Destroyer of Worlds

by Daniel G. Keohane

  Corey mumbled something about missing his wife. Slowly, she approached him, reached out and touched his forehead. His eyes had followed the progress of her fingers, nearly crossing. With fingertips against his flesh, Vanessa whispered, “She’s sleeping now, Mister Union, as should you. Come to bed.” She leaned in close to his ear, his head turning a little to follow her progress. “You’ve taken such good care of her.”

  Even in his exhaustion and fear, he smelled wonderful. She could not resist pressing her lips against his ear. Her body warmed at the contact. Reluctantly, she pulled away, but her fingertips never left his forehead.

  Enough for one night, she thought. It was time to go. She looked Corey in the eyes, waited until she was certain he was focused on her, then pulled her fingers away.

  TUESDAY

  I

  Corey

  Samantha opened her eyes to a room flooded with clear morning light. She stretched out, luxuriating in the heavy, contented feel of an uninterrupted night’s sleep. A rare event. A blessing. Usually, she’d have awakened a few times, long enough to turn over and drift away again.

  But she’d been after her strange, emotional talk with Corey, and of course her crying like a baby. Like a exhausted last night crazy woman. She waited for the pain to return, the embarrassment to wind her up for another, stressed out waking. It did not. She felt too good. Wonderful, in fact.

  The contented weight of an exhausted lover.

  They hadn’t made love. Not physically. Mentally? Maybe. Corey hadn’t laughed at her, not the way she’d feared. He hadn’t had much chance to react at all with her tirade of emotion. Instead, he’d held her in a long, loving embrace, even cried a little himself. He’d loved her.

  She rolled on her side. Seven-thirty. Early, still. He might not have left.

  Light footfalls on the rug behind her, the press of the mattress, then Corey’s arm snaking around and finding its favorite embrace below her breasts. “Good morning,” he whispered.

  Samantha smiled, inside and out. She leaned into him as he kissed her shoulder. His lips traveled as she rolled. She pulled his face to hers and kissed him, hoping he wouldn’t break the moment by mentioning she hadn’t brushed her teeth yet. He didn’t, returned the kiss, moved on to her cheek, then her closed eyelids, forehead.

  Eventually, he straightened, one eyebrow raised. He said, “You haven’t brushed your teeth yet.”

  Samantha laughed, reached behind her and tossed the pillow. It missed. Corey smiled. A glow inside her belly, music in her mind in her soul… give it a rest, she thought, then pulled him down into another kiss. He didn’t resist, though his constant smile made the kiss hard.

  When he pulled back a second time, Samantha sighed, “I slept great. Guess I needed it.”

  “We both did. I barely heard the radio.” He absently straightened his clothes. “Abby ate breakfast. She’s watching cartoons now. I told her to let you sleep, so why not roll over and catch another hour?” He tossed the pillow back onto the bed. It landed across her face.

  She left it there and stretched again, long and slow under the single sheet. Peeking out from under the pillow she noticed, with great pleasure, Corey’s gaze moving along her form. She waved her hand. “Go hunt and gather for your family.”

  When he was gone, she lingered, pillow still over her face. She looked sideways at the rectangle of morning light against the opposite wall. A few bits of dust speckled as they passed through it. She didn’t want this oasis of calm to fade. A good cry last night, that was all. No other reason. She stared at one particular speck of dust when it entered the light, followed its angled progress until it disappeared. The sound of Corey’s Honda starting outside, the slow crunch of tires down the driveway.

  Today was Tuesday. Something was going on… Vanessa was coming by for lunch. No, pie. Having some pie with Vanessa. Sam pictured the woman in that near-Victorian dress, her loose posture and easy smile a contrast to the conservative clothing. The image warmed her, comfortable like a freshly made bed. Like a breeze coming through the window in summer carrying the scent of lilacs and roses. Purple and red, warm.

  She shook her head, rolled out from under the sheets. Too much sleep. There were scratches across her calves and the top of her feet. She stared, wondering absently when she’d gotten them. Not troubled, however; too calm was the morning, too deep had her mind settled. Nothing was going to get her going in the wrong direction. She must have gotten them in the garden; hadn’t noticed until now.

  She shrugged, not caring where they came from, letting the sheet fall away as she moved into the bathroom.

  What did Corey think of their mysterious neighbor? He must have noticed her beauty, though he would never consider anything beyond that. Not to mention Vanessa had all but ignored him the other night. More interested in Samantha.

  More interested in her. She paused in the middle of the bathroom, hand lightly resting on the edge of the sink, across her belly - smooth but a little soft. Sam closed her eyes. Don’t think; don’t drift there. As she expected, the contented blanket covering her mind slipped. Just a little. Nothing bad.

  Something tapped on the window above the whirlpool tub. A yellow jacket, wings blurred. Its alien face tapped against the glass. Another joined it, then a third, all of them bouncing off the window, fading back, returning again. Three living spots of yellow, watching her, pattering like raindrops. The window was fixed and could not be opened. No chance of them getting in. She walked to the toilet and sat to do her business.

  The drone of their wings drifted through the screened open window above her head. The tapping over the tub continued, sometimes faster or stopping all together. When Sam was finished, she washed her hands and reached for the toothbrush, not wanting to turn and see the yellow. Dab of toothpaste on the brush. The raindrop taps behind her were gone. Still, she heard their buzzing through the window above the toilet. The light in the room wavered like reflected water. Before putting the toothbrush in her mouth, she turned around.

  The window over the tub was covered in yellow wasps. A hundred or more of them fought for space, swarming over each other as if in a nest, feet stepping soundlessly across the glass. She ran to the toilet and put her ear to the screen. No sound, nothing but birdsong from the woods at the back of the yard.

  Samantha slowly stepped sideways to get a better look over the tub.

  No bees. She closed her eyes, waited, opened them. Still clear; no sign they’d ever been there. The imaginary blanket of calm around her fell to the floor like the bed sheet. She couldn’t have possibly imagined them—

  The sound of the bees returned, louder, tinny. Coming from above.

  She looked up in time to see the first few crawling out of the ceiling vent. More followed, fanning like smoke across the ceiling. Wings buzzing, but none of them flying. Not yet. They only moved aside in a yellow cloud to make room for more pouring through the vent slats.

  They hadn’t called the exterminator, yesterday. Sam backed up, whispering words of muttered panic. They would fall on her now, cover her and kill her and—

  When her back connected with the door jamb she screamed and rolled out of the room, grabbing the door knob, pulling it closed behind her. In the last flashing view of the bathroom, the swarm dropped down. The droning exploded in volume to a buzz saw whine behind the closed door, colliding with it on the other side. Sam pulled harder on the knob, then looked down. A single bee poked curiously from beneath the door. She ran to the bed, pulled the sheet off the floor and shoved it into the open space, forcing the bee back inside.

  Abby ran into the room. “Mommy, what’s wrong?” She stopped, a smile bursting on her face. “You’re naked!”

  “Sweetie, go back into the other room, OK?”

  The girl backed up, no longer smiling. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Something’s wrong with the bathroom, that’s all.”

  The girl didn’t leave. Her head tilted to the side. “Did you stub your toe l
ike Daddy did last night?”

  “What? Toe? No. No.” She’d missed that one.

  Abby didn’t looked frightened, just curious. As Samantha stood up, her eyes fixed on the sheet at the bottom of the door. The girl walked to the chair beside the bed and picked up the bathrobe.

  “Here, Mommy.” Sam forced herself to smile and took the robe. “Does Daddy need to fix it?”

  Sam wrapped the robe around herself, keeping her eyes on the door. “Fix what, Sweetie?” The robe was smooth, satin, a gift from Corey a couple of Christmases ago.

  “The bathroom. I had breakfast. Daddy made it for me.”

  “What? Yes. Good; I mean, thank you.”

  She laid a hand on Abby’s shoulder and guided her into the hall, closing the bedroom door behind them. “Did you have breakfast?”

  “I just said I did!”

  “Ah, good. Come on, then. I’m hungry, and I need to call Daddy later.”

  “To fix the bathroom, right?”

  She kissed her daughter on top of her head. “That’s right, Sweetie.”

  “He can fix everything.”

  II

  So far, the day was going well. This morning Corey woke more refreshed than any other since moving into the new house. Sam, too. The fresh country air had finally settled into their bones. Last night’s emotional outpouring might have been Sam’s way of purging all that stress from their old life. The more he thought about the past two weeks, the happier Corey was with the decision to move to Hillcrest. Away from Worcester’s congestion, they were now surrounded by nature, which could be as noisy as the city but with a calmer, less frenzied cadence. Birdsong instead of car horns; looking at the sky instead of over your shoulder; deer droppings instead of discarded Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cups. The biggest news would now be school budget debates, not murders.

  Corey hesitated on the sidewalk. The small white CVS Pharmacy bag, a refill of Tylenol and Sam’s birth control pills, swayed in his hand. Two cabs worked their way towards him amid the slow, lunchtime crawl on Main Street.

  Yellow, he remembered. Something about last night, some odd consideration while Sam was wailing on his shoulder. The cabs crawled closer. The color yellow had been a common theme in his wife’s notebook. It meant something to her, but…

  When the first cab reached him, Corey recognized the old man behind the wheel, struggled to remember how he knew him. The man stared out the windshield, not at the car in front of him but directly at Corey. Even with its driver’s attention riveted away from the traffic, the cab moved in time with it. As the taxi moved past, the old man glared through the passenger window with a stern, wrinkled face. Corey knew that face but had no reference, nothing to pin it to, nothing—

  The curly white head of a small dog rose over the top of the passenger door, eyes wide and small pink tongue dabbing the closed window with spit. A large, smiling bumble bee adorned the taxi's door over the standard Yellow Cab moniker. The scene should have been cute, but Corey’s chest tightened, bled into his belly. Rising panic. Pain. Bringer of Pain. Destroyer of Worlds.

  He stepped back. The dog dropped out of sight. The man was facing forward again—not a man. A woman, wide flushed faced, tangles of unwashed hair. The sun reflected off the glass and distorted Corey’s view. He’d simply misinterpreted what he’d seen. Hank Cowles, he realized, was who the old man had been—or not been. Sam’s story had shaken him up more than he’d thought. He followed the cab’s progress down the road. No small dog in the window. The second passing taxi was driven by a thin Indian man with a gaze locked on the woman’s bumper.

  Something buzzed in the pocket of Corey’s slacks. He reflexively slapped at his pants, thinking of bees, fat black and white monsters crawling inside his pocket, pattering across the office window. Only his cell phone, set to vibrate.

  Corey half bent, letting out his breath, feeling like an idiot. He stared at the sidewalk and tried to smile away the moment. There was no humor to find in it. The next time the phone vibrated, he fished it out of his pocket.

  “Hello?”

  “Corey?” The voice was instantly familiar, but the signal fuzzed away, Sam’s words indistinct. He changed the angle against his ear, took a couple of steps down the sidewalk.

  “Hello?” he said again. “Sam?”

  “Corey, can you hear me?” Her voice was a little clearer. No one sounded themselves through these things.

  “Better now,” he said, turning to watch the twin cabs roll away like a funeral procession. His smile dropped. He was beginning to think too much like his wife.

  “I think we’ve got a problem.” She relayed her adventure with the wasps through occasional waves of static.

  “Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

  “To be honest, I didn’t want to deal with them, not before coffee; then things got…” A hiss, followed by her tinny laugh, so unreal from the speaker. “Anyway, I just checked. They’re gone now.”

  Yesterday, the bees swarming around the clock. Now this. He’d almost convinced himself it had been a dream. In truth, he simply hadn’t wanted to deal with it. “You’re sure they were yellow jackets?” Yellow, again. Stop it!

  “Well, no, not sure of anything. Is there a difference? Should we call Warren?”

  Warren James was the architect and contractor who’d built their house. “What could he do? He’s not an exterminator.”

  “No.” Her sigh sounded like air blown through a straw. “Maybe they had bee problems during construction. Maybe they built the house on top of a nest.”

  “I suppose. Couldn’t hurt to call. I’ll check the attic tonight and see…” He hesitated. He’d just been in the attic, hadn’t he? When?

  The weekend before last, for a look around. It felt more recent than that. Corey had been looking for something, or someone… no. They’d had no reason to go back up there since moving day.

  “Corey?”

  “Hi, yeah, sorry. Had one of those déjà vu things. Anyway, I’ll check tonight. If there’s a nest, we’ll call a bee guy.”

  “Not Hank Cowles I hope.” She laughed.

  Corey looked up but the cab was gone. “Why did you …” then remembered her story of how bees kept flying around Cowles’ head yesterday. Cory turned away from the road, his gaze landing on a newspaper kiosk. Large black letters spelled out the imminent end of the world. He blurred his vision so he wouldn’t read any of it.

  The peace of his day was gone, dissipated like the fog of a good dream.

  Twice in one day he was writing poetry for his wife. This had to stop.

  “Hey,” he said, “we need a distraction. How about we try that restaurant in town? The Grille something-or-other. Get out and see more of our town.”

  Her tiny voice said, “That’s a great idea! Oh, wait, that reminds me.”

  “What?”

  “Vanessa is coming by for lunch… at least I think she is. Isn’t that what we decided Sunday?”

  Vanessa standing on the porch, half-naked, beautiful, fingertips on his forehead.

  The sidewalk tilted. Corey stepped towards the Bellerive Bank and Trust, leaned on the bricks with an outstretched arm. What the hell was going on?

  Silence on the line. He had to say something. “Is she there now?” Of course she wasn’t. Otherwise—

  “No. Not yet. I wonder if I should have called her. The pie’s going to go bad soon—what’s left of it. It’s just about noon. Maybe I should call her.”

  The sidewalk steadied. How could he be fantasizing about his neighbor? It hadn’t been the first time. He’d dreamt about her, too. This was worse, though, while on the phone with his wife. Corey swallowed. Last night he’d felt like the normal one in their marriage. It’d been a nice change. Now. Now…

  “No, wait,” Sam added, “I can’t. I don’t have her phone number. What’s her last name?”

  He almost had said “Reilly” but realized that was Sam’s old therapist. That would have been a bad slip. But it gave him an idea. She ha
dn’t done much for Sam, as far as he could tell. Maybe for him… a thought for another time, however.

  What the hell was Vanessa’s last name? Had she said?

  “I have no idea. I don’t think she—”

  “Hold on. Someone’s knocking.”

  The sound of the phone laid onto the kitchen table. Now Corey had a mental picture of where she’d been standing. He assumed she was calling from the bedroom, staring nervously at the door to the bathroom.

  Voices, distant, drowned out by the sounds of traffic beside him. Another kitchen table thunk. “Corey, Vanessa’s here. I have to go. See you tonight.”

  “OK. Have a nice time.”

  “I will. Love you; bye.”

  “Love you, too.” But he sensed she’d already disconnected.

  He closed the phone and stared at it for a while longer. It was good, wasn’t it, that she had someone to visit with? He pictured Sam and their neighbor with no last name sitting on the couch, sipping coffee, eating pie. Abby would be there. She’d be having pie, too.

  Knowing this gave Corey a better feeling about the visit, though he didn’t understand why. Not exactly. Nor did he understand why another yellow cab, moving up the road, brought with it a renewed panic attack. He looked up to the patch of sky between the buildings. City air smelled like diesel and chewing gum. Monster wads of Juicy Fruit buried beneath the asphalt. The image made him smile. Another thing Samantha might have said years ago, when neither of them cared what was happening around them, only between them.

  They would find it again.

  He made it a point not to look at the cars as he walked back to his building, CVS bag renewing its pendulum swing from his hand.

  III

  Without a call from Sam the rest of the afternoon, Corey assumed things had gone well. He’d find out soon enough. Small town folk were supposed to be neighborly. Even so, Vanessa had so quickly worked herself into their lives. Corey enjoyed his privacy, assumed Sam did, too. Vanessa was nice enough, but he hoped she didn’t make a habit of hanging around all the time.