The Basement

At dawn on each of seven days, she awakes among tangled quilts in the frosty bedroom after a few hours of restless sleep. Each morning she swears she will face the basement.

At dusk on each of seven nights, the dirty stairs remain untrodden, the foul-smelling dark remains unscathed by light from any opened door or unshuttered window. The thing below persists, unfaced, ungrappled, unclean.

At 2 a.m. after each of seven nightmares she seeks the front porch of the house in the cornfield. Barefoot, T-shirted, shivering and numb, she sucks in frigid air, fills her burning eyes with the piercing light of the high-slung, tiny, winter moon. She curses herself. Saturated with cold sweat and defeat, she fumbles in the pockets of her jeans for her cigarettes but is frustrated to feel only empty space. She wheels and starts as wind hisses behind her and lifts the hair from her neck. This gust of bitter breath sloughs through the rippling stalks of the field, a cheerless whisper that speaks of distance, loss, death.

Under her feet, the porch wood creaks, and she peers down through the cracks, tries to penetrate the void of the crawlspace. Does the basement extend out this far? Are her feet suspended by two-by-fours over its hollow, haunted depths? Can the arms of what lies below pummel through and seize her, pull her down? The wind has died, but her hair still rises on her nape. She will have to face the monster and leave this place forever.
***
A hungry dog trots along a wee-hours country road. It carries a misshapen bundle in its jaws. Suddenly it halts, drops the bundle, and sniffs at the faint trace of something of interest in the raw air. A gangrel creature, its skinny ribcage is advertisement of recent fallow fortune. Its long neck, slightly arched, widens gradually into its narrow shoulders. It growls, then howls soulfully; pauses, sniffs the bundle, then takes it up again. The hound then makes for the woods on one side of the macadam with a speed and strength of purpose unlikely in such an apparent vagabond. A half mile away as the crow flies, the brief sound of its belling is heard in a silent home in a street that abuts the woods and something—someone—shifts, rolls, and groans in the dark. The groaner speaks dreamily, responding to the ululation,

“Shut up, Morrigan…”

The sleeper snaps fully awake: suddenly alert, wary. He glances over to the sleeping form next to him, assures himself he hasn’t roused her. He strains his ears in the dark—silence. Had he heard a dog? He cannot be sure. Heart racing a bit, he settles back down and shakes his head at his own stupidity. Morrigan is a name that cannot be spoken in this house. Nor anywhere, anymore.

He dozes again, briefly. Then he arises, shaves, showers, hums a bit as he dresses. This square-jawed, blonde-haired man looks at his own image in the mirror briefly and approvingly before descending the stairs. He is a lean, tall 45 and his face is considered handsome in town. Jack Exeter is a businessman of some power in this small county seat, a position he enjoys, and of which he takes full advantage. He likes being a big fish in a small pond. The real estate market is depressed right now, but he was sharp enough to diversify when times were good. He manages apartment complexes, owns and charges rents on many of the strip malls that house small businesses. He flips houses. An entrepreneur, he has dabbled in deals which have come to fruition on both sides of the law and has been cunning enough not to get caught. He, his second wife, and stepdaughter lack for nothing. He takes the stairs to the kitchen two at a time.

A fit-appearing blonde, late 30’s, stands hip-shot at the stove. She gives a pot of oatmeal a final stir and moves it off the flame. Bare-faced and sleepy, she is alluring even in her plain white terry robe. Exeter casts a proprietary glance at his “trophy” wife, and a sense of what he has gained, and what he stands to lose, floods him. He moves to stand at her back and kisses her ear briefly, while he palms her behind. She turns her head and smiles, spoon in hand.

“Jack, you want some oatmeal? Lindsey wanted pancakes, but we have no mix.”

“Can’t—meeting clients for breakfast. Where’s Lindsey?”

He scans the kitchen for his stepdaughter and sees her breakfast place setting, empty.

“Just out back, I think…”

“What, by the old barn shed? Don’t tell me she’s out there messing with some stray, again? Jesus, Wendy.”

Wendy’s face falls, and she turns back to the stove, silent.

Lindsey’s love of animals and desire for pets has become an increasing point of contention between the teen and her new stepfather. The girl has always had a penchant for strays, in which Wendy and her father Dave (dead these past four years) have indulged her. Jack disapproves. Animals, dirt, shedding; Jack sees no reason to invite all this into an orderly home. Plus, who needs the drama that inevitably ensues when the injured cat, turtle, rabbit, whatever, runs off or dies?

In point of fact, Lindsey awakes this morning to the same brief howling that Jack heard, but instead of rolling over and going back to sleep, she dresses quickly in her laid-out school uniform and pads shoeless downstairs and outside into the chill pre-dawn. In the faint light edging the horizon, aided by intermittent beams from the barn shed’s motion detectors, she sees a skinny bitch nosing around Jack’s truck parked by the shed. The main house remains dark.

Quietly grabbing some food from the fridge, Lindsey exits the kitchen’s back door, and slowly approaches the dog, calling softly. She glances briefly behind her again to the profile of the main house. The upstairs lights have come on, and Lindsey knows the adults are now awake. The stray hesitates by the truck’s rear wheel and points her twitching nose at the barefoot girl. Lindsey entreats her again, now with some urgency:

“C’mere girl, it’s okay! Hurry up, girl!”

After a moment more of listening to the teen’s low-voiced appeals, the lost dog again takes up her battered bundle and approaches the spot halfway between kitchen door and the barn shed where Lindsey waits. Lindsey soothes and pets the stray, who is willing to trade her dirty mouthful of cloth for proffered bits of last night’s meat loaf. Lindsey picks up the abandoned dirty canvas that the dog has carried, taking some care to avoid muddying her clothes. It is a damp and mucky canine day pack. A dog can wear this like a jacket on rambles or hikes with its owner and carry its own water and food inside. In the growing dawn light, Lindsey checks the outside surface and superficial pockets for owner i.d. without success. An interior pocket bulges. Lindsey feels it, opens the zipper, and is amazed to find a large greyhound-shaped brooch, shiny and heavy. She brings it closer to her face. It looks like real jewelry, not a toy. She goggles, then slips the doodad in her uniform skirt pocket quickly as she hears Jack approach. She hides the pack behind her back.

Jack is tying his tie and calling his stepdaughter’s name as he enters the backyard. He sees the young teen in Catholic school plaid, petting and plying last night’s raw-boned canine traveler with left-over meatloaf. Jack Exeter stops dead in his tracks, and his heart skips a beat.

“No,” he breathes. He thinks hard and fast.

“No,” he says much more loudly, in authoritative tones.

“No, Lindsey, the dog goes. No more strays.”

Exeter’s wife walks to the kitchen door. The teen casts her a look of appeal and hugs the hound around the neck, now heedless of her clean school clothes.

“Mom? Pleease! Look how starved she is!”

The blonde smiles and rolls her eyes, turns to Jack.

“Where’s the harm, Jack? We’ll take her to the vet, make sure she’s got shots and doesn’t have fleas.”

“Wendy, no. I told you both before. No more strays.”

Lindsey casts a look of contempt at her stepfather and continues to pet the ragged thing. Its tail thuds wildly, and its frantic tongue laps are dodged by the now frowning girl. Jack considers and his expression is hard. What to do? Better to keep it, or have it wandering around loose? He gives the dog a serious once-over. No collar, muddy, skinny, no obvious injuries.

“Jack,” Wendy begins.

Jack holds up his palm in the manner of a traffic cop, stopping her speech. He is still calculating inwardly.

“One week,” he finally proclaims. “One week, to find it a new home, or it goes to the pound.”

“One week?” the teen whines, and slumps over the dog, aping despair.

“Lindsey, stop”, commands her mother. “Jack, thank you, one week is more than generous. Lindsey, listen to your father.”

“Besides,” now she casts a fond, pretty, smile at her husband, “In a week we’ll have that dog looking so sleek, and behaving so well, I bet Jack will change his mind.”

Jack shakes his head, turns on his heel, strides back into the house. Mother and daughter share a glance.

“Give me a week to soften him up, Lindsey. And please don’t argue with him, it just makes things worse. Now go eat something, the bus is coming. I’ll take the dog to the vet today.”

Lindsay stands up, brushes off her knees, picks up the filthy pack, and gives the dog one last pat before stomping past her mother into the house.

“I wasn’t arguing…and he isn’t my father,” she flings over her shoulder as she enters the house, letting the screen door fall closed so that it bangs loudly, like punctuation.

Wendy gathers some old clean blankets and arranges them in the barn shed to make a bed for the dog, who flops down on it immediately. She gets the remainder of the meatloaf that Lindsey had been feeding the dog from the kitchen fridge, puts into a bowl and takes it to the shed. The dog waits calmly until she sets the bowl down, then glances up at Wendy, almost as if asking permission.

“Okay, girl, it’s for you,” Wendy assures her.

The dog then pounces on the food. Wendy walks barefoot to the hose stand and fills another clean plastic bowl with water, lays it next to the food bowl. The dog has finished wolfing the rest of the meatloaf and is licking the inside of the bowl. By the time Wendy returns to the kitchen to have her own breakfast, both her daughter and husband have gone.
***
Marie arises from the sofa upon which she has dozed fitfully for the remainder of this bad night. She tries to wrap herself in the sofa throw blanket, but her fingers are awkward and stiff, and she just can’t seem to manage it. She gives up and walks again to the front porch of the house in the field. It faces east, and she can see the gray pre-dawn sky brightening and a small glow above the horizon which will become the sunrise. She remembers her nightmares, and hugs herself, shivering. Given the chill last night, the dawn is warmer than one might expect, but she still feels cold. Marie thinks again of Morrigan, worrying. Marie wonders if Jack will come to the house today. She has seen nothing of him since their fight last week, and despite everything, she misses him. The porch creaks under her feet, and she remembers again the mess in the basement.

“Oh, Jack,” she moans, “What am I gonna do now?”

***
Entering Cookie’s Country Corner, Jack looks to his usual table near the window. His clients have not yet arrived, so he buys a paper from the stand before seating himself in a scarred wooden chair. He lays his paper on the table and glances down at the headlines. The sun is casting warming rays on the checked plastic cloth and illuminates the front page of the town’s local newssheet.

“Hey, Mr. Exeter.”

Kay, waitress extraordinaire, greets Jack. Kay has been a fixture at Cookie’s for as long as anyone can remember. She doesn’t seem to have aged. She has been a big-boned fortyish redhead for a million years.

“Coffee’s comin’ up,” she booms, as she carries an implausibly high stack of plates to the back.

Jack reads through the business section of the paper, scanning for items of interest, and notices an ad for Mutual Insurance, whose building he owns. They are doing well and have asked if Jack will consider expanding the building with an addition in back. He may. They pay a hefty rent and hold his substantial insurance policies at no fee as well.

“What’ll ya have, Mr. Exeter?” Kay approaches, order pad at the ready. She speaks around her gum.

As Jack looks to the grease board behind the counter for the specials, he notices a police officer talking to Tony, the cook. Old Tony, in his usual stained white apron and flannel shirt has left his place at the griddle and come out from behind the counter to talk to the cop. Jack sees him speaking to a fresh-faced youth in uniform blue.  The cop looks barely old enough to drive, much less carry a weapon.

“Just the regular, Kay,” he tells the waitress while peering at the two men talking.

He glances again at his paper, then again at the policeman, and gives Kay a second look, distracted.

“What’s with the cops? Not a break-in, I hope.”

“No, no, just another drifter waitress.”

“What?”

“Well, this gal, Marie, has been working here, oh ‘bout six months now, not a local gal—remember her? Pretty thing, thin, hair so black it’s almost blue? She waited on you once or twice.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Jack mutters vaguely, “So what, she stole from the register?”

“Nah, just hasn’t shown up for work all week. Me and Tony didn’t think too much of it, you know, she probably just hooked up with some trucker and moved on, happens all the time, but when Cookie found out—well, she blew her top, got all maternal and worried, you know her—went to Marie’s rental. The landlord says they haven’t seen her, owes rent, all that. Cookie made a missing person’s report, so Aaron’s up here to talk to us all.”

“What do they…,”

Jack begins, and then sees his clients, Reynolds, of “Reynold’s Rent-Me Rentals” and Pete, of Pete Puccelli Ford, Honda, and Mitsubishi, approaching the table. Jack stands in greeting. Hands are shaken all around, Kay takes the new arrivals’ orders. The men eat and talk business.
***
Marie tries to cook herself breakfast and is shaken to realize she cannot eat. She should really go into town, or at least call Cookie, call Mike, her landlord, ask them if they’ve seen Morrigan, but finds herself just unable to pick up the phone to dial. Anyway, she cannot imagine speaking. What could she say that would explain the missed week of work and the late rent? Would Cookie and Mike even be able to hear what she had to say about why she’s let them down? Besides, she tells herself, her throat is still sore from the screaming argument with Jack, although it was a week ago. She doesn’t want to use her voice, although the pain now feels faded and distant, as if it belonged to someone else.

Jack. That seductive blackheart. She thinks of the way he courted her, capitalizing on her love of long rambles with her rescue greyhound, Morrigan. Jack and Marie spent most of their “dates” together in the woods adjoining the cornfield, hiking on her days off from the diner. Morrigan would dash about the trail, running rough circles around them as they walked and talked. Jack tells her he can’t shake the sadness left by the aftermath of his divorce, which has just been finalized. He finds it peaceful to hike with Marie and Morrigan. Jack says he can’t imagine hitting the single’s scene in town. Marie understands. He brings her to the house in the cornfield, his parent’s old place. He talks about fixing it up, moving in from the tiny apartment he inhabits in town. They usually met there for the start of their hikes, his truck and her crappy Chevy Chevette parked on the lawn in front of the cornfield.

The night after they first make love, he brings the blue canvas canine hiking pack. Morrigan loves it, carries it about, snatches it up and shakes it if she senses a walk is in the offing, stands still and almost proudly as Marie buckles it on her.

Then, some weeks after she agrees to help Jack fix up the house in the cornfield, he appears unexpectedly. She has been priming and painting the living room. He kisses her, despite her paint-spotted clothes, and hands her the pack.

“Quit this, and let’s walk,” he smiles.

She takes the pack and feels a lump. He has hidden the brooch in it. Her surprise. She remembers washing her hands hurriedly and examining the hound pin with amazement. The brooch is a real piece of jewelry, no costume-jewelry job, and large to boot. The dog’s shape is cunningly worked and surfaced with small diamonds. Its limpid eye appears to be garnet and the jewelry dog carries its own pack. She remembers the leap of her heart (“He really cares!”) and how she embraced Jack enthusiastically. He clearly understands the depth of connection with her Morrigan, who has been her companion during long lonely times.

Marie wears her gift pinned to her camo hiking vest each time they walk out, but unknown to Jack she keeps it in Morrigan’s pack when she’s out and about town, not wanting to display something so expensive and personal. She often thinks about how much it must have cost Jack, and giggles guiltily. He’d shit if he knew it wasn’t in a safe.

Marie’s thoughts turn to her present dilemma, and her smile at memory fades, leaving her face slack and pale. She’ll never be able to have Jack now. Grudgingly, she acknowledges that in the last two months, his initial romantic attentions, his interest in her, had begun to fade even before their last disastrous fight. She should have known better—what would a handsome, well-established man want with her? Stupidly, she had squelched her street instincts. Yeah, deep down she knew he was too good to be true, but, oh, how she had wanted him.

On the day she discovered via casual gossip in the diner with Kay and Cookie that Jack was still married, not divorced as he had told her, she just freaked. She was hooked and had been taken. The other two were chatting enviously about finding out that “Mr. Exeter” was planning a Caribbean vacation with his wife. Marie, naturally private, had never told her friends she was seeing Jack, who appeared at the diner for the occasional breakfast.

Thank God she was washing the grill at that moment; her face was lowered and hidden by her hair as her co-workers casually outed Jack’s deception. Marie’s stomach dropped and she could feel her face flush. Despite her shock, shame and anger, her body still thrills to the memory of the persistent, seemingly sweet way he had pursued her. What a bastard. Apparently, his true marital standing was well known in this town, as was his womanizing, but nobody had thought to put her, a newcomer, wise. Nobody knew they were involved. Would of been nice if Tony or Kay had said something earlier. Maybe they assumed she already knew or wouldn’t care about the philandering of a customer.

“Jesus, you guys!” she thinks silently.

Marie then slaps her palm on the porch’s splintered wooden rail and shakes her head, negating her own bitter thoughts. They couldn’t have known. Her current predicament is no one’s fault but her own. This is her mess to put right.

She cannot call Jack at work, or on his business mobile. Marie can only wait and pray that he will come to her. She walks out into the fallow cornfield and calls for Morrigan once again. Where is her dog? She must be starving.

Marie remembers Morrigan whining, trying to interpose her body between Marie’s and Jack’s while they loudly had it out. Marie’s last memory of her pet after the fight turned really ugly is seeing Morrigan fleeing with her hiking pack. She thinks with guilt about how long it has been since she last fed her poor dog.
***
Jack´s wife Wendy is at the vet’s. The rawboned hound trembles while in the waiting room, but remains silent and unresisting on the leash, looking around with trepidation at the rest of the noisy canine, mewing feline, and silently cowering rodent clients.

Doc Winters pets the dog soothingly once she is on the exam table.

“Hmm,” she says to Wendy, “She looks pretty thin, but basically healthy. About 4 years old, I would say. No chip.”

The vet looks at the dog’s teeth.

“Someone took care of her once, her teeth look great. Well, we’ll vaccinate her, do some tests, and give you some special food to fatten her up. Has she been coughing or throwing up?”

On the way out, Wendy, possessed by a rare defiant whim, buys a personalized pet collar for the stray. She chooses the name “Wanderer” and waits while the machine etches it, along with Jack’s name and address, on the copperplate.
***
Business having been concluded at breakfast, Jack is now at his doctor’s office.

“Well Jack, the tests are negative. No trace of any infection. Once again you have escaped your just deserts,” chuckles Dr. Nabler.

“Jesus, Jack,” he continues, “You really should just coat your damn thing permanently in plastic, then you wouldn’t worry so much. “

Jack laughs, buttoning his crisp white shirt. He adjusts his tie, and shoots his cuffs.

“What can I say, Doc, they just won’t let me be.”

The doctor smiles a tad uncomfortably and clears his throat.

“Look, Jack, none of my business, but Wendy….”

“Is fine, and doesn’t need to be bothered,” finishes Jack in a warning tone.

He stares down the older man, who looks away.

“Well, anyway, you really should schedule that cardiac stress test, Jack. I hear some skipped beats when I listen to your heart. You know…your smoking. Given your dad’s history…”

“Sure, doc,” Jack interrupts, “I’ll do it at the scheduling desk on the way out.”

Jack leaves without sparing a glance at the scheduling desk. He intends to head directly back to his office, but changes his mind when he sees Aaron Galloway, the young cop from the diner, talking with the security guard for the professional building. Jack approaches with a winning smile. He greets them both, and then turns toward the rookie cop.

“Morning Officer, you’ve been all over today, haven’t you?”

The young cop tips his hat.

“Yessir, Mr. Exeter, I’m on an investigation—Missing Persons.”

Jack can see the kid swell with pride at the importance of his mission. Jack hides a sardonic smirk. But then he notes the wet-ear’s earnest, determined expression, and feels a trace of fear, which manifests itself as a faint tightness in his throat. He clenches his jaw, which starts to ache.

“Any leads?” Falsely casual tone.

Officer Galloway shakes his head, his honest face puzzled.

“Not a one, Mr. Exeter. It’s like she just vanished. Her car is gone, her bank account ain’t been touched, there’s no trace at the airport, the bus station, or train, nor none of the hotels.”

The officer looks worried.

“I hear that the Chief thinks I ain’t working my cases hard enough. That’s why I’m canvassin’ so hard.”

Jack smiles, pats the youth condescendingly on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry Officer, I’m having lunch with the Chief next Tuesday, I’ll put in a good word. Can’t worry too much about what happens to some loose drifter gal. You just put your energy into protecting us solid citizens.”

He laughs to cover his own minor discomfort, and leaves.

***

Lindsey comes home from school in the afternoon, looks at the newly groomed dog lounging in the shed, hugs her.  The greyhound sure smells better than this morning. Remembering, Lindsey takes the brooch from her uniform pocket. It looks just like the stray. Mom is at the store, bookclub, whatever. Lindsey fingers the new collar, sees the inscription Wendy has chosen and frowns. Thoughtfully, she secures the brooch to the dog’s collar and continues to pet her.

Lindsey reflects once more on the thin cheeks and now-clean torso of her new pet, who is gazing at her with liquid eyes. She then reviews her opinion of Jack. Lindsey’s pretty face twists into a sneer. She finds the dirty remains of the pack where she hid them early this morning and hurls them vehemently into the big outside trash can. She closes the shed, latching it loosely, and heads to the house to do her homework.
***
The hours of daylight pass slowly at the clapboard house in the cornfield. At long-awaited nightfall, there is the onset of higher winds, and brief hail. A shower of sleet then changes abruptly, unseasonably, to a warmer rain that sluices down from the sky relentlessly. The cloud bank looks atypical for this plains state’s winter night. The temperature seems to be rising.
***
Morrigan/Wanderer is restless and shivers in the shed, despite the blankets piled there by Wendy. She whines, scratches at the latched shed door. The dog pauses. She cocks her head, as if listening to a faraway summons, and begins to bark and scratch more frantically at the weathered wood. The latch gives, and she is free. She bolts across the yard, into the woods. No one sees.
***
Marie cannot rest at all now. Perhaps it is her depleted, sleep-deprived state that makes the world seem so unreal. She is worried about Morrigan being out in this weather and has tried three times to drive into town to look for her, but the car, parked in the attached garage, will not start for her. She stands on the unroofed porch and screams the dog’s name into the wet darkness. She cannot even hear her own voice over the wind and rain. Water streams over Marie, but it cannot make her any colder than she is already. Marie’s heart leaps with fear, then then skips a beat in relief as she perceives a subtly darker shape bolt out of the woods and make towards the house at speed. It is Morrigan.

“Oh Morrigan, my girl, my good girl,” she sobs with relief, holding her arms out, but the dog shoots past her, enters the house through the open front door.

Morrigan begins to scratch frantically at the basement door. Marie is stunned. Her mind writhes in fear. She feels she cannot face this moment. She enters the house. Leaning against the wall for support, mouth open, she watches Morrigan worrying the basement door.

Marie calls to her, implores, “Morrigan, girl, stop. I’m right here.”

The wet hound pauses, cocks her head, whines, and sniffs at the jamb and the space between the bottom of the door and the floor. Morrigan never looks around despite Marie’s continued entreaties. She resumes the frenzied clawing. Marie approaches her dog, who ignores her. She pulls at the short wet fur of the dog’s neck; what is this unfamiliar strip of leather? It seems to take all Marie’s remaining strength and concentration to grasp Morrigan. Marie focuses on the new collar; she reads the inscription, registers the familiar name and address on the copperplate tag and sees the glittering hound-shaped brooch fastened there. Once she does, her manner and expression abruptly change. Her sad, fearful, confused look is replaced by a sudden angry scowl.

“He took my dog. Goddamnit, he took my Morrigan!”

She feels herself expand, heat up. Her depleted pallor begins to glow rose. Marie clenches her fists. She is flooded with feelings of loss alternating with a hot, new-found power. Her debilitating sorrow and befuddlement turn to furious resolve. This final, mundane outrage has broken the fearful immobility she has existed in for the last week. Marie is suddenly, completely, filled with rage.

This pallid apparition of a woman appears to enlarge. She flings back her wet head and screams at the sky. Morrigan startles, stops scratching. The dog tips up her muzzle and bells in concert with her anguished owner. A sudden gust surges through the house. The wind, which until now has been a low keening background to this scene, abruptly steals the show from the two wailing forms.

The storm front strikes in earnest. The wind rises sharply and accelerates. Its roar swells to the volume of a freight train. A huge, twisted finger is thrust down from the sky. The funnel appears in the field, barely fifty yards from the house. The air is filled with dirt, noise, small debris. Bolts of lightning briefly illuminate the sky and scene at chaotic intervals. Hard on the heels of each brilliant electric flash, terrifyingly loud peals of thunder pound the air. Most of the windows of the house blow out, carrying their shutters before them. The old wooden basement door shudders, trembles in its hinges, and is sucked in pieces from the house, along with all the ragged wicker furniture on the porch. Morrigan ducks the flying basement door, cringes, whines, and darts into the cellar. Marie follows.

With the wind howling and pulling at the contents of the basement, the smell is less bad, but Morrigan’s sensitive nose still twitches and runs. Papers, documents are pulled, swirling, from numerous cardboard storage boxes that line the basement’s north wall as their lids fly off. They whirl and twist in the turbulent air. These, as well as stacked rugs and chairs once arranged carefully in the far corner are wrenched away from their former places and man-handled by the vacuum of the nearby twister. Their wreckage swirls in the void. Pieces of paper, fragments of detritus, and shards of wood and glass crash against the walls or exit the basement via the staircase and the blown-out window frames.

Everything loose is being tossed and pulled by the storm’s power. Morrigan darts to the most distant, protected corner of the dirt-floored cellar, and cowers by the side of a mostly buried form. This barely perceptible mound, which had been entirely covered by earth, piled bricks, and carefully arranged ancient furniture, has been revealed by the chaos. The boxes and stacked chairs, footstool and couch, that had been placed purposefully above it have been tumbled by the tornado’s pull. Morrigan, panicky, begins to scrabble at the mound with her front paws. She digs frantically, and unearths a pale, limp hand, which she sniffs, trembling wildly. The dog is whining, but Marie is silent.

Marie witnesses. She stares, remembering. She remembers her first sight of this house, Jack’s clapboard “hideaway” in the cornfields, where they would meet and make love. She recalls his initial promises that this relatively remote love nest would someday be their home together, forever. Christ! She even started some of the repairs on her own! She relives in memory her growing unease as his interest then seemed to wane. Marie feels a pang. Momentarily, an echo of her miserable shock at discovering that Jack is a married man is revived.

In vivid recollection, Marie sees herself driving to the house in a rage, smashing the lock on the basement door with a hammer, seeking access to the one floor of the house that Jack restricts her from. She see herself tearing open “his papers” in the basement, seeking confirmation of his betrayal, and finding more, much more. These hidden financial records show the extent of his dishonest dealings and detail the “stashing” of Jack Exeter’s ill-gotten gains.

“Even a waitress,” she remembers herself muttering, “Can figure this one out.”

She winces inwardly as she recalls her stupid, angry, threatening call to him at his office.

“You get over here, you lying bastard, you double-crossing mother-fucker! Why the hell did you do this to me? I wanna see your face here right now, or I will turn your cheating ass in.”

Well, he high tailed it over, didn’t he? She remembers their confrontation, their fight, her screaming accusations. Then there were just her screams, cut short. She remembers his hands, raised first in denial, then in anger. She remembers the blows she dealt and those she received. She remembers his hands. She remembers the way they encircled her neck.

Marie approaches the partly buried body and the terrified dog. Marie kneels, touches the hand, the dead, familiar fingers. She then tries to take the brooch off Morrigan’s collar, but the quivering canine twists away, whimpering. As if deriving a boost of power from the storm, Marie manages to grasp the collar and pulls Morrigan, whining and protesting, out of the basement. The funnel is already moving off, away from the woods and towards the distant highway. As the noise of its passage abates, Marie commands the dog.

Marie kneels, cups the dog’s jowls so that Morrigan must look her in the face.

“Go to him, girl. Bring him to me.”

Morrigan obeys and shoots like an arrow towards the woods.
***
Back in town, the entire population is awake and in the streets, milling around in the aftermath of the storm. Several small twisters have touched down within the confines of and in the outskirts of town, but miraculously, there is only moderate property damage and no loss of life.

Lindsey is frantic, finding that the shed where the dog was housed is empty and tipped askew, door swinging. She cries in her mother’s arms in between hysterical calling for the newly-named Wanderer and abortive searches for the animal. The Exeter home itself is essentially untouched, but the yard is a mess, trees down, garden a wreck. A mangled bicycle is lodged in the roof of the garage.

Neighbors shout, assist each other, put out small fires, and rescue a few vehicles buried by wreckage. Tree limbs and leaves, paper, laundry, crushed small appliances carpet the roads. Officer Galloway’s cruiser, siren low, roof lights emitting whirling red and blue flashes prowls the streets, assessing damage, relaying messages and urgent needs via his handheld radio. He updates the small-town EMS system. An ambulance makes its slow way through a littered road to the hospital, carrying a few of the injured. Firefighters have set up Halogen lights powered by generator to illuminate this surreal scene.

Cookie has fired up her griddle using her own emergency generator, although it is 3 a.m. She and Kay, the latter in purple P.J.s and greatcoat, begin to distribute warm coffee and grilled cheese sandwiches to the firefighters, the cops, the homeowners who are assessing the damage, helping the victims. Jack Exeter is sweating with three of his neighbors, as they rope off and pull a fallen tree trunk from a sagging roof. Wendy watches, one hand over her mouth, the other arm around her sobbing teen. Suddenly a dog’s belling is heard, and Lindsey pulls away from her mother and peers towards the woods. The girl yells in relief:

“Oh Mom, there she is! Here girl, here, Wanderer!”

The dog leaps upon her, muddy feet marking her nightclothes, but Lindsey clearly doesn’t care. She caresses the dirty hound, who then pulls away, and makes a beeline for Jack Exeter. He ignores the barking nuisance, who then begins to nip at his heels. He wheels with a curse, then freezes as a flash of light from her collar winks in the glare of the rescue lights. He feels a surge of apprehension and is uncertain why. He kneels, now quiet and cool.

“Here girl, here, Morrigan,” he croons under his breath.

Morrigan approaches warily, and as he pets her in front of the witnesses, his now shaking hands finger the brooch on her collar.

A brooch–what?!! Did the dog have this collar when he left for work this morning? He pets the dog absently and stares at the tiny diamonds on the miniature jeweled hound, and recognition floods him. Where did he see this brooch last? Why, HOW is it on the dog’s neck? He thinks of the woman he gave it to, and he feels his heart lurch, sickeningly.

Suddenly pale, and with hairs rising on his muscular forearms and neck, he thinks, hard. He has never seen a collar on this animal, not in Marie’s crappy little rented apartment nor… back at the house in the cornfield. How is this possible? His world seems to shift ominously, and he feels a brief spell of vertigo. Someone knows. Someone has found the house. The house—the storm—his papers—the basement.

“Blackmail,” he thinks with sudden clarity and fury.

He looks briefly with suspicion at the young cop, who now is assisting an elderly man into an ambulance. Nah, the kid’s too green and transparent. He looks at his wife. Her face is open and bewildered. No. It’s someone else. Someone knows too much, and having learned Jack’s secrets, has sent this message, which is silently threatening everything he has worked so hard to have.

Jack Exeter leaps to his feet, now flushed, and dashes past his frightened and confused wife, who has witnessed his sudden change in attitude and facial expression.

“Jack, JACK! What’s wrong? Where are you going?”

He ignores her, slams into the house, and reappears with a 12-gauge shotgun in his hand. He jumps into his Ford Explorer, and explodes down the street, at much more than safe speed, dodging tree limbs and other smashed debris. He makes for the house in the cornfield.

As he approaches the darkened house his headlights illuminate the shallow crater left in the field by the twister, and Jack Exeter sucks in breath. His heart pounds, sickeningly. In the wavering glimmer of his high beams, he sees wet documents strewn over the field, the hedges, the porch. He sees that the house has been manhandled by the storm, and his stomach lurches. He imagines he sees faint light issuing from the blasted basement windows. The body! The financials are bad enough, but someone has found the body. The truck slides sideways in the mud as he guns the engine and aims the vehicle towards the porch. 

“Shit!”

The shade of Marie watches from the porch. Soon, soon, she can leave. Just one more thing to do. She glides for the last time from the porch to the terrible secret in the basement. She feels as if she is holding the breath she no longer has, as she stands next to the decaying form that once was hers. She looks down, concentrates on her rage, and dives back into the corpse.

Jack shucks the shotgun as he enters the house.

“I know you’re in here, motherfucker!” he shouts. “Don’t think I’m gonna let you ruin me!”

He charges down the stairs, and sure enough, there is an eldritch light about the place, although its source is unclear. He stops short at the bottom of the stairs. The basement has clearly been tossed, and it stinks of death, but appears empty. Unnerved, he slowly revolves in place, staring into every shadowy corner. The hairs on his nape rise.

“I know you’re in here, cocksucker! You won’t get out of here alive!”

Silence.

“Who are you? Show yourself!”

No answer, and so he makes a slow, tense, angry, circuit of the basement, finally ending up at the corner where he buried Marie. Just as he feared, the carefully disguised mound has been disturbed. The covering dirt, furniture, boxes, and ancient Persian rug are gone and her pallid hand protrudes. He can see the gouges in the dirt made by the dog’s claws.

Jack has been through the whole basement. He is clearly alone. He drops to one knee by the shallow grave, shotgun balanced on the other, trying to think. He runs his muddy hand through his disheveled hair, stares at the dirt floor, the dead hand, and wipes his sweating face.

Who is it? Can they be bought off? What is the motivation here, if not cash? He thinks of the many people he’s bilked, betrayed, and tries to think of one who has the balls, or the power, to turn the tables on him like this. He has so much dirt on the influential players in this town that none would dare risk exposure by going public. The powerless that he has used have been ground into submission or have fled.

“Who are you,” he whispers, “What do you want?”

Marie listens from within her battered shell and knows this is the question she has been awaiting. Harnessing the remains of her corporeal self, using the newfound transient power of the haunted shade, she forces the upper torso of the bruised and battered body up through the few inches of dirt which are now is its only blanket. Jack looks up in disbelief and horror. The body appears to sit-up, its gravel-pocked eyes open and sunken. The mouth hangs open. No sound emerges, but a familiar voice blasts through Jack Exeter’s frozen and terrified brain.

“Just you, Jack. I just want you.”

Jack Exeter stares at the corpse of the woman he killed, now propped up via some ghoulish mechanism he cannot fathom. His heart races, his clenched jaw explodes into agony, and a small, vital vessel in his chest spasms, closes, clots. Jack Exeter’s black heart gives one final terrified leap, and he collapses onto the makeshift grave. The corpse falls back under his weight. It no longer shows a trace of animation. There is perhaps the hint of a breathy, ethereal sigh, and Marie’s faint specter departs, forever.
***
Some weeks later Aaron the cop drinks coffee at the counter in Cookie’s. He speaks under his breath to Tony, the cook.

“Christ, the guy was totally dirty. I can’t believe it. He had millions stashed away in offshore accounts. Most of it sucked from all y’all—the people of the town he grew up in. Jesus!”

The green policeman shakes his head, a picture of innocence affronted.

Tony is scraping the grill.

“Not surprised,” the cook grunts, “Knew he was a bad egg. Feel kinda’ sorry for the kid and the wife, though…never knew anything, did they? What’s gonna happen to them now?”

“Well,” Aaron plays with the saltshaker, “She’s a real nice lady—class. Can’t figure how she wound up with him. She has some folks in California, and they’re flying there at the end of the week. They’re taking Marie’s dog. Is that weird or what?”

“Nah, ‘least they could do since her husband wasted Marie. Is it true? They found him next to her body?”

Officer Galloway leans forward, whispers conspiratorially.

“Worth my job to say, but he wasn’t just next to her. He musta’ been kneeling right by her when the heart attack hit him. Toppled right over on her. His face was right next to hers.”

He gags, hides it by shaking his head, takes some deep breaths.

“I still see it in my head sometimes. The freakiest thing you could imagine. He died laying right on her cold body. Maybe he was sorry.”

“Nah,” the older, wiser, man pronounces.

The cook wipes his gnarled hands on his spattered apron and eyes the young policeman.

“You better learn this now if you’re gonna be a smart cop. His kind is only ever sorry if they get caught. He got his just deserts.”

Paula Lyons, MD
8/15/2006