Anonymous

by Christine Benedict

  “Just one shot . . .” she said to the animal. Somehow the idea, the words felt eerily familiar. She remembered now, she’d heard it before.

  A memory flashed, ‘Just one shot to the temple, that’s all it takes.’ That’s what her mother had said that day she’d held the rifle to Debra’s head, one of her lesser offences.

  She placed the tip of the barrel just inside the cage. “Sorry guy.” Debra aimed between his eyes and forced herself to pull the trigger. Blood splattered. He thrashed inside the cage. She didn’t think, she cocked the rifle and shot him again behind his ear. Blood bubbled out his nose. He thrashed and jerked. Blood splattered even more. She shot him again. “Please Lord. Please let him die.” The raccoon rolled and thrashed. She reloaded, her hands shaking so badly that she could barely hold the bullets. Then she shot three in a row, pausing only to cock the rifle in between shots. The shell casings pinged one at a time on her shoes. Now the raccoon didn’t move, there was no more rise and fall in its chest. Debra pulled back, staring. Blood pooled like scarlet syrup, just like her stepfather’s had. His blood had splattered her clothes the same way they were splattered now. She was holding the very same rifle.

  Marie came outside, holding tightly to the railing and even tighter to her cane, stepping slowly, painfully over the length of her yard. “Sam counted six shots. I made him think it was a tractor backfiring,” Marie shouted over the wind, making her way to Debra.

  Debra didn’t answer. Her eyes were wide, her mouth agape, the rifle lying at her feet. The stench of blood and feces, dirt and gunpowder poisoned the crisp fall air.

  “Honey, are you okay? You saved me an awful lot of trouble.”

  Debra blinked. She took a deep breath. “I’ll bury him,” she said calmly, softly, her eyes following a colorless cloud. Silently inside her head she repeated, ‘you’re okay you’re okay you’re okay . . . .’ clutching her fist to her mouth as not to let the words escape. Twenty-four-years-old, she looked like a child.

  “You dear sweet girl.” Marie stroked Debra’s shoulder as tenderly as her gnarled fingers allowed. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “I know.” Debra nodded, finally looking at Marie. She liked Marie. They would often wave from their distant mailboxes and yell something that neither one could understand. Sometimes she envied Julie for having been raised in that house. Marie seemed like the mother that Debra had always dreamed about. And the thing of it was . . . Marie had taken that role even from a distance.

  “Where do you want me to bury him?”

  “There’s a shovel behind the hen house. You can bury him there. Bring the cage to the house when you’re done. I’ll get some bleach.”

  Debra dragged the bloody cage behind the hen house where the crabgrass and ragweed swayed in the wind that bustled across the open field that whistled in her ears and swept up her hair. She found the shovel leaning against a weather-beaten fence, and started to dig. Worries plagued her. She’d had lots of friends in Cincinnati, school friends, church friends, office friends where she used to work. Julie had been her only friend here, as mismatched as they were.

  She balanced herself to stand on top of the shovel, and rocked it into the hard ground. Digging through clay and roots, the hole grew into a grave one hard-earned scoop at a time. Lifting the trap she let the dead animal fall out of it, and then shoveled dirt on top. A memory flashed of her own father’s grave, how she’d tossed in a handful of dirt, how she loved him. Then her memory flashed to her stepfather’s grave, how she’d thrown the dirt instead, how she hated him.

  She filled in the hole, and mounding it with more dirt, she dug into unbroken ground, and hit something, something metal, just below the surface. She squatted down and dug carefully to unearth a small tin box. On its cover an Egyptian bird, maybe a falcon, guarded the lettering ‘RAMSES’, and underneath that in very small lettering was, ‘Three Genuine Transparent.’ Something rattled inside the two-inch tin, it sounded like jewelry. She knocked off dirt with the shovel and could barely make out the rest of the lettering, ‘Rubber prophylactics’. Debra glanced from across the yard over at Marie, suddenly amused. Unable to resist, Debra pried the rusty clasp open.

  “Marie. Look,” Debra yelled, heading toward Marie.

  “What have you got there?”

  “It was buried behind the hen house.”

  Marie set down the hose, eyeing the tin. “Of all things.”

  “What’s inside?”

  Debra pulled out a piece of delicate jewelry and handed it to Marie.

  “That went missing . . . let me see now . . . . Julie must have been eight or nine. I told her to put this some place safe. It wasn’t . . . I never thought she’d bury it,” Marie said. “Was there anything else in there?”

  “You mean one of these?” Debra pulled out a prophylactic that was still in the foil. The two of them suddenly laughed. Laughter for Debra, right now, tasted wonderfully rich like eating candy after chewing on bitter herbs. The kind of laugh where you lean in and hold your stomach. The kind of laugh where you throw your face in your hands and start to cry, the kind of cry that takes laughter’s place.

  “Oh honey.” Marie took Debra in her arms. “This is about Julie. Isn’t it?”

  “I feel sick about it . . . I didn’t know all this was going to happen.”

  “It’s not your fault, Debra. No one blames you.”

  Debra freshened her face in her shirtsleeve; she so desperately wanted to make everything right. “I . . . I might see her tonight,” she stuttered, doubt, angst etched in her face.

  Marie took Debra’s hand. “Give this to Julie. Talk to her.” The sun eased through a crack in the clouds just as the jewelry trickled into Debra’s hand.

  It was a gold necklace. The engravings of a rose and a droplet graced the pendant, the right half of a broken heart.

  Cold and splattered in blood, her windblown hair over her shoulders, Debra hung Julie’s necklace on one of her cupboards. Somehow the house felt different, almost alive. The cupboard’s agate-like knob, salvaged from one of the original kitchen cupboards, seemed to sway the necklace. She covered her eyes, dizzy, sickened, visualizing bubbles of blood—the foul odor still in her nose.

  Debra stripped right there in the kitchen, piling her clothes on the floor, all the while wondering if she shouldn’t just burn them. She scrubbed her hands and her fingernails, and in the bathroom she disinfected with rubbing alcohol. She finally dressed and toted the soiled clothes downstairs. Maybe white vinegar could save them. That was pure acid. That would clean anything—a tip from one of her foster homes.

  Down in the basement, setting the washing machine, she heard something, something muffled, somewhat like the bottom of a grocery bag falling out. She turned off the washing machine and stood very still, trying to hear it again. It seemed to have come from upstairs. She eked up the basement steps, paying close attention to the narrow passageway—hundreds of tiny newly hatched spiders inundated the quarry-stone wall. At the top of the stairs she heard it again, and suddenly thought of being alone that night. Greg was going out—the first Friday night in a series of Friday nights for the next two months. He had joined a racquetball team. It was bad enough during the day, but in night’s darkest hours . . . she didn’t want to think about it.

  She got as far as the dining room and peered into the kitchen. The mail she’d left on the counter was all over the floor. She stood there, a numbing void in her head.

  She finally stepped into the kitchen. A cupboard door was open. A bag of flour was on the floor. Out of nowhere a booming thump shook the house. Eyes wide, she glared at the ceiling, her breaths came in quick stops and starts. It sounded like a heavy dresser had fallen.

  Going upstairs to where the bedrooms were, Debra gripped the handrail tighter and tighter. At the top of the stairs she edged toward the long hallway. Except for her bedroom, these rooms hadn’t been touched in the last hundred years. No electricity, no heat. She rested her hand on a cle
ar crystal doorknob. She swallowed hard and creaked open the eighteenth century door. Cracked walls, peeling paint, and old cardboard boxes were strung together in cobwebs. She eased through the door, through the cobwebs. A dusty old dresser, the only one that could have fallen, was still standing. A leftover roll of plastic from when she’d stapled plastic over the doors and windows was on top of it. Sunlight flooded through the long vertical windows, the only light source up there. At night the rooms were shrouded in darkness. She never would have gone there at night. She checked the next room and then the next—all in dire need of ‘plaster’ surgery—all revealing nothing more than the essence of its tenants from long ago.

  She suppressed a shiver and headed back to the stairs, then suddenly stopped. Sounds were coming from the kitchen again. She felt her stomach rise up to her throat, taking one step at a time until she ended up in the arched doorway and peered into the kitchen. The bottom cupboard doors were all open. The bag of flour was shredded, cornmeal too—its contents spread over the floor, and dry coffee grounds from one end of the kitchen to the other. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there were fingertip-size trails in the mixture. She stood frozen; goose bumps worked their way down to every last follicle. Staring at the floor, she saw what looked like writing—sloppy at that. It looked like the letter E, followed by the letter D. A cupboard door moved. A scream stuck in her windpipe. She couldn’t breathe. Rumbling came from inside her cupboards. A can of soup rolled across the floor and stopped at her feet. Debra backed away, eyeing the front door. ‘Heel, toe, heel, toe,’ she said to herself, stepping softly, quietly to the door. She’d been good at sneaking away in the past. She had snuck under barroom booths when her mother had stayed too long at the bar. She had snuck to the back of her closet when she’d heard her drunken stepfather coming toward her bedroom.

  She finally reached the front door and grappled with the doorknob. The lock was jammed.

  “Open. Please open,” her voice shook as she whispered, straining her hands to turn the doorknob. Her eyes searched for another way out. The windows were all painted shut and sealed with a layer of plastic. She turned around, her back against the door, her hand still on the knob. Her chest heaved.

  “Fine! You want me? I’m standing right here!” She waited, her chin quivering with anger and fear. A vortex of quiet, of stillness, she could hear her own heartbeat. The knob turned in her hand. The wind heaved the door open. Stunned, she stepped through the doorway onto the porch, down the quarry-stone steps. The further she got, the quicker her steps. Coatless, she stopped beneath the catalpa tree and stared at the house. The wind blasted against her back. Where was she going to go? Her car keys were in her purse. Her purse was inside.

  Hugging herself against the frigid wind, she jogged across the road all the way to Marie’s house.

  “Marie! Marie!” Debra yelled through the door, pounding on the wooden frame. “Marie!”

  Sam cracked the door open. “We don’t want any,” he said, peeking through the door.

  “Sam, where’s Marie?” she asked. “Sam, it’s me, Debra. Where’s Marie?”

  “Oh, Debra, come on in.” Sam turned. “Marie, Debra’s here.”

  Marie came around the corner, drying her hands on her apron. “Debra, come on in. Where’s your coat?”

  “I’ve been scared half out of my mind.”

  “What happened?” Marie asked.

  “Something’s going on in that house. I heard things. But no one was there, no one but me. I know this sounds crazy, but . . . . The house is haunted. I swear it is.” Debra was ranting now, about the flour, about the thump from upstairs, about everything that had just happened.

  “Come on, let’s go over and take a look. Okay?” Marie said. “Sam, get your shoes; we’re going over to Debra’s house.”

  “I’m not sure if I want to go back.”

  “Sure you do, honey. Let’s go and set that old house straight.” Marie’s words carried a patronizing tone. Debra had to go back now, if only to show Marie.

  “If only to get my purse and my coat. Are you sure you want to go to the trouble?”

  “I have to go out anyway. I’m out of cod liver oil and I need to go to the bank.” Marie used her cane to drag one of Sam’s shoes out of the corner. “Will you help Sam get his shoes on? My fingers feel numb. He has trouble.”

  Sam swept up his shoes, “I can do it myself. Why all the fuss?” Sam said lightheartedly, sitting down with them. Sam’s shoes were still tied from when he’d taken them off. He didn’t untie them, but struggled, trying to squeeze his foot in one of his shoes with a metal shoehorn, but his body would only let him bend so far. Marie was busy struggling to pull their coats out of the hall closet, as she leaned on her cane.

  Debra kneeled at Sam’s feet and untied his shoestrings. She could see why he hadn’t untied them, because he couldn’t bend down enough to reach the shoelaces, much less his feet. She guided his foot into the shoe and as she did, she felt the bottom of the shoe to see if they were wet, to see if he’d been outside. Maybe he’d been to her house to play tricks on her. She’d rather it had been Sam somehow. At least she’d know not to be scared. But the shoe was dry. It wasn’t Sam. It had never been.

  “Just what I wanted, a beautiful girl at my feet,” Sam joked.

  Debra looked up, half smiling, trying to think of a witty comeback. She only nodded, realizing she hadn’t any wits left.

  When they finally got to Debra’s house, the front door was wide open. Sam led the party right to the kitchen.

  “What’s for dessert?” Sam joked. He pulled out a chair and sat at the table.

  There inside the kitchen the half-empty, half-shredded bag of flour was on its side, but all by itself on the floor. Only one of the cupboard doors was open, and inside the empty cornmeal box was on its side, too. But there was no writing on the floor, no muss, no trails, not enough of anything to back up Debra’s elaborate story.

  Marie picked up the flour bag. “Is it possible that you could have spilled the flour, and forgot about it when you got busy doing something else? You were pretty upset this morning.”

  Debra saw right away that Marie didn’t believe her.

  “Maybe you’re right. I was upset,” Debra said, trying to maintain a sane exterior, yet feeling insane inside—feeling, maybe like her mother had. This was the scariest feeling of all.

  Chapter 30

  “I’m so glad you’re home,” Debra shouted through Greg’s truck window, her arms wrapped around herself. “You won’t believe what happened.” Debra’s face was drained of color. Her eyes opened wider than ever.

  “What happened? Are you okay?” He had barely shifted the gearshift into park when he opened the truck’s door. Hard-earned soot settled in the few wrinkles around his eyes. His unshaved face barely hid his wind-burnt skin.

  “I was in the basement this morning, and I heard this weird racket. So I went upstairs, and all the cupboard doors were open. I mean, not all of them, just the ones on the bottom,” she said, as Greg stepped out of the truck. She’d seen this face before—the one that says he’s thinking, here we go again. “I’m not kidding Greg. You should have seen it.” Debra tucked her blowing hair behind her reddened ears. “Then I heard something fall upstairs, but I couldn’t find anything that fell.” Her words picked up speed, racing off her tongue. “And when I was upstairs, I heard that racket again coming from the kitchen.” She walked with him as far as the garage, rambling fast and long, telling him every single detail. “. . . Flour and cornmeal and coffee were all over the floor. And there was writing in it. Greg, you’ve got to believe me. Ed’s name was written right there on the floor.” She’d held him prisoner in the garage, carrying on so. “. . . you should have seen the look on Marie’s face, like nothing happened, like I made it all up.” She finally took a breath.

  “Deb, why do you have to exaggerate everything?” His voice was stern, his words precise. “I’m supposed to meet the guys in an hour. I have just enough time t
o take a shower and eat.”

  “I’m not exaggerating. You’ve got to believe me.”

  “You always exaggerate. Can’t you ever just get to the point?”

  Her stomach dropped. It was as though she was nothing, not even a tiny particle. She didn’t love him right then—if she ever had. Her eyes focused straight ahead.

  Greg watched her chin quiver. “I’m sorry. I had a bad day.” He tweaked her nose. “Are you sure you didn’t . . .”

  She smacked his hand away from her face. “I know what you’re going to say. Marie said it, too.”

  “Come on, Deb. I said I was sorry . . . Is there any way you could have been looking for something in the cupboard and just spilled a few things?”

  “No. I know what I saw. E . . . D right on the floor. I’m sure of it.” Just then, listening to herself say it, a mist of doubt clouded her certainty. Her fantastic tale sounded as such—like a fantastic tale.

  Greg took her hand. But instead of pulling away, she locked her fingers in his. She wanted . . . she needed him to believe her, or prove she was wrong. Her grip tightened, going through the doorway, fighting the urge to stop there and not go in at all. Inside the kitchen, she watched him open a cupboard, and saw scattered Quaker Oats and Cheerios. The boxes were torn. He opened cupboard after cupboard and found the empty cornmeal container, the empty coffee bag, among other toppled items. One thing or another in all the cupboards he’d checked had been ripped or disturbed. He opened the last cupboard under the sink. And there, lo and behold, a white baby possum hung upside down from the plumbing with his head in the wastebasket, motionless. Greg eased the door closed.

  A phase of speechlessness passed between them. “No wonder you were upset . . . without any backs to these cupboards, that possum went wherever he wanted from against the wall. It must have been foraging for food. My guess is, it licked up the floor and hid back inside. Then it found the garbage. What might have looked like an E and a D were just trails that his tail made. A possum’s tail is so thick that all they can do is drag it. He must have carried whatever he could back inside for the last crumbs.”