by Eric Ellert
When she got to the top, the gate and fence were far older than the rest of the town appeared. The thick, wrought iron fence posts ended in spear tops, some bent in where a car presumably had run into them. Some were rusted out at the bottom, making them look like they'd had dog doors built in. A modern, tin, guard shack sat before the gate, the light on, a radio turned to a talk station within, but no guard about. Faudron had to push the gate hard, with all the leaves at its bottom to get inside and once inside hadn't the heart to close it again, though she planned on leaving by the other entrance.
She was going to call out, but it was too weird a place, with rivers on all the paths, fog covering oversized obelisques that poked into the sky. Lots of the stones were old-fashioned brownstone and limestone, and the dates and names had melted in the rain. Then there were the tombstones with the brass plaque that looked like a door knocker you could flip over to reveal a photograph. She dare not; she had to; she bent down and wanted to cry, the face was so young and so old, a kid on a pony in black and white, wearing shorts and shoes like pre-war kids had.
She walked for twenty feet, until she realized she'd strayed from the path. It hadn't seemed very large from the outside, if she could gauge it by the shape of the hill, but she could no longer see the gate or fence and didn't want to spend more than five more minutes here. She almost yelled out, "Damn you, Moren," but put her hand to her lips shocked that she almost had.
Someone poked her. She spun around, her stomach lifting and dropping and lifting again until Faudron recognized her. "Hell, Moren. Why'd you do that?"
Moren was crying but wasn't saying why. Her makeup must have run in the rain because it had taken at least three years from her face making her look chip-monkeyish.
"Walk with me." She led Faudron by the hand and they went up and down the rows. Some of the rows were wide-enough, others so narrow they had to go sideways and brush against the backs of the stones and step over the old flowers on the fronts of their mates.
"We know a lot of these people, NASA people. What are they all doing here?"
At first Faudron didn't know what Moren meant, little sister was on a cryptic kick lately, but as Faudron walked arm-in-arm with her, neatly avoiding walking in front of the tombstones and standing on the resting, she did notice a heck of a lot of familiar names in the newer section -- the kind of people who remembered you from a wedding or a christening, whom you were too young to quite remember, the kind who sent Christmas cards saying, 'remember me to the girls', the kind of acquaintances mom and dad always said we should get together to when they met after a couple of years, but it didn't sit right. Most of them were her parents' age. Even the older ones, if she remembered correctly, hadn't been retired and none of them had a reason to get buried near Eggbert's Lake.
"I think mom and dad had to come here. I mean like to retire. I'm pretty sure most people in town, all of them I guess, have some connection to NASA, them or their parents, and them or their parents to this town before they built the reservoir. But they lied; mom and dad lied; why'd they lie? They said they lived in Connecticut, right next door to each other. It was a fairy tale."
"I don't know."
They walked until they entered an older section with the names happily washed away and sat on a bench on a tiny path covered by overhanging branches from an elm so ugly it could have come out of a scary fairy tale. Faudron knew what she believed, but she knew the drill. If there was a communications blackout when dad, or anyone they were worried about was up there, that's all you said it was. Let mom get the black phone call, or some officer they knew come to the house.
She bit the inside of her cheek and touched the pile of flowers stuck in the garbage can that rested askew on the edge of her side of the bench.
"Flowers," Moren said. "If I were dead I'd rather they left beer."
"Let's get out of here."
Faudron was going to tell her anyway. By the time they got to the far gate, she was sure the correct words would come. She took her jacket off and handed it to Moren.
"Thanks. But I'll just hold it. Did you want to hear the news?" Moren had the newspaper she'd been carrying around in her other hand. She must have taken it from home. It was still covered in plastic, but soaked anyway. Moren unfolded it and carefully salvaged the second page, peeling it away like cigarette paper from the first and fourth and laying it on the bench so she could squeeze the photograph back together where she'd torn it.
Faudron scanned the article. It mentioned a comet, but not the crash. She hoped Moren would take the lead-in.
"It's yesterday's paper. Stuff is out of date."
"That means it could be better. Not the first false alarm."
Moren took the photo and slipped it in her pocket, waived the rest of the paper in the air then rolled it up tight. "Can you hear me now? I can't."
Faudron had hoped Moren had forgotten about the phone call she'd pretended not to want to hear.
Moren laughed but she scrunched her face up the way she did when she wanted to say something mean to someone. "Mom said the Post is becoming a topless paper. She wouldn't like it if we put the announcement in there, I mean if we ever had to." Moren smiled in a funny way and opened her eyes wide to signal they were in a spooky place. "You want to tell me something?"
"No."
"Well, big sister, if we stand here any longer they'll ask us to stay."
Faudron jerked her head towards the gate not wanting to speak, even to call her on a bad joke in a bad place.
"You now what Karen said? Karen said there's a city down there, underneath the cemetery, maybe underneath the whole mountain."
"Shut up."
Moren dug her heal in the mud, over and over until she had a hole.
Faudron bit down on her cheek, wanted to yell at Moren to stop, but didn't want to give her the satisfaction. She had more. "Let's hear it."
"It's a city full of werewolves."
Faudron pictured clawed hands reaching up from the mud, dragging her down. "Shut up. Don't talk like that."
***
As they walked, their footprints dug into the wet grass, leaving marks someone would have to come and fix so they eased back to the path.
"Can we go home to Florida?" Moren asked. "It was home as long as Connecticut was, and at least we have relatives there."
Well done, Faudron thought. She must have smelled the trap Faudron had set, one of the Connecticut relatives would come, none of the Floridians. Forget it, she wouldn't even tell her. She'd just let her get a surprise when Aunt Feeney pulled up.
Faudron took the newspaper and tossed it in the nearest trashcan on top of the old flowers and the flags woven out of something papery and waterproof. "Three days, that's what I think."
"Do I have to go to school?"
"Would they have you? We'll wait till dad comes home."
Moren paused, took a step, holding her foot in the air then tested the ground and wiped out the shallow footprint as if she wanted to say something, then walked out of the cemetery to the SUV. You had to be really pretty to be so dramatic. Faudron wondered if all that beauty would be good for Moren. She thought she was so grown up and got treated that way; she'd be fourteen the rest of her life, like mom.
Dad had never said no to her, not once. Mom was so happy she was popular at school, if Moren had once cracked-open a book, Faudron doubted it. She did look all grown-up hurrying along, then Moren tucked her hands in her sleeves and did that little, can't wait to get there run kids younger than her did and disappeared down the winding path like a cartoon character into the fog.
Faudron took two steps then remembered she'd left her jacket back at the bench. It wasn't hard to backtrack; she just followed the broken grass.
When she got there, the jacket had fallen from the bench and lay in the mud. Faudron picked it up and shook it, then noticed Moren's book bag, though she hadn't noticed her with it. She shook her head, in no mood to carry it, wanting to curse, but not here. When she picked it up by on
e strap, the over-packed bag opened and all Moren's books spilled out, and on top of them, two silver packets of pills, most of them gone and a bottle of whiskey with a nice bite out of it.
Without a moment's hesitation, Faudron decided she'd ignore it. She was mom and dad's problem and it was all going to turn out fine, eventually, but she left the bag, just for spite, to see at what hour Moren would creep back up here.
When Faudron caught up to her, Moren was chatting with Rau as if they were two of a kind.
"Sorry about the fish," Faudron said, as soon as she could politely break into the conversation.
"Oh, they were, ah mom's."
"Hey, Rau," Faudron asked. "Can I drive?"
He didn't seem to like it but he slid over, he and Moren almost sharing a seat, both of them looking uncomfortable.
Faudron stayed heavy on the gas, and as soon as they got a mile away, a bit long for a rainy back-walk-walkabout for the little-un, she slowed the car. "Fish didn't like the Skittles. I wasn't thinking. Didn't like the green ones or the white ones or the green and white ones."
Moren coughed for a full ten seconds before she could speak again.
"See, the green and white ones, they make some fish happy, but some fish just keep puking and cutting themselves. And their mother's send them to head shrinkers, that is when their mother's find out."
"Can I get out," Rau whispered.
"Sure, just let me speed up."
"Oh," Moren said. Looking past Rau at Moren as if nothing she said bothered her except that she said it in front of Rau.
"That's sixty-year-old whiskey too. I'm pretty sure grandpa landed in Saipan with it. He brought it home, anyway. Just been waiting for a really big occasion, I guess. Your first od, maybe? You're going to replace it before himself gets home. You can pour it into the old bottle, but it's got to be the same brand of whiskey...and age, at least twenty...hope you saved your allowance." She looked back from Moren to Rau. "And you're not too much help with this one."
"I'm just the neighbor. Unless she's bleeding and calls me, it's a personal problem. I'm getting in the back."
He tried to but his legs were too long and he kept hitting the steering wheel.
***
As they drove, three in front, Faudron wouldn't slow down to let Rau get out and he had to crawl over Moren to give Faudron some room to drive, and to get away from her elbow. Moren's legs got in the way; she must be doing it purposefully.
They passed a garbage truck marked with Colonial Grove Co-op letters.
The truck crew stopped, got out and threw another dog carcass in the back on top of the waiting pile. The dogs all looked very much alike, slightly different sizes, but all of them shaggy-furred like those Mongolian horses. The kind of dog a guy in a Cloisters stag hunt tapestry might have, a dog that was a weapon.
"Poor dog," Faudron said.
"Poor wolf," Rau said.
Faudron didn't like the word. Wolves were things you found on cable shows like the one with the helicopter guy who had himself dropped in the woods a thousand miles from anything. And there had been so many in that truck. "How'd they die?"
"Someone killed them," Rau said.
"Who? You?"
"No. The big blue man," Rau said. "Cause they were coming to your house to get you like the mayor told them to."
Faudron sped up and drove in the center of the road to make it round the sharp, blind turns. "Well?"
"Nothin'. That's it. But you should slow down."
That made her foot heavier. "You said the Mayor. Why would he do that? Who would let him do that?"
"Everyone in town's a werewolf. Every night. Don't worry, nothing more than big, dumb dogs."
She slammed on the breaks, too much car behind her and it dovetailed. "Sorry," she mouthed and gave Rau the keys, got out and switched seats. "Either this is Art Bell, New Age candle burning b.s. or this is the worst news I've ever had. And you didn't tell me."
"I couldn't," Rau said. "Just stay indoors at night. You shouldn't see a one."
"Rau." She touched his sleeve then pulled away then touched his hand then pulled away. He didn't sweat or get hotter or colder. It was like he wasn't even really here.
"Hey, Everwood," Moren yelled, tapping the top of the hood and honking the horn. "Can we get home?"
"Hey Blue Crush. We talked about that movie. I'll leave with the first professional football quarterback I find."
"Eurotrip."
"Infected creature from Carriers." Faudron leaned into the car. "Would you shut up?
"Gee, you sound just like mom, old and foolish." Moren popped open the glove compartment. "It's a fridge, isn't that something?" She pulled out a package, opened it, and dropped the contents on the floor. She picked them up whipped one off and chewed on it. "Mr. Del Bravo's Taco. He's a genius. Tastes just like a big corn chip. And you get three in a package."
"Don't do that," Faudron said. "Sorry, Rau."
"It's ok. It's mine and it's true."
Moren chewed and waited until she was finished before opening her mouth. "They are werewolves. Rau took me hunting them one night."
"She followed me. I found her in the woods. Would you tell her?"
"And he's a freakin' ET, like Adama not like the Cylons, only he calls them Chylons like the Chicoms. He thinks they're going to nuke us all. That's cool, isn't it? See, he knows, just like Adama. We were watching tv --
"--You were watching tv?" Faudron asked.
"Would you tell her?" Rau said.
"No not like that. We were just watching tv. Talking about you."
"How were you talking about me?" She and Rau had never met and she and Moren didn't like on another.
"Oh, he knows all about you. He's sort of like a Cylon, I think but doesn't want to admit it. Sometimes I think he can read your mind when he stands close to you."
"How close?," Faudron asked. Moren, Seven of Nine, dear, get out of the car."
"You can't tell me what to do."
"No. I want to fight. I want to beat the livin' hell out you. I'm gonna punch you in the face like Starbuck. I'm gonna scratch your face so bad, when you go to the emergency room, social services will keep you. Cause I'm tired of you."
"I dropped the f-bomb in school today. I can't go back."
Faudron stopped her fist before she hit her. "Please tell me the truth, Rau. Do people walk home at night in ponchos because they lost their clothes or because they were monsters? Tell me they were drinking somewhere, partying like those crazy Amish kids do on television, cause they go into the woods not knowing who they're likely to meet. Tell me that. Tell me all of them come home at night and some of them ain't lying dead in the woods. Tell me those wolves in the garbage truck don't turn into people when the wolf shit wears off."
"I left the closet door open so you'd find the spear because you'd ask and if you'd asked I have orders not to tell you but I ought to tell you. Just cause I ought to tell you."
"Orders?"
"Rau," Moren said. "I mentioned the f-bomb so she'd get off the subject. And you just go and get right back on it."
Rau got out of the car, came to the driver's side, pulled the keys out and placed them in Moren's hand. "Drive home."
"Rau," Faudron said as he pulled her from the car."
"She drives great and if you hide the Lincoln's keys, she hot-wires mine. So, go. If you promise never, ever to go out at night, for just a couple of days."
Moren stared to speak.
Faudron just knew the f bomb was coming and they needed Rau, or should fear him, or both. Please don't say it, she thought, not this time.
Rau's voice grew cold, slow and soft. "You'll end up like Karen."
"Don't say that," Moren said.
"They all do. All of 'em. And their parents are glad."
"Not my parents," Moren said.
"I didn't say yours. You're not dead yet, but you're trying awfully, awfully hard. Their parents don't care because it gives them life. They turn into wolves each n
ight and don't remember or pretend they don't remember what they did in the morning. But the days are good here, and they don't change much at all as the years roll by. What the hell do they care if they lose a kid once or twice a year."
"Stop them."
They're not my concern." He pointed at the island. "They're my concern. Now please, drive. I want to talk to your sister."
"But."
"Go," Faudron said.
Moren started the car and drove off slowly.
Faudron stared at Rau. She shouldn't be so surprised. When dad got a few beers in him, which wasn't often, he'd start talking which wasn't ever. He'd talk about Jim Hoagland kind of stuff that you weren't supposed to repeat because it could cost him his commission. He talked about towns like this, but he'd promised her they'd all been shut down. It was always a guy who knew a guy who'd said this and that he'd heard, but the guy he talked too had really been there so it was all true. And like all fairy tales, it happened just over the horizon, not in the memory of anyone living, but the teller always swore it had happened. But it did happen. She'd seen the puncture marks on that patient's neck.
Faudron counted the days to her birthday. She felt so sick she wanted to sit down, but she'd probably sit on the same deer tick that downed mom and she wasn't about to get that disease on top of everything else she might get or not get in three days. "But why would he send them down this end?"
"Tried to. He can't, not ever, but he did because you and Moren ain't.
"Ain't what?"
"Ain't tainted. They all say they want to stay, but they'd all kill to leave."
