Rust: One

by Christopher Ruz

  "I'm sorry," he said. "If this was something I said, something I did wrong-"

  She couldn't stand his voice. It wasn't cruel or grating but it wasn't Aaron's voice and it made her want to scream.

  "-we can work this out. I've taken holiday leave. We'll just... see where it goes."

  Kimberly pulled her knees to her chest and closed her eyes. Eventually, the stranger stopped talking.

  She let herself be taken away.

  His name was Peter, she reminded herself. Maybe a kidnapper, maybe psychotic, but he had a name. Peter.

  He led Kimberly up the drive, holding the umbrella above her head as she stumbled from the car. She watched his hands very carefully as he unlocked the door and stuffed the keys into his inside jacket pocket. "Hello?" he called. "Mrs Hinkermeier?"

  "In the kitchen!" came the reply. "The baby's asleep!"

  "She's been taking care of Curtis," Peter explained as he led Kimberly inside. "She's been wonderful... watch your step." His hand brushed hers, and Kimberly pulled away. Peter sighed. "Come on. Let's not make a scene."

  Mrs Hinkermeier was a squat woman in a puffy sports jacket, bustling back and forth between the oven and the mixing bowl, halfway through baking what looked like brownies. She froze when Kimberly walked in. Her eyes hardened. "Are you feeling better, dear?"

  Kimberly struggled to speak. "I... I need to rest."

  "Of course." Mrs Hinkermeier gave the stranger a quick, sharp nod. "Curtis is upstairs. Little angel, he is. Twenty dollars for the afternoon."

  Peter paid, and Mrs Hinkermeier patted Kimberly on the arm. "Good to see you on your feet again, pet. I was so worried when I heard you'd come over ill. So, so worried."

  Kimberly nodded. She kept her lips shut tight to keep the truth from crawling out. She'd never seen the woman before in her life.

  She slipped away into the living room, leaving the strange man behind, insulating herself from the thud of the front door and the clattering in the kitchen as Peter Archer (no, she thought, he couldn't have her last name. That was a step too far. Even if this was all a misunderstanding, he couldn't have her last name) rearranged pots and pans.

  There was a clink of steel. Was he hiding the car keys inside the skillets? Or was he fetching a knife?

  Panic twisted her bowels, and she cast around the living room for anything heavy, anything sharp. The room was sparsely decorated, a plush cream lounge in one corner and a stereo on a wheeled table in the other. The coffee table was bare but for National Geographic magazines.

  She looked up. Peter was silhouetted in the kitchen doorway. In his right hand was a syringe, slim, no longer than his pinkie finger.

  Kimberly screamed. She threw herself back, tumbling off the sofa and scrambling on hands and knees for the door. The stranger jumped back as well, eyes wide. "Kimberly, what're you doing? Kim, goddamnit-"

  She crouched in the doorway, a magazine rolled in one fist, measuring the distance to the windows, the back door, any possible exit. "Don't you come near me."

  "Kimmy, I have no idea..." Peter looked at the syringe in his hand. "Seriously? You forgot that too? I'm diabetic, for Christ's sake! Oh, God..."

  He set the syringe down and sank into the sofa, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyesockets. "Please," he whispered. "They said you were getting better."

  She didn't move. Her breath came fast and heavy. "Who are you?"

  "Don't start that again. Please don't."

  "I don't know who you are!"

  "Just..." He slipped a folded sheet of paper from his back jeans pocket and smoothed it on the tabletop. "There are, uh, exercises we're supposed to do. Together, that is. Talk about why we were first drawn to each other, and, uh..." He traced down the printed lines on the page. "Guided meditation, and you have to take your pills every four hours which I know you won't like, but I promise it's for the best, I-"

  "I'm not taking any pills."

  "You promised! You signed the papers!"

  "Fuck the papers, I'm not taking anything!"

  A high, tremulous wail came from the floor above. The stranger sighed. "Well, there goes the afternoon. Thanks, Kim. Thanks a fucking bunch. No, no, that's not fair. I'm sorry. Whatever caused this, whatever happened... We'll deal with it."

  She hugged her knees to her chest. The baby's cries grew louder. Her baby. The child she couldn't remember in a house she'd never seen before. A house with lurid walls and a pot-pourri smell that wasn't bad but wasn't right and photos of her and a man with an impossible name.

  And somewhere, Aaron was waiting.

  Her ears were ringing and her throat was dry. She stood on shaking legs, using the wall as support. "I'm going to bed," she whispered.

  Peter looked up. "What?"

  "Take care of the baby," she said, and tiptoed her way upstairs.

  She pretended to lie asleep for hours. The stranger padded upstairs after her but never entered the bedroom. She heard him through the walls, singing to the baby that wasn't hers, burping it, tickling its toes.

  Rain drummed on the windows. The sun dipped below the horizon and the room fell dark. The sofa creaked as the stranger lay down to sleep.

  She waited.

  It was night when she crept out of bed and ransacked the closet, trading her hospital pyjamas for fitted bluejeans and a leather jacket. She passed the nursery door - how she knew it was the nursery, she didn't understand - and considered peering inside, but couldn't bring herself to turn the knob. The stairs groaned as she slipped downstairs, past Peter laying asleep on the sofa. He didn't wake.

  The kitchen was all yellowed 70s laminate, a bewildering array of drawers and pantries. Even so, she knew where to look. Whether it was instinct or an impossible memory that guided her hands, she couldn't tell. The click as the keys had fallen carried a particular sound, a particular weight, and she found them within moments, hidden inside a cast-iron pot.

  The front door lock squeaked. For a moment she was frozen, waiting for the stranger to snap awake and leap up from the sofa. But he slept on, and soon she was outside in the midnight rain.

  The red Volkswagen had fiddly locks, but Kimberly had patience. She found a map tucked in the glove box and unfolded it across the dash. For the first time, she saw Rustwood from the air. The heart of the city was a grid, Central Avenue and Bell Road running from north to south, before splintering into thin arteries of bitumen, arcing outward up the hills. Rustwood was bordered on the north, south and west by mountains. The eastern edge was ocean, joined by a river that split the map in two. That left three escapes: West Channel, South Bulwark Bridge, and the Warren Brown Tunnel to the north. She found Rosewater Avenue and measured. Warren Brown Tunnel was closest, although where it led she couldn't tell. There was no state map, no clear link to the highways.

  It didn't matter. So long as it took her away from Rustwood.

  The ignition was gritty, and she had to pump the gas before the engine finally caught. The engine splutter was achingly loud. Lights popped on inside the house, and she stomped the pedal, lurching away from 118 Rosewater Avenue and into the darkness.

  Behind her, the front door slammed open and the stranger ran out, pyjama pants flapping around his ankles. He was far too late. Within moments, the house and Peter were swallowed by rain.

  Chapter 4

  The sky was grey, not the black that signalled an oncoming storm but the thick, still cloud that would rain steadily throughout the night. The trees in Rustwood were bent by wind and the leaves were wilted grey. A woman in a black shawl stumbled along the pavement, staring at the ground between her feet, rain splashing off her cheeks. Her nails were a vivid yellow and she didn't look up as Kimberly passed.

  The streets grew wider and the houses more sparse, and soon there were no houses at all. She was headed for the tunnel, and freedom.

  The road switched back and forth as she scaled what was listed on the map as Warren Brown Mountain. Tall pines rose up on both sides of the road, sheltering her from the sky. W
hen she glanced right out the window she could see St Jeremiah's Hospital in the distance, a tiny point of amber light atop the hills.

  "Ciao, Keller," she whispered. "Fuck you, Rustwood."

  "Hey! Hey, lady!"

  Kimberly jerked back to attention. A man had burst out of the bushes by the side of the road, his ragged jacket flying out behind him, mud soaked into the cuffs of his jeans, reaching for her with filthy fingers. His eyes were wide and frantic and as he stumbled on to the highway Kimberly saw that his face was burned, red and blistered up one side.

  She hit the gas without hesitation, and the hobo quickly receded into the distance. Only when he was a speck in the rear view mirror did she allow herself to relax. She passed a sign that read YOU ARE NOW LEAVING RUSTWOOD and another that read AVOID FUMES - DO NOT STOP IN TUNNEL and then a third: DO NOT CHANGE LANES INSIDE TUNNEL, neither of which she intended to do. Her foot was hard on the pedal and Rustwood was a tangle of electric lights fast fading behind her. The tunnel was blackness cut from the mountainside. She could smell freedom up ahead, freedom in that dark concrete mouth. No more craziness. No more bullshit weather. Home soon. Aaron's arms. She'd call the police and they'd figure all this out. Hell, she'd tell her father, and he'd call his lawyer, and people would receive subpoenas so thick they'd break their desks. And then...

  Her high-beams fell upon the tunnel mouth, illuminating graffiti scrawled across the concrete: the true QUEEN lives. Then she passed into the tunnel and the rain was cut away. All was dark. She gripped the wheel tight as she followed the slow curve. The tunnel was a semicircle of stone and rebar, a half-hemisphere coiling through the mountain. There were no lights in the ceiling and the only sound was the rumble of tyres on macadam. No oncoming cars. Nobody but herself. She followed the dotted white line, counting off seconds.

  The tunnel seemed very long, and very dark. Not just a lightless black, but something thicker, as if it were pregnant with soot. The high-beams didn't help; the light sliced maybe ten yards ahead and was choked off, like she was driving into smoke.

  She could smell it now, an oily stink that coated her tongue and plugged her sinuses. And a buzzing, a persistent hum like something inside the car was shaking loose. That, or bees had built a hive under the hood. Her knuckles were white on the wheel. Her pulse thudded behind her eyes.

  Pull over, she thought. Pull over and open the hood before the car explodes. But the sign outside the mouth of the tunnel was a bright warning light in her memory, DO NOT STOP, DO NOT STOP, and she kept her foot down.

  The fumes grew worse. She coughed, covering her nose with her sleeve. The headlights were almost dimmed entirely; she couldn't see more than a few feet ahead. Something had to be on fire inside the tunnel, a truck overturned, two cars mashed together in a head-on...

  The buzzing grew and grew. It echoed in her skull until she was biting back a scream.

  "Please," she whispered. "Please, come on, please-"

  There was light.

  The moment where she burst free of the tunnel and into the open air was a rebirth. The light swept over her, blinding, and the gentle tap of rain on the windshield was so soft and familiar that she almost sobbed. The highway stretched out before her, two lanes of blessed blacktop winding through pine forest, distant city lights smeared by the drizzle. She relaxed on the accelerator, letting her heartbeat slow. It would be okay from here. Too easy. Just a tunnel, just a moment of claustrophobia. Panic caused by two weeks confined in a strange hospital.

  She passed a tall green sign. The words were a senseless blur, but something told her to stop. Headlights gleamed on the slick macadam as she pushed the car into reverse.

  The sign still made no sense. The words were impossible. She wound down the driver's side window and stared.

  It read:

  WELCOME TO RUSTWOOD

  SPEED LIMIT 30 UNLESS POSTED OTHERWISE

  DO NOT LITTER.

  Kimberly wiped her eyes. Rain sheeted down across the hood of the car. She slapped herself across each cheek. "Bullshit," she whispered. "Just a wrong turn." She unfolded the map, trying to make sense of the spiderweb streets. The lines were too twisted to follow. "You can do this, you can figure this out-"

  Something banged on the window. Kimberly jumped.

  The homeless man was pressed against the glass, grinning. "I know you," he said. His left hand was deep in his pocket, fidgeting, twisting. "Where you from? I won't tell anyone. I know how it goes. I'm not from here either."

  Kimberly slammed the locks down. Her heart thudded in her chest as the ragged man circled the car. What did he have in his pocket? A knife? A gun? "I don't have any money! I don't-"

  When the man pulled back from the window he left a greasy smear on the glass. "Don't be scared! I felt it when you came in. You're not like the others. You remember, eh?"

  Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Finally she managed to say, "Who are you?"

  The man cocked his head. "Lemme shake your hand."

  "Are you crazy?"

  "Can't tell if I can't shake your hand." The man held out his right hand; his left was still deep in his coat pocket. "This town does things to your head. Makes you afraid. You more scared of me than that tunnel? Come on, shake."

  Kimberly swallowed hard. Her fear was glue in her throat. Slowly, inch by cautious inch, she wound the window halfway down and offered her right hand.

  The ragged man reached through. His palm touched hers.

  It was a shock to the nervous system, a jolt of cold that slammed Kimberly back in the seat and left her gasping. The man jerked away, rubbing his palm. "Still fresh," he whispered. "The others don't feel it. Spend too long here and you forget where you started, but I never forgot. I-"

  Kimberly stomped the accelerator. The ragged man fell back, shouting, rolling across the bitumen, but she didn't slow.

  She drove until the bright lights of Central Avenue enveloped her, and then she pulled into a side street, killed the engine and sobbed until she was dry and empty.

  It was too much. Just too fucking much. Tunnels and crazy men and the baby and the stabbing pain in her gut that never ceased, just came and went in waves, bearing her up and smashing her down, tearing her in half like wax paper.

  She hated it. Every inch of pavement, every street sign, every manhole and carefully pruned pine. She wanted it gone.

  The defeat was a leaden weight in her chest. Kimberly wiped her eyes and blew her nose on a tissue she found in the glovebox. Then, with nowhere left to run, she plotted a course back to Rosewater Avenue.

  The stranger was asleep when she crept in the front door; sitting by the telephone, legs splayed out before him, head on his shoulder, snoring. He might've called the police, Kimberly realised, and then decided she didn't care. If the cops arrived, she'd be in her bedroom and he'd look like an idiot. He grunted as she tiptoed upstairs, but didn't wake.

  She couldn't explain why she'd returned. With night enveloping the streets and rain sheeting down across the bonnet of the car, she'd looked out at the dark alleys of Rustwood and decided that an unfamiliar bed was better than none. And somehow, she knew Peter wouldn't hurt her. She didn't know how she knew. She couldn't even recall the colour of the bathroom tiles, but she knew he meant no harm.

  That scared her more than if she'd hated him. It made her wonder if Doctor Keller was right. Postpartum psychosis... They were textbook words, the sort of thing that happened to other people. Not her. She was young. She'd never had a child. She...

  Her hand dropped to her stomach and traced the horizontal line of the caesarean scar. It was alien flesh. Her fingers trembled against the thin white scribble, the ache inside like she'd been stabbed with a ragged blade.

  She hesitated outside the nursery door. Something told her to turn the knob, to look down at the impossible child, but she couldn't raise her hand. It was too much. There were some lies she just couldn't confront.

  Instead she eased past into the bedroom, locking the door behind her. Only o
nce she'd tested the knob did she relax. She still wasn't tired; the drive through the tunnel had jacked her adrenaline, left her heart pattering like she was on a caffeine high. It'd take a miracle to drop off to sleep, and she couldn't risk being tired, not in this place, not when she still had to escape-

  Something squelched outside. A footstep on wet grass.

  Kimberly inched across to the window that overlooked the front garden. For a moment she thought the street was empty, but then she saw the shadow stepping gingerly over the flower beds, his coat soaked black with rain.

  The hobo from atop the mountain.

  For a moment she considered slamming open the bedroom door and waking the stranger. Calling the police, grabbing a knife from the kitchen. Anything to get the madman off the lawn.

  But, for some reason, she didn't. There was something in the way the man hunched, hiding his face from the downpour, that reminded her of a kicked puppy cowering in the corner. And besides, what could he do from down there?

  Slowly, wary of the wood squeaking, she eased the window up. The man below met her eyes. "Thought you'd be asleep," he whispered.

  "You've got five seconds before I call the cops," she replied.

  "Gonna need a little more time than that, lady."

  "How the hell did you find me?"

  "Can't tell ya."

  "Don't fuck with me-"

  "I don't know how I do it. Just feels funny when things turn up in town. Like a big magnet right here." He tapped his chest with one filthy finger. "Most days, this place doesn't change. And sometimes people slide right in. But you're a big change and you're stirring up a lot of dust. Now, question for a question."

  "I'm calling the police."

  "One question."

  "I've got a gun in here, I swear."

  "Where were you, when you died?"

  Kimberly stopped. Her knuckles were white on the windowsill. "How did you know?"