The Storm Rages
Jon blinked hard and jerked his head. His stinging lids came with visions of white noise. Snow flew across the darkness. He couldn’t seem to get focused and the wounds on his shoulder and hand weren’t giving him any help with the situation. Rusty’s face surprised Jon, although he had no energy to show it now. The plan to get answers from Mrs. Cooper went horribly wrong and now Jon believed it was all going to end right here in the foggy dark, bleeding out on the floor of his neighbors’ basement with no answer to where his family was. He failed the mission. Game over.
A hand touched Jon’s chest. His munched hand was held, making it feel like it was stuck in a campfire. The light flickered through the white noise and made the stings return to his retinas. Rusty was speaking words that couldn’t be understood. If it even was Rusty. Jon recognized the face for a moment as it flashed in a daze, but it could’ve been his mind playing tricks on him right as it was about to turn off for good.
Jon’s mouth moved but no words escaped. Rusty got up, disappearing into the white noise. Only a shadow of him remained standing in the dark. He looked to be facing away at something else. Suddenly, he was lit up by a brightness. A tractor-trailer, watch out, Jon thought. He was thinking he was back on the turnpike with Emily and the tollbooth worker. But the light didn’t approach or get brighter, only stayed. It shined on what Jon could now confirm was, in fact, Rusty Mirch, decked out in his father’s garb. Fuzziness danced around. The snow of the white noise painted the dark walls.
Rusty spoke as he shined his light at whatever he was facing. Jon’s ears still rang and he wondered how Rusty could speak, let alone think to himself, after firing a gun in such close quarters. A ghost, Rusty’s a ghost. Soon I will be too. Rusty’s lips continued to move through the haze until he brought down his beam. Noises. Words. Spoken words came from behind Jon it seemed. They floated through the dizzy world and Rusty spoke back with Jon not understanding a damn thing.
***
Dominic hadn’t seen his mother yet, but Rae did as she pushed her brother’s flashlight to the left, exposing what was left of her mother. Jon’s body lay just before her mother’s. She screamed and covered her eyes until her screams of woes turned into screams of rage. Rae bolted toward Rusty. Dominic tried to grab her arm but couldn’t make contact.
“You KILLED her! You fucking BASTARD!” Rae shrieked as she dug her balled-up fists into Rusty’s chest, pounding against his heart, hoping to punch it out and clutch it in her palm. “Why would you do this to us? WHY? How could you?” she bawled. She sounded like she was going to hyperventilate.
Rusty put his arms around her as she beat him, embracing her as she fought like a wild animal. “C’mon baby-”
Dominic pulled her away with a coursing rage of his own. “Don’t you lay a finger on her! Rae get the hell away from him!”
There was a punch to a face. Grabbing. Smacking and pulling. Running.
Then lightning struck.
***
There was a quick flash. Another POP crashed over the basement and the ringing returned with a higher pitch that made Jon’s bee sting eyes cry. He felt blood spill from his ears.
His vision had reduced the white noise snow to a blur. Between his poor vision and the aftermath of what happened, he could only make out Rusty and another dark figure that stood before him. Dominic, it must be Dominic. Unless there are other special guests. It looked like they were holding each other by the elbows as if they were two long lost friends finding each other after many years away. It’s so great to see you! Jon imagined one was saying to the other. That was, until the dark figure fell to its knees, then to its ass and back.
The bandage on Jon’s head had been ripped off from the fall to the floor. No blood seeped from the old wound. It was scabbed now. Not that it mattered. His back was cut deep.
A few feet beside his body, the figure of what appeared to be Dominic lie slumped on the carpet. The flashlight Dominic brought down was still lit and faced his jeans.
Jon propped himself up on his elbows, causing the pocketknife wound to ache. Blood spilled from it. Jon tried to reach over his shoulder with his left hand to feel for the puncture, but it was just below his reach. He sat up further and reached, bending his bitten hand. He felt the wetness of the raw flesh exposed, clinging to the back of the shirt. It hurt like hell.
“Jon,” a faint voice said, penetrating the ringing noise. It was almost a whisper. Jon knew it was from Dominic beside him. It had to be.
Moving in a drunken-like crawl, Jon picked up the light from the floor. It was round and fat. He shined it on Dominic’s shirt as he remained on all fours. A red hole was leaking in the center of Dominic’s chest. Streaks fell on either side of his torso. His head was turned to the side, facing to where Jon crawled over from.
“Dominic, is that you? Are you ok?” Jon asked. Of course, Dominic wasn’t ok, but there was an interference inside Jon’s rational thinking. You could ask Jon if two plus two equaled four and he wouldn’t be able to tell you right away.
“Jon,” Dominic repeated. “I need you to get my sister. I need you to get Rae. He’s going to take her away.”
Thunder filled the room again, sending Jon into a slight convulsion of more pain. Dominic remained on the carpet, bleeding. His chest rose and fell with a delay.
“He’s got a gun,” Dominic croaked. A cough brought red up from his throat. “You have to get her, Jon. Please.”
Jon blinked long, heavy blinks at him. They were both bleeding. Dying. Dominic was going first it seemed. But Jon didn’t want him to pass just yet. He wanted to confess, explain to Dominic that it was he who stole the crossbow from his room. It was he who came downstairs in the basement with a plan to find his parents through interrogating their mother, even if it meant further torture. Jon didn’t expect to have Rusty in the mix and have him shoot Mrs. Cooper in the head, but he still felt the need to apologize for that too.
“Please, you gotta stop Rusty,” Dominic gurgled, drowning into himself.
Why was Rusty here anyways? For the girl? Mr. Mirch had mentioned something about a girl and to not bring up any females while Rusty was around. Sensitive like his father, Mr. Mirch had said, but Jon was spinning from his head injury. If only it was just his head. Now, his hand and shoulder wept red tears. Jon hadn’t had these many continuous accidents since he tried his hand at sports. No pun intended.
“Dominic, I’m so sorry. This was all my fault,” Jon said over the blurred body. “I came down here while you and Rae were asleep. I couldn’t get what your mom said out of my head. I know you told me not to listen to what she said about my parents, but I couldn’t stop believing that she knew. If it wasn’t for me, she would probably still be alive behind the door. I unlocked it and woke her up. I’m sorry.”
For a moment, Jon thought Dominic would rise and strangle Jon for what he had just said and finish him off with never-ending punches to his head. Instead, there was nothing. No response, not even a sound from Dominic. He just lay blurrily beside Jon with what looked like a big, red plant growing from his heart. Silence. There was only heavy rain. More thunder.
“Dominic?” Jon prodded his knee and gave it a little shake. “Stay awake! Don’t fall asleep! I’m sorry, Dominic! I’m sorry! Dominic, this is all my fault! Dominic, don’t fall asleep!” He began to cry hot, stinging tears.
Please, you have to stop Rusty. Those were the last things he had said. Please. He’s going to take her away. The words played again, loud enough in Jon’s mind to drown out the thunder and rain. The Coopers sure had a way of making sentences stick in Jon’s mind. He’s going to take her away. They echoed in the basement.
“Ok, ok, ok,” Jon said, starting to get up. He was on his knees and began to bring himself up to a kneel. His body protested. Snap. The face mask came off and Jon took deep breaths. Here we go. He placed a hand on the floor to keep himself from falling over. Here we go. C’mon.
Jon got up from the kneeling position and stood straight up a
s the room began to spin in blurred lines. Dark swirls teetered his flashlight as if he was standing on a boat lost on the ocean.
***
“Get the fuck out of here!” Rae screamed at her bedroom door. She had locked it in hopes of keeping Rusty out.
The drawers on her mirrored dresser were torn and thrown about. Makeup was scattered on her carpet. Lipsticks and eyeliners spilled next to the mounds of clothes. Rae sat in the corner of her bed against the wall, clutching a pair of crazy scissors she had found in the drawers. Her eyes were red and swollen. Her hair was a mess, along with her face. She screamed as Rusty banged and knocked again.
“Baby girl, you gotta let me in!” Rusty said in an unsettlingly casual tone. He sounded unphased from his recent murders. He wanted Rae and only Rae. He didn’t care who he had to kill to get to her now, even if it was her own mother and brother. “C’mon, sweetheart, let’s talk about this!”
Rae shook in a mixture of fear, anger, and heartbreak. All the trouble she had gotten herself into throughout the years have been leading up to this point. That’s what she thought to herself as she yelled her cries across her room. “LEAVE! LEAVE!” Were all the nights sneaking around with boys like Rusty worth it? She would have to say no. But she was young and naive. Rebellious. She had no idea it would come to this.
“Oh, now c’mon sweet thang, you know I ain’t leavin’ without you. Yer all I got left and I’m all you got left.”
“NO!”
“C’mooon. Open up, sweetie. Baby.”
Rae clutched the crazy scissors tight. They were plastic children’s scissors that cut curvy lines in paper. They were of no real use in this situation, but it was all she had.
“Raeby baby!”
“Don’t call me that! You MONSTER!”
“Raeby, yer bro is hurt real bad downstairs.” Rusty was speaking in a baby voice now. “I’m afraid he might die unless his little nurse sissy wissy doesn’t come and patch ‘em up.”
“You killed him, you FUCKING PSYCHO! You killed them both! GET OUT!”
Dominic had done his best to take care of Rae and she knew she could always count on him, even after all those countless times she screamed and fought with him over her lies and trickery. He had to be a father figure. A position they both knew was too much for him. Still, he had tried. She was sorry she didn’t listen to him enough. Maybe she wouldn’t be curled up like a feral cat right now. Maybe her mother would still be alive. Maybe Rusty wouldn’t be knocking on her door, speaking in twisted voices, trying to lure her out. Maybe Dominic would still be here to take care of her.
“Hey! I don’t wanna hurt you, you know that. Don’t you know that baby girl? Don’t you know I always loved you and you only? And you love me, right?”
Rae stopped replying to his taunts. Her throat felt burnt to a crisp.
“I know you do. Remember that night? Remember what we did that night after the football game, baby? Sweet thang? You and I, alone. Together in the back of my truck. Remember that Raeby baby? We put the bed down. . .”
Rae was sick to her stomach but there would be nothing to throw up. She hadn’t eaten. She hadn’t drank. All she had was an empty helplessness in the pit of her stomach. The pit of her soul.
“That’s right. Boy, was that a late night, huh? You and me doing thangs that you couldn’t tell your momma about. That’s right. Dirty thangs. Sexy thangs. You remember that, baby?”
How could Rae forget? You’d think a girl with her natural beauty would hold out for someone with more class, like a gentleman who at least had an ounce of ambition in his life. Someone that she could bring home to mom one day. A guy who would make her mom laugh until her mom would blush and have a crush on him herself. Instead, she chose to take a shortcut and hookup with a backwoods hillbilly, low-life scumbag like Rusty fucking Mirch.
She had been drunk, of course, they all were. Alcohol made any situation more comfortable. Especially between the opposite sexes.
“Why don’t you let me in, and we can recreate that night, howsabout it? If you come back with me, we can make it like the first time every time. Repopulate the Earth, whaddya think? Someone’s gotta do it!”
Rae had lost her virginity to Rusty. An act that would forever bring waves of regret and disgust in her mind. It made her heart cringe.
“Raeby baby girl!”
Hillcrest versus Huntington was the matchup. Molly Hannigan, Rae’s bestie since first grade, was there as she always. She and some other girls from school brought vodka and the group of them drank with the guys from the hick school behind the bleachers. Rusty wouldn’t have been someone that Rae would’ve given a second glance to, but once she had an unknown and illegal amount of Russian water in her, his striking eyes became that much sexier. Sexier than ever before. Oh yes, she had known Rusty. Previous football games brought the two opposite towns together and allowed the students to mingle.
“OPEN IT UP!” he screamed now. The sweet-talking games came to an end. “I’M NOT KIDDIN’ NOW!”
A couple of the other girls started flirting with the backwoods boys. Soon flirting turned to touching. Touching turned to kissing. Plans formed to leave the game early for a little match up of their own. The group of them had to move elsewhere before being caught in the act. Molly was starting to lock lips with a boy named Chris, who came with Rusty. They rode together in Rusty’s rusted red Ford pickup. How appropriate.
“I MEAN IT!”
“Why don’t you guys take the rest of this,” Molly had said, handing over the last of the Smirnoff. Only the bottom of the bottle remained. Rusty took it out of her hands and she gave him a wink and he winked back. Behind them, the crowd broke into a cheer as the Hillcrest Knights scored a touchdown in overtime, winning the game.
“Have fun.” Molly smiled before turning with Chris, leading him somewhere beyond the fence of the football field. Her blonde hair waved and danced as the two of them faded away. Now, it was only Rae and Rusty, standing together in the victorious evening.
“BACK AWAY FROM THE DOOR BABY, I DON’T WANNA HURT YOU!” Rusty drew his gun.
Both Rae and Rusty were as drunk as skunks, waddling out of the field grounds. They laughed as they bumped and stumbled into one another across the parking lot, quick to compose themselves as soon as they saw an adult or fellow classmate. She put the hood of her zip-up jacket over her head. Rusty hadn’t even tried to hide the bottle.
“You gotta get rid of that, there are cops here!” Rae said, covering her mouth to muffle a laugh. Rusty drained what remained and chucked the bottle into the grass by the asphalt.
“Hop on in, purty lady,” Rusty said in an intoxicated, exaggerated hillbilly accent.
“Thanks, partner.” Rae smiled, tipping an invisible cowboy hat on her head.
Rusty jumped in the driver's side and they drove out of the Hillcrest High School parking lot. They went up the road to a quiet place beyond the trees.
POP. The doorknob to Rae’s bedroom shot to the floor in an instant. She screamed an aching scream that rubbed her throat raw.
Rusty shouldn't have been driving that night, or any night during high school for that matter. He drank more than he attended class. But tonight, under the spell of teenage fever and liquid comfort, nothing mattered, not even to Rae. They couldn’t help but touch and feel one another as Rusty drove with one hand up the hill and around the bend until they found a spot on a gravel road that pulled off behind the trees. Between the leaves, you could see the lights of the dog food factories that shined orange orbs across the autumn air.
Touching and feeling turned to deep, long kisses. Hot anticipation. Clothes were pulled and tugged on. Breasts felt. First Rae’s jacket came off. Beneath was a white spaghetti strap with a black and pink Victoria’s Secret bra. She grabbed his zipper and squeezed what grew. Rae had done this before, but never what came after. The main event.
The clutch got in the way of the heat between them.
“Let’s go to the back,” Rusty said betwee
n sloppy kisses.
Rae pulled back for a moment. Her shirt was off and only her pushup remained. “Are you sure? What if someone sees us?”
“No one will, hardly anybody comes up this way at night.”
Rae laughed and gave him a playful slap. “Oh, you’ve done this before, huh?” Her mouth was wet from kisses and hot from the vodka. “You’re not even from around here, fella.”
Rusty chuckled. “I’ll shut the lights off. Promise nobody will see us, baby girl. If someone does, I’ll just say I was gettin’ a tick off you.” He winked.
She laughed a loud, drunken laugh. She slapped him again. “You’re too fucking funny.”
Another kiss.
The two of them climbed out of the pickup and walked around to the bed of the truck which Rusty pulled down with a clank.
“Shhh!” Rae said with a finger over her lips. She grabbed Rusty close to her. He picked her up and carried her onto the back bed. Inside the metal toolbox by the window, he pulled out a navy-blue blanket that unfolded and covered the entire bed of the truck.
“Romantic,” Rae giggled.
They lay in the smelly blanket and grabbed and touched some more. Kissing sloppily, she unzipped his jeans and he lifted his brown T-shirt that read HUNTINGTON HAWKS in faded white letters over his head. Then went his underwear. Then, her underwear. Bra and panties. Both of them were now naked and hot between the heat of the moment, breathing heavy and kissing warm kisses and licking lips. Faces. Necks. Places. It was all happening so fast.
Rae whispered something in his ear and Rusty could only make out one word: condom. He came prepared and slipped down to his bunched-up jeans around his ankles. A square, silver-wrapped package with a ring shape bulging from it peeled from his pocket between his thumb and index finger. DUREX was printed on it. He kicked his jeans away to the end of the bed, almost knocking them off to fall to the gravel.
“Right here,” he whispered back to her and they continued sucking faces. Grabbing. Touching. Feeling. Rae helped him put it on. Their hearts raced in sync. She climbed on top of him and as the autumn breeze blew through the cool night’s air, Rusty was inside of her. The orange orbs twinkled in the twilight with the stars above. She gasped.
When the Sky Goes Dark Page 28