Chapter 9
She says nothing.
Megan, what happened?
She sits on her haunches in the hallway between the kitchen and the livingroom, her back pressed to the wall and her arms around herself tightly. She stares past his legs toward the back door, taking in great breaths that threaten to send her into hyperventilation.
Calm down, he tells her. He wants to reach down and put his hands through her hair but he feels she might flinch and pull away from him and he just wants her to relax. The look in her eyes is full of fear. Bestial terror, like the look in a rabbit’s eyes as it sees the hawk drop from the sky.
Tell me what happened, he says again, and when she still does not answer he turns and goes to the back door, peers through its window to the back yard and sees nothing. He turns around and sees her watching him, then looks out the window again. It is early evening, the sun is down but its vestigial light is still on the land and he can see everything fairly clearly. The yard is scattered with orange and red leaves, the barn is gray-crimson in the growing gloom, the trees are bony fingers. He looks back to her again and thinks about asking what happened once more but knows she will not answer. He takes hold of the door handle.
No! she says.
It’s okay. I’ll go look around.
No, you can’t!
I’ll be right back.
Andy, you—
I’ll be right back! he says, shouting it, and he knows he should apologize but he doesn’t, he’s too upset, too frustrated. He opens the door and steps outside.
He was getting sick of her. Get over it, he thought, just get over it already. She knew what Lucas was, she knew what he did, she’d been involved with this whole goddamn thing for years now, you’d think she could just get over it. People have learned to live with worse. Jesus Christ, Lucas handles it all better than her.
Feeling guilty at thinking these thoughts, he walks out to the yard and tries again to see this from her perspective. This was not the sort of thing a woman signs on for when she marries a man, after all. This was not the sort of situation they prepare you for in school.
He glances toward Lucas’ trailer, sees no lights, then walks over toward the barn.
Lucas? he calls out. There is no sound from within.
He turns his attention to the field and starts that way, walking to where the yard ended and the field began, standing between two unkempt and dried bushes that were slowly dying in their corner of the world. Should really remove those bushes, he thought. He stands by them for a minute, staring out to the field, then moves forward.
Lucas? he calls out, keeping his voice deep and forceful. The field lies stretched before him, ending at the woods out back in a deep wall of heavy gray, this part of the property already covered in shadow. He takes a few steps further and then hears something to his right. He looks there quickly and sees two shapes on the ground, one standing and the other lying under it, lifeless.
The top figure raises its head and looks at him. Appears to sniff the air in his direction.
Andy raises his hands palms up and takes a step back. It’s okay, he says. It’s okay, I just wanted to check that you were all right. Okay? I’m going now, I’m going.
He continues to slowly walk backwards, his hands still up, and doesn’t turn around even when he’s in his backyard and can no longer see the figure. He doesn’t turn around, in fact, until his heels hit the back steps, and then he does so quickly, scrambling up the three steps and grabbing hold of the doorknob.
It doesn’t turn.
Megan? he calls out, pressing his face close to the window and peering inside. He doesn’t see her. He looks back toward the field and of course sees nothing. He tries to relax. Goddamn woman’s got me all worked up, Lucas wouldn’t do anything to us, she just didn’t like seeing him take out the deer and really who could blame her, it’s not a pleasant site.
He knocks on the door. Megan, come on, open up! He says this loudly but in a calm, even voice. No need to stress her even further.
He hears the crunch of leaves and looks back to see something dark and low crouching by those two dying bushes. The eyes have no shine but he knows they’re watching him. Without turning back to the door he tries the knob again. He knocks firmly.
You’re okay, he says to the shape. He can hear its deep, labored breathing and thinks of how much work it must be to run down a whitetail. Jesus….
He turns back now to the door and sees Megan slowly coming across the kitchen. Please don’t see it, he thinks. Just walk over and unlock the door.
She comes over and as soon as he hears the click of the latch he opens the door and steps inside. As he is closing it behind himself she of course looks out there and sees the shape and her eyes widen and her lips open as if to scream.
He presses his hand over her mouth, silencing her before she starts.
*
Another morning, and he was again up before Rachel. He did not lie in bed listening to her breathe, as he usually did, but slipped out from under the covers quickly, easily, and went downstairs. He started the coffee, then put his shoes on and grabbed a cigar and matches. He went to the back door and looked out at the morning. The grass was still speckled with dew and there were several spiderwebs covering it like cotton. A mist rose from the far field. Might be a warm day, he thought. It had that look to it.
He went outside and stood for a moment to light the cigar, then exhaled a fragrant blue cloud as he walked out into the driveway and listened to the quiet around him. Very slowly, by gradual degrees, that quiet was being overtaken by sounds, chief among them the hesitant little sing-song of small birds. He walked down the driveway toward the front of the farmhouse, enjoying his cigar and trying not to glance over at Lucas’ trailer.
When he came to the end of the driveway he stopped and looked up and down the old road. No cars in sight, of course. There never was much traffic on this old highway, and what little there was never came until after seven, so he was free to walk out onto the faded old asphalt and gaze into the distance at whatever a man can see on such horizons. On the opposite side of the street from the farmhouse sat tangled depths of black-green woods, heavily burdened with impassable undergrowth, and he realized as he stood there that he had no idea what sat that way. Through the early morning fog he could see the tops of several large trees, but he believed it was mostly bog and swamp in there, not the sort of place a man wanted to go walking without waders.
He thought of the tent out at the far end of his property, and wondered if it was still there. Maybe this weekend he’d take another walk that way, check it out again, perhaps dismantle it and throw it in the garbage. He sucked on his cigar and tilted his head back as he exhaled. He thought of the owl cry being choked off the last time he was out there and knew he wouldn’t go back. Fuck it.
He stood on the old road until he heard the first call of a mourning dove cooing its sad song, then turned and went back down the driveway. He stopped at the rear of Rachel’s car and puffed again on his cigar, trying to think of nothing in particular, to become just another creature rising in the morning to face a new day. Take that dove there, for instance: what did it think as it greeted the morning? He believed it thought only of the morning, nothing else. What else is there?
The air was cool but there was within it the feeling of mounting heat, and the sky in the East was already a subtle blaze of orange and red and gold. A nice morning was coming, a beautiful day lay ahead. He looked up at the house and saw that the bedroom window was still dark, Rachel wasn’t up yet. He walked toward the backyard and stepped onto the wet grass, lifting his foot back up to see the print he’d left behind. Nearby was one of those spiderwebs, a ghostly spatter across the grass, dew hanging from it like that old cliché: diamonds. He didn’t see the creator anywhere.
Moseying around a bit, making slow concentric circles across his property, he found himself at last between the driveway and the old barn. The door was open, as usual. He walked over and then stopped five feet from it. He listened but heard nothing. He coughed to announce his presence and then went closer.
“Hello?” he said gently as he approached the door. “Lucas, you in there?”
He hadn’t expected an answer, but a rough, raspy voice came back: “Wait!”
Andy put his cigar in his mouth and left it there, waiting. He heard shuffling noises, scrapings, objects being moved around. When all of this stopped he took a single step back in expectation of Lucas emerging from the barn, but no figure darkened the door. He waited.
“Lucas?” he said. “You coming out?”
No answer.
He waited another minute, then finally tossed what remained of his cigar on the gravel, crushed it under his shoe, and walked to the door of the barn.
“Lucas, can I come in?”
No response.
“I’m coming in.” He didn’t right away, though, instead he waited a few more moments. There were no more sounds from inside the barn, only the mourning dove in a tree behind him. He sighed and walked through the door, reaching for the light switch. His fingers touched it but he didn’t flick it on. Once more, he waited.
“You all right?” he asked. “You okay?”
Silence. He took a deep breath and then flicked on the light, and in the instant before the barn was lit he suddenly thought of all the images that might greet him here. Most of them made him jump a little as the lights came to life, they were things he did not want to see. Ever. Ever again.
There was nothing, just assorted junk, tools and hunks of old machinery. Nothing looked moved or out of place.
He walked in, eyes flitting from floor to walls to the rafters above, but there was nothing to see. He headed for the back of the barn, moving aside a few moldy old boxes to do so.
“Lucas?” he called out. At the back of the barn, where there was more open space, the light was weaker, but the sun was beginning to peer through the open spaces between wall slats. He should be able to see Lucas by now, unless he was for some reason hunkered down under one of the tarps that covered all sorts of ancient farm equipment.
“Lucas?” he tried again. “Come on, are you all—”
A heavy black shape shot out from behind a stack of boxes to his left, knocking him back against a giant anvil. He felt the breath leave his lungs as his ribs connected with the immovable steel, and tried to keep from falling over. The black shape flew through the barn, its heavy weight making the floor shake, the sound of its passing loud and graceless as it went back the way Andy had come.
Andy stood there, bruised and stunned for a moment, then turned and followed after it.
“Lucas!”
He came out the door and into the morning, looking around quickly but seeing nothing. Lucas’ trailer was dark, there was no movement anywhere, no sound of retreating footsteps in the morning mist.
What the hell? he wondered as he caught his breath.
The mourning dove was silent now, too.
*
“What happened to you?”
He was changing for work in the bedroom when Rachel walked in from the shower. He hadn’t wanted her to see him but there he stood, shirtless, with a large bruise up his right side. He shrugged.
“I fell.”
“When?”
“Earlier. I got up and went out for a smoke and slipped. It was wet outside, and….” He smiled at her. “I’m a klutz.”
She frowned and lifted his arm so she could examine the ugly purple and red bruise. This done, she looked at him and shook her head. “Those goddamn cigars. Haven’t you outgrown that yet?”
“I guess not. At least I didn’t smoke it inside, you should be happy.”
“You wouldn’t have slipped inside.”
“So I can smoke them inside now?”
“No.” She gave the wound another disapproving look and then walked to her dresser. She stood there and slipped out of her robe and he thought of how beautiful she looked, how nicely the contrast was between her smooth body and the dark classic angles of the old farmhouse. “I swear, if those things kill you I will never forgive you for it.”
“They won’t kill me.”
“Famous last words.”
“How about I promise… I won’t have any until Saturday.”
“What’s Saturday?”
“The Atkins’ are coming over. Did you forget?”
She pulled a shirt on and turned to look at him. “I didn’t know that was official.”
He nodded. “It’s official. They’ve been invited. It was your idea, Rachel. We talked about it last week.”
“Right,” she said, but she didn’t look like she remembered.
“Is that okay?”
“Saturday’s fine. You and Terry can sit outside and smoke up a storm if you want. Drink your beer and smoke like idiots.”
He smiled. “That was the plan.” When she didn’t say anything else he walked over to her. “We can always cancel if you want to. We’ll say you’re not feeling good.”
“I don’t want to cancel, it’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” He kissed the back of her neck. She turned and stood on her tiptoes to bring her mouth to his, and he reached down between her legs. She jumped back, laughing, and walked over to the closet across the room.
“Tease,” he said.
She lifted her shirt, mooning him, and then stepped into the closet and out of sight.
*
“What’s Lucas doing out there?”
They were sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee and eating instant oatmeal and he’d finally begun to forget about the pain in his ribs and the strange scene in the barn when she said this and made him look out the window. Lucas was at the side of the barn, his head turning this way and that as he looked for something on the ground, in the trees. Andy watched him and thought how normal he appeared, how like a normal man he was. There was nothing about him that suggested otherwise… unless you were observant, that is, and then you might notice how carefully he examined everything around him, how closely he took in the details of the world in which he lived. His eyes were focused but always searching for movement, his nostrils would flare as they took in scents from the breeze, his whole body was taught with potential energy, as if he were about to pounce at any moment. He might in fact not be looking for anything in particular, he might just be out for a little walk, but such attentiveness to his surroundings came naturally to him. He was always aware, always ready.
“I don’t know,” Andy said. He began to eat quicker, hoping to finish before Rachel did. When he was done he took his bowl to the sink, rinsed it, then returned to the table and stood there while he finished his coffee.
“You in a hurry?” she asked.
“No. I just...” He saw that Lucas was moving toward the back of the barn now and he set his mug down. “I have to talk to him about something.” He leaned down to kiss the top of her head and then went outside.
Most of the morning mist was gone now, burned off by the sun, but he could still see some hanging on at the very far end of the field, grey and ghostly. Around the farm, however, all was clear, and he was approaching the barn when he saw Lucas slip behind it. Andy sped up as he made his way alongside the old building, stumbling on half-buried hunks of machinery that had been set and forgotten there perhaps a hundred years ago, and pushing his way past an ever-thickening web of vines and thorny plants that reached for his pants and caught him with their claws. When he was close to the rear of the barn he called out:
“Hey Lucas?”
He didn’t want to surprise his nephew as he came around the corner, and to that end he also made a point to make a lot of noise at these last few bushes, breaking branches and scraping his feet over the ground. One final good-sized tree, thick as his leg, grew right at the corner of the barn and he decided to stop here and cautiously peer around to the rear of the building.
Lucas was just standing there, straight and formal, and Andy realized he could never sneak up on him, that Lucas was aware of everything around him in a way he himself could never be. “Hey,” he said.
Andy forced a smile. “Hey.” He went around the tree and walked into the clearing there. The ground was a tightly-packed floor of old leaves, but there were no bushes or vines and the little trees that lined the clearing did not have the size to form a canopy, a fact which would allow a nice amount of sunlight to spill into this area later in the day. It was a place not unlike one he’d known as a child, a little sanctuary behind his neighbor’s garage where he and other kids would sneak cigarettes, play doctor, avoid problems at home. A quick pang of regret and longing and homesickness came over him, a ripple full of memories ancient and bittersweet. Then it was gone.
“Is something wrong?” Lucas asked.
“No, no, I just….” Andy shrugged. “Why’d you rush out this morning?”
“Rush out of where?”
“The barn.”
“I…” Lucas had been frowning but now his eyebrows raised and he too shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, that. Yeah, I… I wasn’t feeling good, I guess.”
“You’re feeling bad again? You look all right.”
“No, I just….” Again he shrugged the topic away.
“You gave me this,” Andy said, and he lifted his shirt to show off the bruise on his ribs.
Lucas frowned and came closer, examining the bruise as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. His nostrils flared, his eyes focused and refocused. When he was within six feet Andy lowered this shirt and had to fight the urge to take a step back.
At last Lucas stopped and gave him a look of utter concern. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, it’s nothing, you just ran out of there so quick you sort of… brushed into me, and I fell against that anvil.”
Lucas nodded.
“What are you looking for back here?” Andy asked.
“Nothing.”
“I see you wander around out here all the time, but I’ve never really come out to see what’s so interesting.” He started to walk further into the clearing, looking around, studying the area, keeping himself positioned so he could still see Lucas from the corner of his eye.
“Nothing interesting,” Lucas said. “I just come out here to sniff around a bit, see what kind of animals might have come around in the night.”
“Yeah? Ever anything cool?”
Lucas shook his head. “The usual. Fox, skunk, a porcupine now and then.”
“Oh. I haven’t seen a porcupine in years.”
“They’re not common.”
Andy nodded thoughtfully and stopped to push the leaves around with his foot, revealing the hard dirt beneath.
“Andy, do you need something?”
Andy didn’t look up right away, but when he did he saw a directness in Lucas’ eyes that unnerved him, a not-quite-cold gaze that was at odds with the otherwise pleasant expression he wore. There was, after all, a smile forming at the corners of his mouth, and he did otherwise look healthy and ready to face this new morning. But those eyes… they were too focused, too predatory. He felt a shiver of fear race up his spine, unwelcome and unavoidable.
“No,” Andy said finally. “No, I guess not. Just… wondered why you rushed out.”
“Sorry,” Lucas said, and the smile broadened. “I’ll try not to do it again.”
Andy nodded, waited a little while longer to see if any other topic might arise, then when none did he bid Lucas a good day and went back the way he’d come, happy to be away from his nephew but unable to shake the sensation of dread that had come over him. Even getting back to the driveway, where the new sun was more direct and washing over him warmly, didn’t make this feeling go away. He looked to the barn once more before going inside the farmhouse, and was glad (if surprised) not to see Lucas standing there watching him.
I no longer trust him, he thought, and the realization made him feel sick. I no longer trust him and what does that mean for any of us?
*
“Andy, are you all right?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t even look up.
“Andrew?”
Now the voice caught his attention and he looked up to see, of course, the figure of Jenny Atkins standing in the doorway of his office.
“You all right?” she asked again.
“Yeah, why?” He’d been sitting hunched in his chair and staring blankly down to the papers on his desk, a much too common habit of his, but now he sat up straight and cleared his throat and tried to look professional. As professional as possible, anyway: he hadn’t shaved in two days and his cheeks and chin were speckled with short, dark, coarse hairs. He looked and felt like a hobo.
“You looked like you were pondering something incredibly important. And I know you better than that. So what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired. Bad sleep, up early.”
She raised her eyebrows and stepped into the office. “Really? That the story you’re sticking to?”
“What does that mean? What are you getting at? You know something I don’t?”
“No, just….” Now the eyebrows came down and she just looked concerned. Her voice lowered: “Something wrong at home?”
“Why would you assume that?”
“That’s not an answer.” She was right in front of his desk now, looking down at him warmly. “You can tell me anything, Andy, you know that, right?”
He grimaced and leaned away from her, hoping to blow this line of inquiry off as a joke.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Something wrong? You and Rachel have a fight?”
“No. We’re good. Couldn’t be better.”
She nodded. “All right. I don’t mean to pry, I just… you really looked like something was wrong and… it’s all right to worry about you, isn’t it?”
“It’s against company policy, actually, so knock it off.”
She smiled. “Okay. I’ll leave you alone. If you ever need to talk, though….”
“Right. You’ll be the first person I call.”
She frowned. “You’re being a smart ass, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She walked out shaking her head, and he sat there trying to recall just what in the hell he had, in fact, been thinking about. He hadn’t even known his mind had wandered, he’d been in a zone, dazed and lost. I’ll have to watch that, he thought to himself. Jesus, what the hell was I thinking about?
Lucas, of course. Always Lucas. Everything in his life revolved around that single solitary figure of pathos, that otherwise normal young man touched by strange circumstances beyond his control or understanding. When he thought about it, it was amazing how thick the melodrama was around the three of them, how nearly tangible the sense of dread and foreboding was in their daily lives. That unnamable thing haunted them every hour of the day, was always there like another person, an invisible presence. Sometimes a visible one. He rarely stepped back enough to think of it in these terms but goddamn if theirs wasn’t an odd little existence, all three of them, he and Lucas and Rachel, all twisted and twined together every which way, wrapped and warped by this goddamn thing none of them could explain or control or even believe if they thought too much about it. Believe it? It was insane. He wouldn’t have believed it unless he’d seen so much of it with his own eyes, and even then it was possible, perhaps too possible, to think it was all just madness, that he had gone insane somewhere along the way and all of this was just a dream he was having in the corner of some cold white asylum.
He touched the bruise on his ribs. Some dream.
He rubbed his eyes. Don’t think about it, he thought, just don’t even think about it. Think about the paper. The Gazette. The job at hand. Deadlines, layouts, classifieds, headlines, obituaries.
There was a knock and he looked up. It was Ryan the intern. After the last time he’d blown up at the kid he’d found himself fighting the need to be overly nice to him. It was best, in the long run, if he just moved forward as if it hadn’t happened at all. He sat up straight, folded his elbows onto the desk, and smiled as pleasantly as he could.
“What’s up?”
“You have a second? I can come back….”
“No, come in. What is it?”
Ryan walked over looking more sheepish than usual, intimidated for some reason. He came up to the desk and didn’t say anything at first.
“Yeah?” Andy said.
“I just wanted to say that I, uh… I won’t be working here after next week.”
Andy frowned. “Yeah? Why’s that?”
“I got this thing set up with my uncle, he’s a contractor in Minnesota. Told me to come over and I could work for him for the summer. It’s only about two hours from the University of Minnesota, where I’ll be going, so….” He shrugged and averted his eyes.
“So it’s a money thing”
“Kinda. I mean, I like doing this, but I’ve been pretty much draining what little bit’s in my bank account.”
Andy’s turn to shrug. “It’s your life, Ryan, you have do what you have do, right? I totally understand the need to make some cash for school.”
“Yeah, that and I figured I might as well get out of Talbot when I can. I mean, I’ve pretty much seen all there is to see here, so….”
“So you want to get out and see the world.”
“Something like that.”
“The whole world is open and waiting for you.”
Ryan shrugged again.
“It’s your oyster.”
The kid looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, well, I figured I should tell you as soon as I could. This just came up, and….”
Andy leaned back in his chair and started rocking slowly, not taking his eyes from Ryan. He wasn’t sure how much time passed as he sat there thinking, even became oblivious to the kid’s presence for a while, aware of very little save the humming of the thoughts that were flittering around in his head like bees. He tried not to look at each of those thoughts individually, but rather to view them as a collective, to perhaps get to the heart of what they all meant when taken together, their common theme. Everything, of course, came back to Lucas.
“Seen all there is to see here, huh?” he finally asked. “Let me ask you, Ryan: ever seen the Dogman?”
Ryan frowned and even appeared to flinch a little, not expecting the question. “No, not that I’m aware of.”
“You’d think you’d know for sure if you saw something like that.”
Ryan said nothing.
“You can tell me, I won’t think you’re crazy.” He smiled again. “Ever seen anything strange running across a field in the middle of the night?”
Ryan looked back toward the door, then appeared to be thinking about whether or not he should speak. It was a look that seemed odd on him, he being one normally full of confidence and that cocky way of looking at each and every moment that only the really young, the really talented, or the really useless possess. It made Andy realize how young the kid was. Eighteen. Jesus, imagine being eighteen and having the world laid open for you. Imagine looking out into the future and seeing all those days waiting there, each of them full of promise and potential, a million moments all your own. There was much to miss there, but also much to fear. It’s a wonder kids don’t go insane thinking about it. All that hope, all those possibilities, they could drive you mad.
“All right,” Ryan said, lowering his voice as he came closer to the desk. He looked at the chair that was sitting to the right of the desk and then took it, sighing as he did. He gave Andy an odd smile (embarrassed) and cleared his throat. Nervous.
“All right,” he said again. “One night last year we were driving around, a bunch of us.”
“Drinking?”
“We’d had some beers a few hours earlier, but it wasn’t a big drinking night. It was in August, hot-ass day, and we’d been at a friend’s house playing video games and watching a movie. Around eleven-thirty five of us left and decided to bum around on the back roads. We were in my friend Mark’s car, I was shotgun and the other three were in the back. We weren’t doing much, and you know, we drove around town a little before making our way out to the country. We were on Saddle Stream Road, I don’t know if you know where that is?”
Andy shook his head.
“It’s further north than Hollis Lane. Nothing out there, but we ended up on it, it’s kind of curvy but not bad.”
“Farmland out there, or woods?”
“A bit of both. There’s houses and stuff, I mean it’s not like totally country or anything. Some new homes, too. We were just going down it and all of a sudden Mark puts the brakes on and we all brace ourselves and look up expecting a deer and we don’t see a deer.”
“No?”
“No, we…” Ryan glanced at the office door, then leaned toward Andy. “It was a dog, that’s what we all thought. A dog. A big dog, like this tall,” and he put his hand out so it was around three feet from the floor. “Black, I think, but it was hard to tell. Mark’s car started skidding but he got control pretty easily and we came to a stop. So we’re sitting there catching our breath, you know, shocked by the whole slamming of the brakes and everything, and we look out at the dog, which we can see not directly in the headlights but just out of them a bit, and….” He hesitated.
“And the dog stood up on two legs and ran off,” Andy finished.
“Yeah.”
“Just like in every story that’s come through here. The dog stands up on two legs and runs off.”
Ryan shrugged. “That’s what happened. That’s what we saw.”
Andy nodded. “Interesting story.”
“You don’t believe it.”
“I’m sure you saw something. You’re not, after all, a raving maniac. And I’m sure you weren’t under the influence of hallucinatory drugs. Just beer, right?”
“A couple beers.”
“Let me ask you something else.” Andy leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk, clasping his hands together business-man-style as he did. He looked at the kid before him intently. “What would you do if you came upon this thing, whatever the hell it is, and you knew it was something that wasn’t supposed to exist? Let’s say you knew it was a dogman or whatever the hell you wanna call it? Half-man, half-dog.”
“Werewolf?” Ryan suggested.
“Whatever. What would you do? I mean, if it was in your backyard and you were face to face with it?”
“Piss my pants or grab a camera. One of those two.”
“And if you had a gun or something?”
“Kill it.”
Andy’s eyes widened. “Really? You’d shoot it, just like that? It’s out in your garden or something, hunting rabbits, and you’d just shoot it?”
“Yeah, man, if I knew it was something like that of course I’d shoot it. Just to prove it existed.”
“We’re talking about something half-beast, half-man, here. What if it was like in the movies and it turned back into a man after it died. You wouldn’t feel bad?”
Ryan looked away, then looked back at Andy and shrugged. “No. I figure, something that’s half-man half-whatever isn’t really a man at all.”
“Really? So, half-man, half-monster… is really all-monster?”
Ryan nodded. “It’s definitely all wrong, that’s for sure.”
*
In the evening he looked a little differently at Rachel. He looked a little differently at the house, too, and the whole damn farm, but they were nothing compared to her. The house could burn, the entire property could return to swamp and weeds, but Rachel was a living, breathing creature of warmth and love. He could reach out and touch her right this moment if he so chose.
Instead, he watched her as she stirred the pan of frying onions, noticed the little smile on her mouth and knew it had nothing to do with him, she was a million miles away, thinking about something she’d told him when she came home from work, a story of a guy at the Town Hall who had a crush on a woman at the post office. He’s cute, the way he pines for her, she’d said. I wish I could help him. Don’t meddle, Andy told her. I won’t, she said, but….
She had her hair in a ponytail and he could see the way it faded into a soft light down as it came to her neck. He’d kissed that neck hundreds of times but it looked different to him now, more vulnerable. She’d recently thinned her eyebrows out a bit and when she looked at him and smiled he noticed how that little act of plucking with a tweezers made her eyes stand out as if they’d been painted onto her face. They sparkled, he noticed. Like stars. And the skin around them was already starting to tan into a light brown that reminded him of the fresh loaves of bread his mother used to pull from the oven around Christmastime. Her lips were cracked but did not look painful, and when the light hit her just right he could see the three tiny little scoop-like indentions on her forehead that told of a bout of chickenpox when she was a kid. He’d always liked those scars, they made him think of the girl she’d been, the life she’d had all those years before they’d met, and he liked to think of her that way, sweet and young and innocent and happy and never knowing there were dark clouds that hung over each and every life, that everyone must face some unknowable Shape that sometimes hovered harmlessly on the horizon and other times came right down to pound you in the gut. Still, he hadn’t thought of those scars in a good while. When she turned to fetch something from a drawer and he saw them he smiled. She noticed this and smiled back but did not say anything.
He thought of how they’d met. She, like him, had family here, but whereas his sister had moved to the area her family had always been locals. She had lived near Chicago and had visited these cousins frequently as a child, but when she was fifteen her father accepted a new job in Texas and the visits had stopped. Six years ago she came back to visit the remnants of this extended family and ended up staying. I hated Texas, she told Andy. Why? he asked. It was full of Texans.
She’d been working as an administrative assistant at a local wire harness factory, and if she’d stayed they might never have met, but when she took the job at the Town Hall she ended up coming in to the Gazette offices now and then to drop off announcements and reports. He’d actually still been with Megan when he and Rachel had first met, but at that point Megan was on the way out and though he wasn’t looking for anybody new he liked Rachel immediately. She intrigued him, and he couldn’t deny their chemistry. She looked at him like she was interested in him, and when they were together she appeared confident and comfortable… the opposite of the way Megan was acting. That first time she came into the offices he saw her before she saw him, and she had looked put-together and calm… then, when they were introduced, there had been a palpable change. She remained confident, but there was a new nervous energy to her, that sort of schoolgirl jitteriness he’d never been sensitive to in school but which he read easily now. Jenny had noticed it, too. She likes you, she said when Rachel was gone. You made her feel… what’s the word? Twitterpated.
Eight months later Megan bolted and not five months after that he asked Rachel out.
I was told not to go out with you, she told him on that first date.
Why?
Because your marriage just ended. I guess you’re supposed to wait. The person you date after a relationship ends is transitional.
So nothing could ever come of this?
She smiled. Nothing.
He lifted his glass of beer in salute. To nothing, then.
To nothing.
He thought now of Megan bolting for her family and wondered where Rachel would go if she needed to leave, if all this became too much for her. Would she stay in the area? How could she, knowing what she knew about this farm, this strange thing that hovered here like a fog?
“I was thinking… should we grill out on Saturday?” she said, breaking him from his thoughts.
“Saturday? Sure. Like what, steaks?”
“Whatever. Whatever you want, you’re the grill master.”
This was a joke, he was a terrible griller. His specialty was hamburgers blackened and dried into stones.
“Maybe I’ll talk Terry into helping,” he mused, though the idea didn’t please him.
“Whatever you need to do. I’ll handle the side dishes, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And do what I can to keep Jenny’s eyes off you.”
“Oh shut up,” and he stood and slapped her lightly on the ass. She laughed. “How much longer?” he asked.
“Twenty minutes.”
“I’m gonna go outside for a bit.”
He left the smells of fried onions and meat for those of wind and trees. He stood there a moment and thought about going back in for a cigar but… he looked back through the door and saw Rachel moving about the kitchen in her own little world and didn’t want to bother her. He walked out onto the driveway and looked around. The sun was still up but it was low enough to throw blue shadows over the land. Far above he heard the cackle of passing sandhill cranes, and from the trees close to the road the constant staccato tones of robins. Those trees and the bushes around the farmhouse were fully leafed out, the new summer was here at last. The world was at its green peak, but another few months of this lush health and everything would start to dry out and turn brown. The dog days of summer would settle in and not let up until late September. He inhaled the air deeply and thought it odd he could detect no fragrance of flowers, and looking around he didn’t see any blooming, either. There was only the thick deep green of leaves and the shadows they held, but as far as he could tell not one single little flower on any of the bushes. He walked along the side of the farmhouse and frowned at the plants there, the columbine, daisies, and iris that Rachel tended. They looked healthy enough, to him, but not one had even a solitary flower spread open to the sky. A few buds here and there, but that was all. He contemplated this as he walked, never coming to a conclusion other than to think stranger things have happened and then looking over to Lucas’ trailer before coming to the front of the house and turning to look at his own home. In this kind of hesitant evening light the house looked warm and inviting, like there were normal all-American things going on behind its windows, that there were normal people going about their normal lives. What’s normal? This was a voice from his college years. What’s normal? Normal is what’s expected, not what’s necessarily needed, or desired.
He stood listening to the robins sing and thought he could hear, too, a frog chorus behind him, but at that moment a car came down the road and passed in a gaseous roar of V8 engine, ruining the moment. He frowned at the receding taillights. Kids. Maybe Ryan was with them, out tearing up the backroads with a twelve-pack and whatever music was cool at the moment. He stood a few more moments listening for the frogs but could hear nothing. He thought of the sub-division and shivered. A premonition of the future. He thought of the black pickup and how it had been gone the last time he’d checked. It could mean anything, of course: the owner finally coming back to reclaim it… or his survivors coming to do the same.
Another shiver, and a sickening feeling rippled in his stomach. He thought of Fate and how people end up living lives they never expected and….
Enough of this, back to the house before he slipped into self-pity. He turned to do just that and heard another car approaching from the same direction as the first. He stood and waited for it, and when it finally came close and slid past the farmhouse he saw it was Sheriff Stevens in his patrol car. The Sheriff was looking back and both men exchanged a quick wave, the Sheriff’s slower and a bit late, like he’d been looking at the farmhouse and hadn’t expected to see anyone.
Chasing the first car? Andy wondered. Good. But as he was turning to go back to the farmhouse he remembered the Sheriff asking if he had a dog. He decided to run up to the road, and watched the taillights of the patrol car slowly fading in the dimming light… then saw them suddenly flare into a brighter red. Stopping by the Weller field, it looked like. Had he seen Lucas that time he’d been out here, and was he back to look around again, to find whatever he’d seen once more and maybe, if possible, if it really was as strange a thing as he thought, pop a few shots into it?
He’d have to shoot it, just to prove it existed.
Andy watched those taillights as long as he could but the road was on just enough of a hill and the car slid behind it, slipping out of view. He looked over at Lucas’ trailer and saw a dim light through a window.
This is my life now, he thought. Moping around my house and looking over at that mobile home. I do it so often it’s becoming my little routine. I do it so often I don’t know what I’d do if I had to stop.
Had twenty minutes passed? He decided to find out and headed back to the farmhouse. He was near the back door when movement in the yard caught his eye. He looked and saw two figures standing just where the field began, mostly silhouetted in the dying light. The sight of them didn’t surprise him for some reason, he simply stopped and watched them. They looked to be talking, standing about four feet from each other, as if they were neighbors casually sharing a little gossip. He knew right off that the one on the right was Lucas, but the other was unknown to him. It was a woman, though, that was obvious, she had a good shape and a healthy growth of hair that ran just past her shoulders. He thought of the female shape he’d seen that night in the storm, how it was lit by intermittent flashes of blue-gold lightning and how he’d been working on convincing himself it had been a dream. He stood watching them for a while and then another movement caught his eye. It was a rabbit, making its way from the deeper shadows by the bushes and into the gray-blue expanse of lawn about fifteen feet away from the couple. He frowned, expecting something but not knowing why or what. He watched the rabbit carefully, then noticed that Lucas and the woman had noticed it as well. He watched them as they studied it. A heavy feeling of inevitability draped itself over him. He didn’t like that feeling… in fact, it was awful.
The two figures by the field kept their eyes on the rabbit patiently for a long time, and then the woman’s silhouette seemed to suddenly shift and swell as if distorted by a piece of glass or a sheet of water and she bent over a little as if she were about to pick a flower.
Andy shook his head but said nothing.
The woman made one quick lethal leap and caught the rabbit in her hands. There was a very tiny choked-off squeal and then the thick wet crunching of bones.
“Son of a bitch,” Andy said, and he nearly fell up the three steps and into the kitchen, a very strong and palpable terror suddenly flashing through him.
“What’s wrong?” Rachel asked as she turned from the stove.
He didn’t have to think at all. How hard was it to lie anymore? “I tripped,” he said, trying not to show how hard his heart was beating, and trying just as hard not to slam the door closed behind him. No, he closed it as slowly as he could but locked it quickly and quietly so she wouldn’t notice.
She smiled and shook her head at him. He saw her eyes were watering from the heat and steam and onions and thought how the glistening tears were at poetic odds with the glowing smile of love and warmth she gave him. “You fell this morning, too. What’s with you today?”
“Just… having an off-day.” He tried not to turn and look out the window, but he couldn’t resist giving the backyard a casual glance nonetheless. He saw nothing out there. “Didn’t have my V8.”
“I guess.” She looked to be withholding another laugh. “I hope you’re hungry because I made a lot.”
How hard was it to lie?
“I’m starving,” he said, and went into the bathroom to wash his hands.
*
Later he let her go up to bed and stayed down in the livingroom by himself. I’m going to read a bit, he told her. Don’t smoke any of those damn cigars in here. Of course not. Sure you don’t want to come up, you can read in bed, the light won’t bother me. No, he said, no I just wanna sit here a while.
He was thankful she didn’t offer to stay down with him. He listened to the stairs creaking as she took them, and then the floor protesting at her weight as she walked from the bedroom to the bathroom. The running of water, the sound of the bathroom door, a few quick verses from some song she’d said was looping around in her head… he listened to all of this with the intensity of a man trying to learn from it all. With the intensity of a man who was trying to memorize the sounds because he fears he may never hear them again, or of a man who was trying to hear them and remember something from long ago. He sat in his chair and stared at the cold fireplace across the room and listened and thought. Other than the sound of Rachel upstairs the night was quiet, the way he normally liked it. Now, though, it unnerved him. A car slid past outside and he half-expected it to slow and pull in, for it to be Sheriff Stevens. Why he expected this he did not know. He didn’t know lots of things lately.
He thought of Lucas. The woman. The way she’d appeared to change. He thought of the rabbit, the tent, the abandoned black pickup, the owl cut off in mid-hoot. The figure running into him in the barn. All of the sightings. It sort of made sense, didn’t it? In a not-a lot-of-sense kind of way. But how did they meet? Where did she come from? What did her presence mean?
These were questions for Lucas, he knew. And he knew that he didn’t want to ask them.
Imagine going over there and knocking on the door and asking who’s the woman, where’d she come from, where’d you meet, what does she want, what’s going on?
He imagined, and didn’t sleep at all that night.