Initiate

by Bill Bennett

  But why was she after Lily Lennox? What had Lily and her mom gotten themselves into? It must be some seriously bad shit, he thought, to have someone like the biker babe and her posse come after them.

  He’d always thought there was something weird about Lily and her mother. They’d never quite rung true. Like they weren’t who they seemed to be. Like they were hiding something. As if they were sitting on top of a big secret that would bust open any day, and all would be revealed. Drugs maybe? It wasn’t hard to believe Lily’s mom could be a big-time dealer. She looked the type. Underneath her hippie-dippy breeziness there was a real toughness, a steely-eyed fearlessness that didn’t seem to fit with someone who grew mung beans for a living. It was like she was wearing a mask.

  Same with Lily. There was something about her that was different. For a start, she didn’t follow any kind of trend or fashion. She had her own unique look that was almost boyish – with her short-cut hair, always in a man’s cracked tan leather jacket with tight jeans and massive headkicker boots. When every other girl was wearing the latest sleekest trainers, she was wearing a pair of old scuffed Blunnies – and he thought that was cool. He also thought it was cool that she had a real FU attitude, and she didn’t seem to give a damn what anyone thought of her. That was perhaps what Kevin most admired about her – because he cared heaps what people thought of him.

  Almost from birth his father, Lindsay, had made him feel worthless. Nothing he’d done, nothing he’d achieved, had ever been good enough. And if Kevin did manage to excel in anything, like football, then his father made it known that he, in his day, had done better. Certainly, in his father’s eyes Kevin was a complete and utter failure academically, and there was no way in the world his son would ever get into medical school, even to one of the less prestigious colleges, much less Stanford, where he’d graduated with honours. To his father, clearly this was an achievement well beyond the reach of his son.

  In his early teens when his mom suddenly up and left the family home to sail the world with a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Kevin had developed panic attacks. No one other than his father knew, and his father did nothing about it, seeing it as a form of weakness and something he’d eventually grow out of. But Kevin never did. He managed, even at school, but at times he would be seized with a sudden uncontrollable fear that was completely irrational, but very real nonetheless. In those moments of emotional freefall, when he couldn’t grab any foothold into reality or logic, he felt completely powerless. And it terrified him.

  Kevin never blamed his father for these panic attacks, but at times he wondered whether he, himself, in some way, could have been responsible for his mother leaving home. That guilt had hung over him from the day she left, and like a dead rat in the cavity of a wall, the stench would never go away. She rarely made contact with him. Sometimes a text, on his birthday. Sometimes nothing. In those moments he hated women. All women. He hated them with a passion.

  He blamed his panic attacks on his name, though. He despised the name Kevin. With a bland surname like Johnstone, what kind of parents would give their son such a bland first name? It was a malicious act, right from the get-go. It was like his folks had decided at birth that he was going to be so perfect that he needed to be marked in some way – crippled – to keep him humble. So they named him Kevin. He couldn’t stand it, that’s why he urged his friends to call him KJ. At least that took some of the poison out of his name.

  His music was his refuge. The pill he took to make it all go away. Here, he could hide within thrashing metal, ripping guitar solos, and verses that extolled the virtues of Satanism, exhorting his audience to take up knives and axes and machetes and do unspeakable things to babies and pets and virgins. Everyone thought he was just being provocative, that he wasn’t at all serious; he was just rebelling against the status quo, the establishment, perhaps even his own father.

  And on one level he was.

  And on another level he wasn’t.

  He hesitated, then he picked up his phone and made a call.

  Lily jumped. The sound of her phone’s ringtone was unnaturally loud in the brittle silence of the room. She grabbed it, looked at the incoming number, her heart leaping at the prospect that it was her mom, calling to say it had all been a joke, an elaborate joke, and she was on her way back to take her home to the farm.

  She didn’t recognise the number. But maybe it was her mom calling from another phone. No one else knew how to contact her.

  She answered, hopefully. ‘Hello, Mom?’

  ‘It’s me, Lily. KJ.’

  Lily slumped. Kevin Johnstone? Why was Kevin Johnstone calling her, especially right now? ‘How’d you get my number?’ she demanded.

  At any other time, a call from the hottest, most desirable boy at school would have made her day, her week, her entire lifetime, but right now with everything else happening, his timing was weird. Too weird.

  ‘I heard you were sick,’ he said, sounding concerned, ‘and I just wanted to see if you were okay.’

  Kevin Johnstone, worried about me? thought Lily. Am I dreaming?

  ‘And if you’re up to it,’ he continued, ‘maybe I could come around, bring some lasagne from Delmonico’s, and some drinks. And we could, you know, like . . . hang out . . . What do you think?’

  Did I hear right? Lily thought. Did Kevin Johnstone just say he wanted to hang out with me? Bring me lasagne from Delmonico’s? Seriously? Did I just hear right? No, this is all wrong. This is like I’ve stepped into an alternate reality.

  ‘Why is it that I don’t believe you?’ she asked, her voice sharp as cut glass. ‘What do you want, Kevin? Why are you calling me? And don’t give me crap about Delmonico’s and hanging out because, sorry, I don’t buy it.’

  Kevin chuckled. His voice soft and warm. ‘You don’t believe I could be genuinely worried about you?’

  Lily flashed back to the market that morning, how he’d come over specifically to say hello to her. How charming he’d been. Perhaps she’d misjudged him. Perhaps he was being sincere and he did genuinely care about her wellbeing. Maybe she’d been too harsh with him just now. He was right about one thing though – she didn’t believe he could find her attractive.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, suddenly feeling exhausted, as though everything bad that had happened that day had just piled on top of her. ‘I’m just worried about my mother, that’s all.’

  ‘Why?’ Kevin asked. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  Lily sensed that he’d snapped to attention, like a predator that had just spotted prey.

  ‘Oh no, she’s fine – she’s just tired, that’s all,’ Lily quickly said. ‘I mean, she freaked out big time this morning at the markets. I got heartburn, something I ate, you know, one of our green apples, and she thought I was having like a cardiac arrest or something, so she rushed me here to ER for a bunch of stupid tests, which was a complete waste of time because I’m absolutely one hundred per cent okay, but she’s been on edge a lot lately.’

  There I go again, she thought, running off at the mouth. People who lie tend to talk too much. He’s got to know I’m lying.

  ‘By the way,’ she added, ‘you never told me how you got my number . . .’ He had to have got it from my mom, she thought. He must know where she is.

  ‘Listen, when I want to ask a girl out on a date and I don’t have her number, I find ways and means to get it – sometimes fair, sometimes foul. In this instance it was foul. I’m sworn to secrecy, but how’s about I hop in the car and swing by and I can tell you all the sordid details?’ He added, almost as an afterthought, ‘What hospital are you at, by the way?’

  And then it occurred to her. That’s why he’s called. He’s not wanting to ask me out, he’s wanting to know where I am. So he can come get me – maybe take me away, just like my mom was taken.

  ‘Lily? Which hospital is it?’ There was a coolness to his voice now, a sense of urgency.

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Funny,’ he said, and pa
used, as if listening. ‘It doesn’t sound like you’re in a hospital. Where are you, really?’

  Lily hung up. She threw the phone onto the bed as though it was suddenly too hot to hold. Her heart was thudding. She got up off the bed and began to pace nervously.

  My mom told me to be careful of him, she remembered. At the market, as he was walking away, after we chatted. She specifically said, Be careful of that boy. Why did she say that? She was warning me – but about what? What did she know? That Kevin Johnstone could be some kind of threat?

  She stopped pacing. He has to know where Mom is, she thought. That’s the only way he could have got my number. But surely he’s not one of them – one of these adversaries, or whatever they are. Kevin Johnstone, the school MDP – Most Desirable Person? No, it’s surely not possible.

  She looked down at her hand.

  The stinging bees were starting up again. She jumped off the bed, quickly tiptoed over to the door. She heard a scratch of claws on the cement pathway outside. The bees were now on the rampage, coursing up her arm. Lily put her ear to the door. She could hear a sound like a giant beetle scuttling, scratch scratch scratch, coming right up to her door.

  And then the sound stopped.

  Silence, except for the breathing of the night.

  The bees were almost unbearable. They were now in her chest, in her heart. She put her eye to the door’s peephole. There was nothing, no one outside.

  And then she saw the doorknob slowly turn.

  Quietly.

  She stepped back, her heart on fire, the bees manic. She watched as the doorknob came to a stop, then she saw the door push in gently, as if someone outside was checking to see if it was locked. Discovering it was, the pressure on the door eased off, and the doorknob quietly turned back.

  Lily waited, not daring to breathe. That biker at the market, she thought. The really small one. The one that looked like the leader. She was so short she could probably stand at the door and I wouldn’t see her through the peephole.

  Lily went to the window at the side of the door. The curtain was drawn. She slowly, ever so slowly, pulled the drapes back a fraction to see out.

  The tiny biker girl was there, at the door, holding her boots in one hand, a large black-and-white dog at her side. She suddenly turned and stared at Lily with fierce and hateful eyes. Lily jumped back from the window like she’d been hit with an electric prod. What’s she doing here? How did she find me? Who is she?

  ‘Lily?’ The voice through the door was high pitched and sharp. ‘Your mom wants to see you. She sent me to come fetch you.’

  ‘Where is she?’ Lily shouted back, suddenly angry. How dare these creeps take her mom. How dare they!

  ‘I can take you to her easy as pie, Lily,’ the biker girl said, her voice gentle. ‘Just come with me. She’s not far from here.’

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘I’m a family friend, Lily, that’s all.’ There was a smile in the tiny biker’s voice, almost a mirthful laugh. ‘There’s no need to get yourself upset. Your mom’s fine. She just wants me to come get you, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s crap,’ Lily yelled at the door. ‘You’ve got her somewhere. Where is she? What do you want from us?’

  The biker girl’s voice hardened. ‘Let me put this another way, you little bitch. If you don’t come, your mother will be killed. You want to do that to your mom? You want to be responsible for her death?’

  Lily stared at the shadowed door. A panic rushed through her, confounding her thinking. Would they really kill her? And why? What’s Mom done to deserve this?

  Lily felt instinctively that this was no idle threat, that the tiny girl standing no more than three feet away from her on the other side of that locked door was perfectly capable of killing her mother, for whatever reason, and maybe for no reason at all.

  ‘You might have killed her already,’ Lily said, her voice shaky and uncertain. ‘And now you want to kill me. I want proof that you’ve got her and she’s still alive.’ Lily could barely believe she was saying such things. That she was bargaining with her mom’s life.

  There was no response from outside.

  Lily waited.

  She heard the rustle of leather. She’s putting her boots back on. Maybe she’s going! And then she heard a slight metallic sound. A scratching of metal on metal. What’s she doing now?

  Lily went to the window again, slowly eased back the curtain a crack, looked out. The biker girl had her back to her, shielding whatever it was she was doing at the door. She seemed to be bent over the doorknob.

  She’s picking the lock!

  Lily heard a clicking, like tumblers shifting, and then the knob turned and the door suddenly burst open but slammed back on the security chain.

  Lily gasped, rushed straight over to the bed and grabbed her phone, called reception. She could hear in the distance the phone ringing in the office. She looked back at the partly opened door. The biker was trying to saw through the chain with some kind of knife. The phone was still ringing in the office.

  Answer the phone, come on!

  The biker kept sawing. The dog now had its snout jammed into the crack in the door, its jaws opened, yellow teeth bared, white frothy slaver dripping to the ground.

  The woman in the office picked up.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Help! I need help!’

  The security chain suddenly swung loose, cut in two. The biker girl rammed her shoulder into the door and it burst open.

  Lily screamed, dropped the phone, turned and ran to the bathroom. She slammed the door shut and locked it. Outside she could hear the girl and the dog racing in.

  A laugh. That high shrill laugh Lily remembered from the market. ‘You think you can stop me?’ the biker said through the bathroom door. ‘You have no idea what I’m capable of, bitch. No idea. Your mom knows. She sure knows.’

  She laughed again, then kicked the door hard. Wood splintered, the lock buckled, but held. Lily shrunk back against the far wall. There was no window in the bathroom, no other way out. She was trapped. The girl kicked the door again, savagely. The wood holding the hinges started to splinter. Lily heard a distant siren. The dog started barking. The biker girl gave one last brutal kick. The door almost gave way, but the hinges clung on.

  And then there was silence in the room.

  Have they gone? Lily wondered.

  A vehicle drove into the motel, its siren blaring loud. It careened into the carpark and pulled up with a squeal of brakes. Car doors opened and slammed shut. Lily heard a woman shouting, the motel manager, giving directions to her room. Lily heard running boots scrunching on gravel, then her room door crashed open and footsteps rushed in. They stopped outside her bathroom door. And then a voice, a man’s voice, authoritative and calm. ‘Miss, it’s Officer Jorge Ramirez from the San Francisco Police Department. It’s safe to come out.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ Lily said, trying to sound strong. But she couldn’t stop her voice from trembling. Two uniformed cops looked her over, checking to see if she’d been injured, as they accompanied her out of the motel room to their cruiser, parked in front. Lily found it hard to walk, her legs were shaking so much.

  ‘Can you give us a description?’ one of the officers asked – a young female cop who had introduced herself as Officer Pat Dougherty. Lily figured she’d been out of training college all of six months. Her uniform was new, and she had the suppressed zeal of someone wanting to make a difference.

  Lily sat in the back of the patrol car and described the tiny woman, and her dog, as best she could. She waited while Officer Dougherty called it in. Sitting behind the wheel was the older cop – Officer Jorge Ramirez. He had the professionally detached air of a policeman who’d been deadened by years of what he’d seen, and not done.

  ‘There’s every chance your mom’s back home, Lily,’ Ramirez said. ‘She’s probably just fallen asleep and there’s nothing to worry about. How about we take you home now and we see?’

>   ‘Thanks,’ Lily said. She still felt shaken by the attack; the ferocity of that tiny biker woman, the savagery of the dog. She’d never been more scared in her life. But now she felt safe in the cop car. And the patrolman was probably right. Her mom had probably gone back to the farm and fallen asleep. It was the most logical explanation.

  They drove out of the motel. Lily looked around for the tiny biker girl but of course she’d gone, along with her terrifying dog. How had they got away so fast? How come the cops never saw them leave?

  As they made their way back to the farm, the two officers questioned her, and she told them what happened at the market, but she knew it would sound crazy to them because it sounded crazy to her too.

  ‘So your mom didn’t know these three women?’ Dougherty asked, angling her head back to make some semblance of eye contact. ‘She’d never seen them before?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Did they speak to your mom at all?’ Ramirez asked, as they headed out onto the highway heading north.

  ‘No, we left before they got that close.’

  ‘So at the market, they didn’t threaten you or your mom in any way?’ Officer Dougherty this time didn’t bother to twist around. She addressed the question to the front windshield.

  ‘No. Like I said, none of them spoke to us.’ Lily knew where the questioning was heading.

  ‘So if they didn’t threaten your mom,’ Dougherty asked, ‘and she didn’t know them, then why would she feel compelled to leave her stall in such a rush and check you both into a motel?’