Keepers

FIVE

The first shot hit one of the Bowlers right in the center of his chest, opening a fist-sized hole that blew him back into the mist and almost knocked me on my ass, but I managed to stay upright, plowing off another shot into the next Bowler, and it was with this second shot I realized that I couldn’t hear anything. It wasn’t that the first shot had deafened me or that the makeshift earplugs were working wonders, it was that all sound had been sucked from the world; all I could hear was my own breathing echoing from within, and everything without was a silent movie.

The first Bowler stumbled out of the mist, frantically patting at the smoking hole made by the shell as it tore through his clothing and into his flesh. He wasn’t bleeding at all. Neither was the second one. Oh, they were moving kind of slow like Uncle Joe at the Junction, were obviously dazed and in pain, but they weren’t even close to dead. It was absurd that they should still be alive and moving, and to emphasize this point I shot each of them a second time. It slowed them down even more, but that was about it.

I backed into the house and kicked the door closed, locking it. The loud echo of the deadbolt slamming into place was reassuring. In here, there was still sound, I could hear them coming. It was only outside that they could steal the noise. So I’d take them on in here.

I looked out the window. They were scattering around the house, readying to come at me from all sides simultaneously. I might not be able to kill them, but I could hurt them, of that much at least I was certain. They weren’t going to get her, absolutely not.

I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a large saucepan that I threw onto the stove and filled with a quart of cooking oil before igniting the burner and turning the flame up to high. Then it was back into the junk portion of the bathroom cabinet for a screwdriver and the large can of lighter fluid and a second lighter. In the linen closet I yanked down one of the wooden shelves and began scattering the towels and dish rags and other shelves all over the floor, dousing each of them in lighter fluid as I made a trail through the downstairs.

Some of the Bowlers were scrabbling up the trellis on the side of the house, heading for the roof, while another threw his weight against the back door over and over again. I grabbed the antique oil lamp from the end table and ran to the top of the stairs, emptying the oil on the carpeting all the way, then throwing the whole thing against the far wall where it exploded against my bedroom door with a loud, satisfying crash of glass and tin. One match, that’s all it would take. One match and the whole house would be swallowed by fire within a few minutes.

“Go away!” I screamed. “Leave us alone, goddammit!”

Back down the stairs and into the kitchen where the oil was bubbling up over the side of the pan and the Bowler on the back porch was about to break the door off its hinges. I grabbed the handle of the pan in the same instant that the back door splintered inward with the crack of wood and the shattering of glass. The Bowler was halfway through when I threw the scalding contents of the pan at his head. It sizzled as it splattered over his exposed skin, creating dozens of bubbles of boiling flesh. He grabbed at his face and body with wild hands, opening his mouth to scream but of course he didn’t scream because he couldn’t scream-when there are that many of them they cut out their vocal cords-and as he thrashed and flailed about I leveled the shotgun and emptied a round into his chest but still he didn’t go down and I thought that was a bit rude, so I reached into my pocket for a lighter, realized I’d soon need it elsewhere, so instead pulled a kitchen match from the shelf over the stove, lit it, and tossed it at him.

He burst into flames, his arms pinwheeling as he stumbled back and fell down the stairs into the yard. As soon as he hit the ground he began to roll but the fire was out of control now, snapping and spitting and sizzling (though you couldn’t hear it out there, out there the mist swallowed the sound, but I’d heard the deep hungry belch of the flames when he’d gone up inside and it made me smile), then he was on his feet once more, spinning around, arms raised, scattering smoky bits of charred material and meat in all directions as others gathered around him, pointing, nodding but not helping, and it was only then I realized that the burning figure was swaying side to side in perfect rhythm along with the other Bowlers, doing the Wave, mocking me – distracting me.

An upstairs window shattered. Then another. A pair of feet ran heavily across the roof. Something came through a window in the living room. The dog howled under the porch.

I fired another shot directly into the dancing flame, then turned just as another one of them leapt at me from behind, slamming us against the stove where the ignited burner still roared. I smashed against the side of his head with the barrel of the shotgun but I might as well have been bitch-slapping a medicine ball for all the effect it had. He grabbed hold of my head and began twisting my face toward the open flame. The dog’s howl rose in pitch and volume, becoming a shriek of fury; I knew it wouldn’t be long before they figured out she was in the crawl-space and went after her and I was not was not, repeat, was not going to let that happen, I’d known all my life that this day would arrive, that someday they’d come for me, I’d planned out my actions long ago, so if she and I were going down I was going to make damn sure I took as many of them with us as possible, but now the flames licked at my nose, I breathed them, felt the hairs inside my nostrils curl and singe and fill me with smoke and the smell of my own burned flesh, so I pushed up against his body with all I had and brought my knee up into his crotch and that seemed to surprise him because for just a second his grip on me loosened, but just a second was all I needed to snake my free hand down to my side, yank the screwdriver from my belt, and bury it all the way to the handle through one of his goggle lenses. He snapped up, his back bowing, hands grabbing at the thing jammed where his eye used to be as I lifted the shotgun and shoved the barrel right against his face and fired. Bone and tissue blossomed outward, hitting the walls, sliding moistly toward the floor, making wet trails on the way down.

His body crumpled onto the table, shuddered, kicked, then lay still.

So they could be killed.

Good to know.

I heard footsteps upstairs pounding toward the landing. I jumped over the Bowler’s body and ran through the house, lighter at the ready. I looked up the stairway and saw the first shadow bleed across the wall as they neared the top. I struck up the flame and tossed the lighter upward. As soon as it hit the carpet a bright blue-orange line of flame vomited out in both directions; it fizzled out before getting down to the living room-I hadn’t spread the fluid out as well as I’d thought-but it chewed its way up the stairs and around the corner so fast I knew they didn’t stand a chance. I rammed the door closed, locked it, and spun around just in time to see a smoking, charred tower of meat come at me with outstretched arms. I lifted the shotgun but he was on top of me before I could get off a shot. He weighed as much an elephant, and when we hit the floor every breath I’d ever taken since I’d been born blew out of my lungs and I went numb. He grabbed at my throat with deep-fried hands and began to squeeze, pushing up and down to increase the pressure. I felt the world slipping away from me, felt my body handing in its formal resignation, my legs kicking out in uncontrollable spasms as I wet myself, but then he pulled up again and one of my legs jerked back, its knee bending, and I saw the handle of the dagger jutting out from the sheath strapped to the ankle. Take me, it cried out. I’m right here, so take me, fer chrissakes. I knew that I should but my arm wasn’t cooperating-at least, that’s what I thought, but then I heard the echo of Whitey’s voice in my head saying keepers gotta keep the kept kept, know what I’m saying and I remembered the way he’d looked the last time I saw him and some beast composed of equal parts anger and sadness snarled to life in my chest; the next thing I knew there was my arm shooting out and my hand grabbing the handle and then the dagger was free; I looked up into the scorched ruins of the Bowler’s still-smoking face and I did what I was taught to do with a roast when you had a knife-I began to carve. First a cheek, then the lump that had once been his nose, the charred meat searing my own skin as it fell off in blackened, dripping chunks, but I kept at it, burying the dagger to its hilt and then swiping sideways before pulling it out and hacking away until his grip loosened and he fell to the side, shuddering. I shoved the gristle-covered dagger into my belt, staggered to my feet, and disintegrated the rest of his head with a single shot.

Across the room, another window exploded in a shower of glass and wood. One of them was throwing rocks through all the downstairs windows in order to let in the mist. The mist swallowed sound. The mist obscured perspective. The mist had terrible faces in it, both animal and human, and they wanted to talk to me, make me listen, make me understand that it had to be this way and I really had no choice in the matter, it was an ancient thing when you got right down to it, a way for nature to make perpetual use of its organic systems, hadn’t I figured that out yet?

I stepped over the broiled mass on the floor and made my way into the kitchen, grabbing the step stool and putting it to good use. Then I started back toward the guest bedroom. Underneath the house, the dog’s shrieks of fury had become something so loud and primal and frenzied they sounded like the screams of a waking dragon. I knew there was a chance she might come after me once I was down there but I had to risk it. She’d come here for a reason; even if she wasn’t completely aware of it, I was.

A flash of movement as one of the Bowlers darted across the hall. I lifted the shotgun and pulled the trigger; there was only an impotent click!

So be it.

I used the dagger to cut away the duct tape and let the shotgun drop to the floor, then removed the pistol from the back of my pants and clicked off the safety before transferring it to my ruined hand and using the remaining duct tape to hold it in place.

Then I just stood there.

I could hear them coming in through the back door, through the shattered windows, pounding their way through weak spots in the roof. Two loud thumps from behind the door to the upstairs let me know that at least one of them had made it through the flames and was heading down.

Still, I just stood there.

I wanted them to see that I was still on my feet, that I was still fighting, that I was not going to go gently into that empty lonely, miserable, and not-so-good fucking night. They weren’t going to win, and before I died I wanted to make sure they knew it.

Beneath the porch, the dog’s cry became a high, clear song of triumph.

I smiled. I had long ago learned the words with which to name my own secret losses and shames, and the old man on the highway had whispered some of them to me as he turned his head so I could see the small plastic blue tag attached to the back of his ear.

I thought he was dead. No one could have survived being hit and dragged like that, but as I knelt down beside him his eyes opened.

“This is the way it’s supposed to be,” he’d said to me as his bloodied hand grabbed my shirt. “We can only wait for so long after… after, you know. I’m… I’m sorry. Will you forgive me? I just couldn’t finish it. It doesn’t seem right to do it like this. Can you… you… forgive me?” ”

“Of course,” I’d whispered, brushing his blue tag with the back of my thumb. “Of course I forgive you.”

“I just wanted to look like a human being when this time came.”

I offered him the derby. “I understand.”

“They know,” he said. “They’ve always known. Be careful.” Then he whispered my name. And died.

I knew then he’d been following me-had probably been watching me for a long while (isn’t that what they did with a candidate?)-but in the end found some reserve of compassion that stopped him from going through with what he’d been sent to do. Knowing what they’d do to him because of his failure, he’d chosen to die, dressed in his snappy suit with a dapper bowler hat upon his head.

I’d pulled the tag from his ear before the police arrived, then tossed it out the window as I drove home. By the time I pulled into my driveway his words were white noise in my memory. Then I found a dog on my lawn. A package arrived. Visitors came.

In the living room I opened the bottle of Johnny Walker I’d taken from its hiding place, lifted it in the air, and toasted the old man on the highway before drinking deeply. The liquor sliding so smoothly down, my throat felt like a dead limb suddenly tingling back to life. I made it a long, slow, deep drink, the only one I would take: I pulled the bottle away, wiped the back of my arm across my mouth, and shouted, “Come join the party. It’s gonna be a real barn-burner, motherfuckers!” I threw the bottle across the room and pulled out the second lighter. End of tough-guy action-film moment.

A few seconds later Magritte-Man stepped into the hallway, dashing and stylish as ever. The mist was rolling in, covering the floor, creeping up the walls. In a few moments it would engulf the room and he wouldn’t be able to hear me.

“I appreciate this chance alone with you,” I said.

He reached up and gave me a respectful tip of his hat; as he did this, the mist began to twist and spread farther across the floor, swirling to our ankles. It felt like lead shackles, weighing down my feet. It was cold, so very cold, yet I could feel something like a damp pulse in its tendrils, one that was firm and strong.

“You put on a good show.”

He spread his arms before him and gave a very theatrical bow. At my feet I could hear the reverberating echoes of the screams and gunfire the mist had swallowed, but more than that, I could hear voices, dozens of them, maybe even hundreds, whispering in rapid, anxious tones of course I understand dear I don’t want to be a burden I’ll be fine here Jesus Christ who’s idea was it to have your mother move in my God will you look at that child I wonder what happened to make it look like that did the mother do drugs you suppose Daddy will you play with me I don’t have anyone to play with why does that kid cry all the time don’t you know I need my sleep it’s not our fault he was born looking like that who didn’t feed the fucking dog the litter box hasn’t been changed can’t walk can’t go to the bathroom by himself can’t understand what he says half the time if we had money for the surgery don’t you think we’d I wish I’d miscarried anything’s better than this so why don’t you call me anymore you put me here and say you’ll visit but now the goddamn thing’s barking all night and I’m gonna shoot it I swear to God as the churning carpet of silver rose higher-almost to my knees now-and once again unveiled the bas-relief Magic Zoo: birds, cats, tigers, horses, dogs, sea creatures whose tentacles blossomed from the tendrils, bears, deer, elk, snakes, all of their faces and forms pressing outward, then came the faces of the chimera, the manticora, the gryphon and Minotaur and harpy and other creatures of myth.

Long-Lost’s children.

From a world that was supposed to be but got fucked up.

When God blinked.

The creatures looked unafraid.

They seemed to recognize me.

I stared for a moment at the Minotaur, his hooves and horns-I knew something like this from somewhere-then was snapped back as the coldness of the rising mist touched my elbows; the room was nearly full. “I need to ask you a question.”

Magritte-Man gestured for me to continue as other forms took shape, hybrids and monstrosities and faces of the malformed whispering I want to, I want to, I want to, please…

“We really weren’t supposed to be the dominant species on this planet, were we? That’s why there were more animals than humans on the Ark, right?”

He pointed toward my feet to where a section of mist was pulling back to reveal something. I didn’t want to look away from him, didn’t want to chance being taken by surprise, but there was a stillness between us that seemed far removed from everything that had happened or was about to happen, as if, just for this moment, I was protected, safe from harm. I stared at him for a second longer, then looked down.

There at my feet lay a small gray cat, eyes opened wide in anguish and fear, its neck broken, legs kicking out and back as its body twitched and spasmed. It was just as horrible to watch now as it had been that day nearly three decades ago behind Beckman’s Market. The silver tag on its collar was still covered in blood. It jerked to the side, looking at me, accusing me. I felt my legs begin to give out, and knelt down to touch it, whispering now, as I did then, “I’m sorry, kitty, I’m sorry…”

As soon as my hand touched its side, the cat became still; its body relaxed, the choking stopped, and it rolled its head toward me in that same lazy, easy, sleepy-eyed way that any cat looks at you when your touch wakens it from a nap. We looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, and then it leaned its head down against the back of my hand and rubbed its face against my thumb.

At least you cried, said a voice, but who, where, or what it came from I couldn’t tell.

The mist crept back in, blanketed the cat, and a moment later my hand touched only cold air.

At least you cried.

I rose to my feet and looked at Magritte-Man once more, my unanswered question still hanging between us.

He shook his head. He seemed genuinely sad about it.

Looking into the eyes of the creatures surrounding me, I sighed. It sounded like a petulant child’s noise. “That’s what I thought.”

At least the cat had forgiven me. At least I had that.

I struck flame to the lighter’s wick as the rest of the Bowlers came at me.

I shot at anything that moved as I backed into the guest bedroom. I couldn’t tell if I’d hit Magritte-Man or any of the remaining Bowlers because I couldn’t see a damned thing, couldn’t hear a sound because the mist devoured everything, but I kept shooting until I was in the room, then slammed closed and locked the door. Everything stank of charred wood and melting plastic and burned flesh. I could barely breathe.

Above me, the ceiling was beginning to sizzle and smoke from the blames burning through from upstairs. I tore the tape away from my hand and shoved the gun into the back of my pants, then pushed the bed up against the door, nearly passing out from the effort.

Dropping to the floor, coughing and wheezing and choking, I fumbled my hands around until I gripped the handle of the trapdoor; I threw it open and dove down head-first, scrabbled around in the dirt, reached up, and pulled it closed. I looked over to where she lay under the porch, then began crawling toward her.

Her eyes were open and watching me. She did not bare her teeth or snarl.

We had maybe a minute, a minute and a half before they came through the trapdoor or found the entrance to the crawlspace.

I slid down next to her and pulled out the gun. Her gold-flecked eyes looked at me with something like gratitude as she moved closer and nuzzled against my chest. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small blue tag that had fallen from the envelope.

“Still Mr. Slow-on-the-Uptake, I’m afraid.”

She made a soft, pained noise in the back of her throat and I heard the echo of her voice from the phone call that night: If I put out, they didn’t treat me like I was some kind of dog-and I’d spent so long being treated that way I started to believe that’s what I was-I still do, sometimes.

I tossed away the tag and embraced her. “You shouldn’t have left the house that night,” I choked into her fur. “I would’ve made it all right.”

She rolled her head to the side, licked her lips, then pressed her head against my shoulder: I know.

I looked at the silver tag hanging from her collar. I wondered if anyone was watching us at this moment. I made a small wave and mouthed the words “Hi, Mom.”

A loud crack from above shook the floor as they broke through the bedroom door and began shoving the bed out of the way. At the other end of the crawl space, one of them knocked aside the trash cans and knelt down, his goggles casting their eerie light on our faces.

I looked at the gun. How many shots had I fired? God, please let there be two bullets left.

I ejected the clip.

It was empty.

But one bullet remained in the chamber.

I looked into her eyes. She shook her head, raised a paw, and batted the gun from my grip.

I held her close as the trapdoor was wrenched open and the Bowler at the other end began crawling toward us.

Then I remembered Carson’s question about swans, did I like them and did I know what made them different from other animals? 338

“Swans,” I muttered to her. “They mate for life, don’t they?”

Yes. Pressing closer against me. I would never let her go. Never.

“Then it’ll be swans.”

I closed my eyes.

Her breath against my neck was like summer sunlight. I could smell the cooking from inside. Mom and Mabel were preparing dinner. Dad was busy collecting eggs from the henhouse while Whitey butchered a too-loud rendition of “Hello, I Must Be Going” on the out-of-tune piano in the parlor. My sister and Carson were on the front porch. Carson was attempting to draw her picture. One of these days he’d get it right.

An old man is chasing his hat across the highway in a comic dance. Thank God there’s no traffic at this hour. This will make a great story at dinner. I will tell it with perfect timing and make Whitey proud.

Beth is there, smiling, holding out her hands. I will take them, and we will dance in the autumn twilight, turning, turning, until we turn round right. I will say something funny, and her laugh will ring like crystal. We will look into one another’s eyes. And her smile will linger; oh, how it will linger.

I touch her face, revel in the perfect texture of her skin. She moves closer. A moment, a breath, a sigh. Now.

The world is returned to the way it should have been.

Her smile and touch tell me all I need to know.

I kiss her gently in the lilac shadows…

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