Michael Collings - The Slab

Catherine did, though. She would perch on the edge of the box, its pine frame cutting painfully into the back of her legs, and stare blankly at the floor…and the place where he had been laying that morning, where the faint line of the shattered slab created a ripple in the other-wise smooth carpet.

She also carried Sams’ blanket with her almost everywhere. It was still filthy-she had actually intended to wash it later that Saturday with the rest of the sheets and pillowcases from the children’s rooms but obviously hadn’t. The satin edging was ragged, stained, stiff where normally it would have been damp. It stank. But she either held it in her hand or tucked it under her arm or squeezed it between the waistband of her pants and her skin, where the touch of it made her flesh chill and shiver.

There was no family anymore. Merely five people of varying ages quietly inhabiting the same space…the same house.

Certain times of the day proved more difficult than others.

Suze seemed to have no trouble falling asleep in her own bed, although the number of stuffed animals keeping Flat Cat company on top of her coverlet increased dramatically, until there was almost no room for the girls’ body. Still, once she burrowed her way under the layers of plush and politically correct, non-flammable, hypoallergenic filling, she slept deeply, rarely waking until well past dawn.

But the boys…

The boys’ categorically refused to sleep in the back room.

It didn’t matter how much Willard blustered or wheedled, how often he led them by the hand back to their bunks and warned them to stay there or else…no matter how resolutely he carried out the motions of preserving the sense of a normal bedtime, the boys always woke the next morning twined together on the family room couch, sometimes covered by one of Burt’s blankets, sometimes completely uncovered.

On week days, Willard never looked into the family room to see if they were there. He ignored them, moving through the darkened kitchen and living room and entry and out the door like a phantom. On weekends, if it was a good day, the boys were up and dressed before either Willard or Catherine roused, and things went…well, placidly. If it was a bad day, Willard would find them asleep, and stomp out of the house without eating and spend most of the rest of the morning in mindless, useless chores.

Beyond that, the boys spent as little time as possible during the day in their room. If they needed to change, they whipped in, grabbed whatever clothes they needed, and locked themselves in the back bathroom until they were fully dressed. If Burt wanted a particular set of army figures, he would halt outside the door, take a deep breath as if he were about to dive into shark-infested waters, and race in and out as fast as possible. If Will left his homework or his school books in the room, he was more than willing to take whatever punishment his teacher might mete out for his lapse, rather than walk down the hall and retrieve them before heading out to school.

In all, one could fairly say that the Huntleys were at a stalemate, neither openly-and perhaps healthily-grieving for loss nor taking any steps to move beyond it.

Until late in the afternoon of Sunday, the twenty-ninth of August.

Willard was, as usual, immersed in the television-some football game or another, essentially identical to any other he had stared at over the past month except for the colors of each team’s uniforms, and even those were almost indistinguishable beneath their crusts of mud and swampy-green grass stains. There was a score, the teams were something to something, of course, but he couldn’t have told anyone what it was. The game was busyness, something to do, something to keep from thinking.

Catherine was sitting at the other end of the family room couch, pretending to watch the game as well, but in reality paying more attention to her hands as they slid aimlessly up and down the nap of the bit of blanket on her lap.

Neither looked toward the kitchen door as Will, Jr., entered, carrying something.

He didn’t speak. He simply stood there, motionless, deathly pale and breathing so shallowly the rise and fall of his chest barely fluttered his shirt.

Finally, Willard glanced up.

Then stood up, urgently, in one swift motion. Catherine caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, then rose to her feet as well.

In a breath, both were at Will’s side.

“What’s wrong?” They spoke at the same instant.

Will didn’t answer. Instead, he raised his eyes-hollow, bruised, red-rimmed-to meet theirs. Then he dropped them to the object he held in his hands.

When they saw what it was, their faces abruptly drained of color until they were as pale, as ashen-white as their son.

It was just a dog-food bowl, Crud’s dented aluminum bowl that usually held crusted remnants of the morning’s helping of kibble.

Today, it held that…and something more.

The edges were caked with flecks of rust-brown, some distinct, round spots, others ragged smears that stained the metal as well as the remains of Crud’s food.

Blood.

Dried blood.

“Will…?” Catherine could get no further with her question. It was as if she already knew the answer.

Willard dropped to one knee and placed his hand over Will’s. “Where’s Crud?”

“I don’t know, Dad.” Tears filled his eyes. “I’ve looked for him all over the house and the back yard. Then, when I went to re-fill his dish…”

No one had to say what they were all thinking.

Yip and Yap.

Dead.

Willard stood and circled his son with his arms. Catherine took the dish gingerly from Will and started into the kitchen to clean it.

“Let’s go out and look for him again,” Willard said. “Maybe he’s just…”

But he never finished his sentence.

It began as a distant rumble, a freight-train-bowling-down-the-tracks growl that escalated into an ear-drum shattering roar before the three of them quite registered what they were hearing.

Then the walls shimmered, the shade on the floor lamp beside the armchair began swinging back and forth, slightly at first, then more and more rapidly, until it was vibrating so rapidly that it seemed more likely to disintegrate than to stop. The lamp itself began rocking, swiveling on its base until with a clattering of smashing bulbs it crashed against the floor.

“Earthquake!” Catherine yelled.

In the kitchen, cabinet doors flew open and plates, saucers, glasses cascaded onto the floor, shattering into glistening fragments.

From the back of the house they heard two children screaming.

Willard spun Catherine and Will around, almost shoving them as he yelled, “Outside! Get in the middle of the yard. I’ll get the others.”

Before they began moving, before he finished speaking, he was running toward the hall, struggling to keep his footing as the floor quivered and thrust beneath him.

He bounced once off the walls, stumbled around the corner that led to the back bedrooms The house was still trembling as if it were itself terrified of what was happening. The roar became even more menacing.

Suze and Burt were huddled in the doorway to Suze’s room. All of the other doors were closed but shaking so violently in their frames that they threatened to burst open.

“Daddy!” they screamed in unison.

He grabbed Suze up in one arm and gripped Burt’s hand.

Behind him, shards of drywall from the ceiling clattered to the floor, breaking and bouncing as if they had a life of their own. Somewhere, a window shattered.

“We can’t stay here,” Willard yelled above the booming of the quake. “This place is falling apart.”

Hauling Burt behind him so rapidly that the boy’s feet barely touched the roiling floor, he crossed Suze’s room in two strides, let go of Burt-who nearly tripped but managed not to-and opened her window with a single thrust, then popped the screen out with a second. Before it struck the ground, he had lowered Suze out the window until she was on her feet, then yelled, “Meet Mom out back!” and grasped Burt’s arm and began boosting him out the window as well. By then Suze was beyond the corner of the house and out of sight, and Burt was halfway there when Willard crawled out the opening and ran alongside the house, grabbing Burt up as he ran.