by Billy Coffey
“Yes.”
“Know their last names or where they’re from?”
“Not offhand,” Kate said. “Andy’s caring for them. Why?”
“Eric’s gone, Kate.”
The silence that followed was a hurt that plumbed the deep places in Kate’s heart where neither tears nor words could follow.
“I’m so sorry, Kate.”
“I’ll make some calls,” she said.
I hung up and drove. No one spoke. I glanced into the rearview mirror. The man in back had his hands manacled to the roll bar, freezing him into a gesture of surrender. He looked at me and smiled. I saw a malevolence in that grin, a warning that echoed not in anything he said but in what Phillip had told me the night before.
You’re a dead man and he’s coming and you’ll remember true. Because I want an end.
I took my eyes away from the mirror and stared ahead. The nightmares alone were bad enough. But now I felt that Phillip had grown too large for my dreams, and I could not escape the feeling that he was watching me even then.
I was right.
5
Kate dried her eyes for what she promised herself was the last time and pulled the warm pages from the printer tray. The low ink rendered the image atop the DMV report in clumps of gray and black dots, but the name and address were clear enough. Charles Earl Givens. That was who had done this.
She didn’t need a clear picture to know he was a monster. Kate had seen enough of them over the years. They stalked the powerless and hid themselves well, never appearing as one would expect—with a goat’s head or a spiked tail maybe, or razored teeth smiling behind bulging yellow eyes. No, the real monsters were disguised in flesh and bone—the Mr. Charles Earl Givenses of the world. They were the fathers who abused and the mothers who neglected. They were criminals who beat other people’s brothers and burned kind old men and murdered innocent boys.
Bullies. That’s what those monsters were, bullies all. Kate knew this and knew it well.
She stared at the smudged outline of that wide, unsmiling face, barely aware of the phone trilling on her desk. Likely someone else wanting to know what Jake was doing out with his parade light flashing. Kate knew it wouldn’t be long before the fence post telegraph of nosy old women and nosier old men made its way to the hungry ears of Trevor Morgan, even to Mayor Wallis himself. Then again, she thought maybe that call was from Jake. Maybe he had more news of Timmy or Andy. Maybe he’d captured the man who had escaped. She lifted the receiver in mid-ring as Charles Earl’s faint eyes mocked.
“Jake?” she asked.
“Katelyn?”
The pages fell from Kate’s hand, fluttering in the air before fanning out like a blooming flower. Charles Earl’s monster likeness landed facedown atop her open notebook. Kate swiped it away, believing the two touching one another a sacrilege, like spitting on a Bible.
“Katelyn?” she heard again, and the deep growl behind it.
“What are you doing calling here, Justus?”
“I call when the Spirit lays the need on me.” The voice was the sort that straightened backs and buckled knees, with an inflection that always sounded just a hair away from rage. “What you doing at th’office, Katelyn?”
“Justus, I can’t talk right now. Jake’s coming in.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Where are you calling from? And who gave you a phone and Jake’s number?”
“Never you mind that,” Justus said. “I still got friends, Katelyn, even if I can’t count you an’ Jake among’m. Tried callin’ his pocket phone, but he won’t answer. Figured I’d just call there and leave a message.”
“A message saying what?”
“Wonderin’ if Jake’s gonna arrest me.”
Kate shook her head and sighed. They came in spurts, Justus’s calls. There had been years of silence after he’d shot the bank men and fled Mattingly—just enough time to let everyone think the whole mess was over. The phone calls had started only in the past year and followed no schedule. Sometimes Justus would call once a week, sometimes twice, and then he’d go silent again for a month. Until that night, those calls were restricted only to the office. Zach wasn’t allowed to answer the phone during those times, which made him answering Justus’s call that morning nothing more than a cruel stroke of fate. Kate wondered if she still would have gone to Timmy’s chasing a name had she known that would happen. She knew the answer was yes. She would have gone for the same reason the Spirit led Justus to pick up his phone—because God had a way of shining His light at your back, casting yesterday as shadows that fell on today. The only difference was that for Kate, those shadows fell constant.
“Jake’s not going to arrest you tonight,” she said. “I doubt he’ll arrest you tomorrow either. I have to go, Justus.”
“Not afore you tell me what’s that flutter in your voice.”
A part of her wanted to say, “Nothing.” A bigger part (one Kate would never share with anyone, and her husband especially) wanted to tell Justus everything. His voice intimidated Kate as much as it always had, but in a way it also gave her a kind of strength. It was good to know Justus was somewhere up in Crawford’s Gap rather than in a jail cell, even if he did shoot those men and run from the consequences. Especially since there was only one prisoner coming in instead of two.
“A boy was murdered tonight,” she said. “Over at the BP. Andy’s in the hospital. They went to Timmy’s next. He’s banged up but okay.”
Kate swore she could feel heat coming over the line—a bent but righteous rage.
“What happened?” Justus asked.
“I don’t know. It was two men. Jake’s bringing one of them in.”
“One of them?” he boomed, and Kate suddenly felt like a little girl. “You mean one’s a-loose?”
She was about to say yes when Jake came through the door. He held a bulging dish towel that Kate barely noticed in one hand. The other hand held Charles Givens’s elbow.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Katelyn? Kate—”
She hung up. Jake guided Charlie to the sofa and sat him there, dared him to move. Kate didn’t think the monster would. It looked like all the will had gone out of him, likely spilt on the floors of Mattingly’s two gas stations.
Jake crossed the room to her desk. His eyes were red and glassy, like he was caught in one of his dreams and couldn’t find the way out.
He asked, “Where’s Peter?”
“Sent him home. I wanted him to be there for Zach. Crime scene folks are on the way, and so is Alan. He’ll take that thing on the sofa when they’re done. How’s Timmy?”
“Doc’s got him,” Jake said. “Says he’ll be fine. You okay?”
“No, Jake, I am not okay,” Kate said. She looked at the sofa. “Any sign of the other guy?”
He shook his head. “Most likely he’s long gone.”
“How could someone do such a thing? Not just hurt people, but leave them there to die?”
Jake said, “I don’t know,” but the way he cut his eyes to the floor made Kate wonder if that was true. The night had left her so fragile that for a moment she believed that look wasn’t a simple glance away, it was an accusation—You should know all about hurting people, Kate. Why don’t you tell me how someone could do that? “I need to get him fingerprinted. Can you fix him up?”
Kate stood there, hoping he’d meant something else. “What’d you say?”
“Can you get him, you know . . . clean?” he asked. “Can you clean him up?”
Kate’s eyes grew wide and hot. She pushed her husband away. It was a hard ramming that sank her hands deep into his withering chest.
“You want me to clean him up?” she asked. “After what that man did?” Kate looked at the back of Charlie’s head, and in a voice meant for him to hear, she said, “There’s a special place in hell for someone like that, Jake.”
She thrust her hands into him again, venting her rage against Charlie, again
st poor Eric and poor Andy and poor Timmy, against the asinine thing Jake had asked her to do. Her fists flew like pistons against his chest. Her shoulders caught fire and her lungs ran out of air, and Jake allowed that pounding, did not even move to protect himself. Kate stopped only when a part of her understood she was trying to punish him and he was wanting to be punished. Kate broke her promise and cried again. She fell into Jake’s arms. He held her tight.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should’ve thought of that. I’m so sorry, Kate. He’s just scared.”
Jake ran a hand down the back of Kate’s hair and released her. However justified her outburst had been, Kate felt a pang of remorse watching Jake walk back to the sofa. He gathered up the small bundle he’d brought in and led Charles Givens to his office. Kate watched through the glass window as Jake brushed aside the plastic-wrapped uniform hanging from the bookcase behind his desk. He placed the wrapped dish towel on the shelf there and brought out a small first-aid kit, pausing to glance at the pills Doc March had left on his desk. The sight of her husband tending to Charlie’s wounds sickened Kate. Guilt sickened her more.
She’d asked Jake how someone could do such a thing as hurt people and leave them to die, but Kate knew. She’d been a bully herself once, a monster to an innocent young boy, and because of that her life still smelled like fruit gone spoiled. The day she played her trick on Phillip behind the bleachers had never been far from Kate’s thoughts. Sometimes she still heard the laughter, that mocking cackle from the boys and girls who’d been so eager to watch. Kate had told Jake there was a special place in hell for people like Charlie Givens, but that was wrong. No, there was a special place in hell for those who believed hell wasn’t what they deserved. Because to hurt came easy to all, and that was why there was so much of it in the world.
She gathered the papers from her desk and crossed the foyer. The contents of the first-aid kit lay scattered atop Jake’s desk. He fumbled with a bottle of peroxide and an unopened package of Q-tips.
“Use the cotton balls,” she said. “Q-tips are for little stuff.”
A small but grateful smile crossed his lips. “Got it. Thanks.”
Charles Earl said nothing as Jake cleaned him, said nothing still when Jake stood him up and led him down the small hallway to Cell 1. There was no Cell 2. Stacks of aluminum softball bats, leather gloves, and buckets of softballs stored there for the church league lined the wall. Kate had left the lumpy cot and the broken rocking chair, though she thought those more than the monster deserved. She handed the papers over as Jake locked him inside.
Jake looked at the top page and asked, “Charles Givens?”
The monster sat in the rocker and smiled. “Charlie.”
Jake nodded and studied the report. “You been a busy boy, Charlie. Disorderly conduct, drunk in public. Three counts of petty theft.”
Charlie said nothing to that.
“Who’s the guy with you tonight?”
“Same guy’s gonna kill me ’cause I screwed up.” Then, in the same voice one would use to offer a comment on the weather, he added, “Taylor gonna kill you too. All you.”
Kate shuddered at that and moved closer to Jake, thankful for his quiet strength. And yet that strength seemed to leak away in the next quiet moments. She felt Jake’s body give way—only slightly, but enough to cause a small moment of confusion and worry—and heard a sound like a stricken boy coming from his mouth.
“Says you live up on Brody’s Lane in Camden,” Jake said. “That near Happy Holler, is it?”
“It is.”
The pages shook in Jake’s hand. He crunched the report into a ball and tossed it into a bucket of softballs along the wall. “Taylor,” he said. “That his first name or his last?”
“First,” Charlie mumbled.
“He got a last name?”
Charlie shook his head. “I’m done talkin’.”
Jake turned to Kate. “I gotta head down to Andy’s. Think you can watch this guy?”
Charlie smiled and shook his head. “You crazy, Sheruff? There’s danger about, an’ you gonna leave her here with me? Sure she’s safe?”
Kate didn’t answer, only walked back down the hallway and into the foyer. She grabbed the first weapon she found from the shelf by the back door. Jake’s eyes met hers as she walked back. He moved away as Kate racked a load into the shotgun in her hands. She drew the barrel through the bars. Charlie Givens’s smile disappeared.
“You killed that boy and you hurt friend and family,” she said. “You so much as scratch an itch, I’ll send you to hell with a hole in your gut so big the devil’ll spend eternity twirling you on his finger.”
Jake started for the door. “Pretty sure she’s safe,” he told Charlie. “Not too sure about you, though.”
6
Lucy hummed. It was a song she didn’t know and that didn’t matter, because humming had always calmed her and that was all she could do. And then she couldn’t even do that when she faltered and pitched forward against another rock at her feet.
She fought gravity until her hips tilted too far, then let herself go limp. All Lucy could manage was to turn her head and hope this time she would meet soft dirt rather than sharp rocks. That rapturous feeling of letting go—of surrender—was replaced by the sudden jerk of someone grabbing her. Lucy’s feet steadied. The man nudged her on.
The last thing she remembered clearly were the names etched into the iron gate just beyond the hood of her car and thinking she had answered correctly. The man had asked if she was awake. Lucy had no idea what that meant, but the look on his face (it was the same jumble of anger, sadness, and longing she’d seen in her father only hours before) told her it was something important. She knew, too, that the man meant to have an answer. It was either yes or no, life or death. One flip of an existential coil that on some primitive level Lucy knew would be heads, he won, or tails, she lost.
So she’d answered, “Yes.” And when the man’s eyes widened and the sharp blades in his stare dulled, she’d added, “Of course I’m awake. You are too, aren’t you?”
That seemed the most appropriate thing to ask. And Lucy found that despite her fear, she remained curious for an answer. Yet the man had only led her into the trees, where the Hollow swallowed them.
Lucy had no way of knowing how long ago that had been, though she was sure they were miles into the wilderness by now. The night appeared thick and black like tar. Towering trees with gray, reaching limbs hid the moon and stars, giving Lucy the illusion of walking through space rather than forest. Her captor said nothing. There had been times she was convinced he was no longer there at all, that he’d left her to wander until either the elements or exhaustion felled her. But then the man would reach out and push her forward (twice, those pushes were nearer a gentle guiding), and Lucy would realize she was not alone. Now she felt his presence near and could smell the blood and stink on him. She realized, too, that even if she could see nothing, something could see her. Watching her, with what felt like a thousand eyes.
She had been in Mattingly long enough to know of the Hollow. It was a usual topic of conversation during those weekend parties when the bonfires began to die and the boys wanted to get close. One Friday night right before George Hellickson rounded third and found Lucy waving him in, he’d told her how Happy Hollow was cursed even before the Indians arrived. Ricky Summers had said much the same on another Friday night by another bonfire, adding that you could see the soft spire of Indian Hill from the gate but nobody knew what lay on its other side, that it might even be the end of the world or hell itself. And it had been Johnny who’d told her how every boy in town could trace his first steps into manhood back to daring a walk through the Hollow and scratching his name into the gate. Johnny had laughed after, saying he supposed that tradition would fade now that Lucy had come to Mattingly. He said it was a whole lot more fun and a whole lot less scary to call yourself a man after bedding Lucy Seekins than walking through
a cursed wood.
Lucy had taken no offense to that remark. She’d known Johnny loved her even as he’d said those words. Now she wondered if he’d ever loved her at all.
She had always thought those stories to be the sort of small-town superstition her friends in DC had warned her about. Yet the feeling of heaviness that overtook her forced Lucy to reconsider what she believed. The thick trees blinded her eyes, but Lucy’s ears worked just fine. That was what bothered her. Because she heard nothing—no rustles from the trees, no night birds, no wind. And there was that sense of watchfulness crowding her, those thousand eyes, as if the Hollow itself was awake.
She pushed that thought from her mind and concentrated instead on the feel of the ground beneath her. Lucy felt the man’s hand on her once more. She didn’t shrink from that touch, was glad to feel it in all that emptiness. She leaned against him as they made their way up a steep hill. Taylor led the way down the other side and grabbed Lucy again, this time with such force that it felt like the tips of his fingers had reached bone.
“Hush,” he whispered. “Tell me, lady, what walks here.”
He pointed to a small clearing ahead. A hulking mass of deep black edged its way out of the woods. Lucy swallowed a scream as the man let go of her arm. He took two steps forward, putting himself between the thing and Lucy, and turned to her. There, free from the pressing trees, moonlight filtered through the long hairs of his beard and sparkled his eyes. His chest was thick and wide, the skin on his arms taut. To Lucy, the man looked godlike.
He turned away again and cupped his hands around his mouth yelling, “I have no quarrel” into the night.
The shape still blocked their way. The man dared not move closer, nor would Lucy allow him. This time it was she who took his arm. They watched as the shape moved from its place and silently shrank back into the trees.
“What was that?” Lucy whispered.
“You’d know if you was awake.”
He pushed her on, past the field where the thing had been. Lucy kept her hands to his arm as they passed. Rocks and brambles gave way to tall, brittle grass that clipped her bare legs. Then it was up again and more up, until Lucy heard the faint rumblings of white water far below.