Black Rite

by Allen Caraway

  ‘I don’t, well I didn’t, but I think it’s time I made an effort.’

  My initial pleasure at the thought of coming home to find Lizzy creating delicious meals vanished when I discovered that Alford was right: she was a terrible cook. In Hollywood, Lizzy employed a French housekeeper who could apparently produce miracles, even with basic ingredients. When the Dashwoods moved into North Oak Ranch on a permanent basis, her mother took on all culinary duties.

  Our first meal was scrambled eggs on toast with green peas. The toast was black, the eggs burnt an interesting shade of brown, the peas reduced to a soupy mush. We sat at the kitchen table staring at our plates, Lizzy looking embarrassed and depressed. Trying to find something positive to say when a woman has massacred dinner is a fine art. Be too nice and she’ll think you’re being insincere. Be too critical and you may end up wearing your dinner on your head. Try humor and she could react in a multitude of ways, anything from the desired result - laughter that helps to diffuse her stress - to chasing you around the kitchen brandishing the largest, heaviest saucepan she can find.

  ‘I wanted it to be nice,’ she said. ‘But look at it. It’s foul. Yvette would be disgusted with me.’

  ‘Your housekeeper?’

  ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  ‘I read your bio, remember?’

  ‘Oh yes. That’s not in the least bit …’

  ‘Creepy? Intrusive? Stalker-like?’

  Lizzy smiled. ‘Well … with anyone else, perhaps.’ She speared a chunk of charred egg and toast, grimaced, put it into her mouth and chewed. ‘Mm, charcoal, my favorite.’

  We looked at each other and started laughing.

  The next day, I bought her a copy of Anyone Can Learn to Cook in 24 Hours.

  Lizzy persisted with grim determination and our meals gradually evolved from being disgusting, to bearable, to not bad at all, to actually quite good.

  I began waking up with a grin, looking forward to coming down to the kitchen to find Lizzy dressed in one of the Tom and Jerry pajama sets she had picked out in Wickham and making coffee.

  We soon fell into a comfortable routine. I returned to the house for lunch, then when I had finished for the day, we took the pups for a short walk. During my spare time, we hiked in the mountains and explored the county and its numerous small towns, or stayed at home and watched a movie or read our books, me stretched out on the sofa, Lizzy curled up in an armchair, the only sound being the occasional turning of a page and the grandfather clock ticking away the hours in the reception hall. Lizzy felt uncomfortable about visiting Harkinen so we avoided it. I thought she was being paranoid and said so.

  ‘I’m not being paranoid,’ Lizzy said while giving me a hard look. ‘I just don’t want to run into Beau.’

  I found that hard to understand. ‘Why?’

  ‘He’ll recognize me.’

  ‘After sixty-five years?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what if he does?’

  ‘I’d just prefer to avoid him. And I might bump into my friends’ relatives and they might recognize me.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, Lizzy, no one’s going to point at you and say, “Hey, it’s Elizabeth Dashwood!” I’ve already told you that.’

  Lizzy scowled. ‘They might.’

  I rolled my eyes and sighed and was on the verge of telling Lizzy that she was being foolish when it occurred to me that to her, it hadn’t been sixty-five years. To Lizzy, it would still feel like 1950 and she was thinking in exactly the same way as she had then.

  ‘You could wear your glasses,’ I said. ‘They make you look less like, well, you. And a baseball cap. They really change your look.’

  ‘Couldn’t we just not go there, at least not yet?’

  ‘Yeah, but you need to realize that if you’re going to stay here – and I hope you will – you’ll eventually meet everyone in Harkinen, just like you did back in the forties. Most of the people I know regularly drop by for one reason or another and Beau will be one of them, so it’s not going to make much difference if you’re here or in town. And anyway, you’ve already met Cole and Eddie.’

  ‘True. But this is home, y’know? My own turf. I feel safer here.’

  I sighed again. ‘Okay, if that’s what you want.’

  After that conversation, Lizzy relaxed and it seemed to me that she had finally found the happiness she craved.

  It didn’t last long.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Our life together began to fall apart when Beau Harkinen turned up unannounced one afternoon in late February.

  I was working in my office when I heard a vehicle coming down the drive. Lizzy was in the kitchen, cleaning. Despite our earlier conversation, her fear of meeting the townsfolk remained intact. We discussed at length what to do if someone telephoned or knocked on the door, agreeing that I would answer both and if it was the latter, Lizzy would go to her room. Her idea. I still thought she was being paranoid.

  She later proved me wrong.

  Ironically, Lizzy looked forward to meeting Jack, Heather, Tony and my other friends. It was just taking me a while to set it up. Lizzy was too distracting.

  My office window provided a good view of the driveway. When I saw Beau’s Trail Duster rattling down it, I told Lizzy. She immediately dove into her room and I returned to my office and pretended I wasn’t in. By that stage, Beau was leaning on the doorbell. I sat at my desk wishing he would fuck off as I had a lot of administrative work to do. Unfortunately, Beau didn’t fuck off and leaned on the doorbell again. Sighing, I got up and went downstairs, both pups at my heels. When I opened the front door, Beau was leaning forward, his gnarly forefinger an inch from my bell. I wanted to swat it with something.

  ‘Hi there young fella!’ he said, his voice raised to make himself heard above the pups’ barking, which I didn’t attempt to silence. ‘Was just passing and-’

  ‘I’m sorry, Beau, but you caught me at a bad time. I’m in the middle of catching up on my paperwork.’

  He didn’t seem to hear and peered over my shoulder. ‘Uh-huh. Thought we could have a brewski. Got some in the cooler and-’

  ‘I can’t. As I said, I’m working.’

  He dragged his eyes away from my reception hall and looked at me, the dogs now circling him, sniffing. I noticed that neither of them were wagging their tails.

  ‘How’s life been?’ he said. ‘Seen anyone interesting lately?’

  I stared at him. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Any unusual visitors?’

  Beau was studying me with a sly look on his leathery old face that made me uneasy.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, beginning to lose my patience.

  He shrugged. ‘Just wonderin’.’ Beau looked over my shoulder again, then at me. He smiled, his expression overtly friendly like a dishonest used car salesman approaching a potential customer. ‘Mind if I use your bathroom? I really gotta pee.’

  ‘Beau,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘you’re surrounded by forest. Are you honestly telling me that you didn’t think to pull over and take a leak behind a tree?’

  He shook his head. ‘No.’

  It was obvious from the guilty look on his face that Beau knew he’d been rumbled. My irritation grew and I scowled at him.

  ‘I’ll see you around, Beau.’ I looked at the pups. ‘Mick, Keith, in!’ They looked up from Beau’s dusty old jeans and then trotted inside. I closed the door before he had a chance to say anything, then stomped into the TV room and peered through the net curtains. He was still there, looking perplexed and annoyed. I shook my head and walked upstairs.

  ‘That was quick,’ Lizzy said, meeting me on the landing. ‘Has he gone?’

  ‘No. He’s standing on the porch looking pissed.’

  Lizzy looked down the stairs. She seemed nervous. ‘Oh. We can’t let him see me. He won’t buy the great-niece story. He’ll know it’s me.’

  ‘You really do believe t
hat, don’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. I never felt entirely comfortable around him. He was always too keen. Y’know, the overzealous fan type.’

  ‘Then why did you employ him to mend stuff? Didn’t you have ranch hands to do that?’

  ‘Not as well as he could. Beau was a genius when it came to fixing things and I felt sorry for him. He had a difficult home life. His father was overbearing and demanding, as was mine, so I think he had his little business as a way of gaining some independence. As for me, I thought it was just an ardent teen crush, that he was star-struck. I thought he’d grow out of it. He didn’t.’

  ‘So how did you keep him at arm’s length?’

  ‘Firmness and having a large, athletic husband and then a protective sister and mother. Beau’s okay in many ways but I don’t completely trust him. He could make a lot of trouble, especially if he didn’t get his own way. At the very least, he’d be a nuisance because he’d keep inviting himself over, like he used to do.’

  ‘And you think, even now, that he hasn’t grown out of it?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Beau was very obsessive and possessive. I doubt that he’s changed much, if at all.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Sometimes I had to peel him off me.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yup. What did he say to you?’

  ‘He asked if I had seen anyone interesting lately, any unusual visitors. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me when he asked that. It was like he knew, or at least suspected, that you were around.’

  Lizzy grew pale. ‘Oh god, really? How could he possibly know that?’

  I shrugged. ‘Eddie and Cole may have told him, said something like “Elizabeth Dashwood’s niece is shacked up with Bruce” or something like that. He may be curious and wants to get a look.’

  ‘Oh great.’

  ‘Other than that, I have no idea. But don’t worry, I told him to get lost. Well, kinda. Let me check again to see if he’s gone.’

  I returned to the TV room. Beau wasn’t on the porch and his truck was gone. Good. I walked into the reception hall and looked up the stairs. Lizzy was still standing there, staring down at me with a hunted look on her face. I didn’t blame her for feeling that way. I had seen the way men responded to her. She lit them up in a way few women could. To my surprise, Lizzy found the attention bemusing and sometimes disconcerting. When she was an actress, it must have been a blessing and a curse at the same time. It took her to the top and yet in her private life it attracted jerk offs like Marty Sabatino and overzealous fans like Beau. I didn’t envy her. For someone who valued her privacy as much as Lizzy did, fame must have been hellish. I was amazed that she had handled it as well as she had and was so affable with everyone she met.

  ‘His truck’s gone,’ I said. ‘Come on, I’ll make us some tea.’

  ‘What about your work?’

  ‘It can wait ten minutes.’

  Lizzy walked downstairs and we went into the kitchen.

  ‘I’d better warn you; Jack will probably recognize you, or should I say, notice the uncanny “resemblance.” But as he hasn’t met you yet we can cross him off as a source for telling Beau.’

  ‘Is Jack a big movie fan?’

  ‘Yeah. He loves old-’

  The sound of growling stopped me mid-sentence. Mick and Keith, who had followed us into the kitchen, were staring at the back door, their ears pricked. Lizzy and I looked at each other. Without a word, she ducked into the pantry and as Lizzy was closing the door, Beau peered through the kitchen window. I hadn’t heard his truck return and wondered how he had managed to be so quiet. His eyes grew wide when he saw me, a look of embarrassment and guilt on his face.

  ‘Sorry!’ he said in a loud voice. ‘Meant to ask if you were around tomorrow?’

  Really, I thought. You’re one persistent sonofabitch, aren’t you?

  I opened the window. ‘On the ranch, yeah, but I’ll be working.’

  ‘Need a hand?’

  ‘Not unless you’re good with tractors.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Won’t start. Got a guy coming over to look at it.’

  ‘Still under warranty?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Bet it died at the far end of the ranch, huh.’

  I nodded. ‘Yup. In Laurel’s Field.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  I watched a sly, hopeful look appear on Beau’s face and cursed myself for not thinking before I spoke and falling so easily into his crafty little trap.

  Well done, asshole, I thought. Now he’ll come over while you’re out.

  There were three pastures on the ranch. The smallest, Laurel’s Field, was at the southern end of the property beside Chilton River and hidden by a grove of trees. As Beau had correctly surmised, the Massey Ferguson had come to a grinding halt at the far end of the pasture, about half a mile from the main house. If Beau chose to pay Lizzy a visit, I wouldn’t know about it.

  I glared at him, wishing that Mick and Keith were fully grown, then I could leave them outside to scare him off.

  ‘I’ll be back and forth. An exterminator’s coming over too. Got a rat problem.’

  This was true, but the exterminator couldn’t fit me in until the following morning.

  ‘Yeah? Bummer. Did you put some poison down?’

  ‘With two dogs running around? Fuck no.’

  ‘Oh right, yeah. Get yourself a cat.’

  ‘Yeah, thought about it.’

  ‘A big mean tom. That’ll sort the little fuckers out.’

  There’s an idea, I thought. A big furry psychopath that will bite you on your skinny ass, like the cat in the movie Mousehunt.

  He nodded thoughtfully then gave me his used car salesman smile again. I trusted that smile about as much as I trusted the local mountain lions.

  ‘Weell, I won’t keep ya.’

  Beau sketched a salute, turned and shuffled along the porch towards the front yard. I watched him go and then walked into the TV room and looked out of the window. It took Beau a while to get there, but eventually he came around the side of the house, walked out of the gate and shuffled out of sight. Presumably, he’d parked his truck a few hundred yards up the drive, the sneaky old bastard. This presumption was confirmed when I heard him fire up the Plymouth’s V8, turn around, then chug towards the 270. When I was certain that he had left the ranch, I returned to the kitchen.

  ‘He’s gone,’ I said.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Lizzy’s muffled voice said from the pantry.

  ‘Yup. Watched him drive away.’

  The door opened and she appeared looking irritated and nervous. ‘We can’t keep doing this.’

  ‘I agree. However, I’m pretty sure that he’ll turn up tomorrow when I’m out.’

  Her irritation went up a notch. ‘Did he say so?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I made the mistake of telling him about the Massey.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘I also pretended that the exterminator is coming over tomorrow and that I’d be back and forth, but I doubt that will stop him from coming over.’

  Lizzy made an angry, frustrated noise.

  ‘We’re going to have to deal with him one day,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘I could stay behind, ask Cole or Eddie to take the Massey guy down.’

  ‘No, you go, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Keep the house locked while I’m out. If he does show up, don’t let him see you and stay away from the windows. Meeting Beau again is inevitable, but why make it easy for him? Anyway, we might get lucky. He’s old. Maybe he’ll give up if he keeps coming over and never sees you.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Lizzy touched my arm. ‘Thanks. I know how hard you’re trying to protect me. I feel very safe with you.’

  I wish it had been true.

  As expected, Beau did turn up and Lizzy told me that, judging from the pups’ incessant barking and growling
, he spent quite a while hovering around the house (and no doubt peering through the windows and trying the doors) before finally giving up and driving away.

  Because we hadn’t seen the entity since Lizzy moved in, we mistakenly thought that we were now safe. Beau appeared to be the only threat to our happiness, but if necessary that could be rectified. Cole and Eddie had instructions to ‘escort’ him from the property if he turned up again and the pups were growing fast and would eventually be an effective deterrent.

  We were wrong. We weren’t safe.

  Four days later, in the early hours of the morning, the sound of Lizzy screaming wrenched me from a deep sleep.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I threw off the covers, ran into Lizzy’s room and turned on the light, Mick and Keith arriving before me. At first, my mind refused to accept what I saw. It was too incredible. Surely, I was still asleep, gripped within a vivid nightmare. I’d realize it at any moment and wake up.

  An emaciated badly burnt corpse was lying on top of Lizzy, holding her down, its arms pinning hers to the bed, the smell of its charred rotting flesh filling the room, making me gag. What meat and skin remained hung loosely from the bone like old papier-mâché, it’s skull bald, eye sockets black empty holes, lips thin and drawn back from its teeth as if it was grinning. A grotesquely long tongue that looked like a strip of moldy leather protruded from its mouth, the tip caressing Lizzy’s cheek.

  The pups leaped onto the corpse, Mick clamping his jaw around its left arm, Keith burying his teeth into the thing’s neck and for a moment, I thought the horror was over and they would tear it apart. It screeched, a deafening inhuman sound that I felt as much as heard, reached behind its back with its right arm, grabbed Keith’s collar and threw him against the wall, the impact knocking him out instantly, Keith bouncing off the plaster, his body leaving a large dent. He fell onto the carpet like a rag doll and I realized that despite having no eyes, the corpse could somehow sense exactly where we were. The moment it released its grip on Keith’s collar, the corpse jabbed its fingers into Mick’s neck, orange-blue flame erupting from his skin, igniting his fur. Mick yelped and fell off the bed, writhing on the floor in an instinctive attempt to put out the flames, the air thick with the nauseating smell of burning fur and skin. I ran over to him and began beating the flames with my hands, cursing the sudden heat and pain as my own skin began to burn, the sound of Lizzy’s struggles tearing me in two, my heart torn between saving my dog and the woman I loved. I don’t know what instinct drove me to Mick first. Perhaps it was because, even at sixteen weeks old, I saw him as a protector, a trait that, despite his young age, he had demonstrated with impressive courage. Without him, I had one less guardian.