The Keening

by Keith Gapinski

THE KEENING

  By Keith Gapinski

  Copyright 2012 Keith Gapinski

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  *****

  The cry tore Robert from the depths of sleep.

  He was drowning in a sea of blankets, heart thumping its way out of his chest, breath rumbling like long peals of thunder in his ears. He opened his eyes, confused about where he was, but he could see nothing in the darkness. The noise that had awakened him — he stumbled through memories seconds old but already muffled in a fog of anxiety. It was a scream, right? Some animal howling? His memory hinted at something high-pitched … something … keening.

  He heard long, slow breaths somewhere near him. It’s Bonnie, he told himself, your wife, lost somewhere in the mounds of comforters. Bonnie was always cold, even at the apartment. But this wasn’t the apartment; it was too quiet and dark and cold to be the city. Robert wanted to struggle out of the undertow of the covers, but he didn’t want to wake Bonnie. His eyes found the soft outline of a door, focused on it for a long time, sure it would creak open at any second. He tasted the sharp edge of sour in his stomach.

  He tried to calm himself by listening to Bonnie’s breathing, trying to match its rhythm with his own. Where were they? They were at the farmhouse, because of him, because he couldn’t live in the city anymore. His problem had started with sweaty palms and a crawling unease in the crowds that thronged the city streets. It grew into a maddening itch of dread, even when he was at home, a ticklish premonition that going out would bring horrible things. And then the subway happened.

  Bonnie had insisted they take the train home from dinner. Riding there, crowded into the tiny metal box rattling apart as it crashed through the darkness, the dread had erupted into terror. He remembered screaming, banging on the doors, trying to pry them open between stations. He remembered Bonnie’s horrified face as she tried to calm him down. The night was a blank after that.

  The doctor had prescribed the move. Take the right pill everyday and stare out at the snow on the trees somewhere, the doctor said. Robert didn’t want to leave the city, his job, his friends. Bonnie told him she loved him, and she wanted him to be right again. She found this little renovated farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, just close enough to the city for her to commute. The price was right; the Realtor said it had been abandoned, probably due to finances. Robert had spent two weeks here, hoping to abandon his dread.

  And now, another sleepless night.

  What if the noise had been the smoke alarm, or the security system? What if there was a fire, smoldering in the wall?

  Slow and careful, he pushed out from under the covers. He almost moaned at the shock of cold when his bare feet touched the wooden floor. Bonnie’s breathing paused for too long, and Robert hung there, feet on the cold floor, holding his own breath. Then she sniffled and began to snore. Robert found his slippers and shuffled to the door of the bedroom.

  He paused, hand hovering over the doorknob, listening. For a moment, he thought he heard something, right outside the door. He stood there for a long time, intent on the noises around him. Then he imagined Bonnie looking at him from the bed, first with confusion, then with pity or annoyance. He couldn’t go back now. He was committed. He opened the door and walked down the hallway to the center of the house.

  The living room was bathed in icy blue moonlight from the window in the kitchen beyond. It felt unfamiliar in the stark light, and Rob stumbled through it, almost tripping over the bottom step of the stairway to the attic. He rubbed at the chill in his shoulders, trying to shake the lethargy of sleep and cold and too many days inside.

  In the kitchen, the smoke detector’s tiny red eye glowed down at him from the ceiling. Had it always been red? He couldn’t remember. He reached up to touch it, and hesitated. What if he set it off?

  He huffed at himself, disgusted. He picked up the bottle of Imipramine sitting on the sink, tried to count the pills inside. Had he forgotten to take one? Yesterday was a blur. Bonnie had gone to work in the city. He’d picked her up from the train station. Or was that the day before? He tried to remember what he had for dinner. There was wine, and a fire later. On the couch, after dinner Bonnie talked about work in a tired way. Her job had excited her once, but now she sounded frustrated and exhausted. He had looked over at her, and she had reached for him and held him in silence for a long time. She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling in the ever-changing glow of the fire and a smile flickered at the corners of her lips. Robert wanted to feel anything other than buried deep inside himself, sad and small. He cursed himself, said he was tired, and went to bed.

  Damn the meds.

  There was a soft moan from somewhere above him, in the attic. He froze. It had to be the wind. One of the windows upstairs was open. No wonder it was so cold. He looked over at the stairs. Had something moved, in the shadows at the top?

  He gazed around the room, taking in windows and doors and the brass fireplace grate. Everything was closed. He looked out the kitchen window at the smooth, moonlit expanse of snow all around the house. He felt again how trapped they were, alone, a mile up the driveway even to any kind of road. If the alarm went off, how long would it take someone to get there? He almost wanted to hit the big red panic button on the security system panel just to see.

  Maybe he should wake up Bonnie. But he had no proof but his own dread that anything was going on.

  He took small steps towards the stairs, moving as quietly as possible, his eyes fixed on the darkness at the top. He felt his fists, clenching and un-clenching. When he was a kid, in the city, his father had kept a baseball bat by the bed for moments like these. Robert wished he had one now. He angled over to the fireplace, grabbed the little poker in the stand, worked it loose with a measured pull so as not to make noise.

  He stood there, hefting the poker. The thing felt too small and light in his hands, like a kid’s toy. It was silly, fretting about the house settling. What would Bonnie say if she saw him? You forgot to take your pill. He turned to put the poker down.

  Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Soft footsteps, in a line, right over his head, towards the back of the house. He felt courage drain out of him in an icy trail down his back. He forced himself to breath hard, trying to summon up anger at whatever had invaded his house, but anger wouldn’t come. He wanted to go back to bed, back to sleep, and face all of this in the light of a new day. He knew he’d just lay there, heart and mind racing, and day would never come.

  He padded softly over and up the stairs, turning as he neared the top to look back towards where the footsteps had gone.

  Dust motes hung frozen in a shaft of moonlight that shone through the window at the end of the hallway. There were doorways on either side, brooding in the shadows under the sloping roof, slightly ajar, like half-lidded eyes. The cold air hung thicker here, curling around Robert like fingers.

  He crept down the hallway to the first door. Through the space between door and frame he could see the boxes he and Bonnie had piled inside, possessions they hadn’t found a place for yet. Something must have fallen. He started to push the door open and jumped when he saw the face.

  An old doll of Bonnie’s sat upright on a box. The doll had an apple-shaped face with exaggerated features. Its dark glass eyes ca
ught the scant light in the room; their disinterested gaze gave lie to the doll’s painted smile. Why had Bonnie taken it out? Why hadn’t she left it in the box? Robert couldn’t stand to look at it. He turned away from the doll, back out into the hallway.

  Robert rocked backwards, startled by what he saw. A little girl stood at the end of the hallway, draped in the eerie white light from the window. She gasped at him, a tiny indrawn breath. Her eyes were wide and round with fear.

  The girl was around four or five, with short, light hair tousled from sleep. She was wearing a plain, flannel nightgown.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Daddy?” the little girl said.

  “What?”

  The girl’s face twisted in thought.

  “How did you get in here?” he asked her.

  “You’re my daddy,” she said in a whisper, an uncertain look crossing her face.

  Daddy? They didn’t have a daughter. Was this some kind of dream?

  She seemed to read something in his face, her mouth forming a tiny ‘o’ of disappointment.

  “You forgot me, didn’t you?”

  How could he forget her? She didn’t exist. He felt his head shaking in denial.

  The girl seemed to decide something, jutted her chin at him