Keepers

by Gary A Braunbeck

  Moving down the steps I looked from side to side for some sign of the others. I caught a glimpse of one of them when a pair of thin red beams cast by their night goggles glided across the mist from about ten yards to my left. Mossberg at the ready, I ran toward the spot from which the beams had come; just as I hit the mist the handle-grip of the shotgun punched into my ribs, causing me to cry out as I tumbled backward from the force of the impact.

  It took a few seconds for my torso to stop throbbing and the breath to find its way back into my lungs. What the fuck had I slammed into? Rolling onto my side, I picked up the Mossberg and checked to make sure the gun and knife were still in place, then got to my feet and looked around for who- or whatever had hit me. As far as I could tell, I was alone in the yard—whose boundaries were rapidly shrinking against the encroaching mist. In a few minutes it would be all the way up to the back porch.

  I turned back toward the spot where I’d remembered seeing the beams and moved closer to it, slowly this time. I knew this was probably the wrong thing to do—after all, the back door was unlocked and stood wide open (Why not just send out written invitations? I thought)—but I had to let them know I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  I heard a dog bark from outside the barrier, another one howled in response, then the song of an unseen nightbird was answered by the yowls of a stray neighborhood cat.

  The mist was playing with me; whenever I moved forward, it retreated, expanding the boundaries; if I moved back, it would advance, swallowing more of the yard. I did this three times, moving backward and forward to make sure I wasn’t imagining it, and I wasn’t; the mist moved in the opposite of my direction each time. Finally, I remained still, as did it.

  Flexing the fingers of my left hand, I reached up; a small area of the barrier pulled away from the tips of my fingers. I folded my fingers into my palm and watched the area begin to fill in, and that’s when I came up with my right hand still fisted around the shotgun’s handle-grip and punched at it.

  I heard the bones break well before the pain had a chance to register, but by then I was down on one knee and whimpering, my right hand cradled against my chest. As far as I could tell, I had broken my fourth and fifth metacarpals. A jagged, bloody scrape lay across the width of my hand, made thin and black in places by my swollen knuckles. Jesus! It had been like pummeling my fist against a slab of granite. I could still feel the vibration of the impact all the way up into my shoulder and neck.

  Struggling to my feet, I grabbed the Mossberg with my left hand because my right was useless for the moment. The mist remained stationary, churning, forming surreal shapes.

  I wondered if my neighbors had noticed what was surrounding my house. Were any of them watching right now, their curiosity piqued, or was this mist engulfing the entire block? It had to have occurred to at least one person that this wasn’t normal, right? (Assuming that black mastiffs hadn’t been disassembling people around here, as well.)

  This was Cedar Hill, and in Cedar Hill if anything not normal or even mildly interesting happens, well, then, you call the police or the trusty news team at Channel 7 and get a mobile unit right over. If they’d dispatch a crew to cover the opening of a new electronics store one county away, they’d sure as hell send someone to a local neighborhood to cover the appearance of an intensely localized weather anomaly.

  Never count on the help of others when you most need it. Take my word on this. I wasn’t about to assume that any of my neighbors had called or were going to call anyone to report this. So I did the only thing I knew for a fact would get someone on the phone to the news or police; I rose to my feet, lifted the Mossberg over my head using only my left hand, pointed it into the air, and fired.

  The force of the blast wrenched my left arm backward and tore the handle-grip from my grasp. The shotgun flew back and landed in the grass about five feet away; I half-spun around, my shoulder screaming, nearly losing my balance. Almost none of this had to do with the physical effects of firing the weapon—some of it, yes, you can’t fire a scattergun with only one hand and not get jolted down to your marrow—but more than anything, it was the sound of the shot.

  Under the best and most controlled of circumstances a gunshot is deafening, but it seemed as if this one had gone off in the center of my skull; it hadn’t just been a noise or an explosion—it was a pulverizing force that ripped the air from inside me and jammed an invisible ice pick into each side of my head. I stumbled around in half-circles pressing my hands against my ears (I had done this before, I knew that I had held my ears like this before, that there had been pain and panic then, as well … but where and when and why?) while stomping my feet and working my jaw in order to create some kind of pressure and please God make one or both of my ears pop—but nothing helped. At one point the pain and weight became so great I thought I was going to pass out, then a soft hiss began to issue from the base of my brainpan, someone letting the air out of a bicycle tire, and I pulled my hands away and felt the cool air enter my ears with a soft whoosh. I shook my head once, then twice to see if I could jar anything into functioning, but there was only a thick, gluey numbness; I didn’t hear so much as feel the hissing, which was rapidly giving way to a deep, disturbing thrum. I blinked, turned slowly around, saw the shotgun lying in the grass, and made a beeline for the thing. It was vital I have something to focus on besides the disorienting pressure in my head, and the Mossberg would do just fine. Looking up to where the mist met the clouds, I prayed that the blast hadn’t blown out my eardrums and rendered me permanently deaf. I shook my head once more as I swung down and grabbed the shotgun with my good hand, and as I returned to a fully upright position there was hiss and a buzz and a pop and something that sounded like a sheet being torn into shreds by a pair of teeth, then a moment of nauseating dizziness and then … sound. I could at least discern (if not actually hear) sound again. Not much, just the echo of a dog’s bark coming from somewhere deep under the Atlantic Ocean, but it was there, and I could recognize it, and that meant that the damage wasn’t (thank you thank you thank you) permanent. Despite the circumstances, I smiled as I made my way up the back steps and into the kitchen. It was only as I was locking the door and shoving the kitchen table up against it that I allowed myself to acknowledge what I hadn’t wanted to admit while out there: the noise and force of the blast had been so fantastically intensified—so brutally magnified—because they had been contained.

  The mist wasn’t just surrounding the house, it was encasing it.

  I thought, This must be how a pheasant under glass feels.

  Then a remembered voice: You might say they’re not from around here. But who’d said that, and when? Where? Like with holding my ears, I should have known, but …

  (You’re getting awfully close to not leaving me with any choice here, pal.)

  I looked out the window over the sink. The mist roiled forward, stopping only a few feet from the bottom step of the back porch. Two thin red beams danced across a part of the wall, then one of Magritte-Man’s cronies stepped through and simply stood there. The glow from his night goggles made him look almost comical. He gave a quick nod of his head to affirm that he could see me. I flipped him the bird with my right middle finger and immediately shrieked from the pain. I had to do something about my broken hand and I had to do it now or I didn’t stand a chance. Bowler (I now chose to think of him and the others by this name) waved a hand to get my attention, then made an odd gesture. I stared at him, shook my head, and he repeated the gesture, albeit a bit more exaggeratedly.

  The front of the house.

  He was telling me I should go look at something in front of the house.

  Fuck you, Bowler, I thought. I’ll go take a look when I’m damned good and ready.

  I stumbled into the bathroom and threw open the door on the upright cabinet where I keep all breed of crap—extension cords, old lighters, duct tape, loose tools, lighter fluid, a little of this and a lot more of that … and medical supplies. I removed everyth
ing I would need: bandages—both the elastic and gauze variety—as well as gauze pads, medical tape, hydrogen peroxide, and a couple of old finger-splints I’d hung on to after getting my left hand caught in a car door about a year ago. I laid out everything on the sink’s counter and took a deep breath.

  Do it now, before you turn chickenshit.

  I gripped the broken fingers with my left hand, released the breath I’d been holding, clenched my teeth, then simultaneously pressed down and pulled out.

  The snap! made by the bones as they popped back into place seemed even louder than the shotgun blast; the pain shot up my arm right and hammered directly between my eyes. I dropped to one knee, grabbing the edge of the sink with my left hand to keep from hitting the floor, and tried to hold in the scream.

  From under the house, the dog howled as if she’d felt it, as well.

  “I’m st-still here, g-girl,” I whispered, trying to pull myself up. I was hit by a wave of pain, dizziness, and nausea, and fell to the floor.

  (You’re not going anywhere for a minute or two, pal, so now it’s my turn.)

  I couldn’t fight him; not now.

  Hell, I could barely move.

  (You left the house right after you found Mabel’s body, remember?)

  If you say so.

  (You figured Beth had taken the rest of the Its to the Keepers’ facility.)

  That sounds about right, sure.

  (So that’s where you went.)

  Whatever.

  (This ringing any bells yet?)

  If it was, do you think I’d admit it to you?

  (Fine, we’ll do it the hard way, then.

  Even though it was cooler than usual, the humidity was high that night, and every street you

  THREE

  drove along was alive with a thin layer of mist that skirled across the beams of your headlights. You were driving through a sea of cotton. A deer darted across the road at one point, followed a few seconds later by two rabbits. Whichever road or street you took, there was always some kind of animal in your peripheral vision; a dog, a cat, a raccoon moving through the bushes and shadows on the curb.

  The facility was harder to find at night; the road wasn’t lit at all, and the moon was hiding behind thick stationary clouds as if it were afraid or ashamed to allow its light to reveal too much.

  You passed the building and had to turn around. You killed your headlights before turning up the asphalt drive, then pulled over into the shadows. You were going to have to walk the rest of the way.

  Have you ever in your life been so anxiously aware of the silences in the night or the sound of your own breathing? Creeping up the drive like some thief casing a target house and nearly jumping out of your skin when a skunk waddled across the drive on its way from one patch of trees to the other. The area around the building was lighted by a sole sodium-vapor light at the edge of the visitors’ parking lot. You spotted Beth’s U-boat parked at the farthest end. On the other side of the building, Keepers’ vans formed the long, segmented shadow-shape of a giant serpent in slumber.

  You started toward the entrance doors when another car turned onto the driveway. Because you were still covered in Mabel’s blood (oddly enough, cleaning up before leaving the house never entered your mind), the last thing you needed was to be seen like this. You leapt aside, cowering behind a trash Dumpster as the new-looking Mercedes drove up and parked in front of the entrance.

  A man and a woman got out and opened the back doors. The man removed and unfolded a wheelchair while his wife helped a much older and frail-looking woman out of the backseat; once she was situated in the chair, the man reached into the car, removed a pet carrier, and the three of them went inside.

  As soon as they were through the doors you ran across the lot toward the U-boat to see if Beth and the remaining Its were still there. Maybe she’d gotten here, parked, then froze as the shock of Mabel’s suicide finally hit. You’d find her sitting there, hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly their knuckles would be white.

  It was empty.

  You took a deep breath and tried unsuccessfully to steady your shaking hands. You thought about the day everyone had piled into the car and brought the other Its out here, the way Whitey had gotten so emotional about the leaving women, how Mabel walked through the selection area in a semi-catatonic daze, and the way you’d found Beth coming out of the room behind the large steel door.

  Remember how you suddenly wished that you smoked? A cigarette would’ve helped right then, the feel of it between your fingers, the aroma of the tobacco as it was ignited by the flame, the first deep inhalation … oh, yeah. That would have been nice. Mom liked to smoke. Dad preferred a pipe. You missed them terribly. You missed Whitey and Beth and Mabel, missed the world you’d once known and had taken for granted.

  You heard car doors slam, and then you slunk over to the front of the building in time to see the Mercedes’ taillights receding; the driver didn’t even signal or slow as the car reached the road, he just tore out of there with a squeal of tires and burst of exhaust and a sudden, violent leftward skid that he quickly corrected before gunning the engine and speeding away.

  Wiping blood and perspiration from your face, you took another deep breath and stepped inside.

  An old cat sat in one of the top cages; it was the only animal here, and you were the only person. You stared at the cat and it, in turn, showed its interest in you by yawning.

  You knew this animal—recognized it, anyway—but couldn’t place it. It wasn’t one of the Its but, still … where had you seen this disenchanted arthritic bundle of fur and teeth before?

  The selection area was dark and closed off by a collapsible, barred security door.

  That left only the large steel door on the right.

  You peered through its window but could see nothing, then realized this was intentional, that a person could only see through from the other side. You reached down and grabbed the handle. It never occurred to you that this door might be locked; if that had been the case, you might be a much different and happier man now, but it was unlocked and swung open with only a minimum of effort and besides, pal, I’m not doing this to play “What-If?” with you.

  The cold draft from behind the door seemed less severe than before, but that was probably because the night itself was cooler and so the contrast in temperatures wasn’t as drastic.

  You stood there pondering meteorological conundrums for a few more seconds, anything to not step in and hear that door clunk shut. If you’d followed baseball, you might have reviewed stats for the season. You could have counted the freckles on the back of your hand. Or recited all the lyrics to “American Pie” until the Chevy reached the levy only to find it dry.

  “Do it, you fucking coward,” you whispered to yourself.

  Three seconds later you stood on the other side listening to the door clunk shut behind you. The sound reverberated with the same cold, metallic finality a lifer must hear every night when the prison bars electronically screech into their magnetized locks.

  Once the door has been closed, the animal cannot be retrieved from outside.

  You were in a dim corridor whose sides were delineated by a string of ankle-level safety lights that stretched its entire length, then bent around a corner roughly a hundred feet away. The walls on either side were vaguely familiar. You could easily see the boards that had been used as forms for the concrete because several of them had warped before the concrete had set properly; they looked like ghosts trapped in the walls, stuck forever between this world and the one they came from and now wished they had never tried to leave.

  Remember where you saw this before? That afternoon in the sub-basement of the hospital? On your way to the Keepers’ lab? Of course you don’t—or won’t. If you did, then I wouldn’t be pestering you with all this, would I?

  It doesn’t matter. Here you are, in the facility, and you have to find Beth. She was in here somewhere, she had to be, there was nowhere else she could have gon
e, so you followed the lights until you turned a corner and slammed your shin against something left haphazardly in the middle of the floor.

  A wheelchair.

  Bending over to rub your leg, you saw the bright bumper sticker attached to the back of the chair: I ACCELERATE FOR FUZZY BUNNIES.

  Then you thought of The Waltons with the sound muted, of a handmade quilt neatly folded at the foot of a bed, of a book of poetry and some lines from Browning and faded photographs on a wall and—

  —and knew now why you’d recognized the cat.

  You wondered if Miss Acceleration’s file was one of those lying on the floor beside Mabel’s bed, and if Whitey’s was among them, as well.

  The dial clicked, another set of tumblers fell into place, and you moved on.

  The air back here was slightly warmer but much more damp and smelled of a farm: wet straw, urine and feces, moist fur … But there were other, more disparate smells mixed among them: freshly laundered sheets, antiseptics, talcum or baby powder (you never could tell the difference between the two, could you?), and an eye-watering assortment of medicinal odors—cough syrup, rubbing alcohol, iodine, Mercurochrome, gauze and bandages. What was it you assumed then? That this was the area used for ministering to animals who were ill or hurt at the time they were dropped off.

  Except there were no animal sounds; no dogs barking, no cats hissing, no birds chirping or pigs snorting, nothing. Even this late at night there should have been a few animals awake and making their discomfort or hunger known, but the only sounds were the hum of a hidden generator, the steady exhalation of the air-conditioning, and your own footsteps. You were so anxious about the silence you failed to notice the metal lip rising out of the floor ahead and tripped on the damn thing.

  Stepping up and grabbing the rail to regain your balance, you discovered that this section of floor was raised and covered in a long strip of rubber tread. The railing extended the rest of its length on both sides; an automated walkway, one of those moving sidewalks used at malls and airports. To the left was a large red button with which to activate the motor.