CHAPTER SEVEN
“He’s gone,” Trent said into the phone. “Front door is open and the place is empty. It’s trashed, too. Looks like a tornado hit this place, but Milo is definitely not here.” The officer paced the house while he talked to his superior. He stopped cold when he got a piece of bad news.
“Oh, shit! What? Right now? Does it sound serious?” He paused while the person on the other end of the phone relayed their answers. After getting them, Trent sighed. “Where is Officer Kelly? We could use his help.”
More pause from Trent.
“Fine. I’ll head back out to the Barrows’ and check it out, Sheriff.” He slid his phone back into its case. “Jesus, what a shitty day off this is becoming.”
Trent climbed back into the cruiser where Jerry was patiently waiting. “I gotta make another stop, Jerry. I won’t have time to take you home. You can ride out or I can drop you off somewhere on the way.”
“I have nowhere to go,” Jerry said, not mentioning that he didn’t want to be alone.
“All right then. Let’s go.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Donny Barrows reached for a fresh pack of Camels from the cupboard and winced in pain. Vanessa didn’t notice. She was hunched over her computer, jumping from one open auction to the next, salivating at the thought of wasting money on more lady magazines than she would have time to read in two lifetimes. Donny figured she looked at those magazines for the same reason most folks do: to dream about the things she could never make a reality—like the dream houses, the unbelievable landscaping, or the unrealistic (and mostly unhealthy) body image. Maybe that’s how it started, but now, it’s a full-fledged addiction. Of course, it started with a grocery store impulse buy. One of those magazines with a famous actress on the cover and some salacious headline. The ones where you can’t turn the page without two or three magazine subscription cards falling out. But soon enough, the subscriptions weren’t enough. They were too slow, and they only send one at a time. Soon, Vanessa was buying old magazine collections at garage sales and on Craigslist. When those options dried up, she would always seem to find a mint Sears Christmas catalog from the fifties or a Cosmopolitan with Jackie O on the cover.
Vanessa was online looking to buy. Donny could tell by the way that she hunched over the keyboard, cramming her face closer and closer to the screen. Standing up from his worn recliner, Donny winced and pressed a fist against the knifing pain in his lower back. Daisy was a good dog, but she needed a big hole, and somebody had to pay for it. Donny walked gingerly to the bathroom and swung open the medicine cabinet, where he dished out another painkiller, washing it down with a Pepsi. After shutting the door to the medicine cabinet, he stared at his face in the mirror. He looked old and felt even older. Both he and Vanessa were in their forties when they had Leo. When they met Leo’s classmates or friends at a school function, they were usually ten or twenty years older than the other kid’s parents. As Leo got older, that age gap between parents became more significant and troublesome. They had very little in common with Leo’s friend’s parents. The one and only benefit of having Leo while in his forties, was that he foolishly thought that it would assure them both that they would never outlive their son.
Look at me now, he thought. The flowers aren’t even dead yet from my own son’s funeral and I already had to bury his dog. Some irony isn’t funny, and sometimes life can really suck.
“I think the storm is finally letting up,” Donny said. He didn’t know if he really felt that, but it was something to say. The house could be so quiet now that Leo was gone.
Vanessa didn’t respond. She simply leaned in closer to the screen, only to lean back a moment later to take another sip of her tea.
Donny tried another tactic. “How’s the auction going, dear?”
“Twenty minutes and forty-five seconds on one and less than three minutes on another.” He could hear the agitation in her voice that she always got when he would insist on talking to her when she was busy. Vanessa suspected (rightly so) that he would occasionally do this on purpose. He wasn’t doing it on purpose now, however. With Leo gone, and now Daisy, the house was just too damn quiet for Donny.
“Well, good luck on the auctions, honey. I think I’m gonna’ go soak in the tub for a while. I think I really tweaked something digging that damn hole.”
“I told you that would happen,” Vanessa reminded him.
“Yes, you did. Holler if you need anything.”
“Donny?”
He stopped in the kitchen with his back to her. “Yeah?”
“When you’re done in the tub, bring the lotion and I’ll give your back a good rub.”
She stood up from the computer and met him in the kitchen. She placed her hand softly on his neck, stood on her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Hurry up in there, okay?”
Donny could only nod, and his wife returned to her online auction without another word.
Donny ran his bath (hot as he could stand it) and stepped in. He closed his eyes and cried.
~ ~ ~ ~
Vanessa won the first auction; a mint collection of Sears Christmas catalogs from 1980 to 1988, but she lost the second one; a vintage Montgomery Ward’s catalog from March of 1975. A super bitch with the online name of Ye Old Mag Hag swooped in at the last minute and snagged it.
“Ooh, you old bitch!” Vanessa had wanted that one, and thought she had it in the bag. Donny married her that year. And their first set of fine china came from that catalog. There were only a few pieces remaining of that china set, and she had packed it up years ago. The rest was long gone; a few pieces dropped or broken in the sink; a coffee mug knocked off an end table by Daisy’s ever-wagging tail, the list was endless. Vanessa would have loved to see that old set again—even if it was only in tiny pictures in an outdated catalog.
Vanessa reminisced uncharacteristically while staring at the profile of Ye Old Mag Hag, mentally wording the perfect snarky message to send. Outside, she subconsciously noticed the blowing snow pelting the house. The dining room window rattled in its frame, and Vanessa dismissed the idea of sending the message to her new online nemesis. The sound of splintering wood finally broke Vanessa Barrows from her wandering mind. She closed the Windows on her browser and snapped the laptop closed. As the computer’s fan finally stopped whirring, Vanessa suddenly noticed how remarkably quiet the house could be. Donny’s bath water had stopped at some point, and she hadn’t noticed until now.
It’s too quiet, she thought. Much too quiet.
A sudden crash came from the kitchen, breaking the old farmhouse’s silence, causing Vanessa to cry out. She slapped a hand over her mouth and tried to stand up from her desk chair. Her legs felt rubbery, so she reached out for the end of the desk for support. After she caught her breath, she cried out for her husband. “Donald!” The house remained quiet. “Donny, did you hear that? Are you okay?”
Just a window breaking in the storm, she told herself. Maybe a squirrel or raccoon has weaseled its way in and knocked something over. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. She still didn’t trust her legs, but she couldn’t sit back any longer. Vanessa made her way into the kitchen and flipped on the light.
Broken shards of glass littered the tiled floor. White porcelain shards. Vanessa recognized them instantly for what they were: the fine China she got for her wedding.
It can’t be. What’s remaining of that set is packed up … I don’t even remember where I put it.
But it was that long ago set of china.
Impossible or not, the gold trim and flower pattern was unmistakable.
From behind her, came a voice, “Sorry about that, Mom.”
Vanessa tried to scream. She thought she did. Could have sworn she heard her voice echoing around the kitchen like a marble rotating the bottom of a glass jar, but no sound came from her lips. Finally, she turned and gazed into the eyes of her son. Her dead son. Leo Barrows stood in the kitchen doorway. Still whole. Still alive.
“L
eo,” she gasped. “What is this … what is happening?”
“I’m home, Mom. I came home.”
“Oh, son, I’m so …” She smiled wide and began to walk towards him, but froze as a smell of rotten meat wafted through the kitchen. Just then, her son seemed to shift and dissolve; like a hologram from a cheesy science fiction movie. It was only a fraction of a second, but Vanessa saw it. The smile on her face wilted.
“But you’re dead.”
Leo shrugged. “And? What, don’t you love me anymore … just because I’m not like all the other kids?”
Leo’s mother shook her head and tried to close her eyes, but she was too afraid to let him out of sight. “No, you’re not here. Go away.”
“Your own son? Did you learn your parenting skills from one of those foolish magazines?”
“Go away!” she screamed. And this time, she did close her eyes, although the sound of breaking glass forced her to open them again. Her son—or whatever it was—was gone. But she could still smell him.
It.
Donald, she thought.
“Donny!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, racing for her husband, already comforted by the thought of him making this craziness stop.
She scampered through the kitchen and down the hallway towards the bathroom. The door was open a crack, and Vanessa crashed through it. There was broken glass on the bathroom floor. White porcelain. It was the china again. She was so surprised to see more of her long-lost china scattered across the floor, that she didn’t notice the pink water dripping from the bathtub and down her husband’s arm, which hung lifeless over the side of the tub.
Finally, Vanessa saw it and understood it all. Donald’s head hung back, and he stared unblinkingly to the ceiling. His face was so pale. His arm ghostly white, aside from the streaks of red, which ran in rivers and dripped from his fingertips.
On the wall, behind the tub, written in big, sloppy, red letters, were the words:
ITS NOT HIM
A message written in blood.
Her husband’s blood.
Vanessa screamed.
She stumbled forward on legs that felt detached and rubbery towards her dead husband.
This can’t be happening.
Donald’s dilated eyes stared into nothing, and Vanessa could see the fear etched on his face.
The slits in his wrist were deep and ragged. A shard from that old china lay floating in the water between his knees, its porcelain white sheen a stark contrast to the bright red bath water.
“Oh, Donny,” she sobbed, stepping into the pool of blood that dripped from his dangling right arm. She grabbed his face in her hands and kissed his cold lips. “I love you so much … I’m so sorry.”
She was still kissing him when she heard the voice of the thing that was not her son. “Mommy?” The voice came from deep in the house, but it could have been right next to her. She released her dead husband and stood up, knees creaking, and walked slowly to the bathroom doorway. She peeked around the corner. All clear.
I have to get help.
Vanessa Barrows darted down the hallway, knocking over a freshly stacked mountain of Reader’s Digest in the process.
“Mommy dearest?” The sing-song voice of her dead son, mocking her. It sounded like it came from directly behind her.
Vanessa, almost at the front door of the farmhouse, screamed and looked over her shoulder. There was nothing there. She stood looking the way she had come, staring at the bathroom light pouring into the dark hallway.
Oh, Donny.
“You’re leaving me?” her ‘son’ asked. She turned and saw him standing in front of the doorway that led to the front porch and snowy white darkness.
“You bastard,” she whispered. “You killed my man.”
He pretended to look hurt and then smiled. “What are you gonna’ do about it?”
With a sudden burst of inspiration, Vanessa screamed madly and ran for the cellar door. She knocked over more stacked catalogs and magazines from her desk and shelves as she went. Boxes tumbled. Dusty knickknacks crashed to the floor. She threw open the cellar door and descended the wooden steps. Vanessa was no longer a young woman, and her right foot twisted as she planted it on the second step. The fragile bone snapped, and Vanessa cried out in pain. Arms flailed as she tumbled. Flabby thighs and frail ribs slammed hard on the wooden steps as she descended into the darkness. The dirty laundry at the foot of the steps may have saved her life, but that seemed little consolation now, lying in filth; bruised and broken.
Above her, the basement door creaked open. The light from the dining room lamps silhouetted the figure that stood there, looming.
She crawled to her feet, wincing, grinding her teeth together in pain as she tried to put weight on her broken ankle.
The figure at the top of the stairs flipped on the light, and she saw it was no longer her son. It was her father. It began descending, and Vanessa had time to notice that the facade of her father was already morphing into her father’s brother, Uncle Eli. Only he was still the age he would have been when Vanessa was a little girl. The age he was when he broke her trust.
“Hi there, cutie-pie.” It was the voice of her uncle, she was certain. She still heard his voice from time to time, usually in her nightmares.
“Fuck you,” she spat. She had been heading for the cellar exit that would have led her into the backyard, but without thinking, she changed course and headed for Donny’s gun cabinet. Buried behind cardboard cartons full of her addiction, stood the armory. She pushed aside stack after stack of magazine crates and pulled on the glass door to the cabinet. It rattled, but didn’t give way.
Locked.
At her limp, broken foot, Vanessa reached for one of her scattered magazines. Cosmopolitan, July ‘93. She folded it around her elbow and slammed into the cabinet door, shattering glass.
“You can’t hide from me, cutie-pie. You never could.”
“Then come and get me,” she whispered, grabbing the shotgun from its holding place. With the gun propped on her right shoulder, she fumbled with a box of shells, cursing under her breath at the throbbing pain in her foot.
A window behind her exploded inwards. She screamed and shielded her face as the glass and snow swirled. Hundreds of magazines fluttered through the cluttered basement as wind roared around her. The wood stove sat in the middle of the room, radiating heat in the rapidly cooling room.
This had once been the family room before Vanessa’s collection had claimed it. The couch and love-seat were still here, but pressed against the far wall and stacked with boxes.
“Come on, Van, you can trust me,” Uncle Eli promised.
The voice came from behind her, and she swung on it, pulling the trigger before she knew what she was aiming at. The explosion and subsequent muzzle flash overwhelmed every sense that she had. The only recipient of the shotgun blast was a box of Playboys. Paper confetti fluttered through the air as if she had just won big on some vapid game show.
“You’ll shoot your eye out,” another voice came from the stairs. It was her father again. She turned and fired blind. There was nothing there but another box of magazines; this one a hodgepodge of one-offs that she had never quite figured out what to do with.
That problem is solved, she thought, as another box of magazines disintegrated into worthless confetti.
“Settle down, darling,” the voice of her long dead father said. “You don’t want to kill your old man, do you? Now you hafta’ know I didn’t know shit about what my scoundrel of a brother was up to. You know that, right?”
But she didn’t know. She was never sure of that. And now she didn’t know what to think. Some part deep inside of her had always wondered if her father wasn’t as clueless as he had let on.
And what kind of father would let that stand?
She had asked herself that question many times over the years. What kind of a father indeed?
“Just leave me alone!” she screamed, her voice crescendoing at the end i
nto a hysterical shriek.
She pumped the shotgun, ejecting a spent shell onto the carpet. God help her, the adrenalin was fading, and now pain from her snapped ankle was taking over.
Suddenly, the figure of her father materialized from a cloud of smoke from the vent on the wood-burning stove. Vanessa screamed and fired again. Buckshot ricocheted off the stove, sending sparks flying amongst the cardboard and paper shrapnel.
The smoky visage disguised as her father disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Vanessa’s ears rang painfully. Nostrils stung with the acrid stench of burnt cordite.
Her father’s voice rang out again. Behind her this time. She turned and fired. Only the dull click of an empty chamber. The shape in front of her laughed. Vanessa dropped the shotgun at her feet, shoulders sagging, barely noticing the heat building just behind her.
“You’re a stupid bitch,” the shape said, finally losing all pretense of being her father. She noticed that it was no longer using a voice at all. It was talking inside of her head. “You’ve caught your own damn house on fire.”
She felt it then. The heat radiating behind her. She turned just in time to see a second stack of cardboard boxes—this one filled with every copy of the Chaplin Hills Register since 1975—ignite like it was a book of matches. Hadn’t she always known this was going to happen? Hadn’t she been warned by her own husband—who now lay dead in the bathroom just above her?
“And you’ll be joining him soon, now, won’t you? You foolish, foolish excuse for a mother.”
She had ruined its plans and it was angry with her. Did she pick something else from its tone? Was that fear? She hoped so. God, she hoped so.
“I’m sorry, Donald. I’m sorry, Leo. I love you both.”
The cellar burned around her like the tinderbox it was.
The Complete Bleaker Trilogy Box-set Page 27