company two-way, and usually passed the time either reading a paperback or listening to a portable radio I always brought with me. If anything happened, I was only there to put a call in to the police so they could handle it. I was a babysitter in costume, dressed like I was something more, something official, keeping an eye on a bunch of used cars no one would want anyway.
The vacant factory, only one of many that littered the city—mementos of an age when the textile industry had sustained it—the same as in Potter’s Cove—loomed beyond the shadows of the lot across the street, the enormous rotting structure blocking much of the moon, the remaining portion masked by spitting bursts of snow.
Because I knew my supervisor wouldn’t be around, I’d brought a six-pack with me. The beer relaxed me, and I hoped it might help me forget all that had happened and much of what Bernard had said on that tape. But even alcohol failed to rid me of the continuous stream of thoughts exploding through my mind, because just like the nightmares, we’d all experienced the tape. Now it was just a matter of deciphering it, and the potential danger therein was different than anything we’d encountered to that point. Different than a dream or a feeling, this was more than real; it was palpable. But were the things he’d hinted at on the tape just more of his stories, more dramatics, or had he spoken the truth down in that cellar?
Think back through the years, fellas. Think about all the times things with me just didn’t add up, how things seemed just a bit off, just a little strange.
I dug a beer from a small cooler at the bottom of the gym bag I brought with me on each job, cracked it open and took a pull.
I wish I could’ve told you the truth about me, about the things I’ve done, but if you’re honest with yourselves and you stop and think long and hard, you’ll realize the answers are right there and have been all along.
Visions of Toni came to me then. She’d been asleep when I left for the shift, curled up and warm in bed. She always looked so beautiful and peaceful when she slept, like she hadn’t a care in the world, and this time had been no exception. When I’d returned home from Rick’s I told her about the tape but left out most of the specifics and downplayed the confessional aspect. She dismissed it as Bernard just being Bernard right to the end and was more concerned with how I was doing. We cuddled in the recliner and watched TV until she went to bed, then I sat with her and ran my fingers through her hair the way she liked until she’d drifted off to sleep. Sitting there on the edge of the bed, I wondered if perhaps part of what Bernard had said was true.
Bet she realizes she should’ve picked someone else to spend her life with.
Maybe that’s why our lovemaking hadn’t been the same in eons. Maybe she loved me but was no longer in love with me—hadn’t been in years. Maybe she was afraid she’d become pregnant and the idea of bringing a child into a marriage such as ours was beyond what even she was prepared to endure. Maybe she was getting it somewhere else. Maybe it was as simple as that. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe we adored each other and simply had problems like any other couple. Maybe as long as we knew the other would always be there, it didn’t really matter.
I killed the beer and tossed the empty into the gym bag.
Think back through the years, fellas…
* * *
But for certain specific episodes of importance or particular impact, the years prior to our teens were vague at best. Life in Potter’s Cove was largely uneventful, and things rarely changed. It was a time when a distinction still existed between “school” clothes and “play” clothes, a time before VCRs or video games or cable television, before personal computers, the Internet and e-mail, cell phones and beepers and microwave ovens, and a time when the handheld
The vacant factory, only one of many that littered the city—mementos of an age when the textile industry had sustained it—the same as in Potter’s Cove—loomed beyond the shadows of the lot across the street, the enormous rotting structure blocking much of the moon, the remaining portion masked by spitting bursts of snow.
Because I knew my supervisor wouldn’t be around, I’d brought a six-pack with me. The beer relaxed me, and I hoped it might help me forget all that had happened and much of what Bernard had said on that tape. But even alcohol failed to rid me of the continuous stream of thoughts exploding through my mind, because just like the nightmares, we’d all experienced the tape. Now it was just a matter of deciphering it, and the potential danger therein was different than anything we’d encountered to that point. Different than a dream or a feeling, this was more than real; it was palpable. But were the things he’d hinted at on the tape just more of his stories, more dramatics, or had he spoken the truth down in that cellar?
Think back through the years, fellas. Think about all the times things with me just didn’t add up, how things seemed just a bit off, just a little strange.
I dug a beer from a small cooler at the bottom of the gym bag I brought with me on each job, cracked it open and took a pull.
I wish I could’ve told you the truth about me, about the things I’ve done, but if you’re honest with yourselves and you stop and think long and hard, you’ll realize the answers are right there and have been all along.
Visions of Toni came to me then. She’d been asleep when I left for the shift, curled up and warm in bed. She always looked so beautiful and peaceful when she slept, like she hadn’t a care in the world, and this time had been no exception. When I’d returned home from Rick’s I told her about the tape but left out most of the specifics and downplayed the confessional aspect. She dismissed it as Bernard just being Bernard right to the end and was more concerned with how I was doing. We cuddled in the recliner and watched TV until she went to bed, then I sat with her and ran my fingers through her hair the way she liked until she’d drifted off to sleep. Sitting there on the edge of the bed, I wondered if perhaps part of what Bernard had said was true.
Bet she realizes she should’ve picked someone else to spend her life with.
Maybe that’s why our lovemaking hadn’t been the same in eons. Maybe she loved me but was no longer in love with me—hadn’t been in years. Maybe she was afraid she’d become pregnant and the idea of bringing a child into a marriage such as ours was beyond what even she was prepared to endure. Maybe she was getting it somewhere else. Maybe it was as simple as that. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe we adored each other and simply had problems like any other couple. Maybe as long as we knew the other would always be there, it didn’t really matter.
I killed the beer and tossed the empty into the gym bag.
Think back through the years, fellas…
* * *
But for certain specific episodes of importance or particular impact, the years prior to our teens were vague at best. Life in Potter’s Cove was largely uneventful, and things rarely changed. It was a time when a distinction still existed between “school” clothes and “play” clothes, a time before VCRs or video games or cable television, before personal computers, the Internet and e-mail, cell phones and beepers and microwave ovens, and a time when the handheld
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