Where Evil Dwells

Posted by Cindi on October 02, 2008 at 04:14:05 from (65.35.104.2):

The open barn door stared back at Guy like the lifeless eye of a shark. He shuddered and transferred the bucket of sweet feed from his left hand to his right. Up until now he had managed to stay out of the barn, but he was running out of excuses.

“Feed Misty for me while I start supper, will you?” his wife Mel had asked, and slipped the bucket into his hand before he had a chance to think up an acceptable excuse.

The barn was what Mel considered a “bonus” on the 20-acre property in north Florida they had bought the month before. Guy loved the rambling old two-story house at first sight, and the land surrounding it, but if the barn burned down he would be a happy man.

He could hear Misty shuffling around in her stall and then she whinnied softly as if she knew that Guy was right outside the door with her evening feeding. Guy was actually considering squelching his terror and entering the barn, when like a gift Tracy raced by on her way to the neighbor's house to meet up with her new friend Gayle.

“Halt!” he cried, and Tracy stopped on a dime, kicking up a tuft of dust at the toe of her right sneaker. “Here,” he said, thrusting the bucket toward his daughter, “feed your mom's horse before you go ... and make sure she has fresh water.”

“Da-ad!” Tracy whined, but took the bucket. “Gayle's waiting for me! I'm having dinner at her house.”

“It won't take you a minute,” Guy said firmly, and turned to walk away reveling in the fact that at 10, Tracy asked few questions and was basically obedient and did as she was told. He shrugged off the thought that he had just sent his small daughter into a place where he couldn't—or wouldn't—go himself, and tried not to feel like a jerk, but he had come to the conclusion that there was really nothing to fear in the barn. His was an unreasonable phobia—something he would have to find his own way to deal with, and he would start by picking a fight with his wife.

He found her standing at the sink peeling raw carrots for salad. “You know, you wanted that horse, not me,” he said to her shapely back.

“S'cuse me?” Melanie turned and stared at him like she'd never seen him before, one cheek pooched full of raw carrot. Guy stared at the minute specks of brilliant orange carrot crumbs on her full lips, fascinated, before she turned back to her task.

“I said, you wanted that horse, and now you have everyone in the house taking care of her.”

Mel's brow furrowed and she stared at the mound of carrot peels on the counter. “What brought this on?” she muttered.

She refused to meet his eyes and Guy knew that that was a signal that she was not in the mood for any bullshit, and wouldn't think twice about peeling him like a fresh cucumber with the stainless steel kitchen tool she held in her able hand.

Guy swallowed around a lump in his throat knowing that he would either have to avoid entering the barn or continue to suffer with his bouts of terror, and he would rather risk a peeling than he would the quiet horror of the dark barn.

“I said I didn't care if you bought the horse, but that doesn't mean I want to feed it everyday.”

“Correct me if I'm wrong, but as closely as I can remember, today was the first day I asked you to feed Misty. If it's that big an inconvenience, I'll feed her and you can cook supper.”

Guy knew by the tone of Mel's voice that she was in “hurt” mode, brought on by an unreasonable attack, but she could easily slip into “pissed off” mode in a split second and with no warning.

“She's already been fed,” Guy said coolly, “Tracy fed her, but ...”

“So you didn't have to feed her, anyway ... you managed to get out of it, so what are we talking about?”

“I'm talking about shirking responsibilities, and how you always manage to create more work and then foist it off on someone else. Like Wally, for instance.”

Mel laughed and Guy was momentarily optimistic. Would he be able to manage avoiding the barn by refusing to feed Misty, and by some miracle not piss Mel off in the process?

“You love Wally,” she accused, and then toed the massive golden retriever that lay on the floor at her feet. “Doesn't he, Wal?” The dog sighed and rolled over on his back exposing his belly, his eyes still closed. “You named him, you big goof,” she said to Guy.

“Yeah, and I feed him everyday and take him to the vet even though you were the one who brought him home.”

Mel sighed and set the peeled carrots in the sink and turned on the cold water to rinse them. “Are we back to that, Guy? Just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it.”

I want you to tell me that I never have to go in the barn again, Guy thought to himself, ever, and not ask me why I can't. I want you to somehow divine that I'm terrified to go in there and that I can't possibly tell you that because I'm a man, and I don't have the words in my vocabulary to admit that I can't do something because of an irrational fear.

“I want you to take responsibility for the extra work you bring into our lives. It's just like the swimming pool at our old house. You had to have it, and you swore you would keep it clean and take care of it. You cleaned it once before you decided that it was too much work and then I ended up doing it for six months before I hired a service that ended up costing us 30 dollars a month!”

“You used that pool more than I did!” Mel objected, and then dumped the carrots into a waiting bed of lettuce.

“Yeah, but I would never have put it in if it hadn't been for you.”

“It also raised the value of the house, we got an extra ten thousand dollars on the sale because of that pool, Guy.”

“You're missing the point ...”

“What is the goddammed point, Guy? All this because I asked you to feed Misty so I could start supper? What—are you just spoiling for a fight? I'll happily oblige you! Do you want me to promise that I'll never ask you to feed Misty again? Fine! Consider it done! But the next time you ask me for a favor, you just remember this.”

“Mel ...” Guy began, as though he was considering apologizing, but he knew he couldn't—too much work had gone into arriving at this point to risk apologizing and having Mel think he had changed his mind. He had to tread very carefully now ...

“No, really, Guy, remind me the next time I inconvenience you by asking you to do something for me. I had no idea I was imposing on your good nature so often.” Mel slammed the bowl with the finished salad in it on the table. Sarcasm, Guy thought ... that was good. He could lighten the mood by chuckling at her wit without making her angrier, and then he could go on to do damage repair.

“Who ever said I had a good nature?” he joked, and slipped up behind Mel and put his arms around her. She tried to shrug him off, but he held on tightly, nibbling her neck at the same time.

“Stop it, jerk!” Mel growled, and tried to wriggle her way free.

“Now that's more like it ... we both know I'm a jerk. It's on my birth certificate ... Guy Jerk Thornton.”

Mel had a grudging smile at one corner of her mouth and Guy was so infinitely grateful that he kissed it, even though he risked having his male parts rammed up under his chin for the privilege.

“I love you so much,” Guy said, meaning every single word with all his heart. “Tonight, I clean the kitchen.”

“You'll do that, but you won't walk to the barn and dump five pounds of sweet feed in a tub?” Mel shook her head and sighed. “I'll never understand you, Guy.”

Guy was cleaning the dishes off the table after dinner when the phone rang. Mel picked it up, listened for a few moments, apologized, and then hung up and went to the base of the stairs.

“Trace!” she called.

“What is it?” Guy came in from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a cup towel.

“Trace, get down here!” Mel yelled.

“What's wrong, Mel?” Guy asked again.

“She was supposed to go to Gayle's for dinner. I thought she already left, but Gayle just called and said they're holding dinner on her. Trace!” She yelled up the stairs again.

Mel had one foot on the bottom stair when Guy grabbed her arm.

“She did leave, Mel. I saw her when she went.” Guy said softly, and watched as Mel's face went positively gray. “Remember I told you that she fed Misty?”

“Well then, why ...?” Mel began, and then she and Guy erupted into motion at exactly the same second. Mel raced for the front door and slipped her feet into her gardening boots while Guy rushed to the back door. The couple nearly collided with each other on the south side of the house.

“Where could she be, Guy?” Mel yelled frantically. “Tracy!” She shouted, and then ran toward the path that led across the pasture to the neighbor's house. Guy was right on her heels.

“No!” Mel stopped him with a hard hand in the middle of his chest. “Check the barn!”

Guy wasn't sure if it was the shove he'd gotten from Melanie or the words “check the barn!” but suddenly he felt as though his heart had stopped beating. He watched his wife take off across the pasture, her eyes on the ground near the path, and he knew what she was thinking; if Trace had been bitten by a snake she might not have been able to make it home for help and might be lying somewhere along the path ... and God help him, he almost hoped that that was the case because then he wouldn't have to go into the barn.

Your child may be in that barn ... hurt ... bleeding! His conscience screamed at him. And here you stand, dicking around, hoping that she's been bitten by a snake for God's sake, just because of you own silly fears!

Guy took two steps toward the barn and felt his stomach muscles clench so tightly that he was sure he was going to throw up.

Go, you cowardly sonofabitch!

“Traaaaaceeee!”

Guy could hear Mel's voice and it was very far away now, and he knew as surely as he had ever known anything in his life that he would find Tracy in the barn, where he had sent her, sent her knowing that there was something very dark and evil in there.

Shaking from head to toe he stumbled toward the barn like a drunk, pushing his fear down into his own dark evil place, clenching his teeth hard enough to crack a molar. The barn door gaped at him, only this time it looked like the cavernous maw of a grizzly bear rather than the eye of a shark, and he wished he could go back to that earlier image that hadn't been quite as terrifying.

Without stopping to give himself a chance to retreat, Guy burst into the darkness of the barn screaming hoarsely, whatever it was that was in there, he would fight it ... he had to ... he had to do it for Tracy! It was then that he made out her crumpled form lying in the hay on the floor at the back of the barn.

“Oh ... oh ... my God! Tracy!” Guy went to his knees and then crawled on all fours across the floor to his daughter's prone form. He had his daughter's head in his lap and he was sobbing with terror and anguish when Mel burst into the barn. Whatever she was saying sounded like gibberish ... he couldn't focus on her words, as he couldn't tear his eyes off of the unnatural curve of Tracy's neck, and her soft lashes that lay across her cheeks.

The sheriff later said that Tracy must have climbed into the loft to try and throw down more hay for the horse and slipped and lost her footing on the ladder.

“She didn't suffer,” he assured them both as the ambulance pulled away and Mel and Guy stood in the gloom of the shadows cast by the willow tree, and held each other.

Using Guy's arms as leverage Mel pushed herself away from him and wandered toward the house. He watched her body as it passed in front of one of the lit windows, and wondered when she would forgive him, if ever. Would it be any better to tell her that he couldn't go into the barn because he was terrified? Would that make it any better? Was she even now thinking of the argument in the kitchen and how he came off as a lazy slob, and her daughter had had to pay the price for that laziness?

No, his heart told him, Mel's mind didn't work that way, he assured himself. She would see this as an accident. Guy had simply asked Tracy to feed and water Misty, and she had been told numerous times to stay out of the loft. Mel was not an unreasonable person, and she knew that Tracy was headstrong, but grief did strange things to people. His mind went back to the stainless steel peeler and he shook off the thought with a little hysterical giggle.

To anyone with any experience with grief, the fact that Guy Thornton burned down his own barn after his daughter had fallen and broken her neck in it, would seem completely normal. Irrational, probably not practical, but completely understandable.

Who would want that kind of reminder on the property to look at day after day? But to Guy, the burning of the barn was not about the destruction of an emotional eye sore; the least he could do for his sweet daughter was to free her spirit from that dark place where he knew that she ... and evil dwelled.

Follow Ups:

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