The Narrows(114)

He had given this much thought, too. “I don’t know, hon.”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

He walked over to her, fishing around in the pocket of his jeans. “Here,” he said, handing her his father’s Zippo lighter. “I want you to have it.”

She looked at the lighter then looked up at him. Tears were already welling in her eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. You just take care of it, okay?”

“I will.”

“Thanks.” He slipped his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker. “You stay safe, okay?”

“I will. Are you leaving tonight?”

“I am. But you hear me about staying safe, right?”

“Yes.”

“Promise me.”

She spit in the ground and said, “I promise.”

Ben smirked. “That’s some habit.”

“You stay safe, too,” she said. “Don’t do foolish things.”

“I won’t,” he promised her…though he was already thinking foolish things.

“Go on, now,” she told him. “Get lost.”

He got lost.

6

At the farmhouse, he exchanged the squad car for the dusty old Packard that had sat idle in the barn for several months. It took a few cranks of the ignition to get the Packard started, but when it awoke, it did so like a lion rousing from a deep and restful slumber. He drove it around to the front of the house and popped the trunk. For the next hour, he loaded some items into the Packard’s trunk—some clothes, toiletries, his father’s war medals, some other items. Midway through packing up the car, Ben was startled by his cell phone ringing in his pocket. He answered the call and found it was Paul Davenport calling with the number to the Fish and Wildlife folks he’d promised Ben earlier in the week. Ben just laughed, wished Paul Davenport well, and hung up the phone. Then he powered the phone off so as not to be disturbed.

Before leaving the old farmhouse, he paused in the front hall and surveyed the place. The halls were musty with deepening shadows, the windows gilded with fading daylight. For a brief moment, he could see himself as a small boy playing with Tonka trucks on the living room floor while his father, old Bill Journell, sat in his recliner reading a newspaper with a pipe propped in his mouth. The image was so clear it was as if it were a stageplay going on right before his eyes. Watching it, Ben felt something solid and heavy clench quickly at his heart and squeeze. His breath came in labored gasps. He had stayed to take care of his father and that had been noble. But there was no need to hold stewardship over old ghosts.

Ben left.



7



Fifteen minutes later, at the intersection of Cemetery Road and one of the unnamed service roads that wound up into the hills, Ben stopped his car and rolled down his window to get a better look at the rubber vampire mask—surely some kid’s Halloween costume—that had gotten snared by a low-hanging tree limb. Ironic laughter threatened to burst from his throat. He drove quickly away, leaving the town of Stillwater behind him to die its silent death.





Epilogue


1


But she had lied to him. She wasn’t careful. Quite the opposite, in fact. The nights that followed saw her on the back porch while her mother slept soundly in the master bedroom, her grandmother’s silver cross in her lap, her brother’s UV lamp beside her, trailing an extension cord back into the house. The most recent storm had brought with it the frigidity of winter. Trees shook loose the rest of their leaves and the sky appeared gray and brooding no matter the time of day. Bundled in heavy sweaters and two pairs of socks, she spent every night on the porch, keeping watch.

One by one, the people of Stillwater picked up and left. Ben had been right. They blamed the storms and the flooding…but Brandy recognized a deeper, darker truth in their eyes. Even the folks who hadn’t been affected by the terror still smelled it on the wind, like dead things hidden and rotting. Deep coils of stink perfumed out of the ground. You couldn’t go anywhere in town and escape it. Anyway, there were no places left to go. The shops along Hamilton were all dark now and filled with water.

Once, Dwight Dandridge stopped by while she was sitting on the back porch. They talked for a while about nothing in particular and then Brandy went inside only to return with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate. Before Dwight headed home, Brandy hugged him. He shied away at first but then let her do it. Matthew’s name never came up.

Matthew…

He came back in the middle of one night, though he did not approach the house. He lingered just beyond the shrubbery that bordered the property, his pallid ghost-face seeming to hover like the moon. Brandy stood and walked halfway down the porch steps. She even called out his name, her voice dull and flat in the cold night. The sound of her voice appeared to have startled him, for he turned and rushed off through the Marshes’ cornfield. Expressionlessly, Brandy turned back around and reclaimed her seat on the porch.

He returned twice more. The next time, some brazenness urged him into the property where he wavered like a ribbon of steam in the space between the detached garage and the hedgerow. This time she did not call his name, not wanting to frighten him away. This time she just waited for him, sitting motionless in the darkness of the porch. He moved now with a humanity that recalled the child he truly was—the brother he was—and it hurt her heart to see it. Yet she was silent. She said nothing.