by Aimee Bender
It rolled glassy brown eyes at him and sank deeper into the mattress, wiped snot from its nostrils with its free arm.
“Up!” Greg shouted, and slowly the beast relented, rising from the bed and following him out of the room.
Lilith said, “You could let him rest, hon. He isn’t feeling well.”
Greg pushed the beast into the garage and locked the door. “It stays out there,” he said.
She turned her back to him and stood at the sink, gripping its edge with both hands. The fancy pillows were on the living room couch, the camera mounted on the tripod. She’d been getting it ready for a family portrait.
Phil and Elise came for dinner and brought Gordon with them. Elise handed Lilith a bottle of wine, but was already peering past her into the house. Phil nodded toward the open kitchen door and said, “There’s the fellow.” The beast was crouched near the wet churning warmth of the dishwasher, watching them.
“I heard he was sick,” Elise said, searching for signs of contagion.
“He’s better now,” Lilith assured her. “You should have seen all the get well cards.”
Gordon ran past them and into the kitchen, halting just in front of the beast, his arms raised. The beast inched away from the boy, blinking. “Now it knows who’s boss,” Gordon said.
“Leave it alone,” Elise said to him, and Gordon went into the living room to watch television.
Greg and Phil stood with hands in pockets while their wives squatted beside the beast. Phil said, “Those wrists are looking better.”
It quickly lost interest in the newcomers and resumed its game of rolling oranges across the floor. When dinner was ready, Lilith shooed the beast into the garage. It sat and gazed up at her as she closed the door.
“It’s hard to keep up with him these days,” she said, picking the oranges off the floor.
“Asserting his personality,” said Elise.
Greg didn’t talk much during dinner. He drank a lot of water, always going into the kitchen to refill his glass. Afterward, he and Phil retreated to the office, and Greg took out a stack of photographs of his father. In the pictures, all from the war, Lyle appeared as a taller, handsomer version of Greg, dancing with women in flared skirts, smoking a cigarette in front of the Egyptian pyramids, on a runway in England with arms around his buddies, always grinning, sometimes pointing straight at the camera as if to say, “Hey, you there!”
“You going to sell the house?” Phil asked.
“As soon as I can,” Greg said. “Got it pretty much cleaned out now. I found these in his dresser. He never showed them to me.”
“And what about the big guy? Where’d you find him, anyway?”
Greg held the last photo—Lyle behind the controls of his bomber plane—and flipped it rapidly against his knee. “In the basement,” he said. “There’s a little room down there where they used to store coal, for the old furnace. It was just chained up back there. Dirty and half-starved.”
Phil whistled and shook his head. “And he never mentioned it. Wonder where he picked the thing up.”
Greg said, “For the last thirty years the man and I were strangers. Now he’s dead and I feel like he’s around me all the time.”
From the next room came the sound of Elise’s laughter. Lilith had commenced the nightly lesson. “A,” she said, and then again, insistent, “A.”
“Ahgg,” came the beast’s rasp.
“B,” Lilith said.
“Ahgg,” it said.
Phil said, “Elise told me you’ve got the kids studying the atomic bomb. Gordon’s really into it. He was telling me about how people’s shadows were left on the walls, you know, afterwards. Pretty creepy stuff. Anyway, Elise is wondering how long you’re planning to spend on that?”
Greg put the photos away. “Not sure,” he said.
Elise drank most of the bottle of wine she brought that night. She and Phil were standing at the door with their jackets on when she remembered Gordon. “Where is that boy?” she said. The television was still on but the couch was empty.
Greg went across the house to the garage. The beast was curled up on its bed of blankets and Gordon was crouched over it. When the boy pulled his hand away Greg saw the bruise on the beast’s nipple.
“It isn’t so tough,” Gordon said.
“Your parents are leaving now,” Greg said. He waited in the doorway until Gordon walked past him. The beast watched the boy go, then settled its head down with a sigh.
Greg and Lilith were coming home from the supermarket when a police cruiser came up behind them and flashed its high beams. Greg pulled over and watched in the rearview as the cop stepped out of his car. It was Abe. He waved as he approached, and Greg rolled down his window.
Abe leaned over and said, “Just got a call from Mrs. Connor over on Myrtle. Says there’s a bear chewing on her barbecue grill. You want to come check it out with me?”
“Oh Jesus,” said Lilith.
Greg said to her, “You go home and check.”
“No, I’m coming with you.”
Abe got back into his car and Greg followed him around the block. The Connor place was dark when they arrived. The three met on the walk and Abe explained, “Said she didn’t want to attract its attention.”
They walked around the side of the house, keeping close to the wall. Dogs were barking from the neighboring yards, and Abe had his hand on the butt of his pistol.
At first they could see nothing but Mrs. Connor’s rows of tulips. Then from the shadow of a tree came another shadow, bent and shaggy. The beast’s eyes were bright in the moonlight.
“Nice and easy now,” Abe said, like a television cop. He handed Greg his cuffs. “You want to do this?”
But Lilith walked past them, one hand raised. The beast seemed to catch her scent.
“Come here,” she called, but the beast ignored her.
“Doesn’t look good,” said Abe.
“Come here to mommy,” Lilith said.
Abe shot a glance at Greg that he was careful not to return.
When the beast still didn’t budge, Lilith said, “Come here right this instant.”
It put its snout in the air and produced a gurgling sound, almost a howl.
“Yes,” Lilith said. “A.”
“Bahgg,” the beast said.
“A, B,” said Lilith.
It rolled its shoulders and came slowly over the lawn, stood before her with head hung. She took its wrist and said, “Okay, let’s go.”
They put the beast in the back seat and Lilith got in beside it, moving groceries out of the way.
“I’ll call Mrs. Connor in the morning,” Greg said to Abe.
“Gave her quite a scare. You folks going to be all right?”
“Just fine, Abe. Thanks for grabbing us when you did.”
Abe tipped his hat. “Poker tomorrow,” he said, and headed up the sidewalk to the house.
Greg got behind the wheel and met Lilith’s eyes in the mirror. She held the beast’s right arm and squeezed it gently. Greg couldn’t see its face, but he smelled the earthy breath, felt it hot on the back of his neck.
They could have played on the dining room table, since Abe had the place to himself now, but it was tradition to take the cooler into the basement, check the progress of the model ship of the month, pull out the folding chairs and pass around the plastic poker chips. Abe had remodeled the basement the year before Corey went back to Minneapolis. Using any other room would have been an insult to the man’s craftsmanship, and too much like acknowledging his wife’s absence.
That night, though, even in the sanctum beneath the house, nothing was right. The cooler leaked water over the floor, the pretzels were stale, and Phil, usually the risk-taker, folded quickly almost every hand. Finally Abe said, “Have to close up now, boys. Early day tomorrow.”
The men shuffled back up the stairs. As Greg took his jacket from the wall rack, Abe put a hand on his arm and asked him to stay a moment. When the others were gone,
Abe’s face went tight and he said, “Your father was a good man, Greg. He was a friend of mine.”
Abe was older than Greg but younger than his father. Lyle never joined them for their poker games, but Greg knew that he and Abe shared a few beers sometimes down at Cooley’s.
Greg said, “He always spoke well of you, Abe.”
“That’s why I feel a little responsible, like I should look out for you. I think your dad would want that. Not that I knew him too well, mind you. But this much about him I had figured. Either he took care of business or he kept his business his own. You follow me?”
“You bet,” he said.
“Good. Now this guest of yours, Greg, a beast like that shouldn’t be taught to speak. Nobody wants to know what it would have to say. You just call me if you need help with this thing, okay? I’m always here.”
That room was tidy, pristine, just the way Corey had left it. And there were Abe’s white socks, sunk in the thick blue carpet.
Greg put his jacket on. “Thanks, Abe.”
At the door they wished each other goodnight. The porch light went off as Greg got into his car.
Greg got up early, made coffee, eggs, toast. He took the beast through the sliding glass door into the backyard, where birds twittered angrily from the trees. Greg tossed an orange into the grass, said, “Go for it, boy. Let’s see your stuff.”
It hesitated, then bounded after the orange, rolling it along with its snout while Greg sipped from his mug. “That’s it,” he said. “Keep it moving, keep it moving.”
The beast snatched the orange in its teeth and flung it across the lawn. Greg put his mug down and went after it, tossed it back into the air. The beast caught the orange in its mouth. “Yeah,” Greg said. “Now rip that thing apart. Just tear into it.”
The beast shook its head and bit down, juice spilling over its chin. It dropped the remains into the grass. “All right,” Greg said, and took the beast back inside.
He arrived at school early, claiming the best spot in the parking lot. His lesson plan was the best he’d ever written. He filled the board with notes for first period, using four colors of chalk, then sat in the first row to admire his work.
Meredith appeared at the door, in shorts and a t-shirt. “Morning, Greg. What are you doing?”
“Just getting ready for another day of junior high school,” he said brightly.
“But Greg, it’s Sunday.”
Even the sixth-grader seat felt too big for him. “Sunday?” he said. “Then what are you doing here?”
She held up a basketball. “JV practice.” Her shorts were orange and blue, the school colors.
“Right,” he said. “I guess I’ll just keep these notes up for tomorrow.”
“Let the janitor know,” Meredith said, “or he’ll wash it clean.” She jogged down the hall toward the gym.
It was well after midnight, and under the harsh streetlights the block looked a little like a museum exhibit. Greg was watching out the window when Abe’s cruiser came to a halt in front of the house. It was Mrs. Heck who’d called—he’d seen her light go on, seen her standing at the window with the telephone to her ear.
Greg opened the door to let Abe in, and Lilith asked if he wanted coffee.
“No, thank you.”
Phil and Elise were on the couch with Gordon sandwiched between them. The boy’s face was red and puffy, one eye already blackening. Greg had been awakened by the sound of the boy’s screaming. In the garage, he’d found Gordon crumpled in the corner and the beast settling back onto its blankets, the old scab on its head opened up again.
“You see what that thing did to my son?” Elise said. “He could be dead right now.”
Lilith said to Abe, “He stole the spare key to our house. He’s probably the one who let him out into Mrs. Connor’s yard last week.” To Elise she added, “And what the hell was he doing in our garage, anyway?”
Gordon sank into the cushions and whimpered, “I just wanted to pet it.”
Lilith stopped herself from saying something and went into the kitchen.
Abe said, “You want to get dressed, Greg?”
Greg had been standing in silence in the middle of the room. He went down the hall and put on the clothes he’d worn to school that morning. When he got back, Phil was saying, “Look, Abe, we don’t have to make a big fuss out of this.” Elise glared at him, but Phil went on, “Let’s just work this out in the morning. We shouldn’t have bothered you at this hour.”
“You take your son home,” said Abe. “School night tonight. Gordon, you gave the key back?”
Gordon nodded.
“We’re all set here, then.”
“What about this eye?” Elise said.
“Ice for the swelling,” said Abe.
Phil ushered them outside and into their station wagon. A minute later it crawled away down the street.
Lilith exploded from the kitchen. “That little twerp had it coming.”
“Lilith,” Greg said.
“She’s probably right,” said Abe. “Greg, you better bring your guest.”
The beast sauntered sleepily from the garage and allowed itself to be led outside. Its hooves clacked against the sidewalk. Greg saw Mrs. Heck’s curtain swish closed.
From the door Lilith said, “I got him to say my name, Greg. Damn it, he knows my name.”
They took Abe’s car; the beast rode in the back. Abe kept the chatter of the police radio low while he drove to the edge of town, out to Lyle’s place. Greg used to drive past the house at night, if he had to go to the store for something. And sometimes the kitchen light would be on, and he’d wonder what his father was doing in there—taking in a cowboy movie, probably, or a gin and tonic. But Greg never stopped and went in. Now the place was dark and a realtor’s sign was up in the front yard. But the hedges needed trimming, and the gutters would have to be cleaned before winter.
When the beast stepped out of the car, it snuffled the air and blinked.
“Knows its own home,” said Abe.
Greg took the beast’s arm. They walked up to the house, then past it toward the woods beyond. When they reached the backyard Abe said, “This is where I stay.” He handed Greg his pistol.
Greg felt like he was sleepwalking as he went into those woods, the beast beside him, he dressed for school. Dead pine needles crackled underfoot. He found a clearing that looked familiar and sat down in the damp weeds. He’d built a fort in this spot when he was nine or ten, and his father had helped, bringing him twine to bind the wood, a piece of burlap for the roof. Greg slept in the teepee a few times that summer but water leaked in when it rained. His father told him that next time he would have to use a deer skin like the Indians did, and when Greg asked where to get one, his father said, “Off a deer.” Greg took the teepee down and never built another.
The beast had been wandering, nose to the ground. It came back to Greg now and looked up at him—it had pushed a pinecone across the clearing with its snout. It opened its mouth as though to speak, but Greg got up before it could.
He didn’t know how to fire a gun, but he fired it. Then he walked back to the yard and Abe took the gun and strapped it into its holster.
They drove past the school on the way back into town. The lights were on over the tennis courts, over the soccer field, too, and inside the school Greg knew his notes were still on the board. On the radio the police dispatcher spouted a series of codes, then said something about a stalled car abandoned on an overpass, and a woman with pains in her chest, and a couple who had woken the neighbors with their arguing, and a man who’d cut his hand trying to chip ice out of his freezer.
Abe silenced the radio. “Could use some quiet now,” he said.
EVERYBODY IS WAITING FOR SOMETHING
ANDREA KNEELAND
When fish started falling from the sky, Karen just shut herself up in the house with her family, hunched on the couch, waiting for some sign of reception from the television. Her husband, always the extremist
, killed himself within the first twenty-four hours. Three days later, her eldest daughter, Rosalie, ran off to the Baptist church down the road, although Karen had expressly forbidden her to do anything of the sort.
Rosalie came home an hour later. The church was packed so tight with sweaty flesh that dozens of people had already lost their lives in the throes of ecclesiastical ecstasy. The causes of death were numerous: suffocation, trampling, dehydration, hyperventilation. Still, the masses inside the church were unfazed, convulsing on top of the fallen bodies in desperate prayer, speaking in tongues. The line of new converts wrapped up the church steps and around the block, hundreds of people wallowing through the thick slush of iridescent scales and reddish guts, shielding themselves from the sky with trash can lids. Rosalie told her mother this between bites of a ham sandwich, famished from her rebellion.
Within a year, life had returned to normal, as much as could be expected. Churches emptied out. Suicide rates dropped. People became embarrassed of their overreactions. Karen, for example, pretended that her husband had disappeared during a particularly intense fish storm; refused to admit his folly.
Karen’s life had become microscopic, settled into a radius of three miles, the farthest she could walk without becoming sick from the smell of fish. Cars, airplanes, trains—any standard method of escape had become useless beneath the onslaught. She learned to predict what would be for supper that night. Thunder always indicated shellfish. Tiny clouds of gauzy cumulus suggested a smattering of shrimp. Dark autocumulus, lumpy as new black wool, foreshadowed mackerel. Everyone she knew quit their jobs (if there was any job left to quit) and settled into their respective routines: waiting for some miracle of technology to bring their television reception back, waiting for the water to finally run out beneath the absence of rainfall, waiting for the rats to get tired of rotting fish and come after the infants instead.