The Outsiders (10 page)

“
I’ll go get the bed ready, then you can come up and get
brushed and washed,” Rita said, heading too fast for the
stairs.

“
And Daddy tells the bedtime story?” Janie asked.

Darrell
smiled. Rita was a wonderful mother. He couldn’t imagine a better
partner. But when it came to telling stories, there was only one
king. “Sure,” he said. “Now gather your crayons.”

The
promise of a story got Janie in gear. Darrell heard Rita’s
slippered feet on the stairs. Her soles were worn. He’d have to get
her a new pair down at the store.

He froze,
the hairs on his neck stiffening.

There.

That
sound again.

The
not-mice.

Where was
that damn dog?

He got to
his feet, stomach clenched. Janie was preoccupied with her chore.
He walked to the back door and parted the curtain, wondering if
Rita had heard and was now looking out from the upstairs
window.

The moon
was fuller, brighter, more robust. Why did they only come at
night?

Maybe
they had rules. Which was stupid. They broke every natural law just
in the act of existing.

There, by
the laurel at the edge of the backyard. Two shapes, shimmering,
surreal, a bit washed out.

He opened
the door, hoping to scare them away. That was a hoot. Him scaring
them. But he had to try, for Janie’s and Rita’s sake.

“
What do you want?” he said, trying to keep his voice level.
Could they understand him? Or did they speak a different language
in that other world?

The
shapes moved toward him, awkwardly. A bubbling sound flooded the
backyard, like pockets of air escaping from water. One of the
shapes raised a nebulous arm. The motion was jerky, like in an old
silent film.

Darrell
stepped off the porch. Maybe if he took a stand here, they would
take what they wanted and leave his family alone.

“
There’s nothing for you here” he said. “Why don’t you go back
where you came from?”

A sudden
rage flared through him, filling his abdomen with heat. These were
the things that bothered Janie, that made Rita worry, that was the
fountain of his own constant guilt. These things had no right to
intrude on their space, their lives, their reality.

“
I don’t believe in you,” he shouted, no longer caring if he
woke neighbor George. If only the dog would bark, maybe that would
drive them away.

The
bubbling sound came again. The spooks were closer now, and he could
see they were shaped like humans. Noises from their heads collected
and hung in the air. The wind lifted, changed direction. The noises
blew together, thickened and became words.

Darrell’s
language.

“
There’s where it happened.”

A kid.
Sounded like early teens. Did their kind age, or were they stuck in
the same moment forever?

Darrell
opened his mouth, but didn’t speak. More words came from the world
of beyond, words that were somnambulant and sonorous.

“
Gives me the creeps, man.” Another young one.

“
Three of them died when it burned down.”

“
Freaky. Maybe some of the bones are still there.”

“
They say only the dog got away.”

“
Must have been a long time ago.”

“
Almost thirty years.”

“
Nothing but a chimney left, and a few black bricks. You’d
think something would grow back. Trees and stuff.” A silence.
Darrell’s heart beat, again, three times, more.

“
It’s supposed to be haunted,” said the first.

“
Bullshit.”

“
Go out and touch it, then.”

“
No way.”

A fire
flashed in front of one of the shapes, then a slow curl of smoke
wafted across the moonlit yard. The end of a cigarette glowed.
Smoke. Spirit. Smoke. Spirit. Both insubstantial.

Darrell
walked down the back steps, wondering how he could make them go
away. A cross? A Bible? A big stick?

“
I only come here at night,” said the one inhaling the
fire.

“
Place gives me the creeps.”

“
It’s cool, man.”

“
I don’t like it.” The shape drifted back, away from the house,
away from Darrell’s approach.

“
Chicken.”

The shape
turned and fled.

“
Chicken,” repeated the first, louder, sending a puff of gray
smoke into the air.

Darrell
glanced up at Janie’s bedroom window. She would be in her pajamas
now, the covers up to her chin, a picture book across her tummy.
The pages opened to a story that began ‘Once upon a
time...’

Darrell
kept walking, nearing the ghost of shifting smoke and fire. He was
driven by his anger now, an anger that drowned the fear. The thing
didn’t belong in their world. Everything about them was wrong.
Their bad light, their voices, their unreal movement.

He
reached out, clutching for the thing’s throat. His hands passed
through the flame without burning, then through the shape without
touching. But the shape froze, shuddered, then turned and fled back
to its world of beyond.

Darrell
watched the laurels for a moment, making sure the thing was gone.
They would come back. They always did. But tonight he had won. A
sweat of tension dried in the gentle breeze.

He went
inside and closed the door. He was trembling. But he had a right to
feel violated, outraged. He hadn’t invited the things to his
house.

He had
calmed down a little by the time he reached the living room. A
Spencer Tracy movie was on the television. The glow from the screen
flickered on the walls like green firelight.

Rita was
in her chair, blinking too rapidly. “Was it...?” she
asked.

“
Yeah.”

“
Oh, Darrell, what are we going to do?”

“
What can we do?”

“
Move.”

He
sighed. “We can’t afford to right now. Maybe next year.”

He sat
down heavily and took a sip of his beer. It was still
flat.

“
What do we tell Janie?”

“
Nothing for now. It’s just mice, remember?”

He wished
the dog were here, so he could stroke it behind the ears. He
thought of those words from beyond, and how they said something
about the dog getting out. Getting out of what?

He
reached for his cigar and stuck it in his mouth. After a moment, he
said, “Maybe if we stop believing in them, they’ll go
away.”

The clock
ticked on the mantel.

“
I can’t,” Rita said.

“
Neither can I.”

The clock
ticked some more.

“
She’s waiting.”

“
I know.”

Darrell leaned his cigar carefully against the ashtray. He
noticed his lighter was missing. He shrugged and went upstairs to
read Janie her story. He wondered if tonight the ending would be
the same as always.

LUCKY

Brooke Vaughn

His name
was Greg.

He’d been
in a car accident.

He’d lost
his spleen and left kidney and was lucky to be alive.

He knew
this because the nurse – late thirties, neat as a pin, pretty in a
school mistress kind of way – had told him so when he’d woken up
groggy and disoriented.

He was in
a hospital in Serbia, where he’d been travelling when he’d had the
accident. They were attempting to reach his family, but it was
proving difficult. They would keep trying.

After
Greg had taken a few meagre sips of water, the nurse hovering with
quiet concern as his stomach decided whether or not to revolt at
the invasion, he sighed and let his head fall weakly back against
the pillow. Smiling, somehow warm and clinical at the same time,
she left him alone with his empty thoughts.

Had she
said her name was Senka? He couldn’t remember. He supposed that it
wasn’t particularly important given that he couldn’t recall his own
name or anything else about himself. He felt...weirdly numb. Both
inside and out.

Hands
moving slowly, as if underwater, he pulled aside his nightgown and
inspected his new scars, tugging the gauze carefully away from his
skin. He probably shouldn’t be disturbing the area but his morbid
curiosity got the better of him.

The lines
were thin, almost precise, but puffed with ugly bruising and
swelling. He’d been stitched back together competently, that much
was obvious, and he was thankful that the doctors in Belgrade were
apparently of a higher calibre than he would have
expected.

And if
the extent of his knowledge of Serbia was limited to some vague
prejudice and third-world expectations, then what the hell was he
doing there?

Greg
wondered whether his face was damaged too. It felt alright, but he
suspected that the morphine might be clouding his judgement.
Gingerly, he pressed his hands to his cheeks and felt carefully
around like a blind man attempting to read someone’s features.
Which he might as well have been...He couldn’t even remember what
he looked like.

His face
didn’t seem cut, or even bruised, and he could see that his hands,
arms and legs were similarly untouched.

Wow...He
really had been lucky.

Greg felt
as though he should be panicking that he apparently had amnesia,
but he just couldn’t seem to muster any anxiety. Yet another effect
of being doped up, he assumed. He spent a little time in a
semi-doze, wondering who he was, where he lived, what his family
were like. He hoped that he had people to care about him. He hoped
that he wasn’t a jerk.

Finally,
bored of fruitless introspection and the blank wall in his head, he
listened to the sounds of the hospital.

Several
minutes later, frowning, he realized that all around him was
silent. No squeak of linoleum. No jangle of bedpans or equipment.
No beeping of machines, besides the one that he was hooked up to.
No voices, no doors banging. Nothing.

The quiet
was so deep, echoing around his head and making his ears hurt with
the strain, that Greg understood abruptly that his room was
soundproofed.

Weird.

It
suddenly occurred to him that he must be really rich. His room was
immaculate and he looked out onto lush gardens, more like a country
estate than a facility, plus he’d obviously received excellent
care. Whoever he was, he was evidently doing well for
himself.

Oddly
proud, he turned on the television set and flipped through the
channels, grateful when he finally found HBO after sifting through
incomprehensible foreign soap operas and several subtitled
films.

Drifting
in and out of slumber, he whiled away the afternoon, watching the
orange blaze retreat across the wall as the sun began to set. Just
as he was trying to find a call button, wondering why no-one had
been to check on him, Senka walked into the room, quiet and
businesslike.

“
How do you feel, Greg?” she enquired in her almost perfect,
although heavily accented, English.

“
Uh, okay I guess. Still tired and drained. Achy. Mostly
confused though...Did you manage to contact my family?”

“
Yes, we had some success with that. They are to fly out here
tomorrow.”

Greg
smiled warily, full of relief but also apprehension. “Do you know
who will be flying out? Parents? Am I married?”

“
Yes, both. Your parents and your wife will be joining you,”
she assured as she checked his machines and propped him up more
fully on the pillows. “Time for a little dinner, I
think.”

He
nodded, distracted, wincing as his stitches pulled slightly.
“What’s my wife’s name?”

Senka’s
eyes flickered for a moment in a way that took Greg aback, making
him think for some crazy reason that she was about to lie to him,
or not answer at all.

Barely a
beat later, the strange apprehension was gone as she smiled
winningly. “Abigail is her name.”

“
Abigail,” he repeated to himself. He probably called her
Abby.

“
She was so scared for you and happy to hear that you are okay.
I could hear that she can not wait to get to you; you really are
very lucky man.”

Greg felt
cautiously happy and optimistic for the first time since waking up.
As Senka exited the room to fetch his dinner, he wondered whether
he carried a picture of Abby in his wallet. He’d have to ask when
the nurse returned.

His name
was Greg. He had been in a car accident.

The
radiator had been smashed practically through to the passenger seat
and he’d ended up with a lapful of dash. He’d lost his spleen, left
kidney and left lung and was very lucky to be alive.

He
couldn’t remember anything about the accident...or anything else.
He had some form of amnesia. But it was okay; the hospital seemed
really good and the nurses competent and professional.