Keepers ch-2

by Gary A Braunbeck

  I shook myself back into the moment at hand and said, “Hello? I’m sorry about-who is this?”

  Beth spluttered out my name, then said: “I’m s-s-sorry, I know y-you said not to call but s-ssomething’s happened and I… ohgod… please come over. I can’t ask anyone else t-to-”

  I was sitting up straight, every nerve in my body twitching. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “… gotta… gottadosomethingwiththeanimals now, I d-d-don’t know what I’m supposed to… She said everything was okay, I asked her, you know? ‘Everything’s fine now,’ that’s what she said…”

  Forget the lies and feelings of betrayal and the anger and rage and pain and jealousy and everything else; when someone you love calls you in the middle of the night in hysterics, you tell your pride to screw itself and go to them without another thought.

  I pulled up in front of house and knew right away something wasn’t right. For one thing, it looked as if every light in the place was on; Beth and especially Mabel were frugal as hell when it came to utilities-neither one of them would have left that many lights burning; for another thing, the U-boat was gone and Mabel’s new car (a tan Toyota Tercel, a very smart and sensible car) sat in the driveway; it was well past two A.M. and Mabel should have been at work. The third thing I discovered when I went to knock on the door.

  The house was unlocked.

  This was not the worst neighborhood in Cedar Hill, but you wouldn’t live here on “Renter’s Row” unless you absolutely had to.

  I entered and closed the door behind me. I called out for Beth and, getting no answer, Mabel.

  Nothing.

  I took a deep breath, my heart triphammering, and immediately began to cough and sneeze. It smelled like the place hadn’t been cleaned in days; everything was sopped in the stench of animal shit and old urine mixed with the musty scent of shed fur and… something else. Something meaty and rotten. It was so overpowering I ran into the bathroom and threw up.

  Breathing through my mouth, I checked the kitchen and backyard, then Beth’s room.

  She was gone, and so were all the Its.

  Finally I knocked on Mabel’s bedroom door; when there was no answer I began to open it and saw a piece of paper that had been taped there but had fallen to the floor. I picked up and unfolded the note. It was from Beth:

  I couldn’t stay here any longer. I hadn’t been home in a couple of days. She must have done it while I was gone. I’m like you now. I’ve lost everyone. I’m so sorry for everything. There ought to be a place for people like us. I hope you can forgive me someday. This is why I don’t trust happiness. It’s better to leave and re-make yourself. It’s always been the best thing. I love you. Always remember that.

  I opened the bedroom door and (If I don’t turn on the light, everything will be fine.)

  – turned on the light.

  The first thing I saw were all the pink- and rust-colored feathers scattered around the room, on the floor, sticking to the walls and curtains and light fixtures, but as I stepped closer to the mess on the bed I realized that the feathers had once been white. The dull buzz of flies sounded in my ears. The carpeting grew more and more damp the nearer I came to the bed. There were probably a thousand other smells and splotches and sights but the closer I moved toward the bed, the more my peripheral vision faded out until I could see only through a small, frozen, iris-out circle.

  The upper half of the mattress and headboard were splattered in blood speckled with chunks of bone and mangled tissue. She’d dressed for work before lying down and placing the feather pillows over her face. After that it was a simple matter of pulling the pistol out of the drawer in her nightstand, pushing and prodding into the pillows until she could feel the barrel’s position through them, or maybe she’d already had the gun in her hand before she lay down, or maybe – one of the stained feathers dislodged from the overhead light and brushed against my shoulder on its way down.

  The gun lay on the floor near the bed. I wasn’t about to touch it or anything else in the room. My chest was so tight I thought my lungs were going to collapse. Something was strangling me from within. My vision blurred because of something in my eyes. I reached up to wipe it away but made the mistake of moving at the same time. I stumbled over my own feet and fell onto the bed. I heard the muted splash as I hit the soaked remains of the pillows and the body underneath. I felt heavy tepid liquid slopping between my fingers and soaking into my shirt. It was all over me. I panicked and tried to push away but only managed to slip and fall face-first into the worst of it. I scrabbled around like a crab on a beach, tangling myself in gore-saturated sheets and wet feathers until, at last, I managed to grip the edge of the headboard and pull myself up. I lurched around, trying to wipe the blood from my eyes until I bumped into the dresser. I looked up and saw myself in the mirror and almost lost it. At least I didn’t scream. Not once. As much as I wanted to just throw back my head and let fly with a howl to bring down the house, I didn’t. I backed away from the bloody thing in the reflection, blinked, and saw what was on the floor by the other side of the bed.

  Patients’ files.

  I’d watched Mabel and the other nurses at the home make notations in enough of these things to recognize one on sight. What the hell had she been doing, bringing these home with her? One was enough to get her fired, but she must have had a couple dozen piled there. Blood pooled over the top file and ran down the sides of the others like fudge on a sundae. A thin stapled stack of papers lay off to the side of the pile. It too was bloodied, but words could still be seen peeking through the smears here and there. I knelt down and leaned close. It looked to be some kind of contract. I saw the word AGREEMENT in bold-face type; the rest of the upper line was hidden behind a small slop of blood. I moved closer. I made out Mabel’s name, and the words “in strictest confidence hereby agree” and knew what I was looking at. I scanned down the rest of the page, stopped, and came back to some words about a third of the way down the page I had seen on my first pass but hadn’t let register. between Keepers and

  I heard the echo of her voice from the last time we’d had a real conversation: And if I don’t screw up, if I do what I agreed to and keep this job, then I can have all that. Is that so bad? Does that make me callous? Is it such a terrible thing to want an actual home and peace of mind?

  “What the hell did you agree to?” I asked the silence of the dead room.

  Am I a bad person?

  A dial clicked numbers in the correct sequence and all the tumblers fell into place and a door opened and something awful stepped out to make itself partially known.

  … gotta do something with the animals now, Beth had said.

  I don’t remember if I closed the door behind me when I ran out of the house, nor do I know if anyone saw me leave, but since the police never showed up on my doorstep after that night I have to assume that I was not seen-or that if I was, no one cared. Around here, you were not your brother’s or sister’s keeper.

  Around here, you were not your brother’s or sister’s…

  … you were not your brother’s…

  … you were not your…

  … YOU WERE NOT…

  … I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths.

  (Cutting things off a little soon there, aren’t you, pal?)

  I smoothed out the issue of Modoc flat on my lap, then opened to the last page once again.

  … YOU WERE NOT YOUR BROTHER’S OR SISTER’S KEEPER.

  I began to tear it in half, then thought better of it.

  “You can’t force me to remember the rest of the night,” I said.

  I opened to a random page.

  WOULDN’T TAKE ANY BETS ON THAT ONE IF I WERE YOU, GIL.

  This time I did rip it in half, then threw the sections onto the barn floor and ground them in to the hay, mud, and stink with the heel of my shoe.

  “That was mine,” said Carson from the far end of the barn.

  “I’ll buy you another one.”


  “That’s okay. I won’t need it.”

  I faced my nephew and said, “Carson, you need to tell me what’s going on, all right? I read the comic, and Long-Lost didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.”

  “That’s ’cause you wouldn’t let him.”

  I blinked. “What do you mean by that?”

  He sighed, then rubbed the back of his neck. “I think it’s good that you said you like swans, UncGil.”

  “What the fuck do swans have to do with any of this?”

  Carson stared at me for a moment. “Don’t you know what it is that makes them special?”

  I stormed over and grabbed him by the shoulders. “To hell with swans, Carson. And fuck Modoc, all right? Look at me. I’m scared, Carson, do you understand?”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” He looked on the verge of tears. “But I gotta tell you something, okay?”

  “All right.”

  He threw himself against me and squeezed so hard I thought he was going to dislocate part of my back.

  “I love you, UncGil. You took good care of me. I’m gonna miss you.”

  “You’re going to-whoa, there, wait a second.” I pushed him back and looked into his eyes. “You’re not going to miss me, you’re not going anywhere.”

  He nodded his head, silver tears spilling down his face. “Long-Lost says it’s time.”

  My breath caught in my chest. “Time for what?”

  “For you to know the first part of his story.” Carson walked over and bent down, picking up the comic book-which was now whole again.

  “Here you go, UncGil. It’s just on the first page this time.”

  “How do you know this?”

  He shrugged. “The Great Scrim, it… I dunno… it kind of is pulled real tight here-you know, like when you wrap a sandwich too tight in plastic wrap? It kinda tears in places? Well, because this is where the Magic Zoo is, the Great Scrim is real tight like that, and it tears in a couple of places. And Long-Lost, he can make things happen where the tear is.” He opened to the first page and offered the comic to me. “I can’t read what it says, only you can.”

  I did not take it from his hands-I wasn’t about to touch the goddamned thing. Instead, I leaned down to read:

  DO YOU REMEMBER THE DREAM YOU HAD WHEN YOU CAUGHT PNEUMONIA, GIL? THE RAIN, THE SILVER CLOUD MADE BY THE MIST? YOU WERE SITTING ON A HILLSIDE, WATCHING A BOAT SAIL AWAY, AND YOU KNEW YOU HAD FRIENDS ABOARD THAT BOAT? OF COURSE YOU REMEMBER IT, I SENT IT TO YOU. THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED TO ME, GIL. BUT MAYBE YOU NEED TO A QUICK BIBLE LESSON. TRY THIS: “ AND NOAH WAS SIX HUNDRED YEARS OLD WHEN THE FLOOD OF WATERS WAS UPON THE EARTH.

  AND NOAH WENT IN, AND HIS SONS, AND HIS WIFE, AND HIS SONS’ WIVES WITH HIM, INTO THE ARK, BECAUSE OF THE WATERS OF THE FLOOD. “THERE WENT IN TWO AND TWO UNTO NOAH INTO THE ARK, THE MALE AND THE FEMALE, AS GOD HAD COMMANDED NOAH. “OF CLEAN BEASTS, AND OF BEASTS THAT ARE NOT CLEAN, AND OF FOWLS, AND OF EVERY THING THAT CREEPETH UPON THE EARTH, “AND IT CAME TO PASS AFTER SEVEN DAYS, THAT THE WATERS OF THE FLOOD WERE UPON THE EARTH. IN THE SIX HUNDREDTH YEAR OF NOAH’S LIFE, IN THE SECOND MONTH, THE SEVENTEENTH DAY OF THE MONTH, THE SAME DAY WERE ALL THE FOUNTAINS OF THE GREAT DEEP BROKEN UP, AND THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN WERE OPENED. “AND THE RAIN WAS UPON THE EARTH FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS. “IN THE SELF-SAME DAY ENTERED NOAH, AND SHEM, AND HAM, AND JAPHETH, THE SONS OF NOAH, AND NOAH’S WIFE, AND THE THREE WIVES OF HIS SONS WITH THEM, INTO THE ARK; “THEY, AND EVERY BEAST AFTER HIS KIND, AND ALL THE CATTLE AFTER THEIR KIND, AND EVERY CREEPING THING THAT CREEPETH UPON THE EARTH AFTER HIS KIND, AND EVERY FOWL AFTER HIS KIND, EVERY BIRD OF EVERY SORT. “AND THEY WENT IN UNTO NOAH INTO THE ARK, TWO AND TWO OF ALL FLESH, WHEREIN IS THE BREATH OF LIFE. “AND THEY THAT WENT IN, WENT IN MALE AND FEMALE OF ALL FLESH, AS GOD HAD COMMANDED HIM: AND THE LORD SHUT HIM IN. “AND THE FLOOD WAS FORTY DAYS UPON THE EARTH; AND THE WATERS INCREASED, AND BARE UP THE ARK, AND IT WAS LIFT UP ABOVE THE EARTH.” … EVER TAKE A LOOK AT THAT STORY AND ASK YOURSELF, WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? AFTER ALL, GIL, WEREN’T THERE MORE ANIMALS ABOARD THE ARK THAN HUMAN BEINGS? BUT WE’LL GET BACK TO THAT… ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW IS THAT GOD JUMPED THE GUN A LITTLE BIT. NOT EVERY ANIMAL MADE IT ONTO THE ARK, BECAUSE NOT EVERY ANIMAL HAD A MATE. TAKE ME, FOR INSTANCE. I WAS THE FIRST ANIMAL, ALL OTHERS SPRUNG FROM ME… YET WHEN IT CAME TIME FOR THE RAINY-DAY CRUISE, I WAS LEFT BEHIND! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT HURT MY FEELINGS, GIL? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW ANGRY I WAS? HOW ANGRY I STILL AM? SO I WENT AWAY. WHEN GOD DESTROYED THE WORLD, HE OVERLOOKED SOMETHING… THAT ONLY ONE WORLD AT A TIME CAN BE DESTROYED. HE WAS SO BUSY PISSING ALL OVER THIS ONE, HE DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE THAT I SLIPPED OVER INTO ONE OF THE OTHER ONES, WHICH I MADE MY KINGDOM. I’VE HAD TO START ALL OVER FROM SCRATCH, GIL, BUT THINGS ARE COMING ALONG NICELY. SO NICELY, IN FACT, THAT I’M READY TO ADD AN ADDITION, SO TO SPEAK. AND I THINK YOUR WORLD WILL DO JUST FINE. OF COURSE, I’VE HAD TO HIRE SOME… I GUESS YOU’D CALL THEM MOVERS. OR KEEPERS. A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME, BLAH-BLAHBLAH. I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG THIS WILL TAKE, GIL-RAW MATERIAL BEING SO DIFFICULT TO COME BY-BUT THINGS ARE WELL UNDER WAY. THE TEAR IN THE GREAT SCRIM IS GETTING WIDER EVERY DAY. NICE TO KNOW I STILL HAVE A FEW TRICKS UP MY SLEEVE IN THE MEANTIME. WHICH REMINDS ME-YOU MIGHT WANT TO SAY GOOD-BYE TO YOUR “NEPHEW” NOW.

  Carson dropped the comic book.

  He was shuddering; from the top of his head to the bottoms of his feet, he was shuddering as if in the grips of a grand-mal seizure.

  “Jesus- Carson! What’s wrong? ”

  I moved toward him but he screamed and waved me back.

  Outside the barn, I could hear the roaring of lions, the trumpeting of elephants, the growling of bears, the barking of dogs, the screams of loons. The walls shook as the animals began pressing against them from outside, clawing at the wood.

  In the back of the barn, a massive shadow moved as Carson’s scale model of Long-Lost took its first few tentative steps.

  Carson screamed again.

  He collapsed to his knees as his face began tearing in half, he felt it- I felt it, felt every sensation chewing through his body and there was nothing I could do-felt the fire burning through his nose as he struggled to his feet and stumbled away from me, hoping that it was all over now, please let it be over, please let this be the last of it, but then his face began swelling around forehead and nose, swelling like a goddamn balloon, so he looked away, looked down at his hand and saw it pulsating through layers of dried mud, felt the cold thing crawling between his shoulders again, eyes twitching, and then his face split apart like someone tearing a biscuit in half, only there was no steam, just blood, spraying, spattering, geysering around, and he tried to look behind him and see the animals as they clawed against the walls of the barn, tried to see me, tried to see if UncGil was still there, but the pain was killing him because the cold thing shuddered down between his shoulders and began to push through, snapping his shoulder blades like they were thin pieces of bark, and he screamed, screamed and whirled and slammed himself into the wall trying to stop the pain, trying to stop the thing from getting out, but he stunned himself for a moment and slid down to the floor, leaving a wide, dark smear behind him, howling as the first thing sawed through his back and fluttered to life, he was on his hands and knees now, waiting, trying to breathe, breathe deep, and now, OHGOD now the second one was tearing through, making a sound like a plastic bag melting on a fire, pushing through, unfurling, and he could see them now because their span must have been at least fifteen feet, and he threw his head back to cry out, but he couldn’t make any more human sounds, so he screamed, screamed so loud and long that his eyes bulged out and his face turned a dark blue and then his scream turned into the wail of an angry bird of prey as his body jerked back into a standing position, his arms locking bent, his hands clenching, every muscle in his body on fire; writhing, shifting, bones snapping, he shrieked in the cage of the barn as his chest puffed out through his shirt and covered in thick layers of brown feathers and the flesh dropped from his body like peelings from
an orange and he tried to move his arms, tried to grab something, then he jerked around from the waist and his arms dropped off, brittle branches from a burned tree, and he yowled again, louder than before, wishing that the pain would end and just let him die, then he fell back on his great wings and looked up into my face, into my eyes, and for a moment I thought I heard his voice whispering, I’m as much a part of you as you are of me , and then something snapped below his waist; snapped, wriggled, pushed up.

  With one last shriek he jerked back as the spasm took hold of him, pushing the corded claws up through his groin.

  And I stood facing a huge brown marsh hawk that stood nearly as tall as I did. It flexed its wings, then shook itself, spraying the walls with ribbons of meat and liquid that had once been my nephew.

  I looked into its red marble eyes, then began backing toward the door.

  The gigantic hawk that had once been my nephew stomped through the barn, its massive wings unfurling, making splinters out of the stall doors and rafters.

  I turned and ran.

  Outside, animals had gathered off to the side to watch.

  Rhino, elephant, manticore, bear, gryphon, lion, centaur, cat, swan, and so many others I couldn’t see their features.

  They had no interest in me.

  They were watching the barn behind me as its roof splintered outward.

  I heard a roar, and a screech, and the vibrations of something very, very large working its limbs back into life.

  I ran across the field, not looking back, cutting myself on tree branches when the light of the moon was obscured by massive wings.

  Somehow, I made it to my car and managed to get back on the road without killing anyone.

  It never once occurred to me to go anywhere else but home.

  Above me, the shadows of giant wings seemed to guide my path.

  Or watch to make certain I didn’t try deviating from it.

  III

  THE VALLEY OF LOVE AND DELIGHT

  ONE