by Vicky Jones
"You seen Miss Chloe?" Kevin was still smiling, despite receiving her most murderous glare.
"No, I ain't." She shoulder barged past him and carried on walking.
"Oh shoot! I need to give her this package."
"She's in there somewhere," Shona shouted back.
"Thanks. Oh, by the way, you live in the barn, don't you? By the Weaver? I heard the weather report on the radio on my way over here. Some bad weather comin' in tonight. Make sure you got a storm shelter near you, OK?" Kevin yelled after her, then shrugged as he watched her walk up to the trash cans by the back door to the tool room and kick one over. Heading back from his break, Cuban saw her fall to her knees behind the tire-mound and sob her heart out. He exhaled, wishing to God his friend would open up and talk to him.
Pulling the reins hard, Shona fought to slow her skittish mare from a canter to a trot, then finally a slow walk as she ended her ride that evening by the Weaver. Lost in her thoughts, she was jolted back down to earth by a deafening rumble of thunder.
"Damn it, not again!" she cursed as a spooked Storm began bucking. Torrential rain began pelting down, stinging the skin on her bare arms as she kicked her heels hard into Storm's flank.
"What the hell you doin' out in this? You'll catch your death!" Cuban came running out of the barn as soon as Shona returned, the rain taking seconds to saturate his white cotton shirt.
"How was I to know it was gon’ be this bad?" she yelled back, her face dripping wet.
"You ain't thinkin' straight at all lately. You're not y'self, girl! Don't take a genius to see that. I'm worried about you; you're my friend!"
"I don't know what you're gettin' at, Cuban." She couldn't look him in the eye, her head steaming with pent-up emotion.
Not wanting to risk going back outside and return Storm to her stable, she tied her up in the far corner of the barn, then marched over to her bunk space. Finding some dry clothes, she began to undo her wet shirt, the adrenaline rushing through her fingers making it nearly impossible to grasp each slippery button.
"CHLOE!" He watched Shona's reaction closely as she pulled on a pair of dry pants, then wiped her face with her hands. Raw anguish seemed to consume her at the mere mention of that name.
She inhaled deeply, rubbing her temple with her twitching fingers.
"What about her?"
"I don't know what's goin' on, but I'm worried you're gon' get hurt."
"Cuban, I don't know what you think you know, but–"
"OK, here it is," he began.
Hailstones rattled the tin roof above their heads, the wind whipping up violently around the barn.
"I think you have some kind of tender feelin' towards Miss Chloe. There, I said it…Now, go on. You tell me I'm wrong."
"What in the hell are you sayin'? How dare you think you know me! You of all people–" Shona yelled, the rain hammering down on the roof.
"Me of all people? You mean a nigger, right?" Cuban snapped back. "So, I start asking for some truth from my friend and you come back with that shit? My God, Shona, maybe I didn't know you at all! Maybe you are just like the rest of them!" His eyes brimmed with hot tears.
"ME? I found you, you ungrateful son of a bitch. Convinced Tom and Ruby they should let you stay. I get treated like trash at work along with Elbie for defending your sorry ass…But, yeah…I'm like the rest of them. How fucking DARE you compare me to all those animals out there who want nothing more than to string you up 'cause they despise you?" Shona collapsed backward onto her bunk, spent after her tirade.
Cuban stood motionless.
"Spoke from the heart there, Shona. Almost as if you know what it’s like to be despised." Cuban nodded slowly. "That's why you’ve helped me so much, ain't it? You understand, right, 'cause you've gone through it too."
Tears obscured Shona's vision as she held her head in her hands trying to choke them back, her head spinning, her stomach ripping itself in two. She flew off her bunk and banged the palms of her hands against the wooden planks of the wall, retching as she crumbled inside.
Cuban rushed to restrain her, but her heightened emotional state gave her strength beyond his own considerable might. She shrugged his arms from around her shoulders and punched the wall so hard that the skin on her knuckles shredded, leaving bloody smudges behind on the splintered wood.
"Shona! Stop it…STOP IT!" Cuban pleaded.
"What in the goddamn HELL is going on in here?" Tom burst through the door, soaking wet and disheveled from the gales outside. Taking full advantage of the distraction, Cuban wrapped his arms around Shona again, who this time didn't struggle. She held on to him tightly, her tears cascading like waterfalls down her red-hot cheeks.
"Tom! TOM!" Ruby crashed through the barn door seconds later, looking terrified.
"What?" he shouted back to his wife, not sure who to look at in his confusion.
"IT'S COMING THIS WAY!"
Taking one look at his wife's panic-stricken face, Tom didn't hesitate for a second.
"We gotta go. NOW!"
"Come on, Shona. Come on, girl," Cuban whispered in her ear, scooping her fragile body up.
Moving as fast as they could through the driving rain, the four of them ran towards the storm shelter in the farmhouse basement.
"Come on! We're in its path," Ruby cried out, yanking open the door to the shelter.
"What?" Cuban shouted back, his deep voice drowned out by the howling wind as he struggled to balance Shona in his arms.
"There's a twister coming straight for us! Tom's got the horses into the stable and most of the cows have found the shed but we ain't got much time! Come on!" Ruby hollered back.
Tom ducked instinctively as a massive branch came crashing down only a few feet away from him. His eyes widened with the shock of his near-miss, meeting with Cuban's, who blinked several times to squeeze the grit out of them.
"Come on, Shona, do as you're told for once in your life!" Cuban pleaded, losing concentration on his surroundings momentarily and banging his head sharply on the doorframe. His right eye throbbed as hot dark blood began to seep out and blur his vision. Shaken out of her daze by Cuban’s cry of pain, Shona put her feet on the ground and staggered down the steps, reaching back to ensure her friend made it safely too. Tom struggled to close the door behind them with the ferocious wind wrenching it out of his shaking hands every time he tried. Shona shook her head again to clear it, then stumbled back up the steps to help him, both of them grunting with relief as the bolt eventually clunked home with only seconds to spare. Descending the basement steps, they shuddered as they felt the eye of the twister pass overhead like a freight train echoing through a long, dark tunnel.
Looking around the basement, they each chose a corner to bed down in for the night. Realizing the room she was standing in, Shona glanced vacantly around what seemed to everyone else like relatively safe surroundings. But a palpable look of terror was etched on her face as she sank to her mattress on the ground, completely drained. Her strange reaction didn’t go unnoticed by Cuban who, worried sick, decided he would watch over his friend that night.
Chapter 52
"Noooooo…Get off me! Please–"
"Grab her…hold her mouth!"
The first man, wearing his usual white overcoat, his glasses firmly planted on his bearded face, squeezed his hand around her throat as the second, much smaller man, held a tin mug to her lips. Forcing her to drink the foul-tasting liquid inside it, he pinched her nose to make sure it had all been swallowed. They both stood back waiting for the medicine to take its usual effect.
Within less than a minute, Shona felt her stomach lurch and twist, sending her crashing forward and rolling off the thin mattress she’d been forced to sleep on during her treatment. She writhed in agony as the liquid rushed like acid through her veins, her eyesight blurring as her breathing became labored.
Within moments, the desired effect was achieved. Shona rolled face first over a pile of magazines and photographs she’d been force
d to look at during her incarceration periods in that dank, musty basement.
"Look at them…LOOK! What do you see?" the man in the white coat demanded.
Shona's left eye opened a crack. She looked down at the centerfold and saw the hazy outline of a beautiful, naked woman lying suggestively on a bed, her arm draped over her head, her plump red lips and large brown eyes staring seductively into the camera. The second Shona's eyes ran down over the naked woman's pert breasts and slender legs, her stomach growled as the bile rose and stung her raw throat.
"Don't you dare take your eyes off that…LOOK AT HER!" The second man grabbed Shona's messy blonde hair tightly in his fist and forced her eyes open with the fingers on his other hand. His grip slipped on her tears as he shook her until she submitted. She took one last forced look at the naked woman in the photograph before falling forward, the shaking of her spasming body too much for her to contain. Retching uncontrollably, her fingernails dug into the sheet that had once covered her, but now lay crumpled on the ground covered in the first flushes of Shona's vomit. Tears streaming from her eyes, she groaned and writhed as the medicine coursed through her like wildfire.
They weren't finished with her just yet though.
"Hold her down," the first man ordered the second one, who obeyed.
The man in the white coat opened the small, leather bag he brought down with him every time and took out two long leads; one red, one black. He handed one end to the second man who knew exactly what to do; it had been the same procedure almost every night for the last three months.
Shona felt the second man's strong hands pin her arms above her head and press her wrists into the ground. The man in the white coat then ripped her undershirt up and attached two soft pads to her bare breasts, pausing momentarily to find a patch of unblemished skin, which, after months of treatment, was becoming increasingly difficult. He finally found two clear patches of pale skin and stuck the pads down firmly. Shona, drained of any energy to fight him off, lay there prone, waiting for the pain.
"Flick the switch, Lenny!" the man in the white coat ordered, standing back.
Shona's body convulsed as the electricity pulsed through her, her mouth clenched in stunned agony. Three more shocks were triggered as the man in the white coat held the magazine in front of her face.
"It's disgusting, isn't it?! IT'S WRONG! SAY IT!" he screamed in her face, flecks of angry spit clinging to his neatly trimmed gray beard. Shona's head lolled around on the cold, concrete floor as she hovered on the brink of unconsciousness.
But the man in the white coat was determined.
He tore the pads off Shona's puckered red skin and ripped her loose pants down to her ankles, parting her legs roughly. He stuck the pads down, one on each of the insides of her thighs, as close to their meeting point as he could get and looked up at the second man, nodding his instructions.
The jolt of electricity caused Shona to let out a bloodcurdling scream. Once again, the man in the white coat held the centerfold in front of Shona's sweating face and forced her eyes open.
"LOOK! Say, ‘It's wrong'. SAY IT!"
Shona turned her head weakly, a plume of vomit and spit erupting from her mouth, now blood-red from biting on her tongue.
"It's…w…w…w…w…wrong. It's wrong!" she gurgled helplessly.
The men looked at each other and smiled.
"Good girl…that's better. We'll give you more treatment tomorrow."
The man in the white coat bent down, put his leads away in his little leather bag and did up the buckles. He smiled at Lenny, who gestured to the door to see him out. Shona's eyes slowly closed as the darkness finally consumed her, her last vision being that of the thick wooden door shutting behind them.
Lying motionless on the cold floor, a lone tear dripped from the corner of her eye and onto her bare shoulder as she passed out, the magazine deliberately left open by her side.
"SHONA! Goddamn it, wake up! WAKE UP!"
Cuban leaned over his friend, alarmed by her spine-chilling screams. Her nightmares had woken him many times before, but this sounded like the worst one yet.
"Wh…what's goin' on…what happened?" Shona's bloodshot eyes opened and darted wildly until the friendly faces of Cuban and Tom came into focus and calmed her down. Ruby stood behind them, looking equally concerned.
Shona pulled her blanket up to her neck.
"I can't stop the dreams. I don't know how to." She broke down again into pitiful sobs. Cuban, Tom and Ruby all decided to take two-hour watches over her for the rest of what felt like the longest night.
Chapter 53
Tom opened the door to the basement on Saturday morning, unsure as to what horrific sight would greet him. He climbed up the steps and stood, hands on his hips, surveying the damage. The roof had been ripped off at one corner of the barn and several fences were down, but surprisingly it didn't look as if there was too much to fix. The cow shed and stable looked mostly in good shape, the sound of mooing and neighing reassuring Tom that all inside had survived.
They had all been very lucky.
Ruby followed him out, stroked his arm soothingly, then set off into the kitchen to start breakfast. As Cuban and Shona emerged from the basement, Tom instantly picked up on the tension still fizzing in the air between them. They both looked exhausted, their eyes red and sore.
"I need to go and check on Storm," Shona excused herself and stomped over to the barn where she had tied the horse up the night before.
"What's going on with you two? What did I walk into last night?" Tom asked.
"I don't know," Cuban lied. "I'll go get started on the fences, see what can be salvaged."
Tom watched both of them walk away in opposite directions, hardly able to say two words to each other. His thoughts were disturbed by Ruby's shout over to him, just as he looked up and noticed the same thing she’d seen out of the kitchen window. As the vehicle heading down their driveway pulled up, Tom recognized the bright red Deluxe. He walked around the farmhouse and headed for Chloe's car, opening the door for her.
"Miss Chloe."
"Tom, hi. How are you all after the storm?" she asked softly.
She was dressed immaculately as always, her red and black halter-neck dress perfectly matching her driving gloves and quilted Chanel handbag.
"Not too bad, we’re just surveying the damage. Anybody in town hurt?" Tom replied.
"Unfortunately, yes. Three guys from work, but hopefully they'll be OK."
Chloe looked over his shoulder and saw the gaping, jagged hole in the roof of the barn. She bit her lip and looked back at Tom.
"Is Shona around?"
"Yeah, she's over in the barn checking on Storm. Between you and me, that girl ain't been herself lately. We can't for the life of us get to the bottom of it. Last night, down in the basement, she had the most awful nightmare. I've heard her have them before sometimes, but this one was…different. Worse." Tom ran his hand over the back of his neck. "Miss Chloe, I hope you don't mind me sayin', but I really think she could do with a friend right now. She seems so alone."
Chloe's stomach flipped as she fiddled with the tiny buckle on one of her gloves.
"Would it be OK if I went over?"
Tom smiled his gratitude and pointed to the barn.
Opening the door gently, Chloe saw Shona stroking Storm's head, whispering in her ear trying to sooth the skittish mare.
"Shona–"
"Ma’am," she replied, then turned to press her cheek softly into Storm's mane.
"I just came by to see how everyone was doing after last night." She tilted her head to try and get Shona to look at her.
"We're fine. Thanks," Shona replied flatly.
"OK. Well, if you're sure? I guess I'll leave you all to it. Let me know if I can help you with anything, OK?"
After a minute or two of awkward silence, and watching all of Shona's attention fixed on calming the wild horse, Chloe let out a defeated sigh and turned to head out of the barn and back to her
car.
Blinking back her own tears, Shona picked at the fresh scabs on her knuckles and watched from the yard as Chloe's car roared back along the driveway and out of sight. Lurching forward, she doubled over in pain and collapsed to the floor, pulling at her hair and sobbing her heart out as she pounded her fist against her churning stomach.
Cuban looked over from the fence he was hammering back together, feeling completely helpless.
"What the hell is goin' on here? Miss Chloe made a special visit to come see us. She goes to speak to you, then two minutes later she leaves in tears?"
Cuban had left it for half an hour before wandering over to the barn to talk to Shona, who had returned to her tender stroking of Storm's head.
"Shhhh…I'm here, I'm here…shhh, it's OK," she whispered in the mare's ear.
"Shona? Did you hear me?" Cuban repeated as he came nearer.
"Yes, I heard you. She’ll be like the rest of 'em, that's what you said? I should stay away from her, right? Well, I am doing that, OK? It's for the best."
"The rest of 'em? You mean Bruce, Kyle and Deputy Paul, right? I just said don't get too close! I din' mean make her cry!"
"Just leave it, Cuban!"
"No. This ends now, y'hear? I've lost enough people in my time, my whole goddamn family to the Klan! D'you think I wanna just sit back and lose you too? Not without an explanation. If you want me out of your life, that's fine, I'll walk away. But don't push me away if you don't mean it. What in hell’s going on?" His voice cracked with emotion.
Shona stopped petting Storm. Still facing the mare, she began to cry, faintly at first, trying to disguise it. Cuban could see her shoulders shaking and when he realized she was breaking down, he raced over to catch her in his arms.
"Come here, s'alright."
After a calming minute in Cuban's arms, Shona broke away and staggered over to the other side of the barn where their bunks were, tears streaming down her cheeks. She turned to face him across the short distance, her eyes blazing with torment.