Here After

by Sean Costello

  The woman said, “Your Aunt Marie and I used to—” and a voice rang out behind them. Graham turned to see Aaron with his head out the door, his glasses crooked on his face, Aaron shouting, “Ma. Car.”

  Then Graham was in the woman’s arms and she was running like she did in the park, running up the hill to the house, and Graham’s apple fell in the weeds and his heart started racing in his chest. Aaron met them at the door and the woman handed Graham to him, saying, “In the root cellar now,” her spit speckling Aaron’s glasses, making him blink his magnified eyes. The woman kept running, turning left through the screen door to the front porch, and now Aaron was running too, his wiry arms wrapped too tight around Graham’s chest, making it hard for him to breathe. As they ran past the door to the porch, Graham saw a car roll into the yard out there, the woman walking now, moving across the dead grass to meet the car, smoothing the front of her dress with her hands.

  There was a half step down into the winter kitchen and Aaron stumbled and almost fell. Startled, Graham cried out and Aaron clapped a hand over his mouth, covering his nose too, and now Graham couldn’t breathe at all. He started to squirm and Aaron rushed him into the pantry and put him down, holding a finger to his lips to tell him to be quiet. Then he opened a trap door in the pantry floor and said, “Get in.”

  Graham saw a ladder leading down into darkness and shook his head. Aaron said, “Get in now or Ma’s gonna be furious,” except the way Aaron said it, it sounded like furr-ious, but Graham knew what he meant. “Go,” Aaron said, “I’m comin’ in witcha an’ turn on the light.” Graham heard the clunk of a car door outside and Aaron said, “Now or I’m gonna hafta push ya,” his dark eyes round and afraid behind his glasses.

  Graham got down on his hands and knees, slipped one foot over the edge to find the top rung and started down, stopping partway to make sure Aaron was coming too. Then Aaron was on the ladder, looking down at Graham, saying, “Keep goin’ so I don’t squish your fingers.” Graham did as he was told, not stopping until his bare foot touched the hard-packed earth and he noticed the smell down here, black and damp and rotten.

  Aaron stopped on the ladder and reached into the dark above Graham’s head. Graham heard a tinkling sound, then a soft click and a light came on, blinding him at first, a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling by its cord, swaying to fill this cold space with shadows like roving phantoms.

  Aaron reached up to pull the trap door shut, looked at Graham and said, “Shh.” He brought the door down and let it rest on the top of his head, leaving a crack to peek through.

  Graham heard a man’s voice now, the man saying, “Myrt’s expecting me back any minute,” and Aaron whispered, “It’s Mr. Muldoon from across the field. Ma says he’s a snoop gonna get his nose chopped off one day,” and Graham touched his nose, not liking the sound of that. He wanted out of this smelly hole in the ground.

  Very quietly, Aaron said, “Wanna see?”

  He squeezed to one side, giving Graham enough room to climb up the ladder. Scared but curious, Graham hesitated a moment, then climbed up beside the boy to peek through the crack in the trap door.

  He could see the dining room table from here, and now an old man in a straw hat coming in from the summer kitchen to sit in a chair the woman pulled out for him, asking him if he’d like something to drink. The old man said, “Thanks for asking, Maggie, but this ain’t exactly a social visit.”

  Graham thought, Maggie.

  The woman, Maggie, stood over the old man now, saying, “What kind of visit is it then, Albert?”

  The old man took off his hat, set it on the table and said, “You mind sitting, Mag? It’s hard on the ol’ neck, staring up at you like this.”

  Maggie pulled out the chair next to Albert’s and sat down. She said, “What kind of visit is it?” and Aaron whispered, “Uh-oh.”

  Albert said, “Myrt and me, we seen the news this morning. We know what you been up to, Maggie.”

  Maggie said, “And what is it you believe I’ve been up to?”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” Albert said. “It was you killed them two coppers down in Oakville and kidnapped that kid. And the other one, three years back. I remember that one, too. Even remember thinking, Goddam, don’t he look like Maggie’s boy? But I never made the connection. Neither did the cops, till now, except they think you’re just one of the victims. They’re calling them the Triplet Kidnappings now, saying it’s some freak collecting look-alikes. But when I seen that video from the park, when you tried to grab the boy off them monkey bars?” He touched the side of his head with a bent finger. “It clicked. I said to Myrt, ‘That’s Maggie Dolan,’ and she said, 'Sure as hell it is.”

  Maggie said, “What else do you think you know?”

  “I’m not here to play games with you,” the old man said. “I knew your daddy and his daddy before him. And even though we’ve lost touch over the years, you and me, I know deep down you’re a good person. Myrt wanted me to just call the cops, but I said no, I’m gonna drive up there and give her the chance to do the right thing.”

  Maggie said, “Do the right thing?” and Graham started shaking, the woman’s voice growing deeper with her anger. She was turning into the bad man again. “You think taking my boy back from the animals that stole him is wrong?” Graham wished the old man would just leave, but he wasn’t backing down.

  “That boy isn’t yours, Maggie,” he said. “His name’s Graham Cade. He’s six years old and he’s got two brothers and a sister. You put his parents in the hospital. You—”

  Maggie said, “That’s what they want you to believe,” screaming the words. Then she was out of her chair, heading for the pantry, and Aaron said, “Jump,” and let the trap door snick shut, grabbing Graham by the shirt and pulling him off the ladder to land on the dirt floor. Graham could still hear Maggie’s voice— “That’s what they want everybody to believe”—and now the trap door flew open and her face was up there over the hole. “Aaron,” she said in that deep voice, “bring your brother up out of there.” Aaron didn’t move and Maggie said, “This instant.”

  Then Aaron was pushing him up the ladder and the woman had him by the wrist, pulling him the rest of the way out. She said, “Come on, sweetheart,” and led him into the main room, tugging him over to stand in front of the old man sitting in the chair. She said, “Okay, Albert, you tell me. Who does this look like to you?”

  The old man looked at Graham with twinkling eyes, winked at him and said, “Granted, the boy’s the spitting image of Clayton.” He shook his head. “It’s downright spooky, really. But Mag, think about this a spell, would you? When was Clayton born?”

  Her brow tightening, Maggie said, “Christmas Eve, nineteen ninety-five. A minute before midnight.”

  Looking at Graham now, the old man said, “Tell me, son, what year is it?”

  Graham looked at Maggie and saw a funny glaze in her eyes. He said, “Two thousand and eight?”

  “See?” Albert said. “Clayton would be twelve now. Not six. He was six when he was taken.”

  Maggie was starting to tremble, her hand squeezing Graham’s wrist too tight.

  Albert said, “Son, what’s your name?”

  Wincing, Graham said, “Graham,” and the old man lifted his gaze to Maggie. “Maggie,” he said. “I want you to tell me what you did with that other boy. The Mullen kid. Did you hurt him? Where—?”

  Graham heard that word—Where—then he saw a streak of motion as the woman let go of his wrist, her fist slicing through the air to strike the old man in the throat. Whatever the man meant to say was lost in the wet snap Graham heard and now the man was gurgling, clutching his broken throat.

  Maggie said, “Aaron, take your brother upstairs,” and he was in Aaron’s strong arms again, not breathing, his ankles banging the steps as Aaron dragged him up as fast as he could go.

  On the first landing, Graham looked back to see the old man slump off his chair, blue eyes bugging, the woman just standing there wa
tching him.

  At the top of the stairs, Aaron put him down, grabbed his hand and tugged him along the hall to the room at the front of the house, the room Graham had slept in. He stood Graham on a wooden chair in front of the window and squeezed in beside him, tugging the sheers aside so both of them could see into the yard below.

  A couple of minutes later they saw Maggie marching toward the Muldoons’ big red car with the old man slung over one shoulder, his hat and car keys in her free hand. Graham couldn’t be sure, but he thought he could hear her singing.

  She used the keys to open the trunk, bent to dump the old man inside, then threw his hat in after him. The old man’s eyes were still open, and Graham got the feeling they were looking right at him.

  Maggie closed the trunk and climbed into the car on the driver’s side, blue smoke issuing from the tailpipe as she gunned the engine and accelerated out of the yard.

  * * *

  Peter pulled into the Shell station in Arnprior a few minutes after noon, the gentle bump of the access ramp waking Roger up.

  “Jesus,” Roger said, squinting at the digital clock. “You didn’t wake me. Where the hell are we?”

  “Arnprior,” Peter said. He parked next to an open pump and killed the engine. “I didn’t have the heart to wake you.” He opened his door, being careful not to ram it against the cement island. “I’ve really got to pee,” he said, “and I thought we should top up the tank.”

  Roger was shaking his head, clearing the cobwebs. “Go ahead and pee,” he said. “I’ll take care of the gas.” As Peter got out Roger said, “How much farther?”

  “Twenty minutes, maybe less.”

  Roger nodded and got out on his side.

  Ten minutes later they were rolling again, Peter driving in rigid silence, Roger hunched forward in his seat like a sprinter waiting for the crack of the starter pistol. Peter could feel him winding tighter with each passing mile and wished there was something he could say to calm the man down.

  And the closer they got to their destination, the more Peter feared his plan was a flawed and dangerous one. This woman was like a grizzly protecting its young, her fury indiscriminate, unbounded by truth or reason. During the long drive up here, an image had played on a continuous loop in his mind, one of himself mounting Maggie Dolan’s porch steps in August sunshine, pressing his face to the screen as he had before, except this time it wasn’t a woman that emerged from the gloom in there but the unwavering barrel of a shotgun, its terrible blast shattering the afternoon stillness, the fire it spat bowling him off the porch to die bleeding in the dirt.

  To break the silence, he told Roger about the old farmer he’d sat with that day in July, suggesting that perhaps they should stop at the man’s place before going on to the Dolans’. “We could borrow his phone, call Sergeant Taylor and let her know what’s going on. She could send in the local police and we’d still have plenty of time to talk to the woman.”

  Roger agreed it was a good idea, and when the Muldoon homestead appeared, Peter pulled into the gravel driveway, parking behind an old red Chrysler with its trunk open.

  Peter said, “Be right back,” and got out, closing the door behind him. On his way around the hood, he saw Albert’s straw hat lying on its side in the Chrysler’s trunk, the leather head band stained black from years of dirt and sweat. The sight of it struck a chord of alarm in Peter. On his first visit here, he remembered thinking the old guy probably slept in that hat. It was part of what he’d liked about the man. Why would he leave it in the trunk, just tossed aside like that?

  He glanced at Roger staring at him from the passenger seat, then went up the porch steps. The inner door was open and Peter called through the screen, “Albert? Myrt? Anybody home?” When he got no reply, he opened the screen door wide enough to hammer the brass knocker on the inner door. He shouted, “Mr. Muldoon?” and stepped inside, the kitchen right there, a pot of water boiling over on the stove.

  Feeling like a trespasser, Peter crept over to the stove and turned the element off. Then he caught a whiff of something foul and moved through an archway into a sitting room steeped in shadow, heavy curtains drawn against the daylight. The smell was worse in here, and as his eyes adjusted Peter stumbled over something by the coffee table—Albert’s feet, shod in work boots, the old man laid out on his back on an oval area-rug, his big hands folded across his chest. In the man’s stillness, Peter recognized death without the need for further verification, and now he saw Myrt on the other side of the table, posed in exactly the same manner. The smell was coming from her, the impossible angle of her head telling Peter her neck had been broken, her bowels letting go in the cataclysm of spinal shock.

  There was a phone in the kitchen and Peter ran to it now, an old wall-mounted rotary by the fridge. He grabbed the handset and almost fumbled it, then brought it to his ear to find only dead air, as dead as the Muldoons laid out on the rug in their sitting room. He jiggled the U-shaped plunger, listening for a dial tone, then ran out to the porch to tell Roger.

  But Roger wasn’t there.

  Peter ran down the steps into the yard, looking up the road in time to see his car turning left at the top of the hill, raising a cloud of dust, Maggie Dolan’s farmhouse less than a mile away. He came back to the Chrysler, saw the empty ignition and ran into the house. There was a staircase to his right and he bolted to the top, entered a room on his left—Myrt’s sewing room—and strode to the window facing the back of the house.

  Out there, hazy across a rolling field of corn, stood the Dolan place, only its gray shingled roof visible through the surrounding trees.

  Peter ran down the stairs as fast as his legs would carry him. There was a back door off the kitchen and he pushed through it onto a wooden stoop. There was a brand new maple axe handle leaning against the railing, the price sticker still on it, and Peter picked it up, testing its heft.

  Then he started out across the cornfield, sprinting through the buzz of insects and the dry rustle of leaves, the tall stalks swallowing him whole.

  * * *

  Graham sat stock still in a rocking chair on the porch, his slender arms folded across his chest, watching Maggie back a big motor home out of the high garage and park it in front of the house.

  After she drove away in the old man’s car, he and Aaron had looked at comic books until she got back, sweaty from hiking through the corn. She came straight upstairs and told Aaron to get busy, it was time to hit the road. Then she carried Graham out to the porch and said, “Don’t move from this spot, okay? Your brother and I’ve got some things to do, then we’re going for a nice long drive.” Graham asked where and she said, “You’ll see.”

  Now Aaron came out lugging a suitcase, breathing hard through his open mouth, a worried look on his face. He glanced at Graham, then wrestled the suitcase down the steps and across the yard to the motor home, his mother helping him lift it up through the narrow entrance. Aaron came back then, going inside again, and now Maggie came back too. “Come on, sweetheart,” she said, taking Graham’s hand. “I want to show you something.”

  She led him to the motor home and lifted him inside. Graham had never been in one of these. It was like his school bus except with a miniature house inside: a kitchen with a fridge and stove and a table with booth seats, a comfy-looking couch behind the driver’s seat, a little TV, and a carpeted hallway that led to a bed in the back.

  “Hot as the dickens in here right now,” Maggie said, “but just wait till we get the A/C fired up, we’ll all be cool as cucumbers.” She opened a skinny door in the hallway and said, “The bathroom’s in here,” and Graham saw a funny little toilet in there and a sink made of chrome, a medicine chest, and a shower with glass doors. She said, “Neat, huh? This is going to be our home for a while. I thought maybe we could head north. Plenty of places to hide up there.”

  Graham didn’t want to hide. He wanted his mommy and daddy, his sister Risa and his two big brothers. He thought of his daddy telling him to be brave when he h
ad something hard to do, like going to the dentist or getting a booster shot, but he was tired of being brave. He looked up at Maggie, showing him the bedroom now, telling him he’d be sleeping back here with her, and said, “I want to go home,” and the tears came again, gushing out of his eyes to dribble onto his shirt.

  He thought Maggie would be angry, but she said, “Aw, honey,” and sat him on the foot of the bed, kneeling in front of him, brushing the hair off his hot forehead. “I know this is hard for you,” she said, her own eyes filling with water. “It’s all so new. But sweetie, this is your home.” She squeezed his hand. “You need to just give things time. You’ll see, everything’s—”

  There was a clattering noise and Aaron appeared in the doorway. He said, “Ma, ’nother car,” and Maggie got to her feet, telling Graham to stay put.

  She said, “Close the door,” to Aaron, shuttered all the windows on her way to the front of the motor home, then told Aaron to go sit with his brother. She opened a cupboard under the sink and brought out a pair of short brown sticks made of wood, then went down on one knee behind the driver’s seat, watching out the big front window.

  Graham shifted to let Aaron sit beside him and now he could see through the front window, too. For a moment there was nothing.

  Then a small gray car zoomed into the yard, skidding in the dirt as it ground to a halt between the motor home and the house. A big man got out without closing the door, stared at the motor home for a moment, then ran up the porch steps to the screen door, his hands balled into fists. He banged hard on the door and Graham could hear him shouting the woman’s name, “Margaret Dolan?” then banging again on the door. “I know you’re in there,” he said. “You need to come out here right now. You need to tell me what you’ve done with my son.”

  Peeling off her wig and tossing it onto the table, Maggie opened the motor home door and stepped out into brilliant sunlight. The instant she was gone, Aaron scooted around the bed to the small window facing the house, spreading the slats in the Venetian blind with grubby fingers to see what was going on.