Ghouljaw and Other Stories (13 page)

Nothing was the same after Maggie returned home. She seemed to have been fortified by her stint of independent travel, and that air of autonomy only exacerbated Lewis’s stubborn unease. There had been, as he feared, an irrevocable shift in the dynamic of dominance. Over the course of several weeks, phone calls between them went missed or ignored, and soon things settled into a dichotomous obstinacy. And despite their exploratory attempts to get back to where they’d been in the nascent days of their relationship, nothing was the same. Nothing had been the same since that night on the bridge. One of them had to capitulate. One of them had to submit.

Lewis was driving home from work when Maggie called.

“I think I need your help,” Maggie said, sounding as though she’d been crying.

Lewis said, “Sure. What’s the problem?” And the next words he expected to hear:
I’m pregnant
.

Maggie said, “I haven’t been honest with you.” Lewis waited. His mouth was dry and he alternated the phone from one to the other. He suddenly wondered how many other guys she had and how many he’d never known about. “Zooey got pregnant.”

Son of a bitch,
he thought with a lurch of relief,
is that all?
For the moment he ignored the stalemate state of their relationship. “Well,” he said, affecting a teacherly tone, “it really could be a lot worse than a knocked-up dog.”

Maggie’s exhale hissed over the connection. “You don’t understand, Lewis. She got pregnant a while ago.” Silence. “It’s bad.”

And then Lewis recalled the period last fall when she’d bought the dog after having seen a photo in a classified ad or something. Internally, Lewis permitted himself a cursory comment about buying animals from disreputable, puppy-mill hillbillies selling dogs in classified ads. “I thought you said she was spayed.”

“She was,” said Maggie with a bit of nastiness, clearly not allowing Lewis to use any of his didactic tactics. “It doesn’t matter because this is something different.”

On the few occasions that Maggie had visited Lewis since she’d returned from spring break, she hadn’t brought the dog around at all.
Wouldn’t your dad notice?
From how Maggie had described her perpetually intoxicated father, maybe not. “Okay, so what—do you think your dad’s going to be pissed or something?”

Maggie snorted a you-just-don’t-get-it laugh. “He doesn’t know about this.”

Though Maggie was obviously distressed, Lewis was at ease, even eager in the certainty that his behavior in the next few hours would determine the reestablishment of their relationship.

Lewis slung his wrist over the steering wheel and with a smirk said, “What do you need me to do?”

Forty-five minutes later, Lewis met Maggie at Hatcher Hill.

It was late afternoon, inching toward evening. At the park a temperate, late-April breeze threaded its way through the profusion of trees.

Maggie had parked her Wagoneer on a curve near the giant hill and was standing with one hand in the pouch pocket of her hooded sweatshirt, the fingers of her free hand pinching a cigarette that dangled at her hip.

Lewis locked his car and slowly crossed the grassy plain at the foot of the hill. As he neared he produced a nervous smirk. “I hope you’re not planning on going sledding again.”

Maggie sniffed and shook her head. She wasn’t wearing makeup, and the absence of it made her look more childlike than usual. She took a deep drag from the cigarette and smashed it into the grass with her sneaker.

On impulse Lewis stepped forward and hugged her. For a moment, Maggie did not move, but something, an unkindled energy, suddenly bloomed between them; she lifted her arms and wrapped them around Lewis’s torso.

“Let’s talk, kiddo,” said Lewis. “What’s the big deal about the dog being pregnant?”

Maggie exhaled, her fingers taking a stiff swipe at one eye. “Because she’d already had the baby.”

Lewis’s smile faded at the strange use of “baby” as a substitute for “puppy.” “What do you mean
baby
?”

She gave a dismissive gesture. “Damn it, Lewis, that’s why I wanted to see you.” Maggie’s chest rose and fell. “I don’t have anyone else.”

***

As he’d done roughly two months earlier in the frozen marrow of February, Lewis followed Maggie along the secluded path in the woods. The cobblestone footbridge eventually emerged through the huddled trunks. Dangling vines and ropy things hung here and there in this overgrown portion of the property, and the canopy of tangled limbs were pricked with slender green buds.

At the sight of the bridge Lewis replayed what had transpired that winter night in rapid succession. His midsection was pierced with a sudden flush of feverish guilt. Maggie beckoned Lewis over the bridge; he gave a cursory glance at the clear, languidly flowing water beneath.

Maggie crossed the bridge and advanced a few yards into the forest on the other side of the bridge; Lewis followed but slowed to a cautious stroll when he heard a noise. A thick, navy blue blanket was draped over a large, rectangular object positioned against the bole of a tree. Maggie began making hushing, soothing sounds—
“It’s okay . . . everything’s okay”
—and gently peeled back a portion of the blanket. It was Zooey’s travel crate.

“Lewis,” said Maggie, turning and appraising him. “I don’t know what to do.”

She explained that Maggie had gotten pregnant sometime last winter. “It takes about two months for a dog to give birth after conception.” The way Maggie recited all this made it sound as if she were reading gestational information from a pamphlet in the waiting room at a vet clinic. Part of Lewis still assumed that Zooey was here somewhere, surely in the crate; but then again, the way Maggie was staring at him . . .

“Where’s Zooey?” he said.

“She’s at a friend’s house,” Maggie said, cocking her head, her expression and body language mingled in a patient plea. “Zooey gave birth a few days ago. And if you count back about sixty days . . .”

Lewis’s mind was already tumbling back to the night they’d gone sledding, to the mysterious injury the dog had received on her hindquarters, and Lewis had to move his lips to dispel the numbness that had settle on his jawline.
The dark, deformed figure . . . the high-pitched whistling
. He didn’t have to ask what was in the crate.

“Zooey was sick. I guess I thought she might be pregnant, but she didn’t have most of the symptoms I’d read about. Even her belly didn’t look . . . big”—Maggie made a frustrated gesture toward her own abdomen—“or bloated . . . until last week. I didn’t want to bring her around your house and bother you about it.” She gave a curt exhale through her nose and paired it with a hopeless smile. “I didn’t even know what
we
were. And I didn’t want to scare you away.” Lewis opened his mouth to respond, but Maggie seized the moment. “And I didn’t want to expose her to my dad because then he’d know I fucked up about getting the dog from some goddamn ad in the paper.” Maggie locked eyes with Lewis to fortify her statement: “I didn’t make a mistake about her being spayed, Lewis—I saw the scar.” A single tear coursed down Maggie’s cheek. She explained that she’d brought Zooey to the park for a walk but the dog had gone into labor. “It was . . . awful. She started crying and twitching and collapsed.” The few seconds of speechlessness were filled with the sound of birds, branches rustling together, and the eager panting of the thing in the crate. Maggie looked over her shoulder. “It came out quick. Zooey only yelped once when it”—she swallowed hard, clearly having difficulty recalling the details—“
crawled
out of her.”

With great effort Lewis reversed his impulse to back away. Instead he took his fisted hands out of his jacket pockets and shuffled forward.

“He’s peaceful when he’s in the dark,” she said evenly, “but he just howls if he’s in the sun too long.” Gently, Maggie peeled the heavy blanket away from the front of the crate, agitating a small cloud of bluebottle flies.

Lewis cautiously closed in, and just as he hunched down to peer inside, the animal, with a scrabbling of nails, lurched forward.

The smell alone—a damp, peaty reek—would have been enough to make Lewis recoil, but the unsettling aroma paired with the revelation of the small creature in the cage arrested his attention and stifled an otherwise impulsive retreat.

If it had been a split-instant glimpse Lewis would have described it as a starved, black mutt. Instead Lewis squinted, scrutinized. It was standing on four, doglike limbs that seemed to be too thinly out-of-proportion for the rest of its frame. Its black fur was matted and in several places exposed patches of gray, almost translucent flesh. The corrugated ribcage of its carriage was startlingly pronounced, but the creature did not appear to be uncomfortable, and despite its disturbing state Lewis could see a tail—or some sort of thin, swishing appendage—wagging happily within the cage.

But it was the face that Lewis had the most difficulty contending with. The dog-thing’s long snout and angular head were lowered slightly as it peered up through the bars of the cage; and though its skull was clearly accented in the vein of some coyote or other vulpine variety, its pointed ears looked leathery, like splayed batwings, ragged on the fringes. Its prominent eyes were unnaturally blue, offensively expressive and unblinkingly fixed on Lewis.

Lewis was preparing to turn away when the creature’s upper lip wrinkled and curled back, its jaws yawned open, exposing not sharp, fang-shaped canines but glistening squared-off incisors. Human teeth.

“Wha—” Lewis began.

There came another scraping sound as the animal lifted and gently stretched out one of its thickly tendoned forelimbs. Lewis’s eyes widened when he saw that each digit on the padded paw contained a long, glossy, talon-curved claw, which slowly contracted around the wire bars of the crate.

Lewis’s voice was a croaky whisper. “What happened?”

Maggie’s response was muffled behind a wadded tissue. “I don’t know.” Another sniff and swipe at her eyes. “He just came out of Zooey that way.”

Though dizzy, Lewis was careful about appearing sturdy by staying on his feet; he kept his hands on his knees as he continued examining the animal.

“How long has it been out here?”

Maggie moved toward the cage, her voice calm. “Like I said, since Zooey gave birth to him. About a week.”

Lewis shuffled backward, looking over at Maggie for a reaction. She’d obviously spent some quality time with this creature.
She called it
him. “What are you going to do?”

In mid-movement Maggie cast a stricken glance at Lewis. “What am
I
going to do?”

“I mean—”

Maggie lowered her head and turned away. Silence descended in their isolated space. “I’m going to take care of him.”

Before he could stop himself Lewis said, “What have you been feeding”—he licked his lips—“what have you been feeding
him
?”

Maggie didn’t answer as she rearranged the blanket over the crate. The animal’s eyes remained trained on Lewis as shadows refilled the cage and the dark fabric fell over the front.

“I know this can’t be real,” said Maggie, crossing her arms and remaining with her back to Lewis. “I know that you and I don’t make sense, and it would take a lot of work to keep us together. You’ve been a decent friend and a pathetic boyfriend. But I’m just asking for you to stand with me to help sort this out.” Lewis opened his mouth to say something but stopped. “I’m a big girl, Lewis. I’m not your pupil anymore and I’m not going to follow you around anymore. If you want to leave, now’s your chance.”

Lewis didn’t budge, feeling his heart pulsing as he considered his options. And as if from high above, up within the trees, he saw himself step forward and embrace Maggie, saying nothing, making a selfless pact through nothing more than selfless action. He knew the creature in the crate was an incomprehensible impossibility. But Maggie was real. The enduring, ember energy between them was real.

Instead, twigs and underbrush began cracking and snapping as Lewis turned on his heel and walked away.

That had been spring. Now it was summer.

Lewis was on his summer break, but it was intended to be a permanent break from teaching high school. He never planned on returning. Lewis had the prescience to understand that, among other things, he wasn’t cut out to be a teacher of any sort.

During the day Lewis spent most of his time in the yard, mowing the lawn and mauling the landscaping with nonsensical projects. Yet at night he inexorably gravitated to the computer, aimlessly searching for information on Maggie. They were no longer connected by any sort of social media, so Lewis had to settle for scraps of script in search engines. Lewis spent the remaining sad chapters of his evenings sipping whatever booze was hiding in the cabinets and attempting to refine his writing—a drunken mix of prose and pitifully amateurish free-verse poems. Lewis was invariably ashamed of what was on paper when he groggily reread it the next morning.

He slept fitfully, shudder-jerking awake at the sound of a barking dog in the neighborhood—tree limbs scratching the siding became the clawing of paws, wind rattling the windows and transformed into panting. On several occasions during those panicky moments in the dead hours, Lewis had restlessly thrown his legs over the edge of the bed and the dust ruffle skirting the mattress had caught his bare ankle, causing Lewis to scream at the sensation of a wagging tail swishing against his lower leg.

The feverish existence that had commenced with her absence had reached its deteriorative peak.

He’d discovered that Maggie was working part-time at a video store. It had taken him weeks to devise a way to approach her, a few more weeks to write something for her, and several nights of crouching low behind the steering wheel as he staked out the video store to estimate the rhythm of her schedule.

On a stagnantly humid evening in August, Lewis parked outside the store. Maggie, wearing a dark blue polo shirt tucked into a pair of khakis, was stationed in front of the cash register when he finally summoned the wherewithal to confront her. In one hand Lewis shakily clutched a homemade gift for Maggie.