Keepers (28 page)

We’re putting things as right as we can at this point in time
, he said as he pointed the way.
It’s taking longer than we’d planned
,
but we’re getting there
.

Then he took me to a place where they changed my body and gave me feathers and flight. It hurt, but it was worth it.

I was loved. Admired. My heart knew no pain or sorrow. The sky had no place for such things.

* * *

I rolled over and opened my eyes. I was back in my house. On the floor. My clothes were fresh and clean; my skin was creamy and smelled of soap. I wondered if I’d come home drunk. Mom and Dad would be very upset with me. But they were dead, weren’t they? Yes. That was right. They were gone and the house was mine. Only I was leaving soon, wasn’t I? Grandma was expecting me.

I tried to sit up but my limbs were rubber, so I stayed on the floor.

It seemed to me there was someone else I should say good-bye to, but I couldn’t think of anyone. That bugged me. I didn’t have so many friends that I would forget one. That was rude. Thoughtless. I wasn’t a geeky little four-eyed dweeb anymore, I had friends. Didn’t I?

Did I have a girlfriend? It seemed to me that I did, but I couldn’t picture her face or remember her name.

Foggy dream remnants, that’s what it had to be; foggy dream remnants.

* * *

I dreamed that I was a dog sitting out in the rain. I was tied to a post. My sides hurt because I’d been beaten. I’d been beaten because I had soiled the carpeting. It wasn’t my fault—there had been no one home to let me out. But now I was in the rain and it was cold and I wanted to by lying near the hearth in front of the sweet-smelling fire inside. They beat me a lot, even when I didn’t soil things. I wished they wouldn’t do that. I loved them and wanted them to love me. But some people can’t love a dog. The rain beat down very hard. Mist rose up from the ground. A nicely-dressed man came out of the mist and tipped his hat to me. He asked me if I was lonely and I said yes. I was surprised that I could talk; I’d never done it before. The man said it was because I’d been made to forget that I could. He asked me what I wanted.

“To be human,” I said, speaking clearly and with ease. “So I can know how they feel and why they put me out in the rain.”

Come
, he said, freeing me from the post.
And remember to think as much as you want and say whatever you wish
.
Things have been mixed-up for a while
,
but we’re putting them right
.

I trotted beside him—the pain in my sides slowed my progress, but he was patient and kind—and asked, “How?”

He stopped and pointed back toward the house.
Someday
, he said,
all of them will be as you were, and all of you, all of the lonely, the forgotten, the despairing
”—he knelt and stroked my back—“
will be as they are
.
Then things will be right again
.
As right as we can make them
.

He took me to a place where they made me human. I could dance and laugh. I could hold delicate objects in my hands.

I could speak of my love to others.

I could know the glory of a kiss.

And no animal did I treat with thoughtlessness or cruelty. The world to come had no place for such things.

* * *

I woke in the morning, gathered my bags, and went to Kansas. I stayed with my grandmother for nearly a year, until the night she said she was tired and went upstairs and lay down to sleep for the last time. I cried at her funeral but was comforted by the knowledge that her last months had been full and rich. I loved her and had told her often. She never knew a day without an embrace or a kiss on the cheek. She had gone upstairs that last night still laughing at a joke I’d told her. Some ghost of that smile remained on her face when I found her the next morning.

I stopped drinking and sleeping around after she was gone. She had always worried that I was hurting myself. Maybe she was right. This seemed the best way to honor her memory, and that of my parents. I would try to live the rest of my life as well as possible.

The real-estate firm in Cedar Hill sold the house for a good price and both of us made a lot of money on the deal.

After a few years, I arranged to move back to Cedar Hill. Home is home. Even if no one’s there waiting for you.

I decided to drive back, make a little vacation out of it, stop and see the sights along the way, however long it took.

The morning I was packing up my things to leave, a delivery van from some company called Hicks Worldwide pulled up in front of my apartment. The driver got out and walked over to where I stood next to my car. He adjusted his wool cap and greeted me by name.

“I believe you have a package for me,” he said, smiling like a happy puppy.

I blinked a few times, then opened my trunk, moved aside a few bags, and found the parcel all the way in the back. I did not recognize the name of the addressee. I handed it to him without a word. He thanked me, climbed into his van, and drove away.

I came back to Cedar Hill and used some of the money to start my own small business. I was a moderate enough success that I opened another store, then another. With each new branch, I moved to a nicer house. My dreams spoke of change, of order, of something approaching. They were never bad dreams, and I always woke feeling rested.

I went back to a few old haunts. Barney’s Saloon was gone, replaced now by some store called Marie’s Hosiery. It looked like a nice shop.

The Old Soldiers and Sailors building had been torn down; left in its place was an empty lot. I seemed to remember something about a wall of signatures having been in there, but I couldn’t quite bring the thought all the way into the light.

I had acquaintances but no friends. You remember the names and addresses of friends, and for some reason that prospect always made me anxious.

I kept planning for something but could never quite remember what, only that I had to arrange certain things in my house a certain way. It seemed for the best.

I went on dates, bought the women dinner, took them to plays or movies, even made breakfast for a few of them. None of them seemed interested in anything long-term and I couldn’t find it in me to be hurt or offended.

Life went on, as it will whether you want it to or not. I saw myself as neither a bad man nor a good one; I just Was.

Then one day while driving home I saw an old man get killed while chasing his hat across the freeway. I stopped to watch him die. I answered questions from the police. I came home and found a dog on my lawn. A package arrived. Pedestrians came.

And I would not let them take her.

The Valley Of Love And Delight

“
I would’ve made it all right
...”

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 Pedestrians 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 and locked the door. Everything stank of charred wood and melting plastic and burned flesh. I could barely breathe.

Above me, the ceiling sizzled and smoke from the flames burned through from upstairs. I tore the tape 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 around until I gripped the handle of the trap door; throwing it open, I dived 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 opened and watching me. She did not bare her teeth or snarl.

“Hello, Beth. I’ve missed you so much.”

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

I slid 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, and pressed her head against my shoulder:
I know
.

I looked at the silver tag hanging from her collar. I wondered if it too had a small camera and if anyone was watching us at this moment. I made a small wave but had no idea whom I was waving to.

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 crawlspace, one of them knocked aside the trash cans and knelt down, his goggles casting an 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 magazine.

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 trap door was wrenched open and the Pedestrian at the other end began crawling toward us.

“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. That will be nice.”

I closed my eyes.

Her breath against my neck 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.

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 out 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, breath, a sigh.
Now
.

I kiss her gently in the lilac shadows.

—end—

Gary A. Braunbeck
is the author of the acclaimed Cedar Hill Cycle of novels and stories, which includes
In Silent Graves, Keepers, Mr. Hands, Coffin County,
and the forthcoming
A Cracked and Broken Path.
He has published over 20 books, evenly split between novels and short-story collections, and his work has earned seven Bram Stoker Awards, an International Horror Guild Award, three Shocker Awards, a Black Quill Award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination. He doesn't get out much, which everyone agrees is probably for the best. Find out more about his work on-line at
garybraunbeck.com