Strange Seed

by Stephen Mark Rainey

  And besides, Rachel pointed out, there was the child to consider. How much he seemed to crave what little sunlight filtered into the room through openings between the boards on the window. The feeble artificial light Paul had provided was no substitute, of course, but, for the moment, it would have to do.

  Paul had also put a small folding cot against the south wall. Rachel, hoping to cheer the room up, had covered its mattress with a bright pink sheet; the top sheet and pillow case matched it. And because the combination of yellow walls and bright pink sheets had been, as Rachel called it, “nauseating,” she had, in an attempt to balance the colors, hung an old print—a landscape; green dominated—in an ornate white frame several feet above the bed. Neither she nor Paul had commented on the effect it produced.

  What remained of a four-drawer cherry dresser—minus its smashed mirror-had been placed against the north wall, near the door; only its top drawer had been left intact. It was enough.

  The child, prone on the cot, arms at his sides, long thin fingers outstretched, was naked, as Rachel had first found him, as the torn shit and pants in the dresser drawer proved he wanted to be. The pink top sheet lay crumpled on the floor in front of the cot.

  Rachel, thinking the child was asleep, stepped quietly into the room. She had found that, if he was asleep, the slightest noise would wake him. Consequently, because of all the noises the house made, he had gotten—at most, she thought—the equivalent of a full night’s sleep in the last seven days.

  But he was awake, now. His eyes were wide open and focused on the ceiling.

  But, seeing this, Rachel again experienced what she had experienced several times before: Regardless of the direction of his gaze, she felt certain he was watching her, as if waiting, as if weighing her intentions.

  “I’ve brought you some food,” she said. She sounded strained, nervous, she thought, and that always seemed to make the boy nervous. She forced herself to smile. “Are you hungry?” Yes, that’s better.

  She held out the tray she carried. There was a plate filled with meat loaf and peas on it, and half a glass of milk.

  “This isn’t bad,” she continued. “The meatloaf’s a little bland, maybe. But you’ve got to remember I’ve only been cooking a short while.” You’re being an ass, she told herself. “I’ll leave it right here,” she went on, still smiling, and set the tray on top of the dresser. “And when you feel like eating…” She hesitated. “This is a fork,” she said, and held it up in front of her face. “I’ve shown you how to use it.” She dipped it into the meatloaf. “Like this.” She brought the fork slowly to her mouth, made exaggerated chewing motions. “Do you understand?”

  Silence.

  “I really think it’s important you understand.” She hesitated, set the fork on the tray. “You may talk anytime you’d like. Paul and I have been waiting…”

  She found, suddenly, that her eyes had been following the strongly muscled contours of his body, that her gaze had paused admiringly at his legs, his chest, even at his feet, and that now she was studying, almost serenely, his penis resting heavily on his closed thighs.

  She looked away.

  And it was not, she realized in the next moment, the first time she had looked away, cringing within herself at what had preoccupied her.

  “My God,” she muttered, “will you please learn to wear clothes!”

  She viciously pulled the dresser drawer open and withdrew the torn pair of pants. She had, inexpertly, fashioned them from a pair that Paul claimed he no longer needed. “When I fix these,” she said, the words clipped, harsh, “you will wear them!” She threw the pants back into the drawer, slammed it shut and hurriedly left the room. She locked the door behind her, and checked it twice.

  ******

  It was too late, Henry Lumas realized. If Paul and Rachel were going to be told, if they were going to be warned—and, Christ, they had to be warned—they’d have to come to him. But that was something neither of them would do. Not in time, at least. Not before nightfall. After that, they could question him all they wanted, but there’d be no answers.

  Answers? He’d never, he realized suddenly, really had any answers. He knew only what happened here, not why it happened, or how. Only what. And that was so damned little to know, so damned little to die for.

  I am a dying man, he thought. And dying men are scared men. They tell themselves that the life they just finished living wasn’t worth shit. Maybe they think it’ll get them another chance.

  He grinned, his teeth jutting starkly from behind dehydrated lips and gums. It was a good thought—that dying men wanted another chance at life, that maybe they should have another try at what they tried for the first time around, and missed—perfection.

  Maybe in the last breath of the dying man there’s a plea that someone close by whisper, “You did your best. It’s all right.” Maybe that last second of reassurance counted more than all the reassurance a man got his entire life.

  But there were worse ways he could have spent his life, he realized, than protecting what happened here. He could have been a salesman, like his father, and, like his father, care only about the money jingling in his pockets. That was damned little to die for—the money they took out of your pockets, anyway, before they put you in the ground, money that, by itself, probably made living more bearable but had no effect when it came time to die. You could cover a dying man wit his money, you could stuff it in his mouth, and it would smother him. He’d choke on it. At least a poor and dying man has air to breathe.

  He cursed, lifted his hands suddenly, and held them close to his face. Just a bit longer, just a few seconds more, and the boy would have joined those other two—“Joseph” and “Margaret.” How merciful that would have been. But now the process would be agonizingly slow. Now it was a matter of waiting and watching and hoping. Though there was no hope.

  Damn the little bastard! Why hadn’t he shown himself sooner, when there was help for him. And guidance. He could have stolen from the traps all he wanted (for it had been the boy, Lumas realized, now, just as he had suspected), as long as stayed in his place, as long as he forgot the resemblance between himself and the Griffins, as long as he remained what he was and didn’t corrupt it.

  A tear formed in Lumas’s eye. Slowly, though not painfully—because pain had left him days ago—he sat up on the bed, studied the strip of leather holding the door closed, and stood. He cocked his head first one way, then the other. Was that, he wondered, only the sound of rain filtering through the trees and onto the roof? He took several slow steps toward the door. Stopped. No, he realized, the rain had never sounded like that. So purposeful. So rhythmic. He smiled. It had happened and they were waiting for him. How terribly hungry they must be. And how well they knew what was being offered them.

  More quickly, he took the several steps remaining to the front door, reached out, and took the strip of leather in his hand. He hesitated. What if they did as the boy had done? What if, after all these years, they ended their new lives in a matter of months? It was possible. And if they did, then it was better that their lives be ended now. This day.

  He glanced at the old, never-used shotgun standing up in the corner, and knew that, even if he could lift it and load it and fire it, it would make no difference. Because, in a second, they would be beyond his sight and hearing. Or—which was more likely, because they had no knowledge of guns, were able only to sense impending danger—they would be upon him, tearing frantically at his flesh while he still breathed.

  He closed his eyes a moment. “Forgive me,” he whispered, and opened the door. And felt the moist, cool air of evening move over his face and hands.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The brittle noise of the alarm clock finally roused Rachel. “Paul?” she murmured, eyes half open, trying in vain to focus on the white wall. “Paul, shut that off.” She took her arm from beneath the quilt and felt behind her, on Paul’s side of the bed. “Paul?” She rolled over on her back, savored, for a moment, the
remnants of a particularly pleasant but rapidly fading dream, and forced her eyes to open wide. She looked to her left and sighed: So, he was already up. He had been telling her for several days how much better he felt, that the pain in his ribs was no longer constant.

  “I can breathe again,” he’d explained, grinning. “Maybe I can stop using that lousy Darvon, or whatever it is. Gets rid of the pain but makes me crappy to live with, doesn’t it?”

  “At times,” she’d answered.

  She became aware, again, of the grating noise of the alarm. “Damn thing!” she muttered and, her movements made awkward by fatigue, climbed out of bed, fumbled with the clock a moment, then shut it off.

  She shivered and glanced down at herself. How in the world… She hadn’t gone to bed like that, she remembered. It came to her—the frantic lovemaking and the profound exhaustion that followed. She saw the trailing edges of her blue nightgown beneath the quilt at the foot of the bed. She smiled wistfully, gratefully. Perhaps, she thought, the experience with the child the previous evening had prompted the lovemaking. Good news sometimes had that effect. She fished the nightgown from beneath the quilt and slipped it on. Good news? Well, yes—hearing words from the child was certainly not bad news. Admittedly, the words had only been in imitation of words she had said to him over and over again—words chosen for their simplicity (he had probably not understood their meanings), and he’d only repeated the two simplest of those words—“cat,” “dog”—but wasn’t that the way everyone learned to talk. If the boy had been mute all his life because he’d never, or hardly ever, been exposed to language, then the progress she and Paul had made with him was close to remarkable.

  And that laugh. Such a highly developed, genuine laugh. Not at all the screeching laugh of a child. It was infectious, which, Rachel thought, the laugh of a child that age rarely is.

  All of it had to mean that he was responding to her, coming out of the awful shell he’d been in ever since they’d found him.

  “Paul?” she called, hoping he was still in the house so she could discuss with him the events of the previous evening. “Paul?” she repeated.

  A name, she thought suddenly. The boy needed a name. For too long they had referred to him simply as “the child” and “the boy.” Probably because, as withdrawn as he’d been, as totally lacking in personality, the idea of giving him a name had just not occurred to them. But now that he’d spoken his first words, laughed his first laugh—

  She reviewed a few names mentally. He wasn’t a “Frank” or a “Mike” or a “Jerry.” “Paul, Jr.” certainly wouldn’t do. His name had to be something graceful and poetic, yet masculine. She grinned. She had gone through this process, she remembered—the frustrating but happy process of choosing a name—only a few times; just recently with Mr. Higgins and, years earlier, with a dog her father had bought her and, several years before that, when she’d barely been out of diapers, with her family of homemade dolls—Lucy, Elizabeth, Granny, Marjorie. She forced herself to abandon the memory. It had been, she realized, the stuff her dream had been made of—the dream from which she’d been jolted by the alarm clock. Something about those dolls, in reality so crude, but in the dream so wonderfully lifelike, dancing, at first grim-faced, then smilingly, around her. And she had watched, pleased, delighted, and finally in an almost sexual ecstasy.

  The remnants of the dream dissipated. She turned her head and looked into the kitchen. “Paul?” she called again, more loudly.

  “I’m here,” he answered from the kitchen.

  *****

  What, Rachel wondered, was it that she had read, for an instant, on his face? Disappointment?

  “Good morning,” she said, smiling.

  He was seated at the table, cup of coffee in hand. “Morning,” he grunted.

  Rachel looked past him. A freshly brewed pot of coffee, steam rising from its spout, was on the stove, a pain of rapidly boiling water on the burner beside it, a box of oatmeal on the counter.

  “Oh,” Rachel began, trying to sound pleasantly surprised, “you started breakfast. Thank you. I still hate to build a fire in that damned stove. I always burn myself.” She went over to the counter and opened the box of oatmeal. “I’ve been thinking, Paul; about the boy. I think we should give him a name. Just temporarily. You know, until he’s”—she tried to think of the right phrase—“well enough that he can tell us his name.”

  Paul said nothing.

  “You don’t like that idea?” Rachel said, got a measuring cup from the cupboard and poured some oatmeal into it. “If you don’t, I’ll understand. It was just an idea. I mean, it’s not like he’s our own child, is it? It’s not like we’ve adopted him or something.” She went to the stove and slowly poured the cup of oatmeal into the pan of boiling water. “It’s just that it seems kind of immoral to give names to, you know, the cat, and the car”—they called it “Bessie”—“and even to your tractor”—he called it “Brutus”—“and go on referring to that child as ‘the boy.’” She glanced at Paul. “Are you listening to me?”

  His back was turned. She saw him lower his head a little. “Yes,” he said. “I’m listening. It’s a good idea, I suppose.”

  “But you’re not enthusiastic about it—is that what you’re saying?”

  He shrugged, mumbled, “I don’t know,” turned his head and looked blankly at her. “Rachel, did you leave that door open?” He nodded at the back door. It was closed.

  “Last night?” Rachel began. “No, not that I remember.” She thought a moment. “Wait a minute,” she continued, “maybe I did. Just after you went upstairs to check on the boy. I was in here cleaning things up and I heard something like someone was on the back steps, so I opened the door and looked out. I didn’t see anyone.” She paused. “It was probably a raccoon,” she continued. “I remember once that one came right up to the back door. I imagine you could tame a raccoon if you tried hard enough.” A quick self-conscious smile flashed across her face. Paul’s race remained expressionless. “Well, anyway, I probably didn’t close the door tight enough and the wind blew it open.” She paused briefly. “I don’t understand. What’s so important about it?”

  He stood abruptly. “I’ll show you,” he said. He strode briskly to the back door and opened it. “When I got up,” he explained, “it was wide open.” He pointed at the screen door. “And this is what I found.”

  Rachel looked to where he was pointing. “I don’t see anything, Paul.”

  “Well, come closer, for God’s sake.”

  She hesitated, surprised by his tone, then set the pan of oatmeal to one side and did as he’d asked. “Okay,” she said, trying too hard, and knowing it, to sound annoyed. “What did you find?”

  “These,” Paul told her. He ran his finger along a small area about four feet up the right-hand side of the screen door’s frame. “These marks. Look at them.”

  Rachel leaned over a little and, feigning disinterest, studied the marks. She straightened. “Well, I’m sorry, Paul. He does that all over; you should see the sides of the couch. I’ve scolded him for it, but you can’t scold a cat, can you? It doesn’t—“

  “Hold it,” Paul cut in. “You think the cat did this?”

  “Of course. He scratches everything.”

  Paul gestured at the marks. “Take a better look, Rachel.”

  She studied the marks more closely, then straightened.

  “Well?” Paul coaxed. “Do you understand now?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. She fell quiet for a long moment. She looked, Paul thought, near the point of tears. Then she said, “There’s probably some kind of explanation. There has to be.”

  “Yes,” Paul said softly, “there is.” He paused meaningfully. “The boy wanted to get out, couldn’t reach the latch, or couldn’t work it—which, I’m afraid, seems more likely—and so he tried to chew through the door. That’s the explanation, and I’m sorry.”

  “No reason to be sorry, Paul,” Rachel said, straining to sound f
lippant, her voice trembling. “I don’t know about you, but I…” She bit her lower lip as if to steady her voice. “I never kidded myself about his…progress. He’s got a long way to go…” She moved quickly back to the stove, repositioned the pan on the burner and stirred the oatmeal slowly, methodically. “He’s got a long way to go…” She hesitated, her back to Paul. “This has got lumps in it. Shit. I’ll have to start over again. You know how you hate—“

  Paul, still at the screen door, heard the muted crack of the wooden spoon being driven viciously into the bottom of the pan—once, then again, and again.

  For a moment, there was silence.

  “Rachel,” he pleaded, “don’t…” He stopped, confused; though Rachel’s back was turned, he sensed that she was smiling. “Rachel?”

  She turned her head; a grimly satisfied smile, as if some dark suspicion had suddenly been confirmed, a long and bitterly fought battle finally won. “Hank will know what to do,” she said, voice steady.

  “Hank’s dead, Rachel. You know that.”

  Her smile faded.

  “Rachel?” Paul coaxed.

  “He told you,” she said, her voice a hoarse, desperate whisper. “He told you and you wouldn’t listen.”

  “Told me what, Rachel?” He took a few steps tower her, stopped and nodded at the severely pointed, broken handle of the spoon she held menacingly in front of her. “Rachel”—his tone solicitous—“what are you going to do with that?”

  “What Hank started to do—what you stopped him from doing, Paul!”

  “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  She turned toward the living room. Paul reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Rachel!”

  More because of the abruptness of her movements than her strength, she wrenched free of his grasp. Seconds later, she had crossed through the kitchen and the living room and had thrown open the door leading to the stairway.