“It isn’t right,” I said.
Wendy shook her head, but there were no tears in her eyes. “I know,” she said. “You’re not right, Kenny. You haven’t come back to work since…well, you know when. I’ve tried to be there, to help you. I really have. I suggested therapy and you said no. You’re shut off from me, from everyone. I mean, I could understand the seclusion if you were actually working on getting better. But you’re not. You’re wallowing. You just sit in that empty bedroom all night doing God knows what. It’s dragging me down, too. I can’t go on like this any more.”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered.
“Sorry’s not gonna cut it this time. Our whole history together’s been one huge roller coaster, only without the excitement. Trust me, I’ve wanted this to work as much as anyone. But it’s not. I love you, but you’ve gotta want to change, Kenny. That’s the only way this could work. But I don’t think you want to. Change, that is.”
“You’ve been thinking about this for a while, huh?” I asked.
She pointed at the documents in my hand. “I have. I actually had those drawn up a year ago. Before the store opened. But things got better after your heart attack, so I held off. I’ve always had faith in us, but we’ve been stuck in a rut for ten years now. It’s been the same routine, day in and day out. I’m thirty years old, babe. I need to get on with my life. I want to have a family.”
I bowed my head. “So what happens now?”
“You sign the papers and let me go.”
“I see.” I felt a tear drip down my cheek and my strength abandoned me. “Do I have to do it right now?” I asked. “Can it wait a couple days?”
“I guess so,” Wendy sighed. She seemed so cold in that moment, so unfeeling. “Think it over. If you decide you want to make an effort, then fine. We’ll see if I’m up for it…eventually. But I still think we need a break from each other.”
“You mean a break-up?”
Wendy twirled on her heels and walked away without answering. “I made up the bed in the spare room,” she shouted. For the first time that night I heard emotion in her voice. “You can sleep in there for a while if you can’t find another place to stay. You’ve been spending most of your time in there anyway, so it shouldn’t be that much of a stretch for you.”
Her feet pounded up the stairs. Silas, sprawled out on the floor in front of the dishwasher, lifted his head. He let loose with a disgusted-sounding snort and then put his head back down as if it wasn’t worth the effort.
“I’m with you, bud,” I said. I placed the unsigned documents on the counter, cracked a beer, and sat in silence for hours.
18
Despite the trauma infiltrating my personal life, I refused to let up my watch. Wendy and I stayed separate for the most part, keeping to opposite ends of the house. A simple deed like going to the bathroom became a practice in stealth, waiting until the toiled flushed and the water stopped running before poking my head out the door to make sure she was gone so I could make my move. The threatening papers sat unsigned on the kitchen counter, the same place I left them. The depth of my misery reached new lows and I seriously considered taking my own life on more than one occasion.
Whenever that thought came to mind, the stalwart guardian residing in my brain took over. It showed me Jacqueline’s pure visage and wouldn’t let me abandon her. I was glad for it, this passionate section of my being. It validated my existence and allowed me to dive into the mission with every scrap of energy I could muster.
Then, a week after Wendy told me she wanted a divorce, my paranoia seemed to pay off.
It was Thursday. I sat with Silas, perched at the window of the spare bedroom as usual, when, at three o’clock in the morning, a vehicle rolled down the street. It approached slowly, headlights glaring, creeping along with the sluggishness of a stoner. It was a van, and a big one at that. Its spectral appearance gave me the shivers.
Silas cocked his head ever so slightly and glanced at me sideways.
“I know, boy,” I whispered. Dread crept its way into the back of my throat and my insides twitched. “I hope it’s nothing.”
The van stopped in front of our house and I held my breath. It lingered there, threatening as a rabid wolf, before creeping forward, only to stop again when the Talbot mailbox came into view. I saw someone shuffling in the driver’s seat and I started shaking all over.
“Pull it together, Ken,” I mumbled, and glanced at Silas. He’d straightened, staring at me while his tail swooshed behind him, as if he expected me to go outside and play with him. If he isn’t worried, I thought, then why am I? The warring factions of my brain argued about what to do next.
The conclusion I came to, against my better judgment, was to check out the situation.
I crept through the house, careful not to disturb Wendy. Silas followed at my heels, silent as a burglar. After fastening the leash to his harness, I took a deep breath and twisted the doorknob. The metal felt colder than it should have. I opened the door and stepped out into the balmy night.
The van didn’t move as I approached. Its motor hummed, sounding like the grumbling stomach of a hungry lion. When I drew closer I noticed the decal on its side, glimmering in the moonlight. STAFFORDVILLE HVAC SERVICE, it read. Seeing the name of an actual business calmed my nerves a bit, though the tinted windows kept me on edge. I swallowed hard and rapped on the window.
The interior light clicked on and someone rolled down the window. A somewhat overweight man stared at me from inside the cab. He had thick muttonchops that ended just below his jaw and a pair of glasses rested on the tip of his nose. The guy looked like he hadn’t shaved in a while. His pudgy cheeks quivered as he chomped on a piece of gum. I stifled a chuckle. The stranger looked like Ricky Davenport’s blue-collar doppelganger. Even Silas, who’d approached the van as wary as I, seemed to ease a bit. His surly haunches dropped and he sat down on the blacktop.
“Hey, dude,” the guy in the van said. His words came out slurred because of the ungodly huge wad of gum in his mouth. He leaned forward, revealing a button-down gray shirt with the name Nick Goodman stitched above the right breast pocket. He looked at me with an odd expression, squinting like he couldn’t see me clearly.
“What can I do you for?” he asked.
“You’re parked in front of my house,” I replied. “Just curious why that is.”
The man named Nick laughed. His expression softened, as if he’d seen a ghost and finally realized it was only a coat rack. “Oh shit, sorry ‘bout that,” he said. “Just checking out the neighborhood.”
“Why?”
“Got a service appointment tomorrow morning. Electrician stuff. Nine o’clock sharp at 32 Chestnut Street.” He handed me a yellow slip of paper with the company’s name on the header. Sure enough, the address and appointment were printed on it.
“So why are you here now?” I asked.
Nick grinned, and I found the gesture somewhat comforting. “Got a big case of insomnia over here,” he said. “Can’t sleep at night. And since I never been here before, I figured I’d take a drive and figure out where I gotta be. Thought what the hell, I ain’t sleeping anyway.”
“I know the feeling,” I said while shaking my head.
“You too, huh?” he said. The sound of his voice, slightly nasal yet gruff, like a redneck Trekkie, made me chuckle. “What’s so funny?” Nick asked.
“Oh, nothing. I just think it’s rather comical for me to be out here right now. I guess I’ve gotten paranoid in my old age.”
“What, you think I’m some sorta serial killer or something?”
“Sort of,” I said, nodding in embarrassment.
Nick smiled, wide and toothy. “Well hey, nowadays you can’t be too careful, right? You seem like a nicely fella. Salt of the earth. Real. I don’t blame you.”
Silas shuffled out from behind me on four surprisingly wavering legs. His head swayed from side to side and he snorted as if he’d just woken up. He lifted his muzzle in Nick’s di
rection.
“That your dog?”
“Yup.”
“What’s his name?”
I petted the soft fur on top of my bud’s cranium. “Silas,” I replied.
Nick slapped his hand twice against the van door. A hollow thud echoed through the empty streets, rising above even the litany of insects engaged in their annual nighttime chatter. “C’mere, boy,” he said in a childlike tone. “Come to Uncle Nicky.”
Silas obliged, lifting himself up on unsteady rear legs and resting his front paws on the door. His tail wagged slowly and he stretched his thick neck to get closer to the one calling him.
“Good boy,” said Nick. He reached down and rubbed Silas beneath his jaw. “You’re a gorgeous animal,” he said, then turned his attention to me. “You must be one proud papa.”
I nodded.
“Well, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time,” Nick the electrician declared after a few more lingering moments of Silas love. “I gotta be back here in a few hours. Should see if I can get some shut-eye.”
Silas dropped back down on all fours, meandered like he didn’t know where he was going, and then seemed to right himself, taking his usual position by my side. He was acting very strange. I passed it off to exhaustion.
“Okay then,” I said, offering a salute. “Nice to meet you, Nick.”
“Same here,” Nick replied. He allowed me to step back before putting the van in gear, then winked at me and said, “See you soon, old friend.”
With that odd comment Nick the electrician drove off. The van again became a massive specter as it drove away. Its taillights looked like a pair of menacing, red-flashing eyes. Uncertainty came over me, a feeling akin to not remembering if I’d left the refrigerator door open, and I shivered. The night’s blackness closed in on me and I spun around, beating a quickstep to the front porch while dragging a still-sluggish Silas behind me.
Once inside, I unhitched the leash and made my way to the living room. I took off my sandals, collapsed in my recliner, and kicked up the footrest. Now in the safety of my own home, my frayed nerves began to settle.
“Seemed like a nice enough guy, eh boy?” I said, reaching down to give Silas some much-deserved attention. When he didn’t bring his head up to greet my hand, I glanced down.
Silas was on the floor a few feet away, nose pressed to the carpet, staring at me with squinting, bloodshot eyes. He breathed in short gasps and his body shook.
His looked terrified, which in turn caused my own panic meter to rocket skyward. I thought of his reaction to Colleen Miller, of how he knew Bridget Cormier was in trouble. I considered the strange way he’d acted only moments earlier, along with the weird comment the pudgy electrician left me with. I knew right then that there was more to Nick the Electrician than I’d originally thought, and it scared the hell out of me. I leapt from the recliner, dashed down the hall, and leapt up the stairs, not caring the slightest if I woke Wendy up in the process.
Suddenly, I didn’t feel so exhausted.
19
Nick Goodman wouldn’t get out of my head. Whenever I thought of his plump cheeks and five-day stubble – traits which had initially been endearing – a lump rose in my throat and fear slithered through my veins. I felt like a ship captain who sees monstrous black clouds on the horizon and realizes he’s completely isolated by surging ocean waves.
Once daylight ascended after my brief roadside meeting with Nick, Wendy left for work. I’d wiled away the last few hours in the spare bedroom, but she never even came in to check on me. The sun rose over the trees, slowly evaporating the early-morning fog. Time passed. It came to mid-morning, the most crisp and unsullied part of the day. My eyes burned from lack of sleep and I had to stop myself from rubbing them. Silas, after looking so frightened only hours earlier, was now in a position more befitting for him – curled up on the bed, sleeping. His snores sounded like water rushing through a cave.
Nine o’clock came and went, and Nick Goodman never showed. No large van rolled down the street and no heavyset man waddled to the Talbot’s front door. The traffic on our side street was sparse, just like every other normal day.
At nine-thirty Joe walked outside. His hair was wet. He sat in a wicker chair on his front stoop and sipped a cup of coffee. Thirty minutes later he went back into the house. Forty-five minutes after that, he and Jacqueline reappeared. They played catch for a little while. Jacqueline looked adorable, what with the way she chased the ball around while her flowing black locks, the mirror image of her father’s, whipped about her face as she twirled and ran. The sound of their laughter infiltrated my skin, seeped into my blood. I kept my vigil nonetheless, making sure to duck out of sight whenever Joe’s eyes shifted my way, hoping beyond hope he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of me and question why I was watching them.
At eleven-thirty they went back into the house, presumably for lunch. A green, slow-moving SUV rolled by a short time later. It captured my interest for a moment, but ended up speeding off after stopping at the house three down from the Talbot’s. Then the mailman came, at twelve-twenty five, trailed a few minutes later by a convertible filled with four scantily-clad high school girls from the next street over, probably on their way to nearby Bigelow Hollow, a glacial lake, to hang out and catch some sun. In no way did I blame them. It was a scorcher by high noon, at least ninety-five and oppressively humid. Sweat drenched my shirt and my body odor was enough to gag on. I thought about joining them, taking Silas for a much-needed jaunt into the lake, but I couldn’t tear myself from my seat.
At one-seventeen I heard the Talbot’s back door open. Giggling followed, along with the rhythmic whine and creak of their swing set. I pictured the scene in my mind: Joe standing behind his daughter, gently pushing her when she swung toward him; Jacqueline with a grin plastered on her face, kicking her legs out with each swing, hands grasping tight to the chains. I felt a twinge of sadness, thinking that Bridget Cormier would never swing again, would never do anything again.
Silas shifted and let out a dejected murmur. “What’s the matter, bud?” I asked. He lifted his head and his stomach grumbled. As if on cue, my own followed suit. “Yeah, I’m pretty hungry, too,” I said. “Let’s go get some grub.”
We left our post by the window and wandered downstairs. Silas looked as exhausted as I felt. I shrugged my shoulders and noticed that even that simple gesture felt like it took way more effort than it should’ve. I’d been so obsessed I hadn’t been taking care of myself…or my trusted companion, either.
I went to the kitchen and made a ham sandwich, and then opened the cabinet under the sink and grabbed the bag of dog food. Silas sat down next to his bowl, waiting patiently. I frowned and shook the bag. There were only crumbs remaining.
“Sorry, boy,” I said, dumping the sparse balls of dry food into his dish and topping it with the last two slices of ham. Silas stuffed his nose into the bowl, devouring what little food there was in a matter of seconds. When finished he sat back up and gazed at me with pleading eyes. I slumped against the counter as a needy whine leaked from his throat.
“I know,” I said.
I walked to the front door, stepped outside, and peered around the corner. The Talbot house glistened beneath the glare of an unrelenting sun. Whoops and cackles could still be heard in the backyard. Everything seemed normal. I shook my head.
“Get over it, Ken,” I whispered. “Nothing’s gonna happen. You’re being silly.”
I slapped my hand against the door, suddenly angry for skirting my responsibilities, and stormed into the house. I grabbed the keys to the Subaru and ruffled the hair on Silas’s head. “Sorry, dude, you can’t come today,” I said, thinking of how quickly the inside of an automobile can grow fatally hot on days such of these. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.”
The car was sweltering as I slipped into the driver’s seat. Breathing proved difficult, and I was glad I’d made the decision to leave Silas behind. I checked my wallet. There were only four loose single
s in the money pouch. I hoped Agway accepted Discover Cards.
“You’re an asshole,” I sighed to myself, and drove away.
The Talbot house sagged like a grieving mother as I passed it by.
* * *
I made my way home with a brand new fifty-pound bag of tuna-and-rice flavored dry dog food propped up in the back seat, my stomach filled with greasy fast-food goodness, and a soda nestled between my legs. I had a smile on my face, a true smile, for the first time in God knew how long. Simply being out of the house made me feel better, so I took the long way home, crawling down the road while Miles Davis’s trumpet blasted from my stereo. I wanted to hold onto the sensation of freedom as long as I could, afraid that once I got back to the house my fear and hopelessness would return and render me useless, possibly for good.
With this thought in mind I decided to loop through the hilly areas in the town of Somers, ogling the massive houses resting on pristine, manicured lawns the way I had as a wistful teenager captivated by the trappings of money. The mansions looked just as I remembered them – plush, tall, polished exteriors with massive windows and long, winding driveways upon which sat a variety of expensive automobiles. I presumed I would feel the same sort of unsullied virtue I’d felt as a child while eyeballing these strongholds of excess. Instead, all I felt was disgust. It was disappointing to say the least.
As I drove through Union, I glanced at the dashboard clock. The fluorescent green numbers flashed 5:05. I’d been away, lost in my own world, for almost four hours. How could that happen? I thought of Silas, waiting for me to return with his stomach rumbling, and another boulder of guilt dropped in my gut. There I was, so intent on diverting myself from the stress that poured its way through the cracked dam of my personal life, that I’d neglected the only being who hadn’t abandoned me.
“Asshole,” I grumbled again, and started for home.
Twenty minutes later I turned onto Chestnut Street. My fists locked tight to the steering wheel. There they were, two automobiles residing in mine and Joe Talbot’s respective driveways like boxed obelisks of doom.
Silas: A Supernatural Thriller Page 8