KNOCKOUT

by Nikki Wild

  “It’s not!” I threw my beer with all my force, shattering it against the wall.

  Old Greg didn’t flinch.

  “Name one,” he finally spoke.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Didn’t stutter, boy. If you ever gave a shit about any of the girls who came before her, why don’t you name one. Name one of your conquests. And don’t make up a name – I’ll know if you’re lying to me.”

  I sat there, seething with anger.

  Holy fuck.

  He’s right.

  Old Greg’s face slowly, surely contorted into a wide grin. “You can’t. You can’t name one fucking girl that you’ve coerced into that viper pit of a bed, can you?”

  No. He can’t be right.

  “You fuck and forget. My granddaughter wasn’t the first. There have been so many. And you think she’s the one with a goddamn memory problem?”

  A parade of faces flew through my head.

  Featureless husks.

  I couldn’t remember their details.

  Dozens of them.

  No… It was more than that.

  Old Greg stood up from his chair, confident in his complete victory over me. He coughed for a second, and then slid his beer – nothing but dregs now – over to me.

  “This is what you are, punk. You’re the filth at the bottom of the bottle. You take what you believe belongs to you, and you distort it. You make it lesser. I can see it plain as day across your face. That is your legacy. You think I want my granddaughter to remember a sack of shit like you? You don’t even know her name.”

  “Her name is Angel.”

  “Oh yeah?” Old Greg toothily snarled. “Angel Who?”

  I stared deep into the next table over. I knew her name… It was Angel… Angel………. Fuck.

  He’s right, I repeated to myself.

  This is who I am.

  I’m going to hurt her no matter what I do.

  Old Greg brushed up the shattered beer, dropping it into the garbage. He poured himself a glass of water, gulping it down thirstily before finally turning back to me.

  “215 Wilde Grove Drive. Beaten up old house, green, tucked away behind the trees. Dirt driveway. If you pass the tree with the old tire swing, you’ve gone too far.”

  I looked at him incoherently.

  “She ain’t here, which means she’s there. It’s the only other place she knows.”

  “Why are you…why are you helping me?”

  Old Greg leered close to me, his rotting breath invading my nostrils.

  “Because I’m a dying old man, you sack of shit. Because sometimes – just sometimes – people change. You’ve already gone down swinging for her sake, so I think you have the capacity for that. If you do…then you’re my best chance at keeping that girl happy and safe.”

  I stood up from the table, coming to terms with the insights that this arrogant geezer had given me.

  I hated them.

  I hated him.

  But as much as I hated to admit it, the old decrepit fucker in this ramshackle little bar was right.

  “But that ain’t the whole reason.”

  I turned to him, catching his cold and calculating eyes.

  “If she’s there…Angel is in danger.”

  Seventy

  Angel

  I’m not sure how long my stepfather had been abusing me. The time prior to the accident was a complete blur, and probably always would be. When I first saw Roger in my hospital room afterwards, I didn’t know who he was…

  …But I knew that I was very afraid.

  I was high on morphine the first night he came to my bedside, my mind firmly half in and half out of this world. It would be weeks before I could talk, and months before I’d take my first walk across the hospital room. Maybe he thought I was damaged forever… Maybe he thought I wouldn’t remember, or that I didn’t realize what was happening to me. The sick fuck thought he could get away with it.

  The bastard did what evil men always do.

  He took advantage.

  Thank god that I was in a moderately monitored hospital room. Nurses were in and out, keeping a lazy eye on me but never around enough to rattle his confidence. Still, I knew that if I’d gone into outpatient care at home, he probably would have been far more dangerous.

  But that still didn’t stop him from doing what he could get away with. He saw me. He sometimes took pictures of me. He touched me, splintering my fragile, drugged mind into shattered, dirty pieces.

  My memories didn’t ever really come back, and I know it’s because of him. My bastard stepfather descended upon me while my brain was trying to put everything back together. If I hadn’t been so focused on forgetting what he was doing to me, maybe I would have pulled my former life back... but while the memories were gone, so too were most of the nights that he came to visit me, his mind sick with desire.

  He didn’t leave marks. No tell-tale hickies pocked my skin, and no scratches or obvious signs of abuse were left for the right nurse to discover.

  I kept quiet. I was too weak. When I started to show signs of life, he made one thing very clear. If I told anyone about our relationship, he’d kill me.

  The safety of the hospital couldn’t last forever. Roger made it crystal clear how much my medical bills cost this family, and how I was going to repay the debt…

  However, I got a lucky break.

  At the time, Roger worked as a roundabout on a freighter. The life was rough, paid very well, and took him away for small stretches: three weeks on, one week off. It just so happened that my first night back coincided with an off-season shift too lucrative for him to pass up, and so he couldn’t bring his sexual tension with me to its inevitable conclusion.

  Mom kept me on my anxiety medication. She told me that I babbled “nonsense” about abuse while I was under, but I couldn’t blame her for not taking me seriously. After all, people say crazy stuff under medication… even if sometimes it’s dangerously true.

  From the beginning, I started fighting the effects the drugs had on me. In brief moments of clarity, I knew that the clock was ticking, and I’d have no strength to fight him when he finally came back for me. By the time his last week was almost over, my strength was enough that I could concentrate… and I knew what I had to do.

  While Mom was gone, driving hours away to the docks to pick him back up, I sprang into action. I’d packed my breakaway bag, snuck into her room and stole away my identification and my prescription refill – just in case.

  I abandoned that place in the dead of night. With my anxiety temporarily out of the picture, thanks to the drugs, I could pull back some of my former memories. There was a place, in the back of my head, somewhere safe and secure… a place called Riverton. Somehow, I knew that there was refuge there, and from that I could figure the rest out along the way.

  I hitchhiked towards it, eventually coming across Old Greg. He seemed startled to see such a young girl on the road in the night, but something in the old man endeared him to me. While he treated me to late dinner at a diner, I broke down in tears, leaving out most of the details.

  I didn’t tell him I had been sexually abused.

  But I told him that I had been in an accident, that I couldn’t remember much of who I was, and that my family was dangerous. That I would die before I let myself go back there.

  He took pity on me, putting me up in his bar…

  Old Greg would be so angry if he knew I came back here, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of looking him in the eye after the way I’d left. He was so kind to me… Kinder than I ever deserved. Maybe I’d head out there in a few weeks once I’d settled in. He deserved an apology.

  “You going to eat, or just sit there thinking?”

  Mom had brought me a bowl of chips and some ranch dressing. I hadn’t so much as touched it since I’d come to the table.

  “Go ahead and eat up,” Mom smiled. “After you’re done, go pretty yourself up, company’s coming.”

  That pit ca
me back into my stomach. I’d been worried about that all afternoon… it had been a festering feeling, eating away inside me.

  But I knew better than to cross Mom.

  She had taken me back in.

  She had given me a roof, and food.

  Well… I looked down at the plate. Some food.

  “Hurry up in there,” mom shouted.

  “Okay, Mom,” I answered, forcing a cheerful smile across my face.

  “Thanks a ton, Hon,” she answered.

  After that, I was left in the quiet.

  The crunching of the chips shattered the silence with every crispy bite. Agonizing, piercing chomps controlled my attention, ringing out in the quiet like a rhythmic, mounting growl of danger.

  When I was done, I set the dish in the sink and found Mom. She was sitting in a recliner, watching some old silent film on the living room TV.

  “Over there,” she motioned with a wrist.

  I followed her gesture and lifted a package off of an end table. It wasn’t particularly large or heavy, but it seemed ominous to me.

  “Bring that over here.”

  I did as I was told.

  Mom raised her saggy arm, muted the television, and turned to face me.

  “Open it up.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What’s not to understand? I got you a present.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond.

  So I nodded, pulling the tape off the box and opening it up. Turning it over, a small orange bottle fell into my hand.

  “See there? Momma’s gonna take care of you doll. I got you your medicine.”

  I turned the bottle over, eyeing the little pink pills inside. I hadn’t seen these things in years.

  “I know how anxious you get… The depression. All those panic attacks? You’ve been so high strung since you came back, dear.”

  “I don’t like the way these things make me feel, mom. They make me a zombie.”

  “I don’t want any back talk. We have company tonight and you’re going to be on your best behavior. You take two of those or you can get out,” she said, pointing toward the door.

  Seventy-One

  Trent

  The address wasn’t in Riverton – it was hours and hours away, another quiet spot called Point’s Hallow.

  My cell signal was shit out here. When I finally arrived at the village, I accidentally crossed a small bridge and passed the entire place up, expecting to find it just beyond the next bend. It was only after fifteen minutes of nothingness, driving through trees and wilderness, that I realized I’d probably missed the place altogether.

  Turning around in the fading light of day, I backtracked to the bridge. Standing guard at this side, apparently marking the edge of Point’s Hallow, was a seafood restaurant. With nothing else in sight, it commanded the eye from its perch, raised on stilts over the river. Painted along the side was the name: Jack’s.

  Some landmark, I thought to myself.

  Back across the bridge, I investigated. None of the roads were marked, making my job tougher than it needed to be. The population couldn’t have been any more than maybe eighty or a hundred people, judging by the sparse houses. Almost nobody was around, and I didn’t want to start banging on doorknobs…

  The single person I saw wandering about, a woman in smeared overalls with ratty hair, looked at me suspiciously as I pulled up and flicked up my helmet visor.

  “Is this Point’s Hallow?”

  “Who’s askin’?”

  “I’m looking for a girl. Name of Angel.”

  “Angel?” She laughed, exposing a few missing teeth. This place was seriously in the sticks. “You must be a friend of hers!” She was suddenly suspicious again, eying me strangely. “Are you a friend of hers?”

  “I am,” I confirmed confidently.

  The woman peered at me a moment longer, and then nodded. “Good. Yeah, she’s here. Got back into town a few days ago. You know where to find her?”

  “Willow Grove Drive,” I told her.

  “Yep! That’s it, her and her parents…you know how to find it?, don’t’cha?”

  “I’m from out of town,” I bluntly explained.

  “Right,” she cackled, sizing me up on the motorcycle. “Might’ve noticed by now, they ain’t no street signs… No fancy gee pee usss for us folks in Point’s Hallow, we don’t need ‘em… anyway, here’s what you do…”

  She rattled off directions, involving a handful of turns that apparently centered on particular trees and piles of scrap. “You got that?”

  “I do. You’re really helping me out here.”

  “Great. Tell ‘er that ‘Tricia said ‘hi!’”

  “You’ve got it, ma’am,” I nodded.

  She positively swooned as I kicked back into gear and drove towards the house.

  Her parents.

  Old Greg had said she was in danger. He’d spent a few minutes telling me what a piece of shit Angel’s stepfather Roger was before hurrying me down the road.

  But maybe he wasn’t the only piece of shit in this town.

  I paused, letting the engine rumble as it idled between my thighs.

  My thoughts reflected back to what Old Greg had said. Sure, I’d known a lot of that myself, but it was easy for me to justify how I treated people. When someone else explained it, someone who barely knew me…it sent a shiver up my spine.

  You take what you think belongs to you.

  You don’t accept ‘no.’

  You CAN’T accept ‘no.’

  I shook my head.

  This wasn’t my decision. It was hers.

  I shuddered.

  No. Extenuating circumstances.

  My asshole of a manager sent her away. He filled her head with complete bullshit. She never would have left it I was there. I needed to let her know how I felt.

  And if she didn’t want to come with me, I’d leave her… Once I knew she was safe and sound back at Old Greg’s bar, away from the danger.

  With a heavy heart, I continued on my way. Tricia’s directions had been a little on the bizarre side, but she led me the right way. After a couple of turns, I spotted the silent tire swing, dangling from a tree in the front yard.

  I remembered Old Greg’s words from before, when he’d given me the address: If you pass the tree with the old tire swing, you’ve gone too far.

  A dirt road was to my side, heading into the trees. I turned onto it, driving as quietly as possible through the shadows until I saw it.

  It was just as Old Greg had said.

  The green house was in even worse shape than the Riverton bar. A window was busted out; the roof was caving in from a fallen branch. With the sun set and the shadows growing, the place looked like it had come straight out of a horror film.

  Angel’s HERE?

  My shaken confidence exploded into a blaze of conviction.

  No, I thought to myself.

  This isn’t good enough for her.

  No matter what happens…

  I killed the engine and kicked down the stand, parking next to an old truck on the edge of the street.

  She deserves better than this.

  And I’m gonna give it to her.

  Every step I took towards the front door, my fresh insecurities burned away. With each heavy stride forward, my doubts, my fears, everything inside that told me that I might not be good enough for her faded away.

  It all burned to ash in my throat, and the ash blew away in the wind. Here I am, filthy and contorted king that I am, ready to make a change.

  I raised my fist to knock at the door.

  That’s when I heard my Angel scream.

  Seventy-Two

  Angel

  The medicine hit me like a sack of bricks, dulling my senses within minutes. Just like before, the pills pushed their digging, constricting fingers into my head, forcing up a wall between the world and me.

  I hated it.

  My speech slurred and my vision shook. Even my mind had started
to drift. I’d planted myself on the couch and was content to count the dirty spots on the carpet, at least for as long as I could.

  Mother means best. She just wants me to feel better.

  An hour later, as I was absentmindedly running my fingers through my hair, I heard something outside. Quietly and gradually, I peeled myself up from my seat and stumbled over to the window. The old Ford pickup, rusted halfway to hell with a brutishly cracked windshield, was as unmistakable as the day I saw it last.

  Oh God, no.

  Roger had come for me.

  “Mom? MOM?”

  Her exasperated voice came from deeper in the house, somewhere towards her bedroom. “What is it, dear? I can’t understand you.”

  “Roooooger... Rooger…” I could barely utter the warning. My tongue was tying itself in knots, rebelling against that blackened name.

  “Oh, don’t be alarmed,” she called out cheerily. My mother came into the room, a smile slathered across her face. “He’s a good man, Angel. He cleaned up his act! Joined the church and everything. When he heard you’re back in town, he just wanted to pay you a little visit.”

  “NO!” I shouted, stumbling away from the window.

  Standing above me, Mom’s small smile soured. She suddenly looked at me like I was disgusting to her. “The Devil’s in you, girl. Has been ever since the accident. Always making you say evil, wicked things…”

  I watched as she opened the door, my mouth hanging open. I had to calm down. Losing control of myself was only going to make things harder. I needed to get the hell out of here. My feet struggled to gain purchase on the floor, the medicine dulling my senses with a drunken, crippling high.

  The door opened, Roger’s smiling face peering in.

  The sight of him burned terror into my mind.

  “Sally!” Roger grinned. “And you brought our little one…”

  “I’m gonna head down to the store and let you two get reacquainted,” Mom smiled, glancing from him to me. I felt something inside me struggle to scream; it was caged up, struggling to penetrate this damning haze. “Roger, be a dear and teach this girl some proper manners.”