The Keeper

by Barr, Clifford

  But when he had more mental functions, Peter chalked his love of Danni up to be the same sort of feeling he had whenever he initially hurt himself, or whenever he put a cigarette in his lips. It felt good to be with people and things that were lesser than him. Danni was nice, but the girl had no real place anywhere else but Greenwich, back here with all of the hicks she belonged with.

  Maybe it had been that.

  Danni’s car was pulled off to the side of the road. All of the trees around them were bare, and it was snowing slightly. Danni turned the car off and stalked into the cornfield.

  The Cainabel farm was a good farm, at least by Greenwich standards. Their primary export was goats, meaning that they had no competition with the Hendersons nor the Larkeys in the poultry or pork division. They did have a cornfield though, a small one, only about one or two plots of land, with a third not used, laid fallow so that the interest could keep the soil healthy and fruitful.

  The two men were old now, probably on their last rung of the ladder of success, and they would probably sell the farm in a year or so and move down south.

  Neither one of them were up that night though, most likely asleep together in their bed up in their dark house. If one of them had been up, it wasn’t like either one of them could have stopped what was going to happen. Things had moved too far into motion for that, and any residences to the current course would be plowed over as a snowplow could plow down a snowman.

  Peter opened the car door.

  The air was cold. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. Something told him to stay, but he couldn’t tell if that was coming from the good part of his brain or the bad part, and besides, it wasn’t like Danni was going to hurt him. Danni would never hurt him. The two of them were close friends. Very close friends indeed.

  Even if the hick was stupid.

  Peter found Danni in the middle of the fallow field.

  His girlfriend was looking up at the cloudy sky. Red lines and heat radiated from her.

  “Danni,” Peter said, “What are we doing out here?”

  Danni’s head fell, and she turned slightly.

  Was that panic on her face, or remorse.

  “I know your mind isn’t right, right now,” she said, “but I needed a moment.”

  “But what did I—”

  “It doesn’t matter what you said,” she said. “You didn’t mean it. It’s because of how your mind is right now, that’s it. I’m sorry for startling you. I needed some air.”

  Of course, you would, Peter thought, you hike and always talk about your fresh air, your love of the outdoors, killing animals just for sport. You’re all so baseless and immoral.

  Danni frowned.

  “What,” Peter said.

  “You didn’t mean any of that,” Danni said. “You’re sick. You didn’t mean all of that. You’re not speaking right now. It’s 'cause you’re sick, and you’re saying what’s on your mind.”

  All of what, that you’re all nothing but good for nothing pieces of dirt out here? God, if my parents hadn’t been so stupid as to move here, I could be living in a suburb down south, or somewhere else, where the IQ of everyone was in the triple instead of single digits.

  Was he saying this out loud? Peter’s throat felt odd. It was warm, though he couldn’t remember speaking. Had he just spoken?

  Before he could finish, he found himself on the other side of the field. The frozen dirt felt hard on his back, especially his ribs. Some of them were protruding out of him and into the dirt, like claws. Yellow light shined out of his body as they were brought back together.

  The sky looked so peaceful.

  Danni walked over toward him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her face looking scared. “You were just saying some awful things. I know you can’t mean them, or at least if you do, you wouldn’t be stupid enough or cruel enough to share them.”

  Stupid thoughts, what the hell did this girl know about my thoughts? Peter might be in a bad way at the moment with how he talked, but he was just as smart as he had been before the incident, before the NaU had latched themselves to his body.

  “Why don’t you stop?” she said.

  “I’m not talking to you, stupid hick,” Peter said. “God, I can’t believe I actually thought I cared about you. You were so easy to fool truly. Peter and Danni, two peas in a pod. Give me a break. You were a temporary thing, a way of punishing myself. Every moment I spent with you was a waste of time, and I was holding my breath, waiting for the time when it was over.”

  The night around them grew red.

  Peter didn’t know what was happening at first.

  The fists came hard and fast. Bones turning to gravel. His mouth was shattered, his skull broken in half, but re-growing all the same.

  Peter looked up at Danni before two thumbs entered his vision, and things grew dark.

  They started to grow back, but not fast enough, the fists came harder and faster.

  Peter had never been so happy in his entire life. All of it felt so good. God, it probably felt good for Danni as well. She couldn’t be happy with how their relationship was going either. It must feel great to let the frustration out. The two of them would have a good laugh when this was done.

  And hey, maybe Peter was wrong.

  Maybe there was some redeeming quality in Danni somehow, deep down, buried in the rough. And maybe Dr. McCarthy could come up with a cure, and then all of them could have a good laugh about it and go about their lives.

  And then Danni ripped Peter’s head off.

  ****

  Danni threw her head into the force field one more time. She didn’t feel it, or rather she did for only a second. She liked the pain, though. It made sense to her, and she sought it. Her mind was shot, though she didn’t know that. She didn’t know much of anything anymore.

  She remembered a man, perhaps someone she loved. His name might have been Peter.

  Danni shoved her head into the field once more.

  She wasn’t smart, but she could say something the rest of them couldn’t. If Matt took a second, he might be able to feel it.

  Every time her face grew back, her NaU had to do a little bit less healing.

  The force field was weakening.

  Danni shoved her head into the field once more, smiling through broken teeth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Carol knocked on the bathroom door.

  After Robbie told all of them that they were going to die, the majority of the parties departed. Danni and Peter went out to their car, Nigel and Robbie were getting into it again.

  Matt rose to walk with Jolie, but the girl had locked herself in the bathroom instead. He waited a moment before Carol told him to give the girl a moment.

  She knocked on the door again.

  Jolie opened the door slightly. It always struck Carol just how tall Jolie was. She had known the Blasseys for close to her entire life, and none of them were quite as tall as Jolie herself became. She looked down at Carol.

  “May I come in?” Carol said.

  Jolie nodded and allowed the woman to walk in.

  Jolie and Matt had been best friends when they were younger, and it was only natural that the two of them would end up together. They had started dating a few months before Carol’s brain tumor. She saw their relationship through the lens of a dying woman, trying to soak up as much as she could before death overtook her.

  She remembered all of it, though, somehow. When she came to after the NaUs had done their due diligence on her system, she told Robbie and everyone else that it all seemed like a dream. She stayed inside during that time to prevent people from getting suspicious about the miracle cure that overtook her.

  But she remembered every second of it, the mindless drooling, the endless TV shows, the inability to talk. That was the biggest one there, the inability to communicate and tell other people what she thought or felt.

  Robbie and everyone, save for Jolie, hadn’t even bothered to talk to her during that t
ime, thinking it a useless exercise.

  Whether or not Jolie thought it was a waste of her time, she still managed to always stop by and tell Carol about her day or her experiences with Matt. They were cherished memories, and Carol always looked forward to someone treating her like an actual human being.

  The girl looked stricken. So much potential, so many plans she had probably made that were now in question. She had been crying, her face red and her eyes having a distinct glazed look to them.

  All because of her.

  Of course, that was absurd. Carol had no more control over Robbie’s actions that night than anyone else who had been around when the syringe filled with NaU released its contents into her chest.

  But Robbie had one it to save her, so the blame was partially on her soul, though it felt much heavier than that.

  “You all right?” Carol said.

  Jolie nodded.

  “It’s a bit of a shock,” she said.

  You have no idea. Carol herself, who had already been through the accepting phase of dying when she had cancer, could relate to how Jolie was feeling. She remembered the heartbreak, the shaking of the fist up to the heavens, asking God, why out of all the bad people and the good, she had to be the one who was slated for an earlier expiration date. Why her? She was a good person, did nothing wrong, and yet she had been judged and sentenced.

  But this time was a little different. Before, there had been no one to blame, as the many cries to God often went unanswered. Robbie was much easier to blame, which, based on the yelling Carol heard in the main room, she felt was justified. It was a mistake made out of love, and what could really be wrong with that? Robbie hadn’t intended all of this. Carol had been slated to die weeks ago or to still be in that semi-useless state, with sitcom after sitcom, no one being able to hear or understand what she felt. This new reality was a paradise to the one that came before.

  But there were the kids to think of, and that’s really all Matt and his gang of friends were. Kids.

  Jolie looked at her and burst into tears. Carol embraced her, an odd thing considering their difference in height, and waited. She heard the yelling in the other room stop, followed by the slamming of the front door.

  Eventually, Jolie was able to tell her everything; that she was pregnant with Matt’s child. It had been a couple months by then, and the talk of abortion was off the table. They were going to wait a year before going to college, or maybe not go to college at all.

  But then the NaU happened.

  Carol comforted the girl and told her everything was going to be fine. She didn’t think they would be fine, but it was better to lie and make someone feel better than tell them the horrid truth that both of the women in the McCarthys bathroom at the time could see.

  Carol embraced her, and she felt genuine love for the young girl. She and Matt were going to get married; Carol could imagine the grandkids coming over for the holidays, all of it.

  The two of them stayed in the room for what felt like an eternity to Carol. Eventually, Jolie calmed down and left. Carol walked out to find Robbie.

  She found him on the porch.

  The backyard was covered in dead leaves, and the trees were bare. There was a slight breeze to the air, but not the kind that someone would find uncomfortable, or even intolerable.

  “I’m guessing Nigel didn’t pull his punches,” Carol said.

  Robbie didn’t turn.

  “Come on,” Carol said. “The two of you always fight.”

  “This time was different,” Robbie said.

  “How so? Because the two of you could literally tear the house down if you wanted to?”

  “No, no,” Robbie said, turning to her. His eyes were red, and his face torn.

  “He was right this time.”

  “About what?”

  “About all of it. Usually, when Nigel gets going, I can more or less tune him out. The man has a talent for annoyance and shooting bullshit from his mouth better than any politician I have ever met.

  “But this time was different—this time what he said was true. I’ve doomed all of us, every single person who was near you that night. I doomed them.”

  “You’ll come up with a cure.”

  “Thank you for the confidence,” he said, leaning up against the railing. “But let’s be practical here. I don’t know why the NaU reacted the way they did. When I injected them into your heart all those months ago, I did so because I hoped that they would bring you back from being unconscious. I didn’t expect them to bring you back from the dead with complete motor functions, nor did I plan on having them be released and then going out and burrowing themselves into the cells and DNA of those around you at that time. I have tried to figure out how the NaUs work, but I’m as lost as everyone else. They made different powers in each person, and along with that, they have different problems as well.”

  The two of them stood there for a moment on the porch. Squirrels ran to and fro on the leaves around them, running this way and that. The old maple by the edge of the forest was still just as burned as it had been the day that Carol shot her breath at it, or rather how it had been reflected that way. Robbie and Carol had seen what the limits of their powers were. Robbie could redirect any energy being thrown at him, and that meant Carol’s NaU. So, rather than hit him, it was shot to the side and almost destroyed that tree. She hadn’t shot her breath at him since.

  Robbie walked forward.

  “At least we know for certain that Becca won’t have to deal with any of this.”

  “We don’t have to talk like that,” Carol said.

  “But we do,” Robbie said, “We do. Where is she going to go after the NaUs have killed us, or we’ve killed ourselves?”

  Robbie always brought up Rebecca like this, as though the two of them only had one child, which was partially true. As much as Robbie had been a good, if not mediocre stepfather for Matt, biology runs deep. Carol noticed it, even if her husband hadn’t. Nigel and Robbie might be different on a whole plethora of issues, but when it came to loving their own kid over the other, they were dead in the same.

  “You’ll come up with something,” Carol said, “I know you will.”

  “I hope you’re right,” he said, not looking at her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I had to choose my daughter over Matt. It sounds cruel, but that’s only because it’s true. Of course, I care more about Becca then Matt. It is unavoidable. She’s my daughter. If she ever ran into someone though who wasn’t related to her, would they still care and help her as I have?

  Or have I ever really helped my daughter?

  -Robbie’s Journal

  Walter sat in the silence of the office, taking it all in.

  Rebecca had told her story. It had taken close to an hour; she told him her life, filtering out the details that didn’t matter and only shared the brass tacks of the narrative. When she finished, she looked relieved, as though she had been waiting to share this story, though less of a story and more of a real-life experience that was crazy enough to be thought of as fiction.

  He thought about maybe touching her shoulder or something, but he decided against it. When someone was like this, the best thing to do was to let them talk. Plenty of AA meetings had taught him that, and even more, hostile and violent AA confrontations had taught him even more. Don’t judge, let them speak, and then give your peace.

  The air was quiet in the office. Through the window, small that it was, Walter could see that the snow was still falling hard. The force field around the stop seemed to be holding true. He didn’t know how it worked, but he knew that if that fell, then there would be problems, the likes of which he was unprepared for.

  The whole tale reminded him of a tale he heard once at an AA meeting. It was on a Thursday, so he was already in bad spirits because of the Dunkin’ Donuts all around him.

  Walter had a slice of Dutch apple pie in his fridge at home, and oh boy, did the Dutch know how to make a good apple pie. No one ever got ap
ple pie for the apples. They got it for the sugary paste and crust around the apples, which more or less are in the way.

  It had been one of Beth’s favorite treats.

  This was a few weeks after Beth’s death, and Walter had been struggling hard. Now that she was gone, why not get back on the wagon? He kept his promise, went straight, but she never said anything about what he should do without her around. He had done it for himself, getting sober, but a large part of him also did it for her, and now she was gone.

  A pure Canajoharie girl, she was. He remembered something his father told him about those people down south. They ask the world of you, and then they ask nothing, and yet nothing is more taxing, always more taxing.

  Beth had been turned to ash for a while by then, and though Walter hated to admit, he was already starting to forget parts of her. Her voice was a big factor. On some of the old tapes of all four of them together, him, Beth, Annabelle, and Jack, he could hear her voice. Video recording at that point had been slim at best, but there were a couple of home movies. Her voice was there, but it was a younger voice, a voice he hadn’t heard in years, the younger Beth. Her voice sounded as alien to him as did the voices of his children. He watched it for a minute or so more, before putting the tape away.

  A couple of people attended the funeral, but the majority of Beth’s and his friends had moved down south or had met the reaper before her. It was a small ceremony, with a few people Beth had known over the years and a couple of guys from AA.

  And then the world moved on.

  The ceremony ended, Walter took his urn, and headed for home.

  He stopped at the liquor store first.

  Walter hadn’t been in a liquor store for close to twenty years at that point. He had gone in them a couple of times when he was trying to get sober. More than anything, he was running the gauntlet, trying to see if he could be around the drinks without wanting to drink them, or rather wanting was fine and good as long as he never took care to fulfill those wants.