I pulled up in front of house and knew right away something wasn’t right. For one thing, it looked as if every light in the place was on; Beth and especially Mabel were frugal as hell when it came to utilities-neither one of them would have left that many lights burning; for another thing, the U-boat was gone and Mabel’s new car (a tan Toyota Tercel, a very smart and sensible car) sat in the driveway; it was well past two A.M. and Mabel should have been at work. The third thing I discovered when I went to knock on the door.
The house was unlocked.
This was not the worst neighborhood in Cedar Hill, but you wouldn’t live here on “Renter’s Row” unless you absolutely had to.
I entered and closed the door behind me. I called out for Beth and, getting no answer, Mabel.
Nothing.
I took a deep breath, my heart triphammering, and immediately began to cough and sneeze. It smelled like the place hadn’t been cleaned in days; everything was sopped in the stench of animal shit and old urine mixed with the musty scent of shed fur and… something else. Something meaty and rotten. It was so overpowering I ran into the bathroom and threw up.
Breathing through my mouth, I checked the kitchen and backyard, then Beth’s room.
She was gone, and so were all the Its.
Finally I knocked on Mabel’s bedroom door; when there was no answer I began to open it and saw a piece of paper that had been taped there but had fallen to the floor. I picked up and unfolded the note. It was from Beth:
I couldn’t stay here any longer. I hadn’t been home in a couple of days. She must have done it while I was gone. I’m like you now. I’ve lost everyone. I’m so sorry for everything. There ought to be a place for people like us. I hope you can forgive me someday. This is why I don’t trust happiness. It’s better to leave and re-make yourself. It’s always been the best thing. I love you. Always remember that.
I opened the bedroom door and (If I don’t turn on the light, everything will be fine.)
– turned on the light.
The first thing I saw were all the pink- and rust-colored feathers scattered around the room, on the floor, sticking to the walls and curtains and light fixtures, but as I stepped closer to the mess on the bed I realized that the feathers had once been white. The dull buzz of flies sounded in my ears. The carpeting grew more and more damp the nearer I came to the bed. There were probably a thousand other smells and splotches and sights but the closer I moved toward the bed, the more my peripheral vision faded out until I could see only through a small, frozen, iris-out circle.
The upper half of the mattress and headboard were splattered in blood speckled with chunks of bone and mangled tissue. She’d dressed for work before lying down and placing the feather pillows over her face. After that it was a simple matter of pulling the pistol out of the drawer in her nightstand, pushing and prodding into the pillows until she could feel the barrel’s position through them, or maybe she’d already had the gun in her hand before she lay down, or maybe – one of the stained feathers dislodged from the overhead light and brushed against my shoulder on its way down.
The gun lay on the floor near the bed. I wasn’t about to touch it or anything else in the room. My chest was so tight I thought my lungs were going to collapse. Something was strangling me from within. My vision blurred because of something in my eyes. I reached up to wipe it away but made the mistake of moving at the same time. I stumbled over my own feet and fell onto the bed. I heard the muted splash as I hit the soaked remains of the pillows and the body underneath. I felt heavy tepid liquid slopping between my fingers and soaking into my shirt. It was all over me. I panicked and tried to push away but only managed to slip and fall face-first into the worst of it. I scrabbled around like a crab on a beach, tangling myself in gore-saturated sheets and wet feathers until, at last, I managed to grip the edge of the headboard and pull myself up. I lurched around, trying to wipe the blood from my eyes until I bumped into the dresser. I looked up and saw myself in the mirror and almost lost it. At least I didn’t scream. Not once. As much as I wanted to just throw back my head and let fly with a howl to bring down the house, I didn’t. I backed away from the bloody thing in the reflection, blinked, and saw what was on the floor by the other side of the bed.
Patients’ files.
I’d watched Mabel and the other nurses at the home make notations in enough of these things to recognize one on sight. What the hell had she been doing, bringing these home with her? One was enough to get her fired, but she must have had a couple dozen piled there. Blood pooled over the top file and ran down the sides of the others like fudge on a sundae. A thin stapled stack of papers lay off to the side of the pile. It too was bloodied, but words could still be seen peeking through the smears here and there. I knelt down and leaned close. It looked to be some kind of contract. I saw the word AGREEMENT in bold-face type; the rest of the upper line was hidden behind a small slop of blood. I moved closer. I made out Mabel’s name, and the words “in strictest confidence hereby agree” and knew what I was looking at. I scanned down the rest of the page, stopped, and came back to some words about a third of the way down the page I had seen on my first pass but hadn’t let register. between Keepers and
I heard the echo of her voice from the last time we’d had a real conversation: And if I don’t screw up, if I do what I agreed to and keep this job, then I can have all that. Is that so bad? Does that make me callous? Is it such a terrible thing to want an actual home and peace of mind?
“What the hell did you agree to?” I asked the silence of the dead room.
Am I a bad person?
A dial clicked numbers in the correct sequence and all the tumblers fell into place and a door opened and something awful stepped out to make itself partially known.
… gotta do something with the animals now, Beth had said.
I don’t remember if I closed the door behind me when I ran out of the house, nor do I know if anyone saw me leave, but since the police never showed up on my doorstep after that night I have to assume that I was not seen-or that if I was, no one cared. Around here, you were not your brother’s or sister’s keeper.
Around here, you were not your brother’s or sister’s…
… you were not your brother’s…
… you were not your…
… YOU WERE NOT…
… I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths.
(Cutting things off a little soon there, aren’t you, pal?)
I smoothed out the issue of Modoc flat on my lap, then opened to the last page once again.
… YOU WERE NOT YOUR BROTHER’S OR SISTER’S KEEPER.
I began to tear it in half, then thought better of it.
“You can’t force me to remember the rest of the night,” I said.
I opened to a random page.
WOULDN’T TAKE ANY BETS ON THAT ONE IF I WERE YOU, GIL.
This time I did rip it in half, then threw the sections onto the barn floor and ground them in to the hay, mud, and stink with the heel of my shoe.
“That was mine,” said Carson from the far end of the barn.
“I’ll buy you another one.”
“That’s okay. I won’t need it.”
I faced my nephew and said, “Carson, you need to tell me what’s going on, all right? I read the comic, and Long-Lost didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.”
“That’s ’cause you wouldn’t let him.”
I blinked. “What do you mean by that?”
He sighed, then rubbed the back of his neck. “I think it’s good that you said you like swans, UncGil.”
“What the fuck do swans have to do with any of this?”
Carson stared at me for a moment. “Don’t you know what it is that makes them special?”
I stormed over and grabbed him by the shoulders. “To hell with swans, Carson. And fuck Modoc, all right? Look at me. I’m scared, Carson, do you understand?”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He looked on the verge of tears. “But I gotta tell you something, okay?”