.

  “Only once?”

  “Perhaps more.”

  “Ah. Well. No matter.” Miss Erish turned her tablet’s face down, so the light squeezed into a thin glow around its edge and Miss Erish was in shadow. “Mr. Allen has seen to him.”

  Evelyn wasn’t precisely sure what she had meant by seen to him. It could mean a great many things, owing to the absence of both Leslie Hunter and Bill Allen from this hotel suite into which Miss Erish had let herself. Evelyn wasn’t sure—but she thought she knew.

  Miss Erish’s joints popped and groaned as she settled forward in her chair.

  “Up on the roof,” said Miss Erish, “there is a patio and a swimming pool, adjacent to the health club. It is closed now owing to the weather and so private. The pool has a tarpaulin covering it. That is where he took Mr. Hunter.”

  And that is where he saw to him.

  Evelyn sat perfectly still, or rather her body did. The terror had been creeping up on her for some time, maybe since she left the airport for the hotel, through the night alone in this very room …

  No, it had begun sooner than that. Maybe in another bed, long ago, another cold, empty-bellied night—so awful that Evelyn could barely recall it except in the abstract … in the same abstract manner that she could recall her own gratitude now to her rescuer.

  “There is no water in the pool this time of year,” said Miss Erish. “The flesh will not let the will have its way alone.”

  “Did he…”

  Evelyn felt the air in her lungs thickening like water now.

  “He promised he would,” she said, “and Mr. Allen has never let me down. I have at least that one friend.”

  At that, Evelyn found her voice. “I love you. I am your friend.” But she didn’t, and she wasn’t, not at that moment. Miss Erish shook her head slowly.

  “I really didn’t escape that river until long after it stopped flowing,” she said, “in the wide sea. There was no land in sight when I rose from it—no fisher, nor ibis nor gull nor albatross. You have heard me tell this before, haven’t you? I forget myself.”

  Evelyn had drawn her knees up to her chin. The windows in this room were double-paned and thick, but she could hear wind outside. It made her think about the empty swimming pool overhead, the tarpaulin straining at its moorings, snow sheeting across it and slipping underneath, gathering over Leslie’s cooling tear ducts.

  “I’ve been trying to reach Miss Retson on her phone,” said Miss Erish. “She’s turned it off.”

  “No,” said Evelyn. She explained about the battery in Andrea’s phone. Miss Erish looked skeptical.

  “You have a daughter. Are you waiting on her now?”

  Evelyn said no, but Miss Erish didn’t believe that either.

  “Your phone has no battery problems. It is a-buzzing. Why don’t you check it?”

  Evelyn let her hand rest on the purse at her side, felt the rhythmic humming of the thing sure enough. Hands trembling, she reached inside and withdrew the phone.

  COME HOME MOM PLS, the text read, and she read it aloud when Miss Erish told her to. Miss Erish sat quietly for a moment, then delicately lifted the tablet so the yellow light from its screen climbed her torso like a dismal sunrise and finally illuminated her face, the eyes casting ravenously as if from the barren solitude of a tomb.

  “You were here earliest,” she said. “While the others were sleeping, you were awake and about.” She set the tablet on its back, so it lit the curtains, the ceiling. “Of all of them, even Mr. Allen … you arrived first.”

  Miss Erish looked down at the light. It seemed to grow brighter as she did so—as though the sensor had noted some competing glow, and automatically tuned the illumination higher.

  “Oh dear,” said Miss Erish. “Oh dear, oh damn.”

  Her voice sounded raw. It seemed to Evelyn as though she were crying. Evelyn’s thumbs hovered over the screen of her phone, and the little keyboard there. She felt as though she ought to respond to her daughter, but she could not take her eyes from Miss Erish, who trembled.

  “What do you think about Miss Retson? She pursued little Miss Wilson very swiftly. As though she were very worried … very worried. Might she … Might it be love? No. That cannot be. I shall send her a message. Instruct her—” Miss Erish’s fingers clacked furiously against the glass of her tablet. “Oh damn, damn.”

  Evelyn set her phone down. She reached her arms toward Miss Erish, slid forward on the bed, and Miss Erish joined Evelyn there. Miss Erish felt cool and brittle beneath her blouse, and left to her own inclinations, Evelyn would have recoiled at the inhuman touch of her.

  They sat like that for some time, listening to the wind outside as it howled across the highway, along the river—somehow growing colder themselves, in one another’s embrace.

  About the Author

  David Nickle is the author of the novels The ’Geisters,
Rasputin’s Bastards, and Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism, and co-author of The Claus Effect, with Karl Schroeder. His stories are collected in Knife Fight and Other Struggles, and Monstrous Affections. He is co-editor with Madeline Ashby of Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond. He lives in Toronto, Canada, where he works as a journalist covering municipal politics. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Begin Reading

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2016 by David Nickle

  Art copyright © 2016 by Greg Ruth