Jones, Beverly R

by All Things Sacred (Lit) (Triskelion)

  Early arrivers sat around the swimming pool in patio chairs as the sun glistened bright and strong upon the inviting water. Some sat in a group laughing and swapping stories of recent happenings while mothers kept a keen eye on small children eagerly splashing in the shallow end of the pool. Men laid out sandbags in a far corner of the yard near the open fields, forming a diamond for the upcoming game of softball. A heavily tanned woman in navy shorts and a red bikini top stood on the pitcher’s mound turning about and observing the placement of bases. “You’ve got second base too close in, Honey. Move it out about four feet,” she shouted at a sandy-haired man who shook his head and mumbled as he bent to retrieve the sandbag.

  Shortly after the softball field was readied for play, a group began to gather and choose up sides. Jackson and the others left the barbecue pit and ambled over. Casey and Kendall, now wearing fresh tee shirts and shorts, were chosen with three other women and five of the men to play on the team headed up by Tom. Jackson played on the opposing team with John, the rest of his crew and three of the crewmen’s wives. Cynthia and a few others sat in the grass or on folding chairs nearby to watch.

  As the game progressed, Kendall was delightfully surprised to learn that she possessed a fair amount of athleticism and a knack for playing softball. Her hitting had been pretty good so far. A single, then a double. Tom had positioned her at third base and she had no problem fielding the ball, had even caught a line drive from one of the men. The men, of course, were swinging the bat with less force than they normally would in an all-men’s game, but Kendall was still happy with her performance.

  She had even tagged Jackson out as he came running around second, trying for a triple. He had obviously underestimated her and was surprised to see her standing there waiting for him with the ball in her glove, a big grin on her face. Jackson normally would have slid into third, but he didn’t want to take a chance on hurting Kendall. Knowing that he was sunk, he slowed up as he ran toward her, then grabbed her around the waist and swung her in circles while she squealed at his antics. It left her dizzy and when he placed her feet back on the ground, she stumbled into him. They both fell into the grass in a heap, laughing. He brushed the hair from her face and then helped her up before walking back to the sidelines.

  Cynthia sat in her folding chair, watching it all. She raised an eyebrow at Jackson and he flashed her an innocent smile. Just having a little fun, huh, Jackson? she thought to herself.

  Billy McLaurin came up to bat next and hit a single. Kendall eyed him from her position near third. He was a fast runner. She’d better be on her toes. The next batter approached home plate. It was Dave Ambrose, a beefy guy with arms the size of watermelons. He swung at the first pitch and the ball sailed into the outfield. Billy took off from first base and Kendall looked into the outfield and saw Tom running for the ball. She looked back to check Billy’s progress and saw that he was just beginning to round second base. He was running at breakneck speed, his arms pumping as he headed toward third base.

  Ordinarily, Kendall’s next instinct would have been to look to Tom for the ball and ready her glove for the catch. But when Kendall saw Billy running toward her, everything seemed to stop. It was as if her mind shut out everything around her, every vision, every sound. The cheering and whooping of the players were no longer evident in her ears. The other players on the field ceased to exist. All Kendall saw was Billy running toward her, only it wasn’t Billy any longer. The man in her vision was running at her, a look of fierce determination in his eyes. The face of Billy was now a blur of anger and rage.

  Tom reached the ball and threw it to Kendall from the outfield. It was coming in straight and fast. Only Kendall wasn’t prepared to catch it. She didn’t even know the ball was traveling rapidly toward her. She didn’t hear the screams of those around her in their attempt to warn her. She didn’t hear Jackson shouting her name or notice that he had anxiously come up out of his lawn chair. She just stood there, trancelike, her body slack, her gloved hand hanging limply at her side, staring in horror at the distorted face of the man who ran at her. He was going to kill her. She knew that. She had seen that look of hatred in his eyes before, but this time was different. This time he was going to do what he’d threatened. The mask of death, which seconds ago had been the innocent face of Billy McLaurin, loomed nearer and Kendall knew it would all soon be over.

  The softball hurled into her upper thigh with a velocity that instantly drove her to the ground. Kendall fell in a heap across the baseline, directly into Billy’s path. Unable to slow his pace, he attempted to jump over her, catching his right foot on her shoulder as he went down. He immediately recovered and looked back at Kendall as she lay in the dirt. Jackson, shouting her name as he ran, reached her side first.

  “Kendall! Are you all right?” Jackson asked worriedly as he knelt beside her. He placed his hand behind her neck and raised her to a sitting position.

  She sat dazed for a moment, her eyes unblinking. “It was him. It was him,” she whimpered.

  “What?” Jackson asked as he brushed the hair back from her forehead. His face held an expression of worry and fear. “Are you all right? Can you move your leg?” He placed his left arm around her back and gently grasped her ankle with his right hand. He pushed her leg up, slightly bending it at the knee. “Does that hurt?” He asked apologetically as he moved her leg.

  Kendall continued to whimper and repeat, “It was him.” She continued to stare off into the distance. She seemed oblivious to any physical pain she might be feeling or to the crowd that had gathered around her.

  Tom ran in from the outfield. “Is she okay?” he asked, mortified that he had hit her with the ball.

  “I think her leg’s okay, but she seems spooked about something,” Jackson said. He called her name again, but she didn’t respond. “Kendall, look at me,” Jackson said gently. He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “Come on. Let’s get you inside,” he said as he placed his right arm tentatively beneath her knees, his left arm still supporting her back.

  As he picked her up from the ground, her arms fell loosely and her head lolled against his shoulder. “Put your arms around my neck,” he quietly commanded her. She seemed to hear him then and she grabbed him around the neck and began to cry softly, burying her face into his chest. He squeezed his left arm around her torso and held her tightly against him as he walked toward the house.

  Casey followed, assuring everyone that all was okay and to go ahead and help themselves to the food. Jackson could faintly hear Cynthia calling from behind him, asking stupidly if all this was really necessary. He ignored her and continued carrying Kendall in his arms. When he reached the house, he walked straight to her bedroom and laid her on the bed, then sat beside her.

  Kendall turned her head away, then attempted to rise up on one elbow while wiping at her tears. “I-I don’t know what happened,” she stammered, looking embarrassed. “I’m s-so sorry. I feel so stupid.”

  Casey hovered nearby, an expression of deep concern on her face. “Well, don’t,” she responded calmly. “You took a pretty bad hit from that ball.”

  “But the party. I didn’t mean to ruin your party.” Kendall looked at Casey in earnest.

  “Nonsense. We were all getting pretty hungry and ready to quit playing softball, anyway,” Casey assured her. “Everyone’s out there helping themselves to food, so don’t you worry about anybody. The main thing is that you’re not seriously hurt. How does your leg feel?”

  Kendall raised her leg, flinching slightly. “I think it’s okay,” she said, then looked from Casey to Jackson. “Please, get back to your guests. I’m fine. I’ve made a big enough display as it is.”

  “Did something else happen out there? You seemed sort of out of it,” Casey prompted her. “You kept saying, ‘it was him.’ Did you have some sort of flashback about one of those men again? He’s not going to get near you, whoever he is. We won’t let that happen. I’ll get that shotgun out if I have to.” Casey put her hand
s on her hips, ready to go to battle for Kendall, if necessary.

  “No, it was nothing like that,” Kendall lied, not wanting to frighten Casey. “I just, it’s just that II…” Her voice trailed off as she looked down and fumbled with the hem of her tee shirt.

  Jackson, still sitting on the edge of the bed, looked up at Casey and said, “Let me talk to her, okay?”

  Casey gave Jackson a knowing nod and left the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

  Kendall pleaded with Jackson again. “Please. I’m fine. You have guests out there, and you’ve worked so hard to put this party together. I don’t want to keep you from it any longer.”

  “That’s not important,” Jackson said. “Tell me what happened out there. And I know it’s not that you just missed the ball. You weren’t even looking for it. You were standing there as if you were in a trance or something, with this scared look on your face.” Jackson leaned toward her on the bed. “You can tell me.”

  Kendall looked up at him and saw the concern in his eyes. She knew she could trust him with anything, even with something that seemed as insane as this. “I’m not sure how to explain it, exactly. I was watching Billy run toward me, and all of a sudden everything changed. Billy wasn’t there anymore.”

  Jackson’s eyebrows knitted in worried confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “I saw someone else, but it was more like a vision of someone. I couldn’t completely see his face. Just his eyes as he was running toward me. His eyes were filled with so much hate and anger. I’ve seen those eyes before.” She hesitated before adding, “He was coming to kill me, Jackson. I’m sure of that now.” She began to tremble and her voice became little more than a whisper. “I’m sure that whoever he is, he intends to kill me.”

  “Was it either one of the men you remembered the other day?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think so,” Kendall said. Frustration built in her voice as she placed a palm to her forehead. “God, why can’t I see his entire face? Why don’t I know how these men are connected to me? And where are they? Where did I come from?”

  “Did you recognize anything about him other than his eyes? Anything that might tell you who he is?”

  “No. Just the eyes. And I’ve seen them like that before, looking at me that way. The hate in his eyes was so familiar. And I knew. I knew that something like this had happened before. Maybe he was the man in the car with the knife. Whoever he is has come at me like that in the past. Only this time was different. This time I knew he was going to kill me.” Kendall sat up straighter on the bed and grabbed Jackson’s arm. “And he will kill me, Jackson. He won’t stop until he does. None of you are safe as long as I’m here. I don’t want to think about what he’ll do if he finds me here.”

  Jackson had never seen her look so frightened. “He wasn’t real, Kendall. It was just a vision. He’s not here. And no one’s going to get onto this property or anywhere near you.”

  “No, you don’t understand. He’s out there. And he’s coming after me. You won’t be able to stop him. Maybe the reason I ended up here is because I was running away from him. That day when I stopped to help Casey, she said she caught only a glimpse of the license plate on my car. She didn’t remember anything about it, except she was sure it wasn’t a South Carolina plate. Maybe that’s because I had been traveling from another state to get away from him.”

  “Well, even if all that’s true, it doesn’t change anything. You had a vision of someone who seems real to you, but you can’t even identify him. You can’t run away from someone you might not even recognize.”

  “He’s the same man I dreamed of that night, the one who had a knife against my face in the car. I’m sure of it now. I don’t know how to explain it, since I didn’t see the actual face either in my dream or out there on the ball field, but I know they’re the same person. I know it sounds crazy, like my imagination’s running wild, but I know what I feel, Jackson, and every sense I have is telling me that he is real and he is angry and whatever it is that he’s so angry about, he’s not going to let it drop. Especially if it has something to do with all that money that’s missing. I have this eerie feeling that it’s the same man who stopped at Cynthia’s and asked all those questions about me.” Kendall stopped to breathe deeply before she continued. “I can’t stay here. I have to figure out some place to go. I mean it this time, Jackson. Even if I can’t identify him, I’d rather take my chances and run. Maybe I’ll have more memories after I’ve left, and hopefully soon I’ll know who to look out for. But in the meantime, if I stay here and he shows up and hurts someone, I’d never forgive myself.”

  Jackson eyed her as if she’d lost her mind. Did she really think he would stand idly by and go along with this ridiculous notion of hers to lure her monster, whether real or imagined, away from them?

  “If it will make you feel better, I’ll talk to Chief Bullard tomorrow. Maybe he can take the information you’ve remembered and look into it himself. If he can discover who Ted Kendall is, come up with a picture of him or what he may have been involved in, we’ll contact the Athens police. I promise.”

  “No, I’m leaving, and that’s that.” Kendall bent her knees and swung her legs over the bed in an attempt to get up. She let out a yelp of pain and rubbed at her thigh as she plopped back down on the bed.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Jackson said. “Let me take a look at that.” He pulled back the leg of her shorts and saw the big red splotch where the softball had hit her, already tinged in blue. “Looks like you’re going to have a pretty bad bruise there.”

  “It’ll be fine.” Kendall attempted to rise again. Jackson caught her by the shoulder and pulled her back down. “Ow!” she cried out, her shoulder dropping to one side as he grasped it.

  “God, I’m sorry,” Jackson said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

  “I don’t know. I must have hurt it when I fell.”

  Jackson looked closely at the front of her shirt. “There’s a tear in your shirt. Looks like you’ve cut it on something.”

  Kendall looked down. She could see blood staining the edges of the tear. “I probably just landed on a rock or something.”

  “Let me see.”

  Kendall tried to pull the neck of her tee shirt aside, but the crewneck was too narrow. “It’s probably nothing,” she said, releasing the tee shirt and rising to her feet, limping on her left leg. “It’s not important, anyway. I’ve got other things to figure out. I’m serious, Jackson. I have to get out of here before he comes here looking for me.”

  “Sit back down,” Jackson ordered.

  “Look, I’m fine. I need to pack a couple of things. I may not have remembered much, but I’ve remembered enough to know that I can’t stay here any longer. I really want you to take me to the bus station this time. Maybe I could go to Atlanta. It’d be harder for him to find me in a large city.”

  “Kendall, you’re talking crazy. You can’t go off half-cocked. Especially if your intention is to lure this man you’re afraid of away from here. Do you really think I’d let you do that? I’ll talk to Chief Bullard tomorrow, and we’ll go from there. Now, sit down.” His face a mixture of agitation and fear, he softened his voice and added, “Please.”

  Kendall sat on the bed, wringing her hands impatiently.

  “And don’t move,” Jackson said as he got up and headed for the bathroom. He returned shortly with a bath towel. “Here. Take off your shirt and wrap this around you. I want to take a look at that shoulder.”

  “Jackson, for crying out loud, it’s probably just a bruise,” she said. “I think I’ve survived much worse.”

  He shoved the towel at her.

  “Oh, my God. What is it about you people and simple injuries? You’re a bigger mother hen than Casey.”

  Jackson still held the towel out, not saying a word. Kendall sighed heavily and took the towel from him. “Well, at least turn around.”

  Jackson turned his back to her and waited
while she tried to remove her shirt. He heard a sharp gasp from her. “What is it?”

  “I can’t get my arm out. It hurts too much.”

  Jackson looked over his shoulder at her. She had her good arm out of the tee shirt. The material was bunched around her neck, the rest of the shirt hanging lopsided across her chest. “Here, let me help you,” he said as he walked back and sat on the bed next to her.

  “Who said you could turn back around?”

  “Oh, what’s the big deal? Your bra doesn’t look much different than a bathing suit, and I just saw you in that not too long ago.”

  “When?” Kendall asked curiously.

  “This morning, when you and Casey were swimming.”

  Kendall looked at him suspiciously. He obviously had been shadowing her again without her knowledge. She hadn’t seen him at all that morning. “Well, I’m not wearing a bathing suit now, so go away.”

  Jackson ignored her and grasped the tee shirt material at the neck. “Let’s try and get your head out first.” He caught an embarrassed look on her face and added, “Relax. I used to be a doctor, you know.”

  “What?” Kendall raised an eyebrow. “You were not.”

  “Sure I was. When I was six. Just ask Cynthia.” Jackson grinned at her.

  Kendall rolled her eyes as Jackson stretched the material around the neck opening. As he looped it over her head, the material pulled her arm up slightly. She gasped and grabbed at her injured shoulder. “Ouch.”

  “Sorry. You okay?” He stopped, holding the bunched material in mid-air.

  “I’ll survive.”

  Jackson then pulled the shirt down her arm and over her hand, freeing her completely. He looked at her left shoulder. Not only was there a heavy bruise, but abrasions and a deep cut, as well. The bruise covered the entire area from her collarbone to her breast. Bright red abrasions, about three inches in width, were streaked across her breast just above her bra line and disappeared into the cup of her bra. About two inches above the abrasions there appeared to be a deep cut. The blood, already drying, stained her chest and made dark red splotches against the powder blue satin of her bra.