Offspring

by Jack Ketchum

  They were climbing into the hills. The turnoff onto Scrub Point Road was right around here someplace. Beyond the next bend or two.

  Something was wrong. He could feel it.

  The squawk box crackled to life.

  “Sheriff? Confirmation on that name again?”

  “Carey. Cable-Apple-Robin-Eve-Yellow. Steven Douglas.”

  There was a pause on the dispatcher’s end, a moment of open air, and he knew before the man spoke again that what he was feeling was far from bullshit, that this was pure trouble, that same white-light edge of something about to happen he’d felt back at Marion’s, before the cord went around her neck, mere seconds before. Something coiled—cold, frightening, yet almost pleasurable, almost beautiful—inside him. Easy, he thought. Take care. Take stock.

  Winding road. Sixty. Much too fast. Sharp curve ahead. Have to slow down for that. Grassy shoulder. Dropping off down a steep hill. To what?

  Nobody around, no lights anywhere.

  They haven’t locked the door yet.

  Wait. Could be nothing.

  The cop beside him was looking at him.

  The squad car was slowing, going into the curve.

  It’s not nothing. Go!

  “That’s what I thought you said,” said the dispatcher. “Interesting. We got an all-points on Steven Douglas Carey about an hour ago. Wanted for questioning related to the murder of . . .”

  He slammed open the door, felt the cool air rush against him, tumbled and rolled with the impact. He felt stones bruise his ribs and thighs, the wet soft grass, felt the car rush away ahead of him and then heard the squeal of brakes and still he was rolling, rolling down the hill, way down, the grass much higher now, rolling over cattails and tall thick marsh grass that sliced his face and hands yet slowed his fall, rolling finally to a stop in some kind of muck while the car doors slammed overhead. And then he was standing up, dizzy as hell at first, hardly able to stand. He shook his head to clear it and felt mud fly off his face.

  He found solid earth again and started running.

  The beams of flashlights played over the space behind him, coming down from the top of the hill.

  Would they follow?

  Marion, you bitch, you told on me. Even dead you told somehow.

  He couldn’t see anything at first. It didn’t matter. He was running through water and then out of it again, not knowing which was which until he got there, just running, slogging through, slipping on rocks, pushing aside the cattails with flailing hands. He smelled stagnant water and rotten vegetation as the water grew deeper and he knew he was in some slow-moving stream, moving gradually uphill against its flow.

  That didn’t matter either. What mattered was getting the hell away from them and he was doing that, all he had to do was go and keep on going and the months of handball had prepared him, shit he was strong, he wasn’t even breathing hard and he knew one goddamn thing, that fat bastard wasn’t going to be following.

  Fuck ’em, he thought. Fuck ’em.

  Oh you can’t catch me. Oh no you can’t catch me. If you get too close I’m gone, gone, gone like a cool breeze.

  The Blues Project, 1967.

  He’d never felt so free.

  He heard his own laughter echo through the hills, his feet pounding the clay banks of the stream.

  Fuck ’em all.

  His eyes were working again, the moonlight bright as the clouds moved away and he saw he was in a forest, deep, with trees all around.

  Shit yes, he thought. A forest. Plenty of places to hide.

  He pulled off the new silk tie and dropped it in the muck behind him and ran.

  10:25 P.M.

  Manetti was on the horn again.

  “. . . right. Tell the state boys he bailed out about a hundred yards from Scrub Point Road off Six. Sounds like he’s moving upstream. We could hear him laughing down there like a goddamn loon. He keeps on laughing like that he won’t be hard to find. Keep me posted.”

  Peters had his eyes on the rough dirt road ahead, searching for movement beyond the headlights.

  He was gratified that Manetti hadn’t wanted to waste any time on this character. He’d known cops who would never have been able to take Carey getting away from them. Their egos couldn’t manage it. But Manetti had his priorities straight. The people on the hill were priority. And even if he did the murder, this guy was next to nothing tonight.

  They pulled into the drive. It looked like half the lights in the house were burning inside.

  Manetti left the engine running, his headlights and flasher on.

  Normal procedure would be to wait for backup but Manetti wasn’t having any of that either. From what the dispatcher said backup was still minutes away and minutes could make a difference here.

  Peters’ hand felt clammy on the butt of his .38. They stepped carefully out of the car.

  Harrison threw the beam of his Maglite over the grounds. They saw shattered glass in the driveway from Steven Carey’s windshield. Other than that, nothing.

  Peters glanced over the house. Saw the steep hill, the stilts supporting the deck around the other side. The house had two floors and maybe a cellar and that was all.

  Evidently you walked through this door directly into the kitchen. He flattened himself against the cedar shingle siding, then turned and looked through the window. There was a lobster pot in the sink. Canned goods and silverware scattered on the floor. No movement at all that he could see. He waited, made sure, then nodded to Manetti and Harrison who were poised with guns drawn at the door.

  Harrison tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. The knob was turning. He pushed it open and Manetti rushed inside. Harrison swung and covered him and then went in fast beside him. From there he turned a corner into the hall—Peters could see a bedroom and a stairway—while Manetti took the study. Peters was right behind him. The smell of blood telling him just who was going to find what, and where.

  He left the door open a crack.

  For the ventilation.

  The guy lay on the floor near one of the computers. The computer screen and desk were covered with blood. So were the walls and the potbellied stove and the sliding glass doors.

  His arms and legs were gone.

  You could see inside the guy. His heart was missing and the liver and kidneys were missing, and there was nothing but a wide pool of blood exploding outward from where his genitals had been—as though he’d pissed himself away. Maybe they’d find his dick beneath a table somewhere.

  Manetti was staring down at him.

  “Fuck this,” he said.

  Peters knew exactly how he was feeling. How empty and hopeless it is when you’re too damn late this time.

  “This was a real nice guy,” said Manetti. He shook his head. “Fuck this.”

  Peters gave him a moment.

  “Halbard, right?” he asked.

  Manetti nodded.

  Miles Harrison was coming down the stairs. He turned the corner into the room and went white when he saw what was lying there.

  “Anything?” asked Manetti. You could see him pull himself up. He was suddenly all business again. He knew his boys.

  Harrison forced his eyes off the body. He swallowed. “Broken door to one of the upstairs bedrooms. There was a kid up there for sure, toys all over the place. Window’s wide open, like maybe somebody got out that way, or tried to. The other room’s got suitcases, perfumes, women’s clothes. There’s a bassinet in the downstairs bedroom and a king-sized bed. Men’s and women’s clothes in the closet.”

  “Hold it,” said Peters. “Bassinet? We’re talking about another baby here?”

  Harrison just looked at him, thinking, probably, pretty much the same thing he was thinking. That if things could get worse, they just had.

  “There’s no chance it’s been sitting there awhile?”

  Manetti’s voice was quiet. “They had a daughter, I think it was. A few months ago.”

  And there was the headache again, pushing from some
where in the back of his head. Maybe it had been there all along and he’d just become aware of it, just now let it in. He sighed. He thought about the pint in his inside jacket pocket and dismissed the idea. Maybe these people had some aspirin in the bathroom.

  “I’ll be back,” he said.

  He was in there with three of them in his hand when he heard a commotion in the den—voices and hurried movement across the floor. Peters stuck his head in.

  Manetti and Harrison were at the open door. It looked to Peters like they were about to leave him there.

  “Hey? What’s up?” he said.

  “Screaming,” said Harrison. His gun was drawn. “Somebody out there screaming.”

  Claire saw the headlights and the flasher and thought, Thank god!

  It had seemed like forever they were up there, hoping Melissa would continue sleeping, hoping no one would pass by, hoping for just this—headlights cutting through the night, bringing help and safety and a way out.

  Luke saw them too. “All right!” he said.

  There was no way she could depend on the police to search the woods. Certainly not right away. They might not get to that for hours or even till morning. Meantime these people were still out here.

  And Amy was out here too. Not far.

  They had to get down.

  She’d called her own judgment into question almost constantly these days—inevitable aftershocks of the marriage. Nine years ago she’d embarked on what she thought of as the single real adventure that two people could have together—love, commitment, home, and family—embarked upon it because she thought she knew her partner. And had not.

  If she could get this wrong, what else? Certainty was like a skittish colt—she couldn’t grab the reins.

  But Amy was out there. That was certain. And twenty years of friendship left her very little room for doubt for a change.

  “Me first,” she said.

  She wrapped Melissa in the comforter. The baby’s eyes flicked open and she smiled. Claire forced a smile back at her. Her foot found the first rung of the ladder. Carefully, she started down.

  She glanced up at Luke crouched on the platform. He was watching her protectively, as though ready to reach out and grab her if she missed a step. The breeze billowed her light summer dress.

  There was only one board that had felt really loose to her on the way up and she was on it now, edging her foot over so that she was right on top of the double nails for maximum support. Melissa was regarding her seriously, brow furrowed, staring wide-eyed at her chin. She gave the board her weight. It squeaked and held.

  She was down. She saw Luke silhouetted against the dark sky, peering over the platform.

  “Come on!” she whispered.

  He shifted under the railing to the ladder. She glanced right and left down the trail. She felt the insistent need to hurry, an irrational fear that for some reason the police and squad car wouldn’t stay, that they’d get to the house and they’d already be gone, leaving them alone in Amy’s empty home, still echoing with screams.

  Luke dropped down beside her. Her right hand fluttered over his shoulder, across his chest. Needing the contact, needing to reassure itself that he was there, intact, all right.

  Then they were moving down the trail together. Clouds across the moon defeated the urge to hurry. The trail was dark and narrow. They passed slowly through the shallow cut between hills and up the other side. Melissa began crying again, swiping with her tiny hands. Claire hugged her close, patting and stroking her back. She subsided.

  At the top of the hill they looked across the dark canopy of scrub and beyond that toward the house, obscured by trees. The sky was brighter there. She could see colored lights—the flasher.

  The police. Safety.

  They started down.

  The clouds passed by and they walked in moonlight for a moment. Then the trees pressed close, leaning meeting at their tops above the trail, blocking out the light.

  She stumbled. The path was rocky here. She caught herself immediately but Melissa began to cry in outrage and surprise. She patted her, stroked her, bounced her gently in her weary arms.

  And now the trail opened up again. They were in moonlight again, the last stand of trees before the open field just yards away.

  “Come on,” she said. “Hurry.”

  Luke tried to edge ahead of her but something made her thrust him back—so abruptly that he almost fell. And she had time to regret this, to feel bad about denying him and pushing him and even to wonder for a moment why she’d done it before the man stepped out into the path, into the light from between the trees.

  You son of a bitch, she thought. Get away.

  It wasn’t fair. In her mind she could see the lights and flashers below, imagine the gentle awkward arms of the policeman reaching for Melissa, see them running up the hill, guns drawn, after Amy.

  Fear and anger in conflict crawled across her flesh like red and black ants aswarm in battle. She swung at them crazily.

  Get away.

  Fear of him—of his bulk, his excrement smell and his confident stance. Of the eyes like the eyes of dogs gone wild. Of his ax turning slowly in the moonlight.

  Anger at his arrogance that he should dare to frighten them. A woman, a boy, a baby.

  Anger at his cowardice.

  Fear of his power.

  She wanted to run and attack him at the same time. She knew that neither was right, that neither would get her anywhere, that whichever one she chose would see her dead on the ground in front of him, she saw her body twitching at his feet on that very spot, and knew in an instant that there was only one way she could survive this and that was to do both these things at once, to split herself in two, to run from him and attack at the same time—and that was possible. Because she was not one. She had not been one for many years now.

  She was two.

  “Luke!”

  He was frozen to the spot, staring.

  She thrust the baby into his arms. The man stepped forward.

  Her eyes scanned the ground. No sticks, nothing to swing to keep him at bay, but the path was still rocky there so she stooped and clawed at the rocks, clawed at them and around them, digging her fingers into the hard-packed soil, but they wouldn’t give, they were sunk too deep, the earth would not release its grip.

  And he was coming. Swinging the ax.

  She got down on her hands and knees and clawed, gasping, tears of frustration flowing.

  She felt Luke take one step away behind her. Yes. That was right. She turned.

  “Run!” she screamed.

  Melissa was wailing.

  “Mom?”

  “Run!”

  He was almost on them and she was starting to stand so that at least her body would be between them—at least that—when Luke turned and ran and she felt a sudden, release—a sudden sharp intake of breath as though she were running too. She stood up, prepared to meet him, to take the ax deep into her if need be. To hurt him somehow if possible.

  But the man only looked at her, a moment of confusion in his eyes. Then he looked after Luke. And she saw who was important to him and what he was going to do.

  “Noooo!” she screamed, and hurled herself forward, clawing at him now and not the unyielding earth. The man flung her aside but she’d thrown him off balance for an instant. He righted himself and she was on him again even as he turned to run, arms around his legs. He made a startled sound and fell, his body thudding to the ground and tumbling away from her, turning, coming up with the handle of the ax. She felt it slam the side of her face, tasted blood. Her grip on his legs weakened but he wasn’t free of her, not yet, she was holding on, giving Luke time, even as her vision swam and lights began to burst behind her eyes.

  He kicked one leg free and pushed her away, pounded at her face and she swallowed blood this time and felt her back teeth splinter and something bore into her upper palate. She lost her grip. He pulled his leg away. Her hands came off him weak and smeared with mud.
>
  She lay there and saw him stand, searching, looking for Luke. Listening. She struggled to her knees.

  Luke was gone. He was nowhere in sight. The trail was an utter miracle of stillness.

  Through the pain she felt pleasure, contempt for him, triumph.

  They were two now. One of them free.

  She felt this even as he reached into her hair, her scream escaping into the silence, and pulled her to her feet.

  The Woman crouched hidden amid ferns and brush.

  She watched the man coming toward them, plodding upstream.

  The man was tiring.

  Behind her, deeper back, Eartheater and Rabbit watched, too—Eartheater only sporadically as she peeled the young horsetail shoot, munching on its sweet interior.

  The Woman did not recognize the man and his presence in the stream disturbed her. For one thing he was dressed oddly: a coat that did not close over his body but instead flapped back and forth across his chest as he walked, sleeves so short his shirt showed through at the wrists, as though he had taken the coat from someone smaller.

  From prey, perhaps.

  For another thing, the man was smiling.

  It was not the same sort of smile Rabbit wore—and was wearing now—not a fool’s exactly. But it had in common with Rabbit’s smile a troubling lack of reason. The man was breathing heavily, walking now on the bank and now through the water, his trouser legs thick with mud. He was alone, tired, walking in the night.

  Yet the man was unafraid. The man was smiling.

  She did not think she had ever seen him before. But the man was comfortable there. He looked like he belonged there.

  As her people did.

  For a moment she almost feared him.

  As he drew closer to her she saw the hardness in the smile, the cold glittering eyes. Saw that he, too, had taken pleasure in the hunt.

  Yet compared to her the man was soft.

  She had only to watch him breathe.

  Instinctively she saw in him a rival for the child’s blood. She needed no such rival. The man might have tricks, knowledge. Physical strength was not the only thing. But she watched him with a curiosity she had rarely known. Except for the Cow she had never stolen a man in full manhood, and the Cow was hardly a man, the Cow had never been. She watched him splash through the stream like a child. She was loath to kill him until the smile was gone—until she knew why he smiled.