The Strain, the Fall, the Night Eternal (22 page)

She scurried away in tears.

When Ansel heard them go outside into the darkened backyard, he ventured downstairs, walking with one hand clamped on the handrail. She had left the glass on the counter next to the sink, set on a folded napkin, dissolved pills clouding the water. He brought the glass to his lips two-handedly and forced himself to drink. He poured the water into his mouth, giving his throat no choice but to swallow. He got some of it down before gagging on the rest of the contents, coughing onto the sink window overlooking the backyard. He gasped as he watched the splatter drip down the glass pane, distorting his view of Ann-Marie standing behind the kids on the swings, staring off into the darkened sky, breaking her crossed arms only occasionally to push low-swinging Haily.

The glass slipped from his hand, spilling into the sink. He left the kitchen for the living room, dropping onto the sofa there in a kind of a stupor. His throat was engorged and he felt sicker than ever.

He had to return to the hospital. Ann-Marie would just have to make it on her own for a little while. She could do it if she had no choice. Maybe it would even end up being good for her …

He tried to focus, to determine what needed to be done before he left. Gertie came into the doorway, panting softly. Pap entered behind her, stopping near the fireplace, settling down into a crouch. Pap started a low, even growl, and the thumping noise surged in Ansel’s ears. And Ansel realized: the noise was coming from them.

Or was it? He got down off the sofa, moving over toward Pap on his hands and knees, getting closer to hear. Gertie whimpered and retreated to the wall, but Pap held his unrelaxed crouch. The growl intensified in the dog’s throat, Ansel grasping his collar just as the dog tried to back up onto its feet and get away.

Thrum … Thrum … Thrum …

It was
in
them. Somehow. Somewhere. Some
thing
.

Pap was pulling and whimpering, but Ansel, a big man who rarely had to use his strength, curled his free arm around the Saint Bernard’s neck, holding him in a canine headlock. He pressed his ear to the dog’s neck, the hair of its fur tickling the inside of his auditory canal.

Yes. A thrumming pulse. Was it the animal’s circulating blood?

That was the noise. The yelping dog strained to get away, but Ansel pressed his ear harder against the dog’s neck, needing to know.

“Ansel?”

He turned fast—too fast, a blinding shot of white pain—and saw Ann-Marie at the door, Benjy and Haily behind her. Haily was hugging her mother’s leg, the boy standing alone, both of them staring. Ansel’s grip relaxed and the dog pulled away.

Ansel was still on his knees. “What do you want?” he yelled.

Ann-Marie stayed frozen in the doorway, in a trance of fear. “I’m … I don’t … I’m taking them for a walk.”

“Fine,” he said. He wilted a little under the gaze of his children, another choke from his throat making him rasp. “Daddy’s fine,” he told them, wiping off spit with the back of his hand. “Daddy’s going to be fine.”

He turned his head toward the kitchen, where the dogs were. All the make-nice thoughts faded under the resurgent thrumming. Louder than before. Pulsating.

Them.

A nauseous shame rose up within him, and he shuddered, then put a fist to his temple.

Ann-Marie said, “I’ll let the dogs out.”

“No!”
He caught himself, holding out an open palm to her from where he knelt on the living room floor. “No,” he said, more evenly. He tried to catch his breath, to
seem
normal. “They’re fine. Leave them in.”

She hesitated, wanting to say more. To do something, anything. But in the end, she turned and went out, pulling Benjy after her.

Ansel used the wall to get to his feet and walk to the first-floor bathroom. He pulled the string light on over the mirror, wanting to stare into his own eyes. Glowering, red-veined eggs of sallow ivory. He swiped perspiration from his forehead and upper lip and opened his mouth to try and look down his own throat. He expected to see inflamed tonsils, or some kind of white-bump rash, but it only looked dark. It hurt to raise his tongue, but he did, looking underneath. The pad beneath was scarlet and sore, and angry red, glowing hot the way a charcoal glows. He touched it and the pain was brain-splittingly raw, riding out along both sides of his jaw, straining the cords in his neck. His throat bucked in protest, issuing a harsh, barking cough that hacked dark specks onto the mirror. Blood, mixed with something white, maybe phlegm. Some spots were closer to black than others, as though he had brought up some solid residue, like rotten bits of himself. He reached for one of those dark nuggets, smearing the chunk off the glass and onto the tip of his middle finger. He brought it to his nose, sniffing it, then rubbed it with his thumb. It was like a discolored clot of blood. He brought it to the tip of his tongue, and before he knew it, he was tasting it. He swirled the small, soft mass inside his mouth, and then, once it dissipated, swiped another spot off the glass, tasting that one too. Not much taste, but there was something about the sensation on his tongue that was almost healing.

He leaned forward, licking the bloody stains off the cool glass. It should have hurt his tongue to do this, but, on the contrary, the soreness in his mouth and throat had abated. Even that most tender part underneath his tongue—the pain was reduced to a tingle. The thrumming sound also faded, though never completely went away. He looked at his reflection in the red-smeared mirror and tried to understand.

This respite was maddeningly brief. The tightness, like having his throat wrung by powerful hands, resurged, and he pulled his gaze away from the mirror, lurching out into the hallway.

Gertie whined and back-stepped down the hall, away from him, trotting into the living room. Pap was scratching at the back door, wanting to get out. When he saw Ansel coming into the kitchen, he scooted away. Ansel stood there, his throat throbbing, then reached into the dogs’ cabinet, pulling down the box of Milk-Bone treats. He jammed one between his fingers, as he usually did, and went into the living room.

Gertie was lying on the wood landing at the bottom of the stairs, paws out, ready to spring away. Ansel sat down on his footstool and waved the treat. “Come on, baby,” he said, in a heartless whisper that grated against his soul.

Gertie’s leathery nostrils flared, sniffing at the scent in the air.

Thrum … thrum…

“Come on, girl. Get your treat.”

She pushed up slowly onto all fours. She took one small step forward, then stopped again and sniffed. She knew instinctively that there was something wrong with this bargain.

But Ansel held the cookie still, which seemed to reassure her. She padded slowly over the rug, head low, eyes alert. Ansel nodded his encouragement, the thrumming intensifying in his head as she approached.

He said, “Come on, Gertie, old girl.”

Gertie came up and swiped the cookie once with her thick tongue, catching some of his finger. She did this again, wanting to trust him, wanting the treat. Ansel brought out his other hand and laid it on top of her head, stroking her as she liked him to. Tears sprang out of his eyes as he did this. Gertie leaned forward to close her teeth on the treat, taking it from his fingers, and that was when Ansel grabbed her collar and fell upon her with all his weight.

The dog struggled beneath him, snarling and trying to bite him, her panic giving his rage a focus. He forced back her lower jaw with his hand, effectively shutting her mouth by raising her head, then brought his mouth to her furry neck.

He tore in. He bit through her silky, slightly greasy coat, opening a wound. The dog howled as he tasted her fur, the texture of her thick soft flesh vanishing quickly under a hot surge of blood. The pain of his biting pushed Gertie into a frenzy beneath him, but Ansel held his grip, forcing the dog’s big head even higher, fully exposing the neck.

He was drinking the dog. Somehow drinking without swallowing. Ingesting. As though there were some new mechanism of which he was not aware working in his throat. He could not understand it; he only understood the satisfaction he felt. A palliative pleasure in the act. And power. Yes—power. As that of drawing life from one being into another.

Pap came into the room howling. A mournful bassoon sound,
and Ansel had to stop this sad-eyed Saint Bernard from spooking the neighbors. With Gertie twitching limply beneath him, he sprang up, and with renewed speed and strength, raced across the room after Pap, knocking a floor lamp down as he lunged and tackled the big, clumsy dog in the hall.

The pleasure of the sensation, in drinking the second dog, was rapturous. He felt within him that tipping point, as when suction catches inside a siphoning tube and the desired change in pressure is achieved. Fluid flowed without effort, replenishing him.

Ansel sat back when he was done, numb for a while, dazed, slow to return to the here and now of the room. He looked down at the dead dog on the floor at his feet and felt suddenly wide awake, and cold. Remorse came all at once.

He got to his feet and saw Gertie, then looked down at his own chest, clawing at his T-shirt, wet with dog blood.

What is happening to me?

The blood on the checkered rug made a nasty black stain. Yet there wasn’t much of it. And that was when he remembered that he had drunk it.

Ansel went first to Gertie, touching her coat, knowing that she was dead—that he had killed her—and then, setting aside his disgust, rolled her up inside the ruined rug. He lifted the bundle into his arms with a great grunt and carried it through the kitchen, outside and down the steps to the backyard dog shed. Inside, he dropped to his knees, unrolled the rug and the heavy Saint Bernard, and left Gertie to go back for Pap.

He laid them together against the wall of the shed, underneath his pegboard of tools. His revulsion was distant, foreign. His neck was tight but not sore, his throat cool suddenly, his head calm. He looked at his bloody hands and had to accept what he could not understand.

What he had done had made him better.

He went back inside the house, to the bathroom upstairs. He stripped off his bloody shirt and boxers and pulled on an old sweat suit, knowing Ann-Marie and the kids would return at any moment. As he searched the bedroom for sneakers, he felt the thrumming return. He didn’t hear it: he felt it. And what it meant terrified him.

Voices at the front door.

His family was home.

He made it back downstairs and just out the back door, unseen, his bare feet hitting the backyard grass, running from the pulsating sense filling his head.

He turned toward the driveway, but there were voices in the dark street. He had left the shed doors open, and so, in his desperation, ducked inside the doghouse to hide, shutting both doors behind him. He didn’t know what else to do.

Gertie and Pap lay dead against the side wall. A cry nearly escaped Ansel’s lips.

What have I done?

New York winters had warped the shed doors, so they no longer hung perfectly flush. He could still see through the seam, spying Benjy getting a glass of water from the kitchen sink, his head in the window, Hailey’s little hand reaching up.

What is happening to me?

He was like a dog who had turned. A rabid dog.

I have caught some form of rabies.

Voices now. The kids coming down the back-porch steps, lit by the security light over the deck, calling the dogs. Ansel looked around him fast and seized a rake from the corner, sliding it through the interior door handles as quickly and quietly as he could. Locking the children out. Locking himself inside.

“Ger-tie! Pa-ap!”

No true concern in their voices, not yet. The dogs had gotten away a few times in the past couple of months, which was why Ansel had dug the iron stake into the ground here in the shed, so they could be chained up securely at night.

Their calling voices faded in his ears as the thrum took over his head: the steady rhythm of blood circulating through their young veins. Little hearts pumping hard and strong.

Jesus.

Haily came to the doors. Ansel saw her pink sneakers through the gap at the bottom and shrank back. She tried the doors. They rattled but wouldn’t give.

She called to her brother. Benjy came and shook the doors with all his eight-year-old might. The four walls shivered, but the rake handle held.

Thrummity … thrummity … thrum …

Their blood. Calling to him. Ansel shuddered and let his focus fall on the dog’s stake in front of him. Buried six feet deep, set in a solid block of concrete. Strong enough to keep two Saint Bernards leashed during a summer thunderstorm. Ansel looked to the wall shelves and saw an extra chain collar, price tag still attached. He felt certain he had an old shackle lock in here somewhere.

He waited until they were a safe distance away before he reached up and pulled down the steel collar.

C
aptain Redfern was laid out in his johnny on the stretcher bed inside the clear plastic curtains, his lips open in a near-grimace, his breathing deep and labored. Having grown increasingly uncomfortable as night approached, Redfern had been administered enough sedatives to put him out for hours. They needed him still for imaging. Eph dimmed the light inside the bay and switched on his Luma light, again aiming the indigo glow at Redfern’s neck, wanting another look at the scar. But now, with the other lights dimmed, he saw something else as well. A strange rippling effect along Redfern’s skin—or, rather,
beneath
his skin. Like a mottling, or a subcutaneous psoriasis, blotching that appeared just below the surface of the flesh in shades of black and gray.

When he brought the Luma light closer for further examination, the shading beneath the skin reacted. It swirled and squirmed, as though trying to get away from the light.

Eph backed off, pulled the wand away. With the black light removed from Redfern’s skin, the sleeping man appeared normal.