Under-Heaven

by Tim Greaton

  Sedge glanced around the quickly-darkening forest. He couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him. The shadows were falling long and dark from the afternoon sun. Maybe if he waited a few more minutes, she'd give herself up. He knew she wouldn't want to be alone in the dark woods. God knew, they had both learned to fear the dark.

  If I were Shelly, where would I be?

  Sedge skirted the hollow and stepped through the dense ferns that grew near a cluster of old pines. He reached around a thick, fallen birch to pull himself over, and his hand slipped on the slick moss that coated the trunk.

  His chest struck the dead wood with a dull thump. The air was knocked from his lungs. He struggled to draw his hands up under him, but again the moss was like grease, sending his palms skidding uselessly across its slick surface. He scooched up his knees and rolled to his side. With one hand braced on the solid ground he needed only an overhanging branch to pull himself to his feet. He looked up.

  Previously hidden by the pine's sagging boughs, her lifeless body dangled. Shelly's bloody face and dead eyes stared down at him.

  Sedge gasped and fell back, slamming his head on that same slick trunk. The world exploded in blackness.

  ...and his mind switched to another scene of horror from the past. And then another—and then, yet, another.

  It would be several hours before he was to wake on the bus, exhausted and utterly drained.

  CHAPTER THREE

  FRIENDS

  1

  "Enough of your games, Alan!" Jamie Lee screamed into the phone. "Where's my son?"

  "Jamie Lee, you just don't get it, do you? He belongs to both of us. There were two people in bed that day, and I was one of them. I told you yesterday that Brad and I were going for ride, and we are."

  Jamie Lee was clutching the phone so hard she could hear the hard plastic creaking beneath her fingers. She forced her grip to ease because she couldn't afford to lose the connection until she knew where Brad was. Tears rolled down her cheeks and off her chin, where they fell onto to the black oval phone she had paid too much for at the Augusta mall.

  "This isn't funny, Alan. Just bring him home where he belongs."

  "Screw you, Jamie Lee. What about my home? He's my son, too!"

  "Alan, you can't do this. The decree said I have custody of Brad. The judge wouldn't have even given you visitation if I hadn't said I wanted her to."

  "Thank you, Mother Theresa. What did you expect? Friggin woman judge, and you filling her head so full of shit her eyes were changing color. Just what the fuck did you expect to happen? You tell me?"

  "It was true, Alan. We both know that—"

  "Bullshit! None of it was true. You're a God-damned schizo, and it's time somebody told you so."

  Jamie Lee wanted to reach through the phone and scratch his eyes out. He always did this to her. It started on their first date. She remembered the way he had kissed a brunette and then had tried to convince her it was his cousin. Talk about missing the warnings. How could she have been so stupid?

  "Caught you speechless, huh?"

  "It was all true, Alan, and you know it. How do you explain the bruises my doctor photographed half a dozen times? And how would you account for the three days you spent in jail after breaking my collar bone? Maybe it's you, Alan, who needs the help. That twisted black mind of yours should be tied to electrodes and zapped a few hundred times. I'm sure it would never cure you, but with luck you'd be dead."

  "Look at this. Throwing insults at a man who treated you good—better than you ever deserved—for sixteen years. But now, you've hurt me enough. Brad and I have taken all we're going to take."

  Jamie Lee wanted to shout out obscenities, to let loose and somehow wound him verbally the way he had been wounding her, both physically and mentally, since the day they met. But she held her tongue and tried to think of a way to get her son back. Once that happened, she could say and do anything she wanted. But right now the most important thing was Brad.

  "Okay. Okay, you're right, Alan. I'm sorry. It's just that I miss Brad, and I wish he were home where he belongs. Maybe when you bring him back, we can talk things through again?"

  "You'd like that wouldn't you, Jamie Lee? I'm sure by now you realize what a good thing you've lost. But it's too late for that. I can never forgive you—not after what you've done. And I'm not sure Brad can either."

  "Please, Alan."

  "Too late for begging. We're leaving in half an hour—"

  Jamie Lee's heart stopped. Her breath clotted in her throat.

  "—and then Brad and I will decide what we're going to do next."

  "Where!" Jamie Lee managed to croak.

  "Oh, that's rich. You think I'd tell you? You think I'd give a father-and-son secret away? You do kill me, Jamie Lee."

  "Alan, please don't do this."

  "Stop sniveling. We already have the tickets and the—hey I'm not saying anything else."

  Tickets, Jamie Lee thought. Bus? Train?

  No that couldn't be it, because Alan got the Corvette from the settlement. If he were going anyplace by land, he would surely drive. That left water and air, and she remembered their only encounter with water. He had nearly vomited his insides out. They had been forced to leave the ship on the first day out.

  That left air. Alan was flying Brad away. But where? Out of the country? She had to find out.

  "Europe's too dangerous to fly to," Jamie Lee said. "What would happen to Brad if terrorists hijacked the plane?"

  "I never said I was flying to Europe."

  Scratch that one.

  "And the middle east and Africa are just as dangerous, Alan."

  "Uh, uh. I see what you're trying to do, Jamie Lee, and it's not working. If I wanted to tell you, I would."

  "Then at least tell me you're not stupid enough to go to the Middle East or Africa."

  "Who would want to? You know I don't like black women, and I hear women in Iraq and Iran never get undressed in front of a man, not even their husbands."

  Jamie Lee felt a remote stab of jealousy. And then she felt entirely stupid. "I hope you wind up with a fat Russian woman, or a flat-chested Asian."

  Alan laughed. "But I hear the Chinks are pretty good at pleasing men."

  Jamie Lee knew she had him now. He couldn't resist pressing this further.

  "Fine," she said. "Have a great time with some flat-nosed, flat-chested bimbo."

  "Why would I," he said, "when there are so many bare, big-breasted natives in the world?"

  "You bastard!" she screamed, but the phone was already buzzing in her ear. He'd teased her with similar statements ever since a National Geographic issue came out with photos of a tribe in the Brazilian rain forest.

  Alan was taking her son to South America.

  Jamie Lee knew she had to act now before it was too late. Her hands trembling and her stomach knotted into a painful ball, she called her lawyer. Carol Fletcher was one of Maine's best divorce attorneys.

  "Yes, Ms. Fletcher is in. Let me see if she's available to speak with you."

  "Please tell her it's an emergency."

  "I will. Please hold."

  That was one of the things that Jamie Lee liked about working with Carol. No matter how often she called, no matter how trivial the concern or question, Carol and her staff always made her feel important. Today was no exception.

  "Hi, Jamie Lee. It's good to hear from you. Are you and Brad getting along okay?"

  It was all Jamie Lee could do to keep from breaking into tears. "No, Carol, things are bad. Really bad."

  There was a pause. Finally, with the soft force of beginning brewing storm, Carol said, "Tell me about it, Jamie Lee. Tell me what that bastard has done this time."

  And so Jamie Lee did. She managed to replay the complete story of how Alan had picked Brad up early yesterday and hadn't returned since. She explained how, though he hadn't said as much, she thought he had called from a motel or hotel and was leaving for South America. And somehow she ha
d done all of this without throwing the phone and running to search for Brad herself. "I'm scared, Carol. He doesn't want my son. It's just his way of getting back at me."

  When Carol spoke this time, it was the calculating voice of a general at war: "I'll get right on it, Jamie Lee. Normally there wouldn't be much I could do, but with his past record I think I can get a state-wide A.P.B. They'll likely nab him at the airports or on the interstate. Are you home?"

  "Yes."

  "I want you to wait right there until my office calls."

  Jamie Lee choked back a whimper and nodded.

  As though she could see, Carol said, "That's my girl. I'll have Susan get back to you as soon as we have something."

  Waiting first for the disconnect signal, Jamie Lee slammed the phone into its clear plastic cradle. She would have smashed it again and again, save only for the need to wait for Carol's call.

  During the next half-hour, Jamie Lee reminisced on how much she had fucked up her life. If it hadn't been for Brad, she would have had nothing at all to show for the last fifteen years. She paced the floors of the five small rooms in "their" apartment. She and Alan had moved into this place the day they were married and she was still here. A lot of her friends already owned homes, but she and Alan had never been able to get it together. It seemed that when he'd had a good job, she hadn't and vice-versa. And on those few occasions that they had both been working and making a reasonable income, the money was wasted as fast as it came in. Her eyes flickered to the black and clear designer phone again. She couldn't exactly blame it all on him either.

  Instead of increasing their net worth during the fifteen years of their marriage, she and Alan had accomplished just the opposite. At the divorce hearing they had evenly divided the twelve thousand dollar credit card debt, and Alan got the only car, with hefty payments still attached to it. And if it hadn't been for the thirty-five hundred dollar divorce gift her father had given her, Jamie Lee wouldn't have had any savings at all.

  Thoughts of her father made her want to call, but she didn't dare tie up the phone until the attorney called back. Her father still lived in Bragdon. He was in a small retirement home and seemed happy there—a point that usually confused friends. Most people went into those places kicking and screaming. Jamie Lee suspected he just liked being one of two retired men surrounded by thirteen retired women.

  Her mother had died the year after Jamie Lee got out of high school. At that time, her dad had been an aging and overweight paper salesman. Weighing in at just over three hundred pounds, he hadn't had any luck finding a replacement for his wife. Nine lonely years for him followed. Then, five years ago, his heart attack forced him to quit his stressful sales job. The doctor also put him on a healthy diet, the success of which was motivated by the threat of death. It took him scarcely a year to lose the weight. Now, barely tipping the scales at one hundred eighty, he looked great.

  Sometime during her pacing, Jamie Lee wound up in her bedroom. More by impulse than thought, she got to her knees, lifted the light pink bedspread and peered under the bed. It was still there. Covered under a year and a half's accumulated dust, the roller skates box was pushed against the wall near the head board.

  She threw the bedspread over her shoulder then awkwardly groped for the box. Her fingertips brushed against the glossy surface but only succeeded in pushing it further away.

  Frustrated, she dropped flat onto her stomach, squeezed her head under the steel support rail and reached again. This time she was able to pull it toward her. With her cheek pressed against the dusty oak floor she slid back out and pulled the box along with her.

  Absently, she brushed the dust from her face. Placing the box on her lap, she stared at it. How long had it been since she had looked in there? Five years. Ten. Why didn't she remember being this frightened of its contents in the past?

  With the sleeve of her blouse, she wiped at the thick grey coating to reveal a picture of black and pink roller skates on the lid. They were an apt analogy for the contents within. Symbolic of childhood freedom and wild abandon, they represented a time in her life when she'd had no responsibilities and had known no limits. A turbulent but wonderful time, a time when she'd truly loved and when she had truly been loved.

  Where were they? she wondered, trying to imagine if her skates could be somewhere in the depths of the hall closet she had been promising to clean for at least six years now. They had probably just up and moved away, like nearly everything else she had ever really cared about.

  She carefully removed the cover and sat transfixed by the color photograph that stared back at her from atop the other papers and envelopes. Instantly, nerve endings and internal memory synopsis clicked into place. The fear and worry for her son, though still there, grew less intense as her mind slipped into the past. There was no job. No Brad. And there hadn't even been a Alan, for that matter.

  The photograph of Jason was clear and lifelike. At sixteen, he had been little more than a boy as she had been just a girl. His beautiful hair was a fiery orange, and light freckles dotted his cheeks. His smile was wide and bright. He'd been able to turn her inside out with that smile. And with one wink of his dark green eyes, he could make her follow him anywhere. God, how she had loved him.

  The memories flooded into her, and for the first time in years Jamie Lee remembered what real, true love felt like. She remembered how it felt when you wanted a lover's happiness even more than you wanted your own. She yearned to reach down into the box and caress his picture. To hold it and watch it for an eternity. But she didn't. Fear that it would disintegrate, or that she would damage it, and thereby him, stayed her hand.

  For ten minutes she sat there, lost in his green eyes. The heated past rushed through the previously hollow and useless channels of her mind. It was a journey filled with picnics, ball games, and movie theaters. Together, she and Jason laughed and giggled and sang and—

  Suddenly, the memory of a sallow face stopped the happiness short. Sedge's gaunt visage overpowered and replaced her enchanting memories, just as it had in real life. It was he who had ruined her chance to be with the man she so adored. Though she knew he hadn't meant to, Sedge had ripped the two lovers apart as effectively as death itself.

  She felt the familiar anger building, but her own guilt quickly washed over it. Her internal vision of Sedge slowly receded until it finally disappeared. She was left, once again, feeling ashamed for hurting him, a lonely boy who couldn't possibly have deserved any further hurt.

  She ran fingertips under her eyes to catch the tears that had streaked downward. And she wondered what had ever become of those two? Jason had moved away within a few months of the time she broke up with him. And her father had called her a half-dozen or so years ago to say that Sedge, too, had packed up and moved away. She stared down at the picture of a stranger. He was a man she likely wouldn't recognize today if he were in the same room with her.

  Without ever lifting the picture, and without touching or reading even one letter from her past, Jamie Lee replaced the lid and slid the box back under the bed. Those skates had disappeared many years ago, and in retrospect she could see they had gone the same way Jason had: quiet and inconspicuous, until the day she had sought them out only to discover them gone.

  The journey was over.

  Little Brad and her fear for him moved back in and replaced the last vestiges of memories. When would Carol's office call?

  2

  Jason stood in the main office of his factory, Studbridge Fabrics. It took up the entire seventh floor in an enormous 1800's, brick mill building that sprawled along the edge of the canal in eastern Rochester. His four large offices had been strategically tucked into the further northwestern corner, so that as Jason stared solemnly out one of large, dirty windows, he could see the canal stretching out to the east and west of him. Across the murky water was an abandoned trucking yard that, with rusting axles and crushed trailer boxes, looked more like a salvage yard than the site of a business that had been thrivi
ng only a year before.

  Jason gnawed on his lower lip and fiercely gripped the work bench in front of the window. He felt like a cornered Maine bobcat. But even if he managed to escape, unlike the bobcat, there would be no place for him to run—

  Save maybe a bankruptcy court.

  The thought turned his stomach.

  He had a number of friends, acquaintances really, who had done just that. And as Dan Simard, Jason's lawyer, had explained, those bankruptcy filers had probably walked away like bandits, their creditors' money lining their pockets to overflow. Jason knew the score: leverage the company out onto the longest possible limb, all the while grabbing huge sums of cash as "salary", and then one day nail the bankruptcy sign on the door and retire to Florida, wealthy and stress-free.

  He slammed his fist onto the rough wooden surface that served as a sample display for the buyers that occasionally visited the plant.

  "God damn it! There has to be something—"

  "Mr. Studbridge?" Connie said from behind him.

  Embarrassed, Jason turned. His middle-aged but still slim secretary had her head poked in through the partially open door.

  "Yes, Connie. What is it?"

  "There's a Ms. Jane Smith from Citibank on line two. She says it's very urgent that she speak with you."

  "Tell her I'm in an important meeting."

  "I tried that, sir. This is her fifth call."

  Jason shook his head in resignation. "Never mind. I'll take it."

  Connie squinted and lifted a shoulder as if to apologize, but Jason could see she was relieved to be rid of the responsibility. He knew things were almost as tough on her right now as they were on him. He smiled. "It's okay, Connie. Really."

  She nodded and disappeared. Jason crossed the long room and picked up the handset. He took a deep breath, then pressed the flashing red button for line one. "Hello. This is Jason Studbridge."

  "Mr. Studbridge, this is Jane Smith from Citibank."