Project Pallid (11 page)

“
AND
,”
he interrupted, “I think it’s time he should be going.”

With
sympathetic eyes, I looked from her, to him, then back to her. It wasn’t a situation
I’d planned on getting into, but it was one I’d landed knee-deep in. I didn’t
know what to say that’d make it okay; in time, I’d learn that nothing could have.
Nothing would make Catee’s dad okay, and nothing we or anyone else did would
ever make him rational again. The sane side of him died with her mom (those
were Catee’s words, not mine).

In
the month we’d known each other, I’d learned that Catee’s dad had always been
somewhat distant from her, but never from her mom. He worked regular hours,
came home to regular meals, and, as a couple, they lived a seemingly enviable
life. They held solid jobs, they made good money, and together, they were
raising a bright, well-mannered daughter. And, in spite of the emotional
distance he’d always kept from her, Catee admitted that things couldn’t have
been better when her mom was healthy. But then she got sick, and everything
changed.

As
Catee described it, her dad became almost entirely absent from both their lives
after that. He’d go into work early, he’d stay there until late into the night,
and he did so for weeks and months on end.

And
when her mom reached the terminal stage of her illness, rather than take time
from work to be with his family, he somehow delved deeper in it—what that
was, Catee didn’t know. Hospice workers came daily to handle most of her
mother’s final months, and they basically moved in to tend her needs.

Stationed
in a hospital bed in their living room, they took care of her Mom’s washing,
feeding, medications, and they even did chores around the house to ease the
burden on Catee, who frequently missed school to be with her mom, instead.
Catee said that she didn’t want the moment she was gone to be her mother’s
last, and she couldn’t bear the thought of her mom dying alone. She knew her dad,
in spite of his unwavering devotion to his wife, wouldn’t be there.

And
when she passed, Catee’s dad professed how close he’d come to achieving the
groundbreaking successes he’d worked so hard for. But he wasn’t able to finish
fast enough, and he failed Catee … and his wife. He vowed to finish what he’d
started, but as far as Catee knew, that never happened. Not before their
displacement to Madison.

“He
needs to leave. Now.” Mr. Laverdier spoke without emotion and as though I was
nothing more than a roach—an infestation in his home. I wanted to slink
away and disappear under the closest piece of furniture.

His
eyes flamed with rage, his declaration came out flat, and I already had my
things in hand by the time he’d spoken his final word and disappeared from the
doorway.

Seconds
later, Catee escorted me outside and, with a hurried apology, she sent me
trudging back to school … alone. It happened so fast, my head was spinning; I
could hardly process the events that had played out so suddenly.

It
all happened so fast, and it came without explanation.

He
didn’t bother asking my name or introducing himself because he clearly had no
intention of seeing me again. I was an unwelcomed guest in his home, but that
was okay. I wasn’t too keen on crossing him a second time, either.

I
had to wait at school for another half hour before my mom picked me up. And
even though I thought of calling her early, I decided against it. It was better
to wait than explain the sudden disruption to what had become routine. And
based on her lack of inquiry, she never suspected anything out of the ordinary
that day.

Still,
I was left rattled. I couldn’t shake Mr. Laverdier from my head, and I worried
his presence might mean the end of Catee and me all together. If the moment
were any indicator of the role he’d play in our relationship, it was nothing
but dour. Still, we’d do what we could to keep united in the face of his
obvious mistrust and control over her.

It’s
something that still plagues us today, even as I sit here without her, alone in
darkness.

May 9
^th:
Day 8

An
eyeball appears in the crack overhead.

I
didn’t even hear it come in this time.

Its
white, glossy surface looks down, but I can’t tell where. And it just sits
there for a second before its connecting body moves across the floor.

The
eye drags behind it.

My
breathing stops. My body becomes motionless. Cross-legged, I’m frozen on my
cot. I can see my pocketknife at arms reach, on my bedside crate. Its there if
I need it, but I pray it doesn’t come to it. I pray to God that it doesn’t know
I’m down here: that the pickled crap on the floor covers my scent; that the
eye’s presence is more a habit of looking than it is a practical way of
detecting me. I pray that my hideaway stays hidden.

Flared
nostrils replace the eye to press against the crack above. It inhales and
exhales almost visible breaths, and I hold my own in fear.

The
nose moves like a vacuum cleaner. It passes over me and continues along in
rapid inhales and exhales. It searches for, but it doesn’t find me. And eventually,
whatever it is, it scurries across the floor and out the door in a scramble of
hands and feet.

Minutes
pass before it’s safe to breathe again.

The
scariest part is that whatever it was, it could’ve been anyone I used to know.
It could’ve been any of the kids from school. It could’ve been my principal. It
could’ve been my sister, or even my mom.

From
the moment the police car sped off with Mrs. Arnold in the back, television and
newspapers made headline news of every subsequent event. For three days
running, every publication and every broadcast included new findings and
unreleased photos and video, but none of it shed any new light on what
happened. Everything they said was speculative. Alarmist. Intended for ratings,
none of it conveyed any factual understandings, and it became clear that even
the media was just as stumped by the event as the rest of us were—as
science was. Nothing could explain what happened to her, but our ignorance
wouldn’t stop its spread.

By
the week’s end, the headlines changed, but only marginally. Mrs. Arnold’s
spotlight was snatched away by a similar case, across town from the hospital
where she was being treated. It came four days after the bloodshed at the bank,
and when it did, an entire family was erased from Madison.

The
papers said he’d just gotten home from work. The news reporters said they’d
just finished dinner. But in spite of the discrepancy, the story was the same:
the guy completely shredded his two daughters and his pregnant wife to pieces.
Nobody survived, and nobody knows which version of the events was more
accurate, but either way, the end was the same. Non-negotiable. Death doesn’t
work in reverse.

After
arriving on scene to blood-spattered windows and deafening silence, the
officers forced their way into the house through its front door. They passed by
fingers and bits of bodies—some adult and some of children—and
followed the thickening pools that seeped across the hardwood.

They
found him in the kitchen, hunkered under the table and slurping on a protruding
vein of his wife’s dismembered arm.

According
to reports, standard procedures were followed. Officers ordered him to the
ground. They demanded he drop what he was holding and to stretch his arms
overhead. Unresponsive, he stared at them through white, empty eyes. Crouched
in pouncing position, he sensed more than he saw them. They repeated their
directives, but he stayed unresponsive. And then, like an animal, his head
kicked back and his throat stretched to unleash a piercing, metallic wail that
sent officers’ hands to their ears and their weapons clanging to the ground.

A
few held tight to theirs, though. And because of those few, he was taken down
as he scrambled forward on fours, like an animal closing on its kill.

A
single bullet, skillfully placed in the center of his forehead, put his hunger
to rest.

There
are few professions where you can go to work, shoot and kill your coworker, and
be justified in doing so. Shooting one of their own wasn’t something the police
had set out to do that day. They did it without any other choice, and they’d
carry its regret for life.

It’d
only been four days since their partner was chomped into at the bank, and the
change in him since then was as unexplainable as it was terrifying.

My
head circles back to the most recent hunter above and, once again, I can’t help
but question the integrity of my lock; it’s not as strong as it needs to be.
Though I’ve done it a hundred times already, I survey the basement in search of
a better alternative than the hunk of wood that’s still jammed through the
handle. I scan the floor like I’m expecting some gift from God to have
magically appeared. Of course, there’s none. But just to be certain, I rise
from my cot—cautious to stifle every squeak of its wooden frame with the
hovering stillness of my slow-moving body—until I’ve levitated from it
and stand by its side. With a final look overhead and a cock of my ear, I
listen for any sounds before making my move. There are none.

At
the bottom of the steep, wooden steps, I look up and repeat the same, idle
gesture of listening. But again, there’s only silence. Emptiness.

As
cautious as I’d been on the ground, I make my way to the overhead door and give
it a tug—for prosperity’s sake if nothing else. And, satisfied that it’s
as secure as possible, given the tools available, I retreat to the gravel floor
and to my resting place on my cot.

Cross-legged,
I sit, I wait, and I plan. And with the fading of light through the cracks
above, I reach for my pocketknife to carve a second notch in the undercarriage
of my bed.

Two
down, five to go.

Their
food grows scarce, while mine is abundant.

I
might not be able to defeat them, but I vow to outlast them.

October
20
^th:

The
Friday after my run-in with Mr. Laverdier, Catee met me at the bus station
instead of the lobby. Brittle, fall leaves crunched under our feet as we
stepped from the sidewalk to stand beneath one of the many oak trees that lined
the path to the school’s front doors.

Her
hand was clasped onto my forearm as she spoke, and its warmth radiated through
my sweatshirt. “I’m sorry about my dad.”

“It’s
okay, Catee. Don’t worry about it. You can’t control how he acts.”

“Tell
me about it,” she said in exasperation. “I wish he’d just move into the
hospital. He’s there enough already. He should just stay there all the time.
Leave the house to us, like, in a living will or something.” She spoke in jest,
but there was sincerity to her words.

“Why’d
he come home so early?” I asked, having learned from experience that it was
just as she’d said: he never came home until late, late at night. And even
then, he was back out the door first thing in the morning. Aside from their
fractured family therapy sessions on Fridays, Catee barely saw him at all.

“I
guess he got sent home from work. That’s mostly why he was so mad.”

“Why?”

“Do
you think he tells me that stuff? I don’t know. I just overheard him talking on
the phone in his office. He caught me standing there listening, and he closed
the door on me. I didn’t hear anything after that. I just know he wasn’t very
happy, and it wasn’t
just
because of you and me.”

“So,
you told him about me, then?”

“No
I didn’t
tell
him about you. What am I, crazy? He’d go totally nuts. No.
I told him you were a friend of mine from school and that we’d just finished an
assignment for class.” My heart sunk with her usage of
friend
. I worried
that’s all she felt about us.

“No,
I got you. I get it. Totally. The guy’s crazy,” I constructed a response to
chime with hers. “You couldn’t tell him about
us
.” I really emphasized
the
us
to gauge her reaction and to assess if we were still on the same
page.

Her
delayed response was wordless.

She
reached out her hands to grasp mine. Pulling me forward, she caught me off
guard, and I stumbled through the leaves and stopped only when our bodies collided.
It happened so quickly, I couldn’t prepare for it the way I’d always planned
to.

With
my head turned up and hers slightly down, we kissed. Our first kiss. My first
kiss. And all the while, when I should have been thinking about my technique
and monitoring my moisture levels, I was consumed beyond reason by it. I was
victim to it. Physiology took over where my head switched off.

Seconds
turned to hours, and hours to seconds, as we pulled apart. I looked up to her,
and she looked back to me in equivalent, speechless awe. Our hands, still
locked, created warmth that the October air couldn’t.

The
‘L’ word flashed briefly on my tongue and almost fell from my mouth—it’s
an intrinsic response to such events—but I stifled and choked it down. I
knew it was too soon, even after a month and a half together, to put words to
what my heart had rhythmically beaten.