by L V Gaudet
Ryan watches him struggle to manoeuvre the package and drop it into the barrel. He jumps down to the ground the moment Trevor takes his hands off it.
Trevor turns in surprise to find Ryan standing right behind him.
Ryan calmly looks him up and down.
“Mr. Miller, our business here is done.”
Trevor has to step around him. Walking stiffly to the car, he hears the swift tread of footsteps behind him, a blinding flash of light-filled agony exploding in his head as he pauses to turn. He drops to the ground.
Ryan stands over him, tire iron gripped tightly in his fist.
“Mr. Miller, you are the package.”
Ryan bends down, swinging the tire iron with all his force, again and again, blood droplets flying off the weapon, turning Trevor’s head into a pulverized pulp of bone, hair, blood, and grey matter.
Ryan pushes the image from his mind. It takes every ounce of self control to not act on the impulse, instead to stand there and just watch Trevor get in his car and drive away.
He seals the barrel, lifting it with some difficulty, and loading it in the back of the truck, slamming the tailgate harder than necessary. His fist clenching as if gripping that tire iron, he turns around and gets in the truck.
He sits there for a while, just staring ahead, punches the dash with a growl, and starts the ignition, driving away in the opposite direction of Trevor.
“Anderson, you bastard.” His face feels hot.
The drive is torture. Ryan can feel the weight of the barrel in back weighing down his heart. His chest is tight and his grip on the steering wheel tense.
Hours later he arrives at a secluded place in the woods. Getting out, he opens the tailgate and jumps up into the box. He grips the top of the barrel, prying the lid off, and looks in. He turns away, stepping away from it in the truck box. He sighs a low agonized gasp.
Finally, he lets the thought in. It’s her. Elaine. Kathy. Pain tears through him, threatening to tear him apart.
He staggers back to the barrel, gripping it and gently tipping it down. He pulls the package out.
He sits there on his knees in the truck box, staring down at it, fighting the tears that are blurring his vision. His head droops to his chest.
He raises his head and reaches out with both hands, untying the rope wound and tied around the package to secure it. He almost can’t do it. He gently takes the edge of the sheet and starts un-rapping her.
Elaine sets the folded note on the kitchen table. There is one word written on the visible side. “Sorry.” Her hand hesitates, hovering over it, ready to snatch it up again. It’s not too late to change her mind.
She wipes away a tear and leaves the kitchen. She looks out the living room window, but there isn’t anything there to see. A suitcase sits ready at the door with clothes to get through a few days.
She sits on the couch to wait, stiff with anxiety.
Over the next hours she gets up to look out the window again, paces, and waits. She thinks about eating, but isn’t hungry. Food probably won’t sit well anyway, she decides.
She looks at the time for what she is sure must be the hundredth time at least.
Finally, she lies down on the couch and lets the tears come.
“He isn’t coming.”
Trevor drives too fast, almost losing control on a turn. His hands on the wheel are shaking and his mind has slipped into a blind panic, leaving him with tunnel vision. His stomach is in knots and his bowels loose. It is all he can do to focus on that narrow vision of road directly in front of him.
I thought Ryan was just some soft-headed jerk. I never thought-. I never imagined-. I-. He’s one of them. I’m dead. Oh man, I’m dead. He’s going to kill me. I have to take off. Oh man, what am I going to do? Just keep driving. I won’t even go home for anything. Ditch the car, get my truck and go. Don’t look back.
Ryan sits back, staring mindlessly at the corpse’s face. His stomach lurches and he almost vomits.
“It’s not her. It’s not Kathy. It’s not her.” He doesn’t even know the words are coming out of his mouth. He grabs his hair in his fists, pulling as if he could pull out the fear, sorrow, and rage swelling inside his head. His head goes back and he lets out an inhuman wail that echoes off the sky.
He looks down at the spoiled face. She looks vaguely familiar. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that she is not Kathy. Elaine, he silently reminds himself by rote.
Moving in shaky jerky motions, he re-wraps the body. He has business to finish.
Righting and sealing the empty barrel, he tethers it with the others in the back of the truck and hops down out of the box. With a little difficulty, he pulls the corpse onto the open tailgate and lifts it in a fireman’s carry slung over one shoulder. He grabs his shovel with the other hand and starts walking off through the woods.
It is a long difficult hike that takes him through rough terrain a casual hiker would avoid. He walks along a narrow ridge of rock that falls away on either side to a jumble of sharp rocks and boulders and balances across a fallen tree creating a temporary bridge over an old dried up creek bed cut deep into the ground.
Ryan finally reaches his destination and gently sets the wrapped body down. Taking a moment to survey the area, he chooses his starting point and starts walking, shovel in hand, counting his steps, turns and counts, turns and counts. On it goes, a courtship dance for the dead, “Left one two three four five six, and right one two three four five six seven eight.”
He stops and stabs the shovel blade into the ground with a sharp shkt sound. He puts his foot on the head of the shovel blade, using his weight to press it in further. His muscles strain with the effort of scooping and tossing aside the shovel-full of hard mud.
When the hole is large enough, he drops the shovel and brings the body, gently laying her in her new bed where the insects will slowly devour her. Filling the hole in, he carefully erases all traces anyone was ever there. Shovel in hand, he hikes back to the truck.
Hours later Ryan arrives at the truck stop where he is to meet Anderson. He doesn’t bother parking at the far end or trying to be discreet. He pulls in, parking against the building.
Ryan sits there. He looks down at his clenched fists. Rage is making him feel reckless. He looks at the restaurant, looking for Anderson through the windows. He takes slow deep breaths, trying to control the violence buzzing inside him.
Play it cool. You know Anderson did this on purpose to rattle you. It’s a test. They’re testing you.
Ryan doesn’t feel in control enough, but he can’t wait any longer. It would draw too much attention just sitting here. He gets out and enters the restaurant for his interview with Anderson.
He stops just inside, looking around.
The waitress pauses and looks at him curiously, wondering if he is waiting to be seated or looking for someone he is meeting.
He does not see Anderson.
Ryan walks past the tables to the back, checking faces. He stands there dumbly for a moment. He’s not here. Why isn’t he here? Andersons don’t just not show up.
He leaves, pushing past the waitress who is approaching to ask if he is looking for someone, with a curt “S’cuze me.”
Consciousness swims nauseatingly before Jason. He is disoriented. Confused. Opening his eyes hurts. They won’t come into focus. He tries to move and regrets it instantly, a shockingly sharp pain slicing through his head. He lets out a low groan, blinking slowly and willing the world to come into focus.
With awareness slowly returning, Jason also begins to become aware of the serious predicament he is in. He is in the dark.
The last thing I remember … falling … pain. Crazy guy. Where’s the crazy guy? I think he fell too. Did he land on me? Yes.
He fumbles around, not seeing him. A wave of pain tingles through him as he tries to move. Pushing through it, he manages to sit up. He reaches up instinctively, gripping his head. Holding his head tightly between his hands seems to
help so he does that.
Jason looks around and finds the crazy guy sprawled on the floor behind him and across his legs. He can barely see him in the dark. He shoves him off, feeling dizzy with the movement.
“He’s still tied up at least.”
Jason gets to his feet, fumbling around like a blind man, feeling walls and then the open air and finally snares a string hanging from the ceiling. He gives it a careful tug and the single bulb hanging from the ceiling clicks on.
The crazy guy on the floor is starting to wake up also. He mumbles and groans, trying to move and managing to only squirm like a caterpillar with his arms and legs tied. One of his shoulders looks displaced.
“Probably dislocated it or broke his collar bone.”
Jason waits for him to be blinking and looking around, for awareness to come into his eyes.
“Where’s the kid? Tell me now or so help me, I’ll beat the life out of you and then beat you again.”
Nathan blinks at him, blanching in terror, his eyes bulging and jaw slack with it.
Remembering what the crazy guy said earlier, Jason kneels down before him, putting himself in a position looking down at him. He smiles cruelly.
“Tell me where the boy is right now or I’ll turn into you.”
Nathan‘s eyes impossibly bulge even larger. He starts a high keening sound.
“Speak. Now.” Jason’s voice is sharp, forceful. He gives him a sharp slap on the cheek.
That breaks Nathan out of it. He starts muttering incoherently, stuttering and mumbling to himself very quietly as if talking to those demons tormenting him in his mind. His eyes roll and he looks across the basement.
“Behind the wall,” Nathan moans piteously.
Jason turns to look, moving away as he does so the man on the floor can’t attack him as easily. He sees a wall behind piles of the kind of clutter a generation or two might store in a basement and forget it’s there.
“How is he behind the wall?” Jason gets up slowly, mindful of his head and sure he has a concussion. He moves to the wall and inspects it. It goes all the way to meet the other wall. The other way is blocked by the clutter.
“The stuff,” Nathan is pouting now, “you have to move it.”
Jason studies the pile.
Among boxes, old wicker hampers filled with junk, a rusted old bike, and a machine whose use is a mystery to him, an old stained mirror door leans against the wall. It is the only thing large enough to hide an opening big enough to fit a man.
He targets his focus on that, moving what he has to so he can move the mirror. Gripping it by the sides, he shifts it over, revealing a cut out in the drywall. It is maybe half the width of a door, narrow enough a sizeable person cannot fit. Drywall is left at the top and bottom and the edges are roughly cut. The other side is pitch black, the dim light of the single ceiling bulb making a rectangle on the floor. He leans in, peering around for a light and sees none.
“What do you do for light?”
Nathan whimpers.
Jason spots a battery powered lantern on the floor tucked by the open cutaway. It is the kind that stands on its own, a handle hanging down, the style borrowed from old oil lanterns, but in a cheap way. He tests it and it works.
Carrying the lantern, he steps across into the dark, bringing the dim circle of sallow light with him. He explores the other room. It is not what he expected. There is no other exit. Someone had walled off this part of the basement for some unknown reason, leaving no way in or out. The window is boarded up; the cracks around sealed so no light can get in or out.
The only objects in the room are old steamer trunks of various shapes and sizes. He examines one. The crack around the lid is sealed with thick layers of caulking. On top of it is what appears to be some kind of sick shrine to some strange god. The dust on it is thick, having turned long ago into that sticky film dust will become.
The others are much the same, the layers of dust of varying thickness. They are not padlocked, but the latch the locks would hold down is flipped down, the ring protruding through the eye. Anyone inside would not be able to get out unless they were incredibly strong and could push up with enough force to rip the riveted latch and hasp out of the box.
On only one has the dust been disturbed.
Jason approaches it warily, setting the lantern down. He stands before it. His mind screams at him to not look. He does not want to see what he knows is in there. This one hasn’t been caulked around yet, sealing the air out. That’s a good sign at least. He also doesn’t smell the very distinctive stink of a corpse.
Sucking in a slow deep breath and holding it, he steels himself for the worst and flips the latch up. Nothing happens. He lifts the lid slowly.
The boy is there, motionless and pale, hogtied into a position that he is sure to have asphyxiated himself before long with the need to try to straighten his legs when they become numb and then painful from the circulation being cut off.
Tears burn at his eyes. He feels numb. The numbness is the only thing keeping him from tearing the crazy man apart with his bare hands. The anger burning in him is distant, pushed far back by the shock.
Did he move? My eyes must be playing tricks. He’s dead.
Unable to leave the boy here to rot, he leans in to gently lift him out.
The body is pliant, soft. There are no signs of rigor mortis. As he moves him he also notes the dark bruising of the blood pooling after death is missing.
He sets the boy down and cups a hand over his mouth and nose. It’s very faint, but he thinks he feels soft breaths caressing his palm.
Jason checks the boy’s restraints. Zip ties!
He races for the opening, half falling out of the enclosed space in his hurry and frantically rummages for anything to cut the plastic ties with. In an open tool box with half its contents spilled out, he finds a pair of needle-nosed pliers with a notch and blade for stripping wires. It will do. He races back to the boy.
Hurriedly, he cuts the boy free and lays him out, rubbing his arms and legs roughly to get the circulation flowing and slapping his cheeks a few times, trying to rouse him.
The boy moans softly, weak.
“He’s alive!” Jason almost dances around the room with the thrill of the discovery.
Picking the boy up gently, he steps back to the other side of the wall.
Nathan’s eyes roll wildly at the sight of the changeling carrying itself. It’s not possible. He starts his high keening again.
“You can stay there to die and rot,” Jason spits at him as he carries the boy past him. He stops and goes back, juggling his load to free a hand enough to reach the light string, pulling it and plunging the basement into darkness. The only light now is a slowly dying lantern in the shrine of the dead beyond the cutaway in the wall. He goes up the stairs, carrying the boy.
Ryan gets in his truck, already pealing out of the parking lot while he fumbles to do up his seatbelt with one hand.
His throat is too constricted to make a sound. His whole body feels like it is vibrating with tension. As soon as he pulls onto the road, he presses the gas pedal to the floor, recklessly speeding. A single thought tears through his mind.
If Anderson isn’t here, then he’s there.
He stares ahead grimly, barely seeing the road in front of him as he races for home.
“You messed up David.”
Little Cassie’s voice in the passenger seat comes unexpectedly, startling him. He turns in reaction, the steering wheel turning too, and swerves across to the oncoming lane. He corrects barely in time, narrowly missing clipping an oncoming car.
He pulls the truck back into his own lane, hitting the brakes and not slowing enough as he takes a corner hard. Cassie should have been thrown against him with the inertia of the truck careening around the corner. Ryan is pushed towards the door with it, but his grip on the steering wheel helps hold him in place. He shoves the gas pedal to the floor again, accelerating and trying to push more speed out of the engine.
Cassie is unruffled by the dangerous turn, unmoved by the violent press of inertia, and seemingly oblivious to Ryan’s frantic race home.
“You killed her David. You killed her just like you killed me.”
“No, she’s still alive. I have to get there in time. I can stop him.”
“Can you David?” She smiles. “Is that a police car I see?”
Ryan blanches. If he is seen driving at this speed, they will chase him. They will call in backup. They will take him down and he won’t make it home in time to save Kathy.
“Dammit, I can’t slow down. I won’t make it.” He looks around, but doesn’t see a police car. All he sees are a couple of generic models of cars, all made to resemble each other in the manufacturers’ quest to win sales from the competition, and an ugly old rusting brown Oldsmobile that should have been retired from the road a long time ago.
He flies past the Oldsmobile and other vehicles, swerving around into the next lane to pass them, and quickly puts them behind them.
“That’s not funny Cassie.”
“You can’t save Kathy, you know.” Cassie is gone and in her place is Jane Doe. “Anderson won’t let her live. She is a problem. Anderson doesn’t like problems. He can’t take a joke either and your thinking you can save me or her makes you the biggest joke of all. You brought trouble on yourself and your family.”
Ryan looks at Jane. It is the Jane Doe from the hospital, her face puffy and swollen with bruising, her lip cracked. A dark collar of bruising ruins her neck.
“You did this to me David,” Jane says, her voice calm and without accusation.
Ryan turns away, staring hard down the road. He can’t look at her.
“Look at me David.”
“No.”
“Look at me David.” She is Cassie again.
He can’t help it. He turns to look. It is little Cassie of the barn. Little Cassie of the woods. Ruined, bloody and dirty. She still has bits of straw in her hair from the barn. A dusting of mud clings softly to her face where it had fallen and he did not brush it away.
Little Cassie who he saw die, who he dug up when his father who is not his real father, Jason McAllister, buried her in the woods.