Keepers

by Gary A Braunbeck

  Until the last couple of weeks, when she started talking about trying anti-psychotics.

  Christ.

  I gripped the steering wheel tighter and rolled my forehead back and forth across my knuckles; the poor man’s face massage.

  Just a few moments to rally my sorry ass, that’s all.

  I’d get Carson, take him home, and we’d get through this.

  We’d get through this because everything was going to be fine.

  I was fine. I was fine. I was fine.

  Just a few moments to rally and catch my breath, here in the safety of my car, my forehead against my hands, my breathing getting slower, steadier, steady … steady … there you go …

  TEN

  … I wake to the sounds of moaning and bleating. I blink my eyes and stretch my arms, pulling in the first breath of the day. I nearly choke from the fetid stench of wet straw and urine-soaked dirt. I press my hands into the floor to raise myself. I feel something warm and deep. I look down and see the trail of liquid filth that has squittered from the bowels of one of the sick animals chained in this place. Rising, I find a cloth hanging from one of the stable doors and drape it over my shoulder.

  Walking outside, I climb the small rise to the side of the building and stop when I reach the well. I work the water pump beside it and soon the spigot spits out a heavy stream of something lukewarm but wet. I lean down my head—careful not to catch either of my horns on the iron—and drench my face and chest. I rub until I feel the filth of the night wash away, then use the cloth to dry myself.

  In the distance, from a place just over the rise, I can already hear the groaning of the machinery, smell the metallic smoke rising into the air from the chimneys.

  Overhead I hear a crow calling and there is the faint odor of rotting flesh in the air.

  Suddenly one of the men is behind me, prodding me into movement with a long device that cracks and sizzles when it touches my flesh. The electricity jolts through my tail, my legs, and up into my chest.

  “Get your ass moving, pal!” he shouts, then holds the device above his head, smiling, filled with glory; Jason showing his Golden Fleece to the masses.

  It is the orderly from so many years ago, the one who guided Beth and me through the tunnels and to the animals. He looks even meaner than I remember as he snarls, “I got plans to meet some buddies for drinks and I’m not gonna be late on accounta you!”

  He makes the device hiss and crackle once again. I twirl the cloth like a rope and snap it forward, knocking the device from his grip. It flies out of his hand and lands in a puddle of liquid excrement. Before he can pull his other weapon from its holster I grab him by the throat and lift him off the ground. I am very strong. He kicks and chokes. It amuses me, the way his dangling feet twist and move in the air. Is he trying to dance on air?

  Another voice says, “Please put him down. He’s an idiot. It’s not worth it.”

  I turn my head. Carson stands nearby. His hand rests on the butt of his holstered weapon.

  I release my grip on the orderly’s throat and he drops to the ground with a heavy, wet noise. He coughs, rubs his neck, then looks up at me. “I swear to God, I’m gonna kill you one of these days.”

  “That’s enough,” says Carson.

  “My ass,” shouts the orderly, stumbling to his feet. “I don’t see why the rest of us should have to put up with this shit—you’re the freak-lover!”

  Carson glares at the orderly. Here, in this place, he is the man he might have been, strong, brave, articulate. “One more word out of you and I’ll turn him loose. There won’t be enough left of you to feed to the pigs.”

  The orderly glowers for a moment, then spits on my front left hoof and begins to walk away.

  Carson looks at the puddle of excrement and says: “Forgetting something, aren’t you?”

  The orderly stops. For a moment it looks as if he might respond in anger, then a shadow crosses his face. In that shadow I see his wife and children, their too-thin bodies, their dirty clothes, the hunger in their eyes.

  He nods his head and walks to the puddle. I offer him the cloth. Wordlessly, he takes it, covers his hands, and retrieves his device from the puddle. He leaves without saying another word or looking at me.

  “Are you all right?” asks Carson.

  I nod.

  Carson begins walking over the rise and I follow him. Behind me the other animals, the sick ones with whom I share the building, begin their moaning anew.

  We see the dance of life, rippling, flying, running by. There was a time when we were part of the dance, before the fields were plowed over and we were taken to these rooms.

  I wish that I could find some pity in my heart for them, but I cannot. They are ill, their flesh tainted. They can only wait for the walk to the bloody chamber.

  As I top the rise I look down and see them in the fields. They graze and sleep. Two are by the fence, one mounting the other. They rut and grumble as one plunges into the other. I look away and see Carson staring at me.

  “One day,” he says to me, “Zeus looked down from Olympus and saw a mother weeping over her dead child. Not quite grasping the concept of human suffering, Zeus chose to come down to Earth as a child himself in order to find out more about it. The other gods were irritated with Zeus at this time and so played a trick on him—they turned the Earth while Zeus wasn’t looking. He landed in the middle of a desert. He wandered as a child for days, then weeks, and began to weaken from starvation. The gods had temporarily stripped him of his godly powers; he was totally human.

  “So he wandered, then collapsed, unable to walk from the sores upon his feet. He crawled until he could move no more. He lay there dying. In what might have been the last moments of his life, Zeus heard a strange weeping sound. He turned his head to see an odd beast lumbering toward him. This beast was a cow who had no one to milk her. Her teats were swollen and painful. She saw this child lying there in the middle of the desert and went to him, positioning her body so that her teats were directly above his mouth. Zeus sucked hungrily, drinking his fill of her life-restoring milk.

  “The gods saw this and were strangely moved, and so restored Zeus’s powers to him. He brought the cow back to Olympus with him and decreed that she and her like were to be considered sacred, and would be plentiful upon the Earth so that no child would ever again know the suffering he had to endure, and no parent the grief of having to see their children die. The cow lives on Olympus still, grazing in a field beside Zeus’s throne.”

  A loud whistle breaks the still of the morning. Men wander into the fields, each carrying their own device, and begin to prod the beasts into groups, and those groups into lines. They march toward the large building with the smokestacks. The men continue shouting and prodding them until they are stuffed into the corrals. The animals cry out in confusion. Another man walks the length of the rows, tossing handfuls of hay to them. They lower their heads and eat, silently.

  At the front of each corral is a large metal door. There are four in all.

  A buzzing sound fills the air for a moment, followed by a deafening shriek that momentarily frightens the herds, then is replaced by the chords of soothing music.

  The animals, calm again, return to their meal. I can hear the voices of the herd.

  Our hearts are pounding together. There is not enough room. Is this a face I am standing on? Is my friend dead? Are we all dead already, or is death still to come? Are we real? Do we exist at all?

  I envy them. Their whole purpose is fulfilled just by standing in the field all day, eating, then looking upward at the sky where no gods look down.

  The door at the end of the first corral opens. From deep inside the dark place beyond comes a rumbling.

  The rumbling room! they think.

  One by one, they raise their heads and cry out. More hay is tossed to them but they do not look at it. All thoughts of hunger have fled. Now there is only fear and bodies pressing together, the crushing weight of one becoming that of
many. The wooden rails of the corral make clattering noises as their bodies slam against them, but do not break. The rails never break. Such is the care given to the construction.

  One of the beasts cries out as blood bubbles from its nostrils.

  Another releases the contents of its bowels.

  Yet another stomps in crimson-colored urine.

  Their fear reaches out and grips my horns, pulling my head forward.

  “It’s time,” says Carson, placing a hand gently on my shoulder.

  I march forward, my hooves sinking into the mud. I can feel my muscles rippling under my flesh. I have to remember that I am not the same as them. I must remember this. It is important.

  I enter the corral gate, and follow the path that leads me to the right. I walk a separate path that parallels that of the herd. I reach the end and step up onto the platform that has been built for me.

  I turn to face them.

  I take a breath.

  I raise my arms before them.

  They stare at me in awe and wonder. This is how they worship me. How they love me. To them I am a god. Their cud-stuffed prayers are only for me.

  I suffer as you do, I say to them. I have known the loneliness of dark spaces. I have tasted the fruit of betrayal. I know what it is like to stand upright as a man does.

  TWO LEGS! they pray to me. IF ONLY WE HAD TWO LEGS, WE COULD LEAVE THIS PLACE OF FEAR AND FOLLOW YOU!

  You will never stand on two legs, I say to them. To stand as a man stands is very hard. Two legs are very hard. Perhaps four is better, after all.

  WHERE ARE WE TO GO? TELL US, SHOW US THE WAY. WE WILL FOLLOW.

  I answer them with a cry of my own, one composed of equal parts field-beast and man. They throw back their heads in reply.

  I turn on the platform and begin walking inside.

  They follow.

  The platform extends all the way across the rumbling room. I can travel its length and never touch the soil below. This platform empties onto a wooden terrace at the other end, and there I will walk down the ramp, go around the building, and enter the Corral of the Separate Path once again, then twice more after that. Until all the herd have been led into the dark, rumbling room.

  Then I shall be rewarded.

  I step through the doorway into the rumbling room. Behind me, the herd moves as one.

  My arms still raised, I gesture for them to come. Come, my children, follow me.

  They enter the rumbling room four at a time. As they step through the door, a man walks up to each of them. These men hold hammers. Hammers smash into heads. Their knees buckle, and with a cry they drop. Chains are dropped from above and secured around their legs. The room roars. The chains are pulled taut and the first four are lifted from the ground. They hang there, in great pain but not yet dead. Another roar, the walls shake, and they begin to move. It is as if they are slowly flying. As they pass by, they look at me. Their eyes are stupid with fear, and I cannot return their gaze. I am not the same as them. I am not the same as them. I am not the same as them.

  Other men approach them now, holding something long, curved, and shiny. They lift their arms, these men, and pass the shiny curves through the flesh.

  I whisper to them, Fear not; soon you too shall graze in the fields by Zeus’s throne.

  I have to make them believe this, as I must make myself believe it.

  There is no other way to survive in this world of no gods.

  The line is moving smoothly now, the beasts entering, the men falling upon them with hammers and chains. The room roars and snarls. I walk on. I reach the end of the platform and turn to see the fruition of my leadership.

  The beasts hang there with their stomachs split open and their heads cut off. I smell their open flesh and see their dead hooves. On a metal hook I see all of their tongues, cut out and pierced by the sharp metal, pierced through the root and hanging there, mute and bloody.

  I lower my arms.

  I see their heads lined up on the floor. Someone is cutting off their cheeks with a knife, slicing through their tender flesh. Once this has been done, he kicks what remains of their heads down through a hole in the floor.

  Blade passing through them.

  Lives there a man who has not dreamt of being as strong as a bull in the fields?

  Red running past.

  Is there a bull who has never longed to stand as a man and be nearer the sky?

  Bubbling up.

  Only. You. Remain. Eternal.

  Red passing through. The world, this room.

  Give to me reign of the fields, the sky, and all creatures who dwell in between.

  Split in half, this way and that.

  Their cries still screeching through my brain, I climb down the stairs and walk around the building, an abandoning god, and prepare myself for the moment when the sun kisses the ground and the sky bleeds twilight and I am fed on my follower’s broiled remains and Beth is allowed to sit by my side.

  To stand as a man stands is very hard. Two legs are very hard. Perhaps four is better, after all.

  I touch my sides, wishing to stand on two legs. Two legs gives me a tailor. A tailor gives me clothing. Clothing gives me pockets. A place to hide my hands. To keep my paycheck. To store a key to a room with no straw on the ground or—

  ELEVEN

  —the top of my skull connected with the roof of the car when I jolted awake, shaking.

  Goddammit.

  I rubbed my face and eyes as if rubbing would brush away the remnants of the dream, then took a deep breath and looked at my watch.

  I had been asleep for almost twenty minutes.

  Not great, but at least it hadn’t been hours.

  I stretched my back, rubbed the back of my head, took several deep breaths, and—as rallied now as I would ever be—climbed out of the car. After removing the high-intensity flashlight from the trunk and closing the lid, I began walking over the rise and down toward the graveyard. The flashlight’s beam revealed that there weren’t as many birds here now, and nowhere could I see any bones.

  I headed toward the old barn in the distance. As I neared, the silence surrounding me became almost unbearable. I’d have given anything to hear a bird sing or a dog bark.

  The ground around the barn was spotted with deep holes. Someone had been digging. Quite a lot.

  The barn door was partly open, so I was able to enter without making any noise. Inside it glowed with warm, bright light, courtesy of at least a dozen oil lanterns.

  Carson was at the opposite end. His clothes were covered in the moist, clay-like soil from outside. A large shovel rested inside the wheelbarrow he’d used to haul the dirt in.

  He did not hear me as I walked toward him.

  He was busy cutting sections of twine from a roll. There were various sizes of branches and sticks in a pile at his feet. There were buckets of water. Rope. Tubes of caulk and a caulk gun. An immense sheet of tarpaulin from which several large pieces had been cut.

  I was in the middle of the barn. I could see Carson, but since the stalls on that side ran into the beams and wall that supported the hayloft above, I couldn’t see what he was working on.

  “Carson?”

  He looked at me, smiled, and waved. “Hi, UncGil. I’ve been taking the bus. The #48 express. Remember how it almost hit us?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked down at something on a hay bale. A comic book. He turned the page.

  “Is that the new issue of Modoc?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I bought it yesterday.”

  I took a few more steps toward him. “What’re you working on?”

  “Present for Long-Lost.”

  “What kind of present?”

  “Come look. I’m almost all done.”

  I walked over to him.

  Somehow, he had used the bird bones and clay, the twine and rope, the caulk and several sections of discarded wood, as well as all the twigs and sticks, to build a near-perfect replica of Long-Lost.

  I
t wasn’t nearly as big as it was portrayed in the comics—it looked to be just under six feet in height—but it was still impressive. He had cut away sections of the tarpaulin to fashion the skin for the wings. The horn was a stick that he’d whittled to a point. He’d gathered feathers as well, using them to give the body as much texture as possible. The spider’s legs were one of the most amazing parts: for those he’d used bone, stick, twine and twig, clay, and remnants of bed sheets, twisting them tightly together so they could support the weight of the rest of it. It was a marvel of design, something I knew to be beyond his capabilities.

  “How long have you been working on this?” I asked.

  “Long time. Ever since we came out here the first time.”

  “You’ve been sneaking out and taking the bus?”

  He nodded, and then began wrapping the twine around the bottom of one of the legs. “Uh-huh. That bus runs all night.”

  So he’d been sneaking out at night after bed check and getting back before breakfast.

  A flash of fire burned up my side and I had to lean against one of the stall doors.

  Carson looked over and saw me, the state of my clothes, and the blood. He dropped the twine and ran over, putting his arms around me. “You hurt, UncGil? What happened?”

  “I had an accident.”

  “Wanna go to the hospital?”

  I shook my head. “No, Carson, I want to take you home where you belong.”

  He released his hold on me and went back to work. “I don’t wanna go back there. I wanna stay here.”

  “Well, you can’t.”

  He checked the comic book, looked at me, then turned a few pages and shook his head.

  “What’s wrong, Carson? What’s Long-Lost say? What are you supposed to do now?”

  “Well,” he said, adding the last bit of twine and clay to Long-Lost’s arm, “I dunno.” He held up the comic. “The next part is about you.”

  (Longlost sayz the Keeperz are comeing n He kneedz to talk to yoo.)