by Adrian Birch
“Oh my God,” Morgan whispered. “Who is that?”
I still couldn’t see anything. But the tone of Morgan’s voice was scaring me.
“Where?”
“There!”
Morgan nodded stiffly toward the field as if she were trying to avoid making any fast movements.
Finally, I saw what she was looking at.
I’d been scanning the field, searching for someone standing or maybe lying in the stubble. I hadn’t looked on top of the bales themselves. They were almost six feet tall, and I knew from experience as a kid that they weren’t easy to climb onto.
But someone had. Two people, in fact.
On top of one of the bales, about three rows from the road, I could make out a man’s back. It was bare. And a pair of equally bare female legs were wrapped around him. From this distance, it seemed that they were swaying back and forth together.
It had to be a couple of high school kids having sex. They must have been enjoying themselves—I was shining my headlights right toward them, but they weren’t letting up.
Morgan put her hand over her mouth and giggled. “Who is that?”
“Just some kids,” I said, not quite sharing Morgan’s interest. “Fair’s cancelled. What else are they going to do around here? Let’s go. Obviously our help isn’t exactly needed.”
“No, wait!” Morgan said, still giggling. “They aren’t kids! Look! Just pull up a little closer.”
I tried to look closer, but I couldn’t make out anything I hadn’t seen before. “I need to get home. I’m tired.”
“Just a little closer! Ash, seriously, they aren’t kids.” Morgan cupped her hands around her eyes and peered out the window. “Who is that?”
I drove up a little farther. I felt kind of guilty invading these people's privacy like this, but now I was curious about what Morgan thought she saw.
I pulled forward until we were about thirty yards from the car.
She was right. The couple definitely weren’t kids. I could see the man’s back more clearly now. He was older. He was rhythmically thrusting away, then for a moment he threw his head back and I could see that his hair was gray. And so was the woman's.
“Oh my God,” Morgan squealed quietly. “They’re not stopping! It’s like they don’t even see us. Can you tell who it is?” Morgan asked through a fit of suppressed giggling.
The man threw his head back once again, the woman’s legs clutched tightly around his ass, and arched his back. They whole hay bale shuddered.
“Oh God,” I said, disgusted.
“Can you tell who it is?”
I had no idea. It was too far away to tell.
The man rolled over onto his side, then his back, managing to keep his balance atop the hay bale. I couldn’t believe it, but the woman threw her fleshy leg up and straddled him. She was plump, and her big ass shone white in the headlights.
“Oh my God!” Morgan squealed. “They’re going again!”
The woman continued swaying on top of him, completely oblivious to our presence, or, somehow, not caring that we were there.
What was going on? Something was off. I didn’t know any middle-aged people who would ever act like this, especially not after a body was found at the high school and half the town was under lockdown. And it wasn’t even a full moon.
“What’s happening around here?” I said out loud.
I was suddenly aware of the night's darkness surrounding the car. I also remembered the weirdly charged rush of erotic energy I felt when Morgan reached between my legs.
Something wasn’t right. I wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but I was scared. I needed to drop Morgan off, collect myself, and get things straightened out. In fact, what I really wanted to do was talk to Ian as soon as possible. Whatever was happening, he would know what to do better than anyone.
I put my car in reverse, turned around, and started back down the highway.
“Ashley!” Morgan pleaded. “I wanted to see who that was! I couldn’t even see the car.”
I kept driving.
“Well, whatever.” Morgan settled back into her seat. She was too hungover to put up much of a fight.
For a moment she looked at me as I drove, and I could tell she was as perplexed as I was at everything that had been happening.
She shook her head slowly. “What is going on?”
* * *
Morgan lived in a tiny rental house on the Hershel ranch, the property that had abutted my family’s ranch for generations.
When we were younger, sometimes Morgan and I used to sneak into the little clapboard house to drink and smoke. Mr. Hershel looked like one of those classic, old, grizzled cowboys, but he was really softhearted. He used to tear up whenever he had to slaughter cattle. He knew we used his house, and I’m sure he smelled the scent of cigarette smoke we left behind, but he never said anything to my parents about it. He even had the place fixed up a little before he started renting it to Morgan, and he charged her practically nothing.
When I pulled up to drop Morgan off, I eyed the little house’s dark porch apprehensively.
“Are you gonna be okay?” I asked her. “You can stay with me and Shawn, if you want. Maybe until everything settles down?”
Morgan slapped my knee. “You’re a sweetheart,” she said, “but I just want to get into my own bed and sleep. I’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
“Ash. Of course.”
She opened the door and stepped out.
“Well,” I said, “call the house number if you need anything. I lost my phone.”
“Oh, shit,” Morgan said. “Really?” Then she laughed. “What a night. I’ll be fine. Call me tomorrow.”
She closed the car door. I kept my headlights shining on her porch until she was inside and had the lights turned on.
The house I rent with Shawn isn’t far past my parents’ ranch. I was there in a couple of minutes.
None of the lights were on. My house was as dark as Morgan’s.
Shawn’s pickup must have been inside the garage, because the driveway was empty. I hurried to the house.
The door was locked.
We almost never locked our front door. I knocked.
I waited. I knocked again, louder, and this time I called Shawn’s name.
Nothing. My husband wasn’t home.
Shawn was always at home if he wasn’t working.
I tried not to panic. I’d been so apprehensive about confronting him that I’d just assumed he’d be there.
I got back into my car and drove straight to Ian and Danielle’s house, which was only a couple of miles past ours.
But there were no lights on at their place, either. Their door was locked, too. When I knocked I was met only with a deep, disquieting silence.
I regretted not making Morgan come home with me. I’d never felt more alone. The sky was perfectly clear and moonless, and all of the stars shone down on me icily as I walked back to my little car.
My parents’ house was my last bet. I tried not to think about the possibility of finding their place abandoned and silent, too.
I drove back up the highway, still not passing a single car.
I turned and drove under the big Travis Ranch sign spanning the dirt road. I’d always thought the sign was tacky and worn out, but now I found it comforting in the dark of night.
The old farmhouse I grew up in sits just over a low rise. As I followed the road up the hillside, the house’s upstairs windows became visible first. None of them were lit. I braced myself.
But when I reached the top of the rise, I saw vehicles crowding my parents’ driveway. The front porch light was on. Shawn’s truck was there, and so was Ian’s SUV.
I’d never been so happy to be home. I sped down the driveway and pulled up behind my dad’s hay truck.
Then I remembered Haley and what had happened last night.
What if everyone had gathered here at my mom and dad’s because it really had been Haley who’d
been attacked at the fair? What if she’d been hurt, or worse? And what if, while all this had gone on, I’d been out partying, sleeping around with God knows who and out of reach all day?
I knew I was probably overreacting, but I ran up the steps and threw open the front door, bursting through the entryway.
The first thing I saw was Haley, lying at the bottom of the staircase.
Her head was resting against the lowest step. She was in her pajamas.
In each of her hands was a small bronze horse. These were the prizes at the horse-racing pinball game at the fair. Every time you won, you traded up for a bigger horse. Danielle and my parents must have taken her to the carnival last night, then brought her home as planned, safe and sound. I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“Aunt Ashley!”
My niece sprang to her feet and ran toward me, a toy horse in each hand.
“She’s here!” Haley shouted. “Aunt Ashley’s here!”
I knelt down and right away, before even hugging me, Haley sat on my knee.
“Look,” she said, carefully displaying the pair of bronze horses as if they were small birds perched in her hands. “I got one, and grandpa got one,” she whispered. “But he gave his to me.”
My dad rushed into the entryway.
I’d never seen him look this way. He had an expression of utter relief when he saw me. I’d had no idea what I’d been putting them all through.
He was in the same clothing he always wore—a striped farmer’s shirt and faded jeans—with no boots on, and his eyes were misty as he strode toward me and put his arms around me. I could smell the hay dust on him, just like I always could whenever he used to hug me.
“Oh, thank God,” he said. “You’re here. You’re here.”
Now my mom appeared, and right behind her came Danielle and Ian. Even my nephew Tyler slouched over for my big return.
Everyone had been waiting for me. I hadn’t even considered that anyone besides Shawn would know I’d been gone.
My dad let go of me, and now my mom stepped forward, her arms folded. I could tell she was waging an inner battle between relief and being totally pissed at me. It looked like the being-totally-pissed-at-me side was winning.
“I sure hope you have a good explanation for all this,” she said. My mom was small but tough, especially during moments when she had to be emotionally strong. She gave me a quick hug, then held on to both of my shoulders. “Do you know how worried Shawn’s been?” she whispered, glancing upstairs. “I’ve never seen him so sick with worry.”
Just then my husband appeared at the top of the stairs.
He looked as if he’d been crying, and he was as pale as he’d been in the locker room the night before. His expression reminded me of the one he wore during the days after his accident, and during the endless months he'd spent in the hospital with pins holding his spinal column together.
He didn’t say anything. For a moment he just stared down at me, folding his arms around his now-pudgy frame, and I just stared back up at him, not knowing what to say, and everyone else just watched silently. I realized I’d been holding out hope that somehow, for some reason, it would turn out that it had been Shawn who I’d been with in the motel last night. I’d hoped that we’d both gotten so drunk that maybe on a whim we’d just run off to the Starlight to make up for all the intimacy we’d been missing.
But now even that remote possibility was gone. If Shawn had been worrying about me all day, that meant he didn't know I was at the motel. I cheated on him. I still had no idea who I’d slept with last night, but now I was sure that it wasn’t my husband.
I didn’t know what else to do other than to just start talking. I couldn’t stand everyone staring at us. There was no way I could tell my family the truth, so I started making things up that I hoped were half-way believable.
“I got stuck inside the fairgrounds,” I explained. “I’m so sorry. I realized I left my phone at the bar when they started evacuating everyone.” My whole family kept staring at me, listening, so I kept talking. “I ran back to look for my phone, but the police wouldn’t even let me back into the Buckshot. By the time I made it all the way back to my car, they were already closing up the gates at the fairground. They wouldn’t let me out. I had to sleep in my car. But this evening I finally talked Jason Gibbs into letting me leave.” I glanced up at Shawn, who was now sitting down at the top of the staircase. “I have no idea what’s going on around here.” I almost started to cry, but I regained my control. I swallowed and took a deep breath. “I haven’t even really talked to anyone all day. I don’t understand. What’s been happening?”
After my speech, my mom was clearly feeling a little more generous. She gave me her signature sideways hug and started rubbing my shoulder. Ian cleared his throat.
“Tyler,” Ian said. “Take your sister upstairs, please.”
“Why?” Haley asked.
Ian didn’t say anything. He just raised his eyebrows sternly and Haley immediately dashed upstairs. Tyler followed. Ian took me by the shoulder.
“Let’s go outside,” he said.
I let him lead me out the door. We sat on the porch swing.
“Honestly, we don’t know much more than you do about what's going on, Ash. There’s a lot we don’t know. But what we do know… It’s not good—I can tell you that much. It’s not just the fairgrounds and the high school. There are roadblocks on all the highways coming in and out of town. I haven’t been able to get any answers.” He turned around and looked into the house. He was obviously worried about his kids overhearing. “There’s not a damn thing on the news,” he whispered. “None of the stations have picked anything up yet.”
“They won’t let any of us leave town? At all?” I knew things were going badly, but I never dreamed it could be as big as this. “How is that even legal?”
“It’s not,” Ian said, “but they’re doing it.”
“Why, though?” I asked. “I don’t understand. Just to find this guy who attacked a little girl? I mean, obviously they have to catch him, but none of this makes sense.”
Ian leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath. I could feel the weight of his body in the sway of the porch swing. He glanced inside the house again and lowered his voice even further.
“It’s not just that, Ash. They’ve got that little girl at the hospital—the one who was attacked. When I went there last night, there were armed guards all around her room, and they wouldn’t let anyone inside. Not even her parents. These guys—the guards—were from way out of town. Maybe out of state. Not cops—military. Some kind of special ops or something.” Ian lowered his voice even further. “And they got him. They got the guy. They killed him. They already killed the guy who attacked the girl.”
Ian stared at me for a second, looking unsure of what to say next. Maybe he was unsure if he’d told me too much already. I could tell he hadn’t shared any of this with Danielle, though, honestly, I wasn’t sure why he was telling me. After I’d helped him in the locker room, he must have thought I could handle it.
“So, what does this mean?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “What’s going on, then?”
“All I can say is that I’m sure there’s a lot more going on than we know at this point.”
This time, I did start to cry. I couldn’t hold it back anymore. Ian didn’t try to comfort me, which I was thankful for. He just sat there as the tears spilled down my cheeks and I tried to process everything he was telling me. I still didn’t understand what all of this meant, but for some reason it made me feel even more guilty about cheating on Shawn. It felt like such a small and stupid thing to have done, especially now. And I was worried that Ian knew more than he was telling me.
“I blacked out last night,” I confessed at last. “There are a lot of hours I don’t remember at all. The truth is I don’t remember much of anything after the bar.” I turned to look at him. “But I found your stuff in my car.”
Ian searched my eyes. There was somethin
g in his look that told me he definitely did know more than he was saying, but he also looked relieved when I told him I'd blacked out.
“You don’t remember anything at all?” he asked.
“I’m so stupid.” I tried to dry my eyes. "I haven’t drunk that much since high school. Everything’s pretty much a complete blank.”
“I went out looking for you after you disappeared from the bar,” Ian said. “I couldn’t find you anywhere. To be honest, I think I was even more worried than Shawn.”
He wouldn’t look at me. Ian just kept folding and unfolding his hands and staring at them. He cleared his throat.
“After they started evacuating everyone,” he whispered, “I was worried about you. Really worried. You know? I didn’t have time to go to the motel, so I looked for your car in the lot.” He shrugged. “I figured eventually you’d make it back there. I didn’t want you to be cold. And I wanted to make sure you'd be safe. You still have the gun, right?”
I nodded.
“Good.”
Ian's phone rang while he nodded back distractedly.
I was used to Ian getting lots of calls, but this time when the ringer chimed, it really startled me.
I saw the name of the incoming call flash on the screen before he picked up.
It was Morgan.
She was screaming. She was screaming so loud I could hear her voice as soon as Ian answered. She was screaming for help.
* * *
We jumped into my little car. It was blocking all the other cars in, so we had no choice but to use mine.
I got into the passenger’s seat to let Ian drive, which was a good thing, because he flew around the dirt-road corners way faster than I’d ever be able go without losing control and rolling.
I had to hold tight to the handle grip around every turn all the way there. Still, I managed to pull Ian’s gun from where I’d stashed it between the seats. I had no idea if the safety was on or off, but I held on to the gun as tightly as I held onto the car.
Somehow, in the middle of all of this, I realized what he’d just said to me on the porch swing.