by Travis, Todd
He wiped makeup off of her face. She groaned.
“I keep throwing it all out and it keeps ending up back on my face. You have some, too. Here, let me …”
She took a tissue and wiped his eyes for him. He was very conscious of her touch.
“Poor Ed. I can’t stop crying about him,” she said.
“I know. How’s your dad?” he asked.
“He’s … I don’t know. He’s worried about me, I guess. He asked me a bunch of stuff. He … didn’t drink tonight, either. He …” Valerie stopped and caught herself before emotion took over. “He told me how much he cares about me, and that he wants me to be happy and healthy and well. That’s all he cares about. He’s … never said anything like that, before,” she wiped her eyes. “I can’t stop crying. I haven’t cried in years and now I can’t stop.”
“Crying isn’t always bad,” he said and held her. “Sometimes it’s good.”
“How did they handle you?”
“They were, uh … nice. Nicest they’ve ever been. Said they were worried about me and that they were there for me if I needed it. They got five other fosters, all younger, who are a handful, but they said they really cared about me, too, even though sometimes it seems like … well, you know.”
“Will they find out you’re gone?”
“No, I put pillows in my bed to fake them out. Plus, I hardly ever buck curfew or slip out, so they won’t suspect it. I’m good. And your dad?”
“He’s asleep and respects my privacy, he always knocks. He won’t bother us. Darin, I feel so terrible about Ed, like it’s all our fault.”
“It’s not our fault. We know whose fault it is.”
“Shakes.”
“Maybe not even him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did you see Ed flip the safety off on that Glock? He flicked it off and jacked the slide to put a bullet in the chamber before he shot himself. How’d he know how to do that? Do you know how to do that?”
“I don’t.”
“I don’t, either. And I don’t believe Ed knew, I think something told him how to do it. I think this game or … whatever demon those goth kids summoned to jumpstart this fucking game, that’s what told Ed what to do. It wants our blood, it wants our lives. Like Herman said, it wants our souls and our deaths. We HAVE to find a way to stop it now, more than ever. This goes way past Shakes and Faye. We’re not going to make it if we don’t.”
Valerie took him in her arms and hugged him. She brought her face up close to his. They kissed. Valerie broke it off.
“I have something to show you,” she said.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said and she hit him in the arm.
“Don’t be a goof,” she brought him over to her desk. “Here, I did this while I was waiting for you to come over.”
It was an extensive and detailed charcoal drawing of their crybaby bridge.
“It’s good, it’s really good. I didn’t know you were an artist.”
“I was, once.”
“It looks just like it.”
“I kept thinking about, how every time we take a picture of the screen to show someone, it disappears, right? Same when we do a search. But if I drew a picture of the bridge, made it my own creation, maybe we can use this …”
“To find out where it is. Yeah. That might work.”
Valerie put the drawing in the scanner and scanned it. Sat at her computer.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Ready. No wait, hold on. Don’t.”
He reached into his pocket, brought out a small notepad computer.
“What is it?”
“Shakes probably has your computer tagged, too, don’t you think? He’ll follow your trail, like he did at the library. You do another search, he’ll know.”
“Oh no. My laptop?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. But I guarantee you he doesn’t have this one. It’s clean, I got it some time ago and it’s never even been connected to my laptop or my phone, completely clean. Here, let me scan the picture.”
Darin flipped the notepad computer over and turned the camera on to scan it.
“How do you know all this stuff?”
“Well, I’m not on Shakes’s level in terms of electronics, but as a former drug dealer, I do have some skills.”
“A former drug dealer?”
“Yeah, I think I’m done with that shit. Okay, the picture’s in and … it comes up perfect, too. I’ll put it in the search browser. You ready for this?”
She nodded. They held hands and he hit enter. Just one link came up. It was an old news story, from a faded newspaper clipping, and with it a black and white photo of their bridge.
“Hot damn. There’s our boy,” Darin said. “It doesn’t say much else, though. And it’s an old photograph.”
“Leary, Washington,” Valerie read. “Crybaby bridge.”
Darin tapped into his phone. “Leary. That’s about an hour outside of Seattle. It’s a long drive.”
“So. Now we know where it is. Now what?”
“Now we go burn that fucker down and get our asses free of the game.”
“Now?”
“We get some rest, go tomorrow morning.”
Valerie stared at him. She pressed play on her stereo. The song “Strawberry Fields” played. She took his hand and kissed it. He kissed her back. This time they didn’t stop kissing and fell back on the bed. They kept going until their phones both dinged a text message from Shakes at the same time. They both sighed and checked.
“NOW THAT WE’VE GOTTEN THAT … UNPLEASANTNESS … WITH ED … OUT OF THE WAY, CAN WE PLEASE TRY AND BE FRIENDS AGAIN?”
Valerie groaned. “Just ignore it.”
Darin couldn’t, though. He cursed under his breath and tapped a reply back.
“AFTER WHAT YOU DID, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”
“DARIN, YOU SHOULDN’T ACT SO FUCKING SPECIAL ALL THE TIME! YOU’RE NOT ANY BETTER THAN WE ARE AND IT’S NOT RIGHT THAT YOU ACT LIKE YOU ARE,” this message from Faye. “YOU CAN’T DO THAT TO US, AFTER ALL WE’VE BEEN THROUGH TOGETHER. IT’S NOT RIGHT. YOU AND VALERIE HAVE TO FACE UP TO YOUR OBLIGATIONS TO THE CIRCLE!”
“ED’S DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU, YOU SOULESS CREEPS!” Darin wrote back. “HE’S DEAD. HE AND HIS GRANDMA NEVER HURT ANYBODY!”
“AH, DARIN, SINCE WHEN HAVE YOU CARED ABOUT ANYONE ELSE?” Shakes wrote. “ED BETRAYED US. SO DID YOU. BUT I TELL YOU WHAT, I’LL GIVE YOU ONE MORE CHANCE, BECAUSE I LIKE YOU. TOMORROW, MY PLACE, AFTER DARK. WE PARTY AND PLAY THE GAME TOGETHER, JUST LIKE WE DID THE FIRST TIME. WE CAN BE THE FURIOUS FOUR INSTEAD OF THE FIVE, ED WASN’T REALLY WITH THE PROGRAM ANYWAY. SO TOMORROW, SUNSET. BE THERE OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES.”
“Just ignore him, don’t answer. We have to focus on the bridge,” Valerie said. “Let him think whatever he has to until we can do that.”
“YOU CAN HAVE MY ANSWER NOW. GO FUCK YOURSELF,” Darin wrote back and turned his phone off.
Valerie turned her phone off, too. They held each other, tight.
Chapter Sixty-One
Sirens and the smell of smoke drifting through the window of Valerie’s bedroom woke them in the morning. Darin hopped out of bed, opened the window all the way and stuck his head outside.
“Oh shit,” he said. “I can see it from here. That’s my house!”
Valerie waited for Darin in her car as he went to the wreckage that was once his foster home. It had burned to the ground. Darin ducked through the crowd of firemen and cops toward her. He climbed into the car and just sat there, flush with anger.
“Are they all right?” Valerie finally asked.
“I talked to one of my foster brothers, they all made it out okay, he said, but it was close. My foster dad went back inside for me, he thought I was still in there. He collapsed from smoke inhalation and the fireman got him out. He’s in the hospital and it’s bad. I guess they now want to know where I was. My foster brother said they think I might have done it. Cop
s are gonna bring me in for questioning. They would’ve grabbed me right now, but it’s too much of a circus. I told my brother that I didn’t do it, but he didn’t think anyone would believe me, so I ran before the police saw me.”
Darin glanced at her. “I have a history of setting fires.”
“Shakes did this.”
“Shakes made someone else do this, like he did with Roger.” Darin punched the dashboard. “Goddamn it!”
“I’ll tell them that you couldn’t have done it, that you spent the night with me.”
“They’ll haul me in anyway, and won’t let me out until they know for absolute sure that it wasn’t me. Your word alone might not be enough. They’ll think you’re my girlfriend and would lie to cover for me. And by the time I get out, Shakes will have done even more damage. Who knows what else he’ll do, after this? He’s gone nuts. We have to go get the bridge and burn that shit down.”
She sat there for a moment, silent. Then turned to him.
“You go.”
“You don’t want to go?”
“I do want to go, but everyone knows you and I are together now. Shakes knows it, the police know it because we were at Ed’s last night, if I leave without saying anything, after what happened here, my father might call the police and it’ll be easy for them to catch you because they’ll be looking for the two of us. You take the car, you go burn that bridge down. I’ll tell the police that you didn’t do this here, that you were with me and you’re afraid to come in, that you ran away to Portland. They’ll waste time looking there while you go to Leary. And, more important than that, I’ll distract Shakes and Faye while you destroy the bridge. If they even suspect what you’re doing, if he tracks me to Leary somehow, he’ll find a way to stop us. You have to go there alone and I’ll keep his mind off that while you set us free.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I’m going to give in, go to his house tonight and play the game.”
“You sure?”
“It’s the only way. Right?”
Darin thought about it and then nodded. “Right. But what if the game draws you in? What if it takes you over like it did those two?”
“I’ll think about kissing you.”
“I like that. But I have another idea, too, that might help.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
“YOU WERE SO TOTALLY RIGHT,” Valerie wrote to Shakes and Faye. “DARIN’S GONE, HE RAN AWAY. HE ONLY CARED ABOUT HIMSELF. I WANT TO PLAY NOW. I’M READY TO PLAY. I CAN’T WAIT TO PLAY.”
“DARIN’S GONE?” Shakes wrote back in reply.
“HE RAN AWAY LIKE A SCARED LITTLE MOUSE. LEFT ME A WHINY VM AND TOOK OFF. I SHOULD HAVE NEVER HOOKED UP WITH HIM. HE’S A FUCKING ASSHOLE LOSER.”
“I TOLD YOU! COME ON OVER!”
“CAN’T RIGHT NOW, I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING LAME WITH MY DAD THIS AFTERNOON, BUT I’LL COME BY TONIGHT. FOR THE PART-TAY.”
“FUCK LAME. WE CAN TAKE CARE OF YOUR OLD MAN FOR YOU, SO YOU CAN COME OVER NOW.”
“NAH, HE’S MINE, I GET TO DO THAT, NOBODY ELSE. BUT I NEED TO GET READY, ANYWAY. AND I HAVE SOME THINGS TO SHOW YOU. SPECIAL THINGS. I’M ACTUALLY GLAD I DID THE RESEARCH, YOU KNOW? IT REALLY GAVE ME SOME PERSPECTIVE ON IT. I GOT ONTO THE GAME SITE LAST NIGHT, DID SOME THINGS, AND AFTERWARD HAD THE MOST AMAZING DREAMS. I DREW PICTURES AND MADE SOME ARTWORK. I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT IT, BUT AFTER DARK. IT’S BETTER THAT WAY. I LIKE THE DARK, DON’T YOU?”
“WE LIKE THE DARK,” was the reply.
Chapter Sixty-Three
It took Darin nine hours straight driving to finally arrive at Leary. He didn’t stop for anything other than gas, and he kept a jug in the car that he pissed in to save time and emptied it out every time he gassed up the car. He also had a gas can that he kept filled in the trunk, for the bridge, but he was worried about that. Because as the sun began to set, he saw storm clouds in the distance and the thunder promised a lot of rain.
He drove through Leary, searching. It was home to about two thousand souls, according to Wikipedia, had a town square, a few bars and stores, a courthouse and library and was listed online as a vibrant farming community.
But it looked pretty deserted. It was late October and usually this close to Halloween there’d be a ton of decorations and carved pumpkins out in every yard and in places of business, but this town had next to nothing like that. The few people he saw just scurried away. There was no mention of the bridge anywhere online except for that one old clipping. Darin drove around outside of town limits, searching for it. There were a ton of gravel roads and trees and he quickly realized that it’d take forever for him to find it without directions.
He finally parked at the square and looked for people to ask. Before he did, however, he looked in the rearview mirror and saw that he had more eye shadow on his face again. He wiped it all off, dug up the makeup from where he’d unconsciously stashed it in the car and tossed it into the nearest garbage can.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Valerie left the Sex, Marry, Kill site up on her computer while she drew her pictures, just to see if Shakes was indeed watching her. She turned up the Beatles music, loud, in her headphones to muffle the pull of it. Because sometimes when she stared at it, she lost time. A lot of time, in fact, and it was frightening. But she left it there, kept her headphones on and her eyes away from it. Whenever she felt a pull toward it, she took a safety pin, one of her favorites, and stuck it into the inside of her thigh until she bled.
That always brought her back. And she discovered something else, too. She loved the drawings she was creating, even the dark scary ones. She used to draw, she used to love art, in fact, it was something else that she shared with her mother, along with the music, and yet another thing that Valerie abandoned when her mother died. But now she’d reconnected with it and Valerie felt more alive now than she had in a long time.
Her phone dinged.
“WHERE R U? YOU CAN’T PLAY THE GAME WITHOUT US!”
“I’M NOT PLAYING THE GAME, THE SITE’S UP, THAT’S ALL,” Valerie wrote. “STOP SPYING ON ME! I’M GETTING READY FOR THE PARTY! WTF!”
“I’M JUST SAYING, YOU CAN’T PLAY WITHOUT US.”
“SO WHAT? YOU DID!”
“THAT WAS DIFFERENT, THAT WAS BEFORE. WHAT’S TAKING YOU SO LONG? WE’RE ALREADY HERE, YOU’D BETTER COME OVER QUICK!”
“GODDAMN IT, YOU’RE AS BAD AS DARIN WAS! I’LL COME OVER WHEN I’M READY TO COME OVER! YOU CAN’T ORDER ME AROUND LIKE I’M YOUR GIRLFRIEND, I’M NOT YOUR GIRLFRIEND, YOU KNOW!”
“I’M NOT SAYING YOU ARE, I’M JUST SAYING THAT WE’RE WAITING HERE!”
“WHAT’S THE FUCKING RUSH! LIKE THE GAME WON’T STILL BE THERE LATER? WTF!”
“COME ON, VALERIE,” this from Faye, “WE’RE TIRED OF WAITING, WE WANT TO PLAY!”
“SO GO AHEAD AND PLAY, I’M NOT STOPPING YOU! I DON’T CARE!”
“WE’RE ALL SUPPOSED TO PLAY TOGETHER!”
“SO STOP HASSLING ME AND I’LL BE OVER WHEN I’M READY, FAYE. IT’S NOT EVEN DARK YET, CHRIST!”
“OKAY, OKAY, WE JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW WE’RE WAITING!” this from Shakes.
“I SAID I’LL BE THERE AND I’LL BE THERE. YOU’D BETTER HAVE BOOZE AND FOOD, TOO. I LIKE TEQUILLA,” Valerie wrote. “MAKE SURE YOU HAVE GOOD TEQUILLA AND SALT AND LOTS OF LIMES, IF YOU DON’T HAVE LIMES IT’S NOT NEARLY AS COOL.”
“DON’T WORRY, WE’LL SEND SOMEBODY OUT FOR THAT. TEXT WHEN YOU’RE ON YOUR WAY.”
Valerie tossed her phone on her desk and sighed. She wished that it was more work to act like a bitch, but the truth was, she felt a dark pull whenever she said or did something mean and selfish. Like she secretly enjoyed it. Darin compared it to watching porn, and maybe that was right, she wasn’t sure. But she’d have to go fully into it to pull this off. She heard a knock on her door and turned her music down. The site disappeared all on its own.
“Come in.”
Her father opened the door, tentative. “Hey. I was … just wondering. Maybe we coul
d go out for dinner tonight, or something. I know you’ve been through a lot, there’s a lot of … stuff going on, around town, and I thought it might be a good time for us to talk about all of it. I know we talked a little bit about it last night, but there’s more that I’d like to say to you. About that, about … your mom. Everything.”
“I’d like that,” Valerie said. “But … some high school friends have invited me over for a small wake for … our friend Ed. It’s tonight. It’s … kinda important. I really would like to go to that, if that’s okay.”
“Yes, of course. I understand. That is important. Would you like me to go with you?”
“No, it’s only for … us kids. But … tomorrow night, maybe? I would like to talk about all of that. With you.”
“Yes. We can do that. Tomorrow night. And … I … I’m glad you’re finally starting to make … friends. It’s good. It’s healthy. I’m glad you have friends.”
Valerie waited a beat before answering. “Me, too.”
Her father nodded and began to close the door.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Nobody in town would speak to Darin about the bridge. Nobody would really talk to Darin at all, the few folks he saw on the sidewalk were nearly always elderly and turned away in fear from him. He asked a couple of store clerks but the younger ones had no idea what he was talking about, they knew nothing of a bridge, and the older ones shut down the conversation immediately. Darin kept wandering and felt a few drops of rain hit him on the head. It was getting dark and he knew he was running out of time.
He stopped by a small public library that was just closing, and tapped on the window. The librarian, an elderly woman with her white hair wound up in a tight bun, waved him on inside. He entered and she nodded to him.
“You’re just in time, if you’re looking for a book. I close in ten minutes but seeing as that you’re my first customer of the day, I’ll stay a tad longer for you. I’ve never seen you before, you new in town?”