The Key to Everything (9 page)

She picks up the phone to call 911 and stops before she finishes. Hanging up the receiver, she takes a deep breath. He’s probably out for a walk trying to clear his head. The move has been pretty rough on him. He acted so strangely the last few days… maybe the fresh air will do him some good.

It’s a nice thought, but it doesn’t help her feel better. The last thing she needs is Auden having a nervous breakdown. It’s hard enough being in a new neighborhood with no friends. She needs her boat to be steady. She had better stop the rolling before they tip over and get washed out to sea.

She folds her arms on top of the fireplace bricks and exhales hard. Resting her head on her forearms, she absentmindedly begins kicking bricks with the toe of her white tennis shoe. She can hear the muffled thud of each concussion reverberate through her bones. There isn’t enough pain caused by the action to prevent her from continuing, just enough to keep her awake and aware of everything so she doesn’t fall into her own pit of worry and despair.

“Come on, Auden,” she says through clenched teeth. “Where the fuck are you?” 

Emily pushes away from the fireplace and, in doing so, knocks a few pictures off the mantel. She wants to scream in frustration, but that would only wake the kids. Every muscle in her body tightens and shakes violently for a few seconds. She grinds her teeth and whips her arms through the air, punching at the ghosts of bad luck or at inanimate objects, or because of her missing husband. 

Putting her hands to her face, she lets out a muted cry, takes a deep breath, and kneels down to pick up the fallen photographs. The first one is a small, unadorned wooden frame surrounding a picture of Jason and Jeremy riding the swings in her parents’ backyard. It was only taken a few months ago, but they look like completely different human beings now. No longer the babies they were then, swinging through the air, laughing hysterically. 

The second one is a black-and-white silhouette that Auden took of her when she was pregnant with Jeremy. She was changing into her nightgown in front of the window. The full moon hung directly behind her head like a halo, and its light illuminated the edges of her naked body, making her frame appear solid black. The image of her round belly only a few days away from giving birth made her ache to be pregnant again. Originally she hated the picture, but Auden framed it anyway. She’s glad he did.

 Lastly she picks up the picture from their wedding. The silver frame surrounds what would typically be a photo of a bride and groom holding hands and smiling as they run off toward their honeymoon through showers of rice. Since their friends are a bit eccentric, they threw buckets of water instead. Caught mid-air, just before the happy couple realizes they are about to get soaked, dozens of arches of water hover inches above their heads, about to splash down. Everyone smiles and points as Auden and Emily wave obliviously to the crowd.

She smiles at the memory and places the frame back on the top of the mantel. Luckily, the glass is still intact in all of them. She brushes some old ash off the bricks with her index finger and turns to look at the silent phone, willing it to ring. A motion on the mantle runs across the corner of her peripheral vision, and she turns back. The pictures have all changed. Jeremy and Jason are standing in front of the swings instead of riding them. The newlyweds are no longer in the rear of the photo smiling and waving, but now stand front and center in the frame. 

What captures her attention the most, however, is the silhouette. The moon is still hanging high in the window frame, but the shadow woman is no longer standing in its light. She now faces the camera and walks slowly into the center of the room. She floats out of the moonlight’s glare as her image begins to gain definition. The black drains away from her full, curved shape to reveal pale flesh. Her swollen breasts bounce gently with each step. Her fingers interlaced over her ripe belly untangle and rise up into the air.

Emily wants to close her eyes and not see this. She wants to be in bed dreaming this, nightmaring this. But this is real. It is happening, and she must keep her eyes open to see. She sees her little boys’ mouths open wide into silent Os. The newlyweds are now filling up the entire frame, opening mouths eerily stretched beyond all possibility. The silhouette has moved to the edge of the room, and all at once the five heads snap to the right, bending at an angle the human neck was never meant to. 

Emily jumps back, bumping into the coffee table, and almost loses her balance. Without taking her eyes off of the three pictures, she tries to regain her composure. She screams as a hand presses into the small of her back, pushing her forward again toward the fireplace. She fights against it, but it is so strong. 

The open mouths are moving now. The lips are staying still, but the inside of the dark cavities are filled with static. Emily hears the white noise sound of an old television tuned to a station whose signal has been disconnected. The noise is rolling at her in waves. She feels bile rising in her throat. The noise is deafening now, this hiss, the wash. 

Hidden in the lower register of the sound, she can make out words. She fights against losing consciousness. Still not able to look away, she vomits over the front of herself while the hand on her back pushes her even closer to the wall. The words resolve with clarity through the static now. They come from the pictures in front of her. They come from the hand at her back. 

She blinks and it stops. The boys are laughing and swinging once again. The water is about to fall on Auden and Emily, and the silhouette is poised in front of the full moon. Her t-shirt is clean, and her heart is pounding so hard she can see it vibrate though the fabric. 

Emily hangs down her head and cries. She lifts her hand to cover her eyes when she realizes she is holding a brown leather-covered book. At first she doesn’t recognize it, but after a moment she sees the book she found on the ground outside when she was first looking for Auden. Strange. She doesn’t remember picking it up off the mantel.

She turns around to get herself a drink, and Jason is standing on the stairs in his pajamas.

“Seven, Mommy…seven.”

-11-

Auden: The Flattening

So close. 

So tight here. 

Pressure closing in from the front and back. 

Dark. 

One slim, straight line of light off in the distance. 

A musty damp smell. 

Can’t move. 

Pushing so hard, muscles should be straining, screaming. 

Nothing. 

Darkness, pressure line of light taunts with release. 

Where am I? 

PART TWO

Other Boy Two

alone

silent

patient

time

beyond       days

beyond                   hours

beyond                                 seconds

beyond                                                       time

coming

stand stillstanding

still

alone

silent

patient

                                                       waiting

patient patient patientpatientpatientpatietpatientpatient

standstill

-12-

Jabez: The Wall

Jabez hobbled along close to the side of the river, shallow breaths fogging out from between his chapped lips. Deep down inside, he laughed at the irony. All this snow around, a thrush of water swimming past, unreachable beneath a foot of ice, and he was probably going to die of thirst. If they didn’t catch up to him first.

His leg was fractured in the crash. Every step sent knife blades of pain through the entire right side of his body. He was still able to walk. For how long remained uncertain.

Taking this route through the sharp rocks was more difficult, but much less snow meant less of a trail. They set charges in the road. They knew he was here and were most certainly searching for him. Three members of the team were ripped to pieces back there, but Sgt. Harmon could still be alive. In his condition, there’s not much chance he could hold out and stay quiet. 

If he stopped to rest now, Jabez knew he wasn’t going to be able to stand up again. A hundred yards ahead, the river took a sharp turn north. He could risk taking a look back once he made his way around. There might be some cover and hopefully a place to dig in until morning.

Cresting the turn, there were two large piles of debris and the crumbling remains of a wall with a window about four feet above the ground. No roof remained on the structure, yet the door hung in its frame, waiting to be opened for a welcome guest. White curtains closed across in the window, with little pink hand-stitched flowers casting an inappropriately happy shine over an otherwise desolate scene. 

On the other side of the window, a chair and table sat coated with thin layers of snow, adding to the surreal quality of the surroundings. This was as good a last stand as any to await his pursuers. The chair was comfortable, if not a little hard, and the table lent itself well enough to keeping his rifle steady while aiming through the broken window. 

The night was shockingly cold. Looking at the course of the river from where he sat, there didn’t seem to be any obvious traces of his trail. It was a wise choice after all. His leg hurt like a bitch, so he fished another pain pill out of his meds pack. Knowing that the sun was coming in a couple of hours, he didn’t feel any urgency in rationing. It would all be over soon, one way or the other.

Jabez took out his journal and opened it to the next blank page. It had been a while since he had been able to write on a flat surface. Mostly he rested the notebook on his thigh or kept it pressed against the inside of the HV while bouncing along unpaved roads. The dim but passable light provided by a half-moon and the steady flat table made for a nice change of pace. He would find some small bits of enjoyment in recalling the events of the past two days, even though they claimed the lives of most of the team.

He wrote down all their names, what they looked like, how their laughs sounded, even how their sweat smelled. He wrote how none of them could hold their liquor like he did. His pencil scratched out their blood in grey lead. It detailed everything he loved and hated about these men who had protected him and had become his family over the last seven long years. 

The sun appeared full circle over the mountains by the time he woke. He grabbed the rifle tighter and took a look through the scope. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Lucky no one was there. All he heard was the wind and the muffled sound of river water rushing beneath the ice. 

He tried to stand and immediately fell down onto the chair. His leg was definitely fucked. It seemed like it might be passable before. But after spending a few hours sitting still in the freezing cold, it seized up. Now the throbbing was growing stronger, and he could feel things shifting around inside every time he adjusted his weight. Looking around at the ruins of the old structure, he saw a few things that might make for a good splint and possibly a crutch. Grimacing at the thought of standing, let alone walking over the rubble to get to them, he decided to wait a little while longer.

A quiet rustling sound, and the rifle was instantly aimed back through the window. The glass gave a less obstructed view than the spaces around the collapsing wall with all of the broken pipes and frayed wire. Slowing his breath and trying to quiet the howling blood in his ears, he sat silent and still. He left his fingers wrapped loosely around the rifle’s handle, ready to squeeze. Camouflaged by snow and dust, the soldier would have all but vanished into the shadows behind the wall if anyone stood more than a few yards away. 

Brown and white, the small squirrel lighted upon a mound of snow, then flashed beneath a rotting old branch fallen from a long-forgotten tree. Twitching fast, its black nose sniffed at the air, searching for food and hidden predators. The squirrel moved from the protection of the log and crawled toward Jabez’s hiding spot behind the window. 

The scope brought out beautiful patterns hidden in the small animal’s coat. The squirrel stood up on its hind legs, and Jabez made out a thin swirl of lighter tan tracing a labyrinthine maze across its belly. Jabez took his eye from the scope. He shook his head and blinked a few times. He must be exhausted, but he could swear the squirrel was looking right at him. 

Resting his eye back down to the rifle sight, he saw the tiny black eyes beaming straight back. A blast of thunder exploded off to the west, and Jabez felt his body twitch. The squirrel remained still, unfazed by the concussion. The sky opened up, and rain came pouring down so fast and so thick that it washed out everything but the end of the table in front of him. 

Jabez pulled a thin poncho out of his backpack and slid it on over the rifle and his head like a small tent. It might help provide some more camouflage, if not protection from the elements. He wiped some of the moisture from his eyes and looked back through the scope. The brown shape of the squirrel remained motionless in the downpour. A small part of him felt better to have some company. 

The squirrel lifted its right arm and appeared to be pointing straight at Jabez. Through the rain and the water dripping down the glass of the window, he couldn’t be sure at first. What stopped his heart cold was watching its tiny claws form into the shape of a small gun, cock its head to the side and pull an imaginary trigger before it disappeared back into the snow.