Into This River I Drown

by T. J. Klune

  “You bitch,” I mutter. “Oh, you fucking bitch.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand, Benji,” she says almost regretfully. “Some things happen just because they have to.”

  I charge at her. A crack of gunfire and a divot appears in the pavement two feet in front of me. I stop.

  “Not so fast, Benji,” Griggs says. “She might be the boss, but if you take one more fucking step, the next bullet is going into Abe’s head. His old brains will be all over the ground before you can even think your next thought.”

  I gag, clutching at my stomach. My vision narrows as my blood boils. My eyes feel lazy as they shift out of focus.

  And it is here, in this moment, in this impossible (improbable, my father whispers, it’s all so improbable) moment, that I fall to my knees. The ground beneath me is solid, but that roaring in my ears is like swiftly moving water, and I lay my hands against the pavement. They get wet and the ground rolls beneath me. The rain splashes fat drops onto my skin. I try to clear my head, but it’s a losing battle and I can’t breathe, I can’t move. And as darkness clouds my vision, I am overtaken by a river.

  And it is into this river I drown.

  look away

  I am at the river. It’s raining. I stand on the road. It’s the same. It’s all the same.

  Except it’s not. The rain is falling harder than it ever has before. Lightning flashes overhead. Thunder cracks like—

  gunfire oh my god shot he’s shot he’s shot and

  —God is angry, rolling through the hills, causing the trees to shudder down to their roots. This is different. Things are not the same.

  I slide down the embankment. I can feel the mud on my clothes. On my skin. Could I feel that before? I’m drenched. Did I get this wet before? I don’t know. I can’t remember. This may be the first time. It may be the last time. I don’t—

  The world lights up an electric blue as lightning touches down on the other side of the river. Then there is a cross, a white cross, bigger than any I’ve seen before. It stretches to the sky and screams HERE LIES BIG EDDIE! BIG MOTHERFUCKING EDDIE LIES HERE BECAUSE HE’S DEAD, HE’S NOTHING BUT BONES AND DUST AND HE WILL NEVER BE ANYTHING MORE EVER AGAIN!

  “Help me,” I tell the rain, the river. I turn my face toward the sky and water falls on my tongue. It tastes like earth. “Help me. I’m haunted.”

  Another flash of blue (Blue?) light and the cross is gone, but the ground, the river, the earth, the entire world, is covered in large feathers. They’re a deep blue, almost black, but they are all covered with splashes of blood and the red is so bright it stings my eyes and I cry out because I know—

  he’s gone dead shot dead fell bitch whore

  —what it means, I know the red is truth and the blue feathers will be nothing more than memory. Even as I think this, the feathers begin to melt, leaving behind droplets of blood that mix with the rain and reflect the menacing sky above.

  Things change further. There’s a whine of an engine up on the road. I turn, but I can’t see the road from my position. There’s a crash of metal against metal, a breaking of glass, and it sounds so familiar that mile marker seventy-seven disappears around me and I’m—

  stuck upside down in the Ford and am I still in there? Is this all just a dream? I hit my head, maybe. Maybe nothing that followed is real and we’re still in the truck and that’s why I can hear the crashing in the dream because it just happened to me and Cal is still okay. He’s still fine and I can stop him from dying. I can stop him from getting shot and leaving me. I can end this now. I

  —look up as there is an even greater collision, and a red truck flies over the embankment, almost all the way to the river. It smashes into the ground and clips a boulder. The truck flips and lands in the middle of the river, its back end angled up toward the sky. Lightning arcs again, and the rain falls. Brakes squeal from up on the road and a shadowy figure appears, staring down at the truck in the water. I can’t make out who it is. I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman. They stand in the rain, barely moving until they reach into their coat and pull out a small object. It lights up and is put to the figure’s ear. The voice is garbled, as if coming from underwater, and I still can’t tell the sex of the voice. It says, “It’s done. He never made it out of the county.”

  I’m in the river. The water is cold. I’m drenched. My teeth chatter uncontrollably. The truck groans against the current. I look back. The dark figure is gone. Time has passed, though I don’t know how much. I don’t know if it matters. I take another step, and the river mud sticks to my feet, sucking them down. A thought runs through my head—

  cal’s gone he won’t be able to pull me out of the river —but it hurts too much to think, so I push it away as I submerge myself under the water.

  The silt and grit feel harsh against my open eyes. The truck is vaguely outlined in the river. I push up from the riverbed and kick harshly. I’m propelled toward the truck. I expect to see my father’s—

  dead

  —arm hanging out the blown-out window, but the window is empty. There is no blue feather. I swim closer. The current is strong.

  Just float, the river whispers. You could stay here and float forever.

  But I can’t. Not yet. I have to see my father’s face.

  I get closer. I touch the truck. Do I need to go up for air? My lungs don’t hurt. My chest doesn’t burn. I’m not choking. I’m okay.

  You don’t need to go up for air, the river says. Just open your mouth and inhale down here. It’s easy to breathe underwater. All it takes is that one… first… breath.

  It’s trying to trick me. It’s trying to mess with my head. I can’t let it.

  I pull myself along the edge of the truck. I swim as close to the riverbed as I can to look inside through the busted window on the door. I reach the door and grab it, anchoring myself to the truck. I’m pressed against the river bottom and the weeds tickle my stomach, the rocks scrape against my skin. I look inside the truck.

  It’s pitch black. Like darkness has fallen inside the cab and nowhere else.

  But don’t I hear voices? Yes. Yes, I do. They are muffled. I can’t make them out. I need to hear them, because the cadence, the timbre, to the voices sounds familiar. It causes me to ache because I know who they are now.

  I close my eyes, and pull myself into the truck underneath the river.

  Into the black.

  This is what I hear in the dark:

  “Am I already dead?” my father asks.

  A response, strong and kind. “Almost. You’re almost there.” Cal. The angel Calliel.

  “Dad!” I try to scream.

  He doesn’t hear me. “Will it hurt?” There’s fear in his voice.

  Calliel doesn’t hesitate. “No, Edward, Big Eddie that was. It will be like going to sleep.”

  “What if I don’t want to sleep?”

  “There is an order to things. A design. A pattern.”

  “Fuck your design!” Big Eddie cries. “I don’t want to go!”

  “I know,” Calliel says, his voice shaking. Something’s wrong. “And I wish it wasn’t this way. But I was given a test. I had no choice. I’m sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my Father wants me to prove my faith in him.” His voice cracks.

  “I’m a father too,” Big Eddie whispers. “Do you know my son?”

  “I know. Benji. He’s… wonderful.” Cal sighs.

  “He’s the greatest thing to happen to me. You can’t take me from him. You just can’t. He is my son. There’s so much more I have to teach him!”

  “It is not up to me. I can’t….”

  “You could,” my father argues. “If you really wanted to. You could.”

  “It’s not the way of things, Big Eddie.”

  “Why?” my father asks, his voice getting weaker. “Why must we suffer? Why must we hurt?” His words are like an echo, and I think Michael.

  There’s a pause. Then, “How else can you trul
y have faith?” Cal doesn’t sound like he believes his own words. They sound like recitation. “How else could we know how to love unless it’s gone?”

  “Can you save me?”

  “No. Not in the way you’re thinking.”

  “He’ll ask questions. He’s my son. He’s smart. He won’t let this go. He could get hurt. He could die.”

  “I know,” Cal says roughly. “I don’t want that to happen, either.”

  “You have to protect him. If you are who you say you are, if you’re a guardian angel, if you’ve been watching us all this time, then I’m asking you. No, I’m begging you. Do your duty. Guard him. Protect him with everything you can. Never take your eyes off him and let no harm come to him. Do you promise me?”

  Hesitation. “Big Eddie, I—”

  “Promise me!” Big Eddie roars in the dark. “You fucking promise me! This is my son! You fucking promise me!”

  A beat of time. I float in the black water. Then a whisper: “I promise.”

  “I won’t cross,” Big Eddie swears. “Not yet. Not while there’s still a chance he could get hurt. He’ll need me.”

  “You can’t wait,” Calliel says, sounding horrified. “You have to cross, Edward! If you don’t, you might be stuck in limbo forever.”

  “I don’t care. As long as my son is safe, my family is safe, I don’t care.”

  I hear the defeat in Cal’s voice. “There may come a time when you will care, Big Eddie, and I don’t know if there will be time to save you.”

  My father’s quiet as he says, “It doesn’t matter, angel. I still have a job to do, and so do you, now. You promised me.”

  “Yes,” Calliel whispers. “I know. I….”

  “What?”

  “I’ve watched you. For a long time. You, while you were young. You and your son. Benji. You know he believes the sun sets and rises with you, right? That you hung the moon and the stars for all the world to see?”

  My father sobs quietly. “I know. I know. Don’t you think I know that? Ah, God. I can’t leave him. I just can’t. How can God want this? How could he think this was ever right?”

  “I promise,” Cal says, his voice stronger, “that I will do everything I can for Benji. I promise you he will know peace again. It will take time, but one day, he’ll look to the sky and the sun will rise above the horizon and warm his face. He will know peace. I promise you.”

  “Why? Why would you do this? Why did you promise me?”

  “Because I love him,” the angel Calliel says. “As I love you. You are all mine to cherish. And I have cherished you for so long. All of you.”

  “Angel?”

  “Yes, Big Eddie?”

  “I’m tired.” And he is. I can hear it. It’s like knives embedded in my skin.

  “It’s time to sleep, Edward Benjamin Green. If you will not cross, you will need your strength. I can’t say what will happen to you, but if you stand, if you can stand and be true, then there may be hope for us all.”

  “I’m….” He sighs.

  “What?”

  “I’m scared. Will you… will you stay with me? Until the end?”

  “Until the very end. You’ve led a beautiful life filled with love and honor. Remember that, as it will warm you like fire and help keep the river away.”

  “Will you tell him? Will you tell Benji I love him?”

  A shuddering breath. “He knows. Oh, Edward, how he knows. But yes. Of course, yes. I will remind him every day. It may just be a touch, but he’ll know.”

  Silence. Then:

  “Your feathers. They’re….”

  “Yes.”

  “They are so… blue… and….” His voice trails off and doesn’t return.

  “Good night, Big Eddie,” Cal says with a catch in his voice. “I will not forget my promise. Sleep and go with the grace of my Father. May you find peace, old friend.”

  And in this dark, in this river, I open my mouth to scream. Water floods in and down my throat and I can’t breathe, I can’t take a breath, and I’m drowning, drowning, and I—

  I open my eyes.

  And groan as pain washes over me in rolling waves. My entire body aches like I’m covered in bruises from head to toe. My face is sticky and my ankle is on fire. My limbs are screaming at me. I try to stretch them out, but I can’t move very far, and my shoulder feels like it’s been sliced open. And a smell. Holy shit, that smell, like cat piss and ammonia all mixed into one. It stings my nostrils, burns my eyes. I cough as I try to take a breath around the gag in my mouth. The cough burns my chest. Sprung rib? What the hell? What the fuck is going—

  Something wet drips on my forehead. I open my eyes again.

  It’s dark, though there must be a light somewhere because it’s not pitch black. I’m lying on my side on a floor. It feels like rough carpet beneath me. My clothes are soaked to the skin, my hair wet and plastered against my forehead. I try to push myself up, but my arms are restrained behind my back. My legs are tied together. I wiggle my fingers and feel hard, thick plastic. It takes me a moment to realize what it is.

  Zip ties. The sheriff’s department made a big deal about them when they arrived, saying they were less chafing than metal handcuffs and easier to put on whoever was being arrested. The backs of my hands are pressed together, fingers pointed out. My hands feel like they’re going numb.

  Griggs.

  Boss, he called her.

  Christie.

  Everything hits at once. I cry out against the gag in my mouth, banging my head on the floor, trying to make myself sleep again, trying to knock the thoughts out of my head. Cal’s eyes on mine, the surprise, the horror. The pain. The love. Oh, God, so much love there, and how could I have never seen it before? How could I not have realized?

  And then he fell….

  Griggs. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip his bones from his body, and once it’s done, I’ll go to the river and float away. I ache with the thought of it.

  A muffled voice growls at my right.

  My eyes are adjusting to the weak light emanating from somewhere. It’s not so much a room I’m in as it’s a shack. The walls and ceiling are dilapidated and leaking water. Rain thunders down on the roof, and a peel of thunder rumbles through the air, causing the shack to quiver on its foundations.

  There’s a small camping lantern set on a card table pressed up against the far corner of the room. Two dark light bulbs swing overhead. Piled against the wall near the table are a dozen black trash bags, stuffed full, straining the plastic. One has split open and lies on the floor, spilling out its contents. Empty antifreeze bottles. Empty brake fluid containers. Plastic bottles with holes cut through the top.

  If what your father told me is correct, Corwin whispers in my head, then they could be supplying methamphetamines up and down the West Coast.

  But this looks small-time. Dirty bathtub bullshit in this dirty fucking shack. It smells awful in here, the stench almost making me gag, a mixture of fumes from the discarded bottles. If they are making meth in here, it couldn’t have been a lot, not the size Corwin was talking about. What the fuck did my dad know?

  Another muffled growl.

  I crane my head to the left.

  Abe has his back against the wall, his arms tied behind him, a sharp jut of bone sticking out of his forearm, tearing his flesh. He’s completely gray, sweat pouring off his skin. The cloth wrapped around his mouth and neck looks soaked. Our gazes lock, and his eyes are filled with such relief I can see him trying to smile around the gag. The smile falters as a tremor rolls through him, and he tilts his head back against the wall, his face twisting into a grimace against the pain.

  I cry out around the gag, my anger almost overwhelming. How could they want to hurt him? All he wants to do is live out the remainder of his days in this goddamned fucked-up little town. All he wants is to make up problems with his car so he can come and sit and chat with me all day. All he wants is to one day close his eyes, only to open them and see his beloved E
stelle looking back at him. He never wanted this. He never asked for this. It’s my fault as much as it is theirs.

  The archangel Michael warned me—you may get the answers you desire. But remember this: sometimes the past is better left alone.

  But I didn’t leave it alone. I couldn’t.

  I kick my feet and hop/roll over to Abe. By the time I reach him, my wrists are rubbed raw from the cuffs and my whole body is a bundle of exposed nerves, but it doesn’t matter. If we’re going to die in this fucking pit, then we’ll face them together.

  I rest my head on his outstretched legs for a moment to gather my strength and he makes a soothing sound at the back of his throat, as if he’s trying to calm me. A sob bursts from my throat, and it’s all I can do to keep from curling up in a ball and waiting for the end. Abe makes the noise again and twitches his leg a little bit. I know he’s trying to let me know he’s here with me, I’m not alone. He doesn’t know that makes it worse. This is my fault.

  I lift myself off his lap, jerking myself up despite the sharp flare of pain. I rest my back against the shack wall, brushing my shoulder against Abe’s. I turn my head to look at him. He tries to smile again. I almost break, but not quite. Not yet.

  I close my eyes and lean my head against the wall. Abe lays his head on my shoulder and we sit there, in the squalid dark, water dripping down on us, the storm raging outside. I try to turn my mind off, but I can’t. I think of my mother and wonder if she knows of her sister’s betrayal. What about the rest of the Trio? Nina, surely not, but what about Mary?

  I think of Joshua Corwin, special agent with the FBI, now resting in the ground, a hole in the back of his head, his body ravaged to hide his identity.

  I think of Estelle, a woman I barely remember but know I love, if only because she loved Abe with her whole heart.

  I think of Rosie, sitting in her diner, a mischievous smile on her face.

  Doc Heward in his office, squeezing a stress ball with the name of an antiinflammatory medication on the side.

  Jimmy Lotem, from the hardware store, and his poor mother with cancer.