We Are Always Watching

by Hunter Shea

  Deep down, when he and Debi had decided moving back to the farmhouse was the last option, he’d hoped the Guardians had died of old age or moved on.

  Matt should have known better than to cling to hope. What was the point when it always let you down?

  He couldn’t let that cycle repeat itself.

  Even if it killed him.

  ***

  West didn’t stray far from the house, settling behind the diseased tree in the front yard where he would be able to see Grandpa Abraham when he came home. At the angle he’d situated himself, he was pretty sure his grandfather wouldn’t be able to spot him, as long as he parked that shambling wreck in the same spot. And he would. There were four deep depressions where the tires had settled into the earth.

  The tree’s onyx bark was jagged, stabbing his back in a dozen places. All he had to do was shift his back against the tree for the bark to crumble, flakes falling like devilish snow until it was relatively smooth.

  There wasn’t a chance in hell he would venture out back. He needed to be outside, but not out of sight of the house that was rapidly degenerating into a prison.

  Nor did he want to be in his room. The chest was a benign enough object, but the secret it had held came with its own psychic emanations. It tainted everything, and at least for now, he wanted nothing to do with it.

  So he’d blindly grabbed a book from his shelf. It was a poor choice – a Richard Laymon collectible edition about, of all things, a home invasion. He tried to read the first page but couldn’t go further.

  Who the hell were the Guardians? What would compel someone to harass a family for generations? It had to be something major. Crazy could only account for so much. Sooner or later, crazy either burned itself out or took one step too far.

  The Guardians had been patiently pestering Grandpa Abraham’s family forever, using creepy words to make them uneasy.

  Or had they taken that fatal step when Stella died?

  West’s arms were riddled with gooseflesh. He looked like a freshly plucked chicken.

  One thing was for sure. He had to find a weapon, something he could conceal and keep with him at all times, even in the house.

  They weren’t safe out here, where a person’s screams would never be heard.

  ***

  Grandpa Abraham didn’t get back until the late afternoon. He slowly pulled the sputtering Dodge right into the grooves. Hocking up a lungful of phlegm, he opened his door, stepping in the gelatinous goo. Weaving slightly, just like West’s father, he worked his way to the front door.

  West was pretty sure he could have been sitting in the middle of the road and the old man wouldn’t have seen him. Grandpa Abraham was crocked. He even left the keys in the ignition, the door wide open.

  It would be hours before West’s mother came home. She’d been looking more and more exhausted with each passing day. He wished more than ever that she worked closer. Her presence was sorely needed right now.

  Creeping up to the living room window, West spied his father sitting up in one of the loveseats, his cane across his lap.

  Grandpa Abraham stumbled into the doorway. Even his eyebrows were askew. West smelled the sharp tang of whiskey coming off the man as it curled through the window screen.

  He ducked under the window, lest he be seen. All he needed to do was listen.

  It didn’t take long for the fireworks to begin.

  ***

  “Hey there, Esasky. How’s the head?”

  Matt had made a pact with himself that he would address the notes West had found as calmly as possible. When he got upset, everything had a tendency to slide out from under his feet, cutting him short. He needed to see this through.

  The immediate insult set his teeth on edge.

  “I see you and your Post buddies still haven’t learned moderation,” he shot back.

  It didn’t faze his father in the least. The squat man settled into his favorite, filthy chair, grabbing the remote off the table and changing the movie Matt was watching to a cooking show.

  “You fight a war and tell me what the point of moderation is,” he said dismissively. “Look at the caboose on her. I’d eat whatever she cooked… and then some.”

  Matt was disgusted.

  How are we from the same gene pool?

  He flicked the notes onto his father’s lap. “Here. You might want to read those.”

  “What the hell are they, love letters?” he said, a deep laugh culling the sludge from his lungs, rattling his chest until he spit a yellow wad between the pages of yesterday’s newspaper.

  “Just read them.”

  Matt fingers tensed around the cane, his knuckles whitening.

  Stay calm. Don’t let him throw you off.

  His father dared to take his eyes off the pretty TV chef long enough to read the notes. A measure of sobriety seemed to wash over him. He narrowed his eyes at Matt.

  “Where did you find them?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Where the hell did you find them?”

  “The trunk in West’s room.”

  “That couldn’t be easy, seeing as how it’s locked.”

  “It’s old. Maybe the locks broke. That’s not the point. You knew about those Guardian notes, didn’t you?”

  He crumpled them in a ball, tucking it between his leg and the chair’s cushion.

  “First your fool son, and now you. I’ll tell you what I told him. You don’t need to worry about old Fuckhead. You hear me? You need to stop worrying like a couple of Marys. You know better than that. I ought to take the belt to that kid for snooping in locked places.”

  Matt’s blood went to an instant boil.

  “You touch him and it’ll be the last thing you do!”

  A sly smile crept onto the old man’s face. “You still have some of that fire. I’m just not sure you have the stability to back it up.”

  Matt’s brain sizzled. He pictured beating his father with the cane—whack, whack, whack— blow after blow on his thick skull until it turned the consistency of tapioca pudding, leaking reds and grays and yellows, forever ruining that horrid dumpster chair.

  “You got something else you want to say to me?”

  Oh no! Stop! Stop!

  The living room walls shifted, the floor moving back and forth like a funhouse walkway. Matt’s father split into two nasty drunks, both scowling at him.

  He closed his eyes, but it never did any good. It felt as if he were falling through dark matter, tumbling end over end.

  “I didn’t think so,” he heard his father grumble within the deepening pitch. Matt willed himself to stop falling while a woman droned on about making a tuna casserole.

  You can’t even do this right.

  He spun and spun, loathing every molecule that comprised his broken mind and body.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next two weeks were uneventful… at least in terms of the Guardians. After witnessing the confrontation between his father and Grandpa Abraham, West had made it a point to keep anything Guardian related to himself. As much as those notes, especially the one in Stella’s books, freaked him out, he rationalized that they were only words. Nothing physical had happened to any of them.

  Except, maybe, Stella. But that was a long time ago.

  The Guardians, if they were the same ones from back then, had to be old by now. And old people didn’t run around killing people. Well, except for those news stories where some eighty year old who’d had enough of his or her spouse offed them over tea and toast one morning.

  The truth was, it had frightened him, seeing his father wither like that. He’d been tempted to run into the room and defend his hobbled father. One look at his grandfather’s cold eyes told him it would only make things worse.

  And above all, he didn’t want his father to know he’d seen everything. He may not have been the man and father he was before the accident, but he still had pride. When life stripped you of everything, pride was usually the last to go.


  West had moved the trunk into the closet so he couldn’t see it. It seemed babyish and a little ridiculous, but so what? He had to sleep in the damn room. It wasn’t like living in Grandpa Abraham’s moldy house of horrors was the seat of comfort and relaxation. If getting that chest out of his sightline made him feel even one iota better, so be it. He was just glad that his grandfather never spoke of the chest or the contents West had unearthed.

  The night sounds of the house still bothered him. It’s an old house with unsettled bones, Grandpa Abraham had told him one day when he said it sounded like someone had been walking around the downstairs hall all night. West hadn’t been able to muster the courage to investigate for himself. What if he came face to face with one of the Guardians? What would happen then?

  There was the other possibility – that his grandmother or aunt’s ghost was still there, pacing the halls, letting them know they were still around. Maybe if Anthony had been here, they could have checked it out together. But alone? No freaking way.

  So West did what he knew best. He downloaded a recording program on his mother’s laptop and asked if he could keep it running after they went to bed. She didn’t object. Things between her and his father had been chilly. It was sadly the one thing that made it seem like they were back home. She was just as nervous living in a place watched over by some weirdo as he was, though she, like the rest of them, hadn’t said a word about it lately. He could have asked for a pet ostrich and she would have said yes. Anything to take his mind off their living situation.

  But he had no need for an ostrich… or any pet for that matter. Except a tarantula. That would be one fucking awesome pet.

  All he wanted was a night to record the audio of the house, the ‘settling’ of the wood heated by day and cooled by night.

  When he played it back, he heard a lot of pops and creaks, wood groaning as if weary with sleep.

  And then there was the scream.

  He hadn’t heard it while he slept.

  It had happened, all right. Just after two in the morning. One short-lived shout. He couldn’t tell what was behind it. Frustration, fear, pain, mourning? It sounded as if it came from within the house and at the same time somewhere distant.

  He let his parents listen to it.

  “Could be an owl, or a deer,” his father said, handing the headphones back to him. “Believe it or not, deer can make some strange noises. They almost sound human, especially when they’re spooked or hurt. I wouldn’t put it past someone taking an off-season shot at one, wounding it, and then being too lazy to track it down and finish the job.”

  His mother listened, pressing the headphones tight against the sides of her head.

  “Play it again,” she said.

  He did, four more times to be exact.

  “Creepy. It probably is an animal. If it was a person, they’d have to scream really loud to be heard out here.”

  “Yeah, I bet that’s it,” West said, shutting the laptop down. “I could check YouTube for any deer recordings and stuff like that, try to compare it.”

  “Or it could be that ghost your grandfather warned us about,” his father said.

  “Really? Cut the crap, Matt.”

  His mother shook her head, turning away from him as she went back to cleaning the dishes.

  “That’s all right, Mom. I wouldn’t care if it was,” West said, keeping the fallacy alive that he’d love to live in a haunted house.

  Deep down, he knew it wasn’t a ghost. There was a weight to the scream, something organic about it. Which made his father’s animal explanation all the more plausible. He wasn’t sure whether that was a disappointment or not.

  “Remember, we’re going to that big outdoor flea market after lunch,” his mother said. “A woman I ride the bus with said it has everything. There’s even a used bookseller. I’ll give you ten bucks so you can stock up. That’ll probably buy you fifteen or more books.”

  “Thanks. That sounds cool.” He knew the horror pickings would be slim, but he was willing to branch out to thrillers or even a mystery or two. Maybe they would give him some pointers how to solve the Ridley farm’s conundrum.

  “You have your watch with you?” his father asked when he was mid-way out the door.

  He flashed his wrist. The old Timex with the cracked black leather band had been his father’s, back when he needed to keep track of time.

  “Good. Make sure you’re back by noon. You know how your mother gets if she has to wait.”

  It had been meant as a joke, but West saw that his mother wasn’t in on it. She shot a dagger at his father before tromping from the kitchen.

  Grandpa Abraham sat by the weathered picnic table, smoking a cigarette. It was the first time West had seen him smoke. The cigarette just looked right, dangling from the side of his wizened mouth.

  “Where you off to?” he said.

  “Just gonna walk around.”

  The old man grinned, the cigarette tipping up towards his eye. “Sneaking off to see that girl?”

  West went on the defensive. “I’m not sneaking.”

  Wait, how does he know about Faith? He’d never told anyone about her.

  “I see where you go.” He gestured over his shoulder, to the path that led to Faith’s private place. “Think I don’t know what’s over there? She’s a pretty one.”

  West’s stomach fluttered. Did Grandpa Abraham skulk around like the Guardians, watching him?

  There hadn’t been much to see the past few days. Faith told him she was going to visit her aunt in West Virginia for a week. Today would be her first day back. He wasn’t ashamed to admit he was anxious to see her again.

  “Have you been following me?” West asked.

  His grandfather burst out laughing, degenerating into a hacking cough, the cigarette falling to the floor. “I was just taking a stab at it. You crack like a soft egg, short stuff.” Plucking the coffin nail from the grass, he added, “I got no need to spy on young lovers.”

  West’s skin felt as if it was consumed by a flash fire. “We’re not lovers.”

  “No, I suspect you aren’t. But I am happy to see you’re not… you know.” He let his hands hang limply in front of him.

  “Why would that matter?”

  West had gone to a couple of meetings for the Gay-Straight Alliance club in his school to support his friend Mario who had come out to his parents when he was twelve. They took it very well. In fact, they hadn’t seemed surprised at all. Not many of Mario’s friends or family were.

  People like Grandpa Abraham were dinosaurs, banner wavers for a dying mindset.

  “Oh, it matters,” he said, shifting on the bench so he turned away from West.

  Guess I’m dismissed. Good.

  West stormed around the table and Grandpa Abraham.

  “Just be careful, little man. The good looking ones are always trouble.”

  “Good talk, Grandpa,” he said, not holding back his disdain for the words of advice. Nor did he look back to see if his sarcasm hit home. The way forward was sanity.

  ***

  He heard Faith crying before he saw her.

  She was sitting cross-legged, shoulders heaving, her face in her hands. Her golden hair hung around her like a curtain drawn to afford her privacy. West stopped short of emerging from the high grass.

  What should he do? He was no expert when it came to weeping girls. Jesus, he was the furthest thing from it.

  Should he wait her out? Would she be mad if he saw her like this?

  He’d waited a week to see her. He didn’t want to start things off by getting her even more upset.

  He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until his lungs cramped.

  “You can come out,” she said, wiping the tears from her cheeks with her knuckles.

  “I… I’m sorry,” he said, stepping into the clearing.

  “For what?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes so red they looked painful. A line of clear snot dripped from one nostril. N
ormally, it would be gross to look at, but on Faith, it seemed just short of adorable.

  Oh, you’ve got it bad.

  Yeah, and so what?

  He didn’t exactly know what he was sorry for. He let her question hang there. Daring himself, he settled beside her, draping an arm over her shoulder. It’s what you were supposed to do, right?

  I hope she doesn’t think I’m taking advantage and hitting on her.

  At first, he was as tense as a suspension line, waiting to see how she’d react.

  He practically swooned when she leaned into him, nuzzling her face into his chest. West brought his other arm around her, feeling her every stuttering breath.

  “What happened?”

  Faith’s sobs settled down some.

  “When my mother and I came home last night, my father was waiting for us on the porch. I’d never seen him so mad.”

  As much as West wanted to be the good guy, he couldn’t stop himself from taking a deep whiff of her hair, scents of coconut and peaches lingering in his brain. He relished every second she was in his arms, in spite of the circumstance.

  “How could he be mad at you? You were away all week. Did everything go all right with summer school?”

  “No. I didn’t pass. I… I thought I did good on the last test. Turns out, I bombed. Now I have to take earth science and chemistry next year. I’m not even supposed to be out of the house. I’m grounded for the rest of the summer.”

  West’s heart sunk.

  “But that’s a month from now!”

  “I know.” Fresh tears spilled from her eyes. Her fists pounded the ground. “I tried. I really tried. I don’t know why I keep drawing blanks when I take the tests. It’s not like I failed on purpose.”

  “I passed earth science this year. Maybe I could tutor you.”

  Faith collapsed within herself. “I can’t even tell him I met you, much less have you over to tutor me. That would mean I left the house when I wasn’t supposed to.”