The Keeper of Dawn

by Hickman, J. B.

  I was leaning on Roland with my head bowed when the darkness blotted out my vision. I felt myself slipping backwards, drifting away from them. But Roland’s voice—filled with alarm—still reached me, though his words were jumbled together and sounded far away, like they had followed me down a long, dark tunnel.

  CHAPTER 17: CONFESSIONS

  My eyes fluttered open, darting about the room before settling on the IV in the crease of my arm. It was this pinprick of irritation that had lifted me out of my dreamlike haze. Pain that had resided in the background came sharply into focus. My head ached, and the sunlight streaming through the slanted louvers of the room’s only window stung my eyes. I was so drowsy it was all I could do to lift my head from the pillow. I tried sitting up, but a constricting soreness weighed me down as if a heavy object had been placed atop my chest. I had no recollection of what had happened, but the longer I laid there, bits and pieces came back—a flashlight wedged into the rocks, waves thundering ashore, a blood-smeared wall. But these memories were so tangled in knots they made little sense.

  My surroundings convinced me that this quiet room with its tidy row of empty beds had once been something quite different. The bed across from me was positioned so near the fireplace that if someone were to lie in it, they would literally be looking up the chimney. I had long ago made a game out of seeing through the school’s makeshift renovations, to peel back the years and discover a room’s original intent. Looking at the mahogany bookshelves, I imagined sophisticated men—men such as my father—gathering in this room after dinner, standing amidst cigar smoke and the flickering shadows of the fireplace, discussing the day’s events, perhaps joking over how poorly they had played the back nine. The wives had flocked to one of the sitting rooms to contribute their share to the after-dinner gossip, the books sat unread upon the shelves, and these men sipped their cognac and liqueur in the pleasurable company of their own kind.

  But the last fire had died out years ago, the tight circles of men replaced with two rows of narrow beds, and instead of the crackle of burning wood, the sterile odor of a hospital permeated the room.

  A black and white picture at the bedside depicted two men on the broad steps of the school’s entryway. A large banner streamed overhead.

  Grand Opening of the Hotel Nouveau

  May 14, 1947

  A boy slightly younger than myself stood beside them. His indifferent expression gave away his disinterest in the ceremony taking place around him. There was something familiar in the boy’s stance and distant gaze that made me take a closer look. When I noticed a toothpick protruding from his mouth, I suspected that the black and white photograph couldn’t capture the true color of the boy’s curly red hair.

  More photographs hung from the walls. Men in tuxedos and women in formal gowns posed for the camera, lifted their glasses in cheer, mingled at a wedding reception in the wide confines of a glittering ballroom. I recognized the landmarks that had become assimilated into my daily life—the courtyard, the lobby, Raker Lighthouse, the golf course, even the indoor swimming pool. Lying in bed unable to move much more than my eyes, the Hotel Nouveau felt very much alive.

  “They say we were exposed.”

  It was Chris. At first I thought a cigarette dangled from his lips, but when it threw back the sunlight, I realized it was a thermometer. He looked younger sitting in bed with the thermometer in his mouth. He had been an adult on the Anvil, but here he was, back to being a kid again.

  He leaned over and whispered, “Apparently you were more exposed than I was.”

  Too weak to laugh, I managed a smile.

  He started to say something more, but was interrupted when Nurse Bennett entered the room, approached his bed, and yanked the thermometer from his mouth.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a smoke, would you?” he asked.

  “Ninety-eight point eight,” the nurse said in a no-nonsense voice, lifting her glasses off her nose and squinting at the thermometer. “It’s a miracle. You’re saved. Feel free to go at any time.”

  Nurse Bennett was an obese woman with a heavy face. Her oversized breasts were two shapeless bulges in the front of her uniform. There was a spoon-shaped curve evident in her upper back, and her shoulders were pulled forward as if they had long ago submitted to the weight of her ample bosom. When she looked over and saw I was awake, she smiled, sending a ripple across her round face that revealed a small gap between her front teeth.

  “Why, I was beginning to think you were going to sleep the day away,” she said. Then she shuffled over to my bed and proceeded to fuss over me, making sure the sheets were straightened just right, asking me how I was feeling while checking the medical instruments at the bedside. “You’ve been through quite a spell, quite a spell indeed, but it’s nothing we can’t fix.” Before leaving, she reminded Chris that he was free to go at any time.

  “You look like shit,” Chris said.

  “So do you.”

  “This gig is about up,” he said, crossing his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. “Big Bertha isn’t buying my fever. And once I get out, they’ll be watching me like a hawk.”

  After a long silence, during which I nearly fell back to sleep, I said, “Hey, Chris?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “You think they’ll, you know … kick you out?”

  “Not right away, but yeah, Lawson’s got my number. It’s personal now, and the way he sees it, there’s no way he can lose.” He shook his head. “Deans are the same everywhere you go. When it comes down to it, they’re a bunch of bureaucrats. But hey, at least that makes them predictable, right? He’ll get his expulsion, but I’ll get the last laugh. He doesn’t know I’ve got an ace up my sleeve.”

  He looked over at me then, tempting me to ask him what he meant. But it was an effort to speak, and I must have dozed off, for when I opened my eyes, the sunlight coming into the room had faded.

  “Hey, you awake, man?” Chris asked from the edge of his bed. His eyes looked feverish, like he had faked the thermometer reading. “It’s good you’re awake. Did I … did I ever tell you about my old school, Wheaton?” he asked, rubbing his thumb over his palm as if wiping something away.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but there were was this old coal mine beneath the campus. Tunnels that went on for miles. Only a few of us knew about them. I can’t even remember how I found out about it. Everything else at Wheaton sucked except for that coal mine. Anyway, there were these twins, Billy and Bobby Ingram, who used to go down there with us. And let me tell ya,” he let out a strained laugh, “they were twins in the truest sense of the word. Looked the same, acted the same, even had the same screwy laugh. Some of the guys could tell them apart, but I never could.

  “This one Friday night Bobby managed to get a hold of some Johnnie Walker. According to Dean Wadsworth, this was procuring contraband, so we went to the mine to drink away the evidence. If you’ve never sat around drinking whisky by flashlight, I highly recommend it.”

  When a bell rang in the hallway, Chris looked over his shoulder, the quick movement extinguishing the bravado in his voice. Only after the footsteps of students leaving their classrooms faded did he continue.

  “I don’t know how it started, but Bobby and I got to wrestling. Not fighting or anything, just fooling around. We got off a ways from the others and … and I don’t … I don’t remember exactly how it happened. It was so dark. I think I pushed him. I wasn’t even drunk. I pushed him, not any harder than he pushed me, but it forced him to take a couple steps back, and … and just like that, he was gone. He just … vanished. I knew something was wrong, even … even before the others came over. Right where Bobby had been standing was this … shaft in the floor.”

  Chris concealed what was in his voice by laughing—a sharp, nervous laugh—and then looked out the window like he was ashamed, not from what had happened, but because he was letting me see him like this. The person who flew helicopters and made fools out of teachers was no longer in the room bes
ide me. It was someone else, and suddenly I wanted him to stop. I didn’t want to know what had happened to Bobby Ingram. If something bothered him this much, I didn’t need to know what it was.

  “The first thing I saw were his teeth. They were … scattered everywhere. Just, fucking everywhere.” A flash of anger crossed his face. “We must have walked by there a dozen times. Any one of us could have fallen. He, ah … his legs were still moving, almost like … almost like he was trying to walk. I think he was still alive, but … but no one could have survived that. It must have been forty feet down. His head was all … busted open.”

  He was quiet for some time before continuing. “Billy withdrew. His family sued Wheaton for … I don’t know, wrongful death or something. Tried getting me on manslaughter. It went to trial and everything, but the jury ruled it an accident. Billy was there every day in court. But whenever I looked over at him, I saw his brother, Bobby, plain as day, staring up at me with no teeth. I’ve told myself a million times I didn’t kill him. But if it hadn’t been for me, none of us would’ve gone down there. If it wasn’t for me, Bobby Ingram would still be alive.”

  Chris looked at me.

  “You looked like a corpse down there today, Jake,” he said, and a single sob escaped him. “I thought for sure I’d killed you. You were just like Bobby. You were already dead, you just didn’t know it yet.”

  He barely got out the final words before losing it. His head dropped between his knees and his entire body shook. The sound brought Nurse Bennett back into the room, but after one look at Chris, she left without a word, quietly shutting the door behind her.

  I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault. No matter what had happened to Bobby Ingram, I was alive. I looked away, my eyes coming to rest on the pictures on the wall. But instead of seeing their elation and good cheer, those men and women of yesteryear stared back at me with the emptiness of bygone years.

  Our time is over. This place is yours now. But there will come a day when your picture will hang from this wall, and your time on the island will be over.

  I reached out and placed a hand on Chris’ bowed head.

  * * * * *

  The fencing team was sparring. But instead of the resounding clash of foils, the echoes were lost in a suffocating silence. Mr. O’Leary stood at the edge of the pool waving his arms. His mouth was open like he was shouting, but no words came out.

  When I struck my opponent, his vest ripped open. We both stopped, unable to take our eyes from the blood spilling down his chest. It was happening to the others as well—thin red lines seeping over white uniforms. Our weapons were real. Above us, Mr. O’Leary continued to shout and wave his arms.

  Instead of discarding our weapons, the sight of bloodshed intensified our efforts, transforming the sport into real combat. In an instant, the dignified rules of fencing were discarded, the lunge and parry forgotten. In their place arose murderous swings and thrusts, all backed by a desperate will to survive. I felt cuts on my arms and legs, but I shrugged them off as I sliced into my opponent. Soon our feet were splashing through blood that had collected around the pool’s drain. Mr. O’Leary continued to run around the pool, waving his arms, but we paid him no heed. It was all I could do to keep my opponent’s weapon at bay. I struck him again and again, but he continued to fight.

  The blood in the pool was rising. At first we were stepping in it, then we were wading through it. All at once everyone lowered their foils and surged toward the shallow end. A panic gripped me as I raced to get out, but the slant of the floor was slick and I lost my footing. My weapon forgotten, I clawed at the bloody tiles, only to be pulled back by the others.

  Our wounds continued to bleed. The blood was up to my waist. Mr. O’Leary was still running, still waving his arms and shouting. But it was too late. We couldn’t get out. We were swimming now, swimming in blood. But instead of being warm, it was ice cold. The tide was rising. I wasn’t free of it yet. Higher and higher the blood rose until the pool was full. At first one, and then another of the faceless masks went under. My arms grew heavy. I could no longer feel my legs. Soon my entire body went numb. I took one final breath before sinking beneath the surface …

  * * * * *

  When I awoke, Mr. O’Leary was sitting on the bed beside me. His slouched posture and distant expression indicated he had been there for some time.

  “Ah, back from la-la land,” he said, his face brightening. “How do you feel?”

  “Better.”

  I inched into the sitting position, scratching at the bandage where the IV had been. I looked over at the adjacent bed. It was empty. Though it was evening, it felt like only moments ago since Chris had confessed.

  “You were mumbling in your sleep.”

  “I was dreaming about fencing.”

  This seemed to amuse Mr. O’Leary. “I’m in your head now,” he said, smoothing his checkered necktie. Then he went to the other side of the room and brought over a plate of chicken and rice topped with gravy sauce. “Nurse Bennett gave the okay for you to eat, so I took the liberty of bringing you dinner.”

  “Great. I’m starving. But I’m going to have to make some room first.”

  “Down the hall on your left.”

  I eased out of bed and made my way to the bathroom past the nurse’s station. While washing my hands, I noticed a message written on the back of the room’s door.

  By the twitching of my bum,

  Something wicked this way comes.

  Returning to the infirmary, I looked accusingly at Mr. O’Leary. “You haven’t by chance …”

  “What?”

  “Someone’s been writing graffiti in the bathrooms.”

  “You don’t say,” Mr. O’Leary said with a straight face, but it wasn’t long before a smile shone through his beard.

  “It’s been you all along!”

  He laughed. “What can I say? I have a weakness for Shakespeare.”

  “A teacher writing graffiti,” I said, getting back into bed.

  “But graffiti of the highest caliber. I consider it accessible literature.”

  As I devoured my dinner, Mr. O’Leary talked of the day’s events, though the conversation soon turned to fencing. Wellington had been invited to its first tournament at Andrews, a private school in Providence. Though the dream was still too fresh to get enthused, I feigned excitement.

  “It’s two weeks from tomorrow.” He grinned wolfishly. “For once we get to fight someone other than ourselves.”

  When I finished eating, Mr. O’Leary set my empty plate on the bed stand and brought over a telephone.

  “What’s this?”

  “This,” he said dramatically, “is a telephone.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I have been given explicit instructions by your mother for you to call her the minute you open your eyes.”

  “My mother? You talked to my mother?”

  I had only spoken to her once in the past two months. The idea of Mr. O’Leary having a discussion with her didn’t seem possible.

  “It’s standard procedure to contact your parents in a medical emergency.”

  “A medical emergency?” I laughed, inwardly cringing at Mother’s reaction to those words. “Isn’t that overdoing it a bit?”

  Mr. O’Leary paused. “Jake, what’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I remember seeing you in the hall. That’s about it.”

  “You had a severe case of hypothermia. You collapsed shortly after you got back. By the time we got you down here, your heart had stopped. I don’t know about you, but in my book, that’s a medical emergency. You also have three stitches in your knee. Not too bad, all things considered. So the very least you can do is call your mother. As a parent, I can assure you she’ll want nothing more than to hear the sound of your voice. And I would say a special thanks to Nurse Bennett is in order. She’s the one who resuscitated you.”

  I was too surprised to respond.

  “Had you not gotten hurt s
o badly, you’d be in a heap of trouble. Mr. Hearst spent the better part of his day explaining to your parents exactly how a student rappels down a cliff and falls into the ocean when they should be sitting in first period. But, I promised myself I wouldn’t lecture you. Let me just say there will be no more going down to this beach of yours. And your mother has made it abundantly clear that you aren’t so much as to look at the individuals who formerly made up your so-called Headliners. That includes Roland and Derek.”

  “But—”

  “Absolutely not. She’s threatened to pull you out of here, and honestly, I can’t say I blame her.”

  “If it wasn’t for them, I would never have made it back.”

  “If it hadn’t been for them, you would never have gone down there in the first place.”

  I nodded, too tired to argue. But there was something else I had to know.

  “Is Chris …”

  Mr. O’Leary raised an eyebrow. “Expelled? No.”

  “But if it were up to you, he would be.”

  Mr. O’Leary sat on the adjacent bed, in the very spot Chris had been not so long ago. “If it were up to me, Chris Forsythe would have never set foot on this island. His life is a rollercoaster. He bounces from school to school thinking he can destroy anything that crosses his path without having to stick around to clean up the mess. He doesn’t belong here, nor does Wellington have anything to offer him. I taught him at Wheaton, and in the short amount of time he was there, he managed to cause an enormous amount of damage. Even worse than what happened today, if you can believe it.”

  “Will he get expelled after the election?”

  “I don’t know, Jake. But as far as you’re concerned, Chris Forsythe might as well have been expelled. Is that understood?”

  I nodded, adding, “For the record, it wasn’t his fault.”

  Mr. O’Leary smiled. “All I know is that when Chris Forsythe is around, people get hurt.”