“What the hell is the matter with you? What you’re doing is wrong, Carol. I mean, think it through, babe. You’ve got nowhere to go. You’ll be a fugitive. No one will take you in. No one will hide you. There’s not a single place in Heartland you can go where you’ll be safe.”
Carol stuffed a final pair of blue jeans into the duffle bag and moved into her son’s room.
“Carol, baby, please.” The edge was gone from Joe’s voice. “You know what will happen if you go through with this. You know what will happen to—”
“You and Heartland can go to hell!” Carol bit her lip. She’d allowed Joe to draw her in. She couldn’t afford to let her emotions get the better of her. Not right now.
With the pills, she’d kept things under control when her mother had died of cancer. When she’d found out about Joe’s affairs. And if she could keep her cool then, she sure as hell could do it now.
She had to. Pills or no pills.
Carol slung the duffle bag over her shoulder and returned to her bedroom to grab a final item—her husband’s duty belt. If nothing else, the radio on it might help her stay a step ahead once the Heartland police came for her. And the police would indeed come for her and her children. Them and more.
Much more.
Carol fast-walked down the hall. She dreaded having to pass Joe on her way to the garage, but short of hauling the duffle bag through the front door and coming back around, there was nothing for it.
She entered the kitchen and kept walking, her eyes fixed on the door opposite that led into the garage, her back already beginning to ache from the load she bore.
“Carol, Please. We can work this out, babe.”
Carol reached the door and opened it. The scent of the police cruiser’s settling engine wafted up to her on dry, dusty air.
“Carol, baby. Please. I love you, K-bear.”
Carol halted. Unable to help herself, she turned and peered at her husband. He stood, his left arm dangling from the fridge, gazing at her with pleading blue eyes. The brown curls that had draped over those frost-chipped eyes in high school were no longer present, but her husband was still as handsome as ever.
“I love you, too, Joe.”
She felt tears wanting to fall at the truth of her words, but caught them before they could. She turned and pulled the door shut behind her, muffling Joe’s renewed pleas.
The black duffle bag and duty belt went into the rear of the olive green Jeep Cherokee parked next to the cruiser. Next came the tent and sleeping bags bought for a camping trip they’d planned but never taken thanks to life always getting in the way.
Bags loaded, Carol slammed the Jeep’s rear door and made her way to the vehicle’s left side. Joe’s muffled shouts continued to bleed from the kitchen.
Carol slid into the Jeep’s driver seat and shut the door behind her, eclipsing her husband’s cries. Her purse sat just where she’d left it—between the captain’s chairs. She fished out her car keys. Dropped them. Picked them up. Dropped them again. Picked them up again and tried and failed to stick them into the Jeep’s ignition.
She sighed, her body deflating as she sank into her chair. She laid the keys on the passenger seat and brought up her right hand so she could gaze at her outstretched fingers.
They trembled.
Carol looked at her purse, wanting the Zoloft she had tucked away inside. Wanted it like an itch wants a scratch. Like the desert wants water.
No. If I have any chance at this, I’ve got to keep a clear head.
She balled her hand into a tight fist. Held it that way. Opened it again.
A little more steady, this time. Not much, but a little.
That a girl. You can do this. For Janie, you can do this.
Carol exhaled the breath she only partially realized she’d been holding and scooped the keys off the seat. This time, when she went for the ignition, the key struck home, and the Jeep rumbled to life. She punched the remote hanging from the passenger-side visor, and bright sunlight spilled into the garage.
Carol placed the Jeep in reverse and backed outside, dead leaves powdering beneath her tires. Once out on the street, she shifted into drive and pressed down on the accelerator. Dead lawns and prefab brick homes decorated with pumpkins and hay bales moved past her on either side, the Appalachian Mountains keeping pace behind them. Heartland was just like thousands of other small towns across America. If Carol hadn’t known what went on in the town—hadn’t been a part of it—she never would’ve suspected the evil that dwelled just beneath its surface.
A shadow fell across the Jeep, and Carol’s heart froze in her chest. She looked up and sighed with relief to see only a cloud drifting across the sun’s face. The tears she’d been holding back finally began to fall.
~
“I need you to stay in the car while I get your sister, Luke.”
Carol Blevins stared at her thirteen-year-old son in the Jeep’s rearview mirror. Luke sat in the backseat, immersed in his handheld video game console. He was built like Joe—long and lean—but fate had robbed him of his father’s blue eyes. All things considered, Carol thought it was just as well.
Janie was another matter. She was her father’s daughter, through and through.
“Luke, I’m talking to you.”
Luke nodded, but his eyes remained glued on the game. “Sure, Mom. Right here.”
Carol sighed. “I love you, pumpkin. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah, Mom. Love you, too.”
Carol opened the door and got out of the car. She paused for a moment, turning her head in either direction to gaze up and down the street. She expected to hear the wail of sirens just before police cruisers like the one she hoped was still parked in their garage came barreling around either corner bookending the high school.
But no sirens sounded, and no police cars came.
Still, she knew she was running out of time. Carol imagined the cops showing up and taking Luke and quickly shoved the image from her mind.
She had to get moving.
Carol entered the high school through its glass-paned doors and marched straight into the principal’s office. It was across the hall from the school cafeteria, and the smell of cooked meat hung heavy in the air.
Debbie Hester, the school’s lead admin, sat in the office’s foyer behind an ancient metal desk. Sequins blanketed the obese woman’s layers of sweaters, and she reeked of off-brand perfume.
Their eyes met, and Debbie’s fleshy cheeks rose to reveal a well-practiced smile.
“Hey, Carol. Missed you at church, last Sunday.”
Carol shrugged. “I wasn’t feeling well, Debbie. A virus, I think. I’m all but over it. I’m just glad I didn’t pass it on to Joe and the kids. Speaking of, would you mind paging Janie for me? I need to sign her out for the day. The rest of the week, in fact.”
Debbie’s smile dissolved into an equally practiced expression of concern. “Nothing’s wrong, I hope?”
“No, not at all. Joe and I are just taking Janie and Luke up to Fall Creek Falls for a long overdue family camping trip.”
“Oh, I see.
“Are you sure that’s wise? Like you said, you’re just getting over—“
“Debbie, please. We’re kind of in a hurry, if you don’t mind…”
A long pause. The faux smile returned to Debbie’s face. “Of course.”
Debbie picked up her phone and spoke a salutation into the receiver, Janie’s name on its tail.
Carol glanced back over her shoulder. Through the office windows, she saw Danny Hillyard, the school resource officer. He stood across the hall in the cafeteria, talking on his handheld radio.
Carol’s heart pistoned inside her chest.
“Here she is.”
Carol turned to see Janie entering the office. Janie had Carol’s pale skin and freckles, but it was Joe’s baby blues that peered out at the world from beneath the girl’s luxuriant crop of auburn hair.
At fourteen, Janie was already a love
ly girl—one well on her way to becoming a beautiful young woman.
Carol was determined to see it happen.
“Mom?
“What are you doing here?”
Carol moved to Janie, took her arm, whispered in her ear. “I need to talk to you. Outside. In private.”
“Uh, oh. Okay.”
Carol ushered Janie into the hall. Debbie’s voice trailed after them.
“You guys have a good trip.”
“Trip? What trip? What’s she talking about, Mom? What’s this all about?”
Carol continued pulling Janie along, but she didn’t bother making eye contact with her daughter. Carol’s eyes were locked on Hillyard, watching for the slightest tell—the slightest change in his body language—anything that might indicate what he was saying into his radio was more than idle chatter.
Hillyard looked up. Their eyes met. Carol grinned, waved, and quickened her stride.
Almost to the door. Almost free. Just get to it and then get the hell out of here.
“Outside, dear,” Carol said. “I’ll explain everything once we’re—”
“Mrs. Blevins?”
Carol didn’t turn her head to see who was addressing her. She didn’t have to.
Un-fucking-believable.
Carol’s brisk pace became a speed-walk. She burst through the school’s exit doors, and the scent of impending rain filled her nostrils. Dark thunderheads had filled the sky, turning it gray.
She had to get her children out of Heartland.
Fast.
“Mom, slow down.”
“Mrs. Blevins? Carol?”
Carol kept walking. “Sorry, Sam. I’m in a bit of a hurry and can’t talk right now.”
“I tried calling you. A lot. It will only take a second, Carol, please.”
Carol and Janie reached the Jeep. Carol gave a mental shout of victory to see Luke still sitting inside, alone, no cops in his vicinity.
“Get in the car, Janie.”
“Mom, why won’t you speak to Ms. Davis?” What’s going—”
Carol locked eyes with her daughter. “Now.”
Janie rolled her eyes, huffed, and got into the car.
Carol whirled to see Samantha Davis standing before her. The high school teacher was dressed in jeans, high leather boots, and a curve-hugging sweater that Carol had no doubt was driving the boys crazy.
It certainly bewitched Joe the first time they’d seen Sam wearing it at El Meson. She’d dismissed her husband’s ogling at the time. Sam had just returned home from grad school, unquestionably grown up. The men were going to look.
But now Carol thought, deep down, a piece of her had known what the future held even then.
Carol opened the Jeep’s driver-side door. “Now’s not a good time, Sam.”
“Look, I know you’re probably furious with me. You have every right to be, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to ever talk to me, again. But I just wanted to say that I finally understand. When I found out Joe had taken up with Betty, I thought I would absolutely—”
“Look here, you little bitch.” Carol’s voice was a whisper spoken through a toothy smile. “If you think that just because my husband has now screwed around on you, too, that you and I are part of some fucked-up sisterhood, you’ve got another thing—”
Carol’s words caught in her throat as she saw Officer Hillyard stride out of the high school. He pressed his radio into his face like he was trying to eat it.
Carol turned without another word and dropped into the Jeep’s driver seat. She started the vehicle, put it in drive, and stomped the accelerator. The rumble of thunder eclipsed both the engine’s roar and the surprised cries of her children.
At least, Carol hoped it was thunder she heard.
~
Carol Blevins ignored countless red lights and blaring horns as she sped through downtown Heartland. Local shops and businesses bled into one another on the other side of her windshield. The mountains beyond the town became a single, undulating black snake.
Carol’s son and daughter sat behind her, buckled into the backseat of the Jeep. Luke had lost all interest in his video game. “What are you doing, Mom?”
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Her daughter Janie’s voice. Her husband’s words.
The sound of distant sirens filled the car. Carol realized she’d forgotten to turn on the police radio strapped to the duty belt lying in the back of the Jeep. There hadn’t been time.
“Is this another one of your breakdowns?”
Carol glanced in the rearview mirror to see Janie scowling, her arms folded across her chest.
“I swear to God, Dad should’ve left you the first time you went into the hospital.”
Blue lights joined Janie in the rearview mirror.
“They drew your name, Janie.”
Janie’s scowl fell away. Her blue eyes became twin robin’s eggs in their sockets. “What?”
The din of police sirens gained volume inside the Jeep. There was just one cruiser giving chase, but it would soon be joined by others.
Thunder rumbled.
God, I want that Zoloft in my purse. Carol sucked in a large breath of air. “The church elders. They drew your name. I’m sorry, honey.”
They reached the edge of Heartland and continued on. The town fell away as Main Street became Route 72. Carol intended to take the James Clayton Bridge and cross over the Tennessee River, escaping into the neighboring community of New Hope. There were miles upon miles of back country roads there. Hundreds of places where she might lose the cops. But when the Jeep crested the hill leading out of town, the bridge wasn’t there.
All that remained in its place were a few severed steel supports jutting from concrete on either side of the river. In between lay open air.
“Old Flathead,” Luke whispered. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!”
“Everything’s going to be okay, Luke.” Lies. Carol knew she had to do a better job of selling them. “You two hear me? Everything’s going to be okay. I’m your mother, and I’m going to get you out of this. No one messes with my family. No one and no thing!”
Carol yanked the steering wheel to the left and the wheels on the Jeep’s right side went airborne for a moment as she veered into the neighborhood of government subsidized homes nestled at the foot of Colburn Town Mountain. The lone police cruiser on their tail followed. Carol had no idea where the rest of Heartland’s police force was, but she was grateful for their absence.
Her gratitude was a general thing, an emotion experienced out of habit, and not directed at any spiritual deity or supernatural force. Her days of giving thanks and offering prayers in Heartland were over.
Carol left the neighborhood to zigzag up the mountainside, the police cruiser on her bumper. The road narrowed, the wall of foliage and rock on the Jeep’s left pressing the vehicle ever closer to the drop-off on its right.
Thunder clapped and their heads snapped forward as the police cruiser rammed the back of the Jeep.
“No,” Carol mumbled. “He shouldn’t be doing that.” The hysteria Carol heard in her voice terrified her as much as anything. If she’d dared let go of the wheel, she would’ve downed the entire bottle of pills in her purse.
More thunder. Another strike from the cruiser.
“Janie’s in the car. Doesn’t he know that if he wrecks us, he might—”
More thunder.
Only this time, it wasn’t.
Carol’s already fast-beating heart became a jackhammer inside her chest.
“No,” Luke said. “No. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.”
The police cruiser struck again, and Carol lost control of the Jeep. The guardrail rushed up at them, and then the world fell away. There was the sound of rending metal. Then a feeling of weightlessness accompanied by the sound of the engine revving. The unimpeded spin of tires.
Then blackness.
When Carol awoke, the smell of wood smoke was strong in her nostrils, a
nd the pops and cracks of a fire were in her ears, cymbal crashes to the sound of drumming rain.
I must still be asleep.
She’d been dreaming of a parallel universe—one where she, Joe, and the kids had actually gone on that camping trip to Fall Creek Falls. They’d been roasting marshmallows like one big, happy family. Better still, in her dream, Joe had never been unfaithful, she’d never set foot inside a mental institution, and their lives in Heartland were normal. They’d existed in a world like that of their great grandparents—a world where evil had yet to come lumbering out of the ocean or burrowing up through the ground—a world as the Earth was before the Japanese remembered the old ways and showed humanity what had to be done in order to appease such evil.
“Mom?”
Carol winced at the sound of Luke’s voice. She knew she was going to have to open her eyes and let the dream—Janie!
Carol’s eyes popped open. She jerked upright and the world spun around her. She pressed her palm to her forehead, trying to gain her bearings.
She needed her pills.
“Easy, Carol.” A man’s voice. One full of age and kindness. Rough hands gripped her shoulders, steadying her. “Janie’s fine. So is Luke.
“You, on the other hand, have seen better days.”
Carol lowered her hand from her head and blinked, her surroundings coming into focus.
Fred Connor sat beside her on the edge of a couch almost as old as he was. His face was full of wrinkles and concern. The sleeves of his flannel shirt were rolled up to his elbows, revealing arms covered in gray hair and wiry muscle.
Luke and Janie stood behind him, peering down at her over his shoulders. They had several nasty scratches and bruises, but were otherwise okay.
Fred’s wife, Vera Connor, was on the room’s other side, giving them her jacketed back as she tended the fire behind Carol’s dream facsimile. It burned inside the black iron cook stove supplying heat to the one-room cabin housing them. The stove was an antique even among the cuckoo clocks, hunting rifles, and out-of-date calendars adorning the cabin’s wood-paneled walls.
Rain sluiced down the cabin’s two windows. Carol saw that a storm blew in the night beyond.
Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters Page 20