Andrew Pyper - The Guardians

"Trevor the Brave."

Randy steps out of the dark. The words that come out of his mouth aren't his, but the boy's.

"Look at you, Mr. Shaky," he says. "But an old Guardian could never let down a damsel in distress, could he?"

My arms rise in front of me. A reflex. The limbs seeking counterbalance against faling backwards. It makes me feel like the Frankenstein monster from the after-school movies of my youth.

But Randy's attack doesn't come. He stands ten feet from where I stand over Tracey. Arms at his sides. His face falsely animated, as if he's trying to appear engaged by an anecdote he'd long stopped listening to.

A choking at the back of my throat, and I smel the smoke. Folowed by the first tendrils of grey reaching down the stairs from the kitchen.

"We have to get out of here, Randy."

"I'd like you to stay."

"There's a fire"

"I know. I started it."

"Jesus Christ."

"Stay where you are," he says, though I'm not moving.

"You took her."

"You couldn't understand."

"Try me."

"It was apart."

"Part of what?"

"I told you you couldn't understand."

Through the veils of smoke, Randy's freckles appear enlarged. Spreading over his face like a hundred darkening bruises.

"How did she end up down here?"

"I wasn't fuly committed."

"Committed to what?"

"The part."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"It was a performance. For once I had an audience that was realy watching. And you know what I did? I messed it up. Mailed it in."

"Are you saying you were acting?"

"It's al I've ever wanted to do. And the boy knew that. The house knew it. And it asked me to show everything I had. To do one remarkable thing once in my life."

"To kil her."

"But I didn't. There was too much of me getting in the way of the character. Too much interference."

"Who did you think you were playing?"

"The lead."

"Roy."

"Who else?"

I've had rooms spin on me before. Boozy carousels or sickbed see-saws. But what's happening now is of a different order altogether. The celar spinning, along with the house, the earth loosed from its axis and wobbling off into space.

"When did it start?" I manage.

"Sometime after Ben's funeral, I guess. That's when I heard his voice. First time in twenty-four years. Then it got so loud it was al I could hear."

"That night. You went back to Jake's after we left?"

"It was closed, so I waited. And when she came out I offered her a joint. I'm an old friend of her dad's. She said sure."

"She trusted you."

"I'm fun , remember?"

"So you decided to have a party."

"I asked her if kids stil went to the old Thurman place. She couldn't believe I knew about it, that this freckly, balding guy used to get up to no good in here the same way she and her friends did. So she figured it couldn't hurt to smoke another joint for shits and giggles before heading home."

"Except you didn't smoke another joint."

"No. We didn't."

From upstairs, the fire is a voice that joins the two of ours. Wet and gulping, like a dog swalowing something it's found in the mud.

"What did you do instead?"

"Talked. I don't have a clue about what," Randy says, now grinning widely like his father, the loony salesman caricature they used in those Krazy Kevin! car lot ads.

"Her boyfriend, maybe. How she couldn't wait to get out of this shithole. The future. I wasn't listening to her. I was listening to him. And when I was doing the talking, I was concentrating on seling my lines. And you know something? I was good."

"What did he tel you to do?"

"Make her stop."

"Stop what?"

"Laughing. Smiling. Breathing'

I'm having trouble standing. The smoke has thickened, shrouding the large space so that, for moments at a time, Randy is the only thing I can see.

"I dragged her down here," he goes on, scratching an elbow. "Tied her to the same post where we tied the coach. Oh man, she wanted out of here—and part of me, the pussy Randy part, wanted to let her out. But there was his voice again. Teach her a lesson. Leave her down in the dark until she shuts up. So I left. Went for a walk, sobered up a little. It was cold. I was Randy again, give or take. And then I thought to myself, You've got a coat on, but that poor girl doesn't. So I ran back, came down here to find her quiet, eyes closed. Not dead, but pretty close. I saw that I couldn't let her go. I'd nearly kiled her, and nearly kiling someone is as bad as kiling her, when you think of it. It's worse— because you can't bury a body that's stroling around, teling people what it knows."

"Randy, please. We have to—"

"I remembered how my house had a crawlspace under the kitchen floor. Yours did too, right?"

"You left her alone to die."

" It's just another secret . That's what he kept saying . You're good with secrets. You all are ."

Randy puls something out of his pocket and tosses it at me. Somehow my hand grabs it out of the air. My Dictaphone.

"You broke the rule, Trev."

"I wasn't going to give this to anyone. I did it for myself."

"Which is the same reason I just told you the truth. To see if it changed anything."

"Has it?"

Randy appears about to work this through aloud, his finger partly raised in the manner of a courtroom clarification of fine points. Yet he says nothing. His mouth agape.

"Let us go."

My voice conveys none of the desperation I feel. It sounds as though I'm offering to take his place on the next shift in a Guardians game.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I've been alone a long time," he says, suddenly not himself at al. The boy's tone, lifeless and flat. "And I don't want to be alone anymore."

He grins again. Not Randy this time, not Krazy Kevin!, but the boy. And it's a glimpse of the afterlife. An eternity in here, waiting at the windows with Roy DeLisle.

Watching the girls go by.

I make a move to get past him. Not a run, nothing so orchestrated as to be understood as an intention. A grasping of' legs and arms and head in the direction of the stairs. Hut Randy pushes me back with one hand, his palm slapping my shoulder as if in greeting.

"Give me the locket," he says, and holds his hand out. Opens his fist to show a platinum band with a piece of emerald in it. I glance down at Tracey and spot the white circle below one of her knuckles.

"That was you? You dug Heather up?"

"Right there where you're standing," he points, and I take an involuntary step backwards. "But once I moved away I didn't want it anymore. I was just goofy Handy Randy again, and I couldn't bear it. Mailed it to Ben, no return address."

"Why Ben?"

"He stayed. And it belonged here." He takes a ful stride closer. "It wanted to be here."

"You mean the boy wanted it to be here."

"And now he'd like it back."

So I give it to him. I step over Tracey Flanagan's unconscious body and pul Heather's gold heart from my walet. Let its chain pour into Randy's hand.

As Randy unfastens the clasp and raises both arms to hook it up at the back of his neck, I slide the wrench out of my other pocket. He blinks down at it, amazed, as though it is a talking bird. I swing the wrench wide and strike it square against the side of his head.

He fals in two distinct motions: slow to his knees, then a formless slump onto his back. I fal to my knees too, bending at his side to feel his stil-beating heart, his stale breath a whisper in my ear. I'd seen hockey players in this state before, unlucky puck chasers who'd gone headfirst into the boards. Unconscious, but not necessarily for long.

I scramble over to Tracey on al fours, slip my arms under her and forklift her up. Using the wals to keep her cradled in place, I get to my feet and swing around.