by Gina Ranalli
Shouts from somewhere out there reached them—Saul was yelling the word “Stop!” repeatedly, as well as Sean’s name. Another crash and a cry of pain and then only the wind for entirely too long.
Both Karen and Rory held their breath, choking back their sobs, eyes straining for any sight of movement out there in the gloom.
The dog had found the courage to come out from the table and stood shivering against Karen’s thigh, periodically letting out a shrill bark.
Karen was certain they’d lost both men to the storm when they heard a loud grunt to their left and ran to that side of the porch, peering over the edge to a small area where no tree stood.
Rolling on the ground, Saul fought with Sean, who Karen could now see was so filthy he had appeared to be dark-skinned from a distance.
Saul was doing his best not to hurt Sean, who kept striking out with fists and feet in an attempt to escape. Blood streamed from Saul’s nose, pine needles and dirt already mixed up with it, caking on his upper lip. Rory leapt over the rail to help subdue Sean, which made Sean struggle all the harder, making strange grunts and animal sounds.
“Sean!” Karen screamed, throwing a leg over the rail, intending to drop down and assist if she could.
Sean didn’t even glance up at the sound of his name, eyes rolling and terrified, fighting with the men as if he’d never seen them before in his life.
It wasn’t until Dusty, sticking her head through the slats of railing, barked twice, that Sean looked up and recognition showed in his wild eyes. He tossed back a sharp elbow, nailing Rory in the mouth and at the same time reached behind him, grabbing Saul’s crotch and giving it a vicious twist. Rory fell backwards onto his ass, blood spurting out from between his fingers as he covered his mouth, eyes crunched closed in pain while Saul howled loud enough to raise the dead, releasing Sean to cup his balls with both hands.
Karen dragged the leg she’d had hanging over the railing back as Sean pounced up, gripping the railing with both grimy hands and vaulting himself over onto the porch with the agility of a monkey.
He rolled on the plank floor of the porch, snarled up at Karen and scuttled over to Dusty. Karen reeled back a foot, intending to kick her brother square in the ribs before he was able to attack the dog. Her foot stopped mid-kick when she saw Dusty rush forward to meet him, yipping not with fear or fury, but happily, covering Sean’s face with long laps, tail wagging with excitement.
Sean, laughing, rolled around with the dog, though his eyes kept darting up to Karen, ensuring she had no intention of coming any closer.
She kept her distance, crying again now as she realized her brother was alive, but not her brother at all anymore, not really.
He was as wild as any animal now, scrawny to the point of emaciation, every bone joint in his body prominent, along with his ribs, collar and hip bones.
Crouching down, she kept her distance, but called to the dog, wanting Sean to see that if the dog trusted her, so could he.
It took saying her name nearly a dozen times, but Dusty finally turned from Sean and trotted over to Karen, giving her face a single tentative lap while Sean made a bleating sound of distress.
Another fat branch hit the roof of the porch and Dusty yelped, running back to Sean with her tail between her legs. He wrapped his arms around the dog’s neck, looking up with terror.
“It’s safer inside,” Karen yelled over the wind, pointing to the open doorway. Sean looked into the kitchen beyond, then back at Karen. He didn’t know that behind him, still on the ground, Rory stood watching them, a smear of blood on his chin. Saul was just beginning to get up, his face screwed up in a grimace of pain.
Karen slowly made her way inside, stopping in the doorway to call to the dog again.
“Come here, girl. Come on, Dusty. It’s okay.”
Dusty looked from her to Sean, uncertain, and Sean grabbed her around her furry neck once more, pulling her to him, trying to keep her back. His eyes still darted to and fro and Karen realized he was more afraid of the house than he was the storm. She couldn’t much blame him in that regard. But she had a feeling that if she got the dog inside, the man would follow and what was the best way to get a hungry animal to come to you when it otherwise wouldn’t have?
She raised a hand to stop Saul and Rory from climbing back onto the porch. She could see they were whispering to each other and though she couldn’t hear their words she knew perfectly well they planned to jump Sean while he was focused on her. Jump and what? Subdue him somehow? Tie him up? Knock him out?
None of the things they could be thinking sounded as good to her as her own plan did and she gave them a pleading look, still holding up her hand. Then she showed them only her index finger: wait.
With deliberate slowness, she turned her back on Sean and went into the house. The instant she crossed into the kitchen, she hurried over to the fridge, pulled it open, and began rummaging for any kind of meat she could find. She knew there were steaks and frozen chicken in the freezer but she needed something that would smell better, not like ice. A deli package sat on the bottom shelf. She ripped it open as if it were she who was starving. Inside, slices of white turkey, untouched. Maybe as much as a pound.
Tossing aside the paper, she raced back to the door and was relieved to see Saul and Rory still on the ground, both of them covering their heads and gazing up worriedly. More branches tumbled down around them, occasionally clipping one or the other on the head, neck or shoulders. Karen tossed a slice of turkey at Dusty’s feet and the dog stretched out her neck to sniff before pulling herself free of Sean’s arms, gobbling down the meat in a single swallow. Smiling, Karen quickly threw down the next slice, closer to her own feet. The dog came forward, ate it even faster than she had the first slice.
Sean was making that horrible bleating sound again, arms outstretched, reaching for his only friend, begging her to come back.
Karen had to trust that he loved the dog enough to follow her inside, that his love for the animal would outweigh his fear of the house.
A third piece of meat thrown to the porch floor, then a fourth, each one a couple feet closer to the inside of the kitchen.
“Good girl, Dusty,” she cooed soothingly. “Good girl. Come on.”
And Dusty came.
Karen didn’t know why the dog had taken a liking to her. Perhaps she smelled similar to her brother? Was she automatically one of the pack due to her relation to Sean?
She didn’t suppose it mattered much. All that mattered was that her plan was working. The dog was coming…closer and closer…and Sean, perhaps thinking the kitchen door would slam shut and Dusty would be trapped alone in the house with strangers, came with her.
Another few slices of meat and the dog was in the kitchen, happy to be out of the wind, but still casting nervous glances over her shoulder at the open door, swallowing the meat whole.
Sean, crouched like a Neanderthal, hesitated in the doorway, but Karen continued to move backwards, moving out of the kitchen now and taking the dog with her. He hesitated, then scrambled forward into the kitchen, crab-like, hooting and crying, begging for his dog to return to his side.
Behind him, Saul and Rory appeared in the doorway, each sporting their separate battle wounds, effectively blocking Sean’s escape should he try to flee back into the storm.
Karen continued to feed the dog. They were backing into the living room now and the package of meat only had a few slices remaining.
But those few slices were all it took. Sean crept after them, keeping his body low, eyes focused on Karen as if she were about to do something awful to the dog and he would be ready for it, ready to lunge and take out her throat if need be.
Rory closed and locked the kitchen door, biting back the emotions warring on his face: relief and sorrow. Dusty swallowed the last bit of meat and when she realized there would be no more coming, spun around to return to Sean, happily, tongue lolling now. Sean smiled, started to turn and saw Saul standing there, hands upraised.
/> “Relax, Sean,” he said. “It’s me, Saul. You remember? Saul.”
But Sean clearly did not remember. He screamed and leapt, tackling Saul, driving him back against a wall with such force the nearby photographs hanging there weaved precariously on their nails.
Another fight ensued, Rory jumping forward, trying to restrain Sean, while Karen grabbed the dog and wrestled with her to keep her out of it.
Sean was screaming nonsense, but at one point Karen thought she heard the phrase “old man” come out of his mouth. But most likely, it was just jumbled sounds coupled with the wailing wind and the hammering branches continuing to batter the house.
A minute later and Saul and Rory had Sean down on the floor, pinning him there, saying reassuring things, but they needn’t have. He had stopped struggling and when Karen approached, leaning over to see his face, she saw that his eyes were open, but he was already gone. Not dead; his chest still rose and fell rapidly, but gone just the same. Gone somewhere deep inside his mind as effectively as if a curtain had fallen over his eyes.
She recognized the place because she herself had been there not long ago. Curled up inside herself so she knew nothing of her surroundings and that was just how she wanted it. And, she saw, how her brother wanted it too.
“Let him go,” she said.
Both men looked up at her, surprised.
“Not a good idea,” Saul said.
“Let him go!” she insisted and finally they obliged, standing up and stepping back, both of them ready to jump back down if they had to.
Karen kneeled beside her brother, gently placed a hand on his burning forehead. His eyes stared off at nothing—at least nothing she could see. Dusty came over, sniffed his face and chest, licked his chin, and still he had no reaction at all.
Leaning forward, Karen whispered, “Don’t let him have you, Sean. You’re stronger than that. He was a bad man. I know he was, but you’re stronger than he is. Do you hear me? He can’t win if you don’t let him.”
She could sense Saul and Rory shifting their weight uncomfortably behind her and knew how insane she sounded, but she didn’t care. She wanted her brother back. Needed him back. Grasping one of his bony hands in hers, she was suddenly assaulted with a vision jolting her like a thousand bolts of electricity and she knew she was seeing what Sean had seen. What had driven him over the edge.
Crows in a dark gray sky, flying up there with the dead leaves that floated and drifted, carried by powerful winds. The crows circling lower and lower until at last they landed on the ground and low-hanging branches of the pines. But these were no normal crows. Oh, no. These were big bastards with huge human eyes that stared, bore through you like the sins of the past, and human hands, small like a child’s, but very, very human, clutching at the ground, at the branches, small fingers twitching, blood caked beneath the nails. Tiny wrists and forearms that disappeared into the feathered black bellies of the birds which stared and cawed and took a young man’s sanity with them when they decided to swoop back into the angry sky, dropping beads of blood onto the upturned face that watched them go.
Karen cried out, releasing her brother’s hand, immediately overcome with terror, blinking, forcing herself back into the present. She was not in that bizarre haunted past, but here with two others, here in the House of Fallen Trees where not everyone came and then left intact.
Two men have the carcass, she thought and finally knew what it meant.
The men did have the carcass of her brother and one of the men was Frank Storm, who she knew was more than just an eccentric sailor, but the other was Sean himself. The real Sean, who remained deep down in the darkness where light couldn’t touch him ever again.
All that remained was this poor imitation of her brother, skeletal and frail, haunted, unblinking eyes which chose not to see her or anything else except for a mangy stray dog. Karen watched as Dusty lay down beside Sean, resting her chin on his chest, watching the rest of them with roving brown eyes and Karen knew the dog wouldn’t move from Sean’s side again. Maybe she was even regretting having eaten the turkey Karen had tossed her.
That’s nuts, Karen told herself as she stood up and listened to the wind. She’s just a dog. Do you really think she regrets anything?
But, she supposed anything was possible. After all, they were two strays now and they had found each other, loved and protected each other for at least the last six months. Maybe they would continue to do so forever.
Glancing at Saul and Rory she said, “Sounds like the wind is dying down a bit.”
Rory sank to his knees and began to weep. He stayed on one side of Sean while the dog stayed on the other. They both gave the appearance of guarding the dead.
Saul sighed. “We should be able to get out of here soon.” As an afterthought, he added, “Finally.”
“Yeah,” Karen agreed, wiping a tear from her cheek. “Finally.” But in truth, she knew she wouldn’t be able to leave now. Technically, she owned half this house and after all… she had family here.
EPILOGUE
14 MONTHS LATER
Karen was in her office writing when the door bell rang a little after noon on a Wednesday in January. She stopped writing, head cocked, and listened to the dog bark downstairs. Waiting to hear the sound of voices, she was mildly irritated when, a moment later, the bell rang again.
Sighing, she rolled her chair back, exited the room, and made her way down to the door, passing though the living room where Sean sat on the couch watching TV. Dusty sprawled beside him, her head in his lap, also not willing to rise, preferring to do her guard dog routine from a relaxed position. He stroked her back absently, engrossed in whatever he was watching.
Karen didn’t bother saying anything to him. They’d been sharing the small house on the outskirts of Fallen Trees for five months now and she knew better than to expect too much from him.
In the kitchen, she peered out the window in the door and saw Rory. He offered a smile and held up a rainbow bouquet of roses for her to see.
“Happy hump day,” he announced when she opened the door.
She laughed, gave him a hug and invited him inside, eyeing the flowers. “I assume those are for Sean?”
“Nope. They’re for you.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, though she couldn’t help but smile as he handed them to her. “Really? What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion. I just saw them in the market and they spoke your name.”
Karen raised an eyebrow. “I hope not literally.”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them and not because she saw the pained looked in his eyes. It was a bad joke and after everything they’d been through—particularly Sean and herself—she should know better.
An awkward silence fell upon them, until she broke it by saying, “I should find a vase for these.”
As she began searching the cupboards, he asked, “How is he today?”
“He’s good. Glued to the television, as usual.”
“I’m gonna go say hi.”
“Okay.”
She finally found a vase under the sink and busied herself with the flowers. She did her best to not eavesdrop on what was being said in the other room, but it was difficult. She knew Sean would be happy to see Rory, of course. He always was. The hard part came when it was time for Rory to leave and Sean wanted to go with him. Even now, after everything that had happened, her brother still wanted to go back to that house.
When he had been committed to Western State Hospital in Tacoma, one of the doctors there had told her the house was a drug to Sean and he…well, he was a junkie. Despite knowing it would almost certainly kill him eventually, he still craved it…needed it. He probably always would.
Sean had spent nearly nine months in that place and the whole thing had been exhausting and traumatic for everyone involved. There had been countless court hearings, going back and forth. Sometimes he wanted to be in there, sometimes he didn’t. When he didn’t, it had been pu
re hell for Rory and herself.
But all that was behind them now, or so it seemed, and thank God for that. There had been times when Karen had felt so guilty about him being in there, she had been sick with it. After all, if her brother had been insane, what did that make her?
She’d wanted to take him back East with her initially, but the way he’d begged her not to had broken her down. When he’d been in the hospital in Tacoma, she’d stayed nearby, renting a small room—a stay she’d thought would be shorter than it had turned out to be, but she hadn’t complained. Having him back was such a miracle she didn’t dare complain about anything.
“I’m ready now!”
The shout from the other room almost startled her into dropping the vase as she was carrying it over to the windowsill. Instead, she put it on the counter and hurried to the living room to see what was happening.
Both Sean and Rory stood in the middle of the room, facing each other. Neither one even glanced in her direction when she entered.
“I’m not so sure about that, Sean,” Rory was saying.
Sean shook his head in disgust. “You don’t trust me? You don’t fucking trust me?”
“What’s going on?” Karen asked.
“He wants to go back to the house,” Rory said. “He thinks he’s ready.”
“I’m right fucking here!” Sean snapped. “Stop talking about me as though I were a child!”
“Calm down, Sean,” Karen said. She noticed Dusty cowering in a corner and told her brother, “Look. You’re upsetting the dog.”
It was the one thing that, without fail, could get him to relax. He immediately went to comfort his pet, leaving Rory and Karen looking worriedly at each other.
After a long moment, Rory whispered, “Maybe he is ready.”
Karen glared at him. Without bothering to lower her voice, she said, “He is never returning to that place.”
“Yes I am,” Sean said, scratching the dog’s neck. “It’s my home. I have to go back sometime.”
“Bullshit!” The loudness of her voice surprised even her. “That place nearly killed you, Sean!”
