The Keeper

by Barr, Clifford

  He had chosen his side. Becca was the one that deserved to live . . . but why? Why really, down into the deep confides and fibers of the matter, had he decided to go with Becca? She had tried to threaten him, have him drive her up to the border.

  But the girl had done something that Matt hadn’t, at least not in Walter’s view. She still felt.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Becca leaned up against the side of a house in Atkins.

  The men had taken the fight out of town, which was probably for the best. Already the NaUs were attracting too much attention. She gripped her side.

  Her father’s NaU had been perfect at protecting her from her brother, but it wasn’t a failsafe for everything. While trying to protect from her front, Matt had been able to send a piece of metal, a nail perhaps, into her side. Her guard had fallen, and then Walter came in and took the boy out of town.

  Down the street, cop cars were flying about. A couple of them must’ve seen what was going on since they were driving up the street to Walter’s house. Becca was a couple of houses down, and she figured she’d be alright if she could try and go to the ambulance down the road and ask for help, saying that she too had been in the bar when all of the windows had shattered. The paramedic would take one look at her, and then think to themselves about what exactly a thirteen-year-old was doing at a bar, and there would be a plethora of questions more than help.

  She leaned up against the side of the house. Walter and Matt were down the street. She could flee then, run off, and try to hide from Matt. But with all of those NaUs inside of him, the boy would be able to find her instantly, and then it wouldn’t have mattered. There was no running from this.

  In a way, Becca almost admired Matt, in an off-putting sort of way. She left a bloody handprint on the side of the house. Inside, a family was watching television, a Christmas movie, most likely trying to wait out the storm. Becca knew she’d never be able to watch a Christmas movie with her family, even if she did survive this night. Her father was dead, her mother also died, and either she or her brother would die this night. As much as Walter thought he could see something in Matt, Becca saw something else. It was the same thing that had been present in herself a few hours prior when she had threatened Walter.

  When she had been hiding out in the rest stop, she hadn’t planned on anyone arriving. She had slashed all of the radios, turned off the power, and waited out the storm. Her body was resilient and warm enough to survive the cold, but it was hard traveling and would make her an easy target for Matt and his gang. She had planned on waiting there until the next morning, perhaps getting onto a plow and heading north herself. The lab up in Toronto would have been her best bet, even if Robbie wasn’t there.

  But then Walter appeared.

  The truck pulled up to the rest stop parking lot and turned off.

  Go back, Becca had thought, hoping that whoever was inside would take a look at all of the snow and decide to call it an early day. Why the hell would there even be someone out here on a night like this, with the snow falling and temperatures well below a comfortable level?

  But no.

  An old man walked out of the truck and walked up toward the rest stop entrance. He noticed it was open (Becca could have done a better job at trying to hide that) and stumbled inside. He looked around, while Becca hid on the roof. She’d let him do whatever he needed to do, walk this and that, and then when he was satisfied, she would let him leave. It would be like their paths had never even crossed.

  But something changed. She didn’t know what it was, only that she imagined that Walter would be able to help her; if she made him, that was. Her father might have doomed all of them, but he usually just did whatever came to mind, and that worked for the majority of his life until the last couple of months, so who’s to say that sort of behavior was unreasonable? She slipped back in and confronted the man.

  He was old but still usable. She hated thinking like that, but she had to put her reservations and her sympathy to the side. This was life or death after all, and she could make up for her coarse behavior with him once all of this was sorted out.

  She did have a moment of doubt.

  When he talked back to her, it was like a breath of fresh air. Here was a man who knew almost nothing about the situation, nothing about her, nothing about the fact that she was being chased by her brother and his gang of friends who were trying to kill her, and he goes out and complains about the way she was talking. It was just so surreal.

  And then the doubt crept in. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe the man would actually just help her if she’d be nice to him and explained some of the situations. Maybe there would be a way out of all of this.

  But then Matt’s gang found them and brought this all to the forefront.

  Walter had more power at that rest stop than he knew. Neither side wanted to be the one to make the decision. Sure, Danni was nearly rabid, being at the point to try and kill Becca, and once the girl got the chance, she tried to do so. But the rest hadn’t. Matt could have broken open the ground under the force field at any time and attacked her, but he didn’t. He didn’t for the same reason that he was down fighting at the lumber yard instead of back here with his sister. He knew where she was, and yet he hung back and fought Walter instead.

  He could have been the one to persuade Becca to go out of the force field peacefully. She was protecting them, but if he had asked her, implored that it would have been better for Matt’s gang to live than herself, she would have dropped the field and then she’d be dead now, and perhaps more than just one member of Matt’s gang would live.

  She leaned up against the side of the house. Inside, a kid was saying something to their parents, but she couldn’t make out the words. Maybe they were angry about this or that. Becca wanted to go into the house and tell the kid not to take his parents for granted.

  Tears welled in her eyes.

  Oh God, why did it have to be her? Why couldn’t it have been anyone else that got infected with the NaU as she had? If Matt had gotten it, would their roles have reversed? Becca didn’t have a child on the way, but she had a life full of living. She liked to think that it wouldn’t have changed her, the desperation, the anger, the fear at the imbalance of it all. Matt would probably have let Jolie kill him, take the NaU, and then would Becca, Danni, hell, maybe even Robbie and Carol go after her, try and kill her in the snow?

  Or was it just because it was Becca that had gotten the Keeper NaU that all of this had happened?

  The snow had seeped into her boots and jeans, but she didn’t even care anymore. When Matt had finally had her in his grasp, ready to do it, to rip her head off or break her neck, she had welcomed it. To feel the oncoming dark, the freedom from responsibility, from everything, to just sit back and allow the stream of life to take her and lead her somewhere else. Her family wasn’t religious, but Becca believed in God, the Almighty Father above, whose plan all of this was a part of. She believed in God, but that didn’t mean she liked him.

  Matt could have done it right then and there—take her life, and all of this business would be over. Walter would be angry, but he’d get over it. The man had only known about the McCarthys for less than a day, and they would cease to be of importance once the coming dawn finally came.

  And then Matt could go on, living, a man who had nothing all of his life, now with something at last.

  None of it was fair, but Becca had arrived at a place beyond fair. She stood up and stumbled through the snow. A car drove past her, headed down the street. Becca almost took their car but decided against it. It would be better if she walked anyway. It would give her more time to clear her head.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Matt brought a half-ton log down on Walter’s chest.

  The two of them had been fighting for some time, neither one making much of a dent on the other. It was amusing, and Matt liked it since it took his mind off having to kill his sister, but the decay was in him, and wasting time was no longer somet
hing he could afford to do.

  He brought the log down on the man. Walter’s body was crushed and pressed against the snow. Matt moved a couple bars of metal and latched his arms and legs to the ground beneath it. Peter’s NaU was starting to bring the man back together, but it wasn’t possible with the log on top of him. Matt hoped he wouldn’t die, at least not yet.

  He stumbled over to Walter, the snow coming up to his knees. It felt good on his skin, and while he knew he’d probably never get used to walking, it felt good to feel the snow under his feet.

  Walter’s head was still visible underneath the log.

  “This has been fun, Walter, but it’s time for this to end.”

  Matt could kill the man right here and be done with it. But Walter still had a couple more weeks in him, and it would be wrong for Matt to take that from him. He was an innocent bystander in all of this, and it would do him best if he just stayed there on the sidelines.

  “I’m going to kill Becca now,” Matt said. “You won’t be able to stop me, but I wouldn’t blame yourself too much. You were quite amusing, but in the end, the deck was always stacked against you. I know what that’s like more than anyone else you’ll ever meet.”

  And that was the truth of it. There was no way this day was going to end any way other than Matt’s way, and he knew damn well why.

  While his sister was off bringing more people into this whole debacle, running from his gang, Matt had been suffering. Becca didn’t know anything about suffering. She knew of the concept and probably had some feelings regarding unfairness and problems in her own life. But true unfairness? No, no. Becca was born brightly to a nice household. Everyone else suffered around her, but she stayed clean. Her father had Parkinson’s, her mother had cancer, and her brother was in a wheelchair. These sufferings didn’t affect her the way they actually affected those involved, and she knew that. Deep down, she knew that her life had been set up in an advantageous way for her.

  And how did she act when she realized that she was no longer special, no longer the one who was the best in a room, when her family was cured and given powers through the NaU?

  She had been jealous.

  She kept it mostly to herself, but Matt felt it all the same, her wishing she had the same powers as everyone else. And then, oh the relief, when she realized she wasn’t dying, that yet again, lady luck had had her eye on the girl and brought the odds in her favor. And then she had taken Nigel’s NaU, and lo and behold the girl had been given a NaU all right, and it was the best one out of all of them, and all so Becca could live.

  No more.

  “I don’t want to kill her, Walter,” Matt said. “I just want what’s mine and fair for once. You’ve lost a family. You would do anything to bring them back. Becca’s NaU won’t do that, but it’ll be the closest damn thing.”

  He left Walter in the snow and backed off. He could feel his sister coming for him. Maybe she had finally seen the light and decided to just hand herself in. Living was an addicting sort of thing, but people can always find a way to justify ending it. Matt knew that better than anyone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Becca crested the hill above the lumberyard.

  Becca could feel her brother’s eyes on her. He knew she wouldn’t leave, knew that she wouldn’t just leave him there with Walter.

  The snow was falling hard and fast, up past her knees. Snow like this used to make her happy, since if it was a school day, then that meant a snow day right and sure. If it was a weekend, then that meant she could just sit in her room and read, and look out at the snow from her window. Her father eventually would make her have to come out and help shovel. Matt tried to help once. He latched a snow shovel to the front of his wheelchair and tried to use it as a makeshift plow. It didn’t work, but it was somehow cute in a way that he tried. Her brother didn’t look cute that night.

  His face was streaked with blood. His eyes, which were once gray, had turned stark pink like Kent’s had, and were throbbing. Pink veins danced around his face and down to his mouth. The veins around his mouth and neck, creeping into his shoulders, were blue, just like Carol’s NaU had been. His shirt had been ripped off, showing a patchwork of orange and green veins dancing around the rest of his body. He looked tired.

  Walter was stuck under a wooden log to their right.

  The air around them smelled like sap, the proper way a lumberyard should smell in the northeast during the winter.

  “Hello, Becca,” Matt said. His voice had lost some of its charm. Now it sounded less like someone was talking and more like he was laughing.

  “Matt.”

  In the distance, Becca could hear the fire trucks and police cars, probably trying to tell what exactly had happened at Akins that night.

  “Have you come to give yourself up?” Matt said.

  “I plan to, once you give yourself up and allow me to take your NaU.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Matt should’ve been able to do it by himself. Only half an hour ago, the boy had nearly succeeded before being interrupted.

  As though to answer her questions, Matt’s body faded a little.

  His arms and legs looked weak and pale, paler than the rest of his body. Her brother’s time was limited, and he was acting out. He wasn’t strong enough to take it from Becca anymore. Now she had to give it to him.

  Becca walked forward.

  Walter struggled under the log, but he would be of no help now. That was for the best. This family conflict had come to its conclusion—no reason for other people to be involved.

  “Fine, Matt,” she said. “Do it.”

  Matt looked down at her, his eyes frowning slightly.

  “You’re not going to change your mind, are you? There’s no coming back from this.”

  “You’re just going to have to do it, Matt. The road’s at its end now.”

  He floated over toward her. Her brother looked worse for wear, but he was still her brother. The same boy who had let her ride around in his wheelchair when she was younger, showed her how to approach deer so they wouldn’t run away, showed her how to tie knots, and what kind of berries were poisonous.

  Heat radiated off his frail body. Becca felt his touch on her. She kept her arms down.

  “You can still run,” he said. “Still try to fight against it.”

  His touch left her.

  “I’ll even give you a head start.”

  Becca frowned. Matt looked at her, and she at him. He wasn’t jumping at the gills to attack her. Something had happened, something had changed his mind.

  Becca lifted her hand and placed it on her brother’s face. His skin was warm and sweating. Pink eyes glared at her.

  “I just wanted to build a family,” Matt said. “To make a better life for someone than what was given to me. All I wanted to do was build a good life with Jolie. Your father took all of that away, took away my life, took away Jolie. All my friends, everything’s gone because he wanted to save the woman he loved.”

  “And how,” Becca said, “does that make you any different, with everything you’ve done tonight and yesterday to try and save Jolie?”

  Matt was silent for a moment. The snowflakes fell all around them. He bowed his head and looked at the two people around them. He waved his hand, lifting the wooden log off of Walter. The old man shook free of the snow, his body starting to rebuild.

  Matt turned back toward his sister. Grief and anger had turned the boy into something terrible. They had afforded him powers, like most emotions, but they had also killed him, just like they had killed his friends. Emotions were universal. All the NaU had done was bring them to the forefront and use them as fodder to keep the fires warm.

  Becca felt Matt’s touch on her again.

  “None of it was fair,” he said. “I was supposed to build a life for myself, and now I can’t.”

  “But I still can.”

  Matt’s touch was all over her; Becca couldn’t move. Terror flooded through her veins, and h
er breath stopped. She was foolish to allow him to get so close to her. He was blocking her NaUs. She couldn’t move. Walter was moving to their right.

  Matt activated his father’s NaU inside of Becca and brought the blade through his chest.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It had felt good, as Matt felt the blade enter his chest. He threw back his sister’s arm and NaU and started to walk off. A lumber yard was a terrible place to die, and there was a hill to the side of the lumber yard that had a nice vantage point that would be a good place to die.

  No one stopped him, at least, not yet. He threw open the side of the yard and walked through the snow toward the hill. He found a downed log, perhaps placed there by the lumber workers that allowed them to look down the hill into the valley whenever they had their lunch or subsequent smoke breaks. He brushed the snow off and took a seat.

  His chest was bleeding, causing steaming NaU-filled blood to wash down into the snow below. He could have made the cut less severe, given himself more time. But he had been living on borrowed time anyway, and who knows, maybe the life after this one, or whatever the hell happens when you die, would be better. Jolie and their child might be waiting for them there, and there wasn’t much point in making the two of them wait longer then they had to.

  He wished that it wasn’t snowing. It would have been nice if, instead of dying during the middle of a winter storm, it could have been on a spring day, with the birds chirping and flowers blooming. That would have made a much better ending picture than the one out in front of him.

  He sighed and leaned back slightly. His hands were stained red, but the blood felt soothing to his frail and cold body. Becca had been right in the end. Somehow the girl was always right. Robbie and Matt were two sides of the same coin, and while they were opposed in many things, in what they agreed upon, they were the same.