Page 17 of Bent Heavens

Cleek.

Don’t start thinking.

Hwolk.

Damn it, damn it. She slowed to a jog, then a fast walk. She winced from a stitch in her side. See? This was what happened in life anytime you stopped moving and started thinking—pain came crashing. She cocked her head, swiped sweaty hair from her ear. Was it a duck? Doubtful. A chicken? Not way out here. A squirrel? She’d learned the hard way that squirrels made all sorts of unexpected noises. The truth clobbered her. Trap One had caught something. That was bad news. Amputator was no Hangman’s Noose. When its trigger was tripped and its jaws sprang shut, there could be blood, even bone.

She slowed her walk and tried to quiet her panting. Whatever it was had heard her and gone quiet, but the rustle of leaves carried. Under tree cover, it was practically night out here, as threatening as a corn maze. The idea that she would stride up to the trap in the dark and use the branch to finish off the animal was farcical. Only Doug would be so brave. She might even be forced to call him to come deal with this.

Liv circled around the final tree, her teeth clenched in expectation of blood. It could be a possum. Or a bobcat. She choked up on the branch. The animal might yet wriggle free. It might be chewing through its last tendon now. She held her breath, leaned to see better, and stepped into a clearer view.

It wasn’t a squirrel, or possum, or bobcat. It was larger. Much larger. It had four limbs, but not four legs. Two of the limbs were arms. It had a round, snoutless head. Liv’s innards flooded with nausea. Was it a man? Had the worst-case scenario of a wandering hiker stumbling into a trap finally come to pass?

She dared take a step closer. The thing spasmed. Liv gasped. A shiver shook out through the thing’s body. Then, to Liv’s revulsion, it sat up, its face swinging into the dim light, its inhuman features twisting to produce chittering sounds unlike any Liv had ever heard. Cwelk. Slouk. Flech. Mwolk.

No, it wasn’t a man, and the worst-case scenario she’d feared wasn’t the worst scenario after all, not by a long shot.

Trap One, Amputator, years after its construction, had lived up to its design. It had caught an alien being. It was the most abominable thing Liv had ever laid eyes upon, and she screamed, and screamed again, and screamed again and again, and as she sprinted back through the slashing woods faster than she’d run all afternoon, headed for home, for her phone, for help, one single thought raced even faster, stabbing her far more brutally than any stitch in her side.

Dad was telling the truth the whole time, and none of us, except Doug, believed him.

SECOND STANZA:

IN STUDY OF THE OBSCURE

9.

Lee Fleming was an indoorsman, if such a designation existed, which made his rapid conversion into survivalist all the more bewildering. In the cold winter weeks following his expulsion from Bloughton High, he did none of the things he’d been told to do. He did not return to the doctor. He did not find a therapist. He did not search for another job. What he did, beginning on Christmas Day and continuing every day thereafter, was spend most of his time in the garden shed.

Aggie watched from parted curtains. She said to Liv, “Your father just needs some time,” but Liv knew that she said it for her own benefit. Each day her mother didn’t investigate what was going on back there, the glue holding their family together further dissolved. It wasn’t that Liv didn’t understand her mom’s mind-set. As long as they didn’t know what Lee was working on, they could perpetuate any harmless fantasy they wanted. Pretty soon they’d have a cute little fence for a new flower bed, maybe a fun novelty mailbox. Liv agreed with her mother’s assessment that “time” was the operative word. The ethic with which her father worked suggested he believed he had little of it to spare.

When he did come inside, late at night, Aggie didn’t ask the right questions, and Lee didn’t volunteer answers. He didn’t volunteer anything. Without washing the oil from his hands—the oil was a clue, but of what?—he’d hunker in a chair that had a forest view and study a library text about welding or soldering or riveting—more clues. He was distracted to the point of forgetting to eat or sleep, and often he’d be in the same chair, still reading, when Liv woke up. In some ways, Liv realized, her father had been abducted. In other ways, he’d become the alien.

Plus, he was sick. There was no pretending it wasn’t true. Many nights, Liv was awakened by the sounds of vomiting. He went on coughing jags and didn’t notice the specks of blood sprayed over his shirt. His clothes began to look like they’d gotten larger, an absurd idea, but easier to accept than the weight he was losing. His skin looked like putty. Sometimes he’d sweat profusely for no reason. He didn’t have to say anything for Liv to know what he thought: The skinners, in their experiments, had infected him with something. He did not have forever to live. Whatever he was going to do, he had to do it now.

Aggie’s attempts to get him to the hospital were ignored. She sank into quiet despair, only to speak up again after the packages began arriving. It was reminiscent of the thirty-five copies of Resurrection Update deluging the house years ago, except these boxes were much larger and heavier. Some Lee unpacked right there in the kitchen, tools mostly, pliers and calipers and straightedges and hacksaws, while the larger crates he muscled into a wheelbarrow and transported to the shed. It was Aggie who received the bills for these purchases.

While they fought about it, Liv did her homework, tracing the same words, the same numerals, over and over, until she sliced through the notebook paper.

“This isn’t hundreds of dollars, Lee. This is thousands. If you won’t think of yourself, your own health, think of us, Liv and me.”

“It’s necessary.”

“None of what you’re doing is necessary! You need to stop!”

“When I’m done.”

“When will that be? We can’t pay the bills, Lee.”

“This is more important.”

“Than eating? Than keeping our home? Our savings are disappearing.”

“Saving—that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Aggie had forbidden any guests until Lee got better, but Doug called Liv all the time, positive that he could help this man who’d been more of a dad to him than his own father, and when Liv broke and said okay, Doug was tossing his bike onto their lawn an hour later, a five-foot-five fifteen-year-old hero in parachute shorts who apologized to Aggie for his unannounced visit and stated his intent to go check out the shed. His kid courage broke the final fiber of Aggie’s self-delusion. One tear fell from the corner of each eye.

“At least take him a coat. And shoes. He went out today in pajamas and bare feet. It’s February. This is Iowa.”