The Incident

by Andrew Neiderman

  Up until the time Jena showed up, Victoria teetered on the verge of changing her mind. In the end, she took a deep breath and decided that Jena was right: the demons she had to face were inside her and not on any path through the woods.

  She was trembling when they cruised into the village. It was May and far from what the small hamlet would become in less than two months. Nevertheless, the warm spring night brought people out and stores were staying open longer. This happened to be one of the nicest evenings of the year, with temperatures clinging to the low seventies.

  ‘How are we going to do this?’ Victoria asked. Now that they were in the village, the logistics played on her mind.

  ‘I’ll park my car where it will be inconspicuous, and then after we go through the shortcut, we’ll have to walk back to town,’ Jena said.

  ‘I’m not sure I want anyone to see us go through the alley to the shortcut,’ Victoria decided. She was thinking of pulling out now. ‘It’ll be too weird for them. This is weird.’

  ‘We’ll make sure no one sees us. Stop worrying so much. There,’ she said, nodding at a parking space. ‘We’ll park across from Echert’s garage. It’s closed. No one will notice us.’

  After she parked and turned off the engine, Victoria still hesitated. ‘I’m not sure this is wise,’ she said.

  ‘It’s wise.’ Jena’s enthusiasm was almost comical now.

  Victoria shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you expect from this.’

  ‘I expect to help you,’ she said and opened her door. ‘C’mon.’

  She stepped out. Victoria hesitated and then got out as well. They crossed the street and, clinging to the shadows, they made their way back to the center of the village. No one was standing in front of Kayfield’s or Trustman’s fruit and vegetable market. Across the street, however, Billy Polland and Gerry Sussman were sitting on a stoop and smoking. Both were in their class. Something caught their attention and they looked the other way.

  ‘Quickly,’ Jena ordered and practically jogged across the front of Kayfield’s Bar and Grill. With her head down, Victoria followed. They reached the alleyway and practically dove into the darkness just outside of the glow cast by the streetlights. From the darkness, Victoria looked back at the boys and saw they were joined by another, Tommy Stratton. The three started up the street toward George’s.

  ‘Told you it would be easy,’ Jena said. ‘Lead the way and try to do it as closely to how you did it that night.’

  Victoria began to talk to herself, telling herself that the darkness was no different here and the shadows cast by the starlight were shadows of trees and not monsters. She took baby steps at first, quite aware that Jena was watching every movement, even her breathing.

  ‘Didn’t you walk faster?’ she asked after a moment. ‘You’ve got to try to do everything as you remember it.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor Daniels,’ she said. Jena laughed, but it was a thin, nervous laugh. As they moved farther along, they were leaving the light and the sounds of the village behind them. The maple, oak and birch trees had filled out. There were walls of leaves and, in some parts of the path, the darkness did seem deeper, thicker.

  After a few more minutes, Victoria stopped.

  ‘What?’ Jena asked instantly.

  ‘I remember I stopped because I thought I had heard something, someone over there,’ she said, nodding to her left. ‘I waited and it became quiet again. I mean, it was a busy summer night so I could hear voices, cars and music, but off away.’

  ‘Over there?’ Jena asked, looking to her left as though it was happening now. ‘Did you tell the police that?’

  ‘I don’t remember. The sounds stopped, so I continued anyway, maybe faster,’ she said, walking faster and trying to avoid branches and tree roots. ‘I stubbed my foot, but I kept walking and then …’ She paused. There were lights on in the Miller house. ‘I didn’t see those lights that night,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I don’t know why, and then I sensed someone was behind me, but before I could turn—’

  ‘They dropped that sack over you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She stood there. Neither spoke.

  Suddenly, Victoria said, ‘There was something else. Something I didn’t mention.’ She broke into a run and Jena hurried after her.

  ‘What?’ she called. ‘Why are you running? Jesus, Victoria, I just scratched myself. There are berry bushes here,’ she called. ‘Shit.’

  She slowed down. Victoria had disappeared in the darkness.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ she called. She looked back. It seemed as though the shadows were closing in quickly. Her lungs ached. She was at least fifteen pounds too heavy. Mrs Helm, the girls’ physical education teacher, was always telling her to lose weight.

  Finally, she broke out of the woods and saw Victoria standing by the road waiting for her. Her head was down and her hands were on her hips.

  ‘What happened? Why did you just run like that?’ Jena asked as she approached her.

  ‘I don’t know why I forgot,’ she said. She shook her head but kept looking down. ‘I don’t know why. I was just so confused about it.’

  ‘What? What did you forget?’

  ‘When the sack was pulled over me, I smelled gas.’

  ‘Gas?’

  ‘Gas, gas – like you put in a car, gas. It must have been on one or both of their hands or on their clothes or something. Gas,’ she said.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You go get your car,’ Victoria said. ‘I’m walking home.’

  ‘What? But … I don’t want to leave you alone,’ she added, but what she really meant was that now she didn’t want to be left alone.

  ‘It’s all right. I’m not afraid. You were right. I’m glad we did that walk. Thanks,’ she said and started away.

  ‘But … it’s early,’ Jena cried.

  She watched as Victoria continued up the road, her arms folded just under her breasts, her head down, looking anything but frightened of what could lie ahead. She was walking at a fast pace and, in moments, disappeared in the darkness.

  Jena uttered a small cry, bit down on her lower lip and hurried toward Main Street and the way back to the village where there were more lights and people, and where the demons she aroused for Victoria would not be.

  At least she hoped so.

  Victoria, on the other hand, was not thinking about her demons. If anything, whatever was fantastical about the Incident had been diminished. Memories were supposed to get thinner as time passed. Could her crazy friend Jena have just done something more effective than her psychologist and all the police combined? It was as if a curtain had been opened for a few seconds and she was able to peer back through time and see through the fog.

  She broke into a jog and then a run. Gasping, she burst into her house, took a moment to catch her breath and then went to the living-room doorway. Her father and mother were sitting on the settee as close together as two teenagers on the sofa in the living room of some house during a house party with the lights low and the music of some doo-wop song pushing inhibitions away as lips and hands began exploring.

  ‘What happened? Why are you back so soon?’ her mother asked, moving out from under her father’s arm and sitting forward.

  ‘I remembered something about that night, something I forgot to say,’ she began.

  Her father sat forward, clasping his hands. ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘When they attacked me, there was the smell of car gas,’ she said. ‘It was probably on their hands.’

  ‘You forgot that? All this time, you forgot that?’ her mother asked, incredulous.

  ‘Yes. And when I remembered that, I remembered something else that I think just made sense to me.’

  ‘What’s that?’ her mother asked, shaking her head.

  ‘A sound that I think was the sound of a ring of keys,’ she said. ‘Like the school janitor wears – you know, jingling.’

  They both stared at her.

  ‘How did you … What bro
ught back these memories?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Jena had an idea. It was something she read so we just did it.’

  ‘What?’ her father asked.

  ‘I … we went on the shortcut from the village.’

  Her mother sat back.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ her father said. He turned to her mother. ‘What do ya think of that? Jena Daniels comes up with somethin’ the psychologist never suggested.’

  ‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ she replied.

  ELEVEN

  Even though he was having his lunch at Top’s Diner, a popular place, Marvin took Bart Stonefield’s bringing her here for takeout as an arrogant affront. Surely Bart had seen his truck out there when he pulled up with her, but he still came in, and this just hours after he had confronted him. The arrogant bastard.

  Marvin could barely control his rage, and he knew when he got like this, he was vulnerable in ways he despised in other men – that look of guilt, that giveaway. He would avoid looking directly at anyone, especially someone in any sort of authority – even a waitress in a restaurant, for Christ’s sake, afraid she would take one look at him and know all his little secrets, know whom he had robbed recently and, in the past, knew when he had shoplifted, knew when he had put that snake in Mrs Rotter’s top desk drawer in tenth grade … on and on, until the waitress would suddenly scream and point to him and shout, ‘It was him!’

  He hated looking meek and frightened, but he warned himself that raw anger, such as he was feeling now, put him at risk. Maybe that was what Bart Stonefield hoped would happen. He sat there in Top’s, forcing the rage back like someone swallowing resurging bile. When he felt confident that he would not attract any interest or attention, he left. He didn’t walk too quickly or rush to his car. He strolled like someone who had all the time in the world. He even drove more slowly than usual.

  But when he was away from any prying eyes, the rage rushed back through him. Stonefield was so arrogantly confident. He hated rich people. He loved overcharging them whenever he could. He hated the way they were able to bypass the tough stuff of everyday life, like getting enough food on the table or paying the electric bill, just as much as he hated them for their expensive cars and clothes, the freedom they had to buy almost anything, the lack of worry about how much they spent, and especially their indifference to those poorer than they were.

  He wasn’t a communist or anything like that and he was far from being against making money. He simply hated how easily some seemed to be able to do it, even some of the electricians and plumbers he knew, and especially those smug accountants and lawyers. He hated their kids who had inherited all their privileges – a guy like Bart Stonefield.

  When he was younger, he was good at hiding all this resentment. He couldn’t recall the first time he had had someone from a family wealthier than his buy him lunch or dinner, but he was sure he had enjoyed it. In a way, it was like getting back at them, or at Fate for handing him a lousy hand at the card table of life.

  It was easy to pull up to a gas station and have one of them pay to fill his tank. He didn’t even blink when they took out their money and paid the restaurant bill or bought the beer. He started to borrow money from them, too, money they knew and he knew he would never repay. No one complained. No one dared complain or come after him.

  Back in high school, he liked dating girls from well-to-do families. They didn’t have to be all that pretty or well built either. They dressed better and he could spend time in their luxurious homes. He knew they went out with him because he was dangerous. He was smoking, drinking, driving well before most of the boys in his class. And he was tough, too. He had that wild look.

  He knew there were snobby girls who called him greasy, even a degenerate, but he believed secretly, deep down, they wanted to be with him, to spend a night or two with him so they could brag. In a cool way, that gave them some extra standing. They had played with fire and not been burned – or maybe just a little singed.

  Sometimes, just for the fun of it, he would take a girl like that on a date and deliberately act like a virgin – timid – just to see her reaction. He knew when she reported on her date to her girlfriends that few, if any, would believe her. In a way, that created more curiosity and he probably got to go out with a few more just because they were skeptical.

  It didn’t hurt that his parents were unambitious for their kids. He could probably count on the fingers of one hand how often his mother or father had looked at his report card. If they were called about something he had done in school, he might get a slap on the side of his head or simply cursed. By the next day, it was forgotten and he came to believe that he was promoted to the next grade or passed in a subject because his teachers simply didn’t want to have to put up with him again.

  That was fine with him. He never bought into the idea that the secret to success was to succeed in school. He saw too many examples of rich kids who had inherited positions in their family businesses – like Sammy Elkin who took over his father’s wholesale plumbing or Tim Kaplan who became his uncle’s partner in the natural gas company a year before his uncle died in a car accident. No, for guys like him, it was make your own luck your own way, and that meant fewer restrictions or obligations. Rules were for the weak.

  Today, especially after seeing Bart and Victoria together, all those resentments came rushing back at him, reminding him that he hadn’t really gotten even a quarter of the way toward that world of privilege. He wasn’t just walking in his father’s footsteps in some half-ass car repair business; he was walking in his own shoes and look what had become of him.

  Nothing for some time had brought that home to him as much as seeing Bart Stonefield with her. Christ, was there anything Stonefield couldn’t get? Talk about rules not applying … how the hell did he swoop in and get into that cockpit so quickly and so easily? Maybe Bart had less of a conscience than he did. Whatever. Stonefield was the one having a good time.

  Whereas nothing I do, Marvin thought, has any real effect in this world. He was insignificant. Like engineering the most brilliant bank robbery and getting away with millions of dollars but no one noticing or caring. What would Bonnie and Clyde have been without their notoriety? Petty thieves, that’s what. They would have died and been buried under blank tombstones.

  Was he going to take this sitting down?

  Would he ignore it and go on? Go on how? Little embezzlements – like charging too much for simple work or charging for new parts that were old and cheap – were suddenly unsatisfying. He couldn’t recall the last time he felt so damn pessimistic about his miserable little existence. And all this while Bart Stonefield paraded in front of him with his fancy car, fancy clothes and a beautiful woman.

  Once, Bart Stonefield had seen him as a hero, looked up to him, wanted him at his side – not only for protection, but for the excitement he brought. He was the forbidden friend, the one you didn’t tell your parents about, but you bragged you had done this or that with him. He made them look tougher, a little more dangerous. None of those types had anything whatsoever to do with him now. They would barely acknowledge him with a nod, and there was that smug, superior look on their faces. They always knew what he would become. He had been used, that’s all.

  For Christ’s sake, in the end he was the one who was raped. They used his manhood, his courage, his wise-ass ways to make themselves feel as if they had all this, too. They sucked him dry. They were vampires. He was good enough under the cloak of darkness, but did any of them ever invite him to their homes for dinner? And after high school, when they went off to those expensive colleges, did they ever come by to talk old times? They didn’t even bring him any business.

  Would he even be invited to their class reunion now? And if he went, would they talk to him?

  It really had been years since all these thoughts flew so freely through his mind. He had brushed most of it off, and if anything even slightly annoyed him, he drank it into the ground or fucked the brains out of some gi
rl he picked up at Johnny’s Dugout. He could wake up the next morning and feel restored. Wasn’t that good enough?

  Suddenly, no.

  The sight of them looking so perfect together canceled out anything and everything he had done and could do to make him feel good about himself. That was it. They made him feel less manly. Losers raped people – not confident, strong, good-looking and bold men like him. He hadn’t raped anyone since, had he? Not really. Taking advantage of a drunk-out-of-her-mind broad wasn’t rape, was it?

  But the reality was pretty damn clear now. The only way he’d enjoy a woman like Victoria Myers was to rape her. But not Bart Stonefield. He could date her, take her to expensive restaurants, buy her expensive gifts and sweep her off her feet with his charm. He wouldn’t suffer a moment of guilt the way it was now.

  You’re an idiot to be surprised, he told himself. Anyone could have predicted this. Wasn’t it his father who complained after their neighbors, the Temples, died in a house fire, ‘The rich don’t die in house fires. You can be sure the fire department gets there in fuckin’ time.’

  Well, this rich boy ain’t gettin’ outta this fire, he muttered as he drove along. He’ll pay. I’m not the fool he thinks I am.

  They were going on some sort of picnic, he thought when he realized they had bought takeout. Where would they go? He remembered Bart had that boat out on Echo Lake. He made a quick right and sped up. When he got there, he parked and looked out, at first not seeing them. Then he spotted them. As he watched them, he felt his body tighten and tighten. It was as if he was turning into stone.

  It was too much. He started his engine again and drove away. He felt as if some creature was in his head, gnawing on his brain, getting down through his layers of memories until he was back there that night. Why the sight of her excited him so much more than the sight of any girl was a puzzle, but it did.

  Yes, it was him who had come up with the idea when he saw how she was going to go home.

  Or, rather, the idea just came to him. He remembered now. He almost couldn’t breathe after he had thought of it, how easy it would be.