Chapter Two: (The End of Frank)

"The loping gait of the solitary old man somehow irritated passersby, though they could neither account for nor understand it. A wicked breeze seemed to chase him, blowing off hats and twisting scarves as he passed, and whipping around the sharp corners of the stone buildings like racehorses on the wind. How they came to dislike him so, the townsfolk couldn't say, as he always spoke with the utmost politeness and courtesy..."

Frank Lauden skips dinner every Sunday. Since his wife's death seventeen years ago, he found himself unable to keep her tradition of adorning every Sunday with a large turkey that she'd pick up from the farm on Oxten Street the day before. Maybe for this reason alone (Frank was a churchgoing man out of tradition rather than religious passion) he had always looked forward to Sundays, relishing his wife's feast as the high point of the week. Now the only lift the week afforded him was the ink-black coffee he allowed himself once a day.

Congestive heart failure claimed Claire Lauden in the fall of 1986 and Frank, shedding a few tears only as her casket was lowered into the cold, rain-softened ground, walked back home that day, his scratchy suit pulling at him in all the wrong places. The rain had come only in the morning and by that gray afternoon, had left an Irish mist hovering over the New England grass, still green with the celebration that winter had not yet claimed it. The friends - but no relatives, those had died long ago - that came to Claire's funeral had watched Frank leave early with worried eyes and discreet whispers of, "Poor Frank..."

When he arrived home, he opened the door to an empty house, seeming to soak up all sound like cotton or freshly fallen snow. Not bothering to remove his mud-splattered shoes through which a meticulous shine could still be perceived, he lowered himself shakily into an old high-backed chair and sat at the wood table that dominated their modest dining room. He stared at the dishes left over from his solitary breakfast that morning; dry toast and black coffee, the staple of a brittle and rigid old bachelor; thinking of nothing.

Staring at the scattered crumbs of the first in a pattern of reclusive meals, Frank felt himself tearing apart at his fragile seams, nearer to tears than he had been holding his wife's cold hand or seeing her in the fancy casket, dressed in something she never wore, her face looking like something pieced together with spider webs. Feeling this oncoming rush of sorrow, Frank stopped himself. He did not approve of tears among his gender and shuddered at the thought of being that breakable.

He missed Claire enough, that was never in question, but his sadness was more a deep, selfish longing, the fear of being alone, of caring for himself, of being abandoned without that casual, dry love that he'd grown so accustomed to over the years. And there would be no one to cook for him on Sunday nights.

Goddamn Claire. Goddamn turkey. He didn't even like turkey, this he convinced himself of. Claire had forced him into the habit and then died like a selfish witch. He missed her. Goddamn turkey. No more.

On this particular Sunday night he is feeling nostalgic and moody. His thoughts, as he sits by the lone light of a crackling fire in his old armchair, have drifted back to his younger days. He had been a fox, he thinks with a tiny smile. That was before his service with the Army and before his knees had gone. He'd been long and lean with ice blue eyes that even now bear a gleam of his youthful exuberance. He remembers the girls - with a baleful glance at his lap, the contents of which have been dormant for going on twenty years now - the girls had loved him, fawning over his strong arms and no-bullshit sensibility that was so lacking in the other boys his age.

With a wrinkled smile he recalls the empty barns of neighbors and crowded dance halls where the young buck he was once had stolen a fair few kisses, and sometimes (here Frank closes his eyes with a wheezy chuckle) a bit more than that. Not too long before he'd met and been spellbound by a passively beautiful Claire Huxburn and moved with her to this quiet town, there had been another girl, he struggles against his aged and cracking memory to recall her name, with a tongue like a whip and enormous breasts... Elaine, her name was, Elaine Kelley. After one soda at Zalio's he'd been half in love with her and with a faint stirring of his libido, he recalls the creamy smoothness of her thighs, so soft and warm against his hand as he slid her skirt higher up - -

The creak of a well-aged floorboard shatters Frank's misty reverie like the snap of a twig at his ear. He spins in his chair to spot the intruder but the small house is lit only by his flickering orange fire, breathing in and out of the drying coals. He has no one living nearby and as he struggles to see through the blanket of darkness before him, he is less than grateful (for the first time since inhabiting this house) for the absence of noisy neighbors.

"Who's that?" Frank's dried Yankee voice calls into the empty silence of the house. "Someone's there -- who is it?"

Frank understands the sounds of his house, and he understands that soft groan the panels and stair sometimes emit late at night when the house was settling. The creak he heard will be a different story.

Shaking with the effort - as Frank is shallow-kneed but not prone to fear of other men - he raises himself to his feet, patting the side of the chair to make contact with the cool, polished wood of his cane.

A chill runs up the old man's spine as something like a teasing whisper slips through the darkness. A whisper that could have been his name, spoken with a cruel hiss.

"Speak up, you," Frank barks. "I don't put up with sneaking around on my property and I've got a loaded shotgun here in perfect order. So you best get talking or get gone right quick."

Fibbing is not usually in Frank's nature -- his shotgun is nearly as old as he, given to him by his father when he was seven. It hadn't been fired since it scared a very unlucky family of raccoons over six years ago, but Frank is relatively certain that it's loaded and as he reaches for it in its place above the mantle he knows that it's an important ingredient in scaring off whatever intruder has decided to fool with him this time.

He grips the long, cool gun, fingertips and sweaty palms sinking a bit into the thick coating of dust. A look of defiance is set into his wrinkled face as he shuffles forward, staring around the room that he can no longer see.

"Show yourself," he orders gruffly.

A pause. Frank blinks, wondering if his intruder could be right now staring him in the face. There is a feeling of closeness, a sense of something chilling nearby, and Frank tightens his grip on the dusty old gun.

A soft, gravely voice with an undertone of pure power comes from what feels like long ago to the old Yankee's still fair ears, "Goodnight Frank."

Like a whip, something snaps out of the darkness, dragging Frank into the wall of black. The last thing he sees as the rifle clatters to the floor seems to be a thick arm or tentacle, dark and cracked like old leather with a hint of red.

(Copyright 2003, Kit Fox)
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