Текст книги "Bird box"

Автор книги: Josh Malerman

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

thirty-four

Malorie is in the upstairs bathroom. It is late and the house is silent. The housemates are sleeping.

She is thinking of Gary’s briefcase.

Tom told her to be more of a leader in his absence. But the briefcase is bothering her. Just like Don’s sudden interest in Gary bothers her. Just like everything Gary says in his grandiose, artificial way.

Snooping is wrong. When people are forced to live together, their privacy is essential. But isn’t this her duty? In Tom’s absence, isn’t it up to her to find out if her feelings are right?

Malorie turns her ear to the hall. There is no movement in the house. Exiting the bathroom, she turns toward Cheryl’s room and sees the shape of her body, resting. Peering into Olympia’s room, she hears her softly snoring. Quietly, Malorie descends the stairs, her hand on the railing.

She goes to the kitchen and turns the light on over the stove. It is dim and hums softly. But it’s enough. Entering the living room, Malorie sees Victor’s eyes looking back at her. Felix is asleep on the couch. The space on the floor usually occupied by Tom is vacant.

Passing through the kitchen, she approaches the dining room. The stove’s muted light reaches just far enough so that she can see Gary’s body lying on the floor. He’s on his back, asleep.

She thinks.

The briefcase leans against the wall, within arm’s reach of his body.

Softly, Malorie treads across the dining room. Floorboards creak under her weight. She stops and stares intently at his bearded, gaping mouth. He wheezes a bit, steady and slow. Holding her breath, she takes a final step toward him and stops. Hovering above him, she watches closely without moving.

She kneels.

Gary snorts. Her heart flutters. She waits.

To get the briefcase she must reach across his chest. Her arm dangles inches from his shirt as he slumbers. Her fingers grasp the handle when he snorts again. She turns.

He is staring at her.

Malorie freezes. She scans both of his eyes.

She exhales softly. His eyes are not open. Shadows fooled her.

Swiftly, she lifts the briefcase, rises, and leaves the room.

At the cellar door, she stops and listens. She hears no movement from the dining room. The cellar door opens quietly and slowly, but she can’t help the whine of the hinges. It sounds louder than it usually does. As if the whole house is slowly creaking open.

And with just enough room to enter, she slips inside. The house is silent again.

She slowly descends the stairs down to the dirt floor.

She’s nervous; it takes her too long to find the string for the lightbulb. When she does, the room gushes with bright yellow light. Too bright. Like it might wake Cheryl, sleeping two floors above.

Glancing around the room, she waits.

She can hear her own labored breathing. Nothing else.

Her body aches. She needs to rest. But right now, she wants only to see what Gary brought with him.

Stepping to the wooden stool, she sits.

She clicks opens the briefcase.

Inside she sees a worn toothbrush.

Socks.

T-shirts.

A dress shirt.

Deodorant.

And papers. A notebook.

Malorie looks to the cellar door. She listens for footsteps. There are none. She pulls the notebook out from under the clothes and sets the briefcase on the ground.

The notebook has a clean, blue cover. The edges are not bent. It’s as if Gary has kept it, preserved it—in the best condition he could.

She opens it.

And reads.

The handwriting is so exact that it frightens her. It’s meticulously crafted. Whoever wrote it did so with passion. With pride. As she flips through the pages, she sees some sentences are written traditionally, from left to right, others are written in the opposite direction from right to left. Still others, deeper into the notebook, begin at the top of the page and walk down. By the end, the sentences spiral neatly, still perfectly crafted, creating odd designs and patterns, made of words.

To know the ceiling of man’s mindis to know the full power of these creatures. If it’s a matter of comprehension, then surely the results of any encounter with them must differ greatly between two men. My ceiling is different from yours. Much different from the monkeys in this house. The others, engulfed as they are in hyperbolic hysteria, are more susceptible to the rules we’ve ascribed the creatures. In other words, these simpletons, with their childish intellects, will not survive. But someone like myself, well, I’ve already proven my point.

Malorie flips the page.

What kind of a man cowers when the end of the world comes? When his brothers are killing themselves, when the streets of suburban America are infested with murder . . . what kind of man hides behind blankets and blindfolds? The answer is MOST men. They were told they would go mad. So they go mad.

Malorie looks to the cellar stairs. The light from the stove shows through the thin slit at the bottom of the cellar door. She thinks she should have turned it off. She thinks about doing it now. Then she flips the page.

We do it to ourselves we do it to ourselves we DO IT to OURSELVES. In other words (make note of this!): MAN IS THE CREATURE HE FEARS.

It’s Frank’s notebook. But why does Gary have it?

Because he wrote it of course.

Because, Malorie knows, Frank didn’t tear down the drapes at Gary’s old place.

Gary did.

Malorie stands, her heart racing.

Tom isn’t home. Tom is on a three-mile walk to his house.

She stares at the foot of the cellar door. Light from the stove. She expects shoes to suddenly obscure it. She looks to the shelves for a weapon. If he comes, what can she kill him with?

But no shoes obscure the light, and Malorie brings the notebook closer to her face. She reads.

Rationally speaking, and in the interest of proving this to them, I’ve no choice. I will write this a thousand times until I convince myself to do it. Two thousand. Three. These men deny discourse. Only proof will change them. But how to prove it to them? How to make them believe?

I will remove the drapes and unlock the doors.

In the margins there are numbered notes and corresponding numbers are written painstakingly across the top. Here is note 2,343. Here is 2,344. Ceaseless, endless, brutal.

Malorie turns the page.

A noise comes from upstairs.

She looks to the door. She’s afraid to blink, to move. She waits and stares.

Her eyes on the door, she reaches for the briefcase and slips the notebook back under Gary’s things. Is it facing the right way? Was this how he had it?

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know.

She closes the briefcase and pulls the lightbulb’s string.

Malorie closes her eyes and feels the cool earth beneath her feet. She opens her eyes. Absolute blackness is cut only by the stove light from under the cellar door.

Malorie watches it, waiting.

She crosses the cellar, her eyes adjusting to the darkness as she climbs the stairs carefully and presses her ear against the door.

She listens, breathing erratically. The house is silent once again.

Gary is standing at the other end of the kitchen. He is watching the cellar door. When you open it, he will greet you.

She waits. And waits. And hears nothing.

She opens the door. The hinge creaks.

Briefcase in hand, Malorie’s eyes dart into the kitchen. The silence is too loud.

But nobody is there. No one is waiting for her.

Hand on her belly, she squeezes herself through the doorframe and shuts the door behind her.

She looks to the living room. To the dining room.

To the living room.

To the dining room.

On the tips of her toes, she passes through the kitchen and enters the dining room at last.

Gary is still on his back. His chest rises and falls. He groans softly.

She approaches. He moves. She waits.

He moved . . .

It was only his arm.

Malorie watches him, staring at his face, his unopened eyes. Hastily, she kneels over his body, inches from his skin, and places the briefcase back against the wall.

Is this the way it was facing?

She leaves it. Standing, she rushes out of the room. In the kitchen, in the glow of the light, someone’s eyes meet hers.

Malorie freezes.

It’s Olympia.

“What are you doing?” Olympia whispers.

“Nothing,” she says breathlessly. “Thought I left something in there.”

“I had a terrible dream,” Olympia says. Malorie is walking toward her, reaching for her. She leads Olympia back upstairs. They take them together. Once at the top, Malorie looks back down at the staircase.

“I have to tell Tom,” she says.

“About my dream?”

Malorie looks at Olympia and shakes her head.

“No. No. I’m sorry. No.”

“Malorie?”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

“Olympia. I need Tom.”

“Well, he’s gone.”

Malorie stares at the foot of the stairs. The stove light is still on. Enough of it splashes across the living room’s entrance that if someone were to enter the kitchen from the dining room, she’d be able to see their shadow.

She is staring fervently into the dim room. Waiting. For the shadow. Certain it’s coming.

As she watches, she thinks of what Olympia just said.

Tom is gone.

She thinks of the house as one big box. She wants out of this box. Tom and Jules, outside, are still in this box. The entire globe is shut in. The world is confined to the same cardboard box that houses the birds outside. Malorie understands that Tom is looking for a way to open the lid. He’s looking for a way out. But she wonders if there’s not a second lid above this one, then a third above that.

Boxed in, she thinks. Forever.

thirty-five

It has been a week since Tom and Jules left for the three-mile walk with the huskies. More than anything, right now, Malorie wants them home. She wants to hear a knock at the door and to feel the relief of having them back again. She wants to hear what they encountered and see what they’ve brought back. She wants to tell Tom what she read in the cellar.

She did not go back to sleep last night. In the darkness of her bedroom, she thought only about Gary’s notebook. She is in the foyer now. Hiding, it seems, from the rest of the house.

She can’t tell Felix. He might do something. He would say something. Malorie wants Tom and Jules here in case he does. Felix would need them.

Who knows what Gary is capable of doing. What he’s done.

She can’t talk to Cheryl. Cheryl is fiery and strong. She gets angry. She would do something before Felix would.

Olympia would only be more scared.

She can’t talk to Gary. She won’t. Not without Tom.

But, despite the change in his affiliation, despite his unpredictable moods, Malorie thinks maybe she can talk to Don.

There is a goodness in him, she thinks. There always has been.

Gary has been the devil on Don’s shoulder for weeks. Don needed someone like this in the house. Someone who sees the world more like him. But couldn’t Don’s skepticism prove to be helpful here? Hasn’t he thought, in all his talks with Gary, that something might be wrong with the newcomer?

Gary sleeps with the briefcase within arm’s reach. He cares about it. Cares about and believes the writings inside.

Everything in this new world is harsh, she thinks, but nothing so much as her discovering Gary’s notebook while Tom is away.

He could be away for a long time.

Stop it.

Forever.

Stop it.

He could be dead. They could have been killed in the street right outside. The man you’re waiting for could be dead a week, just a lawn away.

He’s not. He’ll return.

Maybe.

He will.

Maybe.

They mapped it out with Felix.

What does Felix know?

They all did it together. Tom wouldn’t risk it unless he knew he had a chance to make it.

Remember the video George watched? Tom is a lot like George.

STOP!

He is. He idolized the man. And what about the dogs?

We don’t know that dogs are affected.

No. But they could be. Can you imagine what it would be like? A dog going stark mad?

Please . . . no.

Necessary thoughts. Necessary visions. Tom might not come back.

He will he will he will . . .

And if he doesn’t, you’ll have to tell someone else.

Tom’s coming back.

It’s been a week.

HE’S COMING BACK!

You can’t tell Gary. Talk to someone else first.

Don.

No. No. Not him. Felix. Don will kill you.

What??

Don has changed, Malorie. He’s different. Don’t be so naive.

He wouldn’t hurt us.

Yes. He would. He’d take the garden axe to you all.

STOP!!

He doesn’t care about life. He told you to blind your baby, Malorie.

He wouldn’t hurt us.

He would. Talk to Felix.

Felix will tell everyone.

Tell him not to. Talk to Felix. Tom may not come back.

Malorie leaves the foyer. Cheryl and Gary are in the kitchen. Gary is at the table, sitting, scooping pears from a can.

“Good afternoon,” he says, in that way he has of making it sound like he’s responsible for the good afternoon.

Malorie thinks he can tell. She thinks he knows.

He was awake he was awake he was awake.

“Good afternoon,” she says. She walks into the living room, leaving him.

Felix is sitting by the phone in the living room. The map is open on the end table.

“I don’t understand,” he says, confused. Felix does not look well. He hasn’t been eating as much. The assurances he gave Malorie a week ago no longer exist.

“It’s such a long time, Malorie. I know Tom would know what to do out there—but it’s such a long time.”

“You need to think about something else,” Cheryl says, peering her head around the corner. “Seriously, Felix. Think about something else. Or just go outside without a blindfold. Either way you’re driving yourself mad.”

Felix exhales loudly and runs his fingers through his hair.

She can’t tell Felix. He’s losing something. He’s lost something. His eyes are dull. He’s losing sensibility, thought. Strength.

Without a word, Malorie leaves him. She passes Don in the hall. The words, what she’s discovered, come to life within her. She almost speaks.

Don, Gary is no good. He’s dangerous. He has Frank’s notebook in his briefcase.

What, Malorie?

Just what I said.

You were snooping? Going through Gary’s things?

Yes.

Why are you coming to me with this?

Don, I just need to tell someone. You understand that, don’t you?

Why didn’t you just ask Gary? Hey, Gary!

No. She can’t tell Don. Don has lost something, too. He might get violent. Gary could, too.

One shove, she thinks, and you lose the baby.

She imagines Gary at the top of the cellar stairs. Her broken, bleeding body crumpled at the bottom.

You like reading in the cellar, DO YOU?? Then die down there with your child.

Behind her, she hears all the housemates are in the living room. Cheryl is talking to Felix. Gary is talking to Don.

Malorie turns toward their voices and approaches the living room.

She is going to tell them all.

When she enters the room, her body feels like it’s made of ice. Melting. Like pieces of herself fall away and sink under the unbearable pressure of what’s to come.

Cheryl and Olympia are on the couch. Felix waits by the phone. Don is in the easy chair. Gary stands, facing the blanketed windows.

As she opens her mouth, Gary slowly looks over his shoulder and meets her eyes.

“Malorie,” he says sharply, “is something on your mind?”

Suddenly, clearly, Malorie realizes that everyone is staring at her. Waiting for her to speak.

“Yes, Gary,” she says. “There is.”

“What is it?” Don asks.

The words are stuck in her throat. They climb up like the legs of a millipede, reaching for her lips, looking to get out at last.

“Does anyone remember Gary’s—”

She stops. She and the housemates turn toward the blankets.

The birds are cooing.

“It’s Tom,” Felix says desperately. “It must be!”

Gary looks into Malorie’s eyes again. There is a knock at the front door.

The housemates move fast. Felix rushes to the front door. Malorie and Gary remain.

He knows he knows he knows he knows he knows.

When Tom calls out, Malorie is trembling with fear.

He knows.

Then, having heard Tom’s voice, Gary leaves her and heads to the foyer.

Once the questions have been asked and the housemates have their eyes closed, Malorie hears the front door open. The cool air rushes in, and with it the reality of how close Malorie just came to confronting Gary without Tom in the house.

Dogs paws on the foyer tile. Boots. Something smacks against the doorframe. The front door closes quickly. There’s the sound of the broomsticks scratching the walls. Tom speaks. And his voice is deliverance.

“My plan was to call you guys from my house. But the fucking phone was out.”

“Tom,” Felix says, manic but weak. “I knew you guys would do it. I knew it!”

When Malorie opens her eyes, she doesn’t think about Gary. She doesn’t see the perfectly manicured letters that wait in his briefcase.

She sees only that Tom and Jules are home again.

“We raided a grocery store,” Tom says. The words sound impossible. “Someone had been there before. But we got a lot of good stuff.”

He looks tired, but he looks good.

“The dogs worked,” he says. “They led us.” He is proud and happy. “But I got something from my house that I hope will help us even more.”

Felix helps him with his duffel bag. Tom unzips it and removes something. Then he lets it fall to the foyer floor.

It’s a phone book.

“We’re going to call every number in here,” he says. “Every single one. And somebody is going to answer.”

It’s only a phone book, but Tom has turned it into a beacon.

“Now,” Tom says. “Let’s eat.”

The others excitedly prepare the dining room. Olympia gets the utensils. Felix fills glasses with water from the buckets.

Tom is back.

Jules is back.

“Malorie!” Olympia calls. “It’s canned crabmeat!”

Malorie, caught somewhere between two worlds, enters the kitchen and begins helping with dinner.

thirty-six

Someone is following them.

There is no use asking herself how much farther they have to go. She doesn’t know when she will hear the recorded voice that tells her she’s arrived. She doesn’t know if it still exists. Now, she only paddles, she only perseveres.

An hour ago, they passed what sounded like lions engaged in battle. There were roars. Birds of prey screech threats from the sky. Things growl and snort from the woods. The river’s current is moving faster. She remembers the tent Tom and Jules found in the street outside their house. Could there be something like that, so astonishingly out of place, here, on the river? Could they crash into it . . . now?

Out here, she knows, anything imagined is possible.

But right now, it is something much more concrete that worries her.

Someone is following them. Yes, the Boy heard it, too.

A phantom echo. A second rowing, in step with her own.

Who would do it? And if they meant to harm her and the children, why didn’t they do it when she was passed out?

Is it someone escaping their home as well?

“Boy,” she says quietly, “tell me what you can about them.”

The Boy is listening.

“I don’t know, Mommy.”

He sounds ashamed.

“Are they still there?”

“I don’t know!”

“Listen.”

Malorie considers stopping. Turning. Facing the noise she hears behind them.

The recording will be playing on a loop. You’ll hear it. It’s loud. Clear. And when you do, that’s when you’ll have to open your eyes.

What follows them?

“Boy,” she says again. “Tell me what you can about them.”

Malorie stops rowing. Water rushes around them.

“I don’t know what it is,” he says.

Still, Malorie waits. A dog barks from the right bank. A second bark answers.

Wild dogs, Malorie thinks. More wolves.

She begins paddling again. She asks the Boy again what he hears.

“I’m sorry, Mommy!” he yells. His voice is cracked with tears. Shame.

He doesn’t know.

It has been years since the Boy wasn’t able to identify a sound. What he hears is something he’s never heard before.

But Malorie believes he can still help.

“How far away are they?” Malorie asks.

But the Boy is crying.

“I can’t do it!”

“Keep your voice down!” she hisses.

Something grunts from the left bank. It sounds like a pig. Then another one. And another.

The river feels too thin. The banks too close.

Does something follow them?

Malorie rows.

thirty-seven

For the first time since arriving at the house, Malorie knows something the others don’t.

Tom and Jules have just returned. As the housemates prepared dinner, Tom brought the new stock of canned goods to the cellar. Malorie met him down there. Maybe Gary kept the notebook because he wanted to study Frank’s writing. Or maybe he wrote it himself. But Tom needed to know. Now.

In the cellar light, he looked tired but triumphant. His fair hair was dirty. His features looked more aged than the first time she was down here with him. He was losing weight. Methodically, he removed cans from his and Jules’s duffel bags and set them on the shelves. He began talking about what it was like inside the grocery store, the stench of so much rotten food, when Malorie found her opportunity.

But just when she did, the cellar door opened.

It was Gary.

“I’d like to help you if I can,” he said to Tom from the top of the stairs.

“All right,” Tom said. “Come on down then.”

Malorie exited as Gary reached the dirt floor.

Now everybody is seated at the dining room table. And Malorie is still looking for her opportunity.

Tom and Jules describe their week slowly. The facts are incredible, but Malorie’s mind is fixed on Gary. She tries to act normal. She listens to what they say. Each minute that passes is another in which Tom doesn’t know that Gary may be a threat to the rest of them.

It almost feels like she and the others are intruding on Gary’s space. Like Gary and Don had the decency to invite them into their dining room, their favorite place for exchanging whispered words. The two have spent so much time in here that it smells of them. Would they have joined the group if dinner was served in the living room? Malorie doesn’t think so.

As Tom describes walking three miles blindfolded, Gary is affable, talkative, and inquisitive. And every time he opens his mouth Malorie wants to yell at him to stop. Come clean first, she wants to say.

But she waits.

“Would you say then,” Gary says, his mouth full of crab, “that you are now convinced animals are not affected?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” Tom says. “Not yet. Maybe we just didn’t pass anything for them to see.”

“That’s unlikely,” Gary says.

Malorie almost screams it.

Tom then announces he has another surprise for everyone.

“Your duffel bag is a veritable clown car,” Gary says, smiling.

When Tom returns, he’s carrying a small brown box. From it, he pulls forth eight bicycle horns.

“We got these at the grocery store,” he says. “In the toy aisle.”

He hands them out.

“Mine has my name on it,” Olympia says.

“They all do,” Tom says. “I wrote them, blindfolded, with a Sharpie.”

“What are they for?” Felix asks.

“We’re inching toward a life of spending more time outside,” Tom answers, sitting down. “We can signal one another with these.”

Suddenly, Gary honks his horn. It sounds like a goose. Then it sounds like geese, as everyone honks their horns chaotically.

The circles under Felix’s eyes stretch as he smiles.

“And this,” Tom says, “is the grand finale.” He reaches into his duffel bag and pulls forth a bottle. It’s rum.

“Tom!” Olympia says.

“It’s the real reason I wanted to go back to my house,” he jokes.

Malorie, listening to the housemates laugh, seeing their smiling faces, can stand it no longer.

She stands up and slams her palms on the table.

“I looked through Gary’s briefcase,” she says. “I found the notebook he told us about. The one about tearing the blankets down. The one he said Frank took with him.”

The room goes silent. Every housemate is looking at her. Her cheeks are red with heat. Sweat prickles her hairline.

Tom, still holding the bottle of rum, studies Malorie’s face. Then he slowly turns to Gary.

“Gary?”

Gary looks to the tabletop.

He’s buying time, Malorie thinks. The fucker is buying time to think.

“Well,” he says, “I hardly know what to say.”

“You looked through someone else’s things?” Cheryl says, rising.

“I did. Yes. I know that violates the rules of the house. But we need to talk about what I found.”

The room is silent again. Malorie is still standing. She feels electric.

“Gary?” Jules pushes.

Gary leans back in his chair. He breathes deep. He crosses his arms over his chest. Then he uncrosses them. He looks serious. Annoyed. Then he grins. He stands up and goes to the briefcase. He brings it back and sets it on the table.

The others are staring at the briefcase, but Malorie is watching Gary’s face.

He snaps the case open, then pulls forth the notebook.

“Yes,” Gary says. “I do have it on me. I do have Frank’s notebook.”

“Frank’s?” Malorie repeats.

“Yes,” Gary says, turning toward her. Then, maintaining his theatrical, gentlemanly way of speaking, he adds, “You little snoop.”

Suddenly, everybody is talking at once. Felix is asking for the notebook. Cheryl wants to know when Malorie found it. Don is pointing his finger at Malorie and yelling.

In the chaos, Gary, still looking at Malorie, says, “You paranoid pregnant whore.”

Jules is upon him. The dogs are barking. Tom gets between them. He is yelling at everyone to stop. Stop it. Malorie does not move. She stares at Gary.

Jules relents.

“She needs to explain this right now,” Don explodes. He has leapt to his feet and is pointing angrily at Malorie.

Tom looks to her.

“Malorie?” he says.

“I don’t trust him.”

The housemates wait for more.

Olympia says, “What does the notebook say?”

“Olympia!” Malorie says. “The notebook is right there. Fucking read it for yourself.”

But Felix already has it in his hands.

“Why do you have a souvenir from a man who put your life in danger?” he demands.

“That’s exactly why I have it,” Gary says insistently. “I wanted to know what Frank was thinking. I lived with him for weeks and never suspected he was capable of trying to kill us. Maybe I held on to it as a warning. To make sure I didn’t start thinking like him. To make sure none of you did, either.”

Malorie shakes her head vehemently.

“You told us Frank took the notebook with him,” she says.

Gary starts to respond. Then he stops.

“I don’t have a satisfactory response for that,” Gary says. “Possibly I thought you would be frightened if you knew I had it on me. You can think what you will, but I’d rather you trusted me. I don’t fault you for looking through a stranger’s luggage, given the circumstances under which we’re all living. But at least allow me to defend myself.”

Tom is looking at the notebook now. The words crawl beneath his eyes.

Don takes it next. His angry expression slowly turns to confusion.

Then, as if Malorie’s aware of something greater than what any vote might solve, she points a finger at Gary and says, “You can’t stay here anymore. You have to leave.”

“Malorie,” Don says with little conviction, “come on. The man is explaining himself.”

“Don,” Felix says, “are you fucking nuts?”

The notebook still in his hands, Don turns to Gary.

“Gary,” he says, “you must realize how bad this looks.”

“I do. Of course I do.”

“This isn’t your writing? Can you prove that?”

Gary removes a pen from the briefcase and writes his name on a page in the notebook.

Tom looks at it for a second.

“Gary,” Tom says, “the rest of us need to talk. Sit here if you want to. You’d hear us in the other room anyway.”

“I understand,” Gary says. “You’re the captain of this ship. Whatever you say.”

Malorie wants to hit him.

“All right,” Tom says calmly to the others, “what do we do?”

“He has to go,” Cheryl says without hesitation.

Then Tom begins the vote.

“Jules?”

“He can’t stay here, Tom.”

“Felix?”

“I want to say no. I want to say we can’t vote to send someone outside. But there’s just no reason to have that book.”

“Tom,” Don says, “we’re not voting to send someone out who wants to go this time. We’re voting on forcing someone to do it. Do you want that on your conscience?”

Tom turns to Olympia.

“Olympia?”

“Tom,” Don says.

“You voted, Don.”

“We can’t force someone outside, Tom.”

The notebook is resting on the table. It’s open. The words are immaculately presented.

“I’m sorry, Don,” Tom says.

Don turns to Olympia, hoping.

But she does not answer. And it doesn’t matter. The house has spoken.

Gary rises. He picks up the notebook and places it back in the case. He stands behind his chair and raises his chin. He breathes deeply. He nods.

“Tom,” Gary says, “do you think I might have one of your helmets? One neighbor to another.”

“Of course,” Tom says quietly.

Then Tom leaves the room. He returns with a helmet and some food. He hands it all to Gary.

“It just works like this then?” Gary says, adjusting the strap on the helmet.

“This is terrible,” Olympia laments.

Tom helps Gary put the helmet on. Then he walks him to the front door. The housemates follow in a group.

“I think every house on this block is empty,” Tom says. “From what Jules and I discovered. You have your pick of them.”

“Yes,” Gary says, nervously smiling beneath the blindfold. “That’s encouraging I suppose.”

Malorie, burning inside, watches Gary carefully.

When she closes her eyes, when they all do, she hears the front door open and close. And in between she thinks she hears his feet upon the lawn. When she opens them, Don is no longer standing in the foyer with the others. She thinks he has left with Gary. Then she hears something move in the kitchen.

“Don?”

He grunts. She knows it is him.

He mutters something before opening and slamming the cellar door.

Another profanity. Aimed at Malorie.

As the others silently scatter, she understands the severity of what they’ve done.

It feels like Gary is everywhere outside.

He’s been banished. Ostracized.

Cast out.

Which is worse? she asks herself. Having him here, where we could keep an eye on him, or having him out there, where we can’t?