She smelled the stench of fish before she spotted Necka beside her, before she realized that his hands were reaching for her throat. At first, she thought he was trying to shut her up, but when the pressure of his hands increased, she realized that he was actually attempting to strangle her. She tried to grab the braided beard, but her hands only flailed helplessly through the air. She heard ugly, gutteral sounds filling the room and realized that the noises were coming from her own throat. The pressure in her head built as she gasped for air and tried to pry the fingers away. She felt as if the blood itself was flooding her eyes, blurring her vision so that the kitchen became a haze, the details retreating farther and farther away as her legs buckled beneath her.
But, mercifully, the pressure ceased and she fell to the ground. Her belly convulsed, wracking her with dry retches. Thankfully, each gasp brought a gulp of air into her chest, and eventually she was able to pull greedily at the air.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, for the rush of blood through her head did not subside, even as her lungs ballooned once again. She felt like she had that evening when Mama’s peppery fingers had seared her eyes, blind to knowing whether Papa was in the kitchen. Now she wondered if Eric had come down, or if Necka was standing over her, waiting to strike again.
When the noise in her head subsided she realized there was shouting and sobbing around her, and a strange gurgling sound. Nola slowly raised her head and saw that Necka had remained standing above her, but now he wore a strange expression. His eyes bulged grotesquely, and his lips opened and closed nonsensically. It was from those lips that the gurgling sound was coming. Nola squinted to focus on the gasping man.
There was a huge arm around his neck, and behind his reddened face stared Hopey’s wide, panicked eye.
Nola pulled herself up by gripping the counter. It was all too confusing. Where had Hopey come from? Where the hell was Eric? How come Winston hadn’t tried to save Necka from Hopey’s grip?
She spun around to check behind her, and nearly collapsed once again from shock.
Winston was lying face down on the ground, and Val stood over him with a rolling pin in one hand, while the other she extended pleadingly towards Hopey.
“Hopey, let him go! If you kill him, we goin’ be in worse trouble! Let him go NOW! Him can’t breathe!”
Val was the one who’d been shouting.
But Hopey just sobbed and tightened the pull of her arm. Necka’s eyeballs rolled upwards, leaving the sockets as white and vacant as coconut jelly.
“Hopey! Him can’t hurt us no more! You save me, Hopey, you can let him go now!” Nola forced herself to stand, praying that her legs would not collapse. “See, Hopey? I’m okay.”
Nola saw the eye blink with relief, then Necka crumpled to the floor. The man squirmed for an instant before becoming deathly still.
“Baba no like Necka!” Hopey sobbed.
The rolling pin clattered to the ground as Val rushed over and pressed two fingers against Necka’s neck. She stood up and gave a sigh.
“Unconscious,” she murmured.
“Where Eric?” Nola asked. “How him never come down with all the noise?”
Hopey blinked at her, then Val, then she dug into her pocket and removed a bunch of keys. Nola immediately recognized the leather ‘E’, the key ring that had dangled from Eric’s fingers as he’d sauntered around Palm View.
“Opi pick lock, go in room when Eric sleep, take keys, lock door. Eric nuh come out to beat Opi and Val and Nola.”
Nola laughed despite her aching throat. This woman was continuing to surprise her more and more by the hour.
But Val scoffed and jutted an angry chin at Nola. “What now, eh?” She pointed at the two men lying on the kitchen floor. “You happy now, Miss Trust Me? This is the great plan to get outta here? And what ‘bout Hopey now that you get her involved? When you gone ‘bout your merry way, what goin’ happen to Hopey?”
Nola looked at the keys in Hopey’s hand, her heart sinking rapidly at the pride that beamed from the sagging face.
“Look,” Val threw up her hands with resignation. “You have to get that girl outta here before these two wake up. Hopey, give me them car keys. You two go and lift Petra down while I think up someting for them boys outside.”
At the mention of Petra’s name, Hopey and Nola spurred into action. However, as they turned to hurry through the dining room, Nola suddenly pointed at the men on the floor.
“What ‘bout them? What if them get up and let out Eric?”
Val thought for a minute, then rushed to a drawer beside the fridge and removed a handful of white dishtowels. She threw some at Nola.
“Tie up Necka’s hand and foot, and make sure it’s tight!” she instructed.
Nola held her breath as she obediently bent over Necka’s stench. Val hauled Winston’s hands behind his back, a towel gripped between her teeth. Nola froze at the image the woman made—squatted over Winston like that. She looked just like Dahlia, squatted over Devon that day with the lizard!
A groan from Necka quickly stunned Nola back to her duty. She watched in horror as the man tried to lift his head, but to her relief he just coughed a few times before dropping back to the tile. Thankfully, his slim body was pliable in its semi-concious state, and she was able to quickly secure his wrists and ankles with the cloths before he moved again.
As she stood up and surveyed her work, she suddenly had an urge to do something. She rushed to the drainboard and removed a sharp knife, then returned to Necka’s bound body.
Val stopped in the midst of tying Winston’s ankles and gave her a stunned look. “What you think you doin’? Stupid pickney, you gone mad or what?”
But Nola ignored her and held the knife against Necka’s fluttering eyelids. She bent over his ear and whispered, “This is for Ab!” then she pulled the rancid braid from beneath his chin and hacked across the hairs. As she held the slimy tail up in the air, she could hear Hopey giggling by the doorway.
Nola shrugged her shoulders at Val. “You know what them say, Val—‘what go ‘round’…”
Val just shook her head, mumbling to herself as she resumed her task. Nola wrapped the braid in a napkin and stuffed it into the waist of her rags.
With both men bound like chickens ready for roasting, they headed for the staircase. As they neared the living room, Nola was suddenly aware of a dull pounding. It got louder and louder as they climbed the staircase, and by the time they reached the landing, the unmistakable bellow of Eric McKenzie raked their ears.
He was destroying the room. Things were crashing against the door, punctuated by threats of what he was going to do with them when he got out. Hopey winced, and Val patted her reassuringly on the shoulder, but with each crash against the door, Val’s words sunk deeper and deeper into Nola’s head.
What had she done? After they took Petra home, and Eric’s door was re-opened, then what? She and Val would surely end up like Barry, and Palm View would be worse than before! Eric would go right back there for Petra and Kendra, and there would be no moat to stop him.
Dare she pray? Dare she pray again, after all her prayers had fallen on deaf ears all these years? She didn’t know if she could deal with the disappointment again, of hoping that Grampy’s Sweet Jesus would, for once, listen to her.
She watched Eric’s door vibrate on its hinges, and panic staunched her heart. She stood stiff with hopelessness, listening to the threats, and suddenly realized that there was another sound coming from behind the door. Sobbing. The woman! The one who’d been giggling earlier had been locked in with Eric.
Oh God! Another innocent life pulled into her rusty world!
Nola prayed as Hopey grabbed her hand and pulled her into Petra’s room. One miracle, Lord, just one! Just get Eric McKenzie outta our lives!
Petra was still in the deep haze. Hopey lay the doll gently on the girl’s chest before lifting her easily from the bed. Her head and limbs flopped backwards in Hopey’s arms, and as Nola spotted
her bare legs, she gasped.
All along she’d thought that Petra’s wounds had been confined to her face, that he’d hit her only in her face, but when she saw the blackened splotches all over Petra’s legs and arms, she realized that she’d been wrong. So, so wrong.
Nola flashed an angry look at Val and realized that the woman had been quietly watching her. However, when Nola’s eyes met hers, she looked away, bending to pick up the clothes that she’d flung at Nola earlier that evening. She pulled the pants over Petra’s bruised legs.
“Him kick her down the stairs.” Val spoke with her back to Nola. “She was tryin’ to leave. Him say, ‘You want to leave? Make me help you then,’ and him just kick her down the stairs.” Val sighed, then moved up to lift the shirt over Petra’s head. “Like I say, she stupid. She knew him wasn’t goin’ to let her go like that, but instead of waitin’ till him good and tired of her, she get impatient.” Val stared down at Petra’s lolling, broken face. “All I can tell you is that she lucky, the last one who try to leave still missin’.”
When she’d finished dressing Petra, Val nodded at Hopey who turned obediently towards the door. Petra’s limbs dangled lifelessly with the movement. Val slapped Nola on the shoulder.
“You sure the someting you give her never kill her?”
Nola shook her head. “That someting save my life.”
Val hmmphed and followed Hopey to the door, placing one hand over Petra’s bushy head to prevent it from knocking against the jamb. She spoke under her breath. “Take time, Hopey, that’s not Baba. This one have feelings.”
“Wait!” Nola shouted as Val reached for the door handle.
“Listen.”
They all stood silently by the door, eyes raised towards the sky as they listened.
“Opi nuh hear nothin’.”
But just as Nola was about to say, ‘Exactly!’ the bedroom door flew open and they faced Eric’s red-raged face.
CHAPTER
49
Everyone except Val took a startled step backward. Poor Val. Since she was the one whom Eric first saw at the door, she was the one who received the first blow.
What was it about those moments that made them seem to happen in slow motion? Nola watched Val’s face burst like a ripe pomegranate, its red seeds fanning slowly through the air as Val flailed rag doll arms. She staggered backwards for an eternity before collapsing onto the bed.
“Fool!” Eric rasped at her comatose body. “You don’t know that when you lock up somebody you don’t leave them with a phone?”
Hopey whimpered, and Eric’s eyes immediately flashed to her, narrowing when he spotted Petra in her arms.
“Where you think you goin’, buffoon? Put her down before I knock she and you down the stairs this time!”
His voice was hoarse from all the bellowing. He was in a pair of red shorts, made from some kind of silky fabric, and he stood in them with his legs apart, like a mad dog. Under his white tee shirt, the twin saucers of his chest rose and fell with the heavy breaths of his rage. His eyes did an even deeper squint when they saw that Hopey made no move to obey him. He took a step further into the room, and that was when his eyes rested on Nola.
Even with the breath tight in her chest, Nola felt a rush of satisfaction when she saw Eric’s steps falter with shock. It lasted for just a split second, that quick, stunned shift of his eyes, but it gave Nola the power to return her panicked breaths to their normal passage through her lungs.
“Well, well!” Eric gave the sound that posed as a laugh.
“Yeah, Eric, CLUMSY!! Clumsy in your house!” Nola did not know where her voice came from, but it rang crisp through the thick room, surprising even herself with its strength. “What you think of Clumsy now, Eric? Recognize me?” She flashed the tail of her rag skirt. “I could’a come right up behind you at the plaza and sink someting sharp in your back! Or while you was sleepin’ tonight, fix you up nice, nice, like how you fix up Barry!”
Eric’s lip lifted slightly. “You see now, Clumsy, that’s the difference between you and me—you should’a kill me!” He wagged a lecturing finger. “One lesson for you to learn—never should’a kill somebody. When you should’a kill somebody, then sure as Mighty God is in the sky, that person goin’ come back and take pleasure in killin’ you!”
“Mighty God?!” Saliva slushed from Nola’s lips. “What you know ‘bout God, you dutty, nasty dog? You is the devil himself, and you talkin’ ‘bout God?”
The sneer melted from Eric’s face. He took a step towards her and she involuntarily stepped backward, but there was nowhere to go. She felt the bedroom wall press unyieldingly against her back just as he reached out and grabbed her chin.
She heard Hopey cry, “Nuh beat Nola!” but Eric ignored his mama’s plea and squeezed her cheeks till that familiar tinny taste flooded her mouth. The soft flesh of her cheeks split against her own teeth as Eric’s fingers pressed mercilessly. She felt her lips pop outwards like a guppy fish, but she forced herself to stare unflinchingly at the man’s squinting face.
He chuckled. “Then Clumsy,” he said, “Who you think know more ‘bout God than the devil? Don’t him used to sit right there with God in heaven?”
“Nuh beat Nola!” Hopey’s voice was louder now from behind them.
“You know something?” Eric continued unfazed, “Gals like you and Petra have the same problem—you don’t know your place! You think that you is someting great, someting that man can’t live without, but unnu is nothin’ but worries. The only thing for man to do is eliminate the whole lot of you! Eliminate you so you can stop bring problems to big man like me!”
“You don’t even want her!” Nola muttered through her distorted lips. “You don’t want her. Look how you mash her up. Why you didn’t just send her back home?!”
Eric stared into her eyes. “Because,” he finally whispered, “She’s mine!”
Nola’s heart shimmied with anger. “You think you can just buy people? You think you can just buy them and do whatever you want with them? Is that what you do to Barry? Buy him and use him, and when you done with him you just eliminate him?”
“Barry …” he spoke the name thoughtfully, as if trying to remember someone from the past. “Barry? Nuh him did thief my money? Thief my money, and when Necka ask him ‘bout it, him tell Necka that him goin’ to the police ‘bout the car ring. The same car ring that was feedin’ him and clothin’ him? Clumsy, you see how people ungrateful? Imagine, I come to Palm View, give you all the ideas to improve your business, improve your life, and what unnu do?—Turn round and bite the hand that feed you!” He sniffed in mock sadness. “Barry never have such a good life as the one me give him, and just like you, him step over him bounds, lost his place.” He gave a cavalier shrug. “Well, Clumsy, him left me no choice but to find the right place for him!”
“But what make you have to torture him like that? Why you never just kill him? Him never deserve to dead like that!” Nola shrieked.
The shouting roused Val. She gave an agonized moan beside them.
“Not me kill him,” Eric crooned. “I don’t do manual labour, Clumsy. You know I have my people to deal with them things for me. You see, to my people, dealing with a thief like Barry is a treat, like when you fling a bone to a dog.” Soft chuckle.
“Coward!” Nola hissed. “You can’t even do your own dirty work!”
Eric leaned closer and brushed his lips against her pulsing ones. “No,” he whispered sensually, his hot breath caressing her face, “I just save the special ones for myself.”
Then he shoved her face so hard that her head cracked against the wall. He gave a little smirk at her involuntary cry, then sauntered from the room.
Nola’s hands flew to her throbbing face. She turned to look at Hopey.
She still stood there, holding Petra in her arms and blinking her single eye in fear.
Val’s painful snort suddenly reminded Nola of the other woman’s distress. She quickly rushed to the bed and stifled a sob
at the face before her. Dahlia! Dahlia’s lip nose … Val’s nose and mouth were swollen and twisted, globs of blood blocking the nostrils like slimy swabs of cotton. Nola grabbed up a section of the sheet and pressed it against the bleeding face, lifting the woman’s head upright onto the pillow to free her breath.
The blood was clogging the nose, and Val made another painful snort. Nola instructed her to blow her nose, but Val would not comply. She just sat and stared ahead, snorting something into the bundle of sheets over her face. Nola leaned closer to try to decipher the words, but it was not until Hopey released a wail that she spun around and saw what Val had been staring at.
Pedro! … leaning as easy as cheese against the doorjamb. The expression in his eyes was hidden beneath their shelf, but Nola did not need to see them to understand his motive, for in one hand he held a black gun.
He stood silently, as if having been waiting for their attention, and when Nola finally turned to face him, he casually lifted the gun, pointing at first to Hopey, then at the door.
Hopey looked at Nola, her eye wide with despair as she gripped Petra tightly. Mustering the most reassuring smile she could on her shaking lips, Nola nodded, telling the woman to go. Save yourself and Petra, her eyes said. Run!
Hopey lumbered to the door, but as she passed Pedro, he tapped her shoulder with the gun, then pointed it at Val and said, “Put down that one, then come back for this one.”
So he wanted to kill her alone. Nola did not know if she should feel disappointed that she wasn’t one of the ‘special’ ones that Eric had chosen to kill himself, or happy that she didn’t have to spend her final moments with the creature she despised so. There was some relief, however, in knowing that maybe the others had been spared.
Hopey came back for Val, her eye shifting fearfully from Nola to Pedro. When she padded the sheet around Val’s seeping face and murmured, “Nuh cry, nuh cry,” Nola knew that she was speaking to her. At the door, with Val in her arms, Hopey turned to give Nola a last look, and once again, with all her might, Nola smiled. Is this how Merlene and Dahlia had felt when they’d seen her out of their house that night?—this longing to continue with life, yet this knowing that you didn’t have the choice but to accept the end?
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