by Amy Lloyd
‘It’s just a little blood,’ he shouted. ‘There’s nothing more to it. Probably don’t touch the walls, though.’
‘Dennis, please!’ Sam had never screamed like this before; it was a sound she didn’t know she could make. It scratched up her throat and reverberated against the metal walls surrounding her. In nightmares, she could never scream.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark she started to see outlines: tools hanging on the walls; gardening equipment draped with sheets; things that looked horribly like a corpse, a body sitting in the chair, a shotgun shape protruding from one side, the head dangling limp towards the other.
‘Are you still there?’ She stayed close to the door. ‘Dennis?’
The door finally opened and she pushed past him, her palms smacking him hard in the chest. Dennis made a small ‘oomph’ noise, which made her want to hit him again, harder, but she kept running straight to the house. Once inside, she looked for her keys, pushing letters on to the floor and throwing sofa cushions across the room. She heard Dennis come in behind her and she searched faster, sweat rolling down her neck; then she ran into the kitchen and slumped on to the floor, hugging her knees.
‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘I was just kidding. You OK?’
‘No!’ Sam glared at him, thrusting herself away from him.
‘I didn’t think you would get that freaked out by it,’ he said, as if it were her fault.
‘I asked you to stop! I was screaming!’
‘Girls scream.’ He shrugged. ‘I thought you were playing.’
‘I wasn’t!’ Sam didn’t know if she believed him. ‘Why are you still … Why not just say you’re sorry?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a sigh. Sam felt another flush of anger: was it that he didn’t understand why she was upset? Or that he didn’t care?
‘You don’t mean it.’
‘For f—I’m sorry, OK? I took it too far.’ Sam relented and let him hold her. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. About the blood and stuff. It was a bad joke.’
‘Is it really like that in there?’ Sam checked her hands and clothes for stains.
‘No, he didn’t kill himself inside there. I’d never have … It was against the garage wall. Outside. They already cleaned it.’
‘Why would you trick me then?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t. You were so freaked out by it, I was only teasing. I didn’t think you actually thought he killed himself inside there. But you’ve been acting like it’s haunted here or something. It’s kind of, I mean, it’s real to me, it’s not a county fair ghost train.’
Dennis looked away, his jaw tense, Sam thought he looked as if he might cry. She reached out to touch his face and turned him gently to look at her.
‘Den, I’m sorry. I don’t think that. I don’t. I know it’s real to you. But, I did see someone, honestly. Not a ghost, just someone. I think someone’s watching us.’
‘OK.’ He kissed her, keeping his lips on hers for a moment before pulling away. ‘If you’re really that worried, I’ll take care of you.’
Dennis made Sam a green tea, which she hated but drank anyway, just to show that she appreciated the gesture. He stroked her hair and lulled her into a passive state, just on the edge of sleep. They heard a mewing from outside, looked at each other and rushed to the door. Dennis gestured for her to stay back. He walked as slowly and softly as he could, opening the door millimetres at a time. He crouched and the cat approached hesitantly. In the porch light Sam could see that she was small, with long grey fur and a white belly.
‘You can tell she was looked after,’ Dennis said, combing her fur with his fingers, ‘until she got pregnant. Someone probably drove her out here and left her on the side of the road.’
‘I don’t understand how people can do things like that,’ Sam said.
‘People do worse things,’ he said. The cat stretched to his hand. She rubbed her face all over Dennis’s fist and turned around, her tail sticking straight up to the sky. Sam brought over a bowl of cat food and they watched her eat. When they checked the porch they saw that she’d placed her kittens in the cat bed. They huddled together like balled-up socks.
Sam and Dennis picked up the cat bed together with the kittens inside and took it into the house, waiting for the mother to follow. The cat was anxious at first, mewing and pacing, but eventually calmed down and picked at some food that they had placed near the bed. All night there was noise, the squeaking of kittens and the shuffling of them moving around and being gathered back to the bed by the mother.
Twenty-four
Dennis was up with the sun. He propped the door open again so that the cat could let herself in and out. He hit the bowl with a spoon to summon her for breakfast and watched her eat with a smile on his face.
‘You’re so good at this,’ Sam said. ‘You’d make a great dad.’ Dennis grimaced and she wished she hadn’t said anything.
The mother returned to the bed to feed her kittens. One struggled to get in the crush, clumsily stepping over the others, uncoordinated and small. ‘He’s the runt,’ Dennis said. ‘I hope he gets bigger soon.’
Instead of going for his morning run, Dennis stayed inside and trailed a laser pointer across the floor, watching the cat’s frantic movements as she chased it. ‘We need to name her,’ he said.
‘Smudge?’
‘No way. Tuna?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Tuna.’
The morning was slow and hot. Dennis threw knick-knacks and clothes into trash bags and put them in a corner. Sam suggested taking them to Goodwill but Dennis dismissed the idea, showing her the chipped ornaments and the yellowed armpits of the shirts. ‘Who would want this shit?’ he asked, not waiting for an answer.
The sound of an engine drew close and Dennis wiped his forehead. ‘That’ll be the dumpsters.’
He carried one heavy bag in each hand, his arms straining with the exertion. Sam looked out of the window and saw a police car, with three men inside. The driver was a young man, thirty, and the other two seemed to be in their late seventies, not wearing uniforms. One of the older men seemed familiar and as Sam’s eyes met his she realised it was Officer Harries. His face was drawn and he looked puffy, unwell, as though he’d been drinking heavily. Dennis dropped the trash bags by the front door and stood, leaning against the frame watching as they walked nonchalantly up the yard to the house.
‘Morning, Dennis,’ Officer Harries said.
‘My God, Officer Harries, is that you? I almost didn’t recognise you.’
‘Yes. And this is Officers Gacy and Cole.’
There was something in Harries’s voice that made Sam edgy, something that told her this wasn’t good news.
‘Sam, come here. These guys were cops when I was in school.’
Sam hovered behind him and waited for what was coming.
‘Know why we’re here, Dennis?’ Harries said.
‘You want autographs?’ Dennis said.
‘Where were you last night, Dennis?’
‘Here. Actually, we’re pretty glad you stopped by, because Sam’s been a little freaked out. We think someone’s been creeping around here, peeping through the windows. Know anything about that?’
‘Was he here all night, ma’am?’ The youngest, Officer Cole, leaned round to ask her. Sam nodded. ‘You sure about that?’
‘I’m sure, yeah,’ Sam said quietly. She cleared her throat and said again, with what she hoped sounded like certainty, ‘He was with me, here, all night.’
‘So what’s this about?’ Dennis stretched his arms over his head and held on to the top of the doorframe. Sam noticed the sound of the wood splintering as he pulled down.
‘Bill Landry called us early this morning. He found his dog dead outside, said she’d been eviscerated. He was very upset. Never seen anything like that myself.’
Dennis tilted his head. ‘What does “eviscerated” mean?’
‘The dog was gutted, torn apart. It looked like an animal did it.�
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‘So did an animal do it?’
‘No, an animal did not do it, Dennis. We looked around nearby and there was a burned-out trash can containing the dog’s skull. Bill said that he’d had an incident with you, a couple of days ago, in his store.’
‘You mean when his wife threatened us with a gun because we tried to buy a magazine? Sure, that happened.’
‘Not quite how he tells it. He says you were threatening him.’ He paused. ‘You kill the dog, Dennis?’
Sam watched Dennis’s back, how his shoulders tensed beneath his shirt.
‘This is just like old times, isn’t it?’ Dennis said finally. ‘Of course I didn’t kill any dog.’
‘You sure about that?’ Gacy said.
‘Sure, been here the whole time, trying to sort through my old man’s effects. I’ve got to get out of here before I go nuts like the rest of you people.’
‘This kind of stuff seems to follow you around, Dennis. It would be great if you could make your business here swift, get out before people get really upset.’
‘Listen, you’re blocking the driveway and I’m expecting dumpsters soon, so you’d better go before the truck arrives. You want me out of here, fine, but I’ve got to do this first.’
‘You haven’t changed at all, Dennis,’ Officer Harries said. ‘See you around.’
‘It’s been a pleasure.’ Dennis turned and walked back inside.
‘Ma’am,’ Harries said, holding back. Sam waited for him to keep talking. ‘I don’t know how much you know about Dennis or his situation …’
‘I know everything,’ she said.
‘There’s a lot of history around here and I’d ask yourself why he wants to come back some place where everybody hates him when he could be anywhere he wants.’
Sam stopped herself from telling Officer Harries about the house, how they were cleaning and fixing up the place, because even she didn’t understand why they needed to be there. They had enough money to pay others to do it for them. The house itself was worthless; the wood was rotting and the roof was leaking. Better to knock it down and leave the land to grow over.
Just as Harries turned to leave she asked, ‘The dog – why would you think it was Dennis?’
Harries sighed. ‘It’s not the first time something like this has happened to someone who pissed Dennis off. Seems like too much of a coincidence to me.’ He looked over her shoulder and nodded. Sam turned to see Dennis standing in the window, still and tense, a look of intense concentration on his face. ‘If you think about it and remember he wasn’t with you last night, just give the station a call.’ Harries passed her a card, which Sam took reluctantly.
‘He was with me,’ she said again, fixing her eyes on his. ‘All night.’
Harries smiled.
‘You’re all the same,’ he said, walking towards the car.
Sam ignored the bait and stood firmly waiting for him to look back, knowing he wouldn’t be able to resist flinging one last threat or insult before he left. But he didn’t. Harries bent and lowered himself into the car, with a slowness that showed his age, and closed the door behind him. Sam watched until they’d driven away.
Back in the house Dennis asked her what Harries had said.
‘He wanted to ask again where you were last night.’
‘What did he give you?’ She pulled the card from her pocket and he laughed.
‘Should I throw it out?’ Sam asked.
‘Do whatever you want,’ he said, and continued swiping everything off the shelves into the trash bags.
‘I know you wouldn’t do what they’re accusing you of,’ Sam said. ‘But …’
‘But?’ He stopped and dust rose behind his head, settling on his hair.
‘You weren’t here last night.’
‘Yes I was.’
‘Not all night. You went for a run.’
‘Around here. How would I get to town and back without a car?’
‘Of course, I know.’
‘You want points for lying or something? I was here. I went for a run around the woods, that’s it. They’re just bothering me like they always did. The dog was probably hit by a fucking car or something.’
‘But they said the head …’
‘They’re lying. They’re trying to scare you.’
‘I guess …’ Sam said.
‘Guess? What, you don’t believe me?’
‘Of course I do,’ Sam said.
‘It doesn’t seem like it. You know, you’re either on their side, or you’re on mine.’
‘I am on your side,’ Sam said. Suddenly she felt terrible, as if she’d betrayed him.
‘You’re my wife,’ he said, his voice softer. ‘I need you to trust me.’
‘They just scared me,’ she said. ‘I’ll always be on your side.’
Twenty-five
Sam needed to get away so she drove out of town to a donut shop where she chose two luminous iced ring donuts and a giant iced coffee. She took a picture of them and uploaded it to Instagram with the hashtags ‘paleo’, ‘clean eating’, ‘health’. She smiled at herself and ate, sticky and sated and a little sick.
She pictured Dennis and Tuna, how gently he called her and how he held the kittens in one palm, putting his nose to their heads to nuzzle them. She knew he wouldn’t have hurt an animal. Sam thought again of the figure she’d seen, someone lurking around the house. She knew there had been someone there; she’d felt their eyes on her even before she’d seen them. The gaze like fingernails dragged gently down her spine. How many creeps were there in this town? she wondered.
Two weeks, she decided, and then she would leave.
When she arrived back at the house there were three yellow dumpsters lined up along the front, one already half full with the black bags and broken furniture which they’d piled in the yard the previous day. Dennis had painted over the graffiti on the side of the house, though the red lettering showed through the white paint. There was also a flatbed truck she didn’t recognise and a boy of about ten – skinny with dirty knees – sitting sullenly on the steps. As soon as she stepped out of the car she heard a raspy smoker’s laugh and the rise and fall of Dennis’s voice beneath. The boy didn’t bother to look at her as she passed. He sniffed a watery-sounding mucus through his sinuses and coughed it out, spitting on to the grass.
‘I’m back!’ Sam called to Dennis.
He didn’t answer. Sam heard the laughter of two people in cahoots, one obviously a woman. Dennis was in the kitchen, his clothes dotted with white paint, leaning back against the counter holding a sweating bottle of Pellegrino in one hand. Standing across from him, her spine curved and her crotch thrust towards Sam’s husband, was Lindsay Durst.
‘What’s up?’ Lindsay said.
‘Wow, hey, how are you?’ Sam said, trying to keep her voice cheerful.
‘Pretty good, pretty good. It’s awesome to see this guy again. Didn’t think he’d be back here in a hurry.’
‘You met Lindsay, right? When you were filming?’ Dennis asked.
Why was he pretending they hadn’t spoken about her before? Sam gritted her teeth and smiled. ‘Yeah!’ Her voice was too loud, too shrill. She told herself to reel it in. ‘Briefly. It’s so nice to see you again.’
The carrier bags stretched from her hands, her palms were sweating, the plastic was beginning to cut into the skin. She stood there, still and dumb, and watched as Lindsay and Dennis shared a smile. She looked down at Lindsay’s flip-flopped feet. Her nails were painted cherry red and Sam noticed her little toe curled inwards and under the others, ugly and gnarled. She must have felt Sam’s eyes there as she shifted the foot behind her, out of sight.
‘You want to put those down or something?’ Dennis said, gesturing to her white knuckles around the handles of the bags. She started to lower them. ‘Not in here,’ he went on. ‘We’re busy in here. Why don’t you take them to the living room?’
Mortified, Sam left the kitchen. She imagined Dennis and Lindsay sharin
g a look, silently mocking her. She pictured a smile smeared on Lindsay’s face and Dennis’s malevolent smirk, its ugliness masked by his beauty. Outside the front window the boy was scratching marks into the wooden floorboards with a sharp-edged stone.
Sam walked back into the kitchen and interrupted their conversation. ‘Is that your son outside?’
‘Yeah.’ Lindsay said casually. ‘I couldn’t leave him at home, he’s got the flu.’ Then she added, ‘He’s not doing anything.’
‘Yeah, just leave him. He’s fine,’ Dennis said.
‘I was …’ She paused, mouth dry. ‘… only asking. Why doesn’t he come inside?’
‘Oh no,’ Dennis said, ‘he’ll touch things and he’s contagious right now. I have too much to do to get sick.’
Lindsay shrugged. ‘Fresh air will do him good.’
Sam stood and there was a silence where she sensed them waiting for her to leave again. In the end she turned and went outside.
‘Hey, you OK out here?’ Sam asked. The boy turned, startled. ‘Are you hungry? Do you want a drink?’ He nodded. ‘What do you want? Food or drink?’
‘Both.’ He wiped his nose on his arm.
‘I can make you a sandwich if you want?’
‘Whatever,’ he said, working the stone back into the wood.
He was dirty and his manners were appalling. She reminded herself to tell Dennis this later, how it was a sign of a poor upbringing. Sam knew getting the sandwich was just an excuse to hang around the kitchen again but the conversation stopped as soon as she went in.
‘You’re not making something for Ricky, are you?’ Lindsay asked. ‘He eats all the time. He’s like a garbage disposal. He’ll eat everything you got in there if you’re not careful.’
‘Does he eat meat?’ Sam asked.
Lindsay laughed. ‘Uh, yeah.’
‘Is he allergic to anything?’
‘Nothing we know of.’
Lindsay watched Sam as she put together a sandwich with deli turkey slices and Swiss cheese. She took an organic cola made from cactus juice from the fridge, the only soda Dennis hadn’t sneered at when she picked it up, and took them back out to Ricky. He looked from the sandwich to the can to Sam and shook his head.
