by Joe Hart
She turns in a limping circle, scanning the horizon 360 degrees.
Canyon, highway, plains, plains, hills, highway, canyon.
Wait.
Zoey looks again, to the southwest across the fields cluttered with sage and tufts of limp grass. There. At first it looks like only a part of the landscape but the harder she squints, more details come into focus.
A slanted roof.
Two windows, mere dots at this distance. And maybe some kind of vehicle beside it. In either direction and beyond it there are no other structures.
Hitching her pack higher, she starts walking, leaving tiny smears of blood on the road behind her.
15
The house is a single story, the roof gray steel, dull in the afternoon light.
When she cautiously approached, using the old pickup parked beside the home as cover, the place appeared broken down and unused. But now she sees that the walls are made from mortared stone and the windows she spied from the highway are unbroken.
Zoey watches from the rear bumper of the rusting truck. She listens, the wind louder here far out in the open, its voice howling low in the smokeless chimney protruding from the metal roof. She waits, scudding clouds reflected in the house windows lulling her, the pain in her foot the only thing that keeps her from falling asleep. After what she gauges to be an hour, she crosses behind the pickup, drawing her gun, and moves as quickly as she can to the nearest corner of the building.
The stone is cool against her back as she slides around the side and makes her way to a wooden door set halfway down the home’s length beside another window. A tangle of dead vines obscures the view past the other end of the house, their twining so thick it is like a curtain.
The door’s handle turns easily and she draws it open an inch, standing well to one side, half expecting a blast of gunfire to come from within, but there’s nothing. She steps inside, low, gun held before her, and takes cover behind an island of cabinets in a small kitchen.
When there are no noises or cries of alarm she rises and surveys the space.
The entire area, save for the far end of the house, is one room. She stands in the simple kitchen, wooden countertops reflecting years of use, an empty sink with a window above it, an open pantry with several cans and sacks stacked on the floor. Beyond the kitchen is a living space, a large chair covered in blue fabric, a stone hearth, dark and cold. To the left is a long table cluttered with all manner of things. She spies wooden bowls, a shine of gold and silver, and three tall stacks of books on one corner. Two doors are ajar at the far end of the room and she walks quietly toward them. She swings the left open first, pointing her weapon inside.
The space is nearly bare, only a narrow bed and a desk with a chair tucked beneath it. The opposite room yields nearly the same except there are more books and more clutter, the walls adorned with several paintings. A life-size statue of a young boy holding an umbrella draws her aim in a split second of tension.
Zoey lets out a long breath. There is dust on most everything, and she can’t smell lingering odors of food or any other telltale signs that someone’s been here recently.
Telltale. Like “The Tell-Tale Heart,” she thinks, remembering the tome in Ian’s library by a man named Poe. She’d picked it up during her rehabilitation period and read it in the evenings by the firelight while her muscles trembled from the day’s physical therapy. She’d barely gotten herself to finish. Not because the stories weren’t engaging or well written, but because she could tell the man who’d created them had been in a very dark place. She had almost been able to hear him crying out for help, and to her his voice had sounded much too familiar.
“The Tell-Tale Heart” had been one story that had clung to her mind for days, and now, standing in this lonely, abandoned house in the middle of a prairie with the wind clawing down the chimney in an eerie voice, she can almost hear the faint thumping of the murdered man’s heart below the old floorboards.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Zoey sways, grasping the corner of the long table for support. She places a hand against her forehead; a wisp of dizziness comes and goes. Maybe she’s lost too much blood.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Her eyes widen. The faint heartbeat wasn’t in her imagination. She can hear it.
And it’s close.
She turns, limping with the gun held out. Where is the noise coming from? She shoots a look at the floor. Stop it! It’s not a heartbeat! But as the sound comes again, neither can she pinpoint it.
The floorboards creak beneath her as she moves to the kitchen and looks out the window.
Lonesome land as far as she can see, the highway a dark snaking line in the distance. Clouds gathering in the east.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
It’s coming from the back of the house. Straining over the sink and wincing at the pressure she puts on her foot, Zoey presses her face against the glass, looking at an angle toward the vines.
An icy hand squeezes her heart as something moves behind the veil of dried vegetation. She sucks in a breath and stumbles back from the window. There’s someone outside.
Ignoring the spike of pain in her foot, she hurries to the window set in the living area wall and freezes.
A figure emerges from behind the vines and walks toward the kitchen door.
What should she do? Shoot him as soon as he comes inside? No. She can’t do that and live with herself. Not after the man in the canyon, not after seeing his son. She shouldn’t have come here.
Her eyes land on the open pantry and she hurries to it, swinging the door almost shut. Her breathing is loud in the enclosed space; he’ll hear it for sure and simply shoot her through the door. Maybe she should’ve hidden in one of the bedrooms and tried to crawl out a window. Maybe—
The kitchen door opens and footsteps come inside. Something thumps softly on the countertop. Zoey puts her eye to the opening and looks out.
At first she can only see the island cabinets and cluttered table beyond, but then someone walks past, a low mutter coming from them, and she jerks back, her fingers aching around the gun’s grip.
“Rain, maybe snow. I don’t know,” the voice says. It is deep but smooth and she leans forward again, peering out through the gap.
A man stands at the island counter, a tin pail in one hand. He is elderly, maybe as old as Ian. He is stoop shouldered and rotund, and his face . . . his face is what holds her gaze. It is pocked with scars and growths beneath the skin so that there is not an inch that is smooth or even. It’s as if someone has sewn small rocks into his flesh and not done a good job of it. Above his ravaged cheeks and chin is a large nose and glasses that remind her of Lyle’s. A shock of white hair hangs down almost to his ears.
“Nothing for it, huh? Weather’s weather. Doesn’t change until it does,” the man says quietly.
Zoey frowns. He’s speaking almost like the man from the canyon, the words not aligning to make sense. Has she stepped into a part of the world where everyone is this way?
Her thoughts abruptly end as the man draws a long knife from a drawer and holds it before his eyes, admiring the gleaming edge.
Then he looks past the blade and stares directly at her. “Are you coming out, or would you like supper served in the pantry?”
For a split second Zoey can’t move. Then she shoves the door open and sidles to the left, keeping the island between them while covering him with the gun.
“Don’t,” she says, throwing a look at the door. “I’ll shoot you if I have to.”
“Funny times when someone breaks into your house and threatens you. Or maybe nothing’s changed, huh?”
“Stay back and I won’t hurt you.”
“I’m not going anywhere. No one else is going to peel these spuds.” The man gestures with the knife at the pail and pulls out a medium potato. With a few deft turns he carves the outer layer off, all i
n one piece, and holds the spiral up before dropping it to the counter.
“What was that sound?” Zoey asks, glancing toward the door again, the thought of another person outside unnerving. She’d been stupid and careless by not inspecting the surrounding land better and she chides herself for it.
“Sound? Oh. Hoeing the potatoes up. Only got a few more then nothing ’til spring.”
Zoey places a hand on the doorknob and opens it a fraction of an inch, looking out to scan the yard. “Are you alone?”
“No one’ll hear the shot if that’s what you’re asking,” the man says, head down, hands working at another potato.
“I’m not going to kill you.”
“Good. That’s good. I like my soup and it’s a good day for some. Going to rain later, huh?” Zoey clenches her jaw as she shifts her weight, her foot crying out. The man’s eyes flick to her and back to his task. “You should look at that injury before too long.”
She glances down and back up. “How did you know I was here?”
“Would you believe that the house told me?” When she squints at him he smiles and it warms his pocked features. “I always leave the pantry door open.”
“I’m sorry for intruding. I thought it was abandoned.”
“I keep it that way on purpose. No dusting allowed around here. Plus, I hate doing it. Had a couple people come through and been lucky so far. No one’s taken more than a few supplies and whatnot. I stay hidden and they normally leave in a day or so. But it’s been quiet for years now.” The pile of peelings continues to grow on the countertop, his hands seeming to work of their own volition, steady and determined.
Zoey watches him for a time, his movements somehow calming. “I just need to sit down for a minute. Then I’ll be on my way.” When he doesn’t respond she takes her pack off and sets it beside a chair tucked beneath the long table. The throbbing in her foot reduces by half as soon as she sits and she nearly sighs with pleasure. She sets the gun down beside a strange sculpture made of polished steel depicting a person divided in half. But that’s not right. They are surging in opposite directions, trying to tear away from the other where they’re joined at the waist. One figure has an angelic look while the opposite sports gleaming horns from a broad forehead. And above them both, a prism throws dull showers of light around the base.
She eyes the sculpture like a poisonous snake before unlacing her shoe and drawing it off revealing a red sock with a gray strip around its upper edge. Of course the entire sock used to be gray and is now stained with blood. Gingerly she peels the sticky garment away and eyes her wound.
The first emotion she feels is relief.
The bullet cut a narrow slot in the flesh several inches behind her smallest toe on the very side of her foot. In fact, it doesn’t look like a bullet hole at all but instead a nasty gash. If it had been a larger caliber she might’ve lost the closest toe. Maybe even her entire foot if the bullet had struck bone.
The man moves around the kitchen, clanging a couple of pots together, and she reaches for the gun, but he’s oblivious to her presence, his back to her near a small stove. Digging in her pack she draws out the compact medical bag she took from the hospital before leaving and opens it. There is some antiseptic cream in a sealed package and a thick roll of gauze. She takes both items out and examines the wound again, plucking small fibers of leather and wool from it that were pulled in with the bullet’s passage. After it’s fairly clean she dabs at the wound with the dry portion of her sock and is about to apply the antiseptic when the man approaches from the kitchen.
Zoey picks up the gun but he keeps moving toward her as if she were holding a spoon instead. There is a large bowl in his hands and a towel folded over an arm. He sets the bowl down near her feet and she sees it’s filled with water.
“It’s warm, not hot. It’ll get the blood off, huh?” he says, placing the towel on the table before moving away. She stares after him as he busies himself again in the kitchen. Picking up the bowl, she smells it. No odor, no film on the surface, and nothing on the bottom indicating that he put something in it to soak into her wound and drug her.
She sets it back on the floor and dips her foot into the water. It stings initially but after a moment the pain fades and the warmth seeps in. It’s a glorious sensation and she relishes it for several seconds while she watches the old man. He moves slowly but is in constant motion, like a bee pollinating flowers. He mutters to himself every minute or so, but now she’s fairly sure it’s nothing like the ramblings of the man in the canyon. Madness sounds different than trying to keep yourself sane, she thinks, and remembers Meeka’s voice in her head all the days she wandered after escaping the ARC.
When she looks down again the water is brownish red. She pulls her foot free. The wound wells a little blood and the rest of her skin is mostly clean. She uses the towel to dry off and smooths some antiseptic cream into the gash, wrapping it tightly with gauze when she’s done before covering it with a fresh sock. She knows Chelsea would’ve insisted on stitching it closed, chiding her the entire time about being more careful.
Her throat begins tightening and she distracts herself by lacing her shoe back up. When she tries putting her weight on the injured foot it hurts much less than before. Now there’s only a gentle ache where the shooting pain used to be. Maybe that’s true of all things. Maybe someday she’ll be able to remember Eli and the rest of the group and not be sliced open on the inside.
Gentle tapping overhead draws her attention upward. It’s raining, and it sounds truly beautiful on the steel roof. Several slashes of water run down the window and the sky darkens even as she watches. Despite still being on high alert, a sense of calm begins settling over her and she wonders if the old man did taint the water in the bowl with something. But no, this is simply relaxation, a coming down of sorts from the stress of the car crash and shooting. She recalls the canyon man’s voice, the fervency. Even knowing he would have killed her for a scrap of dried meat can’t drain the pity she feels for him and the stinging regret of having ended his life.
“I walked two miles in the rain once when I was nineteen,” the man says coming to the table with a steaming mug in his hands. He draws out a chair opposite her and finds what seems to be the only empty spot on the table to place his tea. He looks across the clutter, white-haired head bobbing a little. “My car broke down on the way to class. The university, see? It was my first semester and I hadn’t made friends yet. Don’t know why I remember that fact so clearly. I suppose because it was important then, huh? The rain was warm for fall and by the time I got to class it was mostly over and really I think I learned more walking in the rain than I would’ve in the classroom.”
“What did you learn?”
“That I didn’t like walking in the rain.” Zoey surprises herself by laughing. The man smiles fully and sips from his tea.
“I don’t mind the rain if that’s what you’re getting at,” she says when the laughter’s faded.
“Suit yourself, as the saying goes. Don’t think it will be too nice walking with an injury like that, though. Person that did it still out there?” She starts to reply and pauses before looking away. “Yeah. Okay. Just didn’t know whether to expect more company or not. Only have so many soup bowls, huh?”
Zoey looks out the window at the sheets of rain. It’s so thick she imagines stepping outside into a solid wall of water. Maybe it would feel good to do so, to have the rain drown everything out, make it all go away. She places her hand on her pant pocket, feeling the vial there, the vial with her daughter’s blood in it, and shivers.
As if reading her thoughts, the man says, “Coming down so hard it could wash it all away, huh?”
“Maybe that would be all right,” she says.
“Maybe. Lot of bad things.” For the first time he sounds morose. “All the problems that ever were, still there, huh? And new ones to boot. But that’s time, I suppose.” He turns his mug around and it squeaks quietly on the wood. “Good things too,
though. Some of the very best. I think it takes losing a lot to appreciate a little.”
She thinks of them all then, not just the group but of Simon and Lily and Lee. She remembers his carefree smile and she would give anything in that moment to have his hand in hers and to be close enough to count his freckles, to kiss him.
Zoey brings herself back to the present with effort and glances at the man. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough. I taught philosophy for twenty years before I decided I needed to plant a garden. So I came here and that’s what I did, huh?”
“Plant a garden?”
“That’s right. And you know what? All the answers I needed when I was teaching came easy when I started planting. Sometimes that’s the way; you find what you’re searching for when you quit looking.”
He stands and shuffles to the kitchen, setting his empty mug down before lifting the lid off a large pot. It is only seconds before the smell reaches her, hearty and filled with the strong scent of onions and spices. Her mouth waters. How long has it been since she’s had a hot meal? It was back at the hospital before . . .
No, don’t think about that.
Zoey turns in her seat, examining the slightly disturbing sculpture to take her mind away from the thoughts trying to overwhelm her. She reaches up to touch the juncture where the demon and angel are joined but stops and lowers her hand to her lap.
“One of my students made that for me after I taught a class about dualism,” the man says, coming back to his seat and settling into it. “I think it really struck her, huh? She said it was a comfort to know there were two sides to everything, and that really struck me.”
Zoey frowns. “I don’t think there is.” She glances up. “Two sides. There’s always a little bad even in the best things. But sometimes there’s only evil and nothing else.”
