by Ian Ballard
It was happening so fast. A second streak of silver. Then a second wave of pain.
A blade. That much she understood.
The tip pierced her skin midway down her back, wedging its way into her spine, prying two close-knit bones apart. It was in her spine itself. She could feel it tearing through the thick ribbon of nerves.
Then, suddenly there was no pain at all.
“You’re killing her,” a voice said.
“Shut up, Luke. Just stay still and shut up,” she heard Tad say. His voice sounded calm and icy.
Meanwhile, the floor was accelerating toward her. Legs she could no longer feel, but which she saw, buckled cleanly beneath her. She plummeted to the floor landing on her right side, her head plopped down not far from Garrett's body.
She tried to scream, but no sound came. She willed the words a second time. A second time, nothing. Not even a huff or a rush of air. Except for her face—which squirmed, contorted, and blinked—her body was motionless. She heard the sound of the knife being withdrawn from her back. Her mouth opened and closed, as silently as a dying fish, as she desperately tried to draw a breath into her lungs.
The ground in front of her—that was the only place her paralyzed head could gaze. A hammer and a roll of tape. Then, on the floor just inches from her face, she saw several of the baby spiders, whose exodus she’d unleashed moments earlier. The creatures were creeping about on tiny cautious legs. Her eyes darted frantically from side to side as a single, intrepid spider approached and began to scale her nose.
The floorboards creaked beside her ear and a horizontal version of Tad’s lower half came into view. He crouched down and looked at her. There was amusement in his eyes, when he saw she was alive and aware of what was happening. He smiled a tall vertical grin and drew his head close in to hers. In his hand he clutched a knife, blade pointed down. His left hand appeared before her face and floated there. Then, he extended his index finger and brought his fingertip so close to her eye his fingernail almost touched it. Her lids at first fluttered and then she held them closed.
When she opened them again, Tad was holding the blade exactly where his finger had been, the tip a blur of silver, a hairsbreadth from the lens of her eye.
“No, Tad. No. There’s no time for that,” Luke said from somewhere behind her.
Tad looked annoyed. He turned and gave a scowl, but then lowered the knife.
A moment later, he brought his lips to Rose’s ear. She could feel him breathing on her cheek. Then he whispered, so softly that Luke couldn’t have heard, “Garrett didn’t kill your dog, you stupid bitch. Garrett hasn’t killed a dog in years. But I’ll give you one guess who did.”
Head motionless, she tracked the knife as it rose into the air, vanishing in the lofty heights beyond the periphery of her vision. For a moment it hung out of sight somewhere above her. It reminded her of one of the rides at the fair. No, at Six Flags. That one ride they called the Parachute Sky Jump. Rose had gone with her parents the first time in Dallas when she was just a kid. The passengers went up in little baskets a hundred or more feet into the sky.
She remembered how they'd all held hands, the three of them, she and her mom and her dad. They didn't say a word all the way up, as if observing one of those moments of prayer at church. And when you eventually reached the top, you could see the whole wide world. And you hung, dangling, for what seemed a terrifying eternity.
And then, finally, you fell.
21
Austin
It’s 5:58 a.m. The sun is supposed to come up at 6:34, according to an Internet site I consulted. That gives Courtney and me a little over thirty minutes to wind things up.
Courtney is writing her letter. Still in the bathtub. I untied her hands, but not her feet. I gave her a calculus textbook from her desk to write on. She’s placed the book and paper on the upward slope of her thighs. An awkward setup, but she manages.
I can hear the pen moving on the paper. Even beneath the drone of the fan. She’s getting close to the bottom of the backside of the page—which is all the space she gets. She writes quickly.
You’ll have to excuse the lack of humor in my reflections. I’m not feeling myself.
There have been a number of irregularities in the process tonight. Irregularities in me. I don’t know where to begin.
There is, if I’m feeling this right, moisture on my fingertips. Tiny tingling drops of perspiration. Unless I’m just imagining it. But no. I close my eyes. I feel it. There are voltages. There are droplets.
But the irregularities are in my head too.
Before now, the whole process—Movie Time—was like, if you will excuse a risqué analogy, sleeping with someone with a condom on. You’re inside the person. It’s intimate, but it’s filtered, blunted.
Today it’s like the condom broke. It’s just me and Courtney and all the shit happening in her is happening in me. It’s neither roller coaster nor horror movie. There is no dividing line between me and the pain and the hopelessness and the danger. It’s just the two of us, alone with her suffering.
It’s irritating, and sickening, and revolting.
“I’m finished,” Courtney says. Her voice is quiet and exhausted.
She cried a lot during the first hour after I took the tape off her mouth. She just curled into a ball. I said soothing things to calm her down, but it didn’t do much.
A bit later I felt something touching me. I cringed. When I looked down, Courtney was trying to hold my hand. She actually reached out and took it. Interlaced her fingers through mine. I have no idea why she did this.
Then she got calm and still, and she eventually started talking to me. She answered the questions I asked her. Kept her end of the bargain.
The first thing she said was “Is this real?”
Without sounding too jaded, they always say this or something like it at first.
But the next thing she said was surprising. “Are you going to let this happen?” she asked.
No one has ever said this before. Obviously, I’m not only letting this happen, I’m causing it to happen.
It was like she was making an appeal to the angels of my better nature to intervene on her behalf. Addressing the charming, sensitive guy she met in the coffee shop. As if he were a real thing, hidden inside me. It’s sad, but it's not like that.
The goodness does not infiltrate me. I wear it, but it does not become me. In the end she was just addressing the mask.
Are you going to let this happen?
The question haunts me. It plays into what’s happening to me now. With my heart, and breathing, and thoughts, and fingertips. Don’t ask me how. Courtney has an optimism, a faith in me or my soul or the human condition that defies all reason.
She hands me her letter folded into thirds, as if it’s ready to be placed in an envelope. Both of our hands are shaking.
“That was fast,” I say. I can hear the nervousness in my voice.
I consider whether I should read it. I always read the letters, but today it occurs to me that maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe it would be nice not to intrude on this last communication. To permit this final intimacy between Courtney and whoever the letter is to.
But not checking the letter would be stupid. She could sneak in a description of me or some telling detail that could come back and bite me. Of course, the FBI already knows what I look like, so I’m not sure what the telling detail would be.
But people can be tricky. I shouldn’t underestimate her. The mere fact she could attempt it is reason enough for me to thwart it. Even if it had no chance of success.
That’s funny.
Courtney, who is infinitely deserving of faith, is denied it. I, who deserve nothing, receive it.
No, that’s not funny. That’s fucked up. So much is fucked up.
I’m picturing an astronaut who’s slipped from a space station and tumbles, untethered, into space. He falls forever to his death. He reaches for some last rung of a ladder, but it's miles away by now.
I think about his wide, truthful eyes beneath his mask.
My heart is pounding hard.
Another picture keeps wanting to form in my mind. But I know I can’t let it. Somehow I know that if I see it, if I let it appear before me, I’ll die.
And yet, I know all too well what it is. Even without picturing it. Just by the weight and pressure behind my eyes. It’s that piece of pink cloth from so long ago. The nightgown. It’s like some dogged ghost, hell-bent on having a grievance redressed. But no—that can’t happen.
Trying to regain control. To quarantine these viral thoughts.
I look at Courtney. “Is it to your family?” I ask, holding the letter. I try to sound normal and composed. I don’t want to let on that something’s wrong.
“Yeah,” Courtney says, sullenly.
“Is the address on here?”
“It’s on the top.”
“Do you mind if I read it?”
She looks down. “I assumed you would.”
I unfold the letter and peruse the first page. It really would be negligent for me not to read what she wrote here. Kindness and generosity must be bounded by safety considerations.
Her writing slants forward with loopy letters. The ink is purple. Her penmanship isn’t as legible as I first thought. Deciphering it is slow going.
There’s a part to her mom, her dad, and her younger brother. She tells them she loves them. Thanks them for everything. Recounts a few poignant childhood episodes (one about her first sandbox, one involving a poodle named Coco who lost an eye). Then she talks about the afterlife a bit. It’s pretty sentimental, but everything seems to be in order here.
I fold up the letter after only reading about half of it and slide it into my backpack.
I try to make my heart slow down by whispering to myself. But it doesn’t seem to work. Honestly, it feels like I’m having a fucking heart attack.
I’ve made the cloth go away. There’s no pink cloth. I’ve pushed it all the way to the bottom of a well. I’m holding it deep under water. So deep, the water’s black.
But now there’s something else—another picture that’s wanting to appear. I’m drowning it, but it’s flailing and splashing. There’s so much life in it. And it wants desperately to show its face.
God, I wish all these devils would leave me the fuck alone.
I lean over and put my head in my hands for a moment. I close my eyes and rub my temples.
“What’s wrong?” Courtney asks.
I open my eyes and look at her. She’s looking at me pityingly.
“I want to show you something,” I say.
I take my wallet out of my back pocket, remove my driver’s license, and hand it to her. She takes it and looks at it.
“That’s me," I tell her. "That’s my real name."
I’m not sure why I just did this—I’m literally panting now—it was symbolic or something. It’s like there’s a dignity in knowing the name of the person who killed you. It's important, I think. Like, morally.
It never occurred to me before but it seems like something a person would want to know. The way parents of missing children always want to know how they died or where their bodies are. Somehow there’s consolation in rubbing your face in all that blood. Empathy or masochism or whatever you want to call it.
Telling her my name shows her how seriously I'm taking this. It’s almost like I’m trusting her. To do what, I’m not sure. But I want desperately for her to know that I trust her.
I want to honor her. I want this to mean something. But I don’t know how. Everything in me from toe to fingertip is shaking.
I’ve always taken my sanity for granted. The way I always know I’ll look good in photos. I’m always so fucking rational and sane. My brain is like one of those speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi. Precise, lightning fast. Whether I’m reading, or fucking or killing, it works perfectly. Even when I’m hungover. Even when I miss my morning coffee.
But not today.
Today the ground is littered with wrecked machines and dead Ewoks.
Courtney looks at the license and hands it back.
She starts to cry.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Why did you show me that? Just so I’d know. . . .” She trails off.
“Know what?” I ask. I put my hand on her shoulder.
“That it's over. That I can stop trying to convince you to let me go.”
“No, that's not it at all. I just wanted you to know who I am. . . . I didn’t know you were trying to convince me. . . .” Now it’s my turn to trail off.
She says nothing for a long time. I feel embarrassed. I wanted it to be a positive thing, but it hurt her. That was stupid. I’m so fucking stupid.
She brushes her hair out of her eyes. “Can I write another letter?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said I could have an hour to write my letter. I still have eighteen minutes, so—”
“To whom?”
“A guy I know . . . or knew,” she says.
“Must have been an important guy.”
She shrugs. “Important to me.”
“He’s not, like, your boyfriend, is he?” I know this makes no sense, but I actually felt jealous when she mentioned him.
She looks hurt. “Of course not. Why would I have been out with you if he was my boyfriend?”
“There’s this thing called cheating. . . .” I regret saying this before the words are out of my mouth. I know she is not a cheater.
“I’m not like that,” she says.
“I know,” I say. “So who is he?”
“We studied abroad together in Spain. We were together during the program. Just a couple of months.”
“And then what?”
“Then nothing. I never saw him again.”
“Why not?”
“Look, I don’t know. . . . Does it matter?”
“Sorry—”
“I guess he didn’t feel the same way I felt because I never heard from him. I always figured one day he'd call me.” Courtney laughs, sadly. “It was only a year-and-a-half ago. Maybe I would have heard from him one day. Anyway, I never really told him how I felt. We didn’t talk much about feelings. I want to tell him now. And I want to ask him how he felt. But I guess that doesn’t make much sense, since I’ll never know the answer.”
“Do you know his address?”
She exhales loudly. “Could you look it up for me? You know, afterwards. . . .”
“Sure,” I say.
I take a second piece of paper out of my bag and hand Courtney a pen, the paper, and the calculus book.
“Is there enough time?” she asks.
“Don’t worry about the time. I’ll let you finish.”
She arranges the book again on her lap and starts writing.
I’m regretting that I’m here. That I have to do this to her. I think about what she said, “Are you going to let this happen?” Is there a piece of me that could pull the plug? That could make it all stop?
For a moment, in the craziness of my thoughts, there is doubt. There is the possibility that a thing in me could save her. Perhaps there is even a thing in me worth saving.
If it kept up like this, maybe it would even force me to stop doing it altogether.
Courtney writes for fifteen minutes. I sit and watch my hands faintly trembling.
Finally, she looks up and hands me the second letter. It’s folded up like the last one.
“I have to read this one,” I say, “because of my name.”
“I know,” she says.
I open it up and read:
Dear David,
It’s me Courtney, from the Granada program. I hope you’re doing well. I always thought I’d see you again, but something’s come up and it looks like that isn’t going to happen.
That time we spent in Spain was really the best. It wasn’t very long, but I’m so grateful for it. A lot of people never have the chance to fall in love, but because of you I
did. I always thought you’d be one of the pictures that would flash before my eyes in my last moments, and you are.
I remember everything like it just happened. Seeing you the first time in the lobby in Madrid. My heart fluttered and I had some feeling about what would happen. David, I wish I could see you again, just one more time.
I remember our first kiss in the Camel Bar on Pedro Antonio. Suddenly everyone was just gone and you walked across the room and pressed your lips to mine. “Oh Life” by Desiree was playing. That might have been the best moment of my life. I wish I could kiss you again, just one more time.
I remember the night train to Seville. Our first night alone. You held me the whole night. We could see the stars through the window. Your hands felt so good. God, I wish I could touch you again, just one more time.
Anyway, I don’t want to be too sappy. I just wanted to tell you I was thinking about you and that I wish you all the best.
Today is kind of like that day in Barcelona where we said good-bye. That day we hugged under the fluorescent lights in the airport and I had the nerve to say for once what I was thinking. I leaned in and whispered in your ear. You probably remember what I said. Anyway, David, I wanted to say I love you, just one more time.
Courtney
I slump over in my chair. I press my hands to my ears. Like I'm trying to block something out. I sit like this for two or three minutes. Maybe I’m murmuring to myself.
The whole time this picture—not the pink cloth, but the other one—this other fucking picture that I don’t even know what it is, but which I fear like hell itself—is pushing its way into my thoughts. Stabbing me like a knife. Demanding to be recognized.
And suddenly, there it is. Filling up every square inch of my brain.
The picture is Nicole. Nicole Copeland. The Boulder girl I didn’t kill.
Suddenly my hands are moving without me telling them to move. Without me fully knowing they're moving.
There's a scream. I know this is bad because there shouldn't be any screams. This should be a time of silence. A final moment of reflection. But there are screams.
Or a scream.