Nightcrawlers

25

ROBERT LEMOYNE

It was already dawn when he woke up.

At first he didn’t know where he was. He sat up, rubbed his eyes. His head felt as if it were stuffed full of cotton, but he didn’t have a headache this morning-no pain at all. Then he saw the slatted bars of daylight coming in through gaps in the walls and realized he was in the barn. On the old army cot in the storeroom. Another night on the cot in the barn.

He stood up, stretched, and went outside through the rear door. Cold. Always cold up here in the mornings. Got down into the twenties sometimes in the winter, when the snow level dropped below three thousand feet. He remembered two or three times they’d been snowed in, once for three days. Never go through that again if he could help it.

Blackberry vines were heavily tangled back there-he’d have to get the weed-whacker out, not that it stopped those suckers from growing wild. Nothing stopped them. He walked over there and took a leak on the vines. That wouldn’t stop them either.

By the time he finished he was shivering. Should’ve put his jacket on. He started back into the barn, changed his mind, and went around to the side where he could see the trailer. Mia was up. The kitchen lights were burning; he could see them faintly behind the drawn curtains. She’d have the base heater on, but not a fire started in the wood stove; she didn’t like to build fires. Lazy. Be getting breakfast ready, and it wouldn’t be much because she was lazy about that too. Eggs, toast, cereal. Hungry. He hadn’t eaten in a while.

He took a few steps that way and then stopped. What if she was in one of her bitch moods again this morning? She’d been in one last night… must’ve been or he wouldn’t have slept in the barn. Yelling at him, calling him all kinds of names, scaring Angie. If he went over there now, she might start yelling again and he couldn’t take any more of that. It’d wake up Angie, scare her all over again. She was only six years old, she didn’t understand grown-ups fighting and yelling all the time.

His head hurt a little now and the cold made his teeth chatter. He turned and hurried back inside the barn and found his jacket and put it on. The first thing he saw when he put on the lights was Angie’s dollhouse. Pride swelled in him when he looked at it. Best damn dollhouse anybody ever built for his kid. Biggest, too. Too big for the trailer. But he just couldn’t stop adding stories, adding rooms-it was three stories now and twenty-two rooms. When he finally finished it, got it all smooth-sanded and trimmed and painted, Angie would be so excited she’d probably wet her pants. She didn’t know what he was building out here in his workshop. Mia didn’t know. His secret. His big surprise for his little girl.

Put a smile on his mouth, thinking about how her face would light up and she’d throw her arms around his neck and tell him it was the best present she’d ever had. Made him want to do some more work on the dollhouse, as early as it was. He took a piece of plywood from the stack, measured it carefully, then turned on the bench saw and put on his goggles and cut four new wall sections. He added those to the stack he’d already cut-a pretty tall stack, now, but you never knew how many wall sections you might need. When he was done with that, he used the belt sander on some of the sections he’d already fitted until the grain felt smooth as glass.

The ache behind his eyes got worse and finally made him stop. He took two more Percodan-getting low, he’d have to finagle a new supply pretty soon-swallowed them with the last of the mineral water, and sat down on the cot and lit a cigarette and waited for the pain to go away. But it didn’t. Dulled a little, that was all. He got up and went to the front of the barn and stepped out again into the cold morning.

Lights on in the trailer. Mia, Angie… only it wasn’t, not anymore. That little girl in there wasn’t his little girl. Looked like her, but she wasn’t Angie. And the woman wasn’t Mia. Black, not white-Dark Chocolate. Strangers.

He went back into the barn and sat on the cot again. Angie, gone. Mia, gone. For three long years he’d been alone.

Alone.

Except for strangers in the trailer. Two of them this time. Why had he brought them here? The little girl, yes, because for a while he’d tried to make himself believe she was Angie. But Dark Chocolate, why her? He couldn’t remember, couldn’t think straight. His head hurt so bad now he felt sick to his stomach.

But he knew what he had to do. He didn’t have to think about that. He knew in his gut, and that made the hurt even worse because he never wanted… he only wanted… all he ever wanted…

He got up and found his shovel and pick and and took them out the rear door and around past the blackberry tangle and through the trees and up onto the little knoll. The grass grew tall up there-grass and ferns and milkweed. So tall he couldn’t see the graves even when he was standing right in front of them.

He tore some of the grass away, pulling up huge clumps and hurling them away. Then he could see the graves. One large, one small. No markers… he didn’t need markers to know… they deserved markers, didn’t they? A little moan came out of his throat. Wetness leaked from his eyes.

Angie. Mia.

Alone.

For a long time he stood looking down at the grassy mounds. Cold wind dried his cheeks, started him shivering again. He listened to it in the trees, in the eaves of the barn. It made sounds like a shrieking harpy’s voice. Mia’s voice. Screaming at him that last night, calling him names, telling him she’d get a restraining order if he didn’t leave her alone, telling him she was going to sell the property and take Angie away, back east someplace, telling him he’d never see her again never see her again never see her again until he couldn’t stand it anymore and he’d stopped the shrieking harpy’s voice

… he’d lost control and he’d… and Angie, she’d come out of her bedroom crying and saying Don’t hurt Mommy leave Mommy alone! and he’d… his head felt like it would burst and he’d swung out blindly and the crying stopped too and Angie… all the blood on her face where she’d hit the wall and she didn’t move… both of them lying there so still… oh God no!.. not Angie, his baby, she couldn’t be… he couldn’t have… she wasn’t dead she wasn’t dead!

She was dead.

And he put her in the ground, put Mia in the ground, and went away and tried to pretend none of it ever happened, Angie was still alive, none of it ever happened. And then one day he saw her playing on the street, he was so sure it was her. And he took her. And brought her up here and put the screens on the trailer windows and kept her here and tried to make her play the game in the woods, play with her toys, play on the swing set, showed her his dollhouse surprise, but she wasn’t Angie and all she did was cry and cry, like the other one who wasn’t Angie cried and cried, like the one in the trailer now who wasn’t Angie cried and cried…

The first two were over on the far side of the knoll, by the trees; he didn’t want strangers sleeping too close to his family. He took the pick and shovel over there and found new places and dug two more graves in the soft earth, one large and one small. Dug them deep, deep, like he had all the others, so animals would leave them alone and they could rest in peace.

When he finished he was tired and thirsty, but his head didn’t hurt so much anymore. He put the tools back in the barn and made sure the gun was still in his jacket pocket and then went out again and walked slowly to the trailer.

Now that it was time, he’d do it quick like he had before. The last thing he wanted was for anybody to suffer.