The Beast of Barcroft (3 page)

Something else was in the bushes, something that sounded not unlike the predator sounds of the Serengeti he had been watching from the safety of his couch no more than ten minutes before.

The growl abated. There were no other sounds. No barking, whining, or panting.

“Buck?” His voice cracked. “Here, boy.”

He heard a wet sound, then a loud crack, like branches snapping. Somehow, Ben knew it wasn't branches.

He took a tentative step forward.

Before his foot landed on the ground, Bucky exploded out of the bushes. Ben pinwheeled backward and his feet went out from under him. He landed flat on his back with a hard jolt on the wet leaves where he had just urinated. When he looked up, he saw Bucky, in profile, sailing over the fence, neck askew. Bucky was a full-grown greyhound, ninety pounds, but whatever had him in its maw was much larger. The dog's body trailed to the side of the beast, blocking a full view, but in the moonlight, Ben saw that it was the same tawny color of his dog, but with a round head and a low, broad muzzle with ears pinned back. Feline. It cleared the waist-high fence to Hazel's yard with ease and was across her lawn before Ben could even get to his feet.

Ben clambered over the fence after them. By the time he hit the ground, the beast was already across Hazel's property and crossing the street. Ben sprinted after them, but for every foot he covered, the beast outpaced him by four, even burdened with Bucky. By the time Ben emerged onto the street, the big cat had bounded through two more yards and was on the next street over. Ben's chest felt like his heart was going to explode. As his chest burned, despair crept in.

He's gone
.
Stop running
.

On the next street, he relented. He put his head between his knees in defeat. When the dizziness stopped, he looked up and saw the big cat had dropped Bucky in the middle of the street and was padding back toward Ben.

Bucky was large by greyhound standards. With his tawny coat and his meaty haunches, he resembled a deer buck. That was Ben's first impression of him when he adopted him from the rescue agency, and the nickname stuck. He had been kicked out of the greyhound racing circuit for being too big and muscular and other greyhounds always looked malnourished and spindly by comparison. Now, lying in a heap at the cat's feet, he was the one who looked spindly. The cat's forequarters and hind legs were twice as thick, maybe as thick as a man's limbs. It had cleared the fence carrying ninety pounds of dead weight with ease. And with no warning, it charged Ben.

There was no time to run, no time even to yell. It cut the distance between them from the width of a block to twenty feet before Ben could even draw a breath. It leapt over the chain-link fence, the last obstacle between them, and was bounding toward him when Ben threw his arms up in front of him by instinct. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the teeth.

None came.

When the time passed for him to have felt fangs in his neck and claws on his chest, he opened one eye. Ten feet in front of him was the cat. It was twice the size of Bucky, larger even than Ben. It sat on its haunches, its chest displayed. Powerful, prideful. All sleek muscle. Its ears were up, curious. Almost playful. No, disdainful.
Clearly,
he thought,
I'm not a threat
.

Still, Ben felt naked. It could resume its charge at any moment and he would not have time to blink, much less defend himself. All those stupid survival shows, he thought.
Think of something
. Back away? Will that trigger it to chase? The thing would be on top of him before he could pivot. He remembered something about making yourself appear larger when you stumble upon a predator—standing on tiptoe, waving your arms, and shouting. But was that for a bear? Ben decided against any sudden moves, but tried to subtly puff up his chest.

The cat cocked its head.

They continued to regard each other. Ben wondered if he was supposed to make direct eye contact. He doubted it, but he could not help himself, the creature was so mesmerizing. When it moved its head, its eyes shone the color of Madeleine's porch light, an autumnal glow. Despite himself, Ben conceded the creature was magnificent. He was nearly hypnotized by those eyes and its sleek form, when, in one fluid motion, the beast halved the distance between them again. Ben could smell the cat then, a heavy musk, oppressive and sweet with rot. Without thinking, Ben took a step back. The cat allowed this, then sniffed the air between them.

It pinned its ears back and bared its teeth. It emitted a high-pitched growl from deep inside, like the whine of an engine burning up. Its graceful, liquid form quivered. Ben's flesh followed and erupted in gooseflesh. He waited for the pounce.

The cat broke off its stare and trotted back to the fence. It leapt over it and, just as effortlessly, collected its prey before disappearing into the woods.

S
UNDAY,
N
OVEMBER 9

Ben's adrenaline had flushed by the time the officer arrived. Her name tag read
CUSHING
in block letters. She looked to be a few years younger than Ben, in a uniform that was all black and resembled a flight suit, complemented by a bulletproof vest and a thick belt of deadly accoutrements. She had nice features, but they appeared stretched by a ponytail pulled back so severely it looked to Ben as if she had tried to yank her femininity out through the back of her head. In another situation, he thought he might find her attractive, but it required more imagination and energy than he could spare at the moment.

“Thirty minutes,” he said. “I lit Chinese poppers on the Fourth of July and you guys were here by the time one string stopped popping.”

She lifted her gaze from her notepad to him. Her expression was strained, all but her mouth. It was an even line that betrayed nothing. Even the ponytail was not enough to pull it one way or the other.

“I'm here now, sir.”

Ben suddenly pictured how he must look—disheveled, agitated. Tweaked. Then he pictured Bucky in a heap in the street, broken, neck lolled back. Bucky, who deserved better.

“Just read me what you have.”

“Lost dog…tan greyhound…answers to Bucky…last seen on 3rd Street…”

“Jesus H. Christ.”

“Sir?”

“Can you pay attention for one goddamn second? Do I need to request someone older?” He knew it was a cheap shot. He didn't care.

She closed the notepad and fit it into a pouch, then smiled. “Sir, I'm trying to be patient, but this really isn't a police matter. But I've collected the pertinent information, and now I'll be on my way. I hope you find your dog.”

She turned to her cruiser.

“The dog is dead. I watched it die.”

“A cougar, right?”

“Yes. Or a mountain lion. I think they're the same thing, but whatever it was snapped my dog's neck right in my backyard! Right in front of me!”

“Okay. Anything else?”

He wanted to scream. Instead, he pinched the bridge of his nose and took a breath. “Look, Officer Cushing, my father was career law enforcement and I wouldn't waste your time with a bullshit call. I know that when dispatch made the call for a lost pet, you probably rolled your eyes, but you were closest. So now you're here, taking my information, but really you're dying to get back in your cruiser and to the next call, which you hope will be bigger. You're alone, so I know you have to be both ‘good cop' and ‘bad cop,' but if I could speak to ‘good cop' for just a moment, I would like her to know that some fox didn't snatch my malty-poo. A wild animal bigger than you just caught and killed ninety pounds of lean muscle and the fastest breed of dog in the world. And it almost got me too.”

“But you stopped it with an awesome speech?”

“I'm serious.”

“I know, and since now I know we're on the same team and all”—gesturing between the two of them—“let me ask you an honest question. On a scale of one to ten, how important do you think this call is to the Arlington County Police Department?”

“Five?”

“Two. It's a two, sir. I suggest you call Animal Control.” She turned for her car once more.

Ben called after her. “It's Public Health Division, actually, and Manny's not picking up his cell.”

The officer stopped. “Manny?”

“No one is answering the after-hours number. That's why I called you.”

“Manny Benavides?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you know about him?”

Her tone went from brittle politeness to steel in an instant. He heard himself answering without protest.

“I don't know. He works for the county, in Public Health, like I said. He's basically Animal Control. He does what he can for the neighborhood, but his hands are pretty tied.”

“Hands are tied?” Out came the notebook.

“If you couldn't tell, I live next to the biggest shit show in the county. A crazy woman lived there, destroyed the place, and fed the animals like she was Snow White.”

“I think you mean Sleeping Beauty.”

“I mean whatever crazy-ass princess kept raccoons as pets. Long story short, the neighborhood is full of rats. Manny tried to help, but there was only so much he could do by law. Why do you care about Manny?”

“His wife reported him missing. He was last seen on Thursday by a resident on 7th Street. She reported his county vehicle the next day. He hasn't been seen since. How well did you know him?”

“Not well. I mean, he was a good guy, cared about the neighborhood. He came out every month or so to keep the heat on Madeleine.”

“Madeleine?”

Ben jerked his thumb. “Sleeping Beauty.” He studied the officer studying the house. “She's dead,” he added.

She raised an eyebrow. “Didn't get her kiss in time?”

Ben smiled despite himself. “A month ago. Drugs. Burned the candle at both ends. Next thing you know, heart attack.”

“If Mr. Benavides reaches out to you, please call me. To help calibrate your scale, this is what the department would consider an eight or a nine.”

“You said 7th Street. That's right by Four Mile Run. Did you sweep the woods?”

“Yes, sir, we did. Nothing. We're hoping he had a girlfriend or something.”

“Or the same thing that got my dog got Manny. It headed toward Four Mile Run.”

“I will take that into consideration, CSI Arlington.” She walked around to the driver's side of her cruiser. Over the roof, she said, “Have a good evening, Mr. McKelvie.”

“I'm telling you, it was fully grown, more than a match for a middle-aged county worker.”

“I am sorry you lost your dog.”

“There are children in this neighborhood. Does that bump up your number any?”

“Get some sleep, Prince Charming. But clean yourself up first. You smell like piss.”

After a long shower, he lay in bed, alternating between being furious at the cop and thinking about his dog. He could not imagine his father rolling up on someone in distress and giving them shit. Would he? He'd been a tough cop, but a kind man first and foremost. More than that, a strange feeling scratched at the back of his mind, making him restless. Like a word on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach. Finally, he got out of bed. He marched to the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, and removed his antidepressants. Part of it was that he wanted to honor the loss of the one thing left in his world that had loved him unconditionally, and he it. But mostly he knew he had to think clearly. He poured the pills into the toilet and flushed.

M
ONDAY,
N
OVEMBER 10

Ben slept poorly that night. Actually, he was not sure if he had slept at all. It was hard to tell where his groggy wakefulness ended and the nightmares began. The attack replayed over and over in his mind and he rose early Monday morning before the alarm, irritable and with a headache.

The dog was not there to greet him. It was happening all over again, he thought. It had taken months for Ben to adjust to life without Rachel and now not even Bucky was there to distract him. His mind, lethargic and aching, raced back to the last time he saw her, right here in this room.

It was morning on an early summer day and already sweltering, the air so still and humid it draped over the neighborhood like a shroud. She stood by the open door, silhouetted by the bright light streaming into the room. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a quick and practical ponytail, ready for the business at hand. She was athletic and tall, tall enough that whenever she had worn heels, she had him by two inches. Compared to her lithe figure, his looked compact, bullish. And his expression was always stern—even when he did not intend it to be—while her features were open and welcoming. With the sunlight, he had to squint to discern them now. As if she were already fading.

Bucky sniffed her hand and she patted his head absently. He must have thought they were all going for a walk.

“You didn't have to take off of work, Ben. I could have loaded all of that.”

He shrugged. It was a task, albeit one he despised and disagreed with entirely. That was his way: He always put his head down and plowed through anything unpleasant. This was no different. However, there was nothing left to do now. Her little Honda was overflowing with bags and lamps and pillows and picture frames. It could take no more. When he finally met her gaze, he saw tears in her eyes.

“Oh, you're crying now?” he spat, suddenly angry. He fought to keep his face from contorting in contempt. “Don't forget, this was your idea. All of it.”

If he drew her into an argument, maybe she would step away from that bright door. Maybe she would stay longer.

“I'm so sorry, Ben. I tried. I tried so hard.”

She wasn't taking the bait. It was maddening.

“You're bailing, Rachel. When I need you the most. Call it whatever you want to call it,” he said, pointing at the door, “but this is fucking
desertion
.”

“I've begged you for months to snap out of it.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and cleared her throat. “Don't act like this is unexpected.”

There,
he thought,
that's better.
You can't win an argument unless you argue. He might still win.

“I thought it was a rough patch. I never thought you were serious.”

“Ben, last week I heard you yell ‘Fuck!' from the kitchen and when I ran in, I saw you picking a fork off the floor. A
fork
! No mess, nothing broken,
no big deal,
but you bellowed like your foot had been caught in a bear trap.”

“I told you, I had seven things going on at once—”

“You're always pissed, yet you're never present. And you always have an excuse. That's just the latest example.” She shook her head. “I actually thought you were hurt.”

He flung his arms wide. “I am hurt!”

Rachel breathed a heavy sigh. Bucky, realizing a walk was no longer in the offing, trotted to the empty spot in front of the fireplace, circled once, and flopped down with a sigh of his own.

“I loved your father too, Ben,” she said. “I miss him too.”

“Don't invoke my father when you're walking out the fucking door.”

She slung her overnight bag over her shoulder.

“I'll be back this weekend with my girlfriends to pick up my furniture. Please make it easy on everyone and don't be here.”

She turned.
This is really happening,
he thought.
There are no arguments left to win.
He swallowed hard.

“Don't go.”

She turned around.

He gritted his teeth.
“Please.”

She stepped away from the threshold into the shady end of the room and touched his cheek. “Maybe if you could've said that without looking at me with such bitterness. Or if the words sounded like they weren't fighting through venom.” He looked away and she withdrew her hand. “I'm truly sorry about all of this, Ben, but you're not the man I fell in love with anymore. And I can't build a life with whoever you are now.”

On her way back to the door, she stopped beside the dog. He lifted his head toward her, ears up. She cupped his long muzzle in her hand and kissed it. “Take good care of him, Bucky,” she said through fresh tears. “Be a good boy.”

Ben felt tears of his own coming but would not give her the satisfaction. “If you're going, then go,” he said. “We don't need you.”

She rose from Bucky's side and walked through the door without breaking stride or looking back.

“I don't need you!” he yelled after her.

The echo of his voice snapped him back to the present. He realized he had just yelled at the empty doorway. He ran his hand through his rumpled hair—brown flecked with a few remaining strands of red from boyhood—and sighed.

“That can't be good,” he muttered to himself.

Ben had respected Rachel's wishes and left the house the day she came to collect her remaining things. When he returned that night, emptiness suddenly filled the spaces once occupied by her furniture. It was jarring enough to see, but even the acoustics were affected. Sounds traveled farther with nothing to interrupt them, then rattled back into the gaps and bounced off the naked hardwood floors. In the first few days after she left, it seemed overwhelming to fill those holes, to start over, but after a week he went online to order cheap, modular furniture just to stop the strange echoes. By the time he had assembled everything and filled the largest gaps, even her scent had faded.

But he still had Bucky.

When he did not want to get out of bed, when the idea of simple grocery shopping seemed like a herculean task, there was his dog. Nudging Ben out of bed with a cold, wet nose, ever ready for a walk. Jumping in place, thrilled to see him at the end of the workday, ready for still more walks. And sitting beside him, taking up too much room, while Ben ensconced himself on his couch, watching his extreme nature shows. The dog provided him not just companionship but also the necessary structure when Ben felt like he did not have the backbone to take another step.

Ben understood that Bucky was more than a friend. The dog was his last bulwark against something more terrifying to him than any mountain lion creeping in the darkness at the edge of his property: total depression. The strange, new echoes of Bucky's nails clacking on the hardwood floors in the aftermath of Rachel's departure were bad enough. But their absence would be even worse.

Ben fled the house without bothering with coffee.

It was still dark when he stepped outside. He took a few steps, then stopped in his tracks. He looked in every direction and, satisfied that there was nothing ready to leap out at him, walked quickly to his car. Half an hour later, he settled into his cubicle five miles away with an extra-large coffee he had bought on the road. He worked for a defense contractor in the Crystal City section of Arlington, and thankfully, his tasks on Monday did not require much concentration or interaction. He put in earbuds and lost himself in an Excel spreadsheet until the early afternoon, when he began to feel flulike symptoms. Lightheadedness. Nausea. He thought about going home, but under the circumstances, he decided that feeling sick at work was preferable to feeling sick at home. He stuck it out until the end of the day.

It was twilight when he left for home and was greeted with a familiar sight: Jim, at the top of their block, trying to get his boxers to play fetch. It usually ended up as a wrestling match between the two dogs, but any exercise was good exercise, Jim had told him. The big man waved and Ben stopped the car in the road. He rolled down the window.

Jim's ever-present grin faded when he leaned in and saw Ben's face.

“You look like shit, brother.”

“I didn't sleep much last night.” Ben furrowed his brows as a buttress against tears. When he knew his voice would be steady, he added, “Bucky was killed last night.”

“What the fuck? Come on, pull over.”

Ben obeyed. He explained what had happened and Jim coaxed him out of the car and into the house for dinner.

He went through the whole ordeal again, this time for Lisa, as she made them a huge southern meal of chicken and potatoes. Ben picked at his. When Jim went to let the dogs out again, she told him that he needed to eat.

“It's not the food, I just—”

“No, I get it,” she said, and patted his hand. “It's okay.”

“No, it's not that. I…may have flushed my antidepressants down the toilet last night.”

“You what?”

“Is that dumb? That's dumb, right?”

“That was pretty damn stupid, Ben, yes.”

“It seemed like the thing to do at the time. On a scale of one to ten, how bad are we talking?”

“It's a ten, and ten equals calling your doctor and getting more.”

“Seriously? Can't I just ride it out?”

“It's called antidepressant discontinuation syndrome and you can feel like shit.”

“I already feel like shit.”

“Like the flu?”

“A little bit.”

“Congratulations, moron.”

Ben looked at his uneaten food. “Here's the thing. Rachel wasn't ‘for better or worse' material. I know that now. But Bucky was. I don't want to tune out for this. Does that make sense?”

“So wean then.”

“Look, I already did it and I'm in the middle of it, so why not keep going?”

“Jesus, you men are so fucking stubborn.”

“Look, can you not tell Jim I was on happy pills?”

“You're so cute, thinking he doesn't know already.”

“How does he know?”

“Because I told him.”

“But you're a nurse.”

“I'm a nurse, not your nurse. And I'm your neighbor.”

“Well, shit.”

“Eat your food.”

The next day at work, Ben bolted upright from his chair. He felt a sudden, dull pain radiating from his chest to his back. His heart raced and he found it difficult to breathe. He cursed himself. Lisa was right and now he was having a heart attack. But instead of calling for help, he felt an overpowering desire to
move
. He raced to the stairwell and pounded down five flights of stairs to the lobby and did not stop until the chill November air cooled his head, which throbbed with heat. It was midafternoon and the lunch crowds had already moved on, so he had the sidewalk mostly to himself. He loosened his necktie and unbuttoned his shirt and took great, gulping breaths of cold November air. It felt sharp in his lungs, as if his body were resisting it. The wind chilled his face and neck. He touched his fingers to his brow. They came back wet.

He leaned against a tree and concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths. As he did, he watched a few passersby out for coffee or heading to the Metro. The wind whipped leaves down the street and the sun was low in the sky, too low for the hour. He dreaded this time of year. Eventually, his heart rate slowed and his fear abated. When he calmed down, he realized two things. First, it was incredibly stupid to leave a building, populated with coworkers and telephones, for the street if he was having a heart attack. Second, he figured the more likely culprit was not a heart attack but a panic attack.

It felt so real,
he thought. He had believed he was going to die, that his heart was about to pop like a balloon. He walked back to his building and took the elevator back to his floor. Once seated in his cubicle again, and confident that no one had seen him make a spectacle of himself, he did a search for the symptoms of a panic attack.

Racing heart
.
Chest pains
.
Breathing difficulties
.
Sense of terror, or impending doom or death
.

“Bingo,” he said.

He looked over his shoulder, then did another search on the properties of his antidepressant. After scouring through several websites, though, he could not find panic attacks as a sudden withdrawal symptom.

He reclined in his chair. This was new. Never in his life had he had a panic attack. Not in the navy. Not during his father's long illness. Not when it became apparent that Rachel was serious about leaving, and not when she left. Was it a withdrawal symptom, or could it really be because of the attack, of losing Bucky? Or was it both? Or could it all be cumulative? It had been the worst year of his life, and if he was being honest with himself, he had not handled it particularly well.
At least your heart is fine,
he thought.

You're just crazy
.

He sat up and went back to the website on panic attack symptoms. He read the list again. One in particular caught his eye.

Sense of terror, or impending doom or death
.

“Terrific,” he said.

He spent the next day cleaning the house. Junk thrown away. Paperwork filed or shredded. Dusting, disinfecting, organizing. Spring cleaning in the fall, everything ninety-degree angles and dust-free. Order, it felt good again. Rachel had always said he was tough to live with after his father died, too demanding, too angry at the little things. But he handled the big things well, he had always replied. I'm getting up every day, functioning just as before. Not missing a beat at work. Still, she wanted him to talk to someone. He could handle his own shit, he told her. Between the stress of living next to Madeleine and the stress of living with him, she threatened to leave. They had just moved in together, had just bought a house together, so why would he take it seriously? When he finally realized she meant it, it was too late. He agreed to talk to someone, take medication, anything. The irony was, with her gone and no one to clean up after him, the house became a fucking mess, and thanks to meds he never wanted to be on in the first place, he had no longer cared.