The Keeper

by Barr, Clifford

  There were log splitting competitions, monster truck rallies, and the occasional demolition derby. Tonight the main stage was occupied by the tractor pull. Jolie planned on going to watch it as soon as she was done, proving her boyfriend wrong.

  Jolie picked up the pellet gun and pointed it at the spot where the targets would be.

  The tractor pull started in the distance.

  With a bang, the wooden cutout of ducks raced around her vision. Jolie pointed at each of them.

  Ping.

  Ping.

  Ping.

  “New highest score,” the attendant said, looking at all the hit ducks. “Pick your prize, miss.”

  Jolie looked all the stuffed animals over. Even though the attendant was on a small incline, she still stood higher than him. She stood higher than most people in Greendale, but that was fine. She had grown used to it long ago. She reached up and picked a giant lizard, red with blue spikes coming out of its back. It was about the size of a dog, and Jolie wondered how distraught the attendant might be that his biggest stuffed animal would now be gone from view, and he’d have less leverage to bring in more customers.

  “There’s no way that that’s fitting in the car.”

  Her boyfriend, Matt, sat behind her, looking up at her and her new lizard.

  “Maybe he can sit in your lap,” she said. “With all the space you’re taking up, I think it would be rightly fair.”

  He was bundled up in a thick and heavy flannel, but he was still shaking slightly. Lack of muscle mass made the boy quick to freeze on a night like this, even if it was only barely in the fifties. He brought his hands down and wheeled over to her. He looked at the lizard.

  “What is its name?”

  “Clarke,” Jolie said.

  In the distance, another tractor was preparing for the tractor pull, the whole Washington County State Fair grew loud with the sound of engines and people screaming.

  “You should try it,” Jolie said, nodding over to the shooting range. “Give Clarke a friend.”

  “I’m not tall enough,” he said.

  “How ’bout you climb onto my back,” Jolie said. “Like Yoda in Empire Strikes Back.”

  At sixteen, Matt was only five feet tall, a full foot and a half shorter than Jolie herself. That was only when he stood up, though, something that Matt hadn’t been able to ever do. But when you added the wheelchair to it, that made everything else harder. Jolie had to bend down whenever she wanted to talk to him.

  “Are you two lovebirds done?”

  Both of them turned.

  Danni and Peter walked over. They’d been to the fair many times over the years. This time could be the last, or it might not. Being an upcoming senior in high school had a way of making the future uncertain. Danni spit out a toothpick and looked at the two of them.

  “I wanna hit the road before this tractor pull is done,” Danni said. “Try and get out of here before the roads get backed up.”

  “You didn’t have to drive,” Matt said.

  In truth, they didn’t. Jolie herself only lived about two miles from the fairgrounds, and Peter and Danni even less. They were farm folk, and walking was how people got around. They had taken the car for one reason, and Matt didn’t like it.

  “Here then,” Jolie said, handing the giant lizard to Danni.

  Before Matt could protest, she picked him up and slung him around her back.

  “People are going to watch,” Matt said.

  “Yeah, most definitely,” Danni said. “If you want, Pete and I can cause a distraction. A loud one at that . . . with lots of moans—”

  “Okay, enough,” Pete said, but Jolie could see the edge of a smile on the boy’s face. He had smiled with Danni a lot lately.

  Matt was a small thing, and his legs were paper thin and weak. They hung over her sides. Even though he couldn’t feel them, she looped her arms around them and brought him over to the shooting range.

  The attendant looked at them but kept his mouth shut.

  “Yeah, we know it’s weird,” Jolie said. “But he’s going to go for it.”

  “I don’t have a choice,” Matt said.

  “Very well,” the attendant said, handing over the BB gun. “I’m assuming you’ll pay after you set your boyfriend down.”

  “Yes,” Jolie said.

  “Well, if he’s as good of a shot as you, then I’ll have no more toys to give out.”

  “Oh, rest assured,” Matt said, grabbing the gun. “I’m as good of a shooter as I am a marathon runner.”

  The attendant walked over to the switch.

  The wooden ducks moved in their tracks. Jolie thought about helping Matt but had no idea how.

  Ping.

  Ping.

  The ducks fell regardless. Jolie felt Matt’s heart thump harder on her back.

  “Nice,” Danni said.

  A small group formed behind them. A mirror reflected behind the duck tracks, and people all walked past, and then saw Matt and instantly stopped. Matt didn’t notice them and kept hitting the ducks.

  He had one more duck to go.

  The pellet gun fell to the grass beneath them. Warm liquid washed over Jolie’s shoulder.

  “Matt.”

  He slid down her back.

  “I got him, I got him,” Pete said, helping her hold Matt. They brought him back over to his chair.

  Blood came out of his mouth and his nose. He looked up at Jolie.

  Red, warm blood stained her clothes. She took off her jacket and used it to wipe up his face.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so—” he said, red drool falling from his lips.

  “It is okay,” she said, wiping off his face. People looked now.

  Jolie turned. Danni was handing a fifty-dollar bill to the attendant, who brought over a green lizard that looked to be the same size as Clarke. Danni took it and handed the pellet gun back to the attendant.

  She walked over to them.

  “We should go,” she said, her voice sounding serious for one of the few times that she ever spoke in such a way.

  “Yeah,” Jolie said. She walked around and grabbed the bars of the wheelchair.

  Matt could see all the people around them. Jolie could feel the wetness and warmth of his blood starting to sink into her bra. She moved with him out of the fair and back to the parking lot.

  In the distance, the tractor pull grew louder again. Jolie didn’t feel bad about missing it this year.

  ****

  Danni hit herself in the face once more.

  Jolie thought about stopping her. She had stopped her all of the other times, ever since Becca escaped. Since then, all four of them (or rather, three, since Danni was useless at the moment) had looked for little Becca everywhere.

  But she’s gone, Jolie thought, watching Danni hit herself in the face one more time.

  Her face regrew in quick order, yellow light radiating under her skin, and she would just bring her fist back up to it again, this time with enough force to bend steel itself.

  Jolie turned around and looked at Matt.

  The man was levitating next to her, looking over the bodies.

  The McCarthys were slowly being covered with snow. The wreckage of their vehicles was also buried under the snow. Robbie’s body had died before they could get his NaU. They had recovered Carol’s body before the NaU went to someone else. Unfortunately, that meant that only one person amongst them could have it.

  Matt’s skin had paled since then, and he looked sick. He might be the strongest out of them, but a person having more than one NaU did things to their body and mind that Jolie could only imagine. Or rather, she didn’t even need to imagine. She could just watch Danni more, the red and yellow lights under her skin seeming to conflict with one another.

  When Doctor McCarthy activated his NaU, all four of them had been expecting it. Jolie had silently hoped that the doctor would for once get cold feet before doing something reckless and would leave his NaU dormant, and they would be
able to take it from someone else.

  Another person to die, Jolie thought. She stood up and walked over to Matt.

  The air around him crackled and glowed orange. He wasn’t able to keep it dormant like they all could, and perhaps he didn’t even want to. That was just the way Matt was.

  “We’ll find her,” Jolie said.

  Matt didn’t even turn at her approach.

  The snow felt hard around them, melting off their hot bodies and disappearing altogether. It was close to pitch black out here, but they would see each other perfectly. In the distance, Danni hit himself again, this time hard enough to dislocate her jaw.

  Kent was miles away, listening as he did, probably not wanting to be around Danni when the girl was like this.

  “If she keeps that up,” Matt said, “it’ll just make everything worse for her.”

  “Then please remind her,” Jolie said. “She listens to you more than anyone else, and that was true even before Peter died.”

  Matt just kept looking forward. He didn’t like to walk, and given what he had gone through, Jolie couldn’t blame him.

  She put an arm on his shoulder, twitching slightly at the heat emitting from him. Deep under his skin, she could see the swirls and rivers of the NaU pumping through his veins, making his body look like a city when viewed from above at night. The lights almost hid the scars on his back, but it did not get rid of a small tattoo on his shoulder, a red lizard with the name “Clarke” written underneath it.

  “Please,” Jolie said.

  Matt sighed. He turned and levitated over to Danni, who was in the process of shoving her fingers repeatedly into his eyes.

  Jolie turned away. Whatever was being discussed, even if she could hear it, was between the two of them. Instead, she took off into the sky, the snow melting all around her as she did so.

  Oh, the sky was a nice place, all right. If she could still feel the temperature in the normal way, she was confident that she would be freezing.

  She turned around, feeling the green power all around her. She pointed to the south and made her way through the clouds.

  Jolie only ever felt comfortable in the sky. She enjoyed the way the air swirled around her, and the green bolts going here and there. She listened to the quiet of the stormy night.

  She was confident that Kent wouldn’t hear Becca. No, that young girl, now that she had her father’s NaU, made her more powerful than all of them. She would be careful, destroy any radios or transmitting machines she encountered, and be hard to catch, but caught she would be—

  Jolie’s mind went blank for a moment. Her chest tightened up, and she started to descend.

  She tried to move, but her muscles locked together, and she could feel foam rising in the back of her throat.

  The ground looked close in front of her. She thought she could dampen the blow if only for a moment—

  She stopped right before hitting the ground. Matt levitated next to her, arm extended, holding her up. She was about to thank him when she emptied her stomach into the snow.

  He levitated over and lowered her into his arms. It still felt odd when he held her. She was a head taller than he, but it still comforted her.

  “We’ll find her soon,” Matt said. “And when we do, we’ll make sure you get her NaU.”

  She nodded thanks and enjoyed being held by him. Deep inside her, she could feel her baby’s heart rate in sync with her own.

  Yes, they would have to find Becca.

  Before it was too late.

  Chapter Three

  I know I shouldn’t be worried about my daughter. She was given a rough hand in life, but I’m confident that if I am to die either at her hands, Matt’s, or through the decay within me, I’m confident that she will survive. She takes more after her mother on that account than me.

  Robbie’s Journal

  Someone had definitely been at the rest stop, though doing what, Walter hadn’t the slightest idea.

  All of the safes looked to be in order, and the gift shop hadn’t been broken into. But the place was definitely tarnished.

  Stop 17 had an antique intercom system.

  Small speakers lined the walls. The original intention was to warn people there, presumably people who were eating lunch, of either a lane closure due to an accident, the weather, or both. Walter hadn’t worked here when they had been put in, but if he had, he would have told them not to bother.

  But it didn’t seem to matter much now.

  All of the speakers were cut open, the edges burned and seared, the wires fried.

  Burn and melted marks stretched around each of the openings. Walter shined his flashlight at them, not sure how anyone could have done any of it. The only radio that was not destroyed was Rodney’s old Cat radio that looked more like a clock than anything else. Rodney used to hide it above the ceiling titles and try and make the people there think the rest stop was haunted. The radio now sat on the desk in the back, and to Walter, it seemed like it would work all right.

  He had looked the place over. He checked the office, the maintenance closets, both of the bathrooms, the back storage room, the loading dock—everything.

  There wasn’t a person anywhere.

  He walked to the back room and checked the breakers. All of them were intact. He brought the lights on, so he could get a more extensive look at the damage.

  He looked out the window. His truck was still there, so he couldn’t chalk up the recent disappearances to anyone going out to his truck, hot-wiring it, and driving north to Canada and the like.

  He reached for his walkie-talkie. Now was probably the time to call the troopers. He wasn’t sure what they’d be able to make for all this, but he didn’t much care. He brought the walkie-talkie up to his mouth.

  Something fell out in the main room.

  Walter’s blood turned ice cold. He brought his talkie back down to his belt, and walked out, brandishing his gun.

  He hoped it was one of the troopers, perhaps seeing his truck and the lights on in the stop and electing to inquire within and see what old Walt the caretaker was up to.

  But something told him that wasn’t it. It was someone who had vandalized property, and had broken into an area that they didn’t belong in.

  The snow was falling quietly on the other side of the windows as Walter slowly walked past them, careful to be as equally silent. He leaned around the corner and peered around it.

  The main room was empty. Save for a slight breeze coming in from the broken door, the room was silent.

  The lights flickered above him and then turned off.

  “Whoever’s out there, best to come out,” Walter said, peering around in the dark, his hands shaking slightly. “No reason to draw this out.”

  The silence greeted him.

  Maybe he was losing it. The power could have gone out because of the weather. There was a twenty-second delay before the backup generators went up. The sound he heard was probably nothing at all. Before darkness had overtaken his sight, there hadn’t been anything on the ground or anything. He heard things. These James Patterson books he was reading were making him more nervous than he had to be. No reason to think that there was any large conspiracy going on.

  He brought his gun to his side and turned back toward the office. He was confident that the lights would be on once he got there.

  Purple lights streamed ahead in front of him.

  “What—”

  Before he could even finish, Walter found himself on the opposite side of the room, the air knocked out of his chest. He felt his heart beating very fast, and his lungs had no air in them. He choked and tried to breathe. This is how it would end, wasn’t it? He most likely had a stroke of some kind, all alone out here in the middle of this storm. By the time anyone could learn what happened to him, he would already be long dead. And he never got the chance to sell his house to Janice from Stewarts.

  White and purple light appeared in front of him.

  He felt someone reach into his jacke
t pocket and take out his phone. He tried to stop it, but he could barely stand.

  There was a flash of white light. Then the hand was reaching for his radio in his belt. Likewise, they took it, and there was a flash of white light.

  “Who’s there?” he tried to say with a weak voice. He rolled over onto his side and was on his knees.

  The lights flashed on ahead of him, and the room was once again flooded with light.

  A girl stood in front of Walter.

  She looked to be an early teen. She was dressed in a thin jacket and jeans. There was snow on it, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. There was blood on it as well, but she didn’t look hurt. She was looking down at Walter.

  On the ground in front of her, Walter’s phone and radio, or rather what was left of them. They were both broken in half, seeming as though some great sharp and hot blade had seared through them the way a warm blade might cut through a cake.

  The girl brought out a notepad that said “I (Heart shape) LUV NY” and a pen with a similar logo design. She was writing something. Walter wanted to speak, to ask her what the hell was going on, but he didn’t think that that would be a good thing to do at the moment. He didn’t know who or what this girl was or what was going on. The last thing he needed to do was step on her toes at the moment.

  She stopped writing and turning the pad toward him.

  Is there any other radio or transmitting source on your person? Nod for yes, shake your head for no.

  He thought it over and shook his head.

  The girl nodded. She took out something from her back pocket. It was Walter’s gun.

  The girl looked the gun over carefully.

  “Nice Glock 17 here,” she said, not looking at him. “My uncle was a nut about guns. It’s in pretty good shape, too. How many years have you had it?”