Steeling himself, he dug into his pocket, withdrew the cross, and carefully approached. The ground in front of the headstone was soft and slightly recessed and as Jason made his way across it, he had a horrible feeling of sinking, of falling. But it was just his imagination. A foot in front of the tall etched stone, Jason paused, wondering what came next. He stood there, sweaty, rain-soaked, and cold. This is madness, he thought. What was I thinking coming here? But despite his logic, a deeper part of him knew he was closer to Savannah - and the truth - than he’d ever been before.
Lightning flashed, brightening the sky in a sudden explosion of light. Less than two seconds later, thunder crashed and boomed. For several seconds, it was a constant thing, like slowly ripping cloth.
Jason closed his eyes, his heart skidding recklessly in his chest as he tried to recall what the book had said about contacting the dead. He clasped the gold cross tightly, brought it to his chest, and pictured Savannah. He imagined she was standing right in front of him. He tried to recall the details of her face, the smell of her perfume, the feeling of her nearness, but it wasn’t coming easily.
“Come on. Talk to me, Savannah.” The cold wet wind whipped around him, stealing his voice. Squeezing his eyes tighter, he continued. “Talk to me, damn it.” As if in response, he heard the long tree branches shivering and thunder groan overhead.
But otherwise, nothing was happening. Jason’s shoulders slumped and he sighed, opening his eyes, blinking away rainwater. “Tell me who did this to you, Savannah.” He waited for something, anything, but nothing came. At the end of his patience, he glanced around the darkened windswept cemetery, aware of his own exhaustion. The past weeks had drained him of all vitality, turning him into a shell of a man so obsessed that he’d neglected everything around him - even his own children. “I’m finished,” he said to the empty air. “Do you hear me? I’m done trying to help you. Find someone else.” His fingertips anchored in the palms of his hands, the edges of the gold cross biting painfully into the skin there; he turned, angry and determined to leave Savannah Sturgess - and whoever killed her - behind him. He’d leave Shadow Springs altogether if he had to. He shoved the necklace back into his pocket and as he turned away from the grave, something flashed behind his eyes.
It happened so quickly that at first, he didn’t think it was anything but lightning overhead. But then it happened again. And again - this time clarifying itself until there was no mistaking it: The glint of a knife blade as it was brought down on him. Dizziness overcame him and he steadied himself against the headstone, preparing for a searing pain that never came. Again, there was no sense of dislocation for Jason - he felt fully himself, and he knew this was not one of Savannah’s experiences; it was his own future. And again, it was near. Very near. He felt its closeness as surely as if it were waiting for him right around the nearest rain-soaked weeping willow. And maybe it was.
Then it was gone - but Jason’s body hadn’t forgotten. He felt as if a pint of adrenaline had been released into his bloodstream. He was in danger - he felt it - and he had to get out of here, and fast. But with the next step he took came the heavy weight of that other place. It was as if he’d simply stepped out of his skin, leaving himself behind, and when the images began, he knew he was seeing the world through Savannah’s eyes.
There were trees - so many trees. Not the weeping willows of the cemetery, but the tall ones in the woods beyond the fairgrounds.
Savannah’s hand is clasped in someone else’s as she makes her way into the forest. Jason can feel her hesitation, her regret, her wish to go back to the fair - but she continues, telling herself it needs to be done.
What needed to be done? Jason wasn’t sure.
In the next moment, he feels hot breath on his neck, a clumsy, wet tongue probing his ear. No, not mine - Savannah’s neck, Savannah’s ear.
‘I want you,’ whispers a breathy voice. A hand squeezes Savannah’s breast. Too hard. It hurts, and Savannah winces.
‘I can’t,’ Savannah says. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you … I … I’m getting married and this has to stop now. We can’t do this anymore.’
In Savannah’s memory, Jason saw himself in the massage studio days before, telling her that she had the right to say no - that it wasn’t her duty to bring men pleasure. His eyes stung with tears as he realized the impact his words had had on her. And the consequences they were about to bring.
Hands are on Savannah now - on her breasts, between her knees, prying them apart - and she pushes them away, gently at first. ‘I said we can’t. Please, stop. I mean it.’
In the real world, thunder boomed loud and hard, as if God had brought his foot down angrily on heaven’s hardwood floor. Jason felt it reverberate in the earth under his feet. “Who is it, Savannah?” he whispered. “Just tell me who did this to you. Please.”
There was the briefest moment of unreality - a flash really - and all at once, Jason’s hair stood up, his skin turned cold as the grave, and this time, the sense of dislocation was utterly complete. He felt the vicious sting of a hard smack, his head rocked to the side, and he crumpled to the ground, paralyzed, as a terrible movie played out behind his eyes:
Savannah is on the ground, kicking, trying to grab, screaming as she’s shoved to her stomach and pinned to the ground. The man pulls at her clothes. ‘Get off me! Get off me or I’m calling the police!’
‘You fucking tease!’ The whisper is throaty, raw, wild.
‘Help! Someone help me!’ Bone-cracking pain shoots through Savannah’s head, momentarily blinding her. She feels warm blood oozing past her temple, into her eye, and then her assailant rolls her onto her back. At first she sees nothing but the trees and sky. A white owl swoops down and perches on a branch. It cocks its head, blinks, and calls to her.
And then, he comes into Savannah’s vision, holding a large rock over his head.
Jason gasped when he saw the face of her assailant.
“Stop!” He forced his eyes open, cutting off the vision, and coming back to himself by sheer force of will. He staggered to his feet and hunched over to vomit. Black stars shot across his vision and he nearly passed out. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be. “Please, God,” Jason managed between retching wet coughs. “Tell me it’s not real!” He’d rather be crazy - he’d rather this be the ravings of a sick diseased mind than the truth. Still bent over, hands on his knees, he repeated the words over and over, like a mantra that would eventually make it true. “Tell me it’s not real, tell me it’s not real.”
Then he heard the squelch of approaching footsteps.
He jumped and spun, staggering away from the advancing figure.
“You know, don’t you?”
Jason looked up at the familiar voice and terror leapt down his throat. There seemed only shadows where the face should have been. Jason couldn’t get past the eyes, so soulless and lunatic.
He tried to convince himself this was part of some vision - but it was real-life … and it was more than he could take. “What have you done?” Another wave of nausea hit him, but he tamped it down.
The figure drew closer and spoke. “You know. I knew it.”
“I don’t understand.” Jason’s voice was thin and high, charged with burgeoning panic. “I don’t understand!”
“I think you do.” Lightning flashed, clarifying Brent’s features.
Jason stared into his son’s face, and never - not even when he’d watched his own wife slowly die - had he been so cruelly confronted by sharp, terrible reality. “Son … what have you done?”
“Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?” Brent’s seawater eyes were red from crying, his clothes and hair soaked by rain. A long knife glinted in his hand. “I told you to leave it alone!” His voice shrilled through the cemetery.
“Brent … whatever you’ve done, we can … we can-”
“It’s too late for that! It would have been fine, but you just kept at it and kept at it!”
Jason had been obliquely
aware that his mind was trying to put the pieces together - pieces that would paint an unfathomable picture - and they came to him now in sudden, total recall, drying up his blood and evaporating the moisture in his mouth: The dirt on Brent’s shoes the morning after Savannah had been killed. And Savannah’s ghost pointing at Jason outside the kitchen window - or rather, at Brent who’d stood behind him in the doorway. The muddy footprints in the hall that had ended right in front of Brent’s bedroom. She was trying to tell me! She was trying to tell me all along!
“It wasn’t my fault.” Brent’s voice hitched and cracked. His anger collapsing, he let out a mewling cry Jason hadn’t heard since his son was a boy. There was a helpless, ripping quality to those cries that tugged at Jason’s paternal instincts.
But when Brent spoke again, his voice was eerily calm, edged with something dark and dangerous. “I’m not going to prison for her, Dad. And I’m not going to prison for you, either.”
Jason swallowed hard. “Son, just calm down. We’ll go talk to the police, and-”
“No.” Brent stepped closer, holding the knife up with both hands, his face a mask of madness. “No!”
“Put the knife down, son. Just put it down and tell me what happened.”
Brent shook his head. “They’ll put me away for life. And she … she was asking for it!” His eyes lit with a lunatic glee that spiked Jason’s blood with an old familiar fear he couldn’t immediately peg. “She was screwing every guy in town, probably you, too, even - and then all of a sudden, she gets engaged and she won’t do it anymore. I got mad! I got so mad, Dad, but I didn’t mean to kill her! I swear I didn’t mean it!”
Lightning lit up the sky, followed by a deep roll of thunder.
“Please, Dad. You have to believe me. I was scared. I was so scared!” The madness was gone and Brent was a helpless child again.
Jason felt dragged two ways at once, right down the middle. His heart ached for his son and he wanted to rush to him, to hold him and tell him everything would be okay; and at the same time, a red fury coursed through him and he wanted to attack, to hurl himself at Brent, get the knife, and turn it on him.
Jason took a careful step back.
Murderer and son - one and the same. With slow-blossoming horror, it began to sink in, to really sink in. “Brent …” He felt as if his brain were short-circuiting, and if not for the chill of the night and sting of the rain, the whole thing might have been one of his night terrors. It couldn’t be real. But it was. “Just tell me what happened,” he managed. Taking a careful step closer, he opened his hands, showing surrender. “Talk to me, Brent. What happened? Please tell me.”
Brent’s mouth worked for a few seconds. “It … it happened in the woods behind the fairgrounds. I covered her up and … and before Mrs. Cooper was buried … I brought the body here and buried it in the open grave. No one was supposed to find her, Dad! No one was ever supposed to know!” His face collapsed and he sobbed, snot hanging from his nose. He was Jason’s little boy again, afraid of the monsters in the closet and under the bed.
But Brent was the monster. He’d killed Savannah Sturgess. Jason recalled the background noises of the carnival that night when he’d called Brent. He’d assumed his son was having fun at the fair, but in truth, he’d just murdered a girl and was on his way back from the woods.
“And then you had to mess it up!” He pointed the knife at Jason. “I’m not going to prison, Dad! I won’t!”
“We’ll work this out, son. I don’t know how, but we’ll work it out.” Jason kept his hands up. “But first, we need-”
Brent stepped forward. “No. If you go to the police, I’ll kill you.” His rain-soaked face hardened. “I don’t want to, but I will.”
There was something about his tone that made Jason believe him. He took another step back.
“I swear, I will.” Brent sniffed and stepped closer, the knife in front of him.
I need to call the police. Jason instinctively patted his pocket then remembered he’d forgotten his phone.
“Don’t move!” Brent jabbed the knife, stabbing the air. “Don’t move, Dad! I know what you’re thinking. I’m not as stupid as you think!”
That lunatic joy returned to his eyes and Jason realized why it seemed familiar - he was staring into the mad gaze of his own father. There was a sickness in Dad and it’s the same sickness that’s in Brent. I should have known. I should have seen it before now! And, looking back, he realized that he had. But I chose to ignore it. “We’ll get you help, Brent.”
“Fuck you!” Brent lurched forward and Jason jumped back.
For a moment, both were still.
Jason’s mind flashed warning signs he’d overlooked for the past seventeen years. In the long darkened hallways of his memory, he saw Brent’s lifelong obsession with violence, his inability to make friends and relate to other people, the tantrums and outbursts, the hatred he’d always harbored against the human race, even Jason himself - even Julia, and Amb-
His thoughts snapped like a brittle twig. Amber! This new fear stole his breath. His heart turned black with dread. “Brent? Where’s Amber?”
Brent’s lips thinned and his eyes blazed like coals from the very depths of hell. “Of course! Of course, you’re only thinking of her! She’s at Dottie’s where you left us so you could come here and finish ruining my life!” His chest heaved. “Of course, I didn’t hurt your precious baby - not that she doesn’t deserve it. I’ve always been second to her!”
Grateful tears stung Jason’s eyes. He couldn’t imagine Brent would have hurt his sister - but the fact was this: his son was a stranger. “That’s good, Brent.” He spoke carefully, keeping his voice calm and level. “I’m glad you haven’t hurt anyone else.”
“Anyone else? Who else would I-” His words cut off as if severed by an ax and a slow grimace formed on his mouth. “You’re worried about that waitress you’ve been fucking, aren’t you? Don’t worry. She came to the house and I went out to talk to her but-”
Hallie! “Brent … you didn’t …”
“No. I didn’t kill your girlfriend if that’s what you think. I just made her give me a ride here.” Another wave of the knife. “With this.”
“Then … where is she now?”
“In the car. I hit her. Knocked her out.”
“Brent, when she wakes up-”
“I’ll kill her, too, if I have to.”
Jason wondered if she’d brought her cell phone. I need to get to her. He glanced in that direction and Brent read his thoughts.
“It’ll be a while before she comes to, so don’t even think about trying anything.”
“Brent ... we need to figure out what to do about this.”
The deranged fury winked out like a bad bulb and Brent’s face collapsed into sobs. “You can’t tell them what I did! We can just leave town and-”
“Brent, a man is in prison for killing Savannah.”
“A man who deserves it! A man who rapes his kid and beats his wife and kidnapped your daughter! Would you seriously rather it be me in prison?”
“Of course not, but-”
“Yes, you would!” His shrill voice pierced the night. “I know you would!”
“No, Brent, I wouldn’t, but-”
“Get on your knees, Dad.” Brent wiped his nose.
“What?”
He cut the air with the knife. “You heard me! I said get on your knees!”
It took a moment for Jason’s body to obey, but he got to one knee, then the other.
Brent walked a slow circle around him with the look of a man trying desperately to formulate a practical plan. “That’s what we’re going to do.” His voice held a note of detachment, as if he were speaking to himself. “We’re going to leave. Tomorrow. And we’re never going to tell anyone. We’re going to go on with our lives and pretend we never even came to this town. That child-raper will stay in prison where he belongs and-”
“Brent, we can’t do that.”
“
Shut up!” Brent’s body went stiff and he came to a stop. “Just shut your fucking mouth! I’m not stupid! They’ll throw me in jail. Forever!” And then came the tears again. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone? I told you to stay out of it!”
He was cracking. As Brent paced and planned, Jason’s eyes followed the knife. He had to get it away from him somehow. Think! Think! Jason put his hands up. “Okay,” he said at last. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Brent paused, blinking at Jason through the rain.
“We’ll leave tomorrow. No one will know. I’ll never tell a soul.”
Brent’s eyes flickered with hope - then went dark again. “I don’t believe you.”
“Why not? You’re my son. I don’t want you to go to prison.” The words tasted false in his mouth and Brent wasn’t buying it either.
He shook his head. “No. You’re lying. You’re just saying that now, but later, you’ll turn me in. I know you will.”
“No, I won’t.”
Brent stamped his foot. “Fuck you! Why do you always think I’m so stupid?” A vein stood out on his forehead. “You always thought I was so stupid! I hate you! I always hated you, and that’s why! You don’t believe in me! You don’t trust me!”
As his son spiraled, Jason realized he only had one option left. With a yell, he launched himself at his son. Colliding, they crashed to the earth in front of Tabitha Cooper’s grave; the knife flew from Brent’s hand as they rolled in the wet grass, each trying to gain the advantage. Brent got on top, drew back, and socked Jason in the face.
Sleep Savannah Sleep Page 27