Where the hell could they have gone? To get back up the chimney so quickly they would have had to fly. He’d have heard it. Wouldn’t he?
Corey let the cap fall soundlessly to the carpet and switched hands, wiping his right against the bathrobe while he walked around the room, holding his only line of defense before him like a crucifix. Nothing. Not a single bee.
The buzzing returned when he approached the fireplace, echoing down from the flue. They were in there. Going back outside? He knelt with the can in front, opened the glass door on the left. He leaned forward and looked up. The buzzing was getting louder again. Coming back. Corey thought of Abby, mostly to give him the nerve, whispered a curse then reached up, into the flue. Expecting the crunch of their bodies under his fingers and a hundred hot jabs of stingers, he found the handle, felt only cold iron and the loop of the handle. The whine of the bees was loud and urgent.
He yanked the flue closed, dulling the approaching sound.
The room was silent. No ping, ping of the them hitting the trap.
Now that the immediate shock had passed, Carey noticed how fast his heart was running. They may be out of the house, but they were in the chimney, no question. He closed the glass doors. It was all he could do until someone could come and spray with something more potent than six year-old Raid.
After a quick exploration through the kitchen’s stuff drawer, Corey returned with a note written on the back of Sam’s shopping list pad with thick black marker.
BEES! DO NOT TOUCH DOORS!
Abby wouldn’t be able to read it, but he’d have Sam explain what it said. He taped the sheet across the doors, then sat on the floor against the couch for another ten minutes, making sure they couldn’t find another way in. His eyes began to close, open, close again. Corey shuffled back to bed just after four o’clock only to be jolted awake by the radio’s static at six. Sam stirred, then rolled herself back into sleep. Corey didn’t have a problem getting out of bed. Before starting his morning routine, he went back into the living room.
The sun was up, but not Abby. Morning light played through the front window, across the clock and fireplace doors. The note was there, and no wasps. Corey crouched down, listened, heard nothing but the cacophony of birds’ songs outside the windows.
Seeing the note, taped a bit cockeyed, at least proved he hadn’t dreamt the whole thing. He re-taped the note straighter and let out the breath he’d been holding. Living in the country, he decided. Something he’d have to get used to. It had been a bizarre experience, but that could be attributed to the insane hour when he’d had to deal with it. Maybe a little stress, too, new house, world going to hell. Keep it together, Corey. People need you to be strong, remember?
He tightened the sash of his robe and headed back down the hall. He’d wake Sam after his shower, let her know what had happened. Meanwhile, time was wasting. The drive to work was twenty minutes longer from here. He’d been late the first couple of days. Not today. Wasp-haunted clock or not.
MONDAY
I
“Time is ticking and she keeps on licking,” the old man sang, tunelessly, as he walked. His eyes squinted whenever the sun flashed bright through the green canopy above him. Hank Cowles still enjoyed visiting this part of town, although less so than years earlier, when the paved road he and Nurse Charles currently traversed was nothing but a thin vein worming through the woods. Like the path which snaked between the Union property and that of the sex-starved nymph who thought herself his rival. Maybe she was the angel sailing on feathery wings to save the day as she proclaimed. Maybe, in a twisted sort of way. To Hank, Vanessa was nothing but a meddlesome bitch who would get hurt if she kept sticking her pouty lip where it didn’t belong.
The small dog beside him sneezed in agreement.
A cloud of gnats drifted around Hank’s head in a lazy drift. Their season was ending. These days belonged to the flocks of dragonflies having a wonderful time decimating the gnats’ ranks. Hank casually swatted aside a particularly thick clump in the air before him, for no other reason than he enjoyed disrupting patterns of any kind.
The driveway up ahead was discernable only as a break in the trees along the road. The Union family home, its owners squatting on this once primal land. They'd been personally chosen by Hank Cowles and his dog from over thirty potential buyers who’d walked eagerly along its uneven landscape, making an offer, then a second and third.
Hank had chosen this family. As a result, the lovely, lonely creature Vanessa immediately began slithering her way between them like the garden serpent she was. No doubt working her charms on Corey, or his wife. Maybe both. Hank raised an eyebrow at that picture. He often wondered how a creature like her could have such a screwed up sense of love, physical or not. Life was like that, he supposed, no matter what part of the ground it wormed itself up from. Life began with individuals; individuals formed groups; groups to civiliz—
Something wet splashed on his ankle. Hank looked down. He was standing in the middle of the road, lost as usual with his philosophizing. Nurse Charles’s small back leg was raised up as she pissed against his ankle. Hank watched this little attention-grabber and tried to decide why the act seemed so wrong. Anatomically, perhaps. Did bitches pee like that? He was pretty sure they squatted, and was equally sure Charlie was female. This question was far more gripping in his mind than the fact that the dog was peeing on his sock and pant leg in the first place. Still, he considered kicking the thing into the bushes, stomping on its little chest, then again on its head, crushing its neck…
The Shih-Tzu lowered the leg and sat on its haunches. It opened its mouth and began to pant, the dog pantomime of a smile. She looked so cute, Hank thought, sitting there smiling. Hank understood the look, as clear as if the animal had spoken. Fantasize all you want, the dog didn’t say, but go any further than that and I’ll tear your head off, you damned waste of breath.
Something like that. He laughed, the act no more than a twitch at the corner of his mouth and a quick exhalation of breath through his nose. For him, it was a guffaw. Hank raised his own leg, slowly, gave it a shake. The stain wasn’t too bad. Not the first time Charlie had done something like this. He tended to drift in his mind, never focusing on the task at hand for very long.
“Thanks,” he said. Along this quiet street, even in this modern time with the occasional house marring the old forest like a zit, there was rarely a car passing by at eleven o’clock on a weekday morning. Anyone with any place to go was already there.
Much like him and his dog.
“OK, Charlie,” he said, “go do what you do best, eh?”
Nurse Charles wagged her stump of a tail and trotted towards the driveway. Hank lowered the foot he’d been holding aloft and added, louder, “I’m going home to wait for my call, and to change.”
The dog continued merrily up the long driveway. Behind it, the road was empty, a deserted stretch of asphalt dappled in summer shade.
II
“What does this one say?” Abby held the piece of torn notebook paper out to her mother. Samantha took it between two gloved fingers and read the passage, to herself first, smiling at the image she thought she’d captured so clearly. She leaned back on her heels and read, “Black soil, the soul of the earth, fed with water from sky and heart.”
Abby smiled and took the paper back. “That’s pretty.” She stared at the pen scratches as if trying to decide which words were which. She’d be able to read them soon enough, Sam knew. Maybe even write her own.
Samantha leaned forward and dug a narrow groove in the dirt with the spade. “Right here, Sweetie.” Abby hesitated, reluctant to give up her mother’s words. “It’s all right,” Sam whispered. “They’ll still be there, and here.” She poked the girl lightly on the forehead with her fingertip. It left a smudge of dirt like ashes.
Abby giggled, then laid the strip of paper reverently into the small grave. Samantha covered it with loam. Already her daughter had taken the next slip. “This one?”
Sam read that verse, then the next. For each, she allowed her daughter time to stare at the words as if committing them to memory, before prodding her to bury them in the garden.
Abby never asked why they did this, what the point of the ritual was. If she ever did, Sam wondered if she could honestly answer. She’d written the nine-line poem this morning over breakfast, once Corey was off to work. It was always easier to write when she didn’t have to worry about him accidentally glimpsing something over her shoulder. She had to stop worrying so much. Her secret words, secret life, secret dreams, secret strife, was therapy. Her own, not Doctor Reilly’s.
Why Corey could not be a part of it, Sam never completely understood, nor why Abby could be included. Of course, hiding the words from her daughter would prove impossible. To Abby, it was a game, a secret shared between them. Maybe that was wrong—Samantha was sure it was wrong to ask her daughter to not to repeat the poems to her father—but for now, it was right. She was more afraid of Corey learning that she was allowing Abby into her inner sanctum, but not him.
Finishing the poem this morning, she’d impulsively torn the page from the spiral notebook and on a whim, no conscious plan to do so, ripped each line into its own existence. Abby was impatient to get outside to the garden, and Sam at once understood her words would be fertilizer, growing into new life around the tomatoes and cucumbers—if she could get the plants to grow and mature in time. All of this, the writing and planting and growing of life, an artistic endeavor; maybe a way of secretly sharing it with Corey at the same time.
She wasn’t crazy. In fact, she would go crazy if she didn’t do it.
When they’d finished with the last strip, the final literary funeral, she thought, Sam sat fully on the ground in front of the small garden and nodded to Abby. The girl was holding an open packet of carrot seeds. They wouldn’t grow very big in only half a season, but it would be good practice for next year. It would be fun to see how much they matured. Here she was, a grown woman, hiding her poetry under the bed, burying it line by line in the garden. And there was Corey, a grown man, with a recent, and at times quite extreme fear of the world.
A small white dog poked its muzzle against Samantha’s left wrist. She jerked sideways in surprise. The dog didn’t run away. It looked at her, small pink tongue sliding back and forth over white teeth, a smiling pant. She thought, Corey’s afraid of dogs, too, a fact neither of them wanted to admit openly in front of their daughter. The stub of their visitor’s tail wagged joyously.
Abby said, “Mommy! A doggie, a doggie, a doggie!” The girl dropped the packet of seeds. They spilled onto the grass beside the low stake-and-string fence. Seeds scattered and sown, Sam sang in her mind.
With no concept of strange dog protocol, Abby immediately scooped the Shih-Tzu into her arms like a doll. The dog raised its muzzle and pelted the girl with licks, tail wagging faster. “Hey, girl! You’re so cute! Can we keep her?” The dog raised its front paws in a tangled half-dance. Abby laughed. Sam decided the poor animal was probably trying to free itself rather than be cute.
“Abby, don’t squeeze it so hard. And no, we can’t keep her. I’m sure she belongs to someone.”
Abby let the dog drop back onto four legs but did not stop patting it, scratching it, running her hand along its curly white back. She whispered into its ear, “What’s your name, Sweetie?”
Sam smiled. Abby was using one of the nicknames she and Corey had for her. She ran her own fingertips over the soft, slightly tangled hair, found the collar and worked the tags around to the back of the dog’s neck. The animal didn’t mind, too intent on playing with its new friend.
Sam read the ID tag. Her brow furrowed.
“I think she belongs to a nurse…” Then she saw Hank Cowles’ name and realized Nurse Charles was the dog’s name. “She belongs to Mister Cowles.”
“Who’s he?”
“I don’t remember.” Sam recognized the name, but couldn’t remember exactly… She double-checked the dog’s name, just to be sure, before continuing, “And this,” she released the tag and gave the mutt an affectionate, highly amused tousle on the head, “is Nurse Charles!” What a stupid, wonderful name, she thought to herself.
Abby put the dog’s face between her hands and said, in all seriousness, “Nice to meet you, Miss Charles.”
Sam didn’t bother correcting her, but looked around the yard, expecting to see the dog’s owner coming their way. No sign, though. She said, “Mister Cowles must be looking for her. Let’s go around front, see if he’s there.”
They stood, Sam more slowly as her muscles worked out the stiffness from kneeling so long, brushed the dirt off the front of their jeans. Nurse Charles walked merrily around the girl, wanting to play.
The air smelled wet. A few dark gray clouds drifted amid lighter, whiter ones. It was raining somewhere. Not here. Not yet.
The threesome walked around the house. No sign of the owner. Then she remembered that Hank Cowles used to own this land. In fact, he’d sold it to them. With this came the memory of how abrasive the old man had been the one time they’d met, when he’d insisted upon a face-to-face before accepting the offer on the property. They’d never met him again, not even during the closing. Still, he’d be happy to know his dog was OK. They let Nurse Charles come inside only long enough to call the number embossed on her ID tag. She had to make sure the dog was outside again, preferably back with her owner, before Corey got home.
Fear of bombs, she thought, fear of dogs. Cerberus’ multiple heads rising over the horizon to devour the world.
She found her notebook, still open on the kitchen table, and wrote the thought down before making the call.
III
Corey closed the electronic file he’d been reviewing, realized he’d forgotten to make the update needed for the next test cycle and opened the file again. All morning he’d been distracted, thinking of clocks and bees and bad dreams. Mostly of dreams. What was real? What had he only imagined? In the light of day with other normal, real lives flurrying around him, he’d begun to consider that most of the morning’s nightmare with the wasps had been just that, a nightmare. A waking dream, though he could not deny the bees’ existence. They had been real, but to what extent? Probably a nest stuffed in the chimney like a lost Christmas toy. The note was taped to the glass doors, and he remembered writing it. He’d been awake through it all but… But reality didn’t step sideways like that, not in the sun-bright world that he lived in. That’s exactly what it had felt like. A twisted dream crawling though a tear in his world, swarming over the clock. So, then, he’d been asleep, or half-asleep. His addled brain twisted the events to fit how it saw the rest of the world - dangerous, looming like a thunderstorm. Nothing about how his mind worked lately was much of a surprise. Spend so much effort avoiding reality and it’ll find other cracks to seep in, like gas.
This revelation had come when Corey tried to condense what had happened to a sleepy-eyed Sam this morning. As a child, his mother used to tell him that if he told the details of a nightmare, it would become less frightening. It would not come back. And it worked. Like this morning. The more details he remembered the more ludicrous it sounded. He’d edited most out before they reached his lips, telling her there was probably a nest in the flue and that Sam had to make sure Abby didn’t touch the doors. Nice and normal, the way things would always be from now on.
“…count fifty-two dead, a hundred hospitalized in what had been dubbed the worst—”
“Headphones, Andrew,” Corey said over the half wall of his cubicle. He may have spoken too loudly but didn’t care. They weren’t supposed to have radios at their desks without headphones. Rules were rules. He was tired of people assuming everyone else gave a shit what misery transpired the night before.
Andrew Booth’s deep voice returned over the wall, “Wasn’t me.” Then, louder, “Rob, headphones…”
“What?” Robert Schard’s more distant voice from the cube next to Andrew’s. “Oh, sor
ry.” The news report cut off at the words, “…president has reit-“
Silence. Before the storm, Corey thought. All his life he’d had little phobias: dogs, spiders—he probably needed to add bees to that list—but this one had taken such a tight hold on him recently. Sam knew about it. Apparently, so did Abby. They did what they could, but it was easier to avoid CNN and MSNBC at home, especially with the Hundred Things list to distract him. Not here, surrounded by over thirty-plus coworkers with instant access to bad news on the Internet.
Corey could remember the moment he’d picked up this new hysteria. Just over two years ago, not long after Sam’s miscarriage. Flipping the car radio to NPR after kissing his two year old daughter and beautiful, sad wife goodbye. Another school shooting followed by the requisite death count of troops overseas. As the reporter counted the bodies, Corey heard another meaning lurking under the words. You’re next, and everyone you love.
Every third world country seemed to hate Corey Union personally, and half of them were developing nuclear capability. That day, the talking heads taunted him from the mounted television in the W&G employee cafeteria, debating between themselves when the first mushroom cloud would appear on home soil, smiling and spewing half-truths with so much eagerness.
Maybe it wasn’t a phobia. Maybe he was simply afraid. Everyone was. Unlike them, Corey didn’t want to waste the time he had left, a year, a week, watching the world’s destruction approach, staring like a deer caught in a train’s single-eyed light. All he wanted was to spend a happy, normal life with Sam and Abby. His parents had done that, and their parents before them.
Corey tried to focus on the contents of the file on his screen. He made the change he was supposed to do last time, double-checked himself then clicked Save. He submitted the batch job, sent the resulting file as a spreadsheet to Kathrina in the QA group.
Destroyer of Worlds Page 5
