We Are Always Watching

by Hunter Shea

  “You could tell your parents I’m one of the kids from your summer school class.”

  His mind whirred with possibilities. He’d try anything, so long as she didn’t end up locked in the proverbial tower for the rest of the summer. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be crying next.

  “Thank you, West, but there’s really nothing I can do. Not now, anyway. I came out here to tell you goodbye. I guess I’ll see you when school starts.”

  One of the silver linings was when he learned they’d be attending the same public school in the fall. A week without Faith had been hard. A month would kill him.

  She stood up, swiping grass from her denim shorts. West jumped to his feet. He wanted to grab her hand, lock her in a bear hug, sling her over his shoulder and carry her to someplace where angry parents could never find them.

  This can’t be happening.

  Biting her top lip, Faith sniffled. “I’m the one who’s sorry, West.”

  She took a quick breath, and pulled him close. Her lips, so soft and salty with her tears, pressed against his. West didn’t even have the time or sense to close his eyes. He stared at this impossibly beautiful girl kissing him, his first real kiss.

  Faith pulled away both too soon and an eon later. She’d done something to him, robbed him of his mass, or suspended the laws of gravity. He felt as if he’d simply float away.

  “I really like you, West. You’re nice, for a city boy.”

  Before he could babble all of the things he felt for her, and he knew it would come out a clumsy mess, she ran into the cornfield.

  And just like that, she was gone.

  ***

  Debi had been looking forward to the flea market. They used to have one in her town in upstate Connecticut back when she was a kid. Her mother would take her there every week. They’d load up on socks and underwear, kitchen gadgets and spices, cards and toys when birthdays rolled around. There were stands that sold sausage and peppers, the sweet aroma never failing to make her stomach rumble. Her mother always treated her to fried dough, powdered sugar piled on so thick, it became a paste when it mixed with the oily epidermis of the dough.

  More importantly, she needed time with West. Thanks to her insane commute and work schedule, she barely saw him. She could tell he was feeling the strain of living out here. How could he not? With no one to hang out with and all the bizarre Guardian crap, she worried about his mental state. The moment she left for work before the ass crack of dawn, he was trapped here. She may as well have thrown him in solitary.

  Matt couldn’t drive him to town, even to see a movie or grab a bite to eat.

  And there was no way in hell she would allow him to get in that truck with Abraham. If the man wasn’t soused, he was on his way to tie one on at the Post.

  Speaking of Abraham and the Guardians, she was beginning to suspect that West was right and they were one and the same. Abraham liked to control people, put them in their place, and assert his dominance. What better way than using fictitious Guardians to keep everyone around him afraid and looking to him for strength and courage?

  Debi had taken her share of psychology courses as she prepared for her teaching degree. To her, Abraham’s motivations and actions were as thin as onion skin paper. In truth, he was just a sad old man, clinging to a last shred of masculinity.

  But it was scaring West, no matter how stoic he tried to be, and it had to stop. A deep confrontation with her father-in-law was coming… soon. He’d been making himself scarce lately, even taking his meals at the Post. Funny how with his absence came the cessation of the Guardian notes. Coincidence?

  Debi massaged her temples, kicking the bathroom door open with her foot. The pipes rattled when she turned the faucets, the hot water slow to come.

  Giving it a few minutes, she stepped into the shower, piling liquid lotion onto a soft bath sponge.

  I have to take West to see Anthony next week. With or without Matt.

  It would be without. No sense kidding herself. If he’d been in a blue funk in New York, Pennsylvania had turned it black as tarpaper. Guilt and self-pity were eating him away, and out here, she was just too damn tired to pull him out of it. He’d been taking more of the pills, which was why he’d been sleeping a lot. When she asked him about it, he swore he hadn’t. But he’d hidden his pill bottle so she couldn’t count them. She didn’t know whether to be angry or sad. She was so tired of being both, it left her numb most days.

  Work was no picnic either. Her lecherous old boss was making her life a living hell. She’d been looking for other jobs, even a way to get back into teaching, but there just wasn’t anything out there right now.

  She may hop on a bus every day, but she was just as trapped as West.

  “Maybe I should take some of Matt’s pills.” Her voice echoed around the tiled walls.

  Just for now, try to think about nothing. Clear you head, Deb. Enjoy the shower, at least until the hot water runs out.

  Soaping her chest and collarbone, she tilted her face into the spray. Steaming water sluiced between her breasts, cascading between her legs like a waterfall.

  For the briefest of moments, she touched herself there, felt the water trickle between her fingers.

  It had been so long.

  When was the last time Matt and I had spontaneous shower sex? Three years?

  She was about to turn around to soak her hair when a cool breeze wafted over the shower curtain. Her nipples hardened instantly. The bathroom door creaked.

  “Is that you Matt?”

  Just as suddenly as it had come, the breeze was gone, tamped down by the insistent steam of the shower.

  “Matt, are you okay?”

  When there was no answer, she pulled the curtain aside, careful to keep her body behind it. She wouldn’t put it past Abraham to just waltz right in, looking for a stool softener or nail clipper.

  The door was slightly open, but Matt wasn’t in there with her.

  “Thanks for not closing the door.”

  She washed her hair quickly. She couldn’t even get peace in the shower.

  Stepping out of the tub, Debi grabbed a towel for her hair, wrapping it around like a turban. Slipping another under her armpits, she went to shut the door.

  Her eyes caught something on the mirror.

  Someone had used their finger to write in the vaporous fog.

  WE ARE ALWAYS WATCHING

  Debi’s scream came roaring from the pit of her stomach, a primal jolt of terror that burned like battery acid.

  ***

  Matt jumped from bed when he heard Debi shouting. He ran to the bathroom, his shoulder banging off the hallway wall. The door was open. He almost slipped on the slick tile. Grabbing onto Debi was the only thing that kept him upright.

  She stared at the mirror, one shaking hand covering her mouth.

  “Matt, look!”

  He saw what had been written on the mirror. The escaping steam was slowly erasing the words, the menacing message fading like a departing apparition.

  “They’re in the house! Call the police!”

  “Stay in here and lock the door,” Matt said, shutting it tight, then remembering there were no locks on any of the doors. His father had forbidden them. If a door was closed, that meant don’t come in. Any infraction was cause to bring out the belt.

  Matt stumbled back to the bedroom, grabbing his sturdiest cane. If someone was still here, he needed some way to defend himself. No, forget defense. The cane was an offensive weapon. If he got the chance, he wasn’t going to wait to use it to fend off a blow. He meant to impart some serious pain to whoever had been in the bathroom with his wife.

  Barging back into the hall, he stopped to listen for the sounds of an intruder moving about the house. He could only hear Debi’s sobs.

  The edges of his vision danced a mad jitterbug.

  He could taste the spins coming on in the back of his throat, like the metallic foreshadowing of an approaching storm.

  No! Nonononononononono! Not n
ow! You can’t do this to me now!

  He shouted, “Where are you? Come out, you piece of shit!”

  “Matt!”

  “Stay in there, Debi.”

  The house was utterly silent. In this old place, the pattering of a mouse would cause a ruckus. Either the pervert who had written on the mirror had fled, or he was waiting in some dark corner, not daring to even take a deep breath.

  The rage buzzing through Matt surprised even him. He wanted this bastard more than a return to his normal life.

  Just give me a chance to smash you until there’s nothing left. You want to creep into the bathroom while my wife is in the shower? I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll kill you and your family if I find them.

  With the surge of adrenaline came a bright flash of pain. Even when he shut his eyes, he saw flickering bolts, each static burst unseating his balance just a little bit more until he fell to his knees.

  The phone. Get to the phone. Call the police.

  When Matt opened his eyes, the hallway expanded and contracted, tilting at odd angles. He had to fight through it somehow. Find the phone. Just find the damn phone.

  Using the cane as a paddle like an inebriated gondola driver, he pulled himself across the hardwood floor. The living room was just a few feet away. The corded phone was right there on the little table beside the TV.

  His breath came in ragged gasps. His fingers were ice cold. Torn between helplessness and blind fury, he’d never been so disoriented.

  “Matt? Matt? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m calling the cops.”

  He saw the phone. Or actually, two of them. There was two of everything.

  Go for the one on the right.

  Whenever his vision split like this, he always went for the right. He was never sure why and his doctors had no answers. Maybe he was right brained. Or was that just human nature – your right hand man, stand up for what is right, the right hand of God. Didn’t the angel stand on your right shoulder, the devil your left?

  His hand lashed out, fingers closing on empty space.

  A door slammed. There were footsteps. Matt lifted the cane as if it were a baseball bat. He would swing it as hard as he could. Right or left, he was bound to hit whoever had invaded the house.

  His heart beat wildly, the organ seeming to have traveled up his throat, kicking his Adam’s apple. If he had even the slightest drop of spittle, he was sure he’d choke to death on it.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  His father tramped into the room, fists clenched.

  “It’s them,” Matt said. He knew he looked pathetic, on his knees, cane raised like he was waiting for a 2 and 1 pitch. “The Guardians. They’re in the house! They were just in the bathroom with Debi.”

  “What?”

  Before Matt could open his mouth, his father was off and running. He charged through the house with all the grace of a bear wearing tap shoes, knocking things over, throwing doors open, clomping up the stairs.

  Matt fought to regain control.

  The phone. He still had to get the phone.

  “Matt, who’s in the house?” Debi shouted through the thick door.

  “It’s just my father. Are you all right?”

  What he wanted to ask was, are you alone? It was ridiculous. Now that she was out of the shower and his father was checking every room, there was no place left for the Guardians to hide.

  If they’re flesh and blood.

  It was ridiculous, but when he was a kid, he used to wonder if the Guardians were actually spirits, more tricksters than guardian angels. How else could they enter their lives soundlessly, leaving trails of breadcrumbs that led nowhere?

  Get to the damn phone, Matt!

  This was a humdinger of the old spin cycle. His quivering eyes managed to lock on the phone, then watched it turn round and round, speeding away down a long, tapering tunnel.

  I know you’re right there. You’re not moving. Just my brain. All I need to do is move a little closer.

  The cane slipped from his hand, clattering on the floor. Matt’s face dipped hard, his nose crunching. He sucked in a great, slurping breath, the pain stabbing between his eyes, years of dust capering into his lungs. He went into an immediate coughing fit, the pressure shifting the cartilage of his broken nose, the tang of old pennies sluicing down his throat.

  A thick veil of tears clouded his wavering double vision. On the other side of the watery curtain were vague shapes resembling nothing he’d ever seen.

  Matt lashed out, this time grabbing hold of something tangible – cold, plastic – a small victory!

  He pulled until the whole phone dropped next to him on the gritty floor.

  I’m gonna throw up.

  Swallowing hard, tamping the bile down, his jittery fingers danced over the tiny squares, searching for where he knew the 9 button to be.

  Just three numbers. You can do it. Hell, two of them are in the same spot.

  It was impossible to take a breath through his nose. Debi was saying something, but he couldn’t answer her and dial the phone at the same time.

  He pressed what he hoped was 9, the tiny chime sounding as if to say, well, you definitely hit something, Mr. Esasky. Was it 9? Your guess is as good as mine. I only make the little noises.

  Tracing his finger to the top of the number pads, he moved three buttons to the left.

  The phone was ripped away from him.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He hadn’t even detected his father coming back down the stairs. The pain and spinning were so bad, he felt as if his senses had been completely obliterated. If this kept up much longer, he worried he’d completely short circuit.

  “I… I have to call the police,” he chuffed, the words sounding so alien, his broken nose snuffing his consonants.

  “Like hell you do.”

  A pair of hands, the rough mitts of his crazed father, shoved under his armpits, lifting him onto the couch.

  Three, four, five Abrahams leaned close to him. Matt could smell the sour milk stench of his morning breath.

  “You do that and we’re all done for.”

  Chapter Twelve

  West came home to bedlam.

  He’d been in a deep funk. The thought of not seeing Faith again had left him numb, in a state that scuttled below depression, a sub-level of hopelessness.

  The leaden feeling that rode on his shoulders, deep in the pit of his soul, vanished the second he walked in the door.

  He came in just as his mother, wrapped in a towel, burst from the bathroom. She’d been crying, her wet hair sticking like spaghetti to her beaded back.

  He followed her into the living room where his father was on the couch, bleeding profusely from his nose. Grandpa Abraham was leaning close to him, as if he were telling him a secret.

  What the hell?

  “Matt, oh my God, what happened?”

  As his mother leaned down to inspect his father’s nose, West noticed the cinch at her robe loosen. He quickly turned away. God knows he didn’t need to see that!

  “He fell and busted his nose pretty good,” Grandpa Abraham said. “He’ll be all right. I’ve broken my nose twice. It doesn’t get prettier but it’ll work just fine.”

  “Did you find anyone?” his mother asked, looking like a mouse that had just missed being scooped up by an alley cat.

  Grandpa Abraham replied, “No. The place is empty.”

  “What place?” West asked.

  “Nothing for you to worry about, short stuff.” His grandfather left to go upstairs.

  “Dad, what happened?”

  His father kept swallowing – gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp – like a hamster drawing in tiny drops from a water bottle. There was so much blood.

  He’s trying not to puke. West knew that frenetic swallow well.

  “West, honey, can you please get me a towel? I have to clean your father up.”

  “Yeah, right!” West darted to the bathroom, g
rabbing a fresh hand towel from the stack in the small linen closet. It went from yellow to red in an instant as his mother gingerly dabbed at the blood running onto his father’s chest. A translucent blood bubble blew out from his lips when he exhaled sharply, his mother brushing the bridge of his crooked nose.

  When it popped, West’s stomach clinched. He surrounded himself with stories and images soaked with blood – make believe blood – but this he couldn’t handle.

  Grandpa Abraham came back down with his keys jingling around a finger. “I’ll take him to the hospital.”

  “I can take him,” his mother said.

  “It’s better I do it. I know everyone. Spent too much time there with my Violet towards the end.”

  “Let me get changed. We’re all going. West and I aren’t staying here alone. West, can you finish up while I get some clothes on?” She held the bloody hand towel out to him.

  West wanted to shout no way am I touching that! He’d done a lot to help out his father the past couple of years, getting intimate with the contents of his stomach more than he’d ever want to.

  But this was different.

  He hesitated. His mother shook the towel at him. “Come on. We have to get him to the hospital.”

  West found an unstained corner of the towel and pinched his thumb and forefinger around it. His mother dashed off.

  “Thanks, bud,” his father said, taking the towel and pressing it to his nostrils. “I’ll hold back the tide.”

  He tried to smile, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

  “Your nose looks like a lightning bolt,” West said, focusing on the jagged point of the break. A few inches higher and he could be Harry Potter.

  “Then it looks a lot better than it feels.”

  Minutes later, they were in Grandpa Abraham’s truck, jouncing over the rutted road to the hospital. His parents said very little on the ride, but West knew there was more to everything than his father simply cracking his nose. He felt it the way he sensed them watching over him when they thought he was asleep at night when he was younger. He’d perfected the art of fake sleep, waiting his parents out so he could read comics or magazines.