by A. R. Wise
Desmond reached across the table and swiped his boy’s fingers to the side. “Stop that. What’s wrong with you?”
“Everything’s wrong here,” said Raymond. “I don’t know how it’s supposed to be, but this isn’t it. This is all wrong.”
The UPS truck drove past the diner.
“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?” asked Desmond.
“I don’t know,” said Raymond as he looked back out the window.
Widowsfield was quiet. It was a normal mid-March day.
“Look at it out there,” said Raymond as he put his forehead to the glass.
“It’s beautiful outside,” said Desmond as he started to eat.
“That’s why I’m scared.”
Then they saw the UPS truck screech to a stop a little further up the block.
Chapter 11 – Bankrupt
Sometimes the things I remember about Widowsfield seem wrong. Not just the parts that were warped by The Watcher in the Walls, but everything else as well. Sometimes I would see something that I know was different than it should’ve been. They would be simple things, like the location of a plastic deer on a lawn that I had thought was faced the opposite direction, or whether or not a room I was in had always been carpeted or had been a wood floor the last time I was there.
There are so many little changes that occur in our lives that go almost unnoticed, because if we spend too much time focused on them it will drive us mad. Did I leave the iron on? Was that light on when I left this morning? I could’ve sworn I washed that dish. All these little lapses in sanity are just forgotten, blamed on forgetfulness and faulty memories.
But what if we’re not wrong?
What if the Watchers are always toying with us, just a little. Manipulating things to see how long it takes for us to go mad?
I’m reminded of an old Ingrid Bergman film, Gaslight. In it, a woman’s husband attempts to convince her that she’s going crazy by slightly altering her life, bit by bit, until he has her convinced that he’s right, and that she is actually insane. All the while, he’s searching her attic for lost jewels, and the gaslight dims when he turns on the light up there. He insists that the gaslight never dims, and that it’s just a symptom of her madness.
Maybe there are Watchers in our attics, dimming our gaslights, hoping to hide in our walls as we slowly go mad.
Michael Harper’s marriage to Amanda had been tumultuous from the beginning, but he always found solace in knowing that he could return to a wife and a home – a family that anchored him. Amanda had gotten pregnant with their first child when she was still a teenager, and Michael wasn’t quite twenty-one. It was 1986, two years after the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21.
Michael had never been the type of teenager that needed to be legal to drink, but he loved spending time at the bars around town. When he turned 18 he enjoyed a short period of time where he was legal, and all of the local bars got to know him, for better or, more often than not, worse. When the legal drinking age was raised, the bartenders were all too eager to refuse to serve the raucous youth they’d all come to despise. Ever since, Michael had looked forward to being legal again so he could revive the legend he had been forging for himself. Then their first child was born, and Amanda’s family turned their ever-scowling attention on the boy’s father. His days of debauchery were to be short-lived if the Brecken family had anything to do with it.
Marriage wasn’t hard for Michael, because he never pretended to adhere to the rules that normally apply to the title. He absconded as frequently as possible, content to spend his time on the road working as a safety inspector for various chemical plants, a job he earned through a short stint as a fireman. A lot of industrial plants preferred barely qualified inspectors that didn’t mind traipsing across the country, signing their names to forms that someone else had checked off. It paid decent, and afforded Michael the life he always wanted, one with few constraints and as many new ladies as he could woo into bed. If it hadn’t been for the drugs, Michael might very well have spent the rest of his life that way.
Addiction ran in the Harper family, passed down from father to son for generations. Michael’s father was a functioning alcoholic; a man of high stature that would come home every night staggeringly drunk, and would park the car in a variety of obtuse angles in the driveway before stumbling in, cursing and laughing, smashing into the furniture until Michael’s mother came down in her nightgown to lead him to bed. Perhaps she muttered one too many insults during those trips to bed, because he eventually divorced her, leaving Michael and his mother to fend for themselves. Michael’s father pulled every trick his lawyer could think of to forego alimony.
That’s probably the reason Michael rarely spoke to his mother up until she was dying of lung cancer. He knew she hated him for turning into his father.
Her deathbed was surrounded by the faces of disappointed family members, each of them glaring at Michael when he kissed his mother’s forehead as she lay on her sister’s couch. The hospice nurse glowered, certainly privy to a hundred horrible stories about Ellen’s awful only child. He left without saying more than three words, and never spoke to anyone on that side of the family again. Shame is stronger than regret.
Drugs became as much a part of Michael’s life as his family ever was. It wasn’t that he hated Amanda and the kids, but they functioned better without him around. He promised Amanda that he was just away on business, and if she ever suspected anything else she never raised a fuss about it. They rarely fought. Both of them understood the roles they played. Amanda suffered in silence, and Michael’s time at home was little more than a rest stop between smoke filled hotel rooms. His children were adoring fans that worshipped him when he rolled through town, like the groupies of a rock band, singing his praises, ignorant of his sins. He soaked up the adulation, and played the part of a loving father until the urges of his alternate life became too strong and called him away again.
Amanda, once a stunning girl, was ravaged by time, stress, and probably depression, although she never admitted it. Michael saw that she was isolating herself, existing only for the children, a wraith of who she was once, now adorned with crow’s feet and the distant eyes of a forlorn widow. He felt no attraction to her, and there was a growing sense of distance that led to him sleeping on the couch when he visited, as if they were already divorced, despite neither of them ever mentioning the word.
Then the drugs finally got out of hand. By any rational person’s estimation, the drugs had been out of hand for years, but Michael was an expert at keeping them out of his nine-to-five, relegating them to what he referred to as his five-to-nine. As his addiction grew, the eight hours spent at work became increasingly unbearable. Those long shifts, standing among chemists in suits, signing his name to checklists they had already filled out for him, and pretending not to be high, took their toll. He started by calling off a few days here and there, claiming illness or family emergencies, and then started to shoot up or freebase right before clocking in as a way of shortening the insufferable work-a-day malaise.
He was in west Missouri, overseeing a petroleum line recalibration, when his career fell apart. The plant supervisor was new, a transfer from one of the gulf coast rigs, and was a hard-ass about safety regulations. He had a rigorous system in place for the plant, and prided himself on exemplary scores from all inspectors. Little did he know the entire ordeal was practically staged, and when Michael asked for the checklist, the supervisor uncovered the scam.
The union boss was brought in, and accusations between the parties quickly turned a simple conversation into a shouting match. All of the decisions about the regulation process were made at a much higher level than any of the men in that room, but it became apparent that a scapegoat had to be found. All it took was a casual remark about the need for frequent drug tests for Michael to realize his time as an on-the-road safety inspector had come to a sudden end.
A lot of threats were made, as well as promises that Michael wou
ld never work in the industry again. In the end, he walked away relatively unscathed, a victim of a corporate decision to localize all safety inspectors for the plants. He was even allowed to collect unemployment, all with the understanding that he was not to speak of his time with the company, nor to use them as a reference in the future. He was wiped from the records as cleanly as possible.
All of which meant he had to go home, which was a far worse fate than being scolded by a couple of fat men with coffee stained teeth and Reagan-era ambition. Shortly after that was the first time he ever went to Widowsfield.
He was driving home, winding through the pleasant scenery of the Show-Me State, when he happened upon the quiet town. He found a hotel and called his wife to let her know he would be gone a few days longer than expected. He didn’t bother to mention he’d been fired, figuring it was a discussion better left for another day – or week – or month. She responded with a hollow, “Okay,” and he hung up without saying goodbye. Next, he needed to find a source for drugs.
That was how he met Terry. She was a firecracker, all the way up to her spiked red hair. A punk rock girl stuck in a backwoods town, more spite than sense, and an overwhelming presence in every room she entered. He was drawn to her immediately, enticed by her raucous nature and violent temper. He was quite a bit older than her, but that didn’t stop him from doing his best to impress. It turned out she was looking to inspire jealousy in an ex-boyfriend at the bar, and Michael became the ideal candidate – a tough-looking stranger with an appetite for sex and drugs.
The next few days were a blur, filled with sex, booze, and more meth than Michael thought a small town like Widowsfield could produce. Terry had used drugs recreationally in the past, but wasn’t anything close to an addict until she met Michael. Over the next few years, his frequent trips back to Widowsfield helped feed Terry’s growing appetite. By the time she died, the addled druggie bore little resemblance to the vivacious wild-child she’d once been. Terry became a fidgeting meth addict, speckled with the sores that are so common with the disease, and near skeletal. Her gums always seemed to be bleeding, and her lips would crack when she smiled too wide. It was a sad depiction of what drugs could do to a person, and Michael watched her disease far surpass his own. While he maintained a semblance of a regular life, Terry descended into near madness, accompanied only by a mangy dog that she kept in a cage for days at a time.
Michael’s visits to Widowsfield became more and more infrequent as Terry’s condition worsened. He still saw a glimmer of the woman she once was, but was frightened by the skeleton she was becoming. Even her breath seemed rotten, like the expulsion of the decay of her soul, wafting out between yellowed teeth every time she opened her mouth. He begged her to see a dentist, to which she accused him of using her for drugs – an entirely true accusation, but one that had no merit in the conversation at the time.
At the same time, Amanda had decided to try and resurrect their marriage, bolstered by Michael’s increased presence at home. She mistook his sleeping in their bed as a sign of love. He came up with various excuses to get away, often taking short term jobs that required him to be out of town. Even if the work only paid for his lodging, food, and drug habits, he assured her that it was better that he have something for his resume than to just sit at home. He developed a circuit of girlfriends throughout several states who he would visit, all of which were addicts of varying degrees. It seemed like everywhere Michael went he managed to corrupt some lost girl. He liked to think of himself as the James Bond of the meth ring, but he was really just a haggard Johnny Appleseed, planting seeds of addiction wherever he went. The dealers loved him.
Terry was quick to display her newly cleaned teeth the next time Michael visited, explaining that she borrowed money from her father to pay for dental repair. After that, she swore to cut back on the drugs and get herself into shape again, and told Michael that she was in love with him. It was an awkward situation, but not an entirely negative one. Terry worked hard to better herself, certain that Michael was going to divorce his wife. She even convinced him to start bringing his kids to Widowsfield so that she could get to know them. That had been the plan, anyhow.
As it turned out, addiction can easily be kicked to accommodate sudden spurts of inspiration, but it has a tendency to return at least full force, and often stronger than ever. By the time Michael agreed to bring Alma and Ben to Widowsfield, Terry had already fallen back on old habits. He was embarrassed the first time his kids met Terry, and refused to ever consider allowing them to look at her as a mother figure. She had no interest in spending time with them either, and stayed in her room most of the time. The few times she interacted with the children was tainted with malice, and she seemed to delight in scaring Ben by telling him stories about how her dog was actually a werewolf with rabies whose bite would turn little children into vicious monsters that craved human flesh.
The first time he returned home from Widowsfield with Alma and her brother, he was certain that he’d never bring them again. However, he was shocked to find that Amanda was overjoyed that he’d agreed to spend time with the kids, and insisted that he do it more often. That was the beginning of their annual retreat back to Terry’s house in Widowsfield, and what would eventually lead to the worst day of Michael’s life.
Widowsfield
March 14th, 1996
Michael snapped his fingers and pointed at his son. “I’ve got a plan, but I’m going to need your help.”
Terry was lying nude on the floor, her mouth covered in white foam and yellow bile that had bubbled up from her throat. She had overdosed, a fate anyone could’ve predicted for her, and now Michael was going to have to figure out a way to dispose of the body. His mind reeled, suffering from little sleep and too many cocktails of alcohol, prescription drugs, and meth. His finger shook as he pointed at Ben.
“Okay,” said the boy. “What do you need?”
“Go downstairs and start boiling some pots of water. Then get all of the cleaners from under the sink. Don’t ask questions, just do what I say.” Michael looped his arms under Terry’s armpits and did his best to lift her.
“What are you going to do?” asked his son.
He dropped Terry and her body thumped on the floor as he stood and glared at the boy. “What did I just say? No fucking questions. Go do as I say or they’re going to put you in jail for this.”
Ben wiped his tears away and ran out of the room. Michael knew that he should’ve been gentler with the ten-year-old, but he was desperate to save his family. For reasons he couldn’t have explained if sober, he knew that his son’s life would be ruined if the police found Terry’s body. He needed to dispose of the corpse, as much for himself as for his son. Then he would have to track down Terry’s father and kill him too. It was the only way. He had to hide all evidence of what happened.
Meth tickled his brain, his thoughts catapulted from one dilemma to the next, constantly formulating new or altered plans. He knew Desmond was headed to the cabin in Forsythe to go fishing with Terry’s brother. That’s where Michael would go next, and if the fat old man and his retarded son were there, then they’d have to die. It was the only way Michael could save his family.
Michael dragged Terry’s body to the bathroom as he listened to his daughter arguing with Ben downstairs.
“Fucking stupid cunt,” said Michael as he struggled to drag Terry. “You worthless fucking bitch.” He got her to the side of the tub and she slumped to the floor. He tried to pick her up, but her vomit had wet her side and his grip slipped. Her face hit the tile as he still held her ankle with his other hand, splaying her like an eviscerated deer. More vomit spewed from her open mouth and he danced away from it as he continued to curse at her. He gripped her hair next and pulled her up and over the tub before letting her thump down inside. He panted and wiped his brow. The exertion of dragging her to the bathroom, coupled with the meth, had caused him to begin pouring sweat.
Michael rinsed his hands off in the sink, dis
gusted by the thought of the slimy vomit on his skin, and then wiped his hands and face dry on a towel that was hanging nearby. That’s when he saw the denture cream on the cabinet above the toilet. Terry’s teeth had been too rotten to save, and the money that her father paid the dentist had gone to dentures.
“They can trace teeth,” said Michael out loud instead of merely keeping his thoughts to himself. “I bet they can trace those fucking dentures too. Not if I pull them out.” He’d planned on boiling her to pull the skin off her fingers to make it harder to identify the body. It would’ve been tragic if he’d gone to all this trouble only to be found out by dental records. He tapped his finger to his temple and grinned. “Now you’re thinking like a master, Mike! Now you’re thinking.”
He got on his knees and prepared to pluck the dentures out of her mouth, but then remembered that he’d have to put his fingers back in the foam and bile that wet the corpse’s lips. He started to bite his nails, a bad habit made worse by meth. He became nervous as he glanced back at the bedroom door and debated making Ben pull out the dentures when he returned.
“Fuck it,” said Michael. “Let’s get this over with.”
He stuck his fingers in the girl’s mouth and started to search for how to remove the dentures. He’d never done anything like this before, and was uncertain if he would even be able to. He thought about trying to locate the hood latch on a new car, fingering under the hood in search of a lever or button that would do the trick. He could feel the edge of the denture on the hard palate, but couldn’t get it to move. Finally, he opened her mouth wide and stared in, but had to look away when the stench assaulted him.
“Come on,” he said as he tried to get his finger nail between the denture and her palate, but his bad habit had worn the nails to useless nubs. He got frustrated and then punched her. It was a welcome release of anger, and he chuckled afterward. What did it matter? She was dead. He punched her again, this time harder, as punishment for the hell she was putting him through.