by Lisa Amowitz
“So you did run away.”
“So to speak,” she said. “It’s all been worked out.”
Bobby turned away and, leaning on the porch rail, gazed off at the distant mountains. “Even if your dad gave his blessings, it would never work between us.”
Behind him, Gabe’s tone was laced with ice. “How could you assume something like that?”
His resolve returned, Bobby whirled to face her. Life was complicated enough. He didn’t need this girl to add to his troubles. “Look. I don’t know you or what makes a girl like you tick. For all I know, I’m just the challenge of the week, a bet to see if you could get in the pants of some country dumbass.”
Her mouth quivered, a sheen of moisture misting her eyes, but he kept going. “But I know one thing. Even if you think you want me—you don’t. I’m toxic—damaged goods…” He felt his voice crack and watched as Gabe’s aggrieved expression softened, mutating into that dreaded thing. Pity. Just what he needed. “I’m sick. Sick in a way I don’t understand yet. You should steer clear of me. You should just stay away.”
“Bobby,” she said, softly, “you really need the job, don’t you?”
He felt himself crumbling inside, like he’d built a barrier of sand and it had taken just one small wave to knock it down. “More than someone like you would understand.”
The edge to his voice was intended to cut deep and draw blood. He hoped it was cruel enough to serve as a warning.
She nodded, her voice cool. “I understand, Bobby. I’m sorry for this. Really sorry.” She stood and smoothed her jeans. “Daddy will never have to know I came to see you. And it won’t happen again.”
Leaving the door to the house open, she stalked out, stopping briefly to pet Pete. Whimpering, tail wagging, Pete watched her trudge through the meadow. The poor dog, Bobby thought, was as much of an idiot as him.
He stood, stretched and walked out onto the porch. The flowers she’d brought lay strewn across the worn floor. Bobby picked up one of the bright blue blooms and cupped it in his hand, his head swimming. Had that really happened? Had he really almost been with Gabe? Then sent her away?
Bobby cupped the wildflower’s petals in his palm. For some reason, they made him think of the torn blue gown the sheriff had found in the Dumpster. His insides clenched tight.
He stared at the crushed petals in his palm. He hadn’t realized he’d mashed them to pulp, the blue juice staining his hand. Pete nuzzled up to him and licked at his feet. Bobby patted him absently on the head. “We’re a fine pair of dumb fucks, aren’t we, Petey boy?”
The unexpected ring of his cell phone startled him out of his daze. Dad calling from the house. Bobby braced himself for the barrage of questions about Gabe that was sure to follow.
“What’s up, Dad?”
“Your boss’s girl brought us over a feast for tonight. Three burger dinners. How ‘bout that? Didn’t want to hurt your feelings, champ—that rice and beans dish was a great lunch, but it would have made a lousy dinner.”
“That’s nice, Dad.” Bobby furrowed his brow. He’d assumed his dad knew Gabe had come down to see him. Maybe she’d planned on leaving, but followed the sound of his guitar to find him at the house. “Everything okay up there?”
“Yep. Fine. But the sheriff called. Said he wants you to call him ASAP.”
“You got his number? I’ll just call from down here, if you don’t need me at the house.”
The clerk connected Bobby immediately to Sheriff Barclay. His gruff voice came on the line moments later. “Bobby Pendell. I don’t know how to explain this. We didn’t get the results back from the lab yet on the torn gown, but I need you to come down to the station immediately.”
CHAPTER
10
“Right this way.” The clerk ushered him into Sheriff Barclay’s stuffy office. Bobby slumped into the metal chair opposite the sheriff’s desk. Styrofoam packing from an entire week’s worth of lunch nestled alongside towers of paperwork. Bobby’s heart started to race, a sour taste flooding his mouth.
“This morning,” the sheriff began grimly, “a couple of illegal dumpers called it in. Found it over by the reservoir. Jerks always trying to unload their trash on state land.”
Bobby closed his eyes and swallowed. He knew with complete conviction what the sheriff was going to show him, as if he’d seen the whole thing in a movie—as if he’d lived through this before.
Sheriff Barclay handed him a folder with snapshots held together by a paperclip. “They found the body, Bobby. Just like you said. Duct tape over the eyes and mouth, throat slit clean through, almost enough to decapitate. We don’t have a positive on it yet.”
Bobby stared at the grotesque sight, mute, as if his words had swirled down a drain. He blinked, hoping somehow it would disappear, or he’d wake up from the nightmare, bathed in sweat.
“You still with me, Bobby?”
He nodded, unable to speak.
“The detectives from the State Bureau of Criminal Investigations will be arriving tomorrow. From now on, they’re going to be running the investigation. They’ll be wanting to have a word with you.”
Bobby tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. “They don’t think that I—”
The sheriff smiled, but his small eyes gleamed like wet, black pebbles. “They just want to ask you about what you saw in the Dumpster, Bobby. It’s possible the body was in there and later moved.”
Bobby felt the nausea rise up like a cresting wave. He was going to be sick again.
“Bathroom,” he said, covering his mouth, and scooted from the office to the men’s room, getting there just in time.
He closed himself into one of the stalls, resting his head in his hands.
If he told the sheriff about the scrap of fabric and the strong sensation of evil he had felt in the woods by the ball field, they’d never believe him. They’d either think he was a complete nut, or the killer.
He couldn’t tell them anything until he knew more.
No matter how risky, he had to go back and do some exploring.
In the quiet hours of the night, long after Aaron was tucked in and Dad had gone off to bed, Bobby rolled the truck carefully down their driveway to the main road. He’d tried to sleep, even tried camping out on the porch of the old house, but every time he closed his eyes the nightmare image of the body with the slit throat came back to accuse him.
He’d brought along a compass, a flashlight, a blindfold, and Pete, telling himself that at night the aftereffects of the visions would be less severe. He’d approach the ruins of the estate he assumed was there, blindfolded, allowing himself only occasional peeks at the compass to keep his bearings. It was a crazy plan with a million holes in it, but at the moment, Bobby was at a loss for anything better.
The night woods sprawled before him, mysterious and foreboding, silver moonlight rippling between deep wells of shadow. Trotting beside him, Pete wagged his tail happily, excited for the nocturnal adventure. Bobby, heart pounding, hesitated at the lip of the woods. What had seemed like a great idea in the safety of home now felt more like a suicide mission.
He needed to confirm that the mystery estate actually existed, and if so, that it was the source of the sinister energy he’d felt on his last trip into the woods. With his freakish new abilities, he was well-equipped to hunt down and catch this animal before anyone else got hurt. He had to, Bobby decided, no matter what it cost him.
Bobby studied the glow-in-the-dark needle of the compass. According to the map, the reservoir was to his south and west. The estate, or its ruins, would be south and slightly to the east.
“Stay close, Pete,” Bobby urged, fastening the blindfold around his eyes. It was crazy, but safeguarding himself against the battery of chaotic images that was sure to come was necessary if he were to pick up any useful clues.
At first, his progress was slow. With no energy disturbance to guide him, he was an idiot stumbling through the woods blindfolded. With the scrap of fabric from
the tree gone, his original landmark had lost its signal power. Bobby picked up the sensation as a slight tingling in his feet. Allowing himself a peek every few steps, he shined the flashlight on the dark path ahead and consulted the compass.
Trudging on, he was encouraged by the fact that so far there’d been no hint of a headache or sign of the red blindness. But at the top of a steep incline, the energy backdraft hit him with the impact of a furnace blast. Pete whimpered softly and Bobby wondered if the dog felt the same wrenching force, or if he was just reacting to Bobby’s tension.
It was an effort to propel himself forward, an effort to keep the blindfold on and let himself be guided by the pull of the malevolent energy.
“Pete?” Bobby called, but there was only silence. He was almost there. He could feel the boiling violence call him toward it like simmering lava in the crater of a volcano.
“Petey? Boy?”
Nothing. Bobby pressed on, his boots crunching on dried leaves and twigs. One step after another. Then he took a step into empty air and tumbled down a decline, landing in a bed of pine needles and brambles. Quickly peeking from under the blindfold, he caught a glimpse of a moonlit clearing.
Rising to his feet, Bobby followed the tug of the energy, convinced he’d found its source. One more peek and his suspicions were confirmed. A high stone wall stretched in either direction, the imposing iron gates like a gap in a row of teeth. The blindfold secured, Bobby stumbled forward and gripped the metal bars, but the rattle of old chains told him the gate was locked.
Without warning, a maelstrom of death and madness whirled around him like a sandstorm. Shrill screams scoured him in layers and layers of anguish, agony over agony.
Bobby tried to cover his ears to block the piercing cries but, unable to shake free, his hands remained fixed, clenched to the bars.
The visions hit him next, a web of horror, smeared glimpses of bloodied faces painted with grisly makeup like macabre dolls, rotting corpses, dismembered body parts. Bobby struggled to pull free as blurred snippets of the same figure flashed over and over before his eyes—a man with a shock of wild red hair sticking out like licks of flame from under a black ski mask.
He couldn’t find the breath to scream.
“Pete!” he finally managed to gasp. “For the love of God, Pete, where are you?”
The horrifying sensations continued to batter him, the images multiplying, distorting, repeating and looping like watching a thousand movies in fast-forward with his eyes crossed.
Like the blow of an axe splitting his skull in two, the pain came, slicing easily through the flimsy shield of his blindfold. Staining the moonlight that seeped under the blindfold, the red blindness followed on its heels.
“Pete! Damn it! Where are you, boy?”
Leaning his forehead against the bars, Bobby wriggled off the pointless blindfold. It was no use. His vision was smeared with red and fading fast. There was no sign of Pete.
But there, dark against the dimming moonlight, was the silhouette of a figure advancing toward him from behind the gates.
There was no time to decide if the figure running toward him was real or otherwise. His heart galloping, Bobby finally freed himself from the gates and staggered clumsily backward. The onslaught of sickening images strobed in front of him, mingling with the little sight he had left. Scrambling to his feet, Bobby ran for his life.
The distant echo of Pete’s bark bounced through the woods. With the blindfold off, the moonlit woods were coated in a bloody glow, the compass dial a final bright spot in the gloom.
Bobby sped through the woods, not risking a glance behind him. Tasting something salty in his mouth, he swiped at his nose and felt a trickle of warmth.
What is happening to me?
The numbers on the compass dial faded to reddish black, the sound of Pete’s bark swallowed by the silence of the woods. Totally engulfed in darkness now, Bobby had lost his way completely. For all he knew, his pursuer was right on his heels, ready to pounce. His fool’s mission would end in his own death.
He raced on, breathless, boots crunching over unseen terrain, until his foot caught on a toppled tree trunk and he fell forward. Rolling head over heels down a steep incline, branches cracking under his weight, Bobby slammed to a stop face down in the cold waters of a rushing stream. Dragging himself onto the banks, the last thing he heard was the hoot of an owl, his awareness sifting with fragmented images and sounds, then slipping down a deep, dark rabbit hole.
CHAPTER
11
The first thing Bobby became aware of was the searing pain on his forehead, a line of fire reaching down to his cheek. He felt around near the pain and touched a gauzy bandage. Under him was the soft surface of a mattress, rather than the damp leaves he’d fallen into. From the beeping sounds and the smell of bleach climbing up his nose, it was clear where he was. Why they’d had to bandage his eyes was beyond him.
“Hello?”
“Bobby. Finally,” said a voice. Dad.
“Dad? What the hell?”
He heard the squeak of Dad’s wheelchair tires drawing closer. Dad took his hand.
“Hey, champ. You’re lucky to be among the living.”
“Shit,” Bobby said. “How’d I get here?”
“You can thank Pete for leading Coco to you. Luckily, it was Jerry’s poker night. Coco was asleep on the couch in the back office. He heard Pete whimpering and scratching at the back door.”
Dad laughed, but his tone turned harsh. “Which begs the question, Bobby, what the hell were you doing in the woods in the middle of the night? The sheriff and the guys from the state police want to have a word with you. I take it you weren’t looking for nightcrawlers.”
Bobby groaned. “It’s a long story.”
“You did quite a job on yourself, kiddo. Eighteen stitches to close up the gash in your forehead. You could have bled to death out there. You were already cold and blue when Coco found you.”
“We’re at the VA hospital in Waterbury?”
“Yes,” said Dad. “They’re letting me stay in an adjoining room. Aaron’s going to stay with the Woods for a few days.”
Bobby shivered as the memory of the terrifying night came pouring back. “Can someone take this damn bandage off? Why is it necessary to cover my eyes?”
There was no answer, just the squeak of Dad’s chair as he shifted his weight. “Bobby,” he said, softly, “there is no bandage over your eyes.”
Bobby heard the tread of many soft-soled feet forming a circle around his bed.
“Bobby,” said a voice, “I’m going to shine a light into your eyes. I want you to tell me what you see.”
Bobby waited for what seemed like an eternity. There were whispers and murmurs. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’m waiting.”
“Thank you, Bobby,” said the voice. “That will be all for now.”
“Dad? What’s going on? Is this some kind of a game?”
“Try and get some rest, okay? The doctor’s going to talk to you later.”
Bobby lay staring into blotchy darkness, his heart thumping, the horrible images beaming into his mind’s eye like a movie. Beyond that, he saw nothing. The red blindness was never this grayish-brown, and had never lasted this long. His heart raced, the breath scraping in and out of his lungs. What if it’s permanent this time? Am I blind?
By the time the doctor returned, the dark grayish-brown was fringed with light grey around the edges.
“Bobby,” he said, pulling over a chair, “we’re going to send you home with this pair of glasses.” The doctor pressed something into his palm.
“We can’t find anything wrong with you. Though you claimed to have had a head injury, other than this wound, there’s no evidence of it on your X-ray. What you have may be a very rare form of migraine that makes your eyes hypersensitive to light. Right now, your pupils have essentially sealed themselves off, preventing light from entering, like a closed camera lens. If you wear these filtered glasses, you should be able
to avoid the worst of your symptoms, and hopefully your normal vision will return.”
Bobby’s voice caught as he spoke. “What if it doesn’t go away completely? What then?”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it. In the meantime, there are two gentlemen here to see you. I suggest you wear the glasses starting now if you want your vision to normalize.”
The doctor left. Moments later, two sets of feet clomped into his room. The chair beside him groaned. Whoever this guy was, Bobby was betting he was the size of a house.
“Sorry about your accident, son.” Bobby spotted a shimmer of movement, probably the guy extending his hand. Bobby kept his arms at his side, unsure what the etiquette was in this situation and if the guy had been told that he couldn’t see.
“Thanks,” Bobby grunted.
Another voice chimed in. “You were found unconscious in the woods by the reservoir, very near to the spot where the victim’s remains were found. You were the witness who first alerted the sheriff to the body’s existence.”
“Bobby,” the first voice said, “from a law enforcement officer’s perspective, it’s all very odd. Very suspicious. Can you verify where you were on the night of May 2?”
“I don’t know. Working, probably?”
“What time do you get off work?”
“Most nights at eleven-thirty.”
“Do you go straight home?”
“Usually.”
“Did you on that night?”
“Am I a suspect?”
“Not officially. You’re what we call a ‘person of interest.’”
“I see,” Bobby said.
It went on like this for a while, until finally the detectives thanked him and left. Dad’s wheels rolled into the room.
“Jerry is coming to pick you up. Coco has offered to stay with you until—until your eyes are better. Mr. Cooper has offered to drive Aaron to school. They’re transferring me to the VA for a few days. They want to monitor my blood pressure, plus there’s this sore on my leg, and…”