The Guardians (40 page)

    "What
the fuck are you talking about?"

"It was a
performance.
For once I had an audience that was really watching. And you
know what I did? I messed it up. Mailed it in."

    "Are
you saying you were acting?"

    "It's
all I've ever wanted to do. And the boy knew that. The house knew it. And it
asked me to show everything I had. To do one remarkable thing once in my
life."

    "To
kill her."

    "But
I
didn't.
There was too much of me getting in the way of the character.
Too much
interference."

    "Who
did you think you were playing?"

    "The
lead."

    "Roy."

    "Who
else?"

    I've
had rooms spin on me before. Boozy carousels or sickbed see-saws. But what's
happening now is of a different order altogether. The cellar spinning, along
with the house, the earth loosed from its axis and wobbling off into space.

    "When
did it start?" I manage.

    "Sometime
after Ben's funeral, I guess. That's when I heard his voice. First time in twenty-four
years. Then it got so loud it was all I could hear."

    "That
night. You went back to Jake's after we left?"

    "It
was closed, so I waited. And when she came out I offered her a joint. I'm an
old friend of her dad's. She said sure."

    "She
trusted you."

    "I'm
fun
, remember?"

    "So
you decided to have a party."

    "I
asked her if kids still went to the old Thurman place. She couldn't believe I
knew about it, that this freckly, balding guy used to get up to no good in here
the same way she and her friends did. So she figured it couldn't hurt to smoke
another joint for shits and giggles before heading home."

    "Except
you didn't smoke another joint."

    "No.
We didn't."

    From upstairs,
the fire is a voice that joins the two of ours. Wet and gulping, like a dog
swallowing something it's found in the mud.

    "What
did you do instead?"

    "Talked.
I don't have a clue about what," Randy says, now grinning widely like his
father, the loony salesman caricature they used in those Krazy Kevin! car lot
ads. "Her boyfriend, maybe. How she couldn't wait to get out of this
shithole. The future. I wasn't listening to her. I was listening to
him.
And when I was doing the talking, I was concentrating on selling my lines. And
you know something? I was good."

    "What
did he tell you to do?"

    "Make
her stop."

    "Stop
what?"

    "Laughing.
Smiling.
Breathing''

    I'm
having trouble standing. The smoke has thickened, shrouding the large space so
that, for moments at a time, Randy is the only thing I can see.

    "I
dragged her down here," he goes on, scratching an elbow. "Tied her to
the same post where we tied the coach. Oh man, she wanted
out
of
here—and part of me, the pussy Randy part, wanted to let her out. But there was
his voice again.
Teach her a lesson. Leave her down in the dark until she
shuts up.
So I left. Went for a walk, sobered up a little. It was cold. I
was Randy again, give or take. And then I thought to myself, You've got a coat
on, but that poor girl doesn't. So I ran back, came down here to find her
quiet, eyes closed. Not dead, but pretty close. I saw that I couldn't let her
go. I'd nearly killed her, and nearly killing someone is as bad as killing her,
when you think of it. It's
worse—
because you can't bury a body that's
strolling around, telling people what it knows."

    "Randy,
please. We have to—"

    "I
remembered how my house had a crawlspace under the kitchen floor. Yours did
too, right?"

    "You
left her alone to die."

    "
It's
just another secret
.
That's what he kept saying
.
You're
good with secrets. You all are
."

    Randy
pulls something out of his pocket and tosses it at me. Somehow my hand grabs it
out of the air. My Dictaphone.

    "You
broke the rule, Trev."

    "I
wasn't going to give this to anyone. I did it for myself."

    "Which
is the same reason I just told you the truth. To see if it changed
anything."

    "Has
it?"

    Randy
appears about to work this through aloud, his finger partly raised in the
manner of a courtroom clarification of fine points. Yet he says nothing. His
mouth agape.

    "Let
us go."

    My
voice conveys none of the desperation I feel. It sounds as though I'm offering
to take his place on the next shift in a Guardians game.

    "I
can't."

    "Why
not?"

    "I've
been alone a long time," he says, suddenly not himself at all. The boy's
tone, lifeless and flat. "And I don't want to be alone anymore."

    He
grins again. Not Randy this time, not Krazy Kevin!, but the boy. And it's a
glimpse of the afterlife. An eternity in here, waiting at the windows with Roy
DeLisle. Watching the girls go by.

    I
make a move to get past him. Not a run, nothing so orchestrated as to be
understood as an intention. A grasping of' legs and arms and head in the
direction of the stairs. Hut Randy pushes me back with one hand, his palm
slapping my shoulder as if in greeting.

    "Give
me the locket," he says, and holds his hand out. Opens his fist to show a
platinum band with a piece of emerald in it. I glance down at Tracey and spot
the white circle below one of her knuckles.

    "That
was you?
You
dug Heather up?"

    "Right
there where you're standing," he points, and I take an involuntary step
backwards. "But once I moved away I didn't want it anymore. I was just
goofy Handy Randy again, and I couldn't bear it. Mailed it to Ben, no return
address."

    "Why
Ben?"

    "He
stayed.
And it belonged here." He takes a full stride closer. "It
wanted to be here."

    "You
mean the boy wanted it to be here."

    "And
now he'd like it back."

    So I
give it to him. I step over Tracey Flanagan's unconscious body and pull
Heather's gold heart from my wallet. Let its chain pour into Randy's hand.

    As
Randy unfastens the clasp and raises both arms to hook it up at the back of his
neck, I slide the wrench out of my other pocket. He blinks down at it, amazed,
as though it is a talking bird. I swing the wrench wide and strike it square
against the side of his head.

    He
falls in two distinct motions: slow to his knees, then a formless slump onto
his back. I fall to my knees too, bending at his side to feel his still-beating
heart, his stale breath a whisper in my ear. I'd seen hockey players in this
state before, unlucky puck chasers who'd gone headfirst into the boards.
Unconscious, but not necessarily for long.

    I
scramble over to Tracey on all fours, slip my arms under her and forklift her
up. Using the walls to keep her cradled in place, I get to my feet and swing
around. Shuffle past Randy to the bottom of the cellar stairs. There is only my
own breath. And the fire working its way through the house. Licking and
swallowing.

    
You
won't make it
.

    I
hear this so clearly I assume at first it is the boy. But it belongs instead to
someone who wishes only to point out some salient facts that might be escaping
my attention.

    
If
you think you're carrying this girl up those stairs, you're crazier than Ben
ever was
.

    So I'm
crazy. Ben would have long known what I've come to recently learn, and have
confirmed as I take the first step up. Sometimes, crazy
helps.

    It
gets me all the way up to the kitchen, where I'm forced to lay Tracey down
again. There's the serious heat now, doubling itself, cooking the air so that
each breath is like swallowing oil. Through the archway I can see that the fire
has already claimed most of the living room. A widening throat of orange and
black. The plaster walls collapsing. A carbon skin it is halfway to shedding.

    A
cold finger touches the back of my neck.

    I
spin around expecting to see the boy. And for a second it
is
the boy.
Glaring at me, flushed and threatening tears.

    "Stay
with me," Randy says.

    I
charge at him.

    My legs
fluid, powerful. The fist that aims at Randy's head and lands a solid blow
feeling swift and Parkinson's-free, breaking the line of his jaw with a tidy,
audible pop. I'm a Guardian again. Young and fully armoured, meeting some Sugar
King or Winterhawk thug with unhesitating violence.

    
Stay
with me
.

    I
can't hear Randy anymore, but those are the words his already swelling lips are
working around. It's not the fire that frightens him; it's not even death. It
is the immensity of his loneliness opening wide inside of him.

    I
charge again. Driving my palms into Randy's throat. It pushes him over the
linoleum edge and down the cellar stairs. For a moment he is a writhing outline
against the dark. And then, without any sound of impact, he's gone.

    I
stand over Tracey, staring down at her as though trying to understand what she
is.

    
Go
!

    I
bend and lift Tracey over my shoulder. Hold her there, caught in an Atlas pose.
Unable to step forward or back, disoriented by the smoke, the dizziness that came
with lifting her.

    
NOW
!

    My
knees start to fold, but I lean into it, turning their failure into a hopscotch
march. The back door frame has already collapsed, forcing me through the
kitchen, then into the hallway. The walls busy with fire. There is nowhere to
turn where the heat doesn't take burning swipes at our skin. Tracey's hair
swaying over my back.

    Halfway
down the hallway I stop. It's the cramping muscles, what feels like some kind
of cardiac episode. It makes it impossible to carry her another foot, but in
fact it is only the sort of thing that would be difficult for me even under the
most uncomplicated circumstances.

    But I
got Tracey out of the crawlspace. Somehow I managed that.
I got her out.

    And
if I did
that
, why can't I do
this?

    So I
jerk ahead, waist first, a statue with one last, unhardened part. Lurch toward
the front door.

    
This
is me. I'm doing this.
And with this thought comes a dangerous elation.
Not yet.
If I get out of here, I can sit on the curb and laugh my guts out.
Just not yet.

    I
open the door with a single twist of the knob. A rectangle of smooth night
appears. Then the cool air on my face, the porch steps groaning under my weight
as I make my way down and tumble onto the lawn. Tracey Flanagan rolling off my
back to lie on the grass, face up, eyes open and blinking. She looks as
surprised by the stars as by the fact she is alive.

    Then
she turns my way. A shared recognition between us, as though we have known each
other for uncountable years.

    
Randy.

    I'm
already working my way to my feet, crawling back up onto the porch.

    The
heat again. A line between the autumn night and the fire so defined it feels
like passing into a different world altogether. Walking through something as
solid as brick or stone.

    The
fire has encircled me now. I'm not sure if I'm in the hallway, the kitchen, or
if I took a wrong turn into the living room. There is nowhere to go even if I
had the capacity to move, which I don't. The brief reprieve from symptoms has
already passed, leaving me rigid and faint.

    He is
only an outline in the smoke at first, unmoving and featureless. But with a
single step forward he is more real than he has ever appeared to me. Oblivious
to the fire, the lick of hair caught in his eyelashes and jumping with every
blink. Coming to stand so close that even through the sulphurous air I can
smell the rank, burnt-sugar sweetness of him.