(no subject)
Here's my zombie story for Apster. The fandom is Carnivale. Word count about 6,200. I hope it's not too dark...hope you enjoy it Ap. :)
It was usually on midnight when the children quit their crying. When those last footsteps dragged through dust, and the startle of car engines sounded louder than they ever did during the day. Dim headlights wove a trail to the road, a trail for home. In the fall of quiet, metal grated on metal as the carnival wheel stood tall against the wind. Away off to the side somewhere, a pool of yellow light was swallowed by a slamming door, and there was a sudden hush of voices - and voices.
From his rough bed under the truck, Ben watched the half-world of the carnival as it settled into sleep. He traced the wheels within wheels with his finger, interlacing circles on the dusty ground, saw the shine of spoked paintwork gleam bright and false in the moonlight, saw shadows move that had no right moving. The wind lifted, making the truck creak on rusting axles, flapping the canvas above him like a tethered bird. He shivered under the light blankets Sampson had given him. Might ask that fella for something warmer tomorrow. After all, he hadn’t asked to be saved, so those doing the saving ought to…but the thought died there. He’d always had nothing except himself. He ought to be used to it by now.
The final car-light topped the hill and the carnival let out a sigh at finally being let alone. Time to tend its wounds. Ben clutched the blanket, rolling into himself in a vain search for warmth. Not for the first time he wished he had a home to go to. There had been a home of sorts, but he’d left that a long time ago. The only time he’d felt certain about anything. He’d sold a few of the better tools on that last trip to town, told anyone who’d listen that he was putting the money towards mending a hole in the roof. But the next morning, as the sun rose and his mother’s voice banged against the thin walls, he’d just upped and walked away. Likely his ma never knew he’d gone, at least for that day. Shut behind that bedroom door, quoting scripture, droppin’ prayers from those bitter lips. Prayer after tired prayer - lined-up like soldiers in battle, marching in, fighting the good fight, and dying till nothing seemed real no more.
But the money was real. A few nickels for food wrapped in a scrappy handkerchief. Clutching that and nothing else he’d turned away from the town he knew, where people knew him, and where there was still a few he’d call ‘acquaintances’. He’d struck out in the opposite direction, a straight-like-an-arrow band of road that vanished on a horizon he’d taken to dreaming about. Where he’d seen silky sleek cars, long and black, all gleaming leather and shining mirrors, disappear into angry sunsets. Maybe he should have heeded that sign, maybe there’d been something in his ma’s prayers, but he struck out and walked forever along that strip of road.
And there, where the flat of the plain wrinkled into a series of foothills and the road split into three, he spent the last of his money on meat, cheese, and bread fast approaching stale. For all the distance he’d walked, it was the same old food-store, with the same faded woman with sad eyes above a pasted-on smile.
“Work?” she said, with a gaze that burned right through him.
“I can put my hand to most things.”
“I”ve never known a farm boy wasn’t good with his hands…mechanically speaking.” She brought the two halves of her cardigan across sagging breasts, crossing her arms in the process. Ben could hear children playing with hoops and sticks on the street. Running feet, wails and yells, the thump of wood cajoling metal.
The storekeeper rested her bulk against the counter and mused. “There was a time when you couldn’t hear yourself for the holler of kids. A time when you couldn’t cross the road for all those sleekit cars. And the houses on the hill went up higher and grander than all those that came before.”
Ben waited patiently, fingers rolling the paper edges of his lunch bag. He was hungrier than he cared to admit and his feet ached. He could feel the uneven floor planks through the thin soles of his shoes. Outside, the childrens’ game moved further down the street, the happy cries fading away.
“Well, they say that nothin’ lasts forever, those folks up and moved away when the ore ran out. They took their silks and finery, their cars and furniture, and their white-shelled eggs with them.”
Ben searched his mind for a response. “I guess that’s the way of things.”
She angled him a look. “You good at fixin’ motors, farm boy?”
“Yeah, some.”
“Thought you might be. I heard Zeke Brandial’s lookin’ for some help. Got hisself sub-contracted to an outfit in the next town. He’s looking for someone to help out a little - might as well be you.”
“I can do that. Thanks.” He went to hold out his hand, but she shook her head.
“I’m not that kind, farm boy. Zeke’s not overly generous. Probably why the vacancy’s still unfilled. But if he don’t fill yer pockets at least he’ll fill yer belly. You look like you’ve bin missin’ a meal or two.” She smiled then, and a hand strayed to her greying hair. “He’s hunkered over on the east side of the hill, not far from those decayin’ fancy houses. There was a time when those people used to keep his body and soul together, but now…”
She tore a page from a ledger on the counter, bending over to write in a small crabbed hand. When Ben took the sheet from her, the paper felt smooth, like fabric - the type of paper that didn’t crinkle. When he folded it up, it felt warm against his fingers.
“Tell him Essie sent you,” she said, waving him away.
*
Ben paused at a gate hanging limply under a sign that proclaimed, ‘Z. Brandial’s Motor Repairs Pty. Ltd.’, the faded lettering so full of swishes and swirls that it took all his attention to read it. The gate swung sullenly towards him, like an open invitation, like this place was a kind of fate, except just then a black dog ran out and broke the spell. Wide-eyed, scared, back legs scrabbling for purchase on the ground.
A tall, stooped man threw himself after it, crashing through the too narrow opening, uttering a string of curses while readying a rock in his hand. As the animal fled around the corner, the cursing petered out, and the man slipped the rock into his back pocket with a smirk. “He’ll think twice before setting foot in here again.”
The man stepped back, one hand rubbing a sore spot on his hip, the other fumbling for the gate.
Ben moved towards him, searching for the paper in his pocket. “Are you Mr. Brandial? Mr. Zeke Brandial?”
The man raised suspicious eyes. “Who wants him?”
“Essie wrote this for me.”
Brandial took the paper then allowed it to drop to the ground where he spat on it. “She said a farm boy might show-up today. Said she had a feeling about you, but all I can see is another piss-poor plains drifter.”
“A man can’t dictate the circumstances of his birth.”
That took him aback. Brandial paused and took Ben’s measure. “Man? Boy more-like and not even much of that.” Abruptly, Brandial snaked out a hand, fingers wrapping, tightening about Ben’s upper arm.
Ben winced under his grip. Winced at the smell of axel grease and a week’s worth of stale sweat. The man’s hand was calloused and stained, the skin etched with black lines like a bible picture on poor quality paper - while black crescent moons nestled under each and every fingernail.
Stepping away, Brandial curled his hands into fists and thrust them into his overall pockets. Washed-out grey eyes studied Ben as he made his decision. “I’ll give you a trial. If you’re any good with mechanical work, I can offer you breakfast and supper, but only if you’re good, mind. There’s a water pump in the yard. You can sleep in the workshop with whatever’s to hand. I don’t brook sleepin’ in the customer’s cars, and if I catch you… “ Even Brandial knew that it wasn’t much of a threat.
Ben just wanted to eat, to sleep, to rest his aching feet. He just wanted to tread water for awhile instead of the road, so he looked up at Zeke Brandial and simply nodded his head.
Thrusting the gate wider, Brandial motioned him in. “An’ if I catch ya thieving, believe me, your life won’t be worth living.”
*
When the evening drew into night, Zeke Brandial made a show of locking the gates, before disappearing into the small house at the back of the compound taking the lamps with him. He barely gave Ben a look. In the wan light from the house windows and what he could see of the moon, Ben folded down the hood of the truck he’d been working on. He had to figure out a place to sleep that was better than his feet. In the end he cleared off a low bench, and softened it with some canvas - after he’d brushed off the worst of the spider webs and dust.
Cold as he was, he was almost asleep when the house door opened a bare half-hour later. A young girl shuffled towards him, swaddled like an Indian squaw, carrying a plate and a spoon.
“Pa said to bring you these.” She stood off aways, shy and unsure, head tipped to the side.
“Thanks. I sure am hungry.” He sat up on the bench and hoped she could see his smile. To him she was just a dumpy silhouette in the softest light. “My name’s Ben.”
“I’m Beth,” she said, taking a few steps closer.
“That sure smells good.”
“Stew an’ potatoes. I made it myself.” She shrugged off a blanket, stepped over it, then placed the plate down next to him, making a show of leaving him the spoon.
“Now it’s up close it smells even better than good.”
She giggled, a hand covering her mouth. “The blanket’s for you too.” She turned around to pick it up from the dusty ground, and placed it next to him.
She watched him as he ate, her small fingers toying with the blanket’s fringe. Ben finished off the plate with many appreciative noises, made a show of placing down the spoon, angle perpendicular. He turned to give her a grin.
Solemnly, she picked-up the plate and spoon and was just about to walk back to the house when she hesitated and turned.
“Mister? Have you seen my dog today? He’s black as they come but he’s got a good heart.”
“That’s a good thing for any dog to have.”
“You seen him?”
“I think so. Your pa chased him away. Jet-black like a coalstone?”
“That’d be him. Was he okay?”
“Seemed so. Though, I ain’t never seen a dog run so fast.”
“If ya see him again, will you give him this?” She brought out a beef bone from her dress pocket and handed it to Ben. The gleaming bone was still warm and damp from the stew. “But don’t let pa know, will ya? He’s bin against him since Blackie killed that chicken awhile back.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll give it to him if I see him.”
“Thanks, Mister.”
Ben smiled. “Just call me Ben.”
“Thanks, Ben. Oh, and Mister?”
“Yep?’
“If you chance to hear anything strange in the night, it’s just the children playin’ in the fancy houses. Sometimes they forget themselves and scream out so bad.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
*
And next morning it was like he awakened to a scream, or at least some dawn bird that he was unfamiliar with, or maybe he was so tired he was well into imagining. He was aching and all his joints were stiff, and was standing there in the watery sun wondering whether he should go or stay, when the house door opened and Beth appeared. She was carrying a tray - fresh boiled eggs, bread and salt, and a mug of hot tea that left wisps behind with every short step.
“You’ll remember about Blackie?” she asked anxiously, setting the tray down. In the morning light she had the same grey eyes as her father, and the same looseness of frame. Under her hastily tied pigtails, an unexpected rash of freckles dotted her nose and dusted her cheeks like the wrong coloured face-powder.
Ben just lifted the corner of his canvas mattress to reveal the white bone. He replaced the covering, patting it down carefully to magnify its secret.
“You an’ me we’re friends, Mister,” she said simply, then tugged on her braid and smiled.
“I guess we are.”
*
The days came and went, and the pile of bones beneath the mattress got picked-on by tiny black ants, forcing Ben to find another hiding spot for them. Blackie never reappeared, though Beth stubbornly protested that he would - that a dog couldn’t forget that kind of love, and that a kindness shown was evermore mapped in their bones.
Zeke Brandial locked and unlocked those gates - dealt with the farmers, the bakers, the storeowners, and the out-of-towners. Taciturn by nature, though generally not a bad man, Zeke would give Ben an encouraging word on the good days, silence on the bad, and Ben - who was used to a flood of bitter words that could scourge a soul - counted that as a kind of peace.
Somehow, he’d managed to create a decent kind of place for himself in a corner of Brandial’s workshop. Blocked the holes where the draught came in, closed the jammed windows, rummaged up an ad-hoc mattress from sprung car seats, even rigged up a shaving stand of sorts for those times when he needed it. And some nights when he chased sleep, lying on that piecemeal bed, he’d watch the moon rise and wipe away the nearest stars, watch it rise on the screech of those strange night-birds, watch it slide along on the wails of everything that was lost and lonely.
He counted time by Beth, for those meals that filled his stomach, for the innocence of her chatter, for that hope that was forever in her eyes. So he carried on, and vowed he’d leave on the next day, or the next day…or the next.
*
“When I was coming back from school, I found this.” Beth held up a tarnished locket, glimmering softly on the finest of chains. “Found it at one of those broke-down houses on the hill. The clasp don’t work but.”
Ben took it from her and whistled softly.
Leaning forward, Beth batted it with her fingers, setting it spinning and swaying. “Do you reckon it’s worth anything?”
“Could be.”
“I thought I saw Blackie go into that old house, so I followed him in. I couldn’t find him though, and he wouldn’t come when I called. I hunted for him everywhere. On my way out, I found this. It was just layin’ there under a bush.”
Using his thumbnail, Ben cracked the locket open - around the rim was a brittle line of earth, and rain had seeped in and washed the image almost clean away. There was nothing left but water stains and spots of mould.
“I think there’s something in here…hidden behind….” Ben reached for the finest tool to hand and gently prised the paper away. Tucked beneath, someone had placed a snippet of black hair.
Tentatively reaching out her hand, Beth touched the black strands. “Do you think it’s Blackie’s?”
“Hair’s too fine for a dog, probably belonged to a woman. Some grand kind of lady would be my bet. Silks and satins, and a driver to take her to church on Sundays.”
Beth stared down at the blank image. “I’m sure Blackie lives there now. Lives at that lady’s house - I saw him just as plain as day. I guess those children were playing with him. Wouldn’t let him come to me, I bet.”
“Well, if you say you saw him--"
Oh, I saw him alright. I’m gonna go take those bones we’ve been saving for him, and leave them there, right at that house. Then he’ll remember me again. Dogs can be so foolish.”
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try, but be careful and don’t go inside now.” Ben grabbed her wrist, brought her around to him. “Promise not to go inside, you don’t know what state those places are in. Those houses could eat up a little girl like you.”
Beth looked up at him and laughed. “I’ll take care.”
*
That night, just before supper, Ben retrieved a tin box he’d been hiding. Taking it from the corner of a high shelf, he rinsed it out and wiped it dry with a corner of his blanket. He lined it with newspaper - the fashion pages - before placing the small parcel of bones inside. Once done, he snapped down the lid, shook it and felt the weight glide from side to side. It was his gift to Bethie.
*
The next day he was up early to drive a repaired truck back to the next town over, since the owner had fallen sick and had no-one who could make the trip. Brandial was flapping like a butterfly pinned to a clothesline when he handed Ben two hard-boiled eggs and the truck keys.
“There’ll be a job here with a livin’ wage when you get back,” he muttered, breath hanging in misty puffs, his fingers drumming against the truck’s hood, “at least as long as the work lasts. You’ve done your training now.”
The eggs and the keys lay cold in Ben’s mitten-wrapped hands. “Thanks, Mr. Brandial. I’m welcome of the chance.”
“Oh, it’s true enough, you’ve got a knack of it. Only right to have you aboard officially - as long as the work holds out.” Brandial seemed almost ashamed at stringing together a conversation. He was stooped over that round hood, angsty and fidgeting, his grey eyes lost in cuts of shadow as he faced into the morning sun.
*
Ben’s mood soared as soon as he soon left the town behind, cloaked it in plains dust, silenced it in the mechanical thrum of the engine. For now the sun was chasing behind him, warming his back, lighting up every detail of that long road. He’d forgotten the freedom of the pale blue skies, the open spaces of the plains, the faded beauty of it all. He wondered if he really was a dirt-poor plains farmer, if that was the essence of him. Wondered if after all those years the drift of soil and rain had turned his soul a soft-hued brown, like it had leeched away that image in the locket. Then he noticed his hands upon the wheel, etched black with those same lines he’d noticed on Zeke, and knew that for the first time he had a place he wanted to come back to and a friendship to share. He’d grown awful fond of Bethie.
The truck delivered, papers signed, the money safely in his wallet, he dutifully trudged the road home, following the lead of his shadow. Even by managing to hitch a lift where he could, it was dark when got back that night - the gate ajar and the house in unaccustomed darkness considering the hour. His supper rested cold on his workbench, along with a lamp that he fumbled alight with numb fingers. It was then that he noticed an envelope with his name scrawled on it in blunt pencil. He picked it up, felt the notes and coins through the flimsy paper. It was his first pay.
*
The sun was high enough to define shadows when Brandial appeared the next morning. He was unshaven and his clothes all askew. Ben wondered if the man had been drinking, if so it was the first he’d known that Zeke liked a drink. Brandial shuffled across and laid breakfast on the workbench, hardly seemed surprised to see that Ben had returned, that he hadn’t taken the truck and run, as he’d feared.
Brandial turned away, making his way to the house, ignoring the plaintive overtures of the first customer of the day, a lady with a tyre so flat it was running on the rim. There was a yapping dog jumping excitedly behind the wound-up windows, alternatively wagging its tail and baring its teeth. Ben wiped his hands on a piece of rag, pasted a smile on his face, and went to earn his money.
*
All day Brandial didn’t reappear. Customers came and went, and Ben, between fixing, wrote down timings and estimates in the large black book that had a nub of pencil tied to it with string. “I guess Mr. Brandial’s sick today,” he said. “It happens to us all sooner or later.”
And amidst their impatience they’d nod their assent, their eyes wandering to the house with the firmly closed door. “Never was a truer word.”
*
That night his supper was late. Ben waited impatiently, burning the lamp to read an old newspaper that had once padded a box of machine oil. The paper was almost a daffodil yellow in the wan light, and brittle past fragile. From time to time he glanced at the house. There was a light in every window - it streamed through the thin curtains and patterned the ground. Ben shifted uneasily making the mattress complain, while a piece of newspaper broke off in his hand and fluttered to the blanket. To his eyes it looked like Brandial was trying his best to keep the darkness away.
After another half-hour or more, the door opened and Zeke’s loose shadow fractured before him, thrown this way and that by the lit-up house behind. As the man drew nearer Ben saw that he looked just the same as he did that morning.
“Where’s Bethie?” Ben asked, as Brandial moved into his thin circle of light. “I ain’t seen her for a day or more.”
Brandial blinked red-rimmed eyes, ran a hand through receding hair. “She’s gone away.”
“Away?” Ben stared up at him, and wondered not for the first-time what it would be like to have such an uncommunicative man as Zeke Brandial for a father.
“She ain’t here no more.”
“She could be in one of those decayin’ houses,” Ben said, voice rising with alarm. “She could be lyin’ there hurt or dying.”
“She often go to those houses?” Zeke asked slowly, reaching out a hand to steady himself. The man was almost swaying on his feet and seemed to be functioning on willpower alone.
Ben rose quickly from the mattress, his feet searching for his shoes. “She said she saw Blackie there. She said that was where he lived now. I bet that’s where she’ll be.”
Taking an inward breath, Zeke seemed to gather himself together, unrolled his shoulders and stood a little taller. “Beth always did have fancies. Took after her ma in that regard. But she ain’t there, she’s just stayin’ with her aunt. Just stayin’ with her aunt.”
“But why? Why’d she go there?”
“For hired help you ask too many questions.” His eyes hardened before he relented. “She’ll be back though, she’ll be back. Sure as eggs is eggs.”
“You sure?”
“I ain’t no liar. I’m gonna bring her back myself.” And with that he turned to lock the gate before re-entering the house, the door clanging shut behind him.
*
Ben was running. Running through a field of corn in the black of night. The field rustled with life, shivered and bowed, slowed him down, snagged at his feet and hair. Something dark and black was after him, its heat and chill making his heart beat fit to burst. It rose behind, gathered itself, waited until he could sense it, feel the scrape of fingernails down his back, feel the prickle and burn of it. He ran even faster, shuddering lungs stripped raw and red on every gasp. If he could just stay out of reach…
A black dog, eyes blazing, shot past him, ran ahead, making for a house that loomed on a hill out of nowhere. A house ablaze with streaking light that dazzled and beckoned him on with a twisted grin. Bethie stood before it, calm and grey, eyes alight with childish wisdom, the black dog panting, lyin’ by her feet, eyes and red tongue rolling. Bethie held out her hands, raising the locket, holding aloft a picture of…no-one. Stained blankness. An offering he couldn’t understand. The locket spun and swayed, and Bethie whispered words he couldn’t hear. And still he ran on and on…
*
Bethie didn’t return the next day, or the next. And it was like Brandial didn’t want to bring her back, or maybe he just couldn’t, because Ben had never seen anyone go down so fast in himself before. Brandial grew as hollowed-out as an old soup-spoon, almost turned in on himself. Clothes rumpled, tainted with a smell of decay. He didn’t bother shaving anymore, raised moist red-rimmed eyes whenever Ben asked him a question, tremoring hand shading that ever present sun. He’d stand there blinking like a blind man, mouth working on words that never seemed to come.
“Should I bring a doctor, Mr Brandial?” Ben asked a few days later, when Brandial was slumped against the compound wall, seemingly warming himself in the sun.
He’d raised his head, blinked, thought about it. “No. No doctors. It’ll all go its own way. It has to.”
Then he’d shrugged and trudged back to that house, where the lights still burned dimly to illuminate the day. For the next few hours the sound of hammering came from the house before everything petered into silence, and went on as before.
But, for all his ills, the man remembered to bring food every morning and every night, remembered to bring another slim envelope for another week’s pay. Ben tucked the money under a broken floorboard. A few notes, a few coins, and more than he’d ever had in his life. The hard coins shone in their dusty hole, the soft notes gleamed, and Ben wondered if he should move on, get away, leave this strangeness behind. But the next day saw him there, writing estimates in the black book and talking like a friend to strangers.
*
It was a few days later when Ben heard a thump and a yelping cry. He grabbed a rag, wiping at his hands, stepped out just in time to see a dog shaking and whimpering, back-leg bent at an unnatural angle, saw the dust trail of a heavy wrench as it nestled in a cloud against the wooden compound wall.
“Got him.” Brandial said, spitting on the ground, a triumphant gleam in his watery eyes. “By god, I got him.”
The dog tottered, limped slowly across to a patch of shade by the wall, gently lowered itself down, eyes all the time on Brandial, lips showing white teeth, rib-cage fluttering.
Brandial turned to Ben. “Things’ll be better now. There’ll be an end to it.” To Ben’s surprise, Brandial’s eyes filled with tears.
“But, isn’t that Blackie?” Ben asked, able to study the dog for the first time. There wasn’t a white patch on him if you didn’t count the grizzled grey around the dog’s muzzle. The dog’s tail flickered at the mention of his name, though his eyes remained fixed on Zeke.
“Just leave him be. Things’ll be better when he’s done and buried.”
There was the sound of voices and the gate swung open. A car bellowing steam limped its way in with the grate of clashing gears. Brandial nodded at Ben before once again heading for the house. “It’s over now. Has to be. It’s nature’s way.”
*
Ben spent the rest of the day dealing with the new arrival, reassuring the owner, calculating costs and quotes, but his mind was on the dog huddled in a pitiful ball by the fence. After they’d left, he’d managed to place a small bowl of water by the dog. The dog looked at it listlessly, sniffed, then looked away. The animal had already started on the final journey, didn’t want to prolong things with a human’s unnecessary kindnesses.
That night, after supper, Ben gathered up a handful of roosting chickens, tied their legs loosely, laid them on their backs around the still watchful dog. Mesmerised, their small eyes gleaming in the light from the house - they settled and fluffed themselves into silence. Whatever Brandial had said, whatever crazy talk that had been, Ben couldn’t let Blackie die. When Bethie returned, her dog would still be out there, running among the houses, playing in the overgrown gardens, chasing hens in its dreams. He’d never come back here, never come back to test the wrath of Zeke Brandial in the hopes of seeing Bethie again.
Ben glanced quickly across to the house. The lights were still burning, but it looked deserted. He settled himself, made that soundless and wordless inward prayer, and placed his hands upon the small dog that lay before him. It was an all encompassing warmth that came, a warmth that threatened to burn his hands but never did. The dog stirred, lifted his head, snuffled and jerked, by-and-by its tail began to thrash against the fence.
“Ssh,” Ben murmured, afraid that the noise would stir Brandial from whatever he did inside that house.
After another minute, maybe longer, the dog scrambled to his feet, leg mended, tentatively tested, the remains of confusion shining in its eyes. Leant down to sniff the dead hens. Sauntered away across to the gate where he turned back, glanced at Ben, then slipped underneath as easily as a shadow. And that was it.
Ben gathered the bodies of the hens, hesitated, then threw them over the fence as far as he could.
*
That night it was the same nightmare - the cornfield, the unnamed fear that made his heart pound, and Bethie standing with the locket, Blackie curled up, almost expectant by her feet. He recognized Ben now, swished that whip of black tail at the welcome of a friend.
There was a sharp pain against his ribs, the pain radiating outwards towards his fingers and toes. Ben stirred, couldn’t tell if the pain was dream-state or real. The darkness fell away and he groaned and struggled up, dropping blankets. Through his sleep-blind eyes, Brandial lifted the shot-gun from Ben's ribs and aimed it at his face.
“You sure don’t sleep well,” Brandial said.
Ben tried to push the shot-gun away from his eyes, two streaks of light on the hard metal, Brandial’s set face hooded with shadow, his finger tightening on the trigger. “I don’t…”
Brandial didn’t hesitate, rocked back, brought the shot-gun barrel down hard enough to crack bone. “I saw what you did, stranger. I saw what you did to that dog.”
Struggling up, Ben raised a hand to his face, felt the split of skin and the warmth of blood. “I let him go, that’s all-”
“You healed it. You’re a healer.” Brandial moved, rammed the shot-gun against Ben’s ribs, forcing out breath, making Ben’s hands move from his face to his chest. “You ever healed yourself, stranger?”
“I just…” Ben looked up but Bradial’s face was lost in shadow. “I just…”
Brandial took a step back, slipped off the safety, motioned Ben to stand upright with a curt wave of his hand.
Ben found his feet, swayed, shivered in the night air, his thin vest no protection against the bite of wind, or against the bite of metal shot. “Why? Why you gonna shoot me?”
The laugh was the laugh from Ben’s nightmares. It bubbled out of nowhere, manic and harsh. Brandial reeled with it - a few tottering steps - before gathering himself together and jerking the barrel towards the house. “Go on,” he said, traces of merriment still in his voice. “It’s time to fix that curiosity of yours. Time to make things good.”
“But, I ain’t never gave you no cause-”
There was a sharp metallic click as Brandial raised the shot-gun. “I said, ‘time to make things good’.”
The house beckoned, light streaming, stringy curtains playing tricks with the shadows. Hands raised, Ben passed by Bradial, felt the barrel pressed firmly between his shoulder blades, felt himself pushed on. Noticed the door hung as crooked as everything else Brandial owned, the floors unswept and creaking, the smell of decay living amongst the litter, the groaning wood, the furniture with its crochet lace doilies from a better time long gone. And the light that bathed it all, brittle and unfading - always the light.
There were stairs in the corner, wooden treads covered with torn carpet. Brandial prodded him on, placed more bruises on Ben’s back, laughed when he tripped, when his hands grasped the rough banisters for anchor, for support. The air up here was thicker, acrid, made him choke - Ben yelped when the barrel crashed down on his shoulder, when Brandial hauled him up, mouth agape, crazed eyes only inches away from Ben’s own. “…make things good”, Brandial muttered.
The bedroom door was ajar, studded with hastily made crosses nailed on at angles. Ben stretched out his hand to them, unsure. Abruptly, as though losing patience, Brandial knocked Ben into the room with the shot-gun stock. Pain flared in his shoulder, vying for his attention with the scene before him. Bethie. Bethie staring up at the ceiling. Colourless eyes shining out of darkened skin. Muffled sounds from the gag that ate into her flesh. Hands and feet - twisting, flexing, twisting, flexing, like a blind thing exploring - above the ropes that tied her to the bed.
“She won’t eat. She won’t die.” Brandial was spent now, the rage gone. “She won’t eat. She won’t die.”
“I can’t…” Ben held up his hands, backed into a corner, knocked over a bedside table covered with the remains of wrappers, bread crusts, rotting food.
Brandial grinned then, shot at the ceiling. The shot made Ben’s ears roar - plaster rained down on them all, but mostly on Bethie. She keened and strained against the ropes like one awoken, hair, lips and skin white with plaster, looking like a demonic doll.
Coughing, Brandial moved to the door, gun raised, preventing escape. “The next barrel is for you, stranger, lest you start your healin’.”
Ben knelt by the bed, looked up, begged. “I can’t…I need…I need… Do you remember the chickens? What happened to them?”
“Chickens?” Brandial laughed then, tapping into the hysteria that drove him. “Just put your hands on her, stranger, and I’ll boil up an egg for yer breakfast. ‘Chickens’ he says…’chickens’.” The laughter turned into choking. Sudden tears rent furrows down his plaster-dusted cheeks. He lifted his hand to his face, brought it away damp, and looked surprised.
“They died,” Ben persisted. “They died because-”
“I don’t need no reasons.” The shot-gun raised again, slowly this time, with malice borne of intent. “I’m plum out of patience.”
Ben sighed. Closed his eyes. Centered himself. Said the prayer that wasn’t a prayer, placed his hands on Bethie’s flailing arm. The flesh was cold, like she was dead already, dead and cold and taking all his heat. All he could give, kneeling, healing, wave on wave and endless, endless. Seconds morphed to minutes, and she jerked up, managed a scream through the rough bandage that bound her lips, limbs moving frenziedly. Ben caught glimpses of the stains beneath her, gagged on the scent of heavy decay. This wasn’t right. Couldn’t be right. Nauseous now and light-headed, ears still ringing from the shot-gun blast, he hardly heard Brandial groan and slump. Didn't hear the man’s final prayer, or the shot-gun tumble from his hands - couldn’t draw himself away from the threshing form that was on the bed before him. Straining, straining - mouth open in silent pain, sightless eyes feverishly scanning the room.
And then she relaxed, dropped and sighed, smiled a little like she knew the answer to a secret, and died right there in front of him. Everything stopped then, except the white powder that continued to fall lightly, dotting her face, imitating the flush of freckles that ran across her nose, painting her like an angel.
Ben fell back with a groan, weak as a child, voice hoarse with exhaustion. “It’s done.”
When he could refocus his eyes, Brandial lay in the corner, hands clenched upon a homemade cross, rough wood and nails resting in those grease-etched palms, lifeless eyes staring at the slat-work in the ceiling.
*
They picked Ben up a week or so later. He’d taken his wages and taken that limping car. Black and sleek, and red-womb interior, he’d taken it and driven it into the setting sun, because anywhere was better than that small town with those crumbling houses that clung so tenaciously to the hill.
And when they came for him the wind blew up a storm, sounding like children laughing, or like the endless parade of his mother's prayers - and darting here and there, sly and furtive, he could see the forms of black dogs twisting in the dust shadows.
They called it murder though they couldn’t say how Zeke and Bethie had died. But they were dead, and for Ben, that was solace and comfort enough.
*
End
It was usually on midnight when the children quit their crying. When those last footsteps dragged through dust, and the startle of car engines sounded louder than they ever did during the day. Dim headlights wove a trail to the road, a trail for home. In the fall of quiet, metal grated on metal as the carnival wheel stood tall against the wind. Away off to the side somewhere, a pool of yellow light was swallowed by a slamming door, and there was a sudden hush of voices - and voices.
From his rough bed under the truck, Ben watched the half-world of the carnival as it settled into sleep. He traced the wheels within wheels with his finger, interlacing circles on the dusty ground, saw the shine of spoked paintwork gleam bright and false in the moonlight, saw shadows move that had no right moving. The wind lifted, making the truck creak on rusting axles, flapping the canvas above him like a tethered bird. He shivered under the light blankets Sampson had given him. Might ask that fella for something warmer tomorrow. After all, he hadn’t asked to be saved, so those doing the saving ought to…but the thought died there. He’d always had nothing except himself. He ought to be used to it by now.
The final car-light topped the hill and the carnival let out a sigh at finally being let alone. Time to tend its wounds. Ben clutched the blanket, rolling into himself in a vain search for warmth. Not for the first time he wished he had a home to go to. There had been a home of sorts, but he’d left that a long time ago. The only time he’d felt certain about anything. He’d sold a few of the better tools on that last trip to town, told anyone who’d listen that he was putting the money towards mending a hole in the roof. But the next morning, as the sun rose and his mother’s voice banged against the thin walls, he’d just upped and walked away. Likely his ma never knew he’d gone, at least for that day. Shut behind that bedroom door, quoting scripture, droppin’ prayers from those bitter lips. Prayer after tired prayer - lined-up like soldiers in battle, marching in, fighting the good fight, and dying till nothing seemed real no more.
But the money was real. A few nickels for food wrapped in a scrappy handkerchief. Clutching that and nothing else he’d turned away from the town he knew, where people knew him, and where there was still a few he’d call ‘acquaintances’. He’d struck out in the opposite direction, a straight-like-an-arrow band of road that vanished on a horizon he’d taken to dreaming about. Where he’d seen silky sleek cars, long and black, all gleaming leather and shining mirrors, disappear into angry sunsets. Maybe he should have heeded that sign, maybe there’d been something in his ma’s prayers, but he struck out and walked forever along that strip of road.
And there, where the flat of the plain wrinkled into a series of foothills and the road split into three, he spent the last of his money on meat, cheese, and bread fast approaching stale. For all the distance he’d walked, it was the same old food-store, with the same faded woman with sad eyes above a pasted-on smile.
“Work?” she said, with a gaze that burned right through him.
“I can put my hand to most things.”
“I”ve never known a farm boy wasn’t good with his hands…mechanically speaking.” She brought the two halves of her cardigan across sagging breasts, crossing her arms in the process. Ben could hear children playing with hoops and sticks on the street. Running feet, wails and yells, the thump of wood cajoling metal.
The storekeeper rested her bulk against the counter and mused. “There was a time when you couldn’t hear yourself for the holler of kids. A time when you couldn’t cross the road for all those sleekit cars. And the houses on the hill went up higher and grander than all those that came before.”
Ben waited patiently, fingers rolling the paper edges of his lunch bag. He was hungrier than he cared to admit and his feet ached. He could feel the uneven floor planks through the thin soles of his shoes. Outside, the childrens’ game moved further down the street, the happy cries fading away.
“Well, they say that nothin’ lasts forever, those folks up and moved away when the ore ran out. They took their silks and finery, their cars and furniture, and their white-shelled eggs with them.”
Ben searched his mind for a response. “I guess that’s the way of things.”
She angled him a look. “You good at fixin’ motors, farm boy?”
“Yeah, some.”
“Thought you might be. I heard Zeke Brandial’s lookin’ for some help. Got hisself sub-contracted to an outfit in the next town. He’s looking for someone to help out a little - might as well be you.”
“I can do that. Thanks.” He went to hold out his hand, but she shook her head.
“I’m not that kind, farm boy. Zeke’s not overly generous. Probably why the vacancy’s still unfilled. But if he don’t fill yer pockets at least he’ll fill yer belly. You look like you’ve bin missin’ a meal or two.” She smiled then, and a hand strayed to her greying hair. “He’s hunkered over on the east side of the hill, not far from those decayin’ fancy houses. There was a time when those people used to keep his body and soul together, but now…”
She tore a page from a ledger on the counter, bending over to write in a small crabbed hand. When Ben took the sheet from her, the paper felt smooth, like fabric - the type of paper that didn’t crinkle. When he folded it up, it felt warm against his fingers.
“Tell him Essie sent you,” she said, waving him away.
*
Ben paused at a gate hanging limply under a sign that proclaimed, ‘Z. Brandial’s Motor Repairs Pty. Ltd.’, the faded lettering so full of swishes and swirls that it took all his attention to read it. The gate swung sullenly towards him, like an open invitation, like this place was a kind of fate, except just then a black dog ran out and broke the spell. Wide-eyed, scared, back legs scrabbling for purchase on the ground.
A tall, stooped man threw himself after it, crashing through the too narrow opening, uttering a string of curses while readying a rock in his hand. As the animal fled around the corner, the cursing petered out, and the man slipped the rock into his back pocket with a smirk. “He’ll think twice before setting foot in here again.”
The man stepped back, one hand rubbing a sore spot on his hip, the other fumbling for the gate.
Ben moved towards him, searching for the paper in his pocket. “Are you Mr. Brandial? Mr. Zeke Brandial?”
The man raised suspicious eyes. “Who wants him?”
“Essie wrote this for me.”
Brandial took the paper then allowed it to drop to the ground where he spat on it. “She said a farm boy might show-up today. Said she had a feeling about you, but all I can see is another piss-poor plains drifter.”
“A man can’t dictate the circumstances of his birth.”
That took him aback. Brandial paused and took Ben’s measure. “Man? Boy more-like and not even much of that.” Abruptly, Brandial snaked out a hand, fingers wrapping, tightening about Ben’s upper arm.
Ben winced under his grip. Winced at the smell of axel grease and a week’s worth of stale sweat. The man’s hand was calloused and stained, the skin etched with black lines like a bible picture on poor quality paper - while black crescent moons nestled under each and every fingernail.
Stepping away, Brandial curled his hands into fists and thrust them into his overall pockets. Washed-out grey eyes studied Ben as he made his decision. “I’ll give you a trial. If you’re any good with mechanical work, I can offer you breakfast and supper, but only if you’re good, mind. There’s a water pump in the yard. You can sleep in the workshop with whatever’s to hand. I don’t brook sleepin’ in the customer’s cars, and if I catch you… “ Even Brandial knew that it wasn’t much of a threat.
Ben just wanted to eat, to sleep, to rest his aching feet. He just wanted to tread water for awhile instead of the road, so he looked up at Zeke Brandial and simply nodded his head.
Thrusting the gate wider, Brandial motioned him in. “An’ if I catch ya thieving, believe me, your life won’t be worth living.”
*
When the evening drew into night, Zeke Brandial made a show of locking the gates, before disappearing into the small house at the back of the compound taking the lamps with him. He barely gave Ben a look. In the wan light from the house windows and what he could see of the moon, Ben folded down the hood of the truck he’d been working on. He had to figure out a place to sleep that was better than his feet. In the end he cleared off a low bench, and softened it with some canvas - after he’d brushed off the worst of the spider webs and dust.
Cold as he was, he was almost asleep when the house door opened a bare half-hour later. A young girl shuffled towards him, swaddled like an Indian squaw, carrying a plate and a spoon.
“Pa said to bring you these.” She stood off aways, shy and unsure, head tipped to the side.
“Thanks. I sure am hungry.” He sat up on the bench and hoped she could see his smile. To him she was just a dumpy silhouette in the softest light. “My name’s Ben.”
“I’m Beth,” she said, taking a few steps closer.
“That sure smells good.”
“Stew an’ potatoes. I made it myself.” She shrugged off a blanket, stepped over it, then placed the plate down next to him, making a show of leaving him the spoon.
“Now it’s up close it smells even better than good.”
She giggled, a hand covering her mouth. “The blanket’s for you too.” She turned around to pick it up from the dusty ground, and placed it next to him.
She watched him as he ate, her small fingers toying with the blanket’s fringe. Ben finished off the plate with many appreciative noises, made a show of placing down the spoon, angle perpendicular. He turned to give her a grin.
Solemnly, she picked-up the plate and spoon and was just about to walk back to the house when she hesitated and turned.
“Mister? Have you seen my dog today? He’s black as they come but he’s got a good heart.”
“That’s a good thing for any dog to have.”
“You seen him?”
“I think so. Your pa chased him away. Jet-black like a coalstone?”
“That’d be him. Was he okay?”
“Seemed so. Though, I ain’t never seen a dog run so fast.”
“If ya see him again, will you give him this?” She brought out a beef bone from her dress pocket and handed it to Ben. The gleaming bone was still warm and damp from the stew. “But don’t let pa know, will ya? He’s bin against him since Blackie killed that chicken awhile back.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll give it to him if I see him.”
“Thanks, Mister.”
Ben smiled. “Just call me Ben.”
“Thanks, Ben. Oh, and Mister?”
“Yep?’
“If you chance to hear anything strange in the night, it’s just the children playin’ in the fancy houses. Sometimes they forget themselves and scream out so bad.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
*
And next morning it was like he awakened to a scream, or at least some dawn bird that he was unfamiliar with, or maybe he was so tired he was well into imagining. He was aching and all his joints were stiff, and was standing there in the watery sun wondering whether he should go or stay, when the house door opened and Beth appeared. She was carrying a tray - fresh boiled eggs, bread and salt, and a mug of hot tea that left wisps behind with every short step.
“You’ll remember about Blackie?” she asked anxiously, setting the tray down. In the morning light she had the same grey eyes as her father, and the same looseness of frame. Under her hastily tied pigtails, an unexpected rash of freckles dotted her nose and dusted her cheeks like the wrong coloured face-powder.
Ben just lifted the corner of his canvas mattress to reveal the white bone. He replaced the covering, patting it down carefully to magnify its secret.
“You an’ me we’re friends, Mister,” she said simply, then tugged on her braid and smiled.
“I guess we are.”
*
The days came and went, and the pile of bones beneath the mattress got picked-on by tiny black ants, forcing Ben to find another hiding spot for them. Blackie never reappeared, though Beth stubbornly protested that he would - that a dog couldn’t forget that kind of love, and that a kindness shown was evermore mapped in their bones.
Zeke Brandial locked and unlocked those gates - dealt with the farmers, the bakers, the storeowners, and the out-of-towners. Taciturn by nature, though generally not a bad man, Zeke would give Ben an encouraging word on the good days, silence on the bad, and Ben - who was used to a flood of bitter words that could scourge a soul - counted that as a kind of peace.
Somehow, he’d managed to create a decent kind of place for himself in a corner of Brandial’s workshop. Blocked the holes where the draught came in, closed the jammed windows, rummaged up an ad-hoc mattress from sprung car seats, even rigged up a shaving stand of sorts for those times when he needed it. And some nights when he chased sleep, lying on that piecemeal bed, he’d watch the moon rise and wipe away the nearest stars, watch it rise on the screech of those strange night-birds, watch it slide along on the wails of everything that was lost and lonely.
He counted time by Beth, for those meals that filled his stomach, for the innocence of her chatter, for that hope that was forever in her eyes. So he carried on, and vowed he’d leave on the next day, or the next day…or the next.
*
“When I was coming back from school, I found this.” Beth held up a tarnished locket, glimmering softly on the finest of chains. “Found it at one of those broke-down houses on the hill. The clasp don’t work but.”
Ben took it from her and whistled softly.
Leaning forward, Beth batted it with her fingers, setting it spinning and swaying. “Do you reckon it’s worth anything?”
“Could be.”
“I thought I saw Blackie go into that old house, so I followed him in. I couldn’t find him though, and he wouldn’t come when I called. I hunted for him everywhere. On my way out, I found this. It was just layin’ there under a bush.”
Using his thumbnail, Ben cracked the locket open - around the rim was a brittle line of earth, and rain had seeped in and washed the image almost clean away. There was nothing left but water stains and spots of mould.
“I think there’s something in here…hidden behind….” Ben reached for the finest tool to hand and gently prised the paper away. Tucked beneath, someone had placed a snippet of black hair.
Tentatively reaching out her hand, Beth touched the black strands. “Do you think it’s Blackie’s?”
“Hair’s too fine for a dog, probably belonged to a woman. Some grand kind of lady would be my bet. Silks and satins, and a driver to take her to church on Sundays.”
Beth stared down at the blank image. “I’m sure Blackie lives there now. Lives at that lady’s house - I saw him just as plain as day. I guess those children were playing with him. Wouldn’t let him come to me, I bet.”
“Well, if you say you saw him--"
Oh, I saw him alright. I’m gonna go take those bones we’ve been saving for him, and leave them there, right at that house. Then he’ll remember me again. Dogs can be so foolish.”
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try, but be careful and don’t go inside now.” Ben grabbed her wrist, brought her around to him. “Promise not to go inside, you don’t know what state those places are in. Those houses could eat up a little girl like you.”
Beth looked up at him and laughed. “I’ll take care.”
*
That night, just before supper, Ben retrieved a tin box he’d been hiding. Taking it from the corner of a high shelf, he rinsed it out and wiped it dry with a corner of his blanket. He lined it with newspaper - the fashion pages - before placing the small parcel of bones inside. Once done, he snapped down the lid, shook it and felt the weight glide from side to side. It was his gift to Bethie.
*
The next day he was up early to drive a repaired truck back to the next town over, since the owner had fallen sick and had no-one who could make the trip. Brandial was flapping like a butterfly pinned to a clothesline when he handed Ben two hard-boiled eggs and the truck keys.
“There’ll be a job here with a livin’ wage when you get back,” he muttered, breath hanging in misty puffs, his fingers drumming against the truck’s hood, “at least as long as the work lasts. You’ve done your training now.”
The eggs and the keys lay cold in Ben’s mitten-wrapped hands. “Thanks, Mr. Brandial. I’m welcome of the chance.”
“Oh, it’s true enough, you’ve got a knack of it. Only right to have you aboard officially - as long as the work holds out.” Brandial seemed almost ashamed at stringing together a conversation. He was stooped over that round hood, angsty and fidgeting, his grey eyes lost in cuts of shadow as he faced into the morning sun.
*
Ben’s mood soared as soon as he soon left the town behind, cloaked it in plains dust, silenced it in the mechanical thrum of the engine. For now the sun was chasing behind him, warming his back, lighting up every detail of that long road. He’d forgotten the freedom of the pale blue skies, the open spaces of the plains, the faded beauty of it all. He wondered if he really was a dirt-poor plains farmer, if that was the essence of him. Wondered if after all those years the drift of soil and rain had turned his soul a soft-hued brown, like it had leeched away that image in the locket. Then he noticed his hands upon the wheel, etched black with those same lines he’d noticed on Zeke, and knew that for the first time he had a place he wanted to come back to and a friendship to share. He’d grown awful fond of Bethie.
The truck delivered, papers signed, the money safely in his wallet, he dutifully trudged the road home, following the lead of his shadow. Even by managing to hitch a lift where he could, it was dark when got back that night - the gate ajar and the house in unaccustomed darkness considering the hour. His supper rested cold on his workbench, along with a lamp that he fumbled alight with numb fingers. It was then that he noticed an envelope with his name scrawled on it in blunt pencil. He picked it up, felt the notes and coins through the flimsy paper. It was his first pay.
*
The sun was high enough to define shadows when Brandial appeared the next morning. He was unshaven and his clothes all askew. Ben wondered if the man had been drinking, if so it was the first he’d known that Zeke liked a drink. Brandial shuffled across and laid breakfast on the workbench, hardly seemed surprised to see that Ben had returned, that he hadn’t taken the truck and run, as he’d feared.
Brandial turned away, making his way to the house, ignoring the plaintive overtures of the first customer of the day, a lady with a tyre so flat it was running on the rim. There was a yapping dog jumping excitedly behind the wound-up windows, alternatively wagging its tail and baring its teeth. Ben wiped his hands on a piece of rag, pasted a smile on his face, and went to earn his money.
*
All day Brandial didn’t reappear. Customers came and went, and Ben, between fixing, wrote down timings and estimates in the large black book that had a nub of pencil tied to it with string. “I guess Mr. Brandial’s sick today,” he said. “It happens to us all sooner or later.”
And amidst their impatience they’d nod their assent, their eyes wandering to the house with the firmly closed door. “Never was a truer word.”
*
That night his supper was late. Ben waited impatiently, burning the lamp to read an old newspaper that had once padded a box of machine oil. The paper was almost a daffodil yellow in the wan light, and brittle past fragile. From time to time he glanced at the house. There was a light in every window - it streamed through the thin curtains and patterned the ground. Ben shifted uneasily making the mattress complain, while a piece of newspaper broke off in his hand and fluttered to the blanket. To his eyes it looked like Brandial was trying his best to keep the darkness away.
After another half-hour or more, the door opened and Zeke’s loose shadow fractured before him, thrown this way and that by the lit-up house behind. As the man drew nearer Ben saw that he looked just the same as he did that morning.
“Where’s Bethie?” Ben asked, as Brandial moved into his thin circle of light. “I ain’t seen her for a day or more.”
Brandial blinked red-rimmed eyes, ran a hand through receding hair. “She’s gone away.”
“Away?” Ben stared up at him, and wondered not for the first-time what it would be like to have such an uncommunicative man as Zeke Brandial for a father.
“She ain’t here no more.”
“She could be in one of those decayin’ houses,” Ben said, voice rising with alarm. “She could be lyin’ there hurt or dying.”
“She often go to those houses?” Zeke asked slowly, reaching out a hand to steady himself. The man was almost swaying on his feet and seemed to be functioning on willpower alone.
Ben rose quickly from the mattress, his feet searching for his shoes. “She said she saw Blackie there. She said that was where he lived now. I bet that’s where she’ll be.”
Taking an inward breath, Zeke seemed to gather himself together, unrolled his shoulders and stood a little taller. “Beth always did have fancies. Took after her ma in that regard. But she ain’t there, she’s just stayin’ with her aunt. Just stayin’ with her aunt.”
“But why? Why’d she go there?”
“For hired help you ask too many questions.” His eyes hardened before he relented. “She’ll be back though, she’ll be back. Sure as eggs is eggs.”
“You sure?”
“I ain’t no liar. I’m gonna bring her back myself.” And with that he turned to lock the gate before re-entering the house, the door clanging shut behind him.
*
Ben was running. Running through a field of corn in the black of night. The field rustled with life, shivered and bowed, slowed him down, snagged at his feet and hair. Something dark and black was after him, its heat and chill making his heart beat fit to burst. It rose behind, gathered itself, waited until he could sense it, feel the scrape of fingernails down his back, feel the prickle and burn of it. He ran even faster, shuddering lungs stripped raw and red on every gasp. If he could just stay out of reach…
A black dog, eyes blazing, shot past him, ran ahead, making for a house that loomed on a hill out of nowhere. A house ablaze with streaking light that dazzled and beckoned him on with a twisted grin. Bethie stood before it, calm and grey, eyes alight with childish wisdom, the black dog panting, lyin’ by her feet, eyes and red tongue rolling. Bethie held out her hands, raising the locket, holding aloft a picture of…no-one. Stained blankness. An offering he couldn’t understand. The locket spun and swayed, and Bethie whispered words he couldn’t hear. And still he ran on and on…
*
Bethie didn’t return the next day, or the next. And it was like Brandial didn’t want to bring her back, or maybe he just couldn’t, because Ben had never seen anyone go down so fast in himself before. Brandial grew as hollowed-out as an old soup-spoon, almost turned in on himself. Clothes rumpled, tainted with a smell of decay. He didn’t bother shaving anymore, raised moist red-rimmed eyes whenever Ben asked him a question, tremoring hand shading that ever present sun. He’d stand there blinking like a blind man, mouth working on words that never seemed to come.
“Should I bring a doctor, Mr Brandial?” Ben asked a few days later, when Brandial was slumped against the compound wall, seemingly warming himself in the sun.
He’d raised his head, blinked, thought about it. “No. No doctors. It’ll all go its own way. It has to.”
Then he’d shrugged and trudged back to that house, where the lights still burned dimly to illuminate the day. For the next few hours the sound of hammering came from the house before everything petered into silence, and went on as before.
But, for all his ills, the man remembered to bring food every morning and every night, remembered to bring another slim envelope for another week’s pay. Ben tucked the money under a broken floorboard. A few notes, a few coins, and more than he’d ever had in his life. The hard coins shone in their dusty hole, the soft notes gleamed, and Ben wondered if he should move on, get away, leave this strangeness behind. But the next day saw him there, writing estimates in the black book and talking like a friend to strangers.
*
It was a few days later when Ben heard a thump and a yelping cry. He grabbed a rag, wiping at his hands, stepped out just in time to see a dog shaking and whimpering, back-leg bent at an unnatural angle, saw the dust trail of a heavy wrench as it nestled in a cloud against the wooden compound wall.
“Got him.” Brandial said, spitting on the ground, a triumphant gleam in his watery eyes. “By god, I got him.”
The dog tottered, limped slowly across to a patch of shade by the wall, gently lowered itself down, eyes all the time on Brandial, lips showing white teeth, rib-cage fluttering.
Brandial turned to Ben. “Things’ll be better now. There’ll be an end to it.” To Ben’s surprise, Brandial’s eyes filled with tears.
“But, isn’t that Blackie?” Ben asked, able to study the dog for the first time. There wasn’t a white patch on him if you didn’t count the grizzled grey around the dog’s muzzle. The dog’s tail flickered at the mention of his name, though his eyes remained fixed on Zeke.
“Just leave him be. Things’ll be better when he’s done and buried.”
There was the sound of voices and the gate swung open. A car bellowing steam limped its way in with the grate of clashing gears. Brandial nodded at Ben before once again heading for the house. “It’s over now. Has to be. It’s nature’s way.”
*
Ben spent the rest of the day dealing with the new arrival, reassuring the owner, calculating costs and quotes, but his mind was on the dog huddled in a pitiful ball by the fence. After they’d left, he’d managed to place a small bowl of water by the dog. The dog looked at it listlessly, sniffed, then looked away. The animal had already started on the final journey, didn’t want to prolong things with a human’s unnecessary kindnesses.
That night, after supper, Ben gathered up a handful of roosting chickens, tied their legs loosely, laid them on their backs around the still watchful dog. Mesmerised, their small eyes gleaming in the light from the house - they settled and fluffed themselves into silence. Whatever Brandial had said, whatever crazy talk that had been, Ben couldn’t let Blackie die. When Bethie returned, her dog would still be out there, running among the houses, playing in the overgrown gardens, chasing hens in its dreams. He’d never come back here, never come back to test the wrath of Zeke Brandial in the hopes of seeing Bethie again.
Ben glanced quickly across to the house. The lights were still burning, but it looked deserted. He settled himself, made that soundless and wordless inward prayer, and placed his hands upon the small dog that lay before him. It was an all encompassing warmth that came, a warmth that threatened to burn his hands but never did. The dog stirred, lifted his head, snuffled and jerked, by-and-by its tail began to thrash against the fence.
“Ssh,” Ben murmured, afraid that the noise would stir Brandial from whatever he did inside that house.
After another minute, maybe longer, the dog scrambled to his feet, leg mended, tentatively tested, the remains of confusion shining in its eyes. Leant down to sniff the dead hens. Sauntered away across to the gate where he turned back, glanced at Ben, then slipped underneath as easily as a shadow. And that was it.
Ben gathered the bodies of the hens, hesitated, then threw them over the fence as far as he could.
*
That night it was the same nightmare - the cornfield, the unnamed fear that made his heart pound, and Bethie standing with the locket, Blackie curled up, almost expectant by her feet. He recognized Ben now, swished that whip of black tail at the welcome of a friend.
There was a sharp pain against his ribs, the pain radiating outwards towards his fingers and toes. Ben stirred, couldn’t tell if the pain was dream-state or real. The darkness fell away and he groaned and struggled up, dropping blankets. Through his sleep-blind eyes, Brandial lifted the shot-gun from Ben's ribs and aimed it at his face.
“You sure don’t sleep well,” Brandial said.
Ben tried to push the shot-gun away from his eyes, two streaks of light on the hard metal, Brandial’s set face hooded with shadow, his finger tightening on the trigger. “I don’t…”
Brandial didn’t hesitate, rocked back, brought the shot-gun barrel down hard enough to crack bone. “I saw what you did, stranger. I saw what you did to that dog.”
Struggling up, Ben raised a hand to his face, felt the split of skin and the warmth of blood. “I let him go, that’s all-”
“You healed it. You’re a healer.” Brandial moved, rammed the shot-gun against Ben’s ribs, forcing out breath, making Ben’s hands move from his face to his chest. “You ever healed yourself, stranger?”
“I just…” Ben looked up but Bradial’s face was lost in shadow. “I just…”
Brandial took a step back, slipped off the safety, motioned Ben to stand upright with a curt wave of his hand.
Ben found his feet, swayed, shivered in the night air, his thin vest no protection against the bite of wind, or against the bite of metal shot. “Why? Why you gonna shoot me?”
The laugh was the laugh from Ben’s nightmares. It bubbled out of nowhere, manic and harsh. Brandial reeled with it - a few tottering steps - before gathering himself together and jerking the barrel towards the house. “Go on,” he said, traces of merriment still in his voice. “It’s time to fix that curiosity of yours. Time to make things good.”
“But, I ain’t never gave you no cause-”
There was a sharp metallic click as Brandial raised the shot-gun. “I said, ‘time to make things good’.”
The house beckoned, light streaming, stringy curtains playing tricks with the shadows. Hands raised, Ben passed by Bradial, felt the barrel pressed firmly between his shoulder blades, felt himself pushed on. Noticed the door hung as crooked as everything else Brandial owned, the floors unswept and creaking, the smell of decay living amongst the litter, the groaning wood, the furniture with its crochet lace doilies from a better time long gone. And the light that bathed it all, brittle and unfading - always the light.
There were stairs in the corner, wooden treads covered with torn carpet. Brandial prodded him on, placed more bruises on Ben’s back, laughed when he tripped, when his hands grasped the rough banisters for anchor, for support. The air up here was thicker, acrid, made him choke - Ben yelped when the barrel crashed down on his shoulder, when Brandial hauled him up, mouth agape, crazed eyes only inches away from Ben’s own. “…make things good”, Brandial muttered.
The bedroom door was ajar, studded with hastily made crosses nailed on at angles. Ben stretched out his hand to them, unsure. Abruptly, as though losing patience, Brandial knocked Ben into the room with the shot-gun stock. Pain flared in his shoulder, vying for his attention with the scene before him. Bethie. Bethie staring up at the ceiling. Colourless eyes shining out of darkened skin. Muffled sounds from the gag that ate into her flesh. Hands and feet - twisting, flexing, twisting, flexing, like a blind thing exploring - above the ropes that tied her to the bed.
“She won’t eat. She won’t die.” Brandial was spent now, the rage gone. “She won’t eat. She won’t die.”
“I can’t…” Ben held up his hands, backed into a corner, knocked over a bedside table covered with the remains of wrappers, bread crusts, rotting food.
Brandial grinned then, shot at the ceiling. The shot made Ben’s ears roar - plaster rained down on them all, but mostly on Bethie. She keened and strained against the ropes like one awoken, hair, lips and skin white with plaster, looking like a demonic doll.
Coughing, Brandial moved to the door, gun raised, preventing escape. “The next barrel is for you, stranger, lest you start your healin’.”
Ben knelt by the bed, looked up, begged. “I can’t…I need…I need… Do you remember the chickens? What happened to them?”
“Chickens?” Brandial laughed then, tapping into the hysteria that drove him. “Just put your hands on her, stranger, and I’ll boil up an egg for yer breakfast. ‘Chickens’ he says…’chickens’.” The laughter turned into choking. Sudden tears rent furrows down his plaster-dusted cheeks. He lifted his hand to his face, brought it away damp, and looked surprised.
“They died,” Ben persisted. “They died because-”
“I don’t need no reasons.” The shot-gun raised again, slowly this time, with malice borne of intent. “I’m plum out of patience.”
Ben sighed. Closed his eyes. Centered himself. Said the prayer that wasn’t a prayer, placed his hands on Bethie’s flailing arm. The flesh was cold, like she was dead already, dead and cold and taking all his heat. All he could give, kneeling, healing, wave on wave and endless, endless. Seconds morphed to minutes, and she jerked up, managed a scream through the rough bandage that bound her lips, limbs moving frenziedly. Ben caught glimpses of the stains beneath her, gagged on the scent of heavy decay. This wasn’t right. Couldn’t be right. Nauseous now and light-headed, ears still ringing from the shot-gun blast, he hardly heard Brandial groan and slump. Didn't hear the man’s final prayer, or the shot-gun tumble from his hands - couldn’t draw himself away from the threshing form that was on the bed before him. Straining, straining - mouth open in silent pain, sightless eyes feverishly scanning the room.
And then she relaxed, dropped and sighed, smiled a little like she knew the answer to a secret, and died right there in front of him. Everything stopped then, except the white powder that continued to fall lightly, dotting her face, imitating the flush of freckles that ran across her nose, painting her like an angel.
Ben fell back with a groan, weak as a child, voice hoarse with exhaustion. “It’s done.”
When he could refocus his eyes, Brandial lay in the corner, hands clenched upon a homemade cross, rough wood and nails resting in those grease-etched palms, lifeless eyes staring at the slat-work in the ceiling.
*
They picked Ben up a week or so later. He’d taken his wages and taken that limping car. Black and sleek, and red-womb interior, he’d taken it and driven it into the setting sun, because anywhere was better than that small town with those crumbling houses that clung so tenaciously to the hill.
And when they came for him the wind blew up a storm, sounding like children laughing, or like the endless parade of his mother's prayers - and darting here and there, sly and furtive, he could see the forms of black dogs twisting in the dust shadows.
They called it murder though they couldn’t say how Zeke and Bethie had died. But they were dead, and for Ben, that was solace and comfort enough.
*
End