by Matthew Tait
Alyssa appeared bewildered until she saw him staring at the bulge in her jeans. ‘You want a cigarette?’
‘If that’s okay. My girlfriend wouldn’t approve, but she’s not here, is she? Also, my nerves are beyond frayed.’
The young altar boy hooked up with a girlfriend. Another one hard to envisage.
‘What’s her name?’ Alyssa asked, grinning. Proffering her pack toward Jason, she thumbed out a smoke.
‘My girlfriend?’ Uncertainly, Jason stepped forward and plucked the offering. ‘Kristen. Kristin Cantrell. She lives in East Greenwich, with her parents. When we get married, I’m going to move in with her there. She … doesn’t like it here. She doesn’t approve.’
Alyssa held out a wick of flame. ‘You’re going to live with her parents?’
‘Yes. Well, sort of. They would live in a secondary unit out back.’
And just what does Kristen think of your adventure here tonight? Carolina thought but did not ask. Instead she said, ‘Why doesn’t she approve of Cranston?’
Jason inhaled his smoke, then coughed it out and grimaced. After a protracted silence staring at the thin cylinder distastefully, he said, ‘This school, mainly. She says I should have moved away from Cranston as soon as I graduated. She says living so close to where so many people have died is morbid. I guess I would have to agree with her.’
Like a bullhorn’s song, Jeff’s voice cut through the chat. He had not uttered a word since the cleaners’ closet. ‘And why is that, do you think? Why have we all chosen to stay? From what Dillion here has told me, none of us live further than a twenty-minute drive. This, despite everything we’ve been through. This, despite everything we know.’
Always skulking, Dillion had crept up on them yet again. ‘I think …’ he began, clearing his throat for the camera alone. ‘I think I have another theory there. Is it that the place still has a hold on all of you, all these years later? Is it that you’re afraid the ghosts will follow you, wherever you go? Is it that you’ve been waiting around for some kind of closure –’
‘Oh, please,’ Carolina said. ‘Spare me. I stayed in Cranston because I don’t have a goddamn choice. I stayed because I’m living in a public housing estate and can’t afford to move. I came on a bus, remember? There’s nothing mystical about all four of us still living here.’
‘Careful,’ Alyssa said, and tipped Carolina a sly wink. ‘You’ll spoil his fun.’
‘No, he has a point,’ Jason said, still hypnotized by the glowing ember perched between his joints. ‘I don’t know about you guys but there’s a part of me – a part that never switches off or seems to sleep – that’s still getting up every morning and going to school here. The smell of the church, the sound of car doors slamming as parents drop off their kids – all those things are still so fresh it’s like drying paint. When Mr. Cook – when Dillion came to me with his offer, part of me jumped at the chance. I wanted to come back. My pastor says you can’t move on from a relationship until you confront and experience all of the ugly emotions that go with it, not hide from them. And I’ve had a relationship with Providence Place for a long as I can remember. Dillion calls it a returning … I prefer to think of it as confronting.’
Engrossed in the spiel, Carolina remained unaware of the newcomer in their midst. Not until it was too late. If she’d been on her usual guard, listening intently, she may have heard the dog’s furtive movements or sensed its presence before it reached them.
Instead the mongrel waltzed into their circle almost lazily … a Doberman patterned with filth and dripping saliva from its maw, a feral thing that called Providence Place its home.
‘Don’t run,’ Carolina whispered. ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t anybody run.’
Although the bodiless creature in the locker had remained unknown, its anatomy debatable, there could be little doubt what confronted them now.
A dog.
Emaciated by considerable malnutrition, it padded toward them with stealth. Deep in its throat, barely audible, Carolina detected a growl.
From her left came a clicking sound, something sliding into place.
Alyssa said, ‘Jesus Christ, Jeff – you brought a fucking gun?’
Jeff didn’t reply, merely kept his eyes and pistol trained on the animal.
Dillion said, ‘No, Jeff. Don’t shoot the poor thing. It’s probably scared as hell.’
‘Does it look scared?’ Jeff asked.
The dog let out a shrill bark, shifting its gaze from one individual to the next.
‘Everyone lower your lights,’ Alyssa said.
They did so, unconsciously taking small steps back as the animal came closer. Only ten feet away now, give or take. From this distance, Carolina could discern one eye completely covered in milky cataract. The other, black as oil, had now focused on Jeff, its ability to perceive a threat intact.
If all of us decide to bolt, it will zero in on one of us and succeed in taking them down. If Jeff shoots it, we run the risk of somebody nearby calling the cops …
Would that be the outcome here? Thus far, their journey stepping into Providence Place had the distinct feeling of being removed from the outside world. As far as Carolina knew, the real estate bordering the school was made up of featureless parklands with only a meager smattering of houses surrounding them. At least, that was how she remembered it … and all she had seen on her walk from the bus stop earlier. If nearby residents did exist, they were more than likely to ignore anything coming from the direction of the school – especially anything reeking of violence. This was something pertinent that occurred during the place’s heyday, teachers and students turning a blind-eye or even deigning to cover up anything they couldn’t rationally explain.
‘Here, boy,’ Dillion said. Though still backtracking, he had somehow managed to liberate some snacks from inside his backpack. Fumbling with different packets, he struggled to remove their contents.
And the dog moved in.
Turning around, Carolina broke into sprint, but her effort was cut short as Jeff’s pistol uttered two short, round barks eclipsing the dog’s own. Loathe to witness the carnage, Carolina could only stare at the cement, cradling her torch within a fold of tummy fat and breathing in long, heaving gulps. To her right, Dillion’s bag slapped the concrete, its innards ejected. Also spilling out: a fusillade of harsh words aimed at the shooter, assurances Dillion would have soon won the moment.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jeff muttered. Finally finding the impetus to turn around, Carolina saw him standing limply by the creature’s side. Being so close, the bullet had found its prize easily, tearing a sizeable chunk of matter from one side of its throat. Blood spouted from the ragged womb. Scooting closer, Carolina saw the ebbing wave of its stomach, its lungs still clinging to a fragile life.
‘You killed it,’ she muttered, as if giving authorship to the narrative would somehow make it more substantive, more real. ‘You just … popped it. Didn’t think to shout at it? Didn’t even try to scare it off?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ he said, and covered the remaining distance until he was kneeling beside one jittering paw. ‘And I’ll tell you why. Someone, please give me some light here.’
Too tired to object, Carolina watched in addled fascination as Jeff reached down and began to reposition the thing’s head. By now, its midsection had ceased its undulations, while its legs no longer attempted the mimicry of a gallop. Even the blood flow seemed to have abated. As Jason’s torch found Jeff’s hands, Carolina recoiled. While the eyes had been mostly unobservable from a distance, Carolina saw they had now sunk deep within their sockets, yielding inward with a cadaverous drooping only a corpse in the latter stages of rigor mortis could produce.
Alyssa said, ‘That can’t be possible. Can it?’
Things only became more puzzling when Jeff pulled back one drool-adorned tarp of its muzzle; a snout that even now continued to degenerate. Gums, black and glistening, were host to two rows of gangrenous teeth unlike any Carolina had ever seen. Like stumps of gre
y licorice she thought morbidly. Seeing them, Jeff quickly dropped the head, wiping his hands on the pockets of his coat.
‘What the fuck is it?’ Dillion asked. At some stage he’d produced his crowbar, and delicately pushed back what Jeff had closed. All of them jumped when a hot bubble of blood and air escaped.
‘I think it was a Doberman, once,’ said Jeff.
They stared at him, a wise old sage suddenly proficient in the mysteries of Providence Place.
‘Let me guess,’ Alyssa ventured. ‘The unseen world?’
He shook his head, bloodshot eyes within his dark sockets downcast. In the halogen wake of their torches, his countenance appeared spectral, as erudite as any old prophet. ‘Like Mr. Dillion here, I can only postulate. When it came at us, it’s like I saw something lurking underneath, a rippling along the side of its coat. For a split-second I thought it may be infected with something … then I noticed some of its ribs sticking out, though they weren’t sticking out from starvation. I could see them whole.’
As if in mock benediction to Jeff’s statement, the dog’s stomach made a series of digestion sounds, then its lower portion collapsed under a weight of pressure. More gas belched out.
‘So what are you saying?’ Jason asked incredulously. ‘That it’s some kind of a … ghost dog?’
Another shake of the head. Jeff was like a teacher at the scene of an autopsy. ‘Not that … not precisely, anyway. We all saw that thing in the locker.’
‘Go on,’ Dillion said. ‘Spill it. Tell us what you’re thinking.’
‘First, let’s all take a step back.’
No one asked why. The dog – what was left of it – had begun its last transcendent stages, liquefying under the duress of a process that would be deemed unnatural under any microscope. When it was done, the only evidence of its existence were voluminous teeth arrayed around a grey brooding sac of flesh.
Jeff said, ‘There were similar things years ago, I’m sure of it now. Stray cats and dogs who wandered in at night and never wandered back out, mostly during the holidays when it was vacant. I noticed them scampering around and trailing their strange second-selves. I remember ringing pest control a few times … now I wonder what the final result was when they piled them into the truck. Did those vets see the same thing I did? Like they were walking skeletons but not quite? I can’t say. Alyssa, you asked me before if this is a manifestation of the unseen world. Perhaps, in a certain way it is. Perhaps that’s exactly what it is.’
‘Great, so there’s probably more of them out here?’ said Alyssa. ‘Dillion, I’m starting to think this might be beyond my pay grade. If you want us all to hang around, that is.’
Absorbed in the task of filming the steaming carcass, Dillion ignored her, making more observations as he did so. At last, content with whatever he had, he turned around to face them. ‘We’re off schedule –’
‘We have a schedule?’ Carolina asked.
‘Not precisely, no, but we’re running late if we want to get to your story by midnight. Whatever’s out there, you all signed a legal document. No one leaves until filming is complete. That’s if you want to get the second lump payment, of course.’ He looked back at the carcass, licked his upper lip once. ‘Cheer up, people. This is hard stuff I have on film. The kind of thing that will put us all on the map.’
The art center was exactly as Carolina had anticipated: the kind of chaos reserved for a future dystopia. While the crux of the walls remained intact, the interior itself was a hodgepodge of deteriorating trash. Here all the contents of an art studio (easels, paints, and pottery) had been given a hellish afterlife as a ruined photographer’s dream. While the journey over and inspecting the bottom floors had been for the most part uneventful, scaling the stairs to the second story was proving a calamitous obstacle course of rotting machinery and shattered glass.
Carolina, her insides already famished, could feel her hunger reaching a boiling point. It didn’t help that she knew what Dillion carried inside his backpack besides a crowbar and other cameras. There were snacks like Pringles. And chocolate. She’d seen them topple out immediately after the dog had launched itself.
But I won’t give into asking for them, she thought.
I can’t. Not with Alyssa here.
Why the hell not? the voice of hunger spoke up. He brought them for that very reason. Also, why do you give a shit what that bitch thinks of you now?
About to plunge into further debate, her thoughts were put on hold as the group, now walking in single file up the stairs with Carolina taking up the rear, came to a stop. They’d done this a few times already, Dillion pausing as some kind of hurdle presented itself on the steps. Ahead, the glow of Jason’s flashlight bobbed like a singular eye.
Minutes passed with no instruction.
‘What is it?’ Alyssa called from somewhere in the middle.
‘We have to turn around,’ Dillion called back.
‘What? Why now? We’re almost to the top.’
No reply. For a while the only sound was their collective, exhausted breathing. Not answering was one thing, but for Dillion to propose turning around when their quarry was near meant that whatever was blocking their passage was shitty in the extreme.
‘Just … I think we have to turn around.’
Being fearful notwithstanding, that comment was enough to pique Carolina’s interest. Bad enough to just hightail it back? Her mind grasped what kind of horror lurked on the stairs.
‘Let me see,’ Alyssa said, obviously having the same thought.
Though Dillion tried to warn her away the closer she came, Alyssa wasn’t going to be denied. A small melee of augmenting broke out, but it was quickly stifled. Carolina waited, poised. After a while Jason began moving to join them, and Carolina, despite her trepidation, quickly followed.
Can’t be any worse than a mannequin full of rats, she thought, and felt a shiver course through her back. And whatever you do, don’t freak out this time – don’t jump up out of harm’s way like someone in a Bugs Bunny cartoon …
Three steps later and the dead girl hove into view. Though far from a skeleton, decomposition had set in long ago, transforming her overall visage into that of a mummified Egyptian. Skin – stretched like pelt – still clung to her face, a brown leather mask. Her fingernails were long, as was her hair, the most obvious sign of her sex. Her arms were splayed out, twin palms stretched toward the newcomers as though seeking their aid.
‘Oh, my God,’ Jason whispered. ‘She died trying to get through.’
This appeared to be correct. Wedged between a bulky table and some kind of printing press, the girl had been in the process of moving herself through a thin crevasse where the two monstrous items came together. Her midsection (sporting a still-intact fawn woolen jumper) was a mishmash of skin and fabric, scrapes and welts; the ideographic scars etched by the objects trapping her. The others, having parted to the side like a proverbial sea to accommodate Carolina, simply stared on in awestruck shock. Then Jason pulled out a cell phone from one of his pockets.
‘What are you doing?’ Dillion asked.
‘What do you think I’m doing? Calling the police.’
‘No, not yet. We have to think about this.’
‘What’s to think about? There’s a dead girl in front of us.’
Reaching out his hand, Dillion placed it on Jason’s wrist, effectively blocking his ability to dial. ‘And in all likelihood that was a crime scene back in the library. But we didn’t call the police then, and we aren’t going to now.’
Though their faces were dark silhouettes, Carolina had no trouble making out Jason’s horrified expression. ‘But she’s dead. That’s a dead body. She got trapped on the top floor and tried to get out … oh boy, she most likely died of starvation. That’s somebody’s daughter. We have to call the police.’
‘And we will,’ Dillion said. ‘I promise you, we will. Once filming is completed. She’s been here for years, Jason. She isn’t going anywhere now.’
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br /> Bringing her flashlight back up, Carolina shone it directly into the cadaver’s mouth – a dark hollow filled with stalactite teeth. Tooth bacteria causing dental decay doesn’t survive in a dead body, she thought crazily, a long dormant science lecture surfacing with brutal clarity. After a person’s death the teeth become one of the most durable parts of the body …
‘She was screaming,’ Alyssa said, her voice sounding sick and resigned. ‘She died screaming. That’s why her mouth is opened so wide.’
As they watched, Dillion began filming her – first slowly, then zeroing in on her face … then finally gliding over her body with the same dexterity he’d shown shooting everything else. Despite Carolina’s revulsion in the act, there was an undeniable fasciation watching him at work.
‘No goddamn decency at all,’ Jason muttered, and they all looked at him, including Dillion, who stopped his labor completely. Although Jason had appeared distraught many times – particularly during his tale – Carolina had assumed the man incapable of properly cursing. There’s one good thing about this, she thought. I’ve lost my fucking appetite.
Dillion said, ‘Perhaps if we move some of the debris, climb over her –’
‘No freaking way, Dillion,’ Alyssa said. ‘You’ve had your fun. This is a dead end. Time we got moving again.’
By way of reply, Dillion gave a forlorn sigh. For a while he stood his ground, camera lowered, then nodded in acquiescence. This close, Carolina thought she caught her first whiff of the cadaver … an emission like moth-balls and rotting banana peels, of dead flowers and time.
It’s my first dead body. That’s why I can’t look away.
And as Carolina made the first move to leave, turning her back and illuminating the staircase once more, some fundamental voice insisted it wouldn’t her last.
It was with a stoic kind of resolve the group mounted the steps to what had, during the reign of Carolina’s years, been officially branded the Heartwood Swim Center. Eight lanes with a year-round temperature of 78 degrees. Or so it had liked to boast. Occasionally opened to the general public on weekends, the center had claimed the crowning jewel of the school’s annual budget. While the arts often suffered (as they did in most metropolitan schools), each successive principal only had to point out the level of achievement Providence Place had when it came to athletics.
