Forsaken - A Novel of Art, Evil, and Insanity Read online

  “What’s wrong?” Linda asked, walking in and sizing up the scene unfolding.

  “Ginger’s AWOL again,” Dan said.

  “What’s AWOL?” whined Tommy. “What does that mean?”.

  “Is it an aspression? Like dead?” asked Jessica.

  “It means missing,” Dan said, folding the paper. “Okay, Tommy, Jessica, I want you to check each room. Under the beds, closets, everywhere, okay? I’ll look for holes in the yard. I dunno, maybe she got under the fence or something.”

  Holes indeed. He found four already, all along the western fence that bordered on Marty’s yard. None, however, were more that a few inches deep and he suspected that Ginger had given up digging after realizing it required sustained effort longer than five minutes. She had, on her best days, the attention span of a toddler, something that had made even the most basic dog training classes a nightmare. He made a mental note to fill in the holes and continued the search the backyard.

  The box hedges tapered off, replaced by foot high ferns and patches of mint beneath that Linda had planted three years back and never seemed to die. The fence grew to a height of eight feet, and Dan stepped over the plants, following that redwood fence where Marty’s vulture eye had peered out from the darkness the other night.

  He scanned the ground and bushes until he came to Linda’s rose garden. The largest rosebush looked sick. It drooped, as if tired or unwatered, and gave off a sour fragrance. Small grey nodules grew along the base of the stalks like some sort of infection that tapered off six inches up the plant. The grey lumps were fattest at the bottom, a few as large as a cherry, all excreting a white foam. At the base a few small slugs and insects gorged themselves on the foam.

  Nearby, fresh dirt sat in small piles beneath the fronds. There was a hole in the ground, in that same spot Ginger had dug the other night, only this time it was no larger than a fist. The dirt was fresh and appeared to have risen out of the ground and then collapsed in on itself, like a sinkhole filling a void or a gopher mound.

  He saw tracks in the dirt. They were small, an inch long and three pronged like a lazy Y with a third line down the middle. They were spread out a few inches from each other, leading away from the hole. They were bird tracks.

  He followed them beneath the fronds until they continued on the red brick walkway. There, with each additional step, the tracks faded away on the brick. He glanced around the red brick, following the straight line he predicted the tracks would have made, walking towards the dining room window and the bushes beneath it. Sure enough, the tracks reappeared in the damp earth beneath the window opposite the rose garden, where they were joined by paw prints. He lifted the foliage and saw where they led.

  A small air vent led into the basement. It was old, made of metal screening no different than a screen door. It was covered, screws and all, in white paint from when the house had gotten a fresh coat decades ago. A patch of metal had given way to rust and disintegrated.

  A patch, Dan thought, just large enough for a small dog to squeeze through.

  Dust rose from the basement light as it flickered and grew warm. He hadn’t been beneath the house in nine months, not since the boiler had burst last winter, and now he remembered why. Every time he ventured down to the basement the dust and stench of damp earth shook the glass loose and threatened to grow into a full blow migraine. A category five tornado.

  A real fustercluck, Mr. Glass said.

  He turned the flashlight on as the redwood stairs creaked beneath his feet. The new boiler hummed and clicked like a hibernating beast and all he could think of were how many spiders might be lurking behind the corners or tucked into the holes of the unused wine rack. The basement was, as most basements eventually become, an oubliette, a forgotten tomb from their previous lives before suitcases and souvenirs were replaced by strollers and cribs.

  There was a chance, he thought, that if Ginger had gotten through that hole in the screen then she could be down here. It was a five foot fall from the ground level into that meter high crawlspace. A place littered with old mouse traps, an uneven foundation, and a dozen other things that stupid dog could’ve hurt herself on. She could be injured, or worse.

  He took an old golf club from the set Linda's father had passed down to him as a wedding present. “Treat my daughter as good as I treated these,” he had said to Dan as he sucked on a cigarette a decade ago. And then, eight years later, in a morphine delirium as the cancer gnawed away at him, he had told Linda to get the clubs back from that cock-sucker she was dating.

  “I’m sorry daddy, I think he sold them,” she had said, squeezing Dan’s hand as the old man coughed and wheezed.

  The crawlspace behind the wine rack tapered to a narrow height of a meter, and Dan wondered what kind of diseases he was breathing in from that stale air. The flashlight beam cut through the shadows, tracing the outline of old boxes and tools. A lawnmower, some folding chairs, a box labeled: broken clock, and a suitcase, probably now home to a nest of mice. And, far off, behind the junk, lay the hole in the vent where a dim shaft of light reached down into the bowels of the foundation.

  He wriggled further into the crawlspace. The dust tickled his throat and he felt phlegm building up. He pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth as he squeezed himself closer to the old suitcase. A brief chill passed through him as footsteps and laughter pounded on the floorboards above. The wood vibrated with each step, sending curls of dust downward.

  He coughed again, pulling himself closer to the pile of junk that lay between him and the shaft of light. He put the flashlight in his mouth, between his teeth, coughing and forcing his jaw to hold it steady so that he could use his hands to scoot deeper beneath the house.

  Then, he heard something. A sound came from behind the suitcase. It was wet, that of water dripping, perhaps from one of the old pipes. And behind it a faint tapping echoed out, something hard clicking against stone. A wounded animal, a dog perhaps, bones broken from the drop.

  He extended the golf club, first poking at the suitcase, then hooking onto a strap and sliding it aside in short jerks. There was a shape behind it, an abstract shadow woven into the darkness next to the old folding chairs. Ginger, oh God, he thought, and shined the light on it.

  It was not one shape but two, and they separated with a screech and flutter of movement. Dan shielded his eyes. Something small and wet and dark lay on the ground. The other shape was covered in a brown filth and blue spotting and it moved in frantic, startled spasms. And the smell, the smell was that of rot and warmth. His stomach fluttered and he tasted bile in the back of his throat and bit down on his lip. His fingers seized up, and for a moment they were raw and wet and he was locked away inside that old trunk, screaming into the darkness and clawing at the wood.

  No, he told himself. He wasn’t there. That had happened long ago to another person in another life. And with that thought his world swung back into focus. He could see the flashlight beam and hear the shrill sound the shape made.

  A grime-encrusted blue jay leapt about in the crawlspace. The creature had no wings, only two broken nubs that protruded from a dirty body and spasmed in useless circles. Its face was matted red and its beak held what looked like a small worm but Dan knew it wasn’t. At its feet lay the sideways body of a bloated, dead rat. Its lower half had collapsed inward forming a raw opening where maggots danced about, fat and happy. The bird let out a feverish squawk and pecked at another maggot.

  Dan felt the bile rise again and he could hear laughter echoing out from three decades back, that same laugh when the old trunk had locked him away, and he wanted to scream out, scream out that he was sorry.

  Mr. Glass cackled in the darkness as Dan fought back the filth in his mouth and gave one loud scream--

  “Fucking die already!”

  --and swung the golf club into the shrieking bird.

  Muddied feathers fluttered about the crawlspace as that insane shrieking was silenced.

  He put both the dead animals in doub
le trash bags, dropped them in the garbage can in the garage, and closed the lid on that whole disgusting discovery. He felt filthy. His shirt was ruined, covered in dust and flecks of odorous filth. A total loss, he realized as he washed his hands in the kitchen a second time. When Linda saw it she asked: “What happened to you?”

  “You don’t want to know, trust me.”

  What else could he say? Sorry babe, found a twice dead blue jay beneath the house having some rat chow-chow? Don’t worry, third time’s a charm. Besides, the other night he had been certain he’d felt its neck break between his hands, but obviously he’d done it wrong.

  Unless...

  Unless what? Mr. Glass asked.

  No. Any other thought led to the absurd, and he didn’t feel like considering Jesus birds at this early hour. Not with one missing dog, two distraught kids, and a semester of lesson plans to take care of.

  He drank two glasses of orange juice, one after the other, unable to kill the acrid taste in his mouth. By the time he finished and changed shirts Linda was loading the kids into the car for school. Tommy put up a fight, protesting, eyes red and heavy. Jessica sat in the back seat whispering to Mr. Bun.

  “Don’t worry buddy, I bet she just went for a stroll, like last time, right?” Dan said and smiled.

  “I hope so,” Tommy mumbled.

  Linda started the car, put her sunglasses on, and turned to Dan. “Will you make up some flyers? The kids have a half day, maybe we can put them up when you get home?”

  “Of course,” he said, feeling his phone vibrating in his pocket. “Have a good day at school.”

  His cell phone vibrated another two times, and then his home phone rang, prompting him to answer it without checking the caller ID. He had no reason to suspect she would call his house, she never had before, and his number was unlisted. Yet there it was, Karina’s voice, coming from the same phone his wife carried from room to room.

  His fury was only overshadowed by his surprise. Yet instead of apologizing, Karina launched into an immediate rage, accusing him of using her, abusing her, lying to her and exiling her. He found that last accusation rather accurate when he considered it. All the while he listened, fingers curling into fists until his nails dug into his palm, saying little more than the occasional: “I’m sorry.” And all the while the glass grew, barbed and heavy, behind his eyes.

  “If you’re so sorry, you’ll make it up to me this weekend,” she snapped.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, I can’t go to Napa,” he said, switching the warm receiver to his left ear. “I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

  “Why not?” she demanded. “Why not?”

  Dan sighed. “Something came up. Our dog’s missing, but that’s not the point--”

  A laugh, angry and desperate. “Your dog? Dan you knew I booked it, I told you on Monday. I can’t get a refund now.”

  “I never asked you to do that,” he said, and his eyes fell to the roses above the sink and the murky water in the vase where a thin layer of foam floated on the surface.

  “I don’t understand,” she whined again. “I came home from Europe for you, for us. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “I never asked you to do that either.”

  “Of course not. You didn’t have to ask because I don’t mean anything to you, right? If I did, you would’ve.”

  “What?” Her logic confused him and he had a pressing desire to slam the phone down no different than Tommy’s Nintendo.

  “You would’ve asked, Dan,” she said, voice taking on a frustrated tone, as if talking to a child. “Asked me to come home. But you didn’t, did you?”

  “Listen, let’s talk about this later, okay?”

  “Later?” she cut in. “Always later. When? Next weekend? Should I book an appointment? Or will your brats and that bitch have some soccer game?”

  He felt the words erupt, yet he didn’t even realize he had said them, merely witnessed them coming from deep inside with the same force the bile had surged forth with not an hour ago.

  “Listen you callous cunt,” he shouted. “Don’t you ever disrespect my kids or my wife like that again. Ever. Not after all I’ve done for you. Understand?”

  There was a long empty silence on the other end of the phone. He could hear her breathing as Mr. Glass burned white hot, a tiny supernova behind his optic nerves, and the beginning of another aura formed in the corner of his eyes.

  “You coward,” she hissed. “Fuck your kids, and you know what? Fuck you Dan. Fuck you. This whole thing was a mistake.”

  More silence. She might be waiting for a response, he thought, but he was determined not to give her one. Not this time. His harsh words had struck deep, deeper than he’d meant, and he didn’t want to let Mr. Glass speak for him a second time. He clenched his fist, and in the silence he realized why it was so quiet. Somewhere, far away in some dark room of her shitty apartment, she was crying.

  For all her maturity and self confidence, for all her talents and gifts, she was, after all, little more than a girl used to getting her way. And when that failed, she fell back on tears as blackmail. It was pathetic.

  “Jeez, Karina, come on.”

  “No,” she said in a soft voice, then a second time, calmer, collected. “No. You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that about your family.”

  He knew the routine. It was her schizophrenic version of good cop bad cop in a single body.

  “Don’t worry about me, okay?” she said in a numb voice.

  “Karina, come on,” he sighed.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and repeated it again, as if only to herself. “I’ll be fine.”

  A click signaled the end of the conversation and the line went dead. Dan studied his hand. His finger nails had left four little marks in his palm that were filling up with blood like crescent lakes on the surface of some alien planet.

  Your birds, professor, said Mr. Glass. Seems they’re coming home.

  Keep calm and carry on, Dan thought to himself.

  Inversion

  IT TOOK HIM a few minutes to whip up a template for a missing dog flyer. While Dan felt he was decent with words, he did find it rather difficult to describe their dog without highlighting her shortcomings. Puny, breathes odd, not very intelligent; all words he had started typing but soon deleted.

  Instead he noted that she was a friendly, easily attracted to food, and that two children dearly missed her. And that there would be a reward. He pondered adding a price, but felt it would be easier to negotiate with whatever party found Ginger. More importantly, he knew that whatever price he put, no matter how reasonable he felt, would ultimately result in him being called a cheapskate. “I’m glad their happiness is only worth fifty bucks,” he imagined Linda saying in his head among the mumblings of the glass, still smelting among his grey matter.

  He opened a kitchen drawer containing dozens of photos from over the years. Most of them were of the kids, one parent in the picture and the other behind the lens. Among them were copies of a professional portrait taken of the family two years ago. He studied his hairline, disappointed to find that it had receded further than suspected and had lost its brown undertone.

  He hated seeing a picture of himself, always had. Perhaps, he thought, because it never matched the mental image he had crafted over the years. Like hearing his own voice on the answering machine or reading a quote of his in an art journal. They were distant words by a voice he vaguely recognized as his own. It was why he felt more comfortable behind the lens than in front of it, why few family pictures contained him in them. Even the few that did, the photos that hung on the wall around the house, assorted celebrations of past activities, holidays, vacations only fun in hindsight, even they had been blocked out of his mind and blurred into the wall no different than the crown molding and wallpaper. They had become decoration, and little more.

  He flipped through the years, film prints giving way to digital, hairlines disappearing and the occasional wrinkle setting in, u
ntil he came upon the batch he was searching for, a series of Christmas time photos taken last year. Tommy had his Nintendo and Jessica was holding her dolls up as Ginger sat between them in one of the few shots where she didn’t turn and flee at the sight of the flash.

  Confused, Dan blinked as he studied the photograph.

  It was wrong. Very wrong.

  The kids, the presents, the tree, and Linda, they were all just as he’d remembered. But Ginger, she looked different. Her hair, even as a puppy, had been long and straight. It required little grooming, something the breeder had assured them wouldn’t bother Linda’s allergies.

  Yet the dog in that photograph did not have the same hair.

  Its hair was wired, unkempt, a seaweed bed that hung in uneven clumps as if it hadn’t been washed in years. Ginger’s eyes had always been soft and vacant, the glass stare of an imbecile. The eyes of that dog were milky, dark, and cold. Its teeth were uneven and stained brown, a sneer of spotted gums as if it had smelled a horrible odor.

  Dan rubbed the photo again, wondering if oil or something sticky had spilled onto it, but it didn’t change. The dog in that photo was a husk that bore no more of a resemblance to Ginger than a mummy bore to the living. He flipped through the photos, finding another one taken on a hike in the mountains outside of Santa Cruz last spring. There it was again, tugging on a leash held in Tommy’s hand while the green hills and lazy clouds sat frozen in a grey sky. And again, that same sick look on its face. The dog’s hair was thinning around its hindquarters, pink skin beneath a patch of fur on its tail. Its face was frozen in a similar sneer, cataract eyes reflecting the light back at the camera like a flash off glass.

  He pushed the photos aside, searching for more. And he found it. Another memory, another image of that diseased dog that he hardly recognized. He slid that photo aside as well. And another. And another. All absurd and twisted, and he saw the auras, finger-like and jagged, spike out from the corners of his own vision again.