Zed

by Jason McIntyre

  At that, he looked down at his filthy bare legs, blotchy with dried blood.

  She gave him a smile—one that might have been one of Karen’s rare, real smiles.

  He got up, his legs creaking like those of a man twice his age, and left her there. On his way into the house, he saw that the moth no longer flitted and fussed inside the wire light fixture overhead. It had either escaped, or it had died in there and lay hidden below the hot bulb as nothing but a singed corpse.

  3

  Tom crept into the house and let the front door latch slowly, like an exaggerated mime he sometimes saw in downtown Seattle. The house was dimly lit with just the kitchen light on and one at the top of the stairs.

  He slipped off his sandals, again as quietly as he could. Then he tore through the house to the main stairs and ran up them, holding his breath. His bare feet slapped the old, polished wood floor.

  Upstairs, he went straight for the girl’s room. Again, he forced his pace to slow to an old man’s. He unlatched the door as quietly as he could, then cursed silently when it dry-squeaked its way open.

  Light from the hall spilled in on the twin beds. Ingrid snuggled into hers, despite the heat. And, closest to the door, Mary was in her bed. She was snoring. It was unmistakable. There was Mary. At home and asleep in her bed.

  Tom padded in.

  He had to see her up close. He had to make sure she wasn’t a delusion.

  But then, maybe the whole day had been one. No. It hadn’t, his bloody legs still stung from the jagged branches and mosquitos in the woods south of Nameless Beach.

  How on earth did she make it home? The only explanation was that she doubled back almost immediately, after she had run bawling into the woods. She doubled back, had to have. She came back to Zeke. She had such a soft spot for Zeke. And Zeke, well, he calmed her. And he put her in his municipal truck and he drove her back to town in time for them both to have two bites of Fidela’s turd of a supper. They watched some TV and then bam! bed-time snuck up on the whole household.

  Tom crept out again. He let the door whisper to a close behind him and made sure it gave its click. He’d spent those first few weeks checking on his charges more times than he cared to remember. He knew these doors and these floorboards well.

  His pace was much slower as he went down the main stairs. He turned the corner at the bannister and then went around through the kitchen to the back basement stairs.

  He creaked down those, thinking over the logistics of the late afternoon and how he could have—again—been so utterly stupid. He wasn’t playing Fanfare for the Common Man in his head just yet. Zeke knew this had all been top secret, but Mary didn’t. Any and all of it could come out. Like most lies, like most improprieties, Tom knew the world would probably bite him with the sharp teeth he knew it had.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he squeaked open the furnace room door. Light from the stairway illuminated everything.

  Inside, his messy cot closest to the door.

  Over in the far corner, Zeke’s perfectly made bed.

  Where was Zeke?

  4

  Zeke’s eyes burst open to the sting of hot water, spicy with minerals. A three-quarter moon shimmered in a dark, blue-black sky. But the stars didn’t twinkle. The treetops shimmered too. And that’s when Zeke realized he was under water. About six or eight inches under.

  He wasn’t holding his breath. He had none in his lungs.

  It was only water.

  He lay in the first of the three hot spring pools, the shallowest and tallest. He struggled up from what felt like the weight of his municipal truck on his chest, arms and legs—though there was nothing holding him.

  He broke free, turning the shimmering view of the night sky to a torrent of splashing silver, reflecting the visual noise of his rocky surroundings, white pines and the darkness of the forest.

  Choking, hacking his way clear of a gallon and a half of water, Zeke thought he was dying. He clawed at his neck as if it would help him to get air, but all he got was more water, heaving forth like a repeating geyser. His throat burned like the water was boiling hot. No air, nothing but the hot, never-ending sting in his mouth, his chest, his eyes.

  Finally, some air came to him. Little by little, he got it into him, mixed with the sputtering of still more water a teaspoon at a time, until finally it was just a chunky feeling in his throat. His eyes burned and he sat up in the pool, dripping hot water back into it. Around him, it looked like the water was lit from within. Tiny things swam in it, giving off light. He leaned to take a closer look, remembering... remembering what?

  The tiger-stripes on a six-winged dragonfly? Absurd, Zeke thought. Not exactly a tiger. They weren’t orange. They were yellow. Yellow alternating with black. Well, not exactly black. Dark wine that looked almost black. Such a clear memory. And Zeke hadn’t had one of those in ages.

  The chunky heft in his throat turned harder and it rose. It came not from his lungs but from a belly that felt distended with the heft of sea water. He heaved and the gut-wrenching swell brought more water still, this stuff from his stomach where it had already mixed with his various bits and natural chemicals down there. This stuff was brown and in it was not the yellow-jacket dragonfly or its carcass. In it was a dozen or more tiny krill-like crustaceans. They looked like northern krill, but so much smaller. And they glowed.

  As his vomit ejected them, he held out his hands as if to catch them. And some of them he did, near his discoloured shirt, soaked with vomit and now blood, plus these squirming critters. They reached out and pinched him and each one was like the sting of a yellow-jacket wasp, though they were one hundredth the size of one.

  Zeke shouted, “Ow-OW!” and scattered his hands so they would fall away. They did. But then they were under the water and in his lap. He stood. Pain gushed down his neck from his head. It was as though he’d taken a night of heavy drink, but Zeke had only ever done that a handful of times and exclusively in his early thirties when he’d fallen in with a bad batch of lobstermen. Potters, they were called. He remembered that too. Could picture each of those men’s beards. Saw their names as if written by chalk on the board of his mind. Everything so crisp.

  And this is when Zeke realized his glasses were gone. But how was the moon so sharp? And how did he know it was three-quarters full tonight? How?

  Everything was sharp, not just things up close. And not one inch of the world was slimy beyond dirty plastic lenses he could never seem to get clean. The world was clean though. Everything was vibrant and colourful.

  And Zeke could see it all. Every scrap of its pristine patina.

  The ache extended to all extremities. His toes cracked as he stood. One stray krill-critter stung his foot and he shook it off. He stepped forward, his head buzzing like a hangover. The pain travelled him well, but it emanated from two original places: his skull, wrapping from the small of the neck over the crown to the forehead and then the pulse-place on the right side of his throat. He touched that place. It was bleeding. It bulged like a big hail pellet was lodged beneath his skin. It moved as he probed it. Then, to his surprise, another krill-critter squirmed out, covered in black goo and his own blood. It made a squelching sound as it popped out, the biggest, grossest popped zit of all time.

  Disgusted, Zeke shook it from his hand. It splattered with part of him into the middle pool.

  Zeke took a breath. It wasn’t as heavy as before. He wondered how many of those creatures were in him now, still winding their way around his insides. He shivered, though the night was warm. The water was warm. Inside, Zeke was warm.

  He staggered against the pressure and pain and went out into the grass.

  How many hours had he been out here?

  “Hell-o?” he croaked. His voice sounded unnatural. Coarse like gravel. It was not his natural cadence. He tested it again. “I’m here,” he said with, a more confidence. “Hello?”

  He looked to the dark treed expanse beyond the moon-lit rock oasis.

  “
Hello?” he repeated. He heard something.

  “Who’s there?”

  5

  Tom didn’t dare take the new bus. With his luck, he’d wreck it on one of the tight bends up by Neckline. Besides, he’d already dodged a bullet from Nurse Karen about taking it out earlier. He peeked out the living room window. She was asleep in her chair on the verandah. Her empty mason jar lay in her lap with the ice melting into the lemon wedge and her nursing whites. Walking out into the front yard and starting the big noisy van—which was still parked in the turnaround—would wake her for sure.

  Tom went out the back way and let the screen door ease closed. No one locked their doors in Dovetail Cove. It was quaint and stupid all at the same time. He thought of doubling back and setting up the baby monitor on the front porch for Karen to hear if anything happened upstairs, but he nixed the idea. She fell asleep without getting it plugged in, any problems tonight were on her watch. Besides, everything Tom did tonight seemed to invite trouble. Somehow, doing anything to help would probably set off a chain reaction that would lead to the entire island exploding. He wasn’t thinking straight and his interior monologue wasn’t particularly funny right now.

  He went out the side yard, then cut across the neighbours’. The grass was already coated in dew. The temperature had dropped. Good thing Mary wasn’t out in the deep wild woods. But Zeke might still be. And without knowing the whereabouts of Zeke, Tom wasn’t out of the woods yet either.

  As Tom scooted down the sidewalk, he thought about why Karen hadn’t mentioned Zeke’s absence at dinner. Unless, of course, Zeke had indeed found Mary and brought her back for supper. Is it possible he’d snuck out some time after the rest had gone to bed? Tom didn’t know. But he did know that, generally speaking, Zeke had a freer rein than the rest. He had a job. He had a truck. He often went up north past the bluffs to visit his elderly father.

  Maybe it slipped Karen’s mind that Zeke went out. Or maybe she didn’t know.

  This was probably a goose chase. Zeke would likely show up around breakfast. Thursday was pancakes and bacon, his favourite. And he always seemed to remember it, even though he never knew where he put his razor.

  Tom hoped Zeke was okay. He’d gone from losing one of his beloved retards to losing none, to losing a different one altogether. Just in the space of a few dark hours. One thing was for certain, he’d be zoned out tomorrow. A lack of sleep didn’t treat him as well as his buddies back home. Some of them were good to go the whole weekend on nothing but nicotine, caffeine and alcohol (plus, maybe a slice of pizza) and be right as rain for class on Monday.

  Speaking of buddies, Tom now stood on Mikey Dean’s front porch. He had no idea what time it was (he always hated how those big men’s watches looked on his skinny wrists so he never wore one, no matter how many his mother bought him at Christmases over the last half a dozen years).

  He had no idea if he should knock, ring the bell, or throw rocks at the upstairs windows until he woke the whole house up. Trouble was, he needed a ride back to the hot spring. And he didn’t know anyone else in town. He threw his head back and looked at the rafters of the porch. Jeez, he thought. Why is everything so hard?

  He almost thought he could will the front door to open—that’s how tired and irrational he was.

  It didn’t. Of course, it didn’t. But he did hear a car door slam. He turned. And there was Farrah With No Last Name coming up the front walk. She tilted her head to the side as she saw him, recognized him. Her hair, up in a ponytail, bobbed playfully. She smiled that smile he already knew.

  “College boy,” she said, as a statement and definitely not a question. “Whatcha doin’ here?” she asked him as she drew near. She smelled of coconut oil and her ponytail was straight and combed clean in the moonlight. She didn’t look like she’d done another day in the sun and salt water. She looked like she’d just showered and come over.

  “More important question,” Tom said, lolling his tongue in his cheek.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She gave a look of mock hurt and touched her chest with a plaintive hand. “Moi?” she asked, tongue-in-cheek. She wore a light, sheer top and Tom could see her bra or swimsuit through it when she pressed her fingertips there. “Why, kind sir, whatever do you mean?” This was more of a Scarlett O’Hara impersonation and not her Vinnie Barbarino.

  “I was on my way to see if I could break you out of Ocean View prison,” she said. “We’re having a bonfire at the north end of Neckline—” She looked down the road as if tracing what her path would have looked like. “—and then I see this weirdo on my ex-boyfriend’s front lawn. Needed to make sure he wasn’t a cat burglar after the good china.” She showed him her teeth in a cute smile. “Being a good citizen, that’s all, I swear.” And with that, she showed the Boy Scout’s honour sign by holding up three fingers. She arched her back and pushed her chest out as if standing at military attention. “Sides,” she said. “No one ever locks their doors around here. Drives my dad out of his mind.” She laughed.

  Tom did not see the humour here. He rubbed his eyes with dirty fingertips, then lolled his head on his shoulders. “I don’t think I should,” he said. “Not tonight, anyway. Crazy day.”

  Farrah backed up from him and surveyed him in the shallow radius of the Deans’ porch light. There was no moth trapped in the fixture, but it didn’t offer much illumination. “Yeah,” she said, noticing his scuffs, scrapes and scratches. His clothes were filthy. “You’ve looked better.” He nodded at that. He felt like a Glad garbage bag, maybe stuffed with the leavings of Fidela’s turd of a supper then blown around in a wind storm for a few days. His legs ached. The night breeze stung as it touched his wounds. He still had leaves in his shaggy hair. To add even more money to his film fund, he didn’t bother getting it cut the last couple of weeks. He knew Nurse Karen wouldn’t fire him over it this late in his work term—even though she made the threat at the beginning of the summer. “Keep your hair trimmed, young man,” she’d said upon his arrival. “This is a place of business—not a hippie commune with chanting sessions under an old oak tree.”

  “Come on,” Farrah said with some minor level of feminine pleading. “It’s our last hurrah before school starts. Have some fun.”

  He didn’t protest further. He had the feeling that to do so with this one, he might lose every time he rolled the dice. But then it dawned on Tom. “Listen,” he said. “Can you do me a favour? The hugest favour? If you do, I’ll have as much fun as you want. Tomorrow night.”

  She cocked him a look of amused suspicion.

  “Do you have a car?” he asked her.

  “Yeah, my dad’s.”

  “On your way to Neckline, can you take me up the old spring trail? To Nameless? It’s hardly out of your way at all.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess so. I thought you were tired..?”

  “I am, but I gotta make sure I didn’t, uh, lose someone.”

  “Okaaaay,” she said, not sure what to make of that. But she started piecing things together. “Oh,” she said, catching on. “You’re gonna be swimming in shit. Let’s go.”

  “Thanks a mil,” he said, following her to the car. “Wow, nice ride.”

  She smiled at that.

  “Hey,” he said as he slid into the passenger side.

  “What?” she said. She started the car and pulled a u-turn in the middle of Lannen Lane.

  “I still don’t know your last name.”

  6

  It was creepy back out in the woods, this time in the pitch black, all except for that three-quarter moon. But with Farrah driving her dad’s midlife crisis—a baby blue Porsche 930 convertible—he relaxed some. The wind tousled his hair and he felt the rush from that cold wind on his skin. It was invigorating. Farrah was right: he needed to have some fun before the end of the summer.

  But he needed to find Zeke first. He was sure the old man was okay. Out of everyone, Zeke was the most self-
reliant. Basically a nine-year old with a driver’s license and a wandering mind. He probably just forgot to come home and headed up to his dad’s house. It was up this road too, past the spring turnoff and closer to the bluffs. He’d beg Farrah to take him there next.

  “—Come on!” he shouted over the wind noise and the roar of the engine as they sped around the curves. The road was dry and black, lit only by the round pot lamps in front of them. “—You’re gonna tease me? About your name—?”

  “—Not teasing you!” she shouted back. “Just not telling you either—!”

  She reached for the dial on the radio. It came up playing “Evil Woman” by ELO.

  “Love this one!” she shouted. Her clean, crisp ponytail trailed out from behind her in the wind of the convertible’s speed. She looked ecstatic, her arms outstretched and clutching the wheel. Tom believed she was born to drive this machine, born to rattle her own cage and confront people. Born to challenge the world.

  She slowed for the turn off, but not as much as Tom thought she should. She pulled the e-brake and they sailed in a bumpy, skidding arc, spitting dust and gravel up in a plume. The smell of hot rubber hit the air and Tom’s nostrils. Adrenaline hit his veins and he grabbed at the door grip. Farrah laughed a wicked, thrilling cackle.

  She threw the e-brake down with a clunk and dropped the stick into second gear before they settled from their eccentric, wowing turn.

  “—Too much fun!” she shouted over the roar of the engine as she floored it again and rocketed down the dark and narrow trail of dirt and weeds. Branches screamed along the paint and battered the side mirrors.

  She finally slowed—as did Tom’s heart rate—when they reached the small clearing. That is, the one where cars had trampled down the tall grass over the preceding summers to make an impromptu parking lot before the big clearing that opened up into the rocky hot spring pools themselves. The headlights of Daddy’s Porsche lit upon Zeke’s municipal truck. To Tom, it looked like the truck was in the same spot it had been all afternoon, the same spot it had been in when he tore off looking for Mary. But it was pitch dark now and he couldn’t be sure. The engine’s growl faded off as the car stuck to a halt, showing red in their mirrors. She killed it, plummeting them into silence, except for a nearby cricket and a breeze in the soughing pines. They both heard it at the same time. “Hello?” someone said, and Tom looked at Farrah. He got out and started running. Behind him, Farrah called. “Wait! I don’t have a flashlight.”