The Wide Game

by Michael West

  It was the same laugh that had been echoing through the corn.

  The same laugh he would now hear for all eternity.

  ***

  The next day, reporters asked why Mick Slatton wasn’t under any kind of suicide watch, and Sheriff Carter had to admit he’d had a lapse in judgment. What Carter didn’t tell them was that there had been a voice, a voice he remembered from his childhood, a voice from when he himself had played the Wide Game. That voice said the kid would never survive in prison. That voice said Carter should have shot the boy when he’d first seen him, covered in blood and holding fast to the bat. That voice said Mick Slatton would be better off dead. And so, when they found the boy hanging in his cell, Sheriff Carter – who loved it when his wife cuffed him to the bed and mounted him with a huge, black dildo – was secretly glad.

  Several members of the press made mention of Russell Veal’s disappearance four years before in their articles and newscasts. A few even noted that his mother, Sarah Veal, had killed herself shortly after. No one cited Cory Sparks’ attempted suicide with a meat cleaver and claw hammer, however. And the fact that Marcia Andrews had jumped from a Chicago high rise a few years before – leaving a note to her dead sister, begging forgiveness – also seemed to go unreported. Robby Miller could have made the connection for them had he known all the details, but the relevance seemed to escape the general media all together.

  In other news ...

  Gwen Perkins, Deidra’s mother, slipped into a coma. Two days later, she too was dead. Following an autopsy, county coroner Art Campbell ruled her death a homicide, the result of massive head trauma. What Art neglected to put in his final report was the fact that he saw Gwen Perkins’ corpse open its eyes and look at him as he made his first incision, that he saw the thing smile and heard its voice. Art later retired and moved to Florida. The nurse at the convalescent home where he died quoted him as saying “It knew I fucked the pretty ones” just before his heart stopped beating.

  There was nothing supernatural about the videotape from Paul’s Sony camcorder, but the images were gruesome to say the least. Recorded for evidence were what was left of Dale Brightman, crucified on a wooden cross, Mick Slatton stabbing Danny Fields and slitting his throat, Mick Slatton stabbing Skip Williamson, and finally Mick Slatton swinging a metal bat into Gwen Perkins’ skull.

  Based on the tape, the Harmony Police Department, the Indiana State Police, the FBI, and volunteers from town combed the northern cornfields and woods. After several days, however, the search yielded only a few abandoned backpacks. No bodies or murder weapons, other than Danny’s knife and Deidra’s baseball bat, were ever recovered.

  Despite the lack of actual corpses, based on the video taped evidence, blood evidence from the bat and hunting knife, Mick’s statement and the statements of the other witnesses, Danny Fields, Skip Williamson, Cindi Hawkins, and Dale Brightman were all considered victims of homicide. Two other missing seniors, Patrick Chance and Nick Lerner, were presumed murdered as well. Mick’s suicide was considered by the investigators to be an admission of guilt, and, because he was believed to be the sole perpetrator of the murders, the cases were quickly closed.

  For the families of the victims, it was all over.

  For those who survived, however, it had yet to end.

  Part Three:

  Surviving the Game

  Twenty-Three

  If Deidra’s art instructor asked her to paint the very picture of grief, it would be a self-portrait. Dark brown sweaters and slacks had replaced her bright T-shirts and jeans. The weight of her depression had moved across her face like a glacier, turned the fullness of her cheeks into sinkholes and raised dark ridges beneath her pale eyes. But the difference ran far deeper than a change in appearance; it went all the way to Deidra’s core. Inside, she felt as dead as the world around her – naked, cold, smothered.

  The sky was a solid gray slate as she wandered through snow-covered fields, her coat bundled around her, her hood up against the wind. Furrowed earth lay frozen beneath her boots, tiny yellowed stumps protruding from the ripples all that remained of the once tall crop of corn. As she looked across the terrain, saw drifted snow like waves on a milky sea, she could not help but think how beautiful it was and sank deeper into sorrow.

  She wondered what she was doing out here, but knew the answer all too well.

  It was Christmas Eve.

  If she’d stayed in her room, listening to the Eurythmics sing “Winter Wonderland,” or John Cougar Mellencamp belt out “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” she would only cry. She hated crying. Especially when she was alone.

  Deidra’s mother laid in that casket; her hands crossed over her chest, dressed in her Sunday best and all the jewelry she loved in life. The morticians had done a horrible job with her face. It looked puffy, as if they’d stuffed her with cotton. Perhaps they had. Deidra touched her before they put her in the ground – told herself that it was just to say good-bye and not to make certain she was dead – even kissed her on the cheek. It was like kissing a mannequin.

  Deidra tried to think of something else, of anything else, but all she could do was imagine how horrible tonight would be; just her and her father in the empty home they’d made a half-hearted attempt to decorate. Thanksgiving had been bad enough, but at least she had ...

  Paul.

  Without him, Deidra didn’t know how she would’ve coped these last few months. He’d been constantly at her side – comforting her, loving her, asking nothing in return. There were times she felt guilty for it, felt that she’d used him. After all, she’d been in the midst of supreme depression. Everything upset her and she couldn’t imagine she was any fun to be around. Most of the time, however, she’d just been grateful for his love ... for his touch.

  At night, Paul snuck out of his house, pushed his car down his long, gravel drive until it could be started without waking his mother, and he came to her. How romantic it would have been if she had a trellis outside her window for him to climb. In reality, she had to watch for his arrival, had to creep downstairs to let him in, then usher him silently up to her room. Fear of being discovered sent her blood racing through her veins, letting her know that she was alive. Their lovemaking was tender, passionate, and all too brief – islands of happiness in her otherwise miserable life.

  The game brought about a definite role reversal in their relationship. Before, Deidra had been so sure of herself and Paul had wanted her. Now, it was Paul’s strength that kept her afloat; she clung to him as if he were her life preserver.

  It worried her a bit.

  She continued walking. The wind howled all around her, flung snow into her face like bits of frozen confetti. She didn’t know what she expected to find out here. Answers, maybe. Answers to a dozen questions that buzzed around her mind like angry hornets, and most of them started with “why?”

  Why us?

  Why now?

  Why did I live?

  Why did my mother have to die?

  And the thing that popped up after each and every query, as if it might be the only answer, was Mondamin.

  Mondamin is here.

  The Miami may have put a name to this evil, but they certainly didn’t create it. She realized that now. It was here before them, hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago, and it was here now after most had up and left it behind by force or by choice. It would be here long after the Class of 1988, probably long after Harmony was a fossil under the brush of some future archeologist.

  It was eternal.

  Civilizations were just a tick on its clock.

  And they were all just toys who’d wandered into its playroom.

  God, how she wished they’d never played the damn game.

  “Deidra?”

  She wheeled around at the sound of her name on the wind, half expecting to see her mother walking toward her – her head caved in and whatever stuffing they’d used for the funeral spilling out, blowing in the breeze. She saw instead a gray silhouette wading t
hrough the snow. As it came closer, Deidra saw color bleed into the shape. The figure wore a red and black coat with a matching knit hat and gloves. She recognized the outfit as Paul’s

  “I thought I’d find you out here,” he told her.

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Because I find myself coming out here.”

  “I just keep thinking, maybe I’ll find them.”

  Paul looked at his own boots. “They never found Russell Veal.”

  Deidra looked up, saw flakes streak across the gray sky like a shower of comets. “Where do you think they took them?”

  “I think ... I think it’s better if we don’t think about it.”

  She pursed her lips, watched the snowy field drift around them. “I wonder if I’ll still come out here in the summer when there’s ... when it’s growing again.”

  “Soybeans.”

  She blinked. “Soybeans?”

  “Every other year.” His eyes squinted into the wind. “You can’t grow corn every year. It takes all the life out of the soil.”

  She had to laugh at that. “It certainly does. It takes the life right out.” Her laughter brought a horrified look to Paul’s face, then dissolved into sobs.

  He went to her, clutched her to him. “It’s okay. I’m here. I won’t let anything ever hurt you.”

  At that, her contorted face relaxed and she felt an incredible rush of relief. Yes, she thought. Thank God for that. Thank God for Paul.

  She kissed his cold cheek with chapped lips, then pulled away and wiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re fine.”

  “No,” she chuckled. “I’m not even in the neighborhood of fine.”

  “Maybe this will help.” Paul reached into the pocket of his coat, removed a folded piece of paper. He held it out to her and she took it.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your Christmas present.”

  She looked at him with more than a bit of guilt. “We said we weren’t –”

  “I know.”

  “But I didn’t –”

  “I know. It’s all right.”

  “Christmas isn’t until tomorrow.”

  She started to return the paper, but Paul pushed it back to her, his lips moving slowly to a smile.

  “You look like you need it now,” he said.

  Deidra unfolded the paper with gloved fingers and found a page torn from a catalog. Rings. Diamond engagement rings and bridal sets. Half a dozen were pictured, but a few had been circled in black marker. Deidra looked up at Paul, watched him lower to one knee. Her eyes followed him down, filled with tears that stung in the cold flow of the wind.

  “I wanted to have the ring in my hand when I did this,” he said. “But I didn’t have enough money saved up yet, and ... I don’t know ... you being the one who’s gonna wear it ... I thought you might like to help pick it out.”

  “Paul ...” She didn’t know what to say. A million thoughts raced through her brain, each trying to be the first to reach her lips. “This ...”

  He pressed a finger to her mouth and took her leather-bound hand in his own. The wind seemed to die down, allowing the snowflakes to spiral onto them like fairy dust, like something out of a storybook.

  “I love you.” Paul’s eyelashes caught the falling snow. “We’ve literally been through Hell together. Now I want the rest of our lives to be Heaven. I want us to spend it together.”

  She looked at him, saw his devotion, and her dreams came back to blazing life, lighting the caverns of her mind, banishing all the creeping shadows. His love for her was real. It was strong. And, even though she wasn’t worthy of it, she wanted it. She needed it.

  “Deidra Perkins, will you marry me? Will you be my wife?”

  “Yes,” she said, unable to contain her joy. She hoped she didn’t sound too eager.

  “Yes?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  Paul’s face beamed. He rose up, grabbed her around the waist and lifted her; he spun her around, the snowflakes whipping by like stars at warp speed. And they laughed. For the first time in months, they laughed.

  And, for a moment, even though they stood at the very center of the dead field of corn, Deidra forgot about the Wide Game.

  ***

  The game was all Nancy Collins could think about, however.

  She laid on her pink bedspread, alone in her darkened room, and watched Christmas bulbs outside her window alternate from red, to blue, to green, then back again. Her father spent much of the day stapling the strands to their roof, used the Craftsman staple gun she’d given him last Fathers’ Day. He’d waved at her through the window and she’d given him a lazy wave in reply.

  She heard him downstairs now, talking to her mother in hushed tones. They talked about her. They could scream if they wanted to. She didn’t care.

  They talked about her in the halls at Harmony High, too, from behind locker doors and hands held over mouths for fear she might read lips and know the truth. When she walked into a classroom, everyone went quiet, quiet but for the whispers that haunted her mind in the absence of other sound.

  “They know what you did,” the whispers said, over and over again.

  Downstairs, presents sat beneath the tree, beneath the watchful eyes of the angel on the top branch, her stained glass halo backed by clear lights, a glow that seemed to fill the entire room. Nancy wondered if Danny had a halo now.

  She wondered if Cindi had one.

  The things that zombie told her had been lies. Nancy knew that. Danny would never have slept with Cindi. Never. And they weren’t in Hell. They’d done nothing to deserve that.

  “They know what you did.”

  But murderers did go to hell.

  The lights outside Nancy’s window blinked red, and in that crimson glow she saw Cindi’s skull yawn at her with jagged teeth, a pink tongue of brains sticking out at her, giving her a raspberry.

  A lonely tear grew pregnant and took a plunge from her eye, fell to its death on the bedspread. She wasn’t a murderer, not really. She hadn’t meant to kill Cindi. They’d tricked her – the demons – so it didn’t count.

  “They know you did it.”

  Danny and Cindi might have joined the choir invisible, but their ghosts haunted every corner of Harmony.

  In high school, a football star and a cheerleader were like the President and Vice President of the United States of America. Danny and Cindi’s lockers had become shrines, covered in notes and makeshift crosses, flowers stuck through the cracks around the door. Counselors had been brought in to help students deal with grief, but they could perform no exorcism to rid Harmony High of the memories.

  And every afternoon and weekend, when Nancy left school, things grew worse. In a small town like Harmony, there was nowhere Nancy could go, nowhere she could hide. She’d see the restaurants where they used to grab burgers, the park benches where they ate ice cream cones in the summer heat, and the teen shrine of the Woodfield Movie Palace had become an unbearable tomb.

  “You could kill yourself,” the voices whispered to her.

  Yes, she could do that.

  She’d thought a lot about it. And those thoughts further fueled the guilt that gnawed at her insides. If she’d confessed to what happened in the corn, if she’d asked for mercy or understanding, would Mick have made the same choice?

  “You could kill yourself.”

  The thought had some appeal.

  Deidra tried to help Nancy cope, but let’s face it, she barely got through the day herself, and at least she had Paul. At least he could hold her, wipe away the tears, love away the pain. If Danny were here, death might seem more repugnant.

  “You could be with Danny and end all this pain, all this suffering.”

  Yes.

  In Nancy’s favorite film, Somewhere in Time, Christopher Reeve went back in time, fell in love with Jane Seymour. When he returned the present, he could not find his way back to her, no matter how hard he tried. In the end, Reeve sat in hi
s hotel, day after empty day, just wasted away until he died of starvation. He floated over his body, then moved toward a bright light. And who did he find in that light? Why, Miss Jane Seymour of course. Forever young and beautiful, she held out a hand to him, and, in death, they lived happily ever after.

  It could be that way for her and Danny.

  “Do it.”

  There was just so much pain.

  “End it.”

  It would be better to just ...

  “Do it.”

  ... just do it.

  Nancy reached under her pillow and pulled out the gray box-cutter she’d hidden there. She put her thumb on the ridges of the switch, pushed it forward, and the triangular razor rose from its burrow. There had been flecks of paint on the blade when she’d taken it from the drawer in her father’s workbench, but she’d washed it clean. Nancy didn’t want to get lead poisoning or anything.

  “Do it!” the whispers urged again and she moved the cutter to her left arm.

  Nancy hoped it wouldn’t take long.

  She touched the blade to her wrist and pressed. At first there was no give, but, with pressure, the metal popped easily into her flesh. The initial sting, and the burning sensation that followed, were nothing compared to the pain of these last few months, the pain that would be with her for the rest of her life. She slid the blade down her inner forearm, toward the bend of her elbow; the skin parted like an opening eye, tears of blood dampening her virgin’s sheets. Nancy changed hands, cut her right arm in the same fashion, the open wound wept across her white pajama top as she worked, then she leaned back against her pillows.

  The knife slipped from her hand, and she looked dreamily at the ceiling; light from the window divided it into four squares, squares that were blue, then red, then green ... She saw a shadowy tree in that window, its branches spreading outward, and something touched her breast, something cold – a snowman, groping her.

  Her groggy mind turned to Danny, wishing she’d not been such a prude, wishing she wasn’t dying a virgin. She hoped there was a heaven, hoped Danny would be there waiting, hoped there would be sex.

  She felt so cold.