Damage

by Shea, Stephen

  "What were you doing on the road?" The man's steps slowed.

  "On the road. On the road." Wayne kept walking calmly, perfectly. The man stopped. "Are you drunk or something?" The man's anger was still there, a layer of confusion painted over top. "Are you?"

  "Are you? Are you?" Wayne parroted. Wayne was right in front of the man.

  "Look—" the man started, then Wayne arced the blade through the air. It drew a red line across the man's throat. The man fell, clutching his neck, rolling. He tried to speak but instead he gurgled like a baby. Wayne watched, wonder in his eyes, as the man rolled about and the moonlight fell on his skin, making the blood look even darker. The man stopped rolling a few seconds later.

  A few seconds later Wayne drove the car down the road, eventually turning down a side road. He turned right a few miles later. It was almost midnight when he turned down an entrance road to a farm. A wood sign that said The Oaks swung back and forth on a post. Wayne stopped the car outside the driveway and walked quietly to the yard. The dog didn't even bark. He stopped before the house, exhilarated and alive. He could feel the people moving inside, as if there were a radar implanted in his head. People oblivious to his presence.

  He walked towards the front door.

  10.

  Rand stopped the car outside Kari's house. "What do you think is going to happen tomorrow?"

  Kari shook her head. "Either we're going to find something there, or we'll find nothing at all. We have to go out there though."

  Rand nodded. "You know when I think back, I think it all started when I went camping with Tyler and Conn. I remember feeling like we were being watched and I thought I saw someone in the trees. And later that night I had the feeling that someone was walking around our camp. We were in Minnow Park, close to where Bumpa said Haydes lived. That's where I had my first dream about Conn too."

  They fell silent and stared out the car window at Kari's house, lit by one yard light. It looked inviting and safe, but distant. Rand stirred and even though it felt completely wrong for his mood, he yawned.

  Kari smiled. "You'd better get a good sleep," she said then she kissed his cheek and opened the door. She was gone, a moment later, walking towards the house.

  Rand watched her go then backed up the car and headed out onto the road.He drove for ten minutes then turned into Kinniwaw. He drove into town and as he passed the Kinniwaw hotel he looked over and saw the front door close. He thought he had glimpsed Conn closing it so he stopped in front of the bar and got out.

  Why he got out, Rand didn't really know. To step out of his car felt unsafe, and yet he couldn't help but remember Conn and him as friends and for some reason he saw Conn in his football jersey, running for the ball, and it just didn't seem right for him to be thinking all these thoughts, to be saying that Conn might be a murderer. Conn deserved more than that, Conn deserved a chance.

  Rand walked towards the hotel. There were two other vehicles on the street: an old beat up GMC truck and a station wagon. The regulars in the bar. He glimpsed the back of a head leaning up against the station wagon window on the driver's side. Rand realized Ol' Mr. Gowper had made it to the car and passed out. He would wake up in the same place tomorrow and probably go right back inside the bar.

  Rand walked up to the hotel door, opened it. A dull yellow bulb lit the interior. The check-in desk was all shadows. In front of him was the grey carpeted stairs, mud was on every step. Rand walked up the steps, into the hallway above and stopped at Conn's room. He knocked lightly on the door even though there was no light below it.

  He was answered with a long silence, then something moved in the room, boards creaked. Followed by a footstep, a dragging sound that came closer and closer to the door. The sound stopped and the door creaked as if something were leaning on it.

  Rand didn't want to say anything. He didn't want to attract the attention of whatever was on the other side of the door. But he had come here for a reason, hadn't he? He breathed in.

  "Conn?" Rand whispered.

  The door creaked as the weight on the other side shifted. "Hello, Rand," a hoarse voice said slowly. It took Rand a moment to recognize it as Conn's. "I came by to visit you the other day...no one was home."

  Rand breathed in again. "Conn? Are you O.K.? Let me in."

  "You don't want to come inside, Rand. You don't want to see me now." Rand's heartbeat quickened. "Let me in," he said again, quietly. Afraid of his own persistence.

  "No, Rand. I won't. Just go. This isn't a dream, you're not safe. Take your woman, get into your car and go. Far away from here. You've had your calm." There was a hoarse chuckle, warped so strangely it sounded as if Conn's vocal cords had been slit by razors. A weight shifted on the door, it creaked. Rand had the image of Conn pressing his mouth against it. "The best thing about being human, Rand, is that you can kill someone and enjoy it." Then he laughed again and the laughter deepened and became wild.

  Rand backed away from the door until he hit the opposite wall then he dashed headlong down the hall, down the stairs, the laughter following him like a specter. He yanked open the front door and leapt onto the sidewalk.

  He stopped, staring, his mouth open and gasping with new fear.

  Ol' Mr. Gowper wasn't sleeping in his car. Oh, his eyes were closed alright, but he was dead. From the other angle it had looked like sleep, here, straight ahead through the windshield, it was unmistakably death. His white shirt, lit by the streetlight, was red with blood, his face a torn rag of flesh.

  Behind him, Rand heard the sound of someone heavily descending the steps.

  Rand ran to his car, fumbled with the door. The handle avoided him. The hotel door started to rattle loudly, glass broke. Rand thought he glimpsed a dark shadow emerging then finally, breathlessly, he yanked opened the car's door. He threw himself inside, started the car and backed up, squealing his tires. He sped home, not looking back. He parked in the driveway, rushed into the house.

  He had to call the police, he had to get Kari, he had to get out. Now. Before the night came crushing in, before everything fell apart.

  Rand tripped over a pair of his own shoes, fell headlong into the cupboard. His head hit the corner of the cupboard, hard. His skull filled with bright light, his ears with a hissing sound, then an ocean of blackness washed over his vagrant thoughts.

  He was in nothingness for a long time, hours. From this nothingness sprang a vision, an image, a motion picture. It opened up in his mind, spreading from a central point across all his senses. He was running, naked, through the trees, running fast and silent like a deer, a wolf, a whirlwind. But his heart was beating differently, his blood was running backwards, his muscles pumped in and out like a machine's. His eyes penetrated into the night. His ears captured sound.

  Running. Breathing. Running. His long dark hair wild about his head. The forest blurred by, opened up into a farmyard. A small house. A house he knew as well as his own.

  It was Bumpa's house and he was heading straight towards the one yellow yard light. He stopped, his system came to an abrupt halt, a short distance away in the darkness. Standing, staring. Waiting.

  Thor, Bumpa's dog, came running from the house, the lone defender running to save his master. Rand wanted to move, to call out, to say "It's me, Thor," but his body wouldn't respond. Because there was another side to his body, a side that breathed, ate and distributed destruction. A side of anger, boiling. A part of the night.

  Thor jumped through the air, jaws open, teeth bared and white in the moonlight. Eyes glaring, hating the invader.

  It's me, Rand tried to scream.

  The dog arced through the air, towards Rand's chest. His hands swooped down, a blade glinted, colors exploded around him, he felt warmth burst across his arms, spatter across his face. Thor fell in a heap.

  Rand began to walk towards Bumpa's house. He walked silently, confident. Up to the house, around the side. He looked in the window. Bumpa was there, washing his dishes at 12 a.m.

  As he pulled away, Rand
saw his own image in the window. Conn's face stared back at him. I'm Conn, he thought. I'm Conn.

  Rand had no time to digest this revelation. He shifted away from the window, moving, moving around the house. To the back yard. He saw the statue, the hours of labour. He darted over there, his strides huge, and with two swipes of his hand he smashed the intricate lines of the statue's face into pulp. He headed for the back door. At once he knew the door, knew its weaknesses, and it opened noiselessly for him. He went inside.

  He glided along the hall, stopped at the edge of the wall, looked in. Bumpa was in the living room now. Drinking from a cup. Reading. Bumpa! Rand screamed, wanting to warn him. Bumpa looked in their direction and Conn pulled his/their head back.

  You're here, aren't you, Rand?

  Rand kept himself still inside Conn's skull.

  I know you're here, Rand. I know it. You're going to like this part.

  Conn peered around the corner again. Bumpa was still reading. Conn reached out (but if felt so much like Rand was reaching) and flicked off the light switch. The living room went dark, the only light came in from the patio window.

  Conn stepped out now, guarded by shadows.

  "Who's there?" Bumpa asked. He stood up, Rand could see him clearly in the darkness, glowing in his animal sight. "Who's there?"

  Conn got down on his haunches, crawled slowly across the floor like a spider. Hidden by the table legs, by the chairs. A shadow in the shadows. He stopped beside the piano.

  "Who's there?" Bumpa asked again. Rand, through Conn's eyes, could see that Bumpa was standing in the center of the living room. His back to them. "Who's there?" he said, his voice faltering. Old. Scared.

  Conn slipped quickly up behind him, rose slowly into that one slice of light. "The boogeyman," Conn answered.

  Bumpa spun and stared at him, his shock made comic by his unresponsive glass eye. "Conn!" he said. "What are you doing here?"

  Conn answered by striking Bumpa and when the first bitter bit of redness splattered across his arm, Rand was sent back, reeling, rolling, screaming silently back, miles away, into the darkness of his own mind.

  He awoke hours later, his head aching, his hair sticky with his own blood. He had cut open his head on the cupboard. Bumpa! He stood up and the rush to his head was so forceful that he almost passed out again. He stumbled over to the telephone, dialed Bumpa's number.

  And got a busy signal. A dead line. Nothing.

  Rand hung up, started to dial another number. Kari's. He stopped halfway through. Because someone was staring at him through the kitchen window.

  The face flitted away before Rand could see it. He set down the phone. Went up to the window.

  He could see the fence and the trees in the back yard, but no one was there. Rand backed away, not wanting to get too close to the pane. The front door rattled. He felt nauseous for a second and he spun awkwardly and looked through the screen.

  Conn was standing there, naked, his skin spattered with blood, a palsied hand held in the air.

  11.

  At about 1:30 a.m. a nurse woke Tyler. He looked up into her pale face, almost ghostly in the light of the hall.

  "You're wanted on the phone," she whispered. "I wasn't sure if I should wake you, but she keeps crying."

  Tyler blinked. He had been having a dream where someone was crying behind a locked door. He had struggled and struggled, but couldn't open it. He wasn't sure if this was still part of the dream. "Who's crying?" he asked.

  "I think it's your sister," the nurse answered.

  At once Tyler was wide awake. "Where's the phone?" he said, struggling to rise. He bent forward too fast and unconsciousness loomed up. He gritted his teeth and fought it back. He swung his legs out over the edge.

  "It's in the hall, but Mr. Oak, let me help you with the IV—'

  Tyler ripped the needle from his arm, then stood shakily, his limbs as floppy as green saplings. The nurse grabbed him, slid under his arm. He accepted her help and she led him step by step into the hall. He went past the chubby officer who was posted at his door. When Tyler saw the phone he tore away from the nurse's careful help and threw himself towards it, colliding with the wall, but staying upright. He grabbed the black phone, put the receiver to his mouth. He heard sobbing. "Tanya!" he said. "What's wrong?"

  "He's here!" she said. Then he heard the sound of something breaking—wood?—and Tanya moaned. The line went dead.

  "Tanya!" He dropped the phone, then made his way back to his room. "Mr. Oak," the nurse said as he walked by, but he ignored her. A phone rang back at the nurse's desk, she stared at Tyler a moment then went to get it. He stumbled into his room. A pair of jeans and a t-shirt that his mother had left there were in a metal closet. Tyler reached for them.

  "What do you think you're doing?" the officer asked from the door. "Nothing," Tyler said.

  "I think you better put those clothes away." Tyler could hear the man approach. He waited until he judged him close enough, then he turned, swung and struck the officer in the jaw with his right hand. The man collapsed and Tyler, his balance gone, fell on top of him. He rose slowly, cocking his arm for a second punch.

  The officer was out cold.

  Tyler went to the closet and dressed, feeling dizzy. Then he put his wallet and keys in his pocket. He threw his jacket around his left shoulder, hiding his bandaged hand. His head felt dull with a constant headache.

  He walked out into the hall. The nurse was talking on the phone, looking down. He walked down the hall, opened a door, and went downstairs. Then he caught a cab to his apartment. He went inside, came back out a few minutes later with a roll of sealer tape and a long knife. He opened the door of his car, threw the tape and the knife on the passenger seat, then started the car. He smashed into the car behind him when he backed up, then pushed his into gear and drove out onto the street.

  He sped through Prince Albert's streets blindly, everything blurring around him until there was only a highway. The white line shot by, he passed a semi up hill. After about twenty minutes he came to a quick halt, turned left onto a gravel road, still traveling well over highway speed.

  In all the time he drove, Tyler never had a conscious thought, his body was now a machine, a thing that reacted, and if anything were in his mind it was only his destination and the urgent need to get there as fast as possible. He sped down a hill, turned left down his driveway, passing a strange car parked on the side of the road. He headed into his farmyard.

  The yard light was out, but one lone light in the house lit the yard.

  There were two vehicles in the gravel driveway, his father's truck and the tractor. Tyler came up the driveway, skidded to a stop, his car swerving a little to the side.

  He was operating on instinct now, the most basic part of his mind knew only that his family was threatened. He grabbed the tape and the knife and awkwardly wrapped it around the stump of his left arm. The black tape was thick and four times as wide as electrician's tape. He wrapped it tighter and tighter until his arm was black with tape and about six inches of the blade stuck out, gleaming in the light.

  He opened the car door, stepped out onto the driveway. He walked past the big wheels of the tractor towards the house, glancing left and right. The tractor had been parked haphazardly, the bucket in the air, as if his father had quit in the middle of a job.

  Tyler walked past it, then stopped.

  "No," he moaned. For his father was there at the front of the tractor. Tied by the arms, hanging from the bucket, his shirt a red splotch of blood.

  12.

  "Let me in," Conn rasped. Rand stared at Conn, frozen. He raised his other hand, missing a finger. "Let me in," he repeated weakly. He leaned against the screen door. "Bumpa's not dead," he whispered, then he collapsed into a heap.

  Rand could only see Conn's naked back though the screen door. Bumpa's not dead. The words hypnotized him. He walked up to the door, opened it softly. Conn looked up at him, his eyes like a wounded animal's. "I'm dying," he said. H
is face was wet with tears and streaked with dirt. Conn raised a hand. Rand reached out, grabbed it and, without thinking, he pulled Conn up onto his feet and guided him into the house. He led him to the couch, helped him sit. Conn started to shiver.

  "Do you want a blanket?" Rand asked.

  "No. Let me be," Conn answered. "I deserve this." He shivered for a time and stared out the window. "You were there, weren't you," he said, finally, "At Bumpa's. With me."

  Rand nodded. He was still hypnotized, in trance.

  Conn stared at him, his eyes wide and innocent. "I killed five people tonight. Five. But I couldn't kill Bumpa. He wanted me to kill Bumpa." Conn looked away from Rand, out the window. More tears welled up in his eyes. "Bumpa saved me once, did you know that? Once he pulled me off the street and he saved me, only for a day. But he told me I was good, I didn't know what he meant then, I didn't know, but he said I was good. And that I would find my place. But tonight when I was there I cut him, Rand, I cut Bumpa and hurt him. And still he didn't do anything. I raised my hand to cut him again to hit him over and over, to make him pay for my pain—they have to pay for all my pain, don't they?—but he just looked at me and waited. It was in his eyes, Rand. He wasn't afraid at all, he was...forgiving or something. I couldn't hit him." Conn swiveled his head slowly, looking down. "I couldn't. And he held me for a long time. And this is going to sound stupid but he was glowing or there was light behind him or something." Conn stopped. He looked up at Rand. "The lightning's gone. It's gone. Maybe Bumpa took it. I feel so empty."

  Conn looked down at his hands. Rand could see that they were covered with mud. "At first it was fun, Rand, it really was fun. I enjoyed it." He blinked. "It changed though, I changed, but I kept on doing it. It was like something else was inside me, controlling me, making me do it. Maybe Swallower. But I wanted to do it, down to every last one I wanted to. I can feel things, Rand, I can. I'm still human, aren't I, if I can feel?" He fell silent and started to shiver. "I'm just so cold, I'm so cold."