Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala Page 9
Sheila tried to shake her head but couldn’t move. Her mouth was locked tightly shut, and all feeling was seeping from her body. Her eyes remained wide open and staring, unblinking, as she looked at the ceiling. It was vibrating with subtle waves of blue light and deeper shadow. She sensed motion behind her and wondered if the assisting nurse had entered the room.
“Surely, you must have heard about it on the news,” Doctor Scott continued. “Why, just two months ago, the government finally accepted the medical reports that showed that, because of an accumulation of environmental pollutants, pregnant mothers can no longer carry their babies to full-term. Usually in the seventh month of gestation, all fetuses are removed from their mothers and put through a thorough detoxification in artificial wombs. You know—test tubes babies. The government’s policy on abortion has also changed, so we’re now required by law to save the baby and abort the mother.”
Sheila was desperate to speak or move, but her mind was so clouded she could barely think. Her body felt like it was encased in clear, solid plastic. She would have opened her mouth and screamed … if she could have.
“Look, Miss ... uh, Miss Dobson,” Doctor Scott said. His voice had an edge of resignation, and his expression was one of deep regret. “I—I’m terribly sorry for the misunderstanding, but it’s too late now. That second injection I gave you is working quite fast. If I don’t proceed right now, you’ll be left paralyzed for life, and the state can’t possibly care for you.”
His expression softened.
“But don’t worry. The other injection acts fast. You’ll be dead within minutes.” He glanced at something behind her head and nodded.
“I really must get to work now if I’m going to save your baby.”
And then, without another word, he began to cut.
The Nephews
Just like every other Friday night, The Wheelwell—a working man’s bar just up from the docks in Cape Harvest, Maine—was filled with rafts of drifting cigarette smoke. It hung, suspended in the air in several clearly defined strata—some charcoal gray, some as blue as the ocean at dawn. Glenn Chadwick had always suspected that on any given night, with a careful analysis of the layers of smoke, you could tell exactly which of the locals was there without even looking around or listening for any particular voice. On this chilly, late-September night, however, such ruminations were the furthest thing from his mind when he burst through the barroom door a half hour before closing time.
Perched on stools in their regular place at the brass rail were his buddies, Tony “Plug” Miller and Jake “Butter” McPherson. Plug nodded and raised his forefinger, which was pretty much the extent of his “good to see yah” greeting for anyone. Even if he did smile, you never would have seen it behind the thick tangle of his salt ‘n pepper beard which was usually stained by the juice of his plug of “chaw.”
Butter, who was clean-shaven, spun around and smiled widely, exposing the single large front tooth of his which was stained yellow from nicotine and internal decay. It was the bright yellow color of that damaged tooth that inspired his nickname “Butter Tooth”—or “Butter” for short.
“Where the hell you been, boy-o?” Butter said, his voice slurring from the numerous beers he’d already consumed. “Marsha was by an hour or so ago, looking for yah.”
“I’ll catch up with her later,” Glenn said, waving his hand dismissively. He barely smiled as Shantelle, the barmaid, slid his usual—a twenty-two ounce Shipyard—across to him. Glenn noticed that his right hand was shaking a little as he clasped the ice-rimmed glass and raised it to his mouth. The first gulp made him snort and shiver, but it felt damned good going down.
“What’s that you got there?” Plug asked, indicating the black leather carrying case slung over Glenn’s shoulder. His voice was raw from a lifetime of cigarettes. “You ain’t started carrying a purse around, now, have yah?” A few of the locals nearby burst out laughing, but Glenn hardly noticed or cared. Shaking his head from side to side, he eased up onto the vacant bar stool next to Butter.
“Been out to the Nephews,” he said.
Although he tried to sound casual, he could hear the tremor in his voice and wondered if his friends noticed it, too.
“You don’t say,” Butter replied, raising one gray, bushy eyebrow. Glenn saw Plug’s posture stiffen a little as he leaned away from the bar railing and cast a sidelong glance at him.
“What the hell you wanna be doin’ out there?” Butter asked. “’Specially this time ‘a year?”
He took a pack of Luckys from the breast pocket of his denim work shirt, shook one out from himself, then offered one to Glenn. Again, Glenn noticed that his hand was trembling as he slid the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and accepted a light from Butter’s Bic butane before he lit his own.
“Remember that writer fella up from Portland who was in here a day or so ago, asking about the lighthouse out on the Nephews?” He exhaled noisily. The smoke flattened out and joined the blue reef above their heads.
Both Butter and Plug grunted and nodded.
“A-yuh.”
“Well, he wanted me to take him out there today. I just got back.”
Butter inhaled deeply, then tipped his head back and blew a stream of smoke up at the ceiling before responding.
“Wanted to see the haunted lighthouse, did he?” he asked with a wide smile.
Glenn had always thought Butter would be more self-conscious about that big yellow tooth of his, but he never seemed to mind. Maybe he didn’t have any mirrors in his apartment. In spite of it, Butter still did all right with the ladies, which wasn’t bad for a suntanned, weathered man in his late fifties.
“You gotta admit,” Glenn said, shifting uneasily on the barstool, “there’s some pretty weird stories about that place.”
“’N all of them’s horse-pucky, too, if you ask me,” Plug said, craning his head around and looking Glenn straight in the eyes. “Ain’t nothing on that island but a derelict lighthouse ‘n the keeper’s old house that’s gone to shit.”
“That’s pretty much what I told this guy,” Glenn said, noisily sipping some more beer, “but he was bound and determined to see it for himself. Wanted to see if he could rustle up a ghost or at least hear the music.”
“There’s no ghosts on that damned island, and there sure as hell ain’t no damned music,” Plug said. “Ain’t nothin’ there ‘cept a couple of old buildings ‘n rocks covered with seaweed and seagull shit.”
“Yeah, but lemme tell you what happened, ‘cause I’m gonna need one or both ‘a you to go back with me in the morning to find him.”
Plug moaned softly as he carefully placed his half-empty glass on the bar and then shifted all the way around so he was looking past Butter and squarely at Glenn.
“Let me tell you something.” Plug’s voice was so low Glenn had to strain to hear him above the general noise of the barroom. “The last damned thing we need is another story in some friggin’ fancy magazine or newspaper ‘bout that lighthouse. All it means is we’re gonna get even more n’ more curiosity seekers pokin’ around out there. An’ that can only mean trouble.”
“Trouble for you, maybe.” Butter turned to Plug and winked. “I’m thinkin’ you don’t want anymore boats around than’s necessary so no one will catch you haulin’ in them bales of weed you get every month.”
“’N maybe I got a wife and three kids to feed,” Plug snapped, “unlike you, you butt-ugly piece of—”
“Only three kids you admit to,” Butter said, overshooting him. “From what I hear, you got a passel of bastids running ‘round from here to Bangor.”
“Hey, c’mon. Lighten up,” Glenn said. His whole life, it seemed, he’d been stepping in between Butter and Plug. For two men who swore they were such good friends, and cousins to boot, they sure as hell did argue and insult each other plenty. “Lemme buy the next round. That writer fella paid me an extra fifty bucks to wait around for him ‘til dark. That’s why I’m so late.”
“Tanguay was s’posed to ferry this guy over there today, but he never showed. Probably went to the fights in Lewiston. But this writer fella’s name’s Mike ... Mike Kimball, I think. Mike-somethin’-or-other. Anyways, he’s heard the stories ‘bout the lighthouse keeper and his wife. You know, how she was so lonely ‘n isolated out there all winter that she made her husband buy her a piano and bring it out to the island. Problem was, she only knew how to play one tune, and she played it day ‘n night, ‘night ‘n day until it finally drove the poor fella nuts. So’s he took an ax to the piano … ‘n then her.”
“Yeah … yeah. We all know the story, Glennie,” Plug said before raising his beer and taking a few noisy swallows. “But you said you wanted us to go with you in the mornin’. You mean to say you left that fella out there?”
Again, Glenn shifted uncomfortably on the barstool. His throat felt suddenly dry again in spite of the beer.
“I didn’t exactly leave him. He just sorta never showed up.”
“Amounts to pretty much the same thing, don’tcha’ think?” Butter said as he crushed his cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray at his elbow. Glenn’s cigarette was smoldering away, unnoticed, between his fore- and middle fingers.
“He asked if I wanted to walk over to the lighthouse with ‘im,” Glenn went on, “but I figured it was better to stay put with the boat. The ocean’s still pretty heavy since that storm the other day, ‘n I didn’t wanna get stranded there myself.”
“Be kinda embarrassing,” Butter said.
“But you didn’t mind leavin’ him behind, now, did’cha?” Plug said.
“I told you, I didn’t leave him. He never showed up.” Glenn finally noticed that his cigarette had burned out, so he dropped it into the ashtray and continued. “I waited there at the boat plenty long, ‘n then I went lookin’ for ‘im, but I couldn’t find ‘im. I sure as hell wasn’t ‘bout to stick around all night. I figure either he ain’t ever comin’ off that island ... alive, anyway, or else he’s sacked out some place, just waiting for dawn.”
“He have a cell phone with ‘im?” Butter asked, looking proud that he’d thought of this angle. “I mean, these days, you gotta put some effort into it if you wanna be left alone.”
In response, Glenn slung the carrying case off his shoulder and placed it carefully onto the bar. A few of the regulars edged closer, no longer trying to mask their interest as Glenn unzipped the black leather case.
“It’s in here, ‘long with his camcorder, a tape recorder, ‘n a couple of notebooks. I found all this stuff scattered around outside the lighthouse when I went lookin’ for ‘im. Looked kinda like he dropped it in a hurry.”
“You really did go lookin’ for him?” Plug said with a sniffing laugh. “You ain’t just sayin’ that?”
He was scowling as he picked up the small tape recorder and inspected it for a moment or two. The side of the black casing was scuffed gray, and the small speaker hole in the front was clotted with dirt and turf. He sniffed softly as he placed it down on the bar and then threw back the rest of his beer before sliding the empty glass over to Shantelle, who was standing close by, also listening to Glenn’s story.
“’Course I did,” Glenn said. “After I told ‘im I wasn’t interested in checking out any of the buildings, I told ‘im to make sure he was back by nine o’clock. That’s when the tide was up. The dock that used to be there must’a got washed away last winter, so I had to run my boat up onto the shingle. I was only gonna wait for the tide, ‘cause if I missed it at nine o’clock, I wasn’t gonna get off there ‘til morning. No way I was gonna freeze my ass off out there all night. Not even for an extra fifty bucks.”
“I hear say you’ve done worse for less,” Plug said, but Glenn was not amused.
“Neither time nor tide,” Butter said nodding sagely and smiling to expose his big, yellow tooth.
“So you’re saying he never showed?” Shantelle asked, her dark eyes narrowing with concern. She, too, knew all of the stories about Nephews Island.
“I hollered and hollered for ‘im, but he never answered. It was dark by then, so I got a flashlight from my boat and looked around some, but I never seen hide nor hair.”
“You think the ghosts got him? ‘S that it?” Plug asked.
Glenn couldn’t see it, but he was fairly sure Plug was smirking at him behind his tobacco-stained beard.
“I don’t know what happened. He might’ve fallen off one of the ledges, for all I know. The door to the lighthouse was open, so he might’ve gone up to the top where the light used to be, but I didn’t see any evidence of ‘im being up there. Didn’t see his flashlight or anything.”
“Shouldn’t you call the Coast Guard?” Shantelle asked. She had taken Plug’s empty glass and returned with a full one without asking. Glenn and Butter were still working on theirs.
“If we don’t find ‘im tomorrow, I guess we’d better,” Glenn said. “But the Coast Guard ain’t too keen about anyone bein’ on that island, so I ain’t about to admit I been ferryin’ Christless writers out there.”
“Good point,” Butter said, nodding again, and he was echoed by Plug, who nodded and said, “Damned good point!”
While he was talking, Glenn was absentmindedly handling the contents of the writer’s carrying case. As he looked down at the micro-recorder, he noticed that the tape inside had run about halfway through. He suddenly sat up straight and snapped his fingers.
“Wait a second. He was askin’ me all sorts of questions about the island. Tapein’ ‘em. This is probably the tape.” He inspected the recorder until he found the controls, a small series of indented buttons on the side. After a little experimentation, he found the rewind button and pressed it. The tape made a faint hissing sound as it rewound a short way. Then Glenn pressed play.
“... saying you don’t believe in ghosts, or that you just don’t believe the stories about this particular lighthouse and island.”
“That’s him. That’s the writer,” Glenn said, addressing no one in particular as the small machine in his hand played back the recorded voice. The barroom had suddenly gone cemetery quiet as everyone moved closer and listened.
“I’m not sayin’ anything either way,” Glen’s recorded voice said. “It’s just that—when you live ‘round here and you make your livin’ on the ocean, you hear all sorts of tales, and you take ‘em for what they are, just tales—unless you experience somethin’ yourself that you don’t understand.”
“Are you saying flat out that there are no ghosts in the lighthouse or the lightkeeper’s house on Nephews Island?”
“I ain’t sayin’ there is, and I ain’t sayin’ there ain’t,” Glenn’s recorded voice said.
“Christ! You sound like friggin’ Einstein,” Plug muttered before quaffing some of his beer. Shantelle and Glenn both glowered at him to keep him silent as the recorded voices continued.
“So tell me,” the recorded voice of the writer said, “have you ever personally had any strange or what you might call supernatural experiences?”
There was a lengthy pause on the tape, and once it was clear that Glenn wasn’t going to answer, the writer continued,
“There have been numerous reports from fisherman and sailors passing by Nephews Island, especially late at night, who say they’ve heard strains of piano music coming from the lighthouse. Some people have even said that it was a particular song they heard: ‘Listen to the Mockingbird.’ Have you ever been out here at night and heard anything like that?”
“I don’t usually come out this way,” Glenn’s recorded voice said. It sounded fainter, now, like he had turned his head away from the microphone. “Most of my traps are set south of the harbor.”
Butter jumped on hi
s stool and turned to Glenn. “That ain’t true,” he said. “You have thirty or forty pots out near the Nephews.”
Glenn snapped the recorder off and glared at his friend.
“I wasn’t gonna tell ‘im that,” he said, fighting back the sudden rush of anger he felt at Butter. “Listen to ‘im. He’s grindin’ on me like I’m some kind of authority or something. I wasn’t about to tell ‘im a goddamned thing.”
“But you’ve heard it,” Butter said, pressing. “You know damned right well you have. You ‘n me was out that way one night a couple of summers ago. ‘Member? ‘N we both heard—”
“We heard nothin’! ‘Least ways nothin’ that fella needed to know about,” Glenn was struggling to control his temper.
Was it anger? Glenn wondered. Or fear? Years ago, he and Butter had been out by The Nephews one night, and they had heard and seen … something. The memory of it still sent an icy wave rippling up his back between his shoulder blades.
But he didn’t want to talk about it now, and he sure as shit didn’t want Butter talking about it, so he clicked the recorder on again and pressed the fast forward button. For a second or two, there was a high-pitched squealing that sounded like a chipmunk on helium. Then Glenn pressed play again, and everyone in the bar leaned in close as they listened to the recorded sound of the visiting writer’s voice.
“... not even sure of their names or the names of the lighthouse keeper and his wife—if, in fact, she even lived out here on this lonely rock. There are numerous gaps in the historical records from the late eighteen- and early nineteen-hundreds. Of course, it’s possible that—” The writer’s voice was suddenly cut off by a loud bang. Most everyone in the bar couldn’t help but jump.
“What was that?” Butter asked.
“Must’ve be him openin’ or shuttin’ a door,” Plug said in a whisper. “Where d’you think he is—the lighthouse or the keeper’s house?”
“Probably the front door of the lighthouse,” Glenn said, impatiently waving him quiet with one hand while leaning forward. “’Least that’s where I found his stuff. Shush.”