The Keeper

by Barr, Clifford

  “Robbie might have given you the strongest NaU,” Matt said, “but I have four of them in me.”

  His eyes grew pink.

  Becca doubled over in pain, bringing her hands up to her ears. A high-pitched scream was coming from every radio in the immediate area. The people down the end of the street were all doubling over and falling to the ground.

  “Kent never tried experimenting with his NaU,” Matt said. “If he had, he would have realized that he was one of the strongest amongst us. He might not have been able to walk or use his hands anymore, but he could stop any of us dead in our tracks. Robbie’s NaU can redirect kinetic energy, but it can’t do anything against sound.”

  Her ears started to bleed a little, the warm liquid seeping through her hands.

  Matt lifted her up and started to bring her toward him. Every time she tried to activate her father’s NaU, her ears would distract her. Matt looked down at her.

  “Don’t worry, Becca. I still love you like a sister,” Matt said. “I think I care more about you than even you care about me. I still view you as a member of my family, and I love you. I remember all those times when we were kids like I’m sure you do as well.

  “But you’re in my way. It’s you or me right now. You killed Nigel, you had to kill Robbie. I won’t want to burden you with having to kill me as well. I’ll make it quick.”

  His NaU tightened around her neck. All it took was one quick pull, and then darkness would envelop her. All in all, Becca hadn’t really thought about her death. Somehow over the last couple of days, or rather, ever since she had killed Nigel, things had moved oh so fast.

  It was hard to keep up with it sometimes, the way her life had changed forever. At the time, it seemed like the best thing to do was keep pushing forward. Kill Nigel, then abandon Matt, then watch her parents die, then kill Robbie herself, and then break into the rest stop and threaten Walter, then fight Danni, then build a force field and just let Walter decide what would happen. If the man had wanted to, he could have convinced her to do it, to go out outside the force field, and allow herself to be taken by Matt and his gang. She just didn’t want to make the decision, and now, looking at Matt’s eyes, she figured he didn’t want to make that decision either. So much of their lives had been determined by other people that when they finally had free autonomy for themselves, the first thing they did was surrender it to the first father figure who came into their path.

  But not anymore. Matt didn’t want to kill her, but he would. She saw something in his eyes, and she almost felt an urge to reach out and rub his face or hair.

  She closed her eyes and waited for it. Maybe she’d see her mother again. She would like that very much.

  And then she fell.

  The snowbank muffled her fall, but it still hurt.

  Down the street, Walter was on top of Matt, holding him down.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The NaU is more like a parasite than anything else. It takes away everything from you but gives you powers at the same time. A more literary-minded person might suggest that I have created myself in my invention.

  -Robbie’s Journal

  Matt almost did it.

  He had climbed up to the giant cliff of possibilities and had decided forthrightly to just jump and finally do it, like one might think about jumping in a pool or a cold lake. They’d wait a while, not wanting to just go right ahead and do it, but eventually, call it desperation, they would jump, and Matt increased his grip against Becca’s neck. He didn’t feel her fight anymore, didn’t feel anything. If there was any clearer indication of an invitation on her part, then that was in Matt’s mind. He wanted to do it before she changed her mind, or her mind got too full of doubt at her coming death that she acted up. In a way, it was almost beautiful. She was finally willing to sacrifice herself for him, to allow him to live instead of her. He wanted to honor her wish and get this business done before things got too hairy.

  He meant it, too. He loved Becca; he really did. He didn’t want any of this to happen.

  And then he was moving.

  He crashed into the ground. He was able to redirect his touch enough so that it didn’t hurt. Walter’s body crinkled above him, healing in an instant.

  They were down the street. Becca was still out in front of Walter’s house; she had landed in a snowbank. He hoped she was alright.

  Walter, on the other hand, didn’t hold much weight for Matt anymore. He threw the man down the road.

  “I’m not interested in fighting you, Walter,” Matt said, reorienting himself above the ground. “You are a good man and didn’t deserve any of this to happen to you. When this is all said and done, and Becca’s NaU is mine, I’ll let you live out your last couple of weeks. You should have lived a few more years, but Jolie accidentally shot you with her blast. I’m sorry about that, and I’m sorry that I had to give you the NaU. But I figured it would be better if you lived for two more weeks then to just die out there.”

  Walter rose to a standing position. He was probably an intimidating figure when he was younger. However, the NaU can save you from almost every injury, but it can’t reverse the effects of age. He was gifted and hindered by the years he had experienced before coming to that rest stop that night.

  He was a good man too, something that also lent itself to Matt’s hesitation to hurt him. He might regrow anything, but he still felt pain with all of it. He had hoped that Walter would have stayed out of the fight, but the old man seemed hell-bent on participating.

  “You don’t have to do this, Matt,” Walter said, a cut on his face healing as he did so. “Just talk to Becca, try and enjoy the time you have left. We all die, Matt, and we all make mistakes. The worst thing you can do in that scenario is to make more mistakes and make the lives of those around you harder.”

  “Spoken like someone who’s lived a full life,” Matt said. “It’s a little hard for me to take your words seriously, Walter. You were going to die in a few years. My friends and I weren’t, so don’t lecture me on accepting death.”

  “It’s not a lecture,” Walter said. “It’s the truth. You’re making everything worse.”

  “In the short-term, yes,” Matt said. “But if I’m able to kill Becca, then no one else has to get hurt unless you want more people to get hurt.”

  Matt rose up off the ground, snow flying all about him. His veins turned green.

  “There’s a bar down the street with somewhere close to seventy or so people,” Matt said. “If you want, I can threaten to kill all of them unless Becca hands herself over to me.”

  “You would kill all of those people,” Walter said. “If you don’t get your way. I thought you were in high school, not a daycare. People don’t always get what they want.”

  “What I want is of no concern here,” Matt said. “It is what I need that motivates me, and there’s nothing a person needs more than life.”

  As Matt said the words out loud, he realized just how much he believed them. Before, when they had just been lurking under the surface of his mind, he had almost shied away from them. They seemed like bad arguments, bad ways of viewing the world, and he didn’t want to be associated with that kind of thing.

  But once he said it out loud, the thoughts crystallized in the reality of Walter’s understanding, and they seemed to make a whole hell of a lot of sense to Matt. All he wanted to do was live, and it didn’t really matter who else might have died because of it.

  “I don’t need your pity, Walter,” Matt said. “But I gave you a gift, so I would appreciate it if you would stop getting in my way. You’re not as experienced with your NaUs as Becca is. I could kill you and take your NaUs any time I want. But I don’t want to hurt you, Walter. Only one person needs to die tonight, and you need to stop getting in our way.”

  “Your way?” Walter said, “I seriously doubt that Becca is just going to hand herself over.”

  “She already has.”

  Matt felt movement behind him. He turned.

 
Becca came at him with swords drawn.

  “Matt, leave,” Becca said. “This doesn’t need to get worse than it already is.”

  Becca had been so very close to giving up, to finally giving Matt what he wanted. But now her mind was changed. Now when Matt killed her, he would have to feel bad about it.

  “Becca,” Matt said. “If you could just stop, that would be great.”

  “I can’t do that, Matt,” Becca said. “No more than you, yourself, can.”

  “I can take on both of you,” Matt said. “It won’t be easy, but I can do it.”

  For a moment, no one spoke, all looking at one another. Down the street, people were looking their way. They couldn’t see much, but even the smallest slice of what they might have been able to see would be enough to warrant their attention. Why were they making this so hard? It could have been so easy if they just stopped fighting. Enough fighting had happened over these last few days for Matt’s liking. He just wanted to take what he needed and leave. He’d live out in the mountains somewhere, living off of the land, not being a burden to anyone. He might even return home, but once the police came to ask where his two fathers and cancerous mother went, along with all his friends, then he would have to leave.

  He couldn’t have a life with Jolie anymore. She had died for him, and mostly because of him. If she hadn’t ever met Matt, if their two lines of time had crossed but not wrapped around one another, then she wouldn’t have been there that night. She wouldn’t have been infected by the NaU. She would still be living, away from him, and happier because of it. Anyone who ever got close to Matt always ended up worse.

  Hell, his father reportedly didn’t start drinking until after his son needed a wheelchair. There were dark thoughts Matt had had all through his life. If he had been born normal, would his parents have stayed together? He wasn’t the major reason for them splitting; he knew that for sure, but he was part of the problem, and a pretty sizable one at that. It’s a little hard to try and make your relationship with your spouse better if you also have to deal with a disabled kid. He hated that word, hated all of the connotations that went along with it, hated when people thought of him as such. But it’s often best to call a spade a spade and then move on to the next thing. Everyone who ever tried to help him was dead now. He didn’t have anyone to go back to.

  Neither does your sister, a voice in his mind told him, sounding close to that of Jolie’s. Matt often wondered if taking the NaUs of people also brought a little bit of their own personality with them. He hadn’t thought much about his mom until after he took her NaU, and he hadn’t felt bad for Kent since after taking his NaU. Kent was a special case, though, since Matt had killed the boy, after all, in rather specular fashion, if he was brazen enough to call it that. He didn’t hesitate, even though he wasn’t a hundred percent sure that Kent had wanted to die right then. But the majority of people don’t want to die. He could have done it for Becca a few minutes ago. Then she could have died, and everything would have been fine.

  But then Walter had to intervene.

  “I’m starting to regret helping you,” he said.

  Walter chuckled.

  “I might not be up to date with your new way of talking,” Walter said. “But even I know you must have an odd definition of helping.”

  “I could have let you die,” Matt said.

  “Killing isn’t your thing, Matt,” Walter said.

  “I killed Kent,” Matt said.

  “Yes,” Walter said, “and Jolie killed Carol, and Danni killed Peter, and Becca killed Nigel and Robbie, and I killed Annabelle and Jack. We’ve all killed people, Matt. Doesn’t mean any of us have to be killers.”

  Matt didn’t know who the hell Annabelle and Jack were and didn’t care. He could feel the NaU eating through him faster with every breath he took.

  Neither one of them advanced toward him. None of them could see, no matter how hard he tried to tell them the truth. They were still bogged down by the fact that they would be alive tomorrow. Matt wasn’t, and he knew full well he would be once he got Becca’s NaU. Then all of their grief would come full force, and he’d look back on what he did, perhaps even realize that it would have been better if he had died that night instead of Becca. He would be filled with regret and have to live out the rest of his days doing good to repay for his moral failings that night.

  But at the moment, he was free from all of that. He was willing to take the burden, though. So much of his life was having others carry his burden for him that it felt great to be able to pick up his own for once and carry it. He could make Becca and Walter's lives so much easier if they just handed themselves over that night, rather than having to force them.

  He was running out of time, too.

  “You both don’t know what it’s like,” he said, power surging through him.

  Walter shifted his stance, a few flakes of glass falling from his head. Becca’s swords grew a little longer, and Matt felt a kinetic shield go around her body.

  If he died here, then Matt would be satisfied. Who else could have such a specular end as he? He wouldn’t fall apart like Kent, being a useless thing. If death was coming right for him, then he would meet him head-on, and the two of them would have their battle.

  He activated Kent’s NaU.

  “Time for this to end,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  This, I believe, will be my last journal entry. I’m not sure what else there is to say. I don’t feel sorry about what I did, nor do I feel any guilt. I’m not burdened with such things. I just want my family safe and secure. That’s what any father would want if he was in my situation.

  -Robbie’s Journal

  Walter liked the power inside of him. No wonder all of the kids liked being invincible. Walter hadn’t felt this powerful since he was younger, and even then, not this strong. His body healed as well. He could do anything. He could lift an entire building and bring it down on Matt if he wanted to.

  But he didn’t want to.

  He jumped away from the bar and back toward the fight.

  Matt was in a battle with Becca. Every time the girl got close to her brother, he would push her away, activating one of the many NaUs that ran under his skin. Becca wasn’t holding back, so why should Walter? Becca knew her brother better than anyone else alive, so why should Walter not just give up and let the boy die, or kill him instead?

  But that’s what Walter wanted, and throughout all of his years, doing what you ultimately wanted never led anyone anywhere good.

  Whatever the outcome of this fight would be, it couldn’t be in Atkins. People had seen them do their thing, and the less publicity all of this brought on, the better.

  Walter dived forward and knocked Matt down the street. There was an abandoned lumber yard down the street. The owner had been a friend from AA, who, like almost everyone, eventually died. The old man, who Walter remembered, was named Barry (though it could have been Larry) always talked about the yard at the meetings.

  The yard was a family heirloom of all things, and he had imagined his family would keep running it to the end of time, or until cutting trees became illegal. He used to talk of it with such fondness that Walter imagined that if he was about half the age he had been when listening to him, he might have been inspired enough to go there and ask for a job. Nothing like working outdoors, even in the winter. Barry/Larry’s kids didn’t feel the same, and even if their old man had imagined they would own that place till the end of time, they had moved the goalpost a bit, and were looking for a buyer. Seventeen good men had been laid off from that plant, and come a few weeks later, three of them had joined the AA meeting ring.

  Walter didn’t bother trying to reason with the boy. Matt might have been sensible once, but currently, his insensibility and whole sanity was about as reliable as a tiled billiards game board. Not much reason to try and pry it open.

  The two men crashed into the side of the lumber yard through a chain-link fence. Snow, slush, and powder flew ab
out them. They landed in the courtyard. Around them, logs were piled into pyramids, with a large pile of sawdust by the entrance to their left. Rusted forklifts and trucks littered the entrance. The snow here hadn’t been cleared and went up to their knees. Matt lifted above it, snow flying about him.

  Blood poured down the side of his face. He must’ve not slowed the blow for him completely, since the boy’s body was damaged. His arms and legs had dark pink veins running through them.

  “I can kill you anytime I want,” Matt said. “I won’t even flinch.”

  “Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is, Matt,” Walter said. “I thought you didn’t want to kill anyone. Well, here I am. If you want to get to Becca, you have to go through me.”

  The boy sighed and lifted his head back. Snowflakes landed on his face.

  “You welcome death so easily,” he said, not looking down. “And yet you protect the life of someone you hardly even know.”

  “I’ve learned a lot about you all today,” Walter said. “I wouldn’t exactly classify any of you as being strangers to me.”

  “And yet you have your preferences,” Matt said. “You would prefer Becca to live over me.”

  “She’s not trying to kill anyone,” Walter said.

  “She doesn’t have to,” Matt said. “That’s the whole point.”

  “You don’t know what Robbie was thinking,” Walter said. “Hell, based on everything I’ve heard today, I’m not even sure he himself knew what he was thinking.”

  “And that’s how we find ourselves here,” Matt said. “Isn’t it, Walter? Well, if it eases your mind, I’ve put a lot of thought into what I’m doing.”

  “Killing someone,” Walter said.

  “With good reason,” Matt said.

  “In your view,” Walter said.

  “In anyone’s view, that would be in the same situation as me,” Matt said. “Don’t even try to play the emotion card here, Walter. You won’t gain any traction. I know Becca is my sister. I know that I love her, and I’m sure that that love is reciprocated, somewhat. I know that you don’t want to hurt me, anymore then you want to see my sister get hurt. You won’t be able to save both of us here, Walter. You’re going to have to pick a side.”