Wrath and Ruin

by C W Briar

  Pete banged on the trunk of the car.

  Shoot! He did see me.

  “Can you open the boot?” Pete called.

  Jordan tightened his chest, trying to slow his breath. “Sure.” He pulled the lever, and the trunk popped open.

  Pete tossed a plastic bag inside, and its contents landed with a thud and clanked together. He slammed the trunk shut and hurried to the passenger seat, then immediately checked his phone.

  Jordan froze with his hand on the ignition key, waiting to be accused of messing with the phone. But if Pete knew, he didn’t show it.

  “Where to next?” Jordan asked. Stop acting nervous.

  “How about the park?”

  “Which one?” Jordan forced a smile to mask the worry pounding the back of his mind.

  “Reuben Creek Park,” Pete answered flatly.

  Reuben Creek? Why would he choose there? He has to know more than he’s letting on.

  Jordan rolled his shoulder, wiping away the bead of sweat rolling down his neck. “Why not Chester Park? They have the farmers’ market on Saturday.”

  “Reuben Creek is along the way.”

  Feigning indifference, and probably failing terribly at it, Jordan said, “I wish I’d known. We’re not dressed for hiking.”

  “We don’t need to hike. I just want to visit a favorite spot. Clear my head, y’know?”

  “Okay.” Jordan started the car and pulled away from the Millers’ home. He turned off the radio, eliminating the distraction. Instead, he focused on the phone number he’d seen, committing it to memory.

  He drove down the parkway, past miles of business signs from various decades. Every stop at a red light was both a relief and a jolt of tension; he wanted to know what was going on but simultaneously dreaded finding out. He headed to the main entrance of the park, the one likely to have lots of people around.

  “Can we go to the North Gate, please?” Pete asked. He had been silently staring ahead for most of the drive.

  A resurgence of worry pulsed through Jordan’s body. He must know what I did, or at least suspect it. I should just apologize and get it over with.

  “Brake!” Pete shouted.

  They were rushing toward a line of stopped cars. Jordan jammed the brakes. The tires squealed, and they lurched forward against their seat belts. The car came to a jarring halt only a foot from the rear bumper of a white sedan.

  Pete let loose a string of “bloody” curses as he tugged his seatbelt, loosening the shoulder strap.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry.” Jordan released the steering wheel and flexed his pale, stiff fingers.

  “What are you trying to do?”

  “I said I’m sorry. I got distracted. Look, we’re almost at the South Gate. Can’t we just go in there?”

  “The North Gate is closer to where I’m headed, and I want to avoid a long walk. I promise this won’t be long.”

  He wants to see how I react. “Fine, but you’re buying me a drink later.” Two can play at this game. “Has Courtney called you lately?”

  Pete didn’t say “no.” He laid his phone on his lap and looked out the side window.

  That confirms it. It involves her.

  The North Gate was more secluded. It featured a small, gravel parking area and access to a dirt jogging path that followed short, plump evergreen trees into the heart of the woods. Only two other vehicles were parked there, and their passengers had wandered out of sight.

  Pete fumbled through an excuse about needing a few minutes alone, then collected his bag from the trunk and headed down the trail. His pace wavered between a fast walk and a slow jog.

  The North Gate was one of Jordan’s favorite spots, not Pete’s. The undulating, scenic terrain was perfect for serious runners trying to improve their conditioning—people like him. Pete preferred the gym and weight benches when he exercised. Had he ever visited this part of Reuben Creek without Jordan in tow?

  That didn’t matter right now. He finally had a chance to contact the person who had been sending the texts. Using his own phone, he typed, “This is Pete. My phone died. Please contact me on this one instead.” Then he entered the stranger’s number, and it automatically updated to someone saved on his contact list.

  Courtney.

  Jordan hit send.

  Courtney and Pete’s breakup had not been bitter enough to warrant how they were acting. Why had Pete refused to admit she was sending the messages? And what “secret” was she taunting him with?

  You know well what secret. It’s the one that’s been killing you. If he brought you here, then he knows about you and Courtney.

  Jordan was a flurry of tics as he waited for his phone to respond. His knee shook, his teeth chewed his lips, and his fingers drummed on the door. It looked like his friendship with Pete was all but over. He wouldn’t be forgiven for cheating with Courtney, especially since it happened right before she left.

  A message from Courtney appeared on his screen.

  “MEET ME IN THE PLACE WHERE WE LAST GOT TOGETHER.”

  “No, no, no,” he said in gunfire-like repetition. Jordan bolted from the car and sprinted down the trail. The rush of adrenaline purged his muscles of all fatigue from his morning run.

  Her message was identical to the one she’d sent before their last rendezvous at Reuben Creek. Did Courtney know she was actually contacting him, or did she buy the lie that Pete was using his phone? Either way, she was waiting in the park, and Pete was heading toward her.

  Jordan hurried over the first forested rise, then veered from the main trail down a narrow, rarely used path to the creek. His legs slapped through the ferns that leaned over the deer trail, and the sun blinked like a strobe light through the passing canopy. The air was warm and heavy, devoid of any breeze, and he began to sweat heavily through his shirt.

  Coming around an outcropping of boulders and birch trees, he spotted the back of Pete’s blue shirt at the bottom of the slope. His roommate was kneeling behind a lip of earth and brush, where the forest ended abruptly and dropped several feet into the creek bed. Because the water had receded to its summer low, it flowed only near the tall, cliff-like opposite shore. The rest of the bed had dried into a wide swath of stone and mud.

  Pete must have heard Jordan’s footsteps because he popped up and scrambled onto the trail. He stood less than ten yards from the last place Jordan met up with Courtney.

  “You didn’t need to come.” He brushed soil off his empty hands and glanced over his shoulder. “I’m almost done. Just a few more minutes of quiet and meditation, and I’ll be ready to get some lunch.”

  Jordan slowed to a stop. He balled his hands into loose fists and pressed them against his thighs. Here goes nothing.

  “Pete, I know why you’re down here. I know Courtney’s been texting you.”

  Pete’s eyebrows shot up from behind his sunglasses. He glanced back at the creek again. His mouth hung open for several seconds. “This has nothing to do with her.”

  “It’s her number. She’s the one contacting you and making you freak out this morning, and probably for a few days now. You’ve seemed off lately.”

  Pete stepped back awkwardly. He stumbled and nearly fell. When he looked toward the creek for the third time, Jordan tried to follow his suspicious gaze.

  “It’s not her, mate. It’s someone else using her phone, and it set me off. It reminded me how much I miss her.”

  Jordan blew out a long breath through pursed lips. His pulse beat loudly behind his eardrums. “I’m sorry, man. Maybe that’s true, but you’ve figured out at least part of the story if you’re down here. Courtney and I started running here a few months ago. We’d meet up and train together, but then … we eventually did more than just run. I slept with her a couple times.”

  Pete’s expression tightened as if someone were pulling the skin on the back of his head. His face reddened. “You? It was you?”

  Jordan moved his hands up and down, patting the air between them. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t li
ke that for a long time, and it only happened after she admitted she was thinking about breaking up with you. It still sucks, I know, and the regret has been eating me up for weeks.”

  His confession was not only true but an understatement. Wrestling with coming clean had wrecked many nights’ sleep. After Courtney broke up with Pete, Jordan lost his ambition to run and stopped talking to her. Maybe the relationship had been doomed, but he still felt guilty for getting involved near the end.

  Jordan felt fifty pounds lighter without the shameful secret riding on his shoulders, but he couldn’t relax while bracing for the response. Pete could be explosively animated and temperamental when angry. Jordan expected a verbal tirade. In fact, he deserved one. But he hoped their decade-long friendship had earned enough grace to prevent punches from being thrown.

  After a long, brooding pause, Pete mouthed soundless words. He turned his head back and forth, as if trying to figure out where he was and how he’d gotten there. His breaths became loud and staggered.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Jordan said.

  Pete’s eyes flared like flames agitated by wind.

  “I never meant to betray you like this, and neither did Courtney. It just sort of—”

  Pete grabbed Jordan by his shirt, spun, and threw him toward the creek.

  He tore through wiry brush and tumbled down the four-foot embankment. Fireworks of pain exploded through his body. A boom shot through his head when he crashed into the rocks, and deep cuts fired hot, crackling aches down his back and limbs.

  Groaning, Jordan rolled to his side. “Pete, I’m sorry! Stop!”

  Pete stomped toward him down a gravel ramp. His buttoned shirt strained against his tensed muscles and heaving breaths. He brandished his phone and screamed, “I knew she was cheating on me! She sent a message to me by mistake, telling me to meet in this park. I caught her standing out here, but she wouldn’t tell me who the stupid bastard was. And it was you the whole time! It’s your fault.”

  Jordan needed to retreat, to give Pete space to cool off. He managed to push himself into a seated position, but as soon as he tried to stand, his faltering balance pulled him back down. His vision swayed, then half of it vanished as he closed one eye, shutting out the blood flowing from his wounded eyebrow.

  Yet in spite of his pain, dizziness, and fear, Jordan’s focus snared on a nearby bit of familiar yellow cloth on the ground.

  Spit flew from Pete’s lips as he yelled, “Who is texting me from Courtney’s phone? Is it you? How? I broke it and threw it in a lake, and somebody’s still sending me messages from it.”

  A disorienting chill washed over Jordan. The implications of Pete’s questions collided with the sickening recognition of what he had discovered. Garden spades from the Millers’ house lay next to the plastic bag Pete had used to carry them. He’d used the tools to dig into the sloped soil on the bank, exposing a gray, decaying hand. A white purse and a strip of yellow cloth also protruded from the dirt.

  Courtney used to wear a yellow dress of the same color, and she always paired it with a white purse.

  “Oh, Pete, what did you do?”

  Pete picked up a rock the size of a softball and held it menacingly by his ear. He shouted, “Tell me who has the phone.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Tell me now.” Pete moved within striking distance.

  Jordan scrambled away over the rough ground. “Pete, don’t do this.”

  A blue glow reflected off Pete’s sunglasses, and he looked up. For a moment, he backed up in slow motion, his mouth gaping. Then he turned and rushed toward the bank, screaming in a horrifying, high-pitched voice. He didn’t get far.

  The source of the blue light glided over Jordan. It was an azure vapor shaped like a human dressed in strips of flowing cloth. It wrapped ethereal tendrils around Pete, tore the rock out his hand, and smashed it into the side of his head. Pete’s screams stopped, replaced by the sound of blood splattering on stone. He collapsed onto the raised ground where he’d buried Courtney’s corpse.

  The specter descended onto Pete’s body, wrapping its form around his legs and hips. Jordan caught a glimpse of the specter’s face and recognized her. Courtney. Her cheeks were gaunt, and her frozen eyes were filled with the same icy blue diffused throughout her body, but without a doubt, it was her. The specter’s head bore a concave wound similar to the one she’d given Pete.

  Courtney’s ghost acted unaware or disinterested in his presence while it went about its task of dragging Pete’s body into the ground. Both she and her dead murderer slid into the earth as if it were no more than a curtain to the underworld. The earth devoured them inch-by-inch, and in a matter of seconds, they were gone. Vanished.

  He was alone.

  Jordan snapped out of his trance of confusion and disbelief. His pain hadn’t eased, but his dizziness had. He approached Courtney’s body slowly, testing the ground before each step to make sure he wouldn’t be devoured by it as well. He tugged her exposed white purse out of the dirt, and as he did so, his fingers brushed against the cold, spongy flesh of the corpse’s hand. The sensation, as well as the stench, turned his stomach.

  Jordan opened the purse, looking for evidence to prove the identity of the body. The wallet was missing, but he did find Courtney’s phone. It had been crushed, its back cover and battery had been removed, and water dripped from its circuit boards, but it was there.

  ***

  Jordan couldn’t tell if the cramped, yellow interrogation room was warm or frigid. He shivered, and his hairs stood erect from the goose bumps on his arms, but he was also sweating. The air reeked of the dirt caked on his clothes and hands. Or maybe the smell was in his mind, a lingering residue from the nightmarish experience of digging Courtney’s decaying body out of the ground.

  At some point—he couldn’t remember when—he’d apparently called the police. They arrived at the crime scene en masse, spotted Courtney’s remains, and ushered him out of the creek in handcuffs. A lengthy interrogation ensued, and even though he was completely honest, the police seemed skeptical of his story.

  He didn’t know how his situation would progress. Would they think him a liar and arrest him for murder? Would he have to go through psychological testing? One of the officers had suggested the specter was a hallucination from his head wound. Better for him to be considered a concussion victim than a murderer, but neither affirmed the truth of what happened to Courtney.

  Two doors opened, and he looked first at the one in the mirror, then at the real door. The tall, gray-haired policeman with a moustache walked in. Just as he had during the interrogation, he maintained a firm, solemn expression. He had Jordan’s phone in his hand.

  “The chief says we’re going to let you go home for now, but you are not to leave the area, do you understand?”

  Jordan nodded. He should have been relieved at the news, but he felt numb.

  “It’s best for you if you remain cooperative. We’ll be stopping by your apartment and calling you while we finish our investigation. If we can’t find you, you’ll have half the officers in this state chasing you down. Understand?”

  Jordan nodded again.

  “Here’s your phone.” He set it on the table. “You can make any calls that you need to while I get your paperwork ready.”

  The officer closed the door, leaving Jordan isolated once more. His eyes warmed, and he almost succumbed to another bout of tears. Grief morphed into confusion as he recalled the blue figure and Pete’s death. The cops were not the only ones having difficulty believing what he’d seen.

  Questions about the mysterious text messages drummed steadily as a heartbeat. Who had contacted Pete? How had they come from Courtney’s destroyed phone? Why torment him rather than just contact the police?

  Jordan dialed Courtney’s number and raised the phone to his ear. The call connected to her voicemail, so he hung up. He couldn’t bear listening to her recorded voice. It triggered anguish over her death and ter
ror at the thought of her blue spirit.

  Guilt that had taken weeks to ease weighed heavily on his chest again. If only he could apologize one more time, to both Courtney and Pete. If he hadn’t screwed up and betrayed his friendship, they might both be alive.

  Jordan brought up Pete’s info on his phone. He smiled at a picture of the two of them in their graduation caps and gowns. Then he typed “I’m sorry” and sent it to Pete’s number. He’d never see it, but it was the best Jordan could do.

  After a few seconds, a text response appeared on the screen, one that caused him to throw the phone against the wall. He fell out of his chair, yelling and shielding his body.

  The message read, “THIS WAS YOUR FAULT.”

  The Parable on Thorne Ave

  (Bonus Story)

  Luke Shepherd rolled over in bed toward his grumbling cell phone. He made a half-conscious attempt to grab it but struck the corner of the nightstand instead.

  “Ow!” He rubbed the back of his throbbing hand. Awakened by the pain, he picked up the phone on his second try.

  “Is it work?” his wife, Leah, mumbled from the other side of the bed.

  The brief phone vibration meant he had received a text message. If it was his manager, he would have gotten a call instead.

  He realized who was contacting him while his sight was still focusing enough to read. His pulse quickened. He squinted against the screen’s garish light, and the blurry letters sharpened into view.

  “No. It’s Dina.”

  Their oldest daughter.

  His wife threw off the covers and raced out of their bedroom toward Dina’s room.

  She won’t be there.

  He reread the text: plz come pick me up. Luke dialed his sixteen-year-old daughter, and while the phone rang, he glanced at the clock. 1:54.

  His wife returned to the bedroom and flipped on the lights, causing them both to wince at the sudden brightness. Her face was stitched with worry.

  “She’s gone again. Where did she go?”

  Luke hung up and redialed. “I’m finding out,” he said with forced calmness, trying to reassure his bride of twenty years. “It went to voicemail.”