Touching Cottonwood

by Randall Simpson

  Rebecca then realized there was only one person who would have done this to her. She began to sob lightly and then suddenly stopped. She wasn’t sure if she was alone. I must not show weakness! She thought of Matthew. I must see him again! She was determined to live through whatever was going to happen—to see Matthew again! I won’t die like this!

  She became perfectly still and silent, listening for any sounds at all. There was nothing except her own breath, moving carefully and slowly in and out. There were no house or building noises—no traffic sounds. No, she remembered—of course, there would be no traffic noises! She guessed that she was in Cottonwood, and she even correctly guessed which house she was in. It meant she was still in the Dead Zone, and that term twisted itself around to take on a whole new meaning for her.

  Rebecca screamed inside. Matthew! Matthew! Please, if you can hear my thoughts, if you can know what I’m thinking—somehow, someway, come to me! Help me!

  She lay there for a long while—listening, praying, and calling out with both her mind and her will to Matthew. Many times, she was on the verge of openly sobbing again, but she held it back. She would be strong. It was then, from somewhere in the distance, she heard some sort of sound. She was not certain what the sound was, but she was sure she had heard something. She tried to slow her breathing to hear better. Then, without warning, there was a louder sound—a closer sound. A door opened somewhere nearby. It was right behind her—perhaps only eight feet or so away—and she could feel someone coming closer, now only a few feet away. She slowed her breath to barely anything at all. The beating of her own heart became the loudest thing in her universe.

  “How’s my angel this morning?” whispered Eddie very close to her ear. “Are you starting to wake up?”

  She said nothing.

  She then felt his lips kiss the back of her neck. She flinched.

  “My, aren’t we touchy,” he said. “If you keep this up, I may have to give you some more special juice to knock you out. Maybe when you wake up the next time, you’ll be more cooperative.”

  She felt his hands stroking her hair. She tried her hardest not to move or make any sound at all.

  “We are fated to be together, Becky, you and I. You must know that. If you can’t see it now, I know in time you will. You’ll forget all about him when you realize how happy the two of us will be together.”

  His hands were now rubbing her shoulder. His mere touch was doubly painful to her. Because they were his hands and not her husband’s—they were like some vile acid being poured upon her skin. But more than that, she also realized she must have sustained some real injuries—perhaps cuts or abrasions—on her shoulder. When his rough hand passed over a certain area, a sharp burning pain shot up her shoulder to her neck.

  What happened? How was I injured?

  He slid his hand down to her hip. That physical pain almost caused her to cry out, but she held it in. She knew her hip, too, must have been injured. Her entire right side was burning. Can’t he see the abrasions? Does he know he’s causing me pain? Is that what he wants?

  His rough sandpaper hand slid coarsely across another tender spot on her leg. She flinched severely. She was trying to make no movement, but it had been a pure reaction to the pain. Her head suddenly whipped back as he grabbed the back of her hair. He held her hair firmly and put his mouth very close to her ear.

  “Listen to me, Becky,” Eddie whisper-hissed. “You have to understand my position here. I love you, but you need to cooperate with me. You see, they are out looking for you right now, but they will never find you here; they’ll never even look here. It looks like the fates are finally smiling on me—you wanna know why? The sheriff thinks that Matthew has kidnapped you. It’s true! Imagine! Funnier still is that the sheriff thinks you could be dead already. But that’s not the best part—the sheriff thinks we’re a couple.”

  Eddie stopped whispering, and she could feel his hot breath on her neck, just behind her ear. His lips lightly kissed her skin. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. She wanted to move away—to scoot or roll across the floor away from him, but he held her head back at an awkward angle by his firm grip on her hair.

  “I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” he continued, “and I’ve got it all figured out. It’s not too late for us. I’m sorry to have to have done this, but I’m hoping you’ll see it was the best thing. Once you start to come around and see how right we’d be together, I figure that I could simply find you—maybe in the forest somewhere. I’ll be the big hero, and you will tell them that Matthew took you, and I found you. It’s perfect.”

  Eddie paused, stroking her neck with his acid fingers, and then said, “I hope you realize we’re meant to be together. I love you. I don’t want to hurt you, but you acted stupidly, and I needed to fix that. Think about that—how stupid you’ve been. I want them to find you alive; I’ll have saved you, and then we’ll be together. It’s just that easy. Think about that.”

  He let go of her hair, and she could feel his body move away from hers. Then from a distance, from behind her, he said, “I hope I don’t have to keep you here much longer, Becky. It hurts me to see you this way, but you need time to think—to get your head cleared up and see what’s right for us. I’ve got to go for a while, but I’ll be back. You do some thinking, okay?”

  She heard the door shut and then a more distant muffled sound of a door opening and shutting. Then she was alone with the silence.

  Rebecca began to sob again. She couldn’t hold it back, and now she didn’t care if he was listening. She thought of her mother. She thought of her life growing up—the years when she was a young girl and then a teen, before her father died; she was with her mother and father, and the three of them were so happy together. She cried harder. The cloth across her eyes was damp and then wet with her tears.

  Then she stopped crying. There was something she thought of. She tried to feel her fingers, but her wrists were so tightly bound that her fingers had gone numb. She tried to wiggle them and found she could, just barely. With great effort, she moved her numb fingers back and forth ever so slightly, trying to rub them together—to feel something that would give her some small measure of hope—the most important thing to her at the moment—her wedding ring. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t feel it. It could have been there, and she desperately wanted it to be, but she could not feel it. That failure dropped her into an even deeper despair.

  She stopped trying to rub her fingers and became completely motionless for a long while. Part of her wanted to cry, but she didn’t. Rebecca then thought of Matthew once more, but her feelings were now growing more distant. She could see her love for him, but the love was becoming a separate thing. It was becoming too painful to hold on to—as though she were now watching her love from a distance, as though she had placed it on a small boat at the edge of a large calm ocean, and it was now drifting away from her. Her love and life were becoming someone else’s life and love. It was all receding—her love, her life, her faith. Darkness was entering.

  In her heart, Rebecca wanted to die before Eddie could ever touch her again. She wanted death, and that frightened her. Death had never been this close to her, and now she was prepared to open the door and welcome it. It was only then, at the moment she would have embraced death—she remembered something Eddie had said. The words had seemed a minor thing, lost in the bitterness and pain of the moment, but now they loomed as the most important thing to her, pushing aside—for the moment—the welcome mat she had put down for death. She was sure Eddie had said the sheriff thinks that Matthew has kidnapped you… She pondered that. What could that mean? Matthew was in jail! Wasn’t he? Or was he free somehow? Could he have escaped, as he said he would?

  It was only a small hope, but it was something. She pulled herself back from the easy way, the way toward darkness, and through an effort of her will, decided she would hold on to the one fragile hope offered her. With every remaining bit of her strength, she would make a stand for love and life.
Death would have to come to her—knock down her door and rip life from her—she would be no willing victim. Her thoughts immediately drifted to the small candle in the cobalt blue holder. It must still be burning! It was a certainty to her—nothing else was acceptable. With all her strength, Rebecca released the last bit of energy remaining in her heart, mind, and soul. She sent it all out to him—Matthew, I choose life! Please come for me!

  Eighty-Six

  In the Flesh

  He left the Yamamoto Farm just after sunrise, not headed east on the road toward Cottonwood, but headed instead on a cross-country beeline trek toward the northeast. His journey took him very close to the exact spot where Amida had seen the flock of birds ascending, but there were no birds this morning. Matthew’s eyes were intense, as he followed no trail but trekked as though he had a map in his head and a destination in mind—cutting across the extremely rough terrain like an arrow heading for its target. Instead of crisscrossing hillsides, he climbed straight up the steep slopes; he cut directly through thick brush and scaled rocky outcroppings—all without taking a rest. When he came to a small stream, he waded directly through, not bothering to seek out a drier route or let the waist-high water slow his advance.

  After several hours of determined hiking, Matthew finally came to the last ridge that looked down on the highway below. He carefully scanned the road in both directions and saw no traffic, but from his high vantage point, there was something else he saw on the highway. Though it was very small and far away, it sparkled brilliantly in the morning sun, easily setting itself apart from the dark pavement. It briefly reminded him of another light he once spotted on another day, a lifetime ago.

  He bounded rapidly down the hillside, crossed the ravine near the highway with one enormous leap, and then climbed up onto the highway itself. He once more checked in both directions and then moved south toward the object. When he was only a few hundred feet away, there was no doubt in his mind what it was. It blazed like a small piece of the sun itself—radiating up from the highway like a beacon. He hurried his pace, reached the object, bent down, and picked it up. He took only a moment to study its rainbow brilliance before placing it in his pocket. It won’t be long now, my love.

  He continued south along the left shoulder of the highway. He knew he was fully exposed, and that was the risk he had to take. Though he hadn’t far to go now, many eyes would be looking for him, and all would be able to see him. The battle ahead meant he would be exposed to the world—flesh fighting flesh, living and suffering, as all flesh-and-blood creatures must.

  When he neared his final destination, he left the highway and climbed the hillside up toward the building, making sure he kept a safe distance in the cover of the surrounding trees. He stopped and studied the house for a few moments; there was no one in sight and nothing was moving. He left the trees and approached the house—moving first to an empty carport, then around to the back of the house where he couldn’t be spotted from the road below. Staying close to the back of the house, he ducked below windows as he passed, moving up to try the lock on the backdoor. It was locked.

  He moved over to a window to the right of the door and stood up, glancing quickly into the house; there was no motion and no one in sight. The window was closed. He pulled up on the handle at the bottom of the window, and it budged—but only slightly. At least it was unlocked, but it seemed to be painted or warped, preventing it from opening easily. He had opened it enough to form a small crack between the bottom of the window and the windowsill, though the opening was too narrow for him to get his fingers under. Using all his might, he once more pulled up on the handle, but this time the window didn’t move at all.

  Realizing he needed more leverage, he looked around the back of the house for something to use. To his left on the side of the house opposite the carport was a small shed. He moved toward the shed’s door, but before he got there, he noticed a piece of flatiron about four feet in length resting upright in the corner where the house and shed came together. He grabbed the iron piece and went back to the window. He wedged the iron into the small opening at the bottom and pushed down hard, putting nearly his full weight on the iron. Suddenly, the window moved up over an inch, causing a loud creak that echoed through the surrounding woods. Leaving the piece of flatiron in the opening, he quickly ran back to the cover of the nearby trees.

  He watched the window and the back of the house for several minutes; there was no motion and no sound. He waited a moment longer and then quickly moved back to the window. The opening was larger than he thought. He pulled the iron out and set it carefully on the ground. He put both hands into the opening and with all his strength, lifted up on the window. There was another loud squeak, and the window opened up nearly a foot. He stopped and listened through the opening; the house inside was silent. The opening was still not large enough for him to crawl through, and now the bottom of the window was too high for him to get decent leverage. He knelt down on the ground, took a deep breath, and using all his strength, pushed up on the bottom of the window. With a wailing screech, the window moved upward, opening enough for him to enter.

  He knew that if anyone were home, they would have certainly heard him by now. For a moment, however, he also considered the possibility that someone had heard him and could now be setting up an ambush for him inside. He cast aside the thought, put a leg up through the opening, and climbed through the open window.

  He found himself standing in a small kitchen. The sink to his right was full of dirty dishes, and the counter tops were covered with food wrappers, more dirty dishes with bits of old dried food, and empty or opened beer cans—many of them tipped over or crushed. To his left was a small kitchen table; it too was covered with food wrappers, dirty dishes, and beer cans. There was also something else on the table—a tall brown glass bottle that stood out distinctly from the refuse. He moved over to the table, bending down to get a closer look at the bottle. Its original label appeared to have been removed, but there was a piece of masking tape stuck on its side. On the tape, written by hand in black block lettering, was the word CLORAFORM. The word was misspelled, but he knew what it was.

  Matthew’s heart was already beating rapidly, but in seeing the label, a flash of fire erupted in his stomach and raced upward to set his heart galloping even faster. He ran around the table, out of the kitchen, and into the living room; it too was a mess of scattered newspapers, magazines, food wrappers, and beer cans. He moved down a narrow hallway off the living room and came first to a bedroom. Clothes were scattered about on the floor and strewn across the unmade bed. The majority of clothes were the same tan color—some kind of uniform; Matthew knew exactly what kind of uniform it was. He looked inside a small closet and found more clothes bunched in heaps on the floor. A few empty hangers hung on the otherwise empty crossbar. He left the room and moved across the hall to another smaller bedroom.

  A desk with a computer rested against the far wall. A wooden folding chair was tipped over in front of the desk, and there were several open beer cans on the floor and on the desk by the computer monitor. To the right of the desk was a closet. He opened the door and searched inside. It was full of heavy winter jackets, boots, and other miscellaneous clothing.

  He left the room and moved down the hallway to the last room on that side of the house—a small bathroom. He stopped in the doorway, looking at a filthy sink, toilet, and bathtub; all were heavily stained with old dirt and grime. A dirty hand towel hung near the sink, and various wrinkled clothes and towels were piled on the floor by the bathtub. The bathtub was possibly white at one time, but was now stained a dingy brown with black mildew along the edges. A musty odor bit at his nose and he could only stand to take short shallow breaths through his mouth.

  As Matthew began to turn from the bathroom doorway—the full force of something hard and massive caught him on the right side of his neck and head. He immediately fell to his left against the doorframe and then down to his knees, simultaneously putting his right hand up
to his head. His head was exploding with sharp pain, which shot down through his neck. His vision was blurred, but a few feet away in the hallway, he could see legs. He looked up higher; Eddie stood there leering down at him, gripping a baseball bat in both hands. Matthew felt wetness on his head and looked at his right arm and saw a crimson trickle of blood streaming down and dripping from his elbow in large drops to the dirty tan carpet, staining it with dark red splotches. He put his left hand against the doorframe, trying to stand, but didn’t seem to have the strength and couldn’t catch his balance. The hallway and Eddie were spinning.

  “Go ahead, you son of a bitch,” said Eddie. “Please, stand up! I need some more batting practice.”

  A ringing now started in Matthew’s ears, mixed with the buzzing of what seemed to be a million frenzied bees inside his head. Once more, he tried to stand, but the pain in his head and the dizziness brought him back down. He fell to rest on his hands and knees, the carpet beneath him growing darker and wetter by the second—painted with his own blood. Both hands were now covered with blood as the drops streaming off his head splattered on them as well as on the carpet. Then an exploding pain came crashing down in the middle of his back. He crumpled face down on the damp carpet.

  “There you go! Lie down you dog!” screamed Eddie.

  Matthew then felt the carpet burning across his cheek and Eddie’s hands on the back of his shirt, pulling at him and dragging him down the hallway, across the dirty carpet through the scattered trash and empty cans, to the center of the living room.

  “I sure like these make-my-day laws here in Colorado,” said Eddie. “Seems I’ve got an intruder in my house, and I’m within my right to do whatever it takes to protect my property—looks like you broke into the wrong house. Good thing for me I happened to come home just now—who knows what you might have stolen from me. Don’t go nowhere, lover boy—I need to go get someone very special who I think needs to see you like the dog you are.”