Karolina Waclawiak - The Invaders

The footsteps stopped next to the bed and I waited.

I could feel the weight of him in the air beside me and kept my eyes closed, not knowing what he was going to do.

“Can I lie down next to you?” Steven asked.

I opened my eyes wider than usual, trying to muster surprise, and he liked it, I could tell. I moved over in the bed and he slid under the sheets fully clothed. He leaned in close to me and I could smell the detergent on his clothes.

We faced each other, heads on the pillow, and then he pushed my shoulder, wanting me to turn over, and so I did. He pulled me toward him, nuzzling his face in my back. I just lay there, listening to him breath and feeling his warmth, our legs entwined together. He clutched onto me as if being this close was a necessity for life. I looked at his skin next to mine, hoping for some miraculous change, but all I saw were my sun-worn hands against the kid-hair on his soft arms and it was devastating.

“Will you help me?” I asked.

He murmured yes against my back.

• • •

Teddy woke me up in the middle of the night, banging on the front door, covered in blood. Steven had left sometime before, but his imprint was still in the bed and I knew then that I had not imagined him being there.

I nearly had to carry Teddy to the bathroom and while he was showering off the blood, that’s when I saw the TV reports that the storm was going to hit us after all. It was a Category 3. It could move to a 4, maybe even a 5 if the perfect conditions arose. Then they started calling the conditions “perfect.”

• • •

Later, when the storm came, no one was prepared for it because of all the false reports from previous years. It was worse than the forecasters had imagined. The water was rising rapidly and it was clear that the seawall wasn’t going to keep it back. There would be evacuation centers with cots and food set up at the Warren G. Blake Middle School. The checkout lines at the grocery store stretched back into the aisles and men from the meat department had to direct traffic inside the store. They ran out of bottled water in less than an hour. People were talking about where they should go, unsure where to take their supplies. They were bracing for the worst, with little more than party-size bags of corn chips and Doritos. Children piled in the fruit snacks as if they might be their last packages on earth. Inland hotels and motels filled up quickly and there was talk of price gouging at the gas pumps in nearby towns. Police on TV said they would be investigating the reports.

I watched as Lori stood in her driveway, her arms loaded with pillows, and yelled at her children to take their dogs and get into the SUV. They just stared at her, unmoved. I wondered where her husband was. His car was already gone.

Later, I looked outside again and saw Tuck pedaling toward the water. I moved from window to window watching him. All the families had fled by then, but he propped his bike against the white fence and walked out along the seawall as if no catastrophe was looming. He walked with his head tucked down, the wind flattening his hair against his skull. I watched him from the front windows. He stared out at the ocean, watching his boat being tossed around in the waves. Then he stretched his arms wide and began to flap them like wings, like he was trying to fly away. I laughed in spite of myself. Then he turned around and stared at my house, at the window I was standing in, laughing. I watched as he ran back to his bicycle and rode off, and I wasn’t sure how he was able to stay upright in the wind. He stopped in front of Lori’s house. She had been careful to have all the windows boarded up and he jumped off his bike and hurried toward them. I watched him try to pull the boards away with his bare hands, but they did not budge. He disappeared into her garage and I waited for a few minutes, wanting to see what he would do next.

He came back with two golf clubs, a driver and an iron, and lodged the iron between the nearest plywood-covered window and the house. He ripped the covering off and took some of Lori’s expensive shingles down with it, then used the driver to smash the glass. As he went from window to window I thought about intervening, but Tuck was doing this for all of us.

He crawled through a window, then came back out through the glass doors, leaving them wide open. He got on his bike, saluted to the ocean, and rode away.

After checking on Teddy, who was still passed out on his bed, I went through the abandoned neighborhood. Some windows were covered, but most weren’t. My attempts at readying the house had failed. I power-walked past the Cronin house, trying to keep my hair out of my eyes. The wind and rain were brutal. The lights were off and in the fading light I couldn’t see if Steven was there. I went into their yard, to the side door, and jiggled the door handle. It was locked. I looked around flower pots, rocks, mats, trying to think where Fran would leave the key for herself and others.

Her geraniums were slightly askew. I peeked underneath and a small rusty key was sitting in a thin layer of dirt. When I put it in the lock I had to jiggle it a bit but it worked.

The door swung open and the mud room smelled like spoiled potpourri. I didn’t hear any movement in the house, so I pressed on. The living room had plants in strategic places, but they looked too shiny and well maintained to be real. I didn’t see any dry bits or dead parts. I touched the leaves: they were fake. The wind had picked up outside and it made the glass in the windowpanes rattle. I started moving through the house quickly.

I went up the stairs and stopped in the hallway. All the doors were closed. It seemed so cold to me, to have each room cut off from one another. The bathroom was the first door on the left. I walked in. It looked like it had just been redone with new wood paneling. I pulled open the drawers. They were empty. The house didn’t seem lived in to me. Where was the mess? The bits left behind?

I spied Fran’s visor on the towel rack. The one thing out of place. I took it, stared at myself in the mirror, and put it on. It was tight, but it brightened up my face. The pink brim hid the fine lines and wrinkles running along my forehead. I adjusted the strap as snugly as I could and left the bathroom, careful to shut the door behind me.

With the brim of the visor shading my eyes, I had to be careful how I walked.

The next door was the master bedroom. I looked through Fran’s closet but nothing jumped out at me. She only wore muted tones, and mostly strange linens. There were cropped pants and shorts on hangers. I closed the door behind me when I walked out. Steven’s room was at the end of the hall. It still had stickers left over from his adolescence — STAY OUT and GUARD DOG — stuck to the fake painted wood.

I hesitated. Would he be in there? Perhaps he hadn’t fled the storm; maybe he was going to come back to me. I stopped and considered what I was doing there, then I put my hand on the knob and turned. He wasn’t inside. It was empty and looked much like Teddy’s room. Messy and almost unfinished. I heard a crash outside and moved quickly, rifling through Steven’s things.

I sat down on his bed. Things happened on this bed. I could feel it. I pulled back the dark blue comforter. His sheets were stained with dried semen. I bolted up and pushed the comforter back in its place. Didn’t Fran ever do the laundry?

It was time to go. I looked up and saw Steven standing there, blocking my way.

“Why are you wearing my mother’s hat?” he asked.

I touched it but didn’t answer.

“Where did you go?” I asked.

“My parents wanted me to evacuate.”

I was so excited to be this close to him, I could hardly stand it. He came near me with his hand outstretched and there was a crash outside.