by Lee Thompson
“Maybe Red can help.”
“Maybe. He’s told me a few things. Shown me something.”
“What?”
“Go ahead and get dressed, there’s plenty of time to catch up once we get you home and comfortable.”
I dressed in the bathroom, beneath a flood of emotions—relief, hope, a gratefulness for the good people in my life, those I didn’t feel I deserved. When I stepped out of the restroom, the shirt hanging from my bones, Mike took my right arm and helped me into the hall, saying, “I got your prescription. We’ll stop and fill it before I take you home.”
“I don’t want to go home yet.”
A nurse in a purple smock passed us, smiling. My shoulder flared with heat.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Out to the river. You know the spot.”
Mike smiled. “I do. It’s sunny out, but not as warm as it looks.”
“I don’t mind.”
Mike shifted the box higher on his hip. “The river it is then.”
I put one foot in front of the other, thinking, This is how life goes, a bunch of small steps that lead us back to the beginning.
* * *
Mike unfolded two lawn chairs with lime green crossed-strapping and helped me ease into the one on the left. I thanked him and thought, He knew I’d want to come out here. The wind was crisp, the sky clear, sun bright off the water. I saw me and Mark as boys, being baptized by our father and then as men, dealing pain that never would have hurt us quite the same if we’d just been honest with each other from the start. I wiped my eyes, wanting to blame the sunshine, the dust curling off the bank of the river as the wind gusted and Mike coughed into his sleeve.
It starts with being honest with yourself. If you hadn’t blown up at him or April and let it control you, they’d both still be around. If…
Mike said, “Don’t think like that. The past is behind us. Leave it there.”
I nodded, glad the pain was rushing in, stinging my eyes. I caught glimpses of a whirlpool swirling at insane speeds, a girl’s cry that never ended, a brother who held on when all hope was lost. I thought about Angela and what she’d said about my Soul-Birth, and the ache in my chest made me wonder if she was right and if it was still happening. “Why did they need us?”
“Maybe it’s best that you don’t know. Just heal up. There will be plenty of time to talk about everything when you’re rested.”
“I remember a pit that runs so deep it’s endless.”
“Like hate?”
“No, hate can only go so far. Endless.”
“Okay. It’s not a dream, is that what you want to hear? It’s in the basement, in a silver bowl.”
“How’d it get back in the bowl?”
“You called to it and it flowed to you like a river.”
“I remember Angela—”
“Proserpine.”
“Yeah, I remember her telling me that when I gave her the key, I actually gave her two.”
“The smoky glass blade.”
“What is it for?”
“It’s got a long history. I don’t know why my dad had it. When I die, it’ll be one of the first questions I ask him.”
“And we’ve got to protect them now, don’t we?” The sun hurt my eyes. I hung my head, muscles in my neck stiff.
“I don’t think they’re coming back from wherever you sent them.”
“I need to ask Red.”
“When you heal up. I’ll go with you.”
“Good. And thanks.”
Mike clapped his hand over my forearm and squeezed.
“Life is pretty good after the bad goes away.”
Mike spat to his right. “Even the bad teaches us things about ourselves.”
“And each other. I remember her trying to get you to kill me.”
“We’ll get it all straightened out when you’re better. You gotta learn to take it easy and stop gnawing on a bone that’s buried.”
I smiled. It felt good.
A car sped into the lot, coming to a stop with a squeal of brakes. I started to turn in the chair, fingers digging into the warm plastic arm rests, but pain shot through my side and turned the ground black. I looked back to the river as a car door slammed. I heard a man huffing cold air, the creak of a leather belt as Duncan plopped down between where me and Mike sat. The old cop wore street clothes—dark jeans, a tan polo shirt, matching tan jacket, and a brown baseball cap. Duncan cradled a six-pack of Arrogant Bastard Ale and pulled two free, handed one to Mike who nodded and popped the top off on the edge of his chair then handed it across to me. Mike took the second beer and opened it, inhaled a long swig. Duncan cracked his knuckles and said, “These seemed fitting. I’m glad you two are alive. I’d ask how it went but I really don’t want to know.”
I stared at the water, at a black bird with dabs of red mid-wing jumping branch to branch in the bramble across the river. “I couldn’t tell you anyway.” I leaned my head back and let sunshine wash over my face. “I think the drugs are wearing off.”
Mike shook a bottle of pills. “You ready for a dose?”
I shook my head, letting my mind wash clean in the pain, my scar tissue itching. “I’m okay. I can handle it for now.”
Duncan popped a beer open and draped his thick fingers over each other, between his legs. “I’m sorry about the girl you loved, John. I knew she was cracking up when you were up there, she was talking to herself a lot, getting manic. She took some sleeping pills to relax.” I listened, scratching my scalp. “You still planning to be deputy? Or you going to try to fill Pat’s shoes and be sheriff?”
“I don’t want to do either. I’m unsure right now. I just want to heal up, I guess.”
“I have a friend that works at Child Protective Services. I could give her a call. You’d make a good agent. You have the right heart.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Do that.” Duncan ran a hand down his pant leg and fixed the cuff over his hiking boot. “You missed the big funeral, all week long. They buried Andrews, White, Wallace, Andrew’s wife, Michael’s mom.”
Mike cleared his throat. “I let everyone know what she’d done to Natalie. No one showed. It made my day.” He shifted his feet and opened a new pack of cigarettes, stuffed the wrapper in his coat pocket. “I expected to find my dad buried with Nat, but he wasn’t. He could be somewhere else on the property though. Or maybe he just couldn’t handle the guilt and ran away.”
I didn’t know what to say, didn’t have any idea what he was talking about at all, so I said nothing. I let my chin touch my chest. The wind whipped at my hair and crawled over my skin, I wished it could wipe the past away, take everyone’s heartache with it, but I knew now that our scars were important. Looking over at Duncan, I said, “How have you been, sir? Is Angie in the ground? At rest?”
“Doug,” Duncan said. “My friends call me Doug. And yeah, she’s with Jesus or something. Her mom is taking it better than I thought she would. She hasn’t shot herself in the face.”
Mike said, “What about you?”
Doug frowned. “I’m okay. Nothing I can do about it.” He took a swig and wiped his lips with the back of his hand, then leaned to the side and pulled a folded paper from his back pocket. He opened the paper and passed it to Mike. The beer felt cold and heavy against my thigh as Mike looked over the paper and said, “He didn’t know what the hell he was doing with Cat. Jim expected her to be at work, thought he’d go right in your house and steal the bag of clothes, take the evidence out in the woods and burn it. Says he liked her. Liked the kid especially. He was a fucked up dude.”
I coughed and put a hand over my heart, felt mucus slip from the tip of my nose. “I figured as much. What about your daughter, Dun—Doug?”
The big cop shook his head and pushed his baseball cap farther back, wiped a hand over his forehead. “Pat used to rape girls over in ‘Nam. He made Jim, who’d been a medic, help him, hold them down. One day Jim snapped over there, started
killing them off, hoping that he could end their suffering, make Pat worry he’d get caught. But Pat wasn’t worried, I guess. He started doing it here, God knows why. Angie and her friends were camping. After he did what he did, Pat left it at that, left them with the fucking shame and Jim did the only thing he knew to do, and this time he left a message. The story in his journal was graphic and sickening, I’d thought I’d lose my lunch. I still might.”
I saw the word on the forest floor—Repent—among the rocks in the river. I squeezed my eyes shut until it faded, wishing I could wrap an arm over Duncan’s shoulder but unable to reach him and lacking the strength to stand. “I’m sorry.”
Doug said, “It’s a fucked up world.”
Mike said, “It is.”
I opened my mouth, closed it. I saw Red pulling his gloves off, only trying to help, and only making things worse. I set the beer between my legs, grateful for it, but not sure I’d be able to finish it. “It’s a fucked up world, but there’s still good, still miracles. Have you heard anything about Herb?”
Doug nodded, took another sip. “He tried to frame Pat after he killed Rusty Wallace, left one of the sheriff’s cigars in the wastebasket beneath the sink, but the mayor was a fool and took the hammer home, put it in a box of Christmas lights in his garage. He’s sitting, waiting for his pretrial right now. Doesn’t look good for him.”
“What about Brandy, his daughter?”
The cop rubbed his forearms as if to warm them. “Nice kid. I talked to her a couple days ago. She asked if you got the flowers she sent to your room.”
Mike smiled at me.
I nodded. “I did.”
“Good.”
Yeah, I thought. But how messed up is her world right now. What did she do to deserve the upheaval? Life throws us curve balls; it’s how we handle the decisions, the pressure, that forms us into someone we respect or hate.
Doug tapped my knee with his left hand. “She’ll be fine. Stop in and see her when you feel up to it. It’d make her day.”
“I will.”
Mike said, “It’s nice out here, with friends.”
Duncan wiped a tear out of his eye. “It’s beautiful.”
I agreed and took another swig of beer. The river wound through the countryside, the barren trees, water, a course timeless, unstoppable. I had many good memories there, and an awful one, but I thought that one stain, one trauma, no matter how severe, couldn’t cover the joys unless we allowed it.
About The Author
Lee Thompson started selling work in early 2010. You can find his stories in Delirium Books, Darkside Digital, Sideshow Press, Shock Totem, Apex’s Zombie Feed anthology, Tasmaniac Publications, and other neat places. He’s worked a lot, sweated a lot, and continues to take up space the best he can. The best place to keep track of what he’s up to is his blog: http://alongthispathsodarkly.blogspot.com