The Girl on the Glider Read online

  There are things I want to do in life. I want to have hobbies again. I want to become a backyard astronomer and take up amateur photography and fish in my trout stream more often. I want to ask my kids how their day was and rub my wife’s feet every night and take the dog for a long walk each and every day, rain or shine. I want to spend more time with my parents, and tell them that I appreciate them and that they are loved. I want to do all of these things, but I never do. I put them off until tomorrow, so sure that I’ll get them done… eventually.

  But eventually doesn’t always happen. The girl on the glider had dreams, too. She had things she wanted to do. I stood there, flipping through the file. There were three articles about the accident. The first simply recounted the accident details, including statements from the State Police and the County Coroner. The second was the follow-up article that I was reading. The third was her obituary. I read them all, and got to know her. I learned about her dreams and wishes and desires. She’d put them all off for whatever reason, figuring they’d happen eventually… and then she died unexpectedly at the top of my driveway.

  After I’d finished, I put the file away and left the building and came back home. The sky was overcast and gray. Death Storm 2009 was approaching. I wondered what I should do next. I couldn’t very well go to her parents, could I? Just show up and knock on their door and say, “Hi, I’m Brian Keene. The guy who writes those books? I’m sorry to bother you, but your daughter has been haunting my house this past year, and I was wondering if you could ask her to stop? I think she might not know that she’s dead. She seems to be trying to contact someone. Have you received any weird text messages lately?” They’d have me arrested. Or shoot me. Or both.

  I decided to do a little magic. I’ve written enough about it that I know the basics. The most important part of magic, regardless of which discipline you’re practicing, is the act of naming. Names are power. If you know something’s true name, it gives you power over it.

  I walked to the top of the driveway. The sun had just gone down and the road was extremely dark. There was very little traffic, on account of the impending snowstorm. I stood there, shivering, hands in my pockets, and stared at the spot where the accident had occurred. Without really knowing what I was going to say, I began to speak out loud.

  “Hi. My name is Brian. Now you know my name. I know your name, too. I found it today. Your name is… I’m really sorry for what happened to you. I’ve got this theory that maybe you’re feeling a little lost. Maybe a little lonely? Maybe you’re not sure where your friends went? Maybe you keep texting them, but nobody is calling you back.”

  I paused. The wind rustled the trees.

  “Did you ever watch The X-Files? I don’t know, maybe that was before your time. Maybe your parents dug it, though. I was a big fan of the show There was this one episode where Agent Mulder is hiding out on an Indian reservation, and one of the characters quotes an old Native American saying: ‘Something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it.’ I’m not sure how that applies to this situation, but I’m certain that your parents and your friends remember you.”

  I paused again, glancing around to make sure that no one was listening. I didn’t need one of my neighbors going, “Oh, look. Keene is standing at the top of the driveway talking to imaginary people.”

  When I was sure we were alone, I continued.

  “I think you were sent here to teach me something. I think maybe that’s why you can’t pass on. See, I’m an agnostic when it comes to all of this spiritual stuff. I’ve tried Christianity and Buddhism and every other kind of ‘anity’ and ‘ism’ but at the end of the day, I lack faith-and faith is what is required of any belief system. I want to believe that there’s something after this. I want very badly to believe in an afterlife, but I haven’t been able to. Until now. I don’t know what you are. You might be a ghost or a spirit. You might be conscious. You might just be an echo of time-a psychic after-effect. Or maybe you’re just in my head. I don’t know. But I know that I now believe. So I want to thank you for that. You’ve shown me that a part of us-some vital part of what makes us who we truly are-lives on after our death. I don’t have to rely on a literary legacy of books for people to remember me after I’m gone. I don’t have to bust my ass cranking out one pulp novel after another just to insure that I live on. Something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it. If I get my shit together and change my ways, I’ll live on in the memory of my kids and my grandkids and those whose lives I’ve touched in some way.”

  I reached up and wiped a tear away. I hadn’t realized I was crying until just then.

  “I’m forty-two. I used to think, ‘Well, I’m only in my early forties. I’ve still got plenty of time.’ But I bet you thought that, too, right. And you were only nineteen. You were only nineteen and then suddenly, it was over before it had ever even really started.”

  I ran out of words. My last sentence seemed to hang there in the cold air, just like my breath was doing.

  “I’m not sure what happens next. I’m going to go back down to the house and start living. Try to save my marriage. Try to be a better father. Maybe you should look around for a light or something. They say there’s supposed to be one on that side. I don’t know. If you can’t find one, I guess you’re welcome to stay here. Anyway, thanks again.”

  My shoulders slumped. I suddenly felt very silly. I walked back down to the house, went out to my office, and turned off my computer. My Blackberry was flashing at me, informing me that I had voicemail and unanswered text messages. I turned it off without reading or listening to them. I stayed long enough to pat Max on the head and show him a little extra attention. Then I went inside the house.

  Cassi and the baby were in the living room. The dog and cat were lying on the couch. The baby was playing with his train. He looked up, saw me, and smiled.

  “Hi, Da-da!”

  “Hi, buddy. How are you? What are you doing?”

  “Choo-choo train. Da-da push!”

  So I did. I pushed him all around the living room, and sang along with the toy as I did.

  “Chugga chugga, choo choo, spin around. Every letter has a sound.”

  ENTRY 16

  There was over a foot of snow in the driveway this morning, and when I went outside, I saw footprints in the snow. They started at the top of the driveway, came down to our house, circled both our cars, came up onto the porch, and then went back up the driveway again.

  My neighbor told me later that he saw what made them. It was a stray dog. A Husky, with a collar on. We’re going to try to catch it later, and find it a home.

  Just a dog. Nothing more.

  No dreams last night, and no work today.

  I’ve got more important things to do.

  I’ll work when I’m dead.

  AFTERWORD

  The Girl on the Glider was originally published as a limited edition hardcover from Cemetery Dance Publications. It also appeared in my collection A Conspiracy of One. Both books are long out of print. My plan was to let it stay that way-simply because of the very personal emotional connotations the story holds for me-but so many readers have lamented not being able to read it, so I finally decided to re-release it in digital form.

  This text of this edition is almost identical to that of the previous versions, with one exception. The previous editions used footnotes. Footnotes don’t work as well in digital format, so they have now been incorporated into the text. For example, in the previous edition, I might have mentioned “Jesus.” A footnote would then inform the reader that I was referring to author J. F. Gonzalez. In this digital edition, that information is provided in the actual text.

  I think it fair to say that this is my twist on the traditional ghost story-a meta-fictional mash-up of M. R. James and Hunter S. Thompson. Although I don’t usually care for my work after I’ve finished writing it, I’m proud of this one. I honestly think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written. I fully expect that n
ot all of my audience will agree with me. Indeed, after this new digital edition is available to the public, I anticipate some one-star reviews on Amazon.com, probably with lines like, “I bought this becuz I wanted to reed about zombies pulling people’s heads off and instead it’s just Keene bitching about writing.” (sic)

  Well, I’m sorry you didn’t care for it, but in truth, I didn’t write it for you. You were not on my mind during its creation. I was thinking about someone else.

  As I said before, I honestly think this novella is one of the best things I’ve ever written. But it’s also the saddest.

  I wrote this as a last ditch effort to save my troubled marriage-a marriage that had been mostly good up until the pressures of writing for a living began to impact it. Those pressures, slow to build but oh-so-fucking-heavy, are detailed here. Since its initial publication, people have often asked me which parts of The Girl on the Glider were true and which parts were fiction. Honestly, ninety-nine point nine percent of this was true. All of the behind-the-scenes angst and drama and fuckery that was going on-I didn’t make that shit up. That’s exactly what it’s like to make your living as a mid-list horror novelist. There is no 401K. There is not health insurance. And publishers never pay you on time. The other stuff was true, too-everything from Coop fishing a dead body out of the river to the image I saw on my son’s baby monitor. A girl really did die at the top of my driveway, and she really did teach me an important lesson.

  Sadly, the lesson came too late. I said above that ninety-nine point nine percent of this story was true. The part I made up… the part that was fiction? Well, that was the happy ending. In real life, the story didn’t end so well.

  I finished writing this novella in December of 2009. Three weeks later, in January of 2010, my wife of eight years, a woman who I’d been with for sixteen years, asked me for a separation… and eventually a divorce. And she was right to do so. She was absolutely right to do so. The lessons that the girl on the glider taught me came too late. I didn’t realize that then, but I do now. At the time, I blamed everyone around us. But the blame lay elsewhere…

  It is January of 2013 as I write this. Several years have passed, and my ex-wife and I remain best friends. Indeed, I think we get along better now than we ever did during those past sixteen years. We’ve both grown a lot. So has our son. Our son is healthy and happy and has two parents who love him. I miss her every goddamn day. And I still don’t blame her. Not one bit. Nobody should have to live with the guy in this novella, the guy who is chained to such an unforgiving and unhealthy job, but can’t do anything else. A guy who is trapped by his muse, trapped by who he is, trapped by what he is… a guy who will never escape those things. A guy who is a writer.

  When things go bad in life, it’s easy to blame others. We blame our employers, our teachers, our spouses, our friends, our neighbors, our churches, our political leaders, our police, and our enemies. We blame God and Krishna and Buddha and Allah. We tend to believe that there must be a conspiracy against us. But the only conspiracy is what we do to ourselves. In the end, the blame is a singular thing.

  We are each a conspiracy of one.

  Thanks, as always, for buying this book. I hope that you enjoyed reading it. Your support and kindness are what keeps me going when the metaphorical zombies and giant snakes and psychotic killers and dinosaurs and ghostly teenage girls of the world assail me. I hope that I do the same for you…

  -Brian Keene

  January 2013