Netted- Inside Out

by K T Rose

  “You’re my superpower, Olive. The perfect person to pick up where Marla left off. You’re full of courage and spunk.”

  Jessica scoffed and turned her head. “No. I don’t see that.”

  “Well why not? What makes you think you’re not courageous?”

  “Because if I were, I would’ve done something about my sisters. I let them beat on me when I was child. I let them treat me like crap and call me names. Cut my hair…” She teared up. Those damn memories still got the best of her all these years later.

  “But you did get your redemption, Olive. You left them, right? To live with your grandmother?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Then there was your friend…Brandy?”

  “How’d you—

  “I did some digging. Your only friend was tortured by that nasty girl, Franny. You made her pay in the way she made your best friend hurt…through the internet. I saw that video on YouTube. Simon’s Date or something like that? That was a nasty thing she did, and you took care of her. She deserved it, Olive, and only a person with courage and spunk would’ve carried such a thing out. That’s why you’re here; right where you need to be.”

  Tears rolls down her cheeks as she peered back at the man in the mirror, whose smile beamed hard as he stared back at their reflection. “This is just the beginning of a new life for you, sweetheart. You are with me now and I will lead you on the right path and if you ask me, you’re already on your way.”

  She looked down at her lap. Every word that rolled of Father Paul’s tongue came through as senseless. There wasn’t an ounce of courage in her bones. Only guilt and hatred, most of which was for herself. The longer she listened to him, the more she wanted to walk off into the woods and disappear. But she didn’t have a choice but to stay. She nodded.

  He kissed her on the cheek. “Happy birthday, forbidden Olive. May you have many more.”

  Chapter Five

  The breeze didn’t feel so cold that night as it tugged at Jessica’s hair, blowing platinum streaks over her eyes. She swiped it out of view and cringed. Then she wiped her sleepy eyes and reached high. Small pops sounded as she cracked her back and stretched her spine. She hadn’t slept this long since she’d been back home taking afterschool naps. Neither had she gone this long without a smoke to ease her nerves. But talking to Father Paul only made her sure off one thing: St. Pete and Hazel couldn’t touch her. Their threats from this point on would fall on deaf ears. Deaf, protected ears. And if they did try anything, they’d have to answer to the menace himself.

  Good luck with that.

  Anyone had to be crazy to piss Father Paul off. He was much scarier in person than through the computer screen.

  Soft chatter prompted her to lean over the wooden porch railing. The kids were walking across the compound.

  A little late to be walking back from school, she thought. At least that’s where she hoped they were coming from.

  “Thanks a lot, Piggy,” Nutty teased as he gained on Tilly from behind.

  “Yeah, fat ass! You think we like staying after because of you? God! I won’t be able to play with my dolls today because of you,” Tate added.

  “Tilly, the totally tubby tub of turds,” Shelly said as she skipped joyously around the huddle.

  Tate growled then shoved Tilly, lodging him down to the ground. His belly slid up the icy walkway and his books fumbled from his hands, scattering papers across the snowy path and the yard of the Center.

  Jessica jogged down the steps and over to the cluster. No way were they going to team up on that poor boy, who hadn’t said a word or was too frail to defend himself. They already had enough to deal with from Father Paul, why cause harm to one another?

  “Look at that big boy struggle! Having trouble, potbelly?” Nutty laughed.

  “Hey!” Jessica said as she approached. The kids looked at her then went straight-faced. “What’s going on here?” Frosty gusts erupted through her angry huffing. Kids could be such assholes sometimes, but for some reason she expected more from this bunch.

  “Uh, hi Miss Olive. We are trying to figure out why Tilly sucks at everything,” Shelly said as she twirled the end of one of her pigtails with her small index finger.

  “That’s not very nice to treat someone like that,” Jessica said.

  Tate smacked her lips and cut her eyes away from Jessica. The girls’ attitude had to be three feet bigger than she was. It was almost like talking to Beth before she slammed Jessica in the face with her fist. “Let’s go, guys. We only have like an hour before lights out.” Tate’s abrasive tone had Becca and Beth etched all over it. She cringed. The memory of her half-sisters was something she could go the rest of her life without revisiting.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Olive, do we have your permission to go and play while we still have time?” Tate asked.

  “Fine. Whatever, go.”

  The kids ran off as Jessica crouched and helped Tilly pick up his papers. Nutty went into the first trailer on the left where Techy slept, while Shelly and Tate went a bit further, maybe halfway around the Center and disappeared inside a baby blue trailer where Blaze slept.

  After they chased down Tilly’s papers and stuffed them into a textbook he’d been carrying, Jessica looked at the boy and asked, “You alright?”

  “Uh huh.” Seemingly and confusingly happy, he said, “I’m Tilly!” He put out a hand and she shook it.

  “Why were those kids being mean to you?”

  He looked up to her with doughy eyes full of delight and creamy face full of smiles. “Oh, it’s because I failed our quiz and as a result, teacher made us stay behind until I understood my multiplication. Honestly, I still don’t understand. But that’s math!”

  She smiled. “Well, I guess if you’re okay then—”

  “Can you walk me to my trailer? It gets lonely when no one likes hanging out with me. It’s just on the opposite side of the Center. You know, where Billy and Domo live?”

  “Sure. Let’s go.”

  As they walked the pathway around the Center, Jessica couldn’t help but steal a few looks at the kid. His faint smile never faltered as he walked on his toes with a joyful hop. A lot like Brandy’s happy strut. No matter how many mortifying bullets Franny shot at Brandy, she still showed up with a smile and the hopes they’d be friends. But Jessica only saw it as a cancer: acceptance from the accepted.

  “Do those other kids always talk to you like that? I mean, calling you names and hitting you?”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s normal.”

  “Why don’t you tell Father Paul? He’ll make them stop.”

  “Well, because I am fat and stupid.”

  “Don’t say stuff like that. You’re not.”

  “No. I am. At least that’s what Ms. Orleans and Billy tell me.”

  “Your teacher shouldn’t say things like that. And Billy? Fuck that guy. Sorry,” she said. Nothing sat well with her about that kid and the more she heard his name or saw his face, the more she wished she could make him disappear.

  “Well, she did and still does. She tells me I’m dumber than a dog with a steak in its face. She says I don’t know the difference between the sky over my head and the ground beneath my stubby feet.”

  “And you just take it?”

  “Yeah. She knows best. Better than Father Paul.” He threw a hand over his mouth and looked at Jessica with wide eyes. “Oh, please, Miss Olive. Please don’t tell teacher or Father Paul I said that? I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “Tilly, calm down. Your secret's safe with me.”

  He blew a stream of air between his full lips. “Good. Hey, we still have an hour. Have they showed you around? I know all the secret spots.”

  Sympathy for the boy crawled through her gut. If spending a few extra minutes made him feel that someone cared about him, then why not? Even if he shows her the same things she’s seen, like the kitchen, the dining gazebo, and laundry trailer. The convenience store… the barn. “Alright, Tilly, show me all the
nooks and crannies of this place.”

  “Great! Follow me.”

  With that, Tilly took off cutting through the gap between his trailer and Mr. Key’s and Orion’s trailer. Her feet pounded the ground, carrying her behind him and into the woods. Tilly ran quick to be a chubby kid. Her chest pounded and breath shortened as she hurried for him.

  “Tilly! Wait!”

  He looked over his shoulder and chuckled. “Keep up, Miss Olive!”

  Legs heavy and lungs tightening, she pushed out long breaths as she tried grabbing the hood of the boy’s coat. She was sure they weren’t allowed out here, headed toward the barn. She wasn’t sure of the perimeter but the heat on her neck felt as if they drew close.

  At a clearing between the trees, Tilly stopped so abruptly that Jessica tripped on her toes and grabbed the back of his coat, stopping her fall. “Are you crazy? We need to get—”

  She cast her eyes on what the boy had been staring at. Tombstones sprouted from the ground. The moon seemed to shine the brightest on this open spot in the woods and the snow seemed to fall slower than it did at the Center. It was almost like this opening was frozen in time as an eerie hushed breeze blew through and between the tombstones. It was the true resting place of the dead as it lay undisturbed and hidden.

  Tilly looked at her with a gleam in his eye. “Want to meet my daddy?”

  “Uh, I don’t think we should be here.”

  “I told you I was gonna show you around. Don’t worry, Miss Olive. I would never get in trouble. I’m like magic. I’m never seen.”

  He stepped into the opening and approached a stone. Jessica followed. On it read, Cavin “Bruno” Nelly, September 5, 1978—December 9, 2017.

  “Hey Daddy!’” he said with a cheerful flare. “This is my friend, Miss Olive.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Well aren’t you gonna say hi? It’d be awkward if you didn’t.”

  Jessica uttered, “He-hello.”

  “Ugh. Fine, Miss Olive, just hang tight then.” He turned back to the tombstone. “She’s a little shy. That’s all. I told you that she would be my friend. Remember? The day after we brought Marla here, I came to you and told you we had a new grown up and she was different from Father Paul and Billy and Tate. And here she is. Meeting you!”

  He turned to her again. “I’m sure Daddy’s smiling down on us right now, Miss Olive.”

  She smiled, unaware of what to say. How do you tell a kid that there’s a possibility he was chatting with an empty skeleton whose emotions and consciousness died along with it the day it stopped breathing? Or did it? Could Mr. Nelly be wandering around the compound killing Father Paul slowly? No one knew what went on upstairs at night when he blasted music through his record player.

  “Daddy, the kids were being mean to me again today. I guess I never fit in like you said I would when we moved here. I don’t seem to fit anywhere.” He chuckled. “Literally and figuratively. We learned that in school today before I failed a multiplication quiz. That’s why the kids are so mad at me. I couldn’t figure it out. It’s like, okay, four times six. How is that not ten? I just don’t get it, Daddy.”

  The boy went quiet and stared at the tombstone as if it would speak back.

  He sighed. “I know you find it hard to talk to me. Everyone is afraid around here. There’s no telling what Father Paul will do. Too bad you learned the hard way.”

  The boy broke down to his knees and sobbed in his hands. Jessica rushed forward and wrapped her arms around him.

  “It’s okay, Tilly.”

  “I miss him so much,” he blubbered. “He loved me for me. I wasn’t the fat screw up or the lonely person. I was Tommy. Not Tilly. But Tommy. I want my old life back, Miss Olive. I miss my ten speed. I miss my friends in the hills. I want Burger Hut and Pizza King. Why did Daddy bring us here? And why did he leave me here?”

  Jessica sighed. “I can’t answer that, Tilly.”

  “I know.” He wiped his eyes dry and pushed himself to his feet. He took a breath and shook his body loose of the random wave of depression. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You’re alright, little buddy.” She smiled.

  “You’re the nicest adult here. No one would’ve taken up for me the way you did back there. No one would even bother hanging out with me. Miss Olive, can we leave?”

  “And go where?”

  “Away, before more people get dead.” He looked at his father’s tomb. “I owe it to Daddy to get our old lives back.”

  “I can’t leave here, Tilly.”

  “Well why not?”

  “Because…just because.” Nausea sickened her as it sank in; they weren’t going anywhere if they wanted to live. That was how their worlds worked in Father Paul’s universe. Live by the rules or don’t live at all. At least that’s what she learned from the town hall meeting.

  “I don’t like hurting people when we bring them here.”

  “Tilly, you don’t have to hurt anyone.”

  “But that’s what Daddy thought until he had to pull them from the street and tie them to that chair. He hated doing those horrible things to people. He tried to leave, stand up to Father Paul and even tried to leave to find the police and put a stop to all this. But… but Father Paul found out. The next day, Daddy was hanged. I can still hear his neck pop in my ears, Miss. Olive.”

  He sniffed then looked over at the tombstone again. This time, he put a hand in the snow that coated the top of it. “I love you, Daddy.”

  As Tilly went on to chat with his father, Jessica walked around the graveyard, swiping snow from the tombstones and onto the ground. Paige “Marla” Maverick, January 27, 1993—November 20, 2018. The one that set this all in motion. One day, Jessica could be buried next to her. Her tomb would read, Jessica “Olive” Frey: She asked one question too many.

  Terror-stricken, she looked over at Tilly, who was talking to his dad’s tombstone about Lego Man and why he was made of toys. She held a breath deep in her throat. She was going to die here and before she did, her body count would be exceptional: something she didn’t want. Franny, Dale, and Uni.

  Poor, poor Dale and Uni.

  She couldn’t let anyone else be destroyed under her hand. She wanted out. She looked around and felt a sick spell of claustrophobia: surrounded by snow and trees on all sides. Panic coursed through her, making her limbs shake. She took a deep breath.

  Don’t freak out. Don’t for Tilly’s sake.

  She wondered if it were too late to get out without being detected. Maybe she could find a way through the woods, a blind spot. Tilly might know. She turned to ask the boy but decided against interrupting his moment with his favorite rock. Instead, she searched the tombs a little while longer, a brief distraction. Then she realized something. There was a tombstone for Matthew “Blue” Bennet, Jasper “Mr. French” Lasso, and a couple of others she’d never heard of. A total of eight all around. But there was no tomb for Dale. And what about the victims from the show? Surely, they were dead. She’d seen it with her very own eyes for months. Where were they buried?

  “Tilly, where are the bodies from, well, you know...”

  An ominous heavy sank the boy’s smile. “I can show you.” He stood, kissed the tomb, and took off running, kicking up snow in his wake.

  Jessica huffed and followed closely behind this time, sprinting with the breath of an experienced athlete: in through the nose, out through the mouth, keeping an even pace.

  They cut through the woods, veering away from the direction that would’ve carried them to the barn.

  A small smile crept over her face as she ran. But when the woods broke, they ended up in a wide field. Worry made her pant harder alongside the exhaustion. To the right, a short distance away, she could see the backs of the sleeping trailers. Lights poured through the windows. Then the smell of rotting meat made her nostrils flare and face scrunch. She gagged and threw a palm over her face, diminishing her pace.

  “Oh, ugh, what the hell is that?”

  Tilly st
opped and turned. His face contorted with confusion. “Well, it’s the Brick House.”

  He pointed to a single-floored brick building that stood out in the middle of the field. Electrical wires ran from the sides of it and expanding over their heads, going toward the trailers and into the woods, probably toward the barn and guard outposts.

  “Well are you coming?” he asked.

  Before she could answer, Tilly turned on his heels and went on for the building.

  “Tilly wait!” she called out.

  But the boy continued his way, sprinting up to the building.

  Shit.

  She rolled her eyes and kept behind him until he stopped at a fence. He pointed.

  “Most of them are in there.” He pointed to a cluster of steel barrels huddled up against the wall of the building. Most were so rusted that they blended with the night.

  “The tin barrel?”

  “Yeah. The barrel eats them until they are gone forever.”

  “That doesn’t make sense, Tilly. A barrel can’t eat a person.”

  “Well not the barrel, but the water they put in the barrel. It stinks and if you get to close to it, it burns the inside of your nose and makes your eyes sizzle.”

  “Who told you that?”

  The boy sighed and looked down at his feet as he kicked the snow like he’d been caught doing something bad. “You have to promise not to tell anyone. Father Paul would be awfully sore at me if he found out that I’ve been here.”

  She raised her right hand. “I swear, I will not tell a soul.”

  He took a deep breath. “That night, after we buried Marla, everyone was sad and happy. Sad because Marla was gone and happy that you came and put the man, Dale, to sleep. They were so preoccupied with the celebration, that no one was able to stop me from coming over here. I really wanted to know what they did with the bodies here because I remember Daddy used to fear this place. I mean it. He’d wake up screaming in the night and he told me it was because of this building and he made me promise not to come over here.

  “Anyway, since St. Pete was very sad about his best friend, Blue, he stayed behind to bury him, Marla, and Mr. French. So I knew Hazel would be too busy to make sure she was here alone. I followed her and hid on this side of the building. I watched her drag the volunteer from the truck bed and pull him inside. I climbed on top of the barrels there and looked into the window. She opened the barrel and dumped the volunteer inside, then really, really quickly, she poured water onto the volunteer. Then she pulled ashes from the incinerator and filled the urn with it. After that, she took Dale from the truck bed, shoved him into the cab of the Ol’ Tin Can and drove off with him. After she left, I went inside, through a window. I used the tool she had to open the barrel and I almost fell back on my butt when I saw the man melting inside. It sizzled and popped and spritzed, catching me on the wrist. I closed it and ran off before anyone came along.”