Good grief, he thought. Is she really sorting her food?
There could be no mistaking it. The vegetable medley had already been carefully divided—peas in a small pile, carrots in another, with the corn between them and the green beans stacked like fire wood off to the side. Now she was working on the macaroni and hot dog.
It’s a good thing we didn’t get shaped macaroni, or she’d be sorting those out, too.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“What?” she said, looking up. “Oh, yeah. I’m just...not hungry, I guess.”
“Well, if you get tired of playing with your food, Geegee would probably love it.”
Kat hummed in response, then went back to sorting the pasta from the hot dog bits. Alex watched for a second longer, then pushed back his chair and dumped his dishes in the sink.
“I’m going into the bedroom,” Alex said. “I’m just gonna make sure that work hasn’t tried to get a hold of me or anything. But, if you need me....”
He let the sentence die in the air, realizing how ignored he was. She hadn’t looked up, probably hadn’t even realized he’d been speaking, she was so engrossed in shepherding the pieces of her meal around. It made him feel uneasy, watching her move the pieces like that. The tired look in her eyes seemed to be coming back—not nearly as bad as when he’d gotten home and she’d fainted in his arms; it wasn’t even close to that. But still, it was there, taking root around the rims.
And that old woman in town—that witch. Kat had sworn up and down that she hadn’t set the whole thing up, but then how could she have known about the pregnancy? About him being a truck driver?
No. Alex didn’t believe in magic. He didn’t believe in witches or the tooth fairy. He was a rational adult. Probably this whole thing was some elaborate prank, maybe even going back as far as when Kat had fainted in his arms. Maybe, she was just pretending to be sleep-deprived and paranoid.
But that didn’t really make much sense either. And now, watching her shuffle the food around her plate, she sure didn’t seem to be faking anything. It was like she wasn’t aware of him at all, much less putting on a performance for him.
Alex sighed and left the room, shaking his head. Geegee watched him cross the front room from her place by the door. He walked past the covered television screen and into the bedroom, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. The old springs groaned and complained about the load, but he hardly heard them.
The tiny scraping sounds continued from the kitchen, where Kat no doubt was still sorting and shuffling her food about. Alex rubbed at his temples, trying to clear his head and think.
Maybe staying in the cabin hadn’t been a good idea. Being out in nature seemed to be helping, but being so isolated seemed to be working the opposite effect, leaving them little to do but go crazy. What did they call it—cabin fever?
Perhaps there would be some message from work, an excuse for them to call the thing off early and head back home. He leaned over and grasped at a phone, then flipped it over. A glance showed him he’d grabbed the wrong phone. It also showed him a message.
Go to sleep.
Alex, still off-balance from leaning so far to reach the phone, startled and dropped it. It fell to the floor with a loud clatter. He took a shaky breath, listening for Kat to react in the other room, but the house kept silent. Then he bent and scooped the phone back up. The screen showed his own face, looking worn with worry and touched by fright, but when he tried to illuminate the screen, it didn’t respond. The phone was off.
He paused to consider. He would have sworn that it had been on a second ago—that he’d even seen a text on its screen. But now it was off. And why not? He’d just dropped it. Perhaps that had turned it off—jostled the battery or something.
He tried turning it back on, but it didn’t respond. Dead, then. He plugged it in to charge, and grabbed his phone.
Maybe he’d turn Kat’s phone on in a minute and find the message again, see what number had sent it.
Alex checked his phone, but saw nothing of great importance there—at least, nothing substantial enough to justify taking off early. Just a few email chains he’d been CC’d into. He set the phone down and sighed.
They could just go, couldn’t they? They didn’t need to have an excuse.
But Kat needed help, and there were still a few days until she’d be able to get in and see a doctor. If they went home, would things be any better?
Maybe, he thought, it’s time to consider something more urgent than a visit to the doctor’s. An institution, or something, so then she can get some real help.
Almost immediately he chastised himself for the idea. Katherine was a good, stable woman. Pregnancy was making her a bit off, but she wasn’t dangerous. Sorting her food? Feeling stalked? Trouble sleeping? Hardly padded-room material. She just needed more support, and he could still give her plenty of that. Besides, hadn’t he just seen one of those weird messages she’d been talking about?
Or had he?
He picked up Kat’s phone and powered it on, then decided to get in his pajamas while it booted up. He opened the luggage piece, pushed aside his toiletries bag, and grabbed a pair of pajama pants. When he picked them up, the black metal of his handgun was revealed.
He’d almost forgotten he’d placed it there. As a trucker, he’d started taking it with him everywhere by force of habit. Now, he paused, wondering if he should move it somewhere else. But where? Somewhere more accessible, or less? He realized he didn’t know, and the implications of that frightened him. Instead of doing either, he pushed a few other articles of clothing on top of it, then zipped the suitcase closed and changed into the plaid pajama pants.
Before he returned to the kitchen to clean up dinner, he checked Kat’s phone once more. It claimed to have received no messages.
That was it, then. Phones, even ones that are running faulty, don’t just delete messages on their own. Her paranoia must have just rubbed off on him, her own strange behavior making him extra jumpy and imaginative.
Alex kicked the suitcase under the bed, then went into the kitchen, wondering again whether or not they should leave in the morning.
11
Kat had still been awake when the storm began. She’d spiraled closer and closer to sleep, her body yearning for it, her mind and thoughts resisting, but once the storm began, her hopes of sleeping had faded. Winds whipped around the little cabin, shaking the trees outside and rattling the windows while heavy sheets of rain pounded the walls. Geegee began to whine. She moved from the front door to the bedside, where she lay down again to continue her whining. When the storm increased in its fury, she started moving back and forth from one side of the bed to the other, crying as she went.
Alex seemed only mildly disturbed. He rolled in his sleep and mumbled to Geegee to keep it down, but never truly woke up.
Kat, on the other hand, was as awake as ever, lying in bed with her opened eyes turned towards the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the storm surrounding them, thinking about the things that had been happening to her and trying to make sense of them. Most of all, she wondered about what she should tell Alex, and whether or not she could be trusted not to hurt anyone.
She wanted to roll over and sleep—to roll onto her side and spoon until morning in deep, blissful sleep. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t touch Alex. Not now. Not after seeing her twisted reflection cut through his throat. She felt filthy and defiled by the memory, as if she had fantasized it instead of being horrified by it. She simply couldn’t bring herself to touch him now, afraid that he would know, somehow, and once knowing would leave her, or have her locked away, or not let her see her baby.
She fidgeted beneath the covers, and found that they stuck uncomfortably to her now. She’d grown sticky in a cold, fearful sweat, and when she moved the sheets moved with her.
That was when, outside, the rope around the juniper either slipped loose, came undone, or snapped, because at that moment the tapping began again on the kitchen window,
sounding eerily like a voice, small and alone, calling out in the middle of the storm.
“Kat. Kat. Kitty Kat. Kat. Kat.”
12
The night lasted forever, it seemed. And yet, the morning also came early. Kat saw the dawn begin coloring the forest outside and decided to get out of bed. She hadn’t slept at all, but she wouldn’t sleep now. Besides, Geegee still seemed unnerved by the storm, and was moving about the house rather quickly, whining and barking. The springs creaked loudly as she slipped out of bed, and, much to her surprise, Alex rolled over and looked at her.
“You’re getting up?”
She nodded.
“You look exhausted.”
It felt strange to speak and move, after lying still for so long. Her voice cracked as she said, “I didn’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“The storm.”
“What storm?”
“The storm that you slept through. It kept Geegee whining and running around the house all night and blew that stupid bush back up against the window.”
Alex blew out a long sigh, then rubbed at his eyes. “All right. Okay. I’m just... I’m going to take a shower, then I think we should pack up and get out of here.” He took his hands away from his face and looked at her. “I think we need something else. I don’t think being here is helping us to relax; I don’t think it’s helping you.”
“’kay,” she said. She walked out of the room, wondering just what Alex had in mind when he said that they needed something else.
Kat was about to open the front door to let Geegee out when Alex said, “Wait a second.” Kat paused, and a second later Alex walked out of their room, stepping past the covered television screen with Geegee’s leash in his hand. “So she doesn’t go rolling in mud. I don’t want to have to give her a bath before we load up into the car.”
“Sure,” Kat said, taking the leash. She clipped it to Geegee’s collar as Alex went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Then she opened the door and stepped out into the cool morning air.
The sun had just begun to rise. Darkness still held in a few places, and the forest’s shadows were too long and slanting for any sunlight to reach the earth below, but day was breaking once more, and the great transition was underway. Many birds already flew about in search of their first meal of the day. Squirrels chattered at one another, chasing here and there with flashes of fluffy brown tails. The nocturnal animals were finishing their final chores before bedding down, and everything else was waking up with the ferocious energy of the well-rested wild.
Geegee suddenly yanked on the leash, pulling Kat off-balance as the dog tried to bound down the porch steps, heedless of the leash and the hand that held it.
“Geegee, no! Calm down,” Kat ordered. But the dog kept pulling, and Kat relented, stepping down the porch steps and onto soft, dry earth.
Kat stopped. Geegee kept tugging at the leash, but Kat ignored her. The ground was dry. The leaves were on the trees. None clung wetly to the side or top of their car, as she had expected. No sticks littered the ground from being blown out of trees. There wasn’t even a great amount of dew on the ground.
She felt the blood drain from her face, cascading through her body towards her feet. She thought she might faint. She thought she might puke.
She knew she was losing her mind.
There had been no storm.
The only tempest in the area last night had been within her own skull.
She swayed in place, and her grip tightened on Geegee’s leash.
“Geegee,” Kat whispered. But the dog continued pulling on the leash.
Kat stepped shakily to the side, allowing herself to be drawn a little farther from the front door, if only so she could see—
And then she’d cleared the corner of the house, and she could see it. The rope was still tied tightly around the juniper bush, holding it far away from the kitchen window.
Whatever had been at the window through the night, it hadn’t been the juniper.
A second wave of sickening dread suddenly washed over Kat like a tsunami. Reeling, she stumbled backwards towards the porch and slipped on one of the flagstone steps, falling to the ground.
Kat scrambled back to her feet. She felt exposed, naked in spite of her pajamas. Geegee’s leash jerked in her hand. She nearly let it go—released Geegee to run off into the woods—but she didn’t. That dog was real. It had been there through Alex’s absence. The leash to that dog was her anchor to reality. In her desperate swim through her thickening anxiety, that dog was her lifeline. She didn’t let go, even in her new panic. She pulled back, and hard.
“Geegee,” Kat pleaded, “we need to get back inside.”
The dog whined and continued pulling on the leash. Kat refused to relent.
“Geegee, come on. We need to get back inside now.”
She pulled harder on the leash, dragging the dog backwards. Through her fear she could feel something new. Eyes. Eyes upon her—hidden stares coming from the thick foliage around the house, something or someone watching her, stalking her, waiting for its chance. The sensation was more real than any skin-prickling feeling she’d ever had before.
She hauled on the leash, nearly flipping Geegee onto her side in the process, then grabbed Geegee’s collar and began dragging her towards the cabin’s front door. The dog squirmed in her hands, shaking wildly back and forth while crying, but Kat scarcely took notice, her attention still on the woods and the unseen eyes she felt on her. She towed the dog across the porch and then, with a final yank on the collar, brought Geegee through the front door, shutting and locking it behind her.
The feeling of being watched didn’t leave. And Geegee’s thrashings didn’t stop either. They got worse.
As soon as the lock clicked into place, it seemed as if something clicked out of place in Geegee. She yelped and cried, writhing like a worm stuck on a hook.
“Geegee, no!”
The dog didn’t hear her—didn’t respond at all.
“Geegee!”
The dog suddenly turned to Kat, her eyes wide and wild, her mouth frothed with foam. Kat recoiled, just as Geegee snapped at her. Geegee’s teeth barely missed Kat’s fingers, closing on the leash instead, tearing it from Kat’s grip and shaking it viciously.
Kat backed away from the dog and into the kitchen, shocked by Geegee’s sudden aggression. Something had changed. Something in the dog had snapped when they’d crossed the cabin’s threshold. Geegee was tearing the leash and growling, her whole body bent on that act of violent destruction. When the leash finally dropped to the floor, Geegee lifted her head to stare at Kat with feral intensity. Her hackles raised, her teeth exposed in a snarl, and her body held low and ready to lunge, Geegee moved towards Kat.
“Get back,” Kat said, still walking backwards into the kitchen. “Back. Back!” The sound of her own voice—the fear and alarm in it—made her even more frightened. This was really happening. Geegee, their good, quiet, obedient dog, was about to tear into her like a wolf tearing into a fawn.
The small of Kat’s back bumped against the counter top—she’d run out of space to retreat into, and Geegee was still advancing, eyes flashing dangerously.
“No, Geegee. Bad dog. Bad dog!”
She was nearly screaming now, but her panic seemed only to stoke the sudden madness in Geegee, and her cries were apparently unheard by Alex, who had already closed the bathroom door and started his shower.
Geegee’s mouth was open now, ready to bite, the saliva pooling and running around her sharp teeth, her jaw and lips twitching in anticipation.
Kat held her left hand out towards the dog, hoping to ward off any attack while simultaneously fearing that Geegee would clamp over her fingers and shred them. Her right hand groped over the counter’s surface behind her, searching for something to defend herself with: a pan, a plate, even a cup if that was all she could find.
The back of her hand thumped against the knife block, then her fingers closed around one of th
e knife handles.
Geegee lunged.
Kat pulled her right hand between them, the knife handle gripped firmly in her fingers. The knife block came halfway with the knife, falling from the kitchen counter and scattering knives across the floor. But the knife in Kat’s hand came free of the block in time to slash through the air. In time to slash through more than just air.
Hot blood splattered on Kat’s exposed legs, and Geegee’s attack turned aside, spraying more blood over the kitchen floor and cupboard doors. She yelped, and Kat screamed, the knife still in her hands.
Geegee was barking madly now. She ran through the mess of knives on the kitchen floor, away from Kat and into the small front room, leaving drops of blood everywhere. Yelping, she rushed headlong into the bedroom.
Kat was crying now. She still held the knife as she stepped over the scattered blades. “Alex,” she yelled. “Alex, help!”
Then she screamed again. Geegee had emerged from the bedroom and was dashing through the front room, eyes wild. Her nose, Kat now saw, had been sheared almost completely off by the knife’s edge, and blood from it was running down Geegee’s mouth and across the floor.
Geegee stopped in front of her, barking madly again, looking as if she might try attacking for a second time. Then she yelped and cried and ran against the front door, smearing blood across it before running back into the bedroom.
Kat ran to the bedroom door, determined to pull it closed and keep the dog from attacking her again. As she gripped the doorknob, Geegee turned back to her, nose flapping on her face, and started advancing over her own slick blood smears. Kat yanked the door closed just before the dog reached it, then heard Geegee crash against the closed door. She barked and cried, then began tearing around the bedroom once more in an insane din of violent motion.
Kat, still crying, stepped away from the door. It had all happened so fast. Alex still hadn’t even opened the door, but now there was blood across the cabin and a knife in Kat’s hands.
Cleaving Souls Page 9