by R.J. Ellory
I had never discovered why Caroline Lanafeuille had left Greenleaf, what her father had done that had precipitated such a reaction. The truth was, she was the first. And despite the girls in Florida, the beach-dwellers, despite the Devereau sisters and all they brought with them, there really was only one girl who had ever touched me with something more than the physical. If I would cry for losing anyone, it would be for Caroline.
I did not stay long at the grave, I did not see the purpose. I visited, I paid my respects, I did not say a prayer for I didn't believe anyone was listening. I said a few words to my mother: how grateful I was that she had cared for me, that I hoped she'd found peace, hoped she'd found my father. Then I walked from the cemetery at the end of Nine Mile Road and went home.
The remainder of the day passed uneventfully. Every once in a while Nathan would walk to the front window and look out towards the road. I knew he was looking for Linny. Again, just as before, she had engineered that sense of uncertainty: was she with you, was she not? How she did that… well, I don't believe even she knew how. She was beside you, possessed you, swallowed you up completely, and then she was a million miles away and growing more distant with each heartbeat. She could make you feel as if you were the center of the universe, and then as nothing. I thought she was perhaps a little crazy.
But Nathan was a man, his own life was right there in front of him, and he would learn too.
Learn the hard way perhaps, but hell, was there any other way?
Later, evening closing up around the house, I lay in a chair in the front room and listened to the radio without really hearing much of anything at all. I was tired, as if the past eighteen months of running had finally caught up with me. Nathan was somewhere - the kitchen, upstairs, back in the kitchen again - and I sensed his restlessness. He wanted something to happen, and I reckoned the best thing for everyone concerned would have been for him to leave then, to go see his folks, to get things straightened out.
But he stayed. Stayed with no intention of seeing anyone but Linny Goldbourne, for she, in her own inimitable style, had captured him and wouldn't let go until she decided she wished for something else.
'You think she did such things on purpose?' Father John asked.
I shook my head. 'I don't think so. I think she came from the kind of background where she could have pretty much anything she wanted without a great deal of effort. Live like that for a while and I think things begin to lose their value. Relationships too. Figure if you've got money there's always a line of people waiting in the background to be your best friend.'
Father John smiled. 'To have and have not.'
I shook my head.
'It's the name of a book,' he said. 'Deals with similar sorts of things.'
'Right, okay.'
'So you don't think there was any malice intent on her part?'
'Malice intent, no. I don't think she was even aware of what she was doing. If I hadn't seen Nathan pacing about like a caged animal that day I might have thought it was just me, but I could see he was feeling the same things as I once had. It was the not knowing that did it. Was she with you? Was she not? Was she off with someone else? Was she using you for some brief amusement, and then you were forgotten? It was the way she looked at you sometimes, like she was looking right through you… it was odd.' 'Did you know much about her father?'
'No,' I said. 'I didn't really know anything about him at all. Some rumors perhaps.'
'Rumors?'
'The stuff I told you, that he was something significant in the Klan, that he controlled a great deal of land, possessed endless millions of dollars, could buy anything he wanted including people, votes… that kind of stuff.'
'You know he's dead.'
'You told me that already.'
'Right,' Father John said, and for a moment he looked distracted.
'His position was what got her where she ended up, you know?' I said.
Father John nodded. 'I'd thought of that as well.'
'If he hadn't been who he was I don't think that would have happened to her… she wasn't that bad.'
There was quiet for a moment, Father John looking down at his hands, his expression distant.
Then he looked up and smiled. 'So, the next day, the day she came back?'
'Right,' I said. 'The next day -'
I felt good when I woke. I had stayed off the weed and the wine the day before and felt better for it.
Nathan slept through until close to lunchtime and I appreciated the couple of hours alone. I walked through the house, spent a little time in each room, moved some things around, found some photos I hadn't seen for years, photos of myself as a child, my parents in their twenties and thirties. I recognized how much I looked like my father, and somehow that pleased me.
I walked out into the back. The yard was overgrown. Under an eave that projected from the rear of the building, a small shelter where my mother had stored wood and tools, I took an axe and split some logs. The axe was heavy, rusted around the join between the blade and the haft, but it did the job. It felt good to be doing something physical, felt good to get some clean North Carolina air in my lungs. It felt good to be alive without the fear of someone finding me.
I made breakfast, waffles and bacon, and I sat alone in the kitchen and ate. It felt right to be back there. That house had always been an anchor, a safe harbor, and though I was no longer running from anything, it still gave me a feeling of security. Here I could stay, regardless of what the world might think, and I felt lucky to have it.
When Nathan came down he had a headache. He didn't want to eat, but he drank two or three cups of coffee.
'Figure we should clean the place up,' I said. 'Thought I might stay here for a while.'
Nathan nodded. 'Sure thing,' he said.
'You can stay here as long as you want, but I reckon you should give some thought to what you're gonna do 'bout your folks.'
'My folks?'
I sat down facing him. 'Sure, your folks. You can't leave them trying to convince everybody that you're dead, Nathan.'
'Why not?'
I gave a forced, unnatural laugh. This was a response I had not expected, it ain't right. They're your parents for God's sake. You want them to keep pretending you're dead for the rest of their lives?'
Nathan shrugged. 'Figure they'll get over it,' he said. 'Hell, perhaps they already have.'
'You don't think they'd be happy to see you?'
'Shock would more 'n likely kill my pa,' Nathan said, and there was something in his tone that made me suspect he could actually believe such a thing.
I shook my head in disagreement. 'You are their son. Whatever the hell has happened, you are still their son.' 'The prodigal returns,' he said.
'Jesus, Nathan, sometimes I just don't get your viewpoint.'
Nathan stopped with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. 'I don't know that you need to get my viewpoint, Danny. I am who I am. I think what I want to think. I say what I want to say. It's as simple as that.'
'Shit, you've changed, man -'
'Changed?' he said, his tone one of surprise. 'We've all changed. The world has changed. The world has become some crazy fucked-up place with people killin' each other like there's no tomorrow. What the hell d'you think this has all been about, Danny? Do you ever wonder about why we're here? D'you ever stop to think about what's going on around you? Hell, sometimes you are so blind.'
'Meaning?' I asked defensively.
'Meaning nothing.'
'If you meant nothing you wouldn't have said it,' I snapped.
'Oh shit,' he replied. 'What is this now? Kids in the sandbox? I won't come if I can't win bullshit?'
And then I thought of them. Thought of the men at Eve Chantry's house.
I was on the edge of saying something. But I didn't. Didn't say a thing. I didn't ask myself why I said nothing. I didn't even question my motives, or lack of them. I just decided then and there to say nothing. It seemed ridiculous that anyone would reall
y do anything just because their daughter was seeing some black guy. Maybe I believed that. Maybe I deluded myself. Whatever. But I didn't mention it.
And then the moment was gone.
'Forget it,' I said.
'Already have,' Nathan replied.
I walked over to the sink. I started to wash some plates. I wanted to turn and hurl one right at Nathan Verney and crack his head in half.
But I didn't do a thing. Like so many times before.
There was silence between us, and I let that silence grow and fill my house as if it could suffocate Nathan, could suffocate how I felt, could bury us both in emptiness and dissolve everything.
And perhaps that atmosphere would have stayed, stayed and mushroomed like some dark fungus, but Linny arrived within the hour, and with her arrival everything shifted to a different level altogether.
'A different level, how d'you mean?' Father John asked.
I smiled. 'She was so enthusiastic about everything. She would always bring something - something great, something stupid - it didn't matter. That day she brought Christmas party hats and balloons, all kinds of things from her own house. She brought bottles of champagne and some cigars she'd stolen from her father, these foot-long Havanas. That was what she did, she assumed control, she made everything revolve around herself.'
'And she stayed the rest of the day?'
I nodded. 'Yes, the whole day.'
'And when did these men come back?'
'The exact time I could never be sure of, midnight, sometime after midnight I think. I'd drunk a lot of champagne, smoked some weed too, and I slept heavily… and if it hadn't been for the sheer volume and intensity of screaming I don't think I would have woken at all.'
'But you did wake up?'
I nodded, lit another cigarette.
'And what happened when you woke up?'
'First of all I was conscious of something in the house that didn't belong there… you know… when you just know that something isn't right?'
'Yes,' Father John replied.
'That feeling, that awareness, whatever you wanna call it… I just knew there was something in the house that shouldn't have been.' 'And what else?'
The darkness.
The darkness was intense.
I didn't know how to describe it. Darkness is darkness, right?
I knew something was happening.
For a long time there seemed to be silence, but I knew there'd been some sound that hadn't belonged here.
That's what had woken me.
At least I felt that that's what had woken me.
I believed I had heard someone screaming.
I sat up in my bed and listened.
There was movement, I could hear movement, and I believed it was coming from the room facing mine, the room where Nathan and Linny were sleeping.
I moved to sit on the edge of my bed and then I stood up. I felt a little uneasy with the sudden awakening, the champagne I'd drunk the night before, the sense of confusion and disorientation I was experiencing. All these things contributed to a feeling that my anchors to reality had slipped, the ropes were spooling out and I was floating into some errant tide that would lose me.
I gathered my thoughts.
I moved towards the door.
Thud!
A definite sound, something heavy falling to the floor, heavier than a footstep.
I was puzzled.
I figured perhaps Nathan and Linny were fooling around, but by the time I reached the door the feeling that something was wrong had gathered substance.
Intuition was not my strongest point, but there was something about the atmosphere, something about the way the hair crawled across the back of my neck, something about the tension I felt in my lower gut, that told me I was walking towards something fearful.
And then she screamed.
'You knew it was her?' Father John asked. it could only have been her. And besides, I knew her voice well enough to know it was her. Like you can tell someone by their laugh -'
'But you'd heard her laugh many times. How many times had you heard her scream?'
'She was a screamer.'
Father John looked at me questioningly.
'She screamed when she got excited, she screamed when she was making out sometimes, she screamed when Nathan bit her that time… she was a screamer, okay?'
'But this would have been a different kind of screaming… this would have been terrified screaming or something -'
'It was her,' I said emphatically. 'And besides, when I opened the door it was Linny standing there - screaming.'
'So you did actually see her screaming?'
'Yes, but you didn't let me get that far. I heard someone screaming, I thought it was Linny Goldbourne, and then when I opened the door I saw that it was Linny Goldbourne screaming… are we clear on that now?'
'We're clear on that now,' Father John said. 'I'm sorry… go on.'
'You gonna interrupt me again?'
Father John shook his head. 'Not unless there's something I don't understand.'
'Okay,' I said. 'So I'm standing there in my room and I hear someone screaming who I think is Linny Goldbourne-'
And even as I reached for the door handle I could feel this sensation in my lower gut. Felt like a snake was unravelling itself in my intestines.
That sense of tension increased right through me. I started to open the door.
She screamed again.
The door was three, four inches ajar, and that sound came at me like a freight train.
I started, took a step backwards, and for one awful, horrifying second I believed Nathan was killing Linny Goldbourne.
It seemed such a ridiculous thought that I found myself smiling, but it was the smile of someone afraid.
Something was happening in my house.
Something was happening ten yards from where I stood in the shadow within my room, and I had no idea of what was going on.
Except that it was bad.
I looked around the room for something to defend myself, something with which I could protect Linny, but there was nothing.
I stepped towards the door again, opened it a little further, and then the screaming became a continuous rage of sound, a torrent, a rush of madness exploding from the door facing mine.
I went out like a crazed man, fear cowering behind me, some inner force impelled me, drove me, took over my body and propelled me across the hall towards the opposite doorway.
Linny was standing beside the bed, her eyes wide, her hands reaching out towards the center of the room. Her whole body was spattered and coursed with bright red blood, covered in it.
Nathan lay on the bed, his form barely visible among the scarlet sheets.
I opened my mouth.
The man I'd seen at Eve Chantry's house, the man who'd spoken, appeared out of left field like a shadow and I felt a pain the like of which I'd never experienced.
My head felt as if it had been smashed with a baseball bat.
Like Babe Ruth had hit a home run through my forehead.
As I went down I could see the second man wrestling with Linny.
Linny was screaming still, sounded like her body was being wrenched in two; I staggered to my feet, felt myself skidding awkwardly. I looked down, and my feet, my own bare feet, were sliding back and forth in runnels of blood that seemed to be moving beneath me as if they possessed a will of their own. I lost my balance, grabbed the side of the bed and went crashing down to the ground once more.
I began screaming too, and then I felt a tremendous pain collide with the side of my body.
Everything was turning black.
Black and gray with red waves inside it…
And I could smell something, something like dirt, and later I would think that perhaps it was the smell of so much blood… and I could see the blood as I fell… like someone had gutted a pig and swung it round the room… and then there was blackness coming like ink through water, like indigo to midnight to lampb
lack to ebony to jet…
I tried to stand again, reached for the sheet that hung from the side of the mattress, and used it to haul myself up. As I came to my knees, a second collision impacted against my body.
I howled in agony. I rolled sideways bringing the sheet down across me, a wet, heavy sheet, so red and so warm…