Twelve: An Unpleasant Surprise (is there any other kind?)
***
They crept downstairs at 4:30 with packed bags. Outside, an ice cold February all but grabbed them by the throats and squeezed. Keltie paused on the front step to check the surroundings. A dead, frosted over world looked back. Icicles hung from tree limbs and eave spouts. Nothing moved.
“What are you looking for?” Marty asked.
Her reply was immediate. “Bolt.”
“He’s not here.” But the voice next to her did not sound certain.
“I hope you’re right,” Keltie said.
Off they marched. No traffic passed them on Benedict Avenue, a fact for which Keltie was deeply grateful. She’d anticipated an occasional police car to force them back from the sidewalk and into hiding behind a hedge or a snowman or whatever. She even had a spiel planned out for just such an occasion. Hello, officer, can you direct me to the nearest fucking sauna? I’m freezing my ass off out here. Or something to that effect. But the need never arose. Perhaps the Norwalk cops were all freezing, too. Or somewhere eating Krispy Kremes.
All of that aside, she was by no means prepared to test their luck by entering the downtown district at five o’clock in the morning. At West Elm Street she bade they turn left, which led them around all the bars and convenience stores…and straight into, of all places, Pleasant Street Park.
“Oh shit,” Marty said, staring at the creek from atop the hill. “Here again?”
Keltie touched his hand. “Last time. Promise.”
They entered the park, never once looking left towards the gorge, or the giant culvert that ran under the street. A single arc-sodium lamp lit a shelter filled with old picnic tables.
There were a few high school kids already waiting at the Pleasant Street bus stop. Keltie wanted nothing to do with any of them. She told Marty to stay with her on the opposite side of the street, where a pit-bull behind a chain link fence threatened to tear them apart.
“It’s safer and more friendly over here,” Keltie explained, to which Marty only offered a strange look.
At the corner of West Main they parted ways. The plan was for Marty to pick up a car from his house, then drive to the Methodist church, where Keltie would be waiting. Also at the corner stood a large, Greek revival house, constructed around 1830. Its huge, dark windows shined on the empty sidewalks from within four handsome concrete columns. Once, during the 1830s, it had served as a seminary for girls, and two of the old chalkboards from that era were still in place on the living room wall. It was a fine house. A beautiful house, full of fireplaces and airy rooms. It was also the house of Mr. Bolt. Keltie had no way of knowing this, nor did Marty, and as luck would have it, the vampire was not in residence when the two teens paused to solidify their morning plans. For had Bolt been at home, he would have surely smelled the cigarettes on Keltie’s breath, or perhaps caught a whiff of Vera’s scent on Marty’s clothes. From there, they both would have been killed on the spot. What a lucky girl you are, Keltie, Cameron sometimes used say, before slapping her to the floor, to be alive in this WONDERFUL world. What a lucky, lucky girl.
She kept her pace brisk as she headed towards town, though the air was almost too thin to breathe. Twice she slipped on the icy sidewalks, but was just too damned good to lose her balance. Or so she told herself. Up ahead stood the tower of the Methodist church. She couldn’t wait to get warm. Maybe Cameron would even have a pot of coffee going.
She was about to cross Newton Street when a police car flew to the stop sign. City of Norwalk Police Department, the badge on the passenger door declared. Goddammit to fucking hell, Keltie thought. For a moment she held hope that the cop would just drive off. And why not? It was a school morning. She was just another kid, walking to school. Right, officer? Come on, give a gal a break.
The passenger window purred down in its groove. “Hey there,” the cop said, leaning over. “Where you headed this morning?”
Well, I’m done turning all my tricks for the night, officer, so I thought I’d go home and rinse my mouth out.
“Methodist church,” she told him. “My dad works there as a janitor.”
The cop nodded. “He giving you a ride to school?”
No, we also have a sexual thing going on. He takes pictures of me nude and then we upload on the Tor network.
“That’s right,” Keltie said. “His shift is almost done. It’s a cold morning, so he hates for me to walk.”
“All right,” the cop replied with another nod. “Hop in and I’ll take you to the church. Going that way anyway.”
She got in as if she didn’t have a choice (which she didn’t) and they rolled off. In less than a minute drive was done. The cop let her out in the parking lot, then waited to make sure she actually went inside the church. Bully for you, Keltie thought, glancing back once at his purring cruiser.
No bald-headed priest greeted her today. Indeed, there was no one in the nave at all. She walked down the aisle like a bride who’d gotten the day of her wedding all wrong, eyes fixed on the altar cross, which seemed to glow with a heat far greater than the candles around it.
Suddenly uncertain, Keltie sat down in the pews. What if Cameron wasn’t working today? And even if he was, how did she plan on explaining things to him?
Hey Dad? It’s really great that we’ve reconciled, and I love you for it, but now I have to run off to this strange town with a guy you’ve never even met. Why? Just to torture some information out of a vampire. Yeah.
She looked at her hands for a moment, then back at the cross. Though she had read the bible, she did not consider herself a firm believer in God. Logic and science made for a far more dependable religion—or had, anyway, before all this Bram Stoker bullshit steamed into her station with its conductor waving a free ticket. Nevertheless, Keltie did know the Methodist prayer for forgiveness, and found herself whispering it now.
“Most merciful God, I confess that I have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what I have done, and by what I have left undone. Especially troubling to me are the following sins…”
She paused. Now what? To be certain, the list would be long. Perhaps there weren’t even enough hours in the day.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
And a voice behind her replied: “Please tell me that isn’t one of them.”
She spun around to see Cameron seated calmly behind her. His glasses shimmered in a vaguely unsettling way. Last night’s dream came back to Keltie, grinned, then disappeared.
“Either the school burned down and you’re one of the lucky survivors,” he went on, “or you’re playing truant. Which is it?”
“Hi, Dad,” Keltie said.
“Hey, baby.”
They stood and hugged. Tears began to well in Keltie’s eyes, which took all of her willpower to fight off. Their reason made sense. In a different time, in another life, she’d been taken away from this man, and was glad for the fact. Today she had to leave again, and felt anything but.
“So tell me,” he said as they sat back down, “why come to this godly place at such an ungodly hour? When I ran off from school at your age it was usually to a basement card game.”
“It’s a brisk morning, Dad. I wanted some clean air.”
“Now now. We’re not in a place for lying.”
She gave a laugh. “Are you sure? There’s a lot of wild stuff in the bible. Resurrection. Ten-headed monsters—“
“You know by now, Keltie, that impossibility is a myth.”
She looked at him. The candles still shimmered in his glasses, and for a moment she feared he was talking about Vera, or Penelope, or—God help them both—Bolt. But how could that be?
“I let you go once,” he continued, “and now I seem to have gotten you back. That’s pretty wild. Wild and wonderful.”
“I know,” Keltie said. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to make fun of anything.”
“Nah,” Cameron shrugged back. “I like to hear you laugh. It makes me laugh.”
“You’re not looking too cheerful, actually.”
It was the truth. Cameron Burke did not look ready to laugh at anything, or even smile. His face was forlorn as an old gravesite.
“It’s early,” he explained. “The coffee was weak.”
“Is that all it is?”
Another shrug came from the seat next to her. “I figure you’ve got something heavy on your mind. Otherwise why break out of school at five o’clock in the morning to come here?”
“Fresh donuts at Meek’s Pastry down the street. This is the best time for them.”
“Keltie.”
She smiled. “Come on. You said you like hearing me laugh.”
“You laugh now and you’re gonna look like Harley Quinn. That’ll frighten me.”
The remark puzzled her. For years Keltie had been dressing in a similar way to Dynamite Comics’ famous anti-heroine. Did her laugh, then, really remind Cameron of a better girl?
“Why did you come here this morning, sweetheart? Tell me.”
She took a deep breath. The smell of incense and pine cleaner filled her chest. “I met a boy,” she exhaled.
“Okay,” Cameron nodded. “What kind of a boy?”
“Well. He’s…”
Oh shit, girl, you are getting yourself in deeper and deeper here. What kind of a boy IS Marty, anyway? Good question, Dad.”
“He’s…a nice kid. Pretty cool.”
Now her father finally laughed. “Brilliant. So you’re eloping with a nice kid who’s pretty cool. At sixteen years of age.”
“I didn’t say I was eloping. I mean yes!” she lunged, shocking Cameron so much that he jumped in his seat. “Yes! That’s it! We’re eloping! Cool, right?”
“Not cool, Keltie. Not in the least.”
Eloping, of course. What a great excuse. Much better than the one about running off to kill vampires. How in hell did she ever think she could tell him the truth, anyway? It was madness. Foolishness. Absurdity at its absolute zenith.
“But I love him!” she spluttered.
“It was wrong to use that word anyway,” Cameron said, ignoring her. “When you elope you don’t tell anybody. It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“Not this time. I want the whole world to know how much I love him.”
“I’m sure you do. Your heart is practically bursting from your chest.”
“Dad!”
“How long have you known this kid?”
Keltie thought back. Technically, she had known Marty since the fifth grade. That made their relationship at least six years strong. Smiling, she decided to stick the number into Cameron’s pipe and see what color smoke came out.
“Six years.”
“Yeah,” the old man retorted, in what she could have sworn was a green haze, “six years. So you saw him occasionally in the Pleasant Street School cafeteria. That’s knowing him.”
“It always used to make me tingle.”
“I bet.”
“So?” Keltie said, trying on her dad’s shrug. “Do I have your blessing?”
“Go back to school, Keltie. You’re being a bad girl.”
“That’s because I am a bad girl, Dad.”
“No you’re not,” the other told her matter of factly. “You’re a teenager, but not a bad girl.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re still learning. You grew up with a bad father, so you have that handicap to deal with. Your mom drank. Drinks.”
His mention of Chloe made Keltie squirm a little in her seat. She hadn’t been back to the trailer park on Jefferson Street since their little two-woman soiree last year, or even bothered with looking at her contact number. How are you doing these days, Mom? Still alive?
“…all night long.”
She blinked. “What was that, Dad? I’m sorry.”
“I said I talk to your mom on the phone sometimes. She told me you came by her trailer last year. Stayed together a whole night.”
“Yeah. We did.”
“Was it fun?”
“Not especially.”
“Don’t tell her that when you see her again. She loved having you.”
“I won’t. Hey, Dad?”
Cameron’s head tilted. His expression, open and receptive, made her feel like no matter what she did or didn’t do with Marty, he would not try to stop her. He would ask, but he would not tell. Telling was what the old Cameron Burke used to do. Indeed, the old Cameron Burke would have back-handed her over the face and chained her in the basement before letting some boy woo her away with chocolates and flowers. This new man was either too old for tyranny or too repentant. Whichever, Keltie decided on the spot to let the whole matter of telling him about Marty drop. She had come here to say goodbye and that was all. The deed seemed more or less taken care of.
“I’ll go back to school,” she said, “think about this whole thing for awhile longer. How does that sound?”
Cameron grinned. “Like a lie. But I appreciate your trying to make me feel better.”
“I can’t get a single thing past you.”
“Nope. Not this old man.”
***
Marty’s car turned out to be nothing if not practical. Keltie left the church to find a boxy, four-door sedan waiting at the curb. Marty waved from the driver’s seat. Keltie jumped in on the other side and asked if he knew where the Sunset Lane trailer park was. He didn’t, but it was a simple job of telling him the way as he drove. Five minutes later they were parked in front of Chloe’s run down trailer.
“What’s this?” Marty asked.
“My mom lives here. I just want to check up on her before we leave.”
She got out, went to the door, rapped on it. The noise set off an immediate litany of dog barking from around the park, followed by a harsh warning that whoever was doing all the knocking better shut the fuck up. Keltie knocked harder.
“Mom? You in there?”
“Yup!” a muffled voice called back. “Hold on!”
A chain rattled, a lock turned. Moments later the door flew open on what Keltie considered the worst case of worst-case scenario she had ever seen. Chloe Burke teetered at the threshold, barely dressed and sloppy drunk. Her robe hung open at the top, showing far too much of what hadn’t looked good for decades. Two eyes, shot with blood, fought for clarity below a helicopter crash hairdo where blades stuck out every which way but loose.
“Hi, Mom,” Keltie said through a weak smile.
“Well, hi Kelllltiiiiieeeeee!” her mom sang out. “It’s really great to see ya! Come on in!”
“Actually—“
“And who is that handsome devil behind you?” Chloe went on, eyes rolling past Keltie’s shoulder like a couple of broken marbles.
Keltie turned around. Marty had gotten out of the car and now idled by the rear-view mirror. His face did not look any more confident than she currently felt.
“That’s…that’s my friend, Marty,” she said to Chloe.
“Mmmmm. Dishy.”
“Dishy? Mom, have you been watching the BBC again?”
Without deigning to answer, the old woman began to insist in a voice far too loud for the surroundings that she and Marty both come inside for a drink.
“It’s six o’clock in the morning, Mom,” Keltie said.
Chloe groped for the door, missed, then found it on her second try. “Already?” she marveled.
“Yeah, Mom. Time really flies.” She glanced at Marty again, who had not moved from his position next to the car. He raised his hands in a questioning manner. Keltie signaled for him to wait.
“Well how about some pancakes then?” Chloe burst out. “Come inside! I’ll make you both two huge plates of…of…” And before she could finish, she pitched forward, spewing a deluge of vomit all over Keltie’s boots.
“MOM!”
Keltie caught her up as more vomit sprayed onto her coat. She screamed back at Marty for help, but he was already there, and together, they carried Chloe into the trailer. To Keltie’s further horror, a disgusting mess presented itself. Her mom’s once perfectly clean residence had gone. In its place lay dirty laundry and used dishes. Stained carpeting. Stepping over all, they maneuvered Chloe into the bedroom, where further chaos lurked (junk jewelry was strewn everywhere, along with several empty beer bottles), and got her onto the sheets just as the muscles in Keltie’s arms were giving out.
“Mom? Mom, are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” Chloe mumbled back. “I’m okay, I’m just sick, that’s all. I got sick.”
Keltie turned to Marty. She ordered him to find a rag and some clean water. He was off in a flash. “Mom?” she said, once they were alone. “I’m here.”
“I’m sorry, Keltie. My tummy just hurts so bad.”
Keltie tousled the old woman’s hair, which felt brittle enough to crack. “I know it does,” she whispered. “But we’re going to fix you up. Okay? We’re going to make you all better.”
A smile broke across the tortured face on the pillow. “I used to say that to you. When you got sick.”
“I remember. And you always did.”
“Stop that. You don’t have to be a good girl if you don’t want to, Keltie. Not today.”
Keltie blushed. “Better good than bad, Mom,” she offered with a sick smile of her own.
“Is that what you really believe?”
Marty came through the door, holding a plastic bowl of steaming water. A white rag floated inside. Keltie washed her mother’s face and shoulders as best she could.
“You need a hospital,” she said.
Chloe’s face became alarmed. “No, no. I don’t want that.”
“I don’t blame you. But you need one.”