by Nick Twist
“I know,” he swallowed, picking it up without looking. “Yes.”
“Are you watching the news?” Dixon said.
“TV’s on mute,” Floyd glanced at it. “Why?”
“Someone leaked the list of passengers to a news channel. The world knows the passengers are dead except one.”
Floyd pressed the remote and changed the channel. “I see it now.”
“It wasn’t me, Floyd. I swear to God.”
Floyd knew Dixon was behind it. An attempt to pressure him to get busy. Now he’d have to drive to the city and make a statement in a few hours. “It’s okay, Dixon,” Floyd smiled unexpectedly. “Whoever it was, we have to thank him.”
“What?”
“I see the families have accepted their loved ones are dead, and now they’re praying for the last girl to survive.”
“Really?”
“It’s called hope, Dixon. If one passenger survives, not necessarily their own, it still means something.” Floyd smiled at Dr. Hope listening to his side of the conversation.
“What’s gotten into you?” Dixon said.
Floyd knew Dixon would be upset. The fact that the public wanted the last girl saved meant he still had to stay in the field. “I’m only trying to see the bright side of everything.”
“Bring your bright FBI ass here and then talk to me about optimism.”
“Rescuing the last girl is an international request now, Dixon.”
“Fuck international requests, Floyd. Three of my men died, one is missing.”
“They’ll be remembered, Dixon.”
“Fuck Commemoration Day. I want to go back to my kids, man.”
“You will be remembered, Dixon.”
“I don’t want to be remembered dead.”
“You won’t die. Your wife and kids will be proud of you.”
“She won’t,” Dixon said. “She divorced me because I was a hero in the field. I thought she’d be proud of me then, but she ended up proud of the neighbor’s dick, Floyd. What I have done in the field meant nothing to her. I want to go home and see my kids, whom I haven’t seen for the past two weeks.”
Floyd wanted to please Dixon and say, fuck custody, but it seemed an inappropriate time for witty remarks. He glanced back at August. They’ve been married for so many years. Happily, though she could not have children.
“What about the two divers?” Floyd said. “I received a message earlier. It’s all over the news. Jack and Irene?”
“A young, naive couple who think they can change the world.” Dixon said. “Fucking millennials.”
“Did they find anything?”
“They’re on their own now.”
“How so?”
“They’re outside the search perimeter. I told you they were naive.”
“They must have a reason.”
“Yeah, recklessness, and thinking they’re young and beautiful and will never age.”
“Enough with the bullshit, Dixon,” Floyd said. “See why they’ve gone so far. They must have found evidence leading to the last girl.”
“Old, optimistic you, Floyd,” Dixon said. “I will look into it, but hey, I’m not afraid of you.”
Floyd said nothing. Rescuers were under enough pressure in times like these. It was understandable. One of Floyd’s pluses was his ability to drop his ego in such situations. Nothing here was personal. It was a job.
“You shouldn’t be afraid of me, Dixon,” Floyd said. “You’re a brave man.”
“And you’re a coward, Floyd,” Dixon spat. “You don’t care about any of us. Just about your public image and your medals. If you could’ve saved anyone, why haven’t you saved your wife?”
Floyd’s knuckles whitened, gripped the phone.
“She told you she felt sick. She told you she had been passing out,” Dixon said. “The day of the accident in the car, you pissed her off because—”
“Please stop.”
Dixon wouldn’t. Floyd knew it was a perfect moment for revenge. The man had always hated Floyd because of an earlier report on the TWA flight, when Floyd put the blame on him, and denied him a raise and a better house—and gave him a divorce. That was how Dixon saw it. Floyd was only doing his job.
“Because you slept with another woman, Floyd,” Dixon said, adding the last straw to the camel’s back. “To give you a child. August is in a coma because of your doing, James Madison fucking Floyd.”
97
The approaching footsteps stop.
My fists are balled and my legs are twitching with tension. I‘m ready to fight back.
“Stop playing games,” I say. “Let’s get this over with.”
The soldiers still laugh and clap. It’s as if it’s a ceremonial act. As if they’ve done this so many times before.
Then all sounds stop again.
“We think you don’t like us,” one of the soldiers says, his hands gripping his buckle. He sounds familiar. I remember him. He is the one I met in the elevator on my way to Meredith.
I spit at him.
“See?” He says. “You don’t like us, blondie.”
“Why does everyone keep calling me blondie?”
“Because you are,” the soldier cranes his head closer and winks. “Would you prefer bitch?”
I see him wearing the same grey outfit. Only this time the insignia is there. A swastika.
A long, unsettling silence veils the forest. None of them speak. I have nothing to say.
I wait. It’s hard to predict their next move.
“Okay,” the soldier waves his hands in the air. “She isn’t into us, boys.”
The soldiers boo with disappointment.
“Who does she want, then?” One soldier asks.
“Who else,” the soldier facing me, smirks. “She wants him.”
“Him who?” I ask, my eyes darting left and right.
The soldiers slowly withdraw, walking away.
“Where are you going?” I should be running but I’m so scared. “Him who?”
They keep walking further then split in two teams, left and right at a lower point down the hill. I watch them pull out their flashlights and point at the road in between, as if showing me the way to escape.
I shrug and I take a step forward then stop again. This must be another trap.
“I’d be running, if I were you,” a soldier advises me.
What the fuck is going on?
“He is coming for you,” he says.
“Who?”
“Daddy.”
Behind me, footsteps stroll down the hill.
“Run,” the soldiers say.
The footsteps behind me scare the shit out of me. I dash down the hill, barely breathing. I think I glimpsed a silhouette in the dark behind me.
Run. Run. Fucking run like hell.
The soldiers start clapping again, repeating one word, as if in some ritual or ceremony.
“Toot.”
Clap.
“Toot.”
Clap.
“Toot.”
98
Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean
Jack took off the mask and inhaled all the air he could. He’d just broken through the surface after losing Irene in the abyss below. He still had enough oxygen for another dive. So did Irene, but he could not find her.
“Irene!” He shouted in a feeble tone, his voice sucked away by the wind.
Panic wasn’t a strong enough word to describe his feelings. He should not have let her go on this mission. He hated how stubborn she could be. They’d been side by side in their search, all until she decided to follow her instinct and a hunch. When he turned after her, she was gone.
“Irene! Answer me!”
It was stupid calling for her up there. She was probably still underwater, but he could not find her, nor did her GPS work. He could not think of a worse feeling, being alone in the middle of the ocean, knowing he’d lost the love of his life.
He controlled his breath for a few counts, and reminded himself h
ow good she was. She couldn’t be gone, though the ocean was cruel and never befriended a diver, he couldn’t imagine it. She saw something and soon she’ll surface again. All he had to do was wait.
“Why the hell are we doing this?” He asked himself. “I should accept that job as a gym instructor when we go home. I want to be a father. I’m done with this shit.”
“Hey!” Irene called.
He turned around, hysterically searching for her.
“Here!” She waved.
He saw her and swam to her right away. “Where were you?”
“You have to come with me.” She said.
“Where?”
She pointed behind her. There was nothing to see but water.
“There is an island.” She said.
“What? There can’t be.”
“I saw it. Trust me.”
“Okay, but why should we go there?”
“I think she’s there, the last girl.”
“Come on, Irene. That’s not possible.”
“You saw we found nothing underwater,” she panted. “The island makes perfect sense.”
“No it doesn’t, Irene,” he reached for her arms. “Listen to me, we should go back. We’re tired.”
“I have a feeling she is on the island.”
“It’s not possible, baby. Can’t you see how far we are from the crash? We shouldn’t be here.”
“If we made it, then she could have.”
“I doubt she is a professional diver, or even a swimmer. Plus she would probably be injured from the plane crash.”
“It could be a miracle.”
“No, baby. It can’t be.”
“You love me, right?” she said as the water grew colder.
“I do, but this is suicide.”
“Till death do us apart, remember?”
He could not oppose this sentence. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t till naive stupidity and suicide do us part, but he said something else instead, “Baby, look at me,” he tried to be as gentle as possible. “This will not bring him back.”
“This isn’t about him.”
“No, it is. This is about your dad, honey.”
“I’m telling you I have a feeling she is alive. How are we going to sleep at night if we realize we could have saved her tomorrow morning?”
A tide threw Jack off. He doubted they’d see a tomorrow if they didn’t swim back now. “Your father was a brave man, Irene. A great diver. He went to save someone and he didn’t make it back. You should be proud of him. You became a rescue diver like him. He would be proud of you. Let’s go back.”
Irene pushed him away. “I’m telling you it’s not because of him. I’m going to save her.”
“There is no last girl! She probably didn’t make it. Listen to me. They gave up on your father. His teammates should’ve gone to rescue him. He spent a whole day alive on a shore. No one knew. It’s not your fault. He is dead and this isn’t going to bring him back.”
“I thought you were a different man, Jack. I’m going to the island.” She put the mask on and dove away.
99
Toot is after me. Manfred Toot, the impregnator of women. The beast with no face. The man whose name I have carved on my gun and kindle.
My horrid past. He is after me.
I’ve passed the area lit with the flashlights, running like a maniac toward the shore. It’s so far away. I thought it was closer.
I flirt with the idea of looking behind me. I need to see his face. What if I confront him? Maybe I’ll remember. What if I kill him like I should have? This is what it’s all about, right? Kill Manfred Schmidt, known as Toot, and save my daughter.
My legs are heavy. My footsteps weaken and drag. The pain in my arms surges to unbearable heights. Withdrawal symptoms are eating me alive. So many thoughts whirl inside my skull.
If Toot is a metaphor for toots of cocaine, how come he is an actual man? Is this happening or not?
I trip on some stone and fall flat on my face. Spitting mud, I stand up again. Nothing is going to stop me from reaching the shore. Hell, when I glance ahead, I can see the dock.
Ryan was right. It’s far, but all I have to do is get there.
“June!”
The hair on my arms prickles when I hear him call my name. A gruff and dark voice that I recognize immediately.
“You’re mine, June!”
No, I’m not. Nothing is going to stop me from reaching the submarine.
“Don’t you love your daddy anymore?”
His last sentence kills me. I can’t connect the dots, but I don’t want to imagine this. I understand that Manfred Toot impregnated those women. I can live with him being the father of my child. The thing that I can’t swallow is him being… my dad?
100
Mercy Medical Center, New York
“I apologize for the call,” Floyd told Dr. Hope.
“It’s all right. I didn’t hear much.” She said, checking her watch.
“Am I keeping you from something. I thought you had to be somewhere.”
“True, but it’s not work, really. I was hoping I could meet someone. It’s a story you will like, actually. I was hoping I can meet with—”
“If you’re staying, I need to know the rest of Ashlyn’s story.” He said.
“I was hoping you read the rest. I just realized how dark the story is.”
“Please,” he said. “I’m not much of a reader, and I can’t stand not knowing.”
“Uhm…”
“I know the stepbrother’s name was Hecker,” he offered. “Tell me about the Nazi stepfather.”
“He was a big man. Tough and feared. He liked to dress in an SS uniform, the Schutzstaffel, while he… you know.”
“Where did he get the uniform?”
“He forced a few women to sew it for him and the other men,” she said. “Actually it was Ashlyn’s grandmother who supervised it.”
“Wasn’t she in a mental hospital?”
“For a while, but they couldn’t pay the bills when her daughter checked in. She went home, though not fully recovered. Ashlyn mentions in the book that her stepfather bribed the hospital so he’d have a woman who’d take care of the girl issues.”
“God help me. I don’t want to even picture the hell they’ve been through. What was the grandmother’s name?”
“Meredith,” Dr. Hope said. “She lived in the attic, talking to herself most of the time. She knew all the secrets. She’d seen all the rapes, the killings, and the burning. She cleaned after them, and provided as much emotional support to the girls as she could.”
Floyd felt dizzy. It showed on him.
“You wanted to know,” Dr. Hope remarked.
“Yes, please, in hopes for a bright ending,” He said. “What about that Nazi stepfather, you didn’t tell me his name.”
“Manfred Schmidt,” she said.
“I’ve come across some Schmidt’s but never heard of him. A typical German name. It makes me wonder how he slid under the authorities’ radar.”
“It could be because no one called him by his real name.”
“What did they call him?”
“Major Red,” she said. “His men, dressed as soldiers, called him Major. R.E.D., the last three letters of Manfred. They were also a metaphor for the blood on his hands.”
101
Major Red can’t be my father. A girl should have some genetic or emotional connection to her father. This doesn’t ring true. I hated this man from the gutter of my heart since meeting him. It just can’t be.
Knowing his size and heavy weight, I feel I have an advantage of escaping him—if my withdrawals don’t worsen.
My weary feet feel like they’re about to give up on me. I try not to think about it. I keep my head up, looking at the dock in the distance, hanging onto hope.
“You’ll be all right,” I tell my daughter. “Whatever this is, even if I’m insane, or the worst mother in the world, I won’t give up on you.”
&
nbsp; “You shouldn’t have cut my face!” He roars behind me. “I will make you pay.”
It occurs to me that his anger will not play in his favor. Somehow I pissed him off, and, like me, he is not in his right mind. I can outrun him. I can do it.
“You shouldn’t have killed Ryan!” I spit back.
“I didn’t,” he says.
“I heard the bullet,” I jump over a log and land on a weak foot, but balance myself again and continue down the slope.
“You killed him, not me.”
“Nonsense!”
“You’re so delusional.”
“I don’t mind it. But you won’t have my baby. You will not burn me in the Furnace.”
“I will burn you twice. Once for slashing my face. Twice for killing Hecker.”
The conversation doesn’t mean anything to me. Whatever he says, I will make it to the dock. I’m just using it to trace his voice and assess his distance behind me.
Looking ahead, I realize I’ve had a good head start. It’s not that far anymore. All I ask for is my legs not buckling underneath me. My lungs can take it. My brain is fried anyways. As for my will, it’s ten million men strong.
Soon I’ll be—
Shit.
What just happened?
Did my legs buckle underneath me?
What’s going on?
I’m…
I’m free falling?
I feel my heart is stuck up in my neck, as I’m falling. I thud and splash into something below. The pain is too sharp. I feel nothing. The words I try to speak don’t come out, and my eyelids drape against my will.
Fuck.
Ryan told me to avoid the fissure in the ground. I didn’t, and now I’m gone.
102
“Now, is there a light at the end of this story?” Floyd said
“Depends how you look at it?” She checked her watch again. “Actually there is great light and optimism in the end.” She smiles for some reason.
“I doubt it.”
She tapped her watch. “Hmm. Time will tell very soon, but let me tell you the rest first.”