The Sleepwalkers Part 26

Everybody sets to work. Margie throws the bed sheets in a rusty was.h.i.+ng machine on the back porch. Ron digs into a closet and pulls out a vacuum that could use vacuuming itself it's so dusty. Mrs. Zikry putters around, picking up, tidying up. At first, her pace is slow, but soon she is accomplis.h.i.+ng as much as everyone else.

In the kitchen, Christine and Caleb find a frozen lasagna that seems like it might feed everybody, and they put it in the oven and go to work on the ma.s.sive pile of dirty dishes composting in the sink. Those plates that can't be salvaged get tossed into a big, black plastic trash bag; the others, Christine washes and Caleb dries.

"You handled your mom pretty well," Caleb offers.

"I'm used to it," Christine says. "Since Anna, she's been like this on and off. The next few days, if she can't sneak a drink someplace, she'll be in bed with the DTs."

"DTs?"

"Delirium tremens. The shakes. Alkies get it when they're going through withdrawal. It's a pretty common cycle around this household, unfortunately."

"I'm sorry," Caleb says.

"It's okay," Christine says with a little smile. "I'm just glad she's okay. Without me around to keep her off the bottle, I figured . . . When I was locked up in that place, I kept expecting to get a letter or something saying she died. I stopped her from killing herself, like, fifty times. I figured without me there to stop her, she'd go pretty fast. And then I'd be in that place forever. But she's strong, I guess. She surprised me."

There's a long silence.

"I'm sorry," Caleb says, "about Anna."

"That was a long time ago," Christine says.

"No," Caleb says. "I mean I'm sorry I dared her to go into that place. It was my fault she went in there."

Christine sets down the plate she's was.h.i.+ng and looks him full in the face.

"Don't tell me you've beat yourself up about that all these years."

He shrugs.

"That wasn't your fault. You loved Anna as much as I did."

Caleb doesn't say anything.

"Anna forgives you," she says. "And so do I."

He looks down at the sink.

She takes a handful of suds and slowly, solemnly places them on his nose-then laughs. He looks over at her, trying to keep some of his dignity, then finally breaks down and laughs with her.

He scoops the suds off his nose and puts them on her head. She just laughs harder.

Caleb is still smiling but suddenly sighs, serious again.

"How did you do it all these years? Knowing your sister was dead, taking care of your mother, seeing other kids disappearing? I feel like my life has been so . . . easy."

She shrugs. "Everyone does what they have to do. It's nothing special," she says.

"Well, I kind of disagree," says Caleb.

"Are you saying you think I'm special?" Christine says, batting her eyelashes jokingly.

"Maybe."

"Special Olympics special, or prom-queen special?"

"A little of both."

Christine gapes in mock shock.

She scoops some suds out of the sink and tosses them at Caleb.

He grabs her from behind and tickles her. She laughs and turns to retaliate, and before either of them know it, their lips and bodies are pressed together tight. They emerge, breathing hard, staring at each other.

Caleb takes a trembling breath and blinks, breaking their eye contact to stare at a can opener on the counter.

"I should have told you, I'm kind of seeing somebody," he says.

The light in Christine's eyes goes out, and in that instant Caleb thinks he would give anything in the world to take back the words he just spoke.

Except they're true. Aren't they?

Christine just smiles sadly. "Then that kiss'll have to be enough," she says, and goes back to was.h.i.+ng the dishes.

Caleb picks his half-soggy drying towel up off the counter and they finish their work in a silence that neither of them seems able to break.

Caleb replays Christine's last words in his mind, over and over. Then that kiss'll have to be enough. It isn't just the guilt that sets that awful auditory loop in motion, nor is it only regret.

He's trying to decide if the undertone he heard in her voice was sorrow, or well-concealed malice. After all, she was a sleepwalker too.

Candles are lit on the dinner table, and the fake flowers in the centerpiece almost look real. The trailer has undergone a miraculous transformation in only an hour. The trash, old whiskey bottles, and slowly rotting food have been bagged up and taken out. The carpet, once gray with dust, has been vacuumed and revacuumed. Margie found some incense among Mrs. Zikry's magic supplies and managed to exorcise the stench that permeated the little place. Now everyone sits around an old, round table. Patches of its laminated surface have peeled away like the skin of a leper, revealing bits of particleboard beneath. Lepers make Ron Bent think of Jesus, and so when they all sit down at the table, staring at the still-bubbling lasagna in the foil pan, the first thing he does is offer to lead the prayer.

"I was a preacher once, in another life," he says. "Not a very good one, maybe, but good enough to string together a quick blessing, if y'all don't object."

n.o.body does.

"Let's all join hands."

Ron looks around the table before he begins. At the far end, the kids, Caleb and Christine, sit next to one another. They sit close, but neither will look at the other one. It's a big departure from the way they had behaved together when they stepped into the kitchen an hour ago. That's love, Ron thinks, watching them, never sane. He smiles. Next he looks at Margie. Her wary eye is drifting to the witch.

Margie doesn't trust her. This isn't Ron being astute-he knows he isn't much good at being astute-Margie flat out told him as much while they were taking the trash out.

"Not too many people might know it, but she was in that asylum once upon a time, and not because she worked there, I'll tell you that much. She's got secrets," Margie had declared. "They fly around her as plain as a swarm of hornets."

Maybe so, but right now the "witch" sits very quiet and still, staring at her own lap. Hard to imagine what horrible secrets a woman like that might have. She's more like a paris.h.i.+oner at his old church than a servant of the devil. Still, you never know about people. . . .

Looking around the table, Ron smiles. Five strangers were brought together here, and despite the distrust, the uncertainty, the unfamiliarity, right here in this moment they might be a family. They might be the only family he'll ever have again. And he prays: Lord, You have brought us here in fellows.h.i.+p together, And we thank you.

We do not pretend to know What your will holds for us, But we know we are thankful for this food And for each other, And for the chance to follow The path you're leading us down.

May we stay on that path, Wherever it takes us, And may it lead us always to you.

Please bless Keisha, Bless Caleb's friend- "Bean," Caleb murmurs.

"And Anna," says Christine.

"And Ralph and Lee Parsons," says Margie.

"And my father," says Caleb.

Bless them all, Lord, And those whose names we don't know, And be with us, As we do your will, 'Til the end.

Amen.

All, even the witch, say amen.

"I think you might've been a better preacher than you give yourself credit for, Mister Bent," says Margie.

And they start eating.

In the paranoia of his mind, Caleb thinks he hears a far-off moan and a clacking sound, so soft it isn't real at all. It's the wind through the eves and the rustle of leaves, he tells himself; nothing more. And he forgets about it.

They eat and are full. The place is full of warm energy, of togetherness and antic.i.p.ation. Christine finally looks at Caleb, and he catches her eye and they smile. He squeezes her hand under the table. Just like that, they've made peace.

In Caleb's frantically churning mind, his plans of a life with Amber are dissipating like an approaching mirage. The question is, when they're gone what will take their place? For the moment at least, he has no answer. Too many things have turned out to be mirages over the last few days, and he's having trouble figuring out what is real.

"This is delicious," Ron says.

"My Anna loves lasagna. Wherever she is, I bet she's fat and healthy and eating it right now," Mrs. Zikry says, then adds: "She ran away."

Everybody nods. Christine seems like she's about to speak, but doesn't.

"A lot of children've run away," Margie says, "and pretty soon, maybe we'll find some of them and bring them home."

"Or die trying," says Caleb. It was meant to be a joke, but the smile turns sour and dies on his lips.

Instead of laughter, the clink of forks on plates fills the silence.

After a few minutes the eating is done, but n.o.body moves to pick up the plates.

The witch begins weeping.

Everyone watches her. They look at one another, but n.o.body comforts her. Christine just stares at her plate, in another world. Finally, Ron speaks.

"My wife," he says, "she was a strong woman. Way stronger than me. If I came in and tried to steal a piece of bacon before breakfast was done, she'd slap me so hard with her spatula that the welt would still be there after lunch. My brother made some racist comment one time about me being married to a black woman, and she threw a cup of beer in his face before I even knew what was happening. She was a hard worker, too. Started working at the age of twelve, 'cause her daddy made her. At sixteen she was out on her own and had her daddy locked up for beating her mother. She took care of her mom after that and her three little sisters; worked three jobs and went without new socks and underwear most of the time to keep them fed. When I met her, her sisters were grown and she only had two jobs. Her mother was blind with diabetes, and she took care of her. She worked nights at a truck stop and days at a plastics factory. I was driving trucks then, long hauls through South Dakota and Montana and Idaho, from Seattle to Chicago, then sometimes down to Atlanta. Her mother died the week we met and she went on the road with me. Nine months later, we were on the road, in South Dakota near Rapid City, in the Badlands, when our baby came. We had no doctors, no medicine, no nothing. She laid in the sleeper bunk and had that baby. It took all afternoon and all night. We sat all alone on the side of this lonely road in the middle of the night with the wind howling and dust blowing, and had that baby. And I swear to G.o.d, she never she cried once.

"I retired from trucking after the baby came. We got a little house, and I got a little job. Then Keisha, my daughter, disappeared. My wife started drinking. She started taking painkillers. More and more. She started looking through me instead of at me. Then she started looking through everything.

"On October twenty-ninth, four years ago, I came home from work and she was on the bed with the covers up to her chin, just like she was sleeping, as tucked in and comfy as could be. Except there was vomit all over. And her eyes weren't shut; they were open. She was the strongest person I ever knew. But not strong enough."

His words hang in the air, touching everything with their weight.

n.o.body says anything or moves for a long time.

Finally, without turning her tear-filled eyes from her plate, Margie says, "Mr. Bent, why did you tell us all that?"

Ron looks around the table. A small, wistful smile hangs on his lips.

"Because all of us, we're still here."

Everyone looks at one another. A few heads nod.

"We should get some rest," says Christine. "We'll have to wake before dark."

Chapter Seventeen.

SEE THE SLEEPING HOUSE:.

The door is locked, the windows shut tight. The afternoon sun that made warm squares of light on the carpet has waned to nothing. It is a silent place. See the master bedroom. Here, two middle-aged women sleep far from one another, each wrapped in her own troubled dreams. See the other bedroom, the room of a teenage girl, with its perfume and posters and books. Here, a young man sleeps. His LA Dodgers cap is tilted down over his eyes. He dreams of a man in chains, whispering "help me," and the dream makes him frown and mumble in his sleep. Now, look down the hall. See the living room. Here sleeps a man who some would call middle-aged, but who would call himself old. He snores softly. He is supposed to be awake, watching, but even the coffee, even the danger couldn't hold him. He tried pacing, tried watching TV (but found there was no TV to watch), even tried biting his lip. But in the end, the weight of his eyelids was insurmountable. He swore he would only rest his eyes for a few minutes, only for the time it takes to count to one hundred. But by forty, the numbers bled into silence, and the silence became everything.

Now, hear the creak of the floor. Hear the shuffling tread of slow, tender steps crossing the carpet, crossing the stained linoleum of the kitchen. Hear the breathing. It is deep and slow, but there is the faintest hiss as breath pa.s.ses teeth. The footsteps stop. Hear the brush of a hand on the counter. Hear a metallic rasping sound, followed by a soft, momentary ringing of steel. Watch, as the figure crosses the kitchen and advances, slow and certain. See her eyelids, closed tight as coffins, the eyes behind them thras.h.i.+ng back and forth as if trying to get out. Watch her cross into the living room. Watch as her footsteps stop at the couch where the old man sleeps. Watch as the girl, the sleepwalking girl, suddenly makes a hideous, rage-warped face and jerks back the long, long carving knife.

Listen very, very closely, and in the bedroom, in the boy's dream, you might hear the man in chains screaming "wake up!'"

And Caleb does, and rolls over.

And in the living room, Ron Bent opens his eyes just in time to see the mercurial streak as the knife blade speeds toward his face.

He s.n.a.t.c.hes her tiny wrist in his hand.

The killing point of the blade quivers an inch above his left eye.

"Christine!" screams Caleb, just entering the room. "Wake up!"

She only snarls, jerks free of Ron, and raises the knife again.

Ron can hardly believe her strength, can hardly digest the nightmare image hovering over him. Shocked, he doesn't utter a sound.

When the knife comes down a second time, he doesn't know if he'll be able to stop it.

"Christine!" Caleb yells again, as behind the apparition of a girl, Margie and Mrs. Zikry rush into the room and stand in the doorway, still groggy with sleep. Christine snarls again, and the knife blade falls, bringing death on its tip.