The Secret Life of Souls

by Jack Ketchum

  All on her, he thinks.

  “Hey, we had a good run, didn’t we, girl? Don’t you think? How many dogs get a run like that, huh? You’ve been a good dog, Caits. Hell, I wasn’t a bad father, was I. Was I?”

  He leans over and ruffles the fur around her ears. They drive in silence for a while. Out of the burbs to the strip mall, the convenience stores, the burger and pizza joints. He is aware of a heaviness in his chest, a choking sensation in his throat.

  At the gas station and car wash with the big Native American chief statue in front of it and the mini casino in back he slows and makes a left onto the straight empty highway headed through the desert toward the mountains. Nothing out here but a boulder now and then or low sandstone rock studded along the side of the road like jagged teeth in a desiccated bleak skull of sand. It’s safe to pull out the flask now so he does. He uncaps it and takes a long pull. The warm vodka burns its way down his throat.

  He welcomes the feeling. Has another.

  “You weren’t the bitch in the family, were you?” he says. “We both know who the bitch is, don’t we. Hey, I married her!”

  Caity’s acting strange. She should be hanging halfway out the window by now, enjoying the warm breeze. This road is new to her. She should be curious. Instead she’s turned around in the passenger seat, looking back out the rear window. He glances into the rearview mirror, the Big Chief statue fading in the distance.

  Another pull. He’s seriously feeling it now. It’s about fuckin’ time.

  He considers music. The CD player. The radio. But music doesn’t seem right somehow. He takes another hit of the one-fifty-one. Music’s wrong. Hell, let’s face it, it’s all wrong.

  “Fuck!” he says. “Just dump the damn dog! Do the shit work! Good old Bart. Let him do all the shit work. You know what? I shoulda smacked her, you know that? Right from the start, kept her in line. I fucked up, though. Fucked a lot up. Maybe if I hadn’t fucked up, things would’ve been different for us. You, me, Delia. Shit!”

  He pounds the steering wheel. Wipes the tears from his eyes.

  “Weak!”

  He takes another pull. The pint’s still about three-quarters full. It’ll manage to get him wherever he’s going, there and back. Fine.

  Caity is looking at him now, not the road.

  He slaps the wheel again.

  “Why’d you do it, girl? Why’d you have to go and bite the big bad wolf? Damn!”

  He sets the pint between his legs and reaches over to stroke her, pet her—their dog, his dog—and feels her tense and stiffen at his touch. And it comes to him then. A kind of superstitious dread. A worm of fear inside. He looks into her eyes which look back hard into his and he thinks, she knows, goddammit, somehow she knows what I’m supposed to do and he withdraws the hand, the hand seeks out the flask instead, the comfort there as she turns to the open window and begins to scramble through it, her front legs and half her chest already out the window, rear legs off the car seat and pawing for purchase at the arm rest.

  “Caity!”

  He drops the flask and lunges for her, the reach to her collar too far, impossible, so he grabs for her haunches, her tail, her legs, almost gets hold of one as the car swerves, a crazy thing, as it blurts off the road into cacti and spewing sand and then she’s gone, disappeared out the window as his back right tire screeches and lifts against something low and hard and the car spins dizzily and he wrenches at the wheel for control as in front of him through the windshield the boulder looms.

  We know the way. Our ears, our nose, our eyes are one single thought and they show us the way. They’ll lead us home.

  We’re thirsty. It’s hot.

  The road beneath our feet is hot. Too hot. The sand is better. Feet slipping, sliding, but better.

  We walk and walk toward the tall statue in the distance and the sun rises farther up the sky and farther still. There are birds high above. Something gray and small scuttles burrowing into the sand beneath a cactus at our approach.

  Cars fly by, blowing waves of heat and sand. We turn our eyes away. We walk.

  And finally there is the statue and the gas station and car wash and in front of the car wash a small sickly dog is tethered and barks at us, furious, as we pass. At the exit to the strip mall a car halts its turn onto the highway and at the entrance another brakes for us and stops its turning in. We feel this driver’s eyes on us as an accusation. We’ve inconvenienced him. We pay him no mind.

  We’re going home.

  We know the way.

  EIGHTEEN

  Where’s Caity?”

  She’s always right at the door when he comes in. He’s always wondered if she hears the bus or the car or if it’s just some doggy sixth sense telling her he’s home but whatever it is, she’s always right there waiting for him like she’s been sitting there forever.

  His mom is lying feet-up on the couch in front of the television. Alex Trebek. Jeopardy.

  “I dunno. With your dad I guess. He was going for a drive. Must have brought her along for the ride.”

  She’s been drinking. He can tell by her voice. Middle of the afternoon and she’s still in her bathrobe. The coffee cup on the table in front of her isn’t fooling anybody. He knows what’s in there.

  The place reeks of cigarette smoke. She’s chain-smoking too now?

  He figures he’ll open the patio doors and let in some air.

  Caity’s stuff lies right in front of him. Piled none too neatly just to the left of the doors. Her water bowl, food bowls, a ten-pound bag of kibble and some cans of food, her leash, a pair of thick leather bone-shaped chew-toys, some bright-colored rubber balls, and the little stuffed dragon she likes to toss around every now and then.

  What the hell’s going on?

  He feels blood rush to his head. His heart’s pounding.

  She’d bitten her.

  She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

  The vet, he thinks. Put her to sleep. Put her down.

  He storms back into the room.

  “Where is she, mom? Why’s her stuff out there? Where’s my dog?”

  She drinks from the cup.

  “Your dog! Ha! Delia’s dog. Not yours.”

  “Where is she? What did you do, ma?”

  “I didn’t do a damn thing. Talk to your father.”

  “Did you . . . ?”

  She slams the cup down on the table. Stands and walks over and gets right in his face.

  “I told you. I didn’t do a damn thing. I don’t have to answer to you.”

  He could smell her smoke-and-whiskey breath, feel it on his cheek.

  “And who the fuck cares?”

  “I care! Caity’s . . .”

  Family, he’s going to say, but she puts her hand to his chest and pushes him. He backpedals, astonished. She’s never hit him, never touched him before. Not like this. He catches his balance.

  She’s pushed him. Just like she pushed Delia? Is that possible?

  It is.

  The word flies out of him. The word surprises him.

  “Bitch!”

  Her finger stabs his chest. The fingernail filed sharp.

  “What? What did you say? Don’t you ever talk to me like that, you understand me? Not ever! You miserable little . . .”

  He’s scared, trembling all over but dammit, he’s standing his ground on this.

  “I want to know what you did, mom! What did you do to Caity? What did you do to my sister.”

  “What? You little shit!”

  He sees the slap coming but he can’t dodge it. Some part of him doesn’t even want to dodge it.

  Let her, he thinks. Let’s see. Let’s see who she is. What she’s hiding.

  The force of it sends him to the ground, ears ringing, stung all across his cheek and jaw. He lies in front of her on the carpet, blinking his eyes back into focus.

  A spider, he thinks. That’s what she looks like. Legs spread, arms held wide away from her to either side, fingers spread like claws, back hunc
hed, head and neck protruding off her shoulders like some creature about to strike.

  “Get up,” she says. “Get the fuck up and go to your room. I see your face down here again tonight you’ll get it again, you hear me? You’ll get worse. Now get out of my sight. Get!”

  He gets up. He does what he’s told.

  But this? This isn’t over.

  The nice lady from across the street is on her porch again, rocking, a folder and some papers on her lap in front of her. She sees us—tongue lolling, we can’t help it—and stands.

  “Hey! Hey, doggie, hey, sweetie, come on, c’mere!”

  She motions us over. We hesitate, then trot up the porch steps. She squats and runs her hands over our head, pats our chest.

  “Look at you, you’re all lathered up! Want some water? Sure you do. Sit. Wait right here. Wait.”

  She disappears behind the screen door and we look over across the street. We listen. The house stands quiet.

  She returns with a bowl of water and a paper towel and wipes the foam from our mouth before she sets it down. We drink. The water’s so cold we feel an ache in our chest as it goes down but it’s wonderful and we empty the bowl in no time at all. She strokes our head.

  “What are you doing out here, anyway, huh? Let’s get you home,” she says.

  She takes hold of our collar as though to guide us.

  It’s not necessary. We know where we’re going.

  “My dog Caity. Did my dad . . . did my dad bring her in?”

  He can hear a dog barking in the background. Sharp and shrill. Not Caity.

  Their vet’s receptionist asks if she can put him on hold and he says yes and then waits holding his breath, afraid to breathe, while some Muzak version of “Bridge over Troubled Water” plays tinny in the background and then she’s on the line again.

  “No, Robbie. They haven’t been in today. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “No. Thanks. ’Bye.”

  He hangs up the phone in their bedroom relieved but thinking, now what? and hears the doorbell ring downstairs.

  “Look who I found!”

  “What the . . . ?”

  The woman is smiling, their neighbor, Leda, the newsperson, the anchor for god’s sake. She lets go of the collar and the dog trots past her to the foot of the stairs and sits.

  She’s aware that her mouth is open. She closes it.

  Put on the face, she thinks. Pleasure and astonishment.

  The astonished part is easy.

  “How did you . . . ? Where did you . . . ?”

  “She came right on up to the house. I gave her some water.”

  “Well, god, thank you! I have no idea how she . . .”

  “She was awfully thirsty.”

  “Thank you so much. I had no idea she’d gotten out.”

  “Well, she’s home safe now, isn’t she.”

  “Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “My pleasure.”

  The woman looks on past her to the staircase and waves and smiles again. Pat looks over her shoulder. To Robbie standing on the landing.

  “You folks have a good day, now!” she says.

  “You too. Thanks again.”

  She quietly closes the door.

  “What?” she says. “You happy now?”

  What the hell is going on, she thinks. Where the hell’s Bart? What’s the goddamn dog doing here?

  She doesn’t like the way the dog is just sitting there, looking at her. She doesn’t much care for the expression on her son’s face either. Screw the both of them.

  “Caity! C’mon, girl,” Robbie says.

  The dog turns and climbs the stairs.

  “Fuck this,” she says. She sits back down on the couch and drains the bourbon in her coffee mug, digs the cell phone out of her bathrobe pocket, and speed-dials Bart’s number. She gets his voicemail after a single ring. Redials and gets it again. Then a third time.

  “Goddammit!” Where the hell are you, Bart?”

  She slams the phone down on the coffee table. It immediately begins to ring.

  The display reads Saint Agnes Hospital.

  “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Cross?” A woman’s voice. Young, she thinks.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Mrs. Cross. There’s been an accident. Your husband’s been very badly hurt. We have him here in intensive care. You’ll want to get over here as soon as possible. Do you know where we are, ma’am?”

  “Hurt?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Do you know where we are?”

  “Yes. Oh yes. Believe me, I know where you are. Thank you.”

  She slams the phone down a second time.

  Impossible, she thinks. How in god’s name? And then she thinks, go get dressed. Get the hell over there.

  Her son and dog are watching from the stairs.

  “What? What are you looking at?”

  Like they’re accusing her. Like they have the right to accuse her.

  She tromps up the stairs. On the landing Robbie scoots over but the dog doesn’t, the dog just sits there.

  In my way, she thinks. You’re always in my goddamn fucking way, aren’t you.

  I’ll move your ass.

  She reaches down and grabs her by the collar, grips it hard, sees Robbie flinch away beside her and then turns, whirling.

  And hurls the goddamn dog down the stairs.

  The dog yelps, tumbling end over end and skittering along her side but then catches herself, finds her legs on the third step from the bottom, steadies herself glaring up at Pat, and she has a single terrible moment to regret what she’d done, impulsive, violent, and stupid, which is not like her at all, not the way she thinks of herself whatsoever, before the dog charges snarling back up the stairs.

  She runs for the bedroom, the door she can close behind her and there it is, it’s right there in front of her and she reaches for it as the dog’s teeth sink into the meat of her calf and jerk her foot out from under her and she falls screaming in pain and her fear turns to sudden blinding fury so that she pivots on her hip and bends forward from the waist and reaches out thumbs-first to the dog’s eyes, into the dog’s eyes, gouging at the dog’s eyes so that it yips and draws away and she kicks it with her bloodied leg hard in the snout.

  She is on her feet and through the doorway thinking, get to the phone, the police, call the police, and shoves the door hard behind her and hears it slam against the doorjamb but it doesn’t engage, the damn thing does that sometimes, you have to press it home, and then hears it slam against the wall which means the dog is inside. She doesn’t look back.

  The bathroom. Lock the door.

  A fine idea except that the dog is faster than she ever might have guessed, faster than she’s ever seen it move before, heading her off, racing over the bed and onto the vanity table scattering lotions and pills and perfume bottles crashing every which way and then leaping off the vanity to the floor in front of her. Her feet go out from under her as the throw rug sails away across the floor and she lands on her ass in front of the table with the flat-screen perched on top like a bird of prey looming down at her.

  The dog barks and snaps its teeth, haunches trembling with excitement.

  She grapples for the table, uses the table to try to haul herself up but the angle’s wrong, her weight’s too much. The table tilts, falling, the flat-screen along with it and she senses the screen’s trajectory and tries to scuttle crabwise away but feels it crash down across her shins and she screams in pain as the dog pounces directly on top of the thing, snapping, snarling, drool spraying across her face.

  She pushes with all her strength and screen and dog go flying. She crawls toward the bathroom through the high reek of lotion and perfume and broken glass from the vanity, feels glass pierce the palms of her hands and knees and then her hands find the sink and she’s begun to drag herself up when the dog’s teeth clamp down on the toes of her left foot, she hears the crunch of
bone even before she feels it and she screams again and falls, her jaw slamming the rim of the tub and she’s bitten her tongue, the taste of warm blood putrid in her mouth and she turns to her back and kicks and kicks at the dog with both feet, blood flying off her foot, kicks until she catches its snout again directly, perfectly, and the fucking thing yelps bright and sharp and runs whining from the room.

  She hears the patter of the dog’s feet in the hall and then there’s silence except for her own heavy breathing. Waves of pain wash over her body. She looks down at her mangled foot. The big toe hangs loose at a wholly unnatural angle. She listens to the silence. Swallows blood. Listens for the dog. Listens and then thinks where the hell’s Robbie? Where’s her son?

  She uses the sink and carefully, quietly, lifts herself off the bathroom floor.

  From where he stands on the landing Robbie hears it all, Caity barking, snarling, his mother screaming, breaking glass, and something heavy falling, and the sounds repel and beckon to him, both at once. He inches along the wall toward their bedroom until he’s standing at his own doorway, terrified to go further.

  He hears Caity yelp and hears her claws tick tick tick across the bedroom floor and then she’s out there in the hall stopped and staring up at him. There’s blood along her mouth and nose but it’s her eyes which draw him, her eyes which hold him. The eyes are that same deep, dark familiar brown he’s known for years but what’s in them, what resides inside the eyes is not the same at all. Though it, too, is familiar.

  And impossible.

  He leans forward from the wall, the better to see.

  His sister and he were twins. Not nearly identical, but close enough. Especially around the eyes.

  He sees pity there and a great and terrible longing.

  “Delia?” he says. “Deal?”

  Impossible.

  The hall begins to slide and swim. So that when his mother storms raging, limping out of the bedroom with the heavy ceramic lamp from atop their dresser raised in both hands high above her head, naked inside the parted robe, teeth bared in a bloody snarl, it’s too much, way too much, and as Caity turns to meet her he throws himself inside his room and slams the door.

  The lamp is a bad idea. Clunky fucking thing with too much weight to it but it was the first thing that came to mind, the first thing at hand, she should have stripped a curtain rod or the shower rod, telescoped it down, cracked it like a whip. But all she could think of was to hurt the damn thing, kill the fucking thing for what it’s done—her leg, her foot, the glass in her hands and knees—and the dog launches itself at her and bitch! she screams as sixty pounds of muscle hit her in the chest and even as she brings the lamp down across its withers she knows it’s not nearly enough and the lamp falls away from her hands as she hits shoulder-first against the wall behind her, smashing Delia’s first framed headshot to the floor. The dog backs away from the skittering broken glass and that moment is all she needs to throw open the door to Delia’s room.