Brian Keene: Tequila's Sunrise

BUNNIES IN AUGUST

One year later…

He shouldn’t have come here. Not today. Especially not today.

This is where it happened, he thought. This is where Jack died.

Gary stood beneath the water tower. It perched atop the tallest hill in town, right between the Methodist church cemetery, and the rear of the tiny, decrepit strip mall (abandoned when Wal-Mart moved in two miles away), and a corn field. The tower was a massive, looming, blue thing, providing water to the populace below. Every time he saw it, (which was all the time, because it was visible from everywhere in town) Gary was reminded of the Martian tripods from War of the Worlds . When Jack was old enough to read the graphic novel adaptation, it had reminded him of the same thing.

“It looks like one of the Martian robots, doesn’t it Daddy? Doesn’t it? Let’s pretend the Martians are invading!”

The first tear welled up. Then another. They built to a crescendo. Surrendering, Gary closed his eyes and wept. A warm summer breeze rustled the treetops above him. His breath caught in his throat. He tried to swallow the lump, and found he couldn’t. Sweat beaded his forehead. The heat was stifling. His skin prickled, as if on fire. As if he was burning. The wind brushed against him like caressing flames.

Blinking the tears away, he glanced back up at the water tower and wondered how he could bring it down. He saw it every day—on the drive home, from the grocery store parking lot, the backyard, even his bedroom window—and each time he was reminded of his son. The tower’s presence was inescapable. How to erase its existence—and thus, the memories? A chainsaw was out of the question. The supports were made of steel. Explosives maybe? Yeah. Sure. He was a fucking insurance salesman. Where was he going to find explosives?

He hated the water tower. It stood here as an unwanted reminder, a dark monument to Jack.

This was where it happened.

This used to be their playground.

Weekends had always been their time together. During the week, Gary and Susan both worked, he at the insurance office and she from home, typing up tape-recorded court transcripts. Jack had school, fourth grade, where he excelled in English and Social Studies, but struggled with Math and Science. Gary didn’t see them much on weeknights, either. He’d had other… obligations.

Leila’s face popped into his mind, unbidden. He pushed her away.

Get thee behind me, Satan.

The weekends were magic. Once he’d waded through the mind-numbing tedium of domestic chores; grocery shopping, mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters, and anything else Susan thought up for him to do while she sat at home all day long; after all that, there was Daddy and Jack time. Father and son time. Quality time.

Jack’s first word had been ‘Da-da’.

Gary had loved his son. Loved him so much that it hurt, sometimes. Despite how clichéd it may have sounded to some people, the pain was real. And good. When Jack was little, Gary used to stand over his crib and watch him sleeping. In those moments, Gary’s breath hitched up in his chest—a powerful, overwhelming emotional wave. He’d loved Susan like that too, once upon a time, when they’d first been married. Before job-related stress and mortgage payments and their mutual weight gain—and before Susan’s little personality quirks, things he’d thought were cute and endearing when he’d first met her, the very things he’d fallen in love with after the initial physical attraction, became annoying rather than charming. They knew everything there was to know about each other, and thus, they knew too much. Boredom set in, and worse, a simmering complacency that hollowed him out inside and left him empty. When Jack came along in their fifth year of marriage, Gary fell in love all over again, and his son had filled that hole.

At least temporarily…

Parental love was one thing. That completed a part of him. But Gary still had unfulfilled needs. Needs that Susan didn’t seem inclined to acknowledge, and in truth, needs he wasn’t sure she could have satisfied any longer even if she’d shown interest. Not with the distance between them, a gulf that had grown wider after Jack’s birth. There were too many sleepless nights and grumpy mornings, too many laconic, grunted conversations in front of the television and not enough talking.

So Gary had gone elsewhere.

To Leila.

A crow called out above him, perched on a tree limb. The sound startled him, bringing Gary back to the present. The bird spread its wings and the branch bent under its wings. The leaves rustled as it took flight. Gary watched it go. His spirits plummeted even farther as the bird soared higher.

He stepped out from underneath the water tower’s shadow, back into the sunlight, and shivered.

We beat the Martians, Daddy! Me and you, together…

“Oh Jack,” he whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

Gary felt eyes upon him, a tickling sensation between his shoulder blades. He glanced around. Through his tears, he noticed a rabbit at the edge of the field, watching him intently.

He sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

The rabbit twitched its whiskers and kept staring. Gary felt its black eyes bore into him. He wondered if animals blinked.

The rabbit didn’t.

“Scat.” Gary stamped his foot. “Go on! Get out of here.”

The rabbit scurried into the corn, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. Gary studied the patch of grass where it had been sitting. The spot was empty, except for a large rock. Was it his imagination, or was the stone’s surface red?

Maybe the animal was injured. Or dying.

His mind threatened to dredge up more of the past, and he bit his lip, drawing blood.

Gary checked the time on his cell phone. He’d been gone a long while. Susan would be worried. He shouldn’t have left her alone, especially on today, of all days. But she’d insisted that at least one of them should visit Jack’s grave. That was what had brought him here in the first place. He’d been drawn to the water tower without even thinking about it. Susan hadn’t come with him to the cemetery. Said she couldn’t bear it. She’d visited the grave many times over the past year, but not today. It had been left for Gary to do, and so he had.

He pressed a button, unlocking the keypad, and the phone’s display lit up. It was just after twelve noon, on August fifteenth. But he’d already known the date.

How could he forget?

He trudged back the way he’d come, wading through the sweltering afternoon haze. Heat waves shimmered in the corners of his vision.

He shouldn’t have come here. Not today, on the one year anniversary of his son’s death. This was a bad idea. It was bad enough that he could see this stupid water tower everywhere he went. Why come this close to it? What was he hoping to find? To prove?

The wind whispered, Daddy.

Gary turned around, and gasped.

Jack stood beneath the water tower, watching him go. The boy was dressed in the same clothes the police had found him in.

Daddy…

His son reached out. Jack was transparent. Gary could see corn stalks on the other side of him.

“No. Not real. You’re not real.”

La la la la, lemon. La la la la, lullaby…

Gary shivered. Jack’s favorite song from Sesame Street . He’d sung it all the time. All about the letter ‘L’ and words that began with it; a Bert and Ernie classic from Gary’s own childhood.

“You’re not there,” he told his son.

***

Gary stuck his pinky fingers in his ears and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Jack was gone. He’d never been there. It was just the heat, playing tricks on him. He lowered his hands.