It would only be in hindsight, after Harold began replaying this conversation over and over in his head, that he would realize this statement should’ve been enough to tip him off. It undoubtedly would have, if he’d been firing on all cylinders. But, as he looked over Stratton’s shoulder, Harold noticed how deep the afternoon shadows were getting over in the far corner of the room. The overcast outside was bringing on an early twilight.
“Talk to me about what?” Harold asked, staring at those shadows. Was there movement over there, or was that his imagination?
Stratton made a distasteful face and looked at his shoes. “This is…difficult to say. And I’m sure it’s going to be even more difficult for you to hear. But…god, you had to know. From the way she describes things, there’s no way you couldn’t. Maybe not about me, specifically, but you must’ve sensed something…”
That inky black spot. Harold was almost sure it was swirling, like black sludge down a drain. And pulsing, too. Reaching out for him. He edged toward the light switches.
“I’m sorry…Doug, right?” The words barely even registered as they came out of Harold’s mouth. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the corner, and Stratton was too busy staring at his shoes to notice his distraction. “I’m not really following you. And I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got a lot to do, so can we get to the point?”
“Mr. Taylor…Beth and I are…together. We have been for about a year now.”
Harold snapped to attention like an electric jolt had just buzzed through him. The darkness in the corner—real or imagined—was forgotten.
Suddenly this man had his full attention.
“What did you say?” he asked in amazement.
Now that the admission was made, Stratton seemed to find confidence, his words coming easier as he looked up. “I’m very sorry, it’s not something we planned, but we’re in love, I love her very, very much and we want to be together, but she’s too scared to ask you for a divorce. So I thought you and I could discuss this like men.”
Again, Harold thought of that faceless future boy who would one day deliver a similar speech to him about his daughter.
Well, you had it half-right, Harry: he is here to ask you for a woman’s hand, but it sure ain’t Kylie’s.
“You’ve…you’ve been sleeping with my wife?” he asked slowly, as a full understanding of what this man was telling him dawned. And then, as he thought about the self-assured way Stratton had entered the house and his own theory about that reset alarm clock, “Jesus, right here? In my own bed?” A piston of anger began to pump in him.
Stratton—and he would always be ‘Stratton’ now, first names, as far as Harold was concerned, were pretty much reserved for folks who didn’t cuckold you—held up his hands. “I can’t defend anything Beth or I have done. I won’t even try. All I can say again is that I love her. I’ve never met anyone like her, and I want to be with her. You must know yourself how amazing she is.”
This phrase stopped cold the little piston of anger. Liz, amazing? Had he ever thought that? The woman had given him Kylie, the best gift he’d ever gotten, but otherwise, their entire marriage had been more of a sinking pit, quicksand sucking at their feet, knees, hips, waists, until it finally nibbled at their ears. And the deeper they’d gotten, the more Liz became shrill and cold and almost resentful of the muck Harold had pulled her into.
He examined Stratton all over again, this time comparatively. Younger than him, full head of hair, chiseled good looks, no sagging paunch around the midsection, those visible muscles on his arms and chest. Liz—or wait, excuse me, Beth—had found an upgraded model.
Yet Harold didn’t feel inferior or jealous or emasculated at all.
What he actually felt was that strange weight lifting away from him for the first time in years.
Liz had found happiness with this man, and why shouldn’t she? Happiness was a rare thing in this life, and, let’s all face facts, they certainly hadn’t found it together. All this time, they’d been trying to force a square peg into a round hole, first for the sake of their loneliness, then for Kylie, but maybe it wasn’t too late for either of them to keep looking.
Harold tried to imagine what his wife looked like when she was with this man. Did she laugh more? Did she glow?
Stratton was watching him anxiously, waiting for a response. “Maybe this is more of a shock than she figured. I get that. But hopefully, when all is said and done, you’ll realize that this is for the best. And if you’re any kind of man, you’ll make this easy for her.”
Harold nodded. “Absolutely. Tell her…tell her I can do that.”
The other man took a deep breath and sighed in relief. “Okay. Okay, that’s good to know. Time is something of a factor. Part of the reason I took the initiative is because the office is transferring me to the Paris branch, and I want her to come with me.”
Harold felt a small, wistful grin tug at his cheeks. The thought of Liz on another continent sent a buzz of excitement up his spine.
But Stratton kept talking. “And I promise—I give you my absolute word—that Kylie will be well taken care of. We’ll cooperate with full visitation.”
“‘Visitation?’” Harold croaked. The single word brought his daydream to a screeching halt like a brick wall in front of a speeding locomotive. Somehow, the idea of how Kylie fit into this whole equation had never entered his mind. He realized that in his version of this fantasy, Stratton rode off into the sunset with Liz as Harold and Kylie waved goodbye from the front porch.
“Yes,” Stratton said. “Beth intends to ask for custody.”
That piston started pumping inside Harold again, but this time it was more like a nuclear reactor.
“So my wife isn’t enough for you? You want her AND my kid?”
The anger in his voice was enough to put Stratton back on the defensive. “Like I said, if the divorce is amicable, we’ll make sure you get full visitation rights.”
“If the divorce is amicable. So what you’re saying is that Liz gets to rape me eight ways from Sunday, and if I bend over and take it like a good boy, I’ll get to see my own daughter a whopping two times a year.” He could hear his voice rising in pitch and intensity with each word, but was helpless to stop it. “Gee, that sounds like a swell deal to me, Doug ol’ buddy!”
“Look, we’ve…we’ve gotten off track here,” Stratton mumbled. “I haven’t even met Kylie yet, but from what Beth says, she’s a fantastic girl--”
“Of course she’s a fantastic girl, she’s MY fantastic girl, and what makes you think the courts would give her to a couple of adulterers anyway?”
“Calm down a second, let’s not get heated about this…”
Harold took a step toward him, hands clenched. Stratton backed up and bumped into the back of the couch. The fear on his face satisfied some deep, primal urge in the center of Harold.
“Not get heated? What did you think, that I was going to let you walk in here and take my entire life from me?”
Harold’s eyes flicked past Stratton again, but this time, they went somewhere else.
To the shotgun propped against the coffee table.
He would never have used it. The weapon wasn’t even loaded, he’d left the shells in his car, but, in any case, he didn’t have it in him to kill another human being.
But, for the barest of heartbeats, he imagined he did, vividly saw the mechanics of such an act in his head, how it would solve this problem entirely, and it was this that Stratton read in his face just before following his gaze to the shotgun. The other man’s eyes bugged out of his skull when he saw the weapon.
He broke into a run without another word.
“Hey, stop! What’re you doing?” Harold demanded.
Stratton sprinted to the closest end of the sofa, obviously meaning to cut between Harold and the furniture and get to the shotgun first. Harold moved to cut him off, not sure why, only knowing that the gun had no more business being in this man’s hands than it di
d his own. As they moved toward intersection, Stratton shoved him, tossing a shoulder into Harold’s chest like he was an opposing linebacker on the five-yard line. Harold sprawled backward on the dining room tile as Stratton tried to run away from him.
His feet tangled with Harold’s.
The man tripped, but it looked more he was trying to take flight. He soared full out through the air, hands outstretched, and there was a terrible crunch as the side of his head struck the coffee table.
* * *
There was never a question of what had to be done.
Only a sense of urgency, and a need to make sure he didn’t overlook something that would bite him in the ass later on. It actually felt good to have a problem that he couldn’t avoid, couldn’t ignore, couldn’t duck out on.
Harold moved the body first. There was surprisingly little blood, just a dab on the coffee table, but Stratton’s neck had a new joint in it that allowed a nearly 90 degree angle turn. The man’s face was frozen in a panicked grimace, and his words echoed in Harold’s head as he wrapped Stratton in garbage bags. Mainly the part about how Harold should’ve sensed something. He’d sensed that something all right, that crushing weight he’d been relieved of for just a moment at the prospect of him and Liz finally giving up on this failed experiment in matrimony and going their separate ways, but now it was back, and heavier than ever before, far heavier than even Stratton’s unwieldy corpse, a black hole from which there was no escape.
He carried the body into the garage and propped it up in the tool cabinet along with the unloaded shotgun.
And fifty yards of nylon rope he found beneath his work bench.
After that, the only problem was Stratton’s car, a Honda Accord which he’d thankfully not parked in front of the house, but rather at the end of the block. Harold had to press the button on the man’s key ring several times and then follow the horn honk to even know which one was his. Slipping on gloves, he drove the vehicle several streets further away, into the suburban maze they lived in, and left it sitting in front of a vacant house with a For Sale sign in front.
The maneuver would only buy time. Harold had no way of knowing how quickly or by whom Doug Stratton would be reported missing, but eventually this car would be connected to him. Then, depending on how discreet Liz had kept their affair (or if she was the one to report him missing in the first place; Harold couldn’t discount that possibility), an investigation might wash up on their front door. The best Harold could do is ensure there was no evidence to link to him. Because, even though he’d done nothing wrong, it would be very hard to convince the police of that once the truth about Stratton’s identity came out. He tossed the key ring into a gutter as he walked back home and prayed that his neighbors were all away at work, so no one had seen Stratton enter their house.
He picked up Kylie when it was time. Forced a smile on his face when Liz came home. She seemed distracted throughout the evening, and went to bed early. Harold did the same.
After all, he still had a long night ahead of him.
* * *
Sleep was fleeting. His head was a whirlwind. He thought about everything Liz and Stratton had done right here in this bed, about Sam, about that metaphorical weight dangling from his marriage.
When the night grew deep and still, he rose and left the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He looked away from the left side of the room, focusing on the distant light from the front of the house, and crept out to the garage.
Stratton had grown stiff with rigor mortis, which actually made him easier for Harold to handle. He brought the garbage-bag-covered form inside and laid it on the living room floor, in front of the creeping darkness that occupied the far side of the room, feeling like a villager about to make a sacrifice to a heathen god.
Working quickly and quietly, he went back for the nylon cord and tied it around the entire cooking island in the kitchen, making sure the knot was secure and tight. The other end went around his midsection, just below his gut. He played the rope out behind him through the dining room and back into the living room, then hoisted Stratton up one more time.
Harold walked toward the corner. The darkness deepened around him, caressed him with cold, velvety fingers, crowded out his vision until the body in his arms became no more than an abstract idea, until the only proof he had that it even existed was its drag on his muscles and the slick feel of the garbage bags against his palms, but still the worn living room carpet stayed beneath his toes.
You better hope that place does exist, because if it doesn’t, if it was all something you imagined after all…you’re gonna have an awful lot of explaining to do.
That thought brought laughter bubbling up in him, but he clamped down on it hard, for fear it would sound like the shrieky titters that escape from loony bins.
A second later, he was back in Dark World.
The sensations hit him one after another this time, until he was completely immersed in that invisible jungle. Grass and wriggly ground beneath his bare feet. Fetid breeze in his face. The sound of smaller creature scattering in droves before he stepped on them. He shut his eyes against that suffocating darkness; they would do him no good here anyway, since the black outside the lids was the same as that behind them. Harold walked blindly without stopping, holding Stratton’s stiff form in front of him like a stack of kindling, until the trail of nylon cord went taut and tugged at his belly.
He was panting from the strain of the carrying the corpse. Harold bent and placed it on the ground, then rested with his hands on his knees, listening as he caught his breath. Those alien crickets were singing all around him, but other than their screech, this place was silent.
And that stench…it was even stronger now. It permeated everything about this land, this savage world that he could hear and feel, but not see. He suddenly wanted to know where that smell came from.
“Come and get it!” he called out. His voice was small and insignificant in the open air. “Dinner’s served!” Some creature from the local ecosystem answered him with a long, lonely howl.
Harold turned and felt for the rope, his lifeline, his trail of breadcrumbs. As he did, there were more furtive, scuttling noises; first from his left, then ahead on his right, then somewhere behind. He whipped his head toward each one, trying to judge location and distance with only his ears. Whatever they were, they had him and Stratton completely encircled in seconds. They sounded eager and cautious all at the same time.
And big. Far larger than anything else he’d encountered here.
He imagined the jungle cats from the safari park out there, quietly stalking through the underbrush, fully aware that he was blind to them, sitting like coiled springs until they were ready to attack. Harold stood stone still and waited to see what they would do.
As if an unheard starter pistol had been fired, they rushed forward on all sides at once, tromping toward him.
Harold fled into the darkness, following the cord with his hands. After a few seconds, it became obvious that the creatures weren’t after him, but the prize he’d left behind. He slowed down enough to hear the sounds of plastic tearing as they set upon Stratton’s body, and then a violent, wet chomping that turned his stomach.
In the distance, a crashing thud resounded, hard enough to make him jump.
Another followed on its heels, and another after that, an entire series. He couldn’t tell which direction they came from, but each impact was heavy enough to jar him, the vibrations travelling through that strange surface that served as the ground. The roar he’d heard last time rolled across the vast open plain of Dark World.
Behind him, the creatures dining upon Stratton gave fluttery, panicked cries and took flight. The noise of their departures scattered in all directions.
Daddy’s home, Harold thought.
He ran without stopping this time, pulling the slackness out of the cord with frantic sweeps of his arm so he didn’t get lost. The fifty-yard rope seemed to have grown to fi
fty miles. Those booming impacts stayed on his tail as the beast bypassed Stratton and came after him. Another of those awful bellows washed over him, loud enough to make his ears hurt.
And then there was carpet under his feet. He hurtled back into his living room, coils of loose nylon cord dragging behind him. He didn’t halt even then, but dove for the wall switches and filled the room with warm, beautiful light. Only then did he look back.
The far corner was empty, but he could swear the plaster shuddered just once, as though something had slammed into the wall from the other side. Harold armed sweat from his forehead and set about untying the rope around his belly.
“Daddy?”
He jumped and spun around. Kylie stood at the opening of the hallway leading to her bedroom.
“Sweetie, what are you doing up?”
“I called for water, but you didn’t hear me!”
Harold hurried to her, swept her up, and rushed her away from the living room as fast as he would from a bomb.
“Don’t do that,” he told her, “don’t ever get up, don’t ever go through the house at night by yourself, always wait for me and I will come, no matter what. Do you understand?”
She nodded, and he carried her back to bed.
* * *
In the two weeks that followed, Harold reverted to his old patterns, and did his best to forget Dark World.
It wasn’t any easy task. For the first few days, he expected the doorbell to ring at any second, and a gaggle of cops to be on his doorstep ready to haul him in, but no word of Doug Stratton’s disappearance ever reached him. Harold scoured the paper each day, watched the news, but there was nothing at all.
What little sleep he actually got was taken on the couch, after moving Kylie’s nightlight from her bedroom to the socket in the corner. Eeyore’s light wasn’t much, but enough to chase away the shadows and help him guard the house. Besides, lying next to Liz in their bed made him feel like he was in a cesspool. If she noticed this new habit, she said nothing. He figured for her, it was probably a blessing, the inevitable next step in their downward spiral, but she also seemed to be having too many problems of her own to care.