I know, what do I do?
“Burn him! Send him back to hell where he belongs! But please hurry Abby, I’d help you but I can’t move. The demon has some kind of a hold on me.”
Abby rolled forward until she sat in front of the ghostly flames. The torch in her lap seemed to burn into her thighs with anticipation. She gripped it and extended it forward. Instantly the dried pitch caught fire with a sizzling snap as long sealed air pockets inside the wood gave way, bursting into the consuming flame.
Abby began to roll forward towards the pyre when she heard the familiar grating sound of stone against stone.
Jack!
But how had he known how to gain entry? It was a rhetorical question for she already knew the answer, the demon had told him. Their eyes met. Her husband stood at the entryway of the great chamber heaving with deep breaths and Abby could tell that he had been running. His clothes were soaked with sweat and blood, his complexion redder than usual, and he stared at her with burning hatred. Any shred of the man that she had once loved was gone now, replaced with a virulent hateful killer, and right now his eyes were locked only on her. The pickaxe that she had left behind was wedged between his hands. Abby cursed herself for not having taken it with her, now it might be the cause of her death.
“It’s over Jack.”
She forced her voice to remain calm. Jack began to move forward as if he didn’t hear her. He was beyond reasoning now, merely an implement of the demon devoid of thought. She gauged the distance between the pyre and her husband, trying to calculate if she could reach it. She was unsure. The moment she started to roll forward he would begin running, and he was much faster than she. Her best hope was to try and reach him on an emotional level, but she doubted if that was possible, not anymore.
“You tried to kill me. Stuck a knife in my back while I was defenseless, but you made one crucial mistake. You should have slit my throat when you had the chance.”
For the first time in as long as she could remember Abby agreed with her husband. Yes, if she had it to do over again she would have pulled the blade from his back and drawn it against his windpipe, but it was too late for that now.
“Jack, I know that’s not you talking. This demon has a hold on you, telling you to do bad things, but that’s not you. That’s not the man I married.”
Her words were garbled as usual, spraying out of her mouth as though she were severely mentally retarded, almost undistinguishable, but she knew Jack understood.
“I have to do what I have been called for.”
“Jack please, think about it. Do you really want to kill me, kill me like you did your mother?”
“YOU LEAVE HER OUT OF THIS, YOU UNDERSTAND!” Darrow shrieked.
Abby knew she had struck a nerve, she hoped that it would be enough to draw him out of his emotional shell. Instead he marched forward.
“Jack, please.”
Jack paused for a second, confusion racking his brain. His indecision brought a wave of anger from the demon, still raging within his head.
Kill her Jack, or you will know the full gamut of my wrath. Choose wisely, my patience is done.
“Sorry Abby baby. But it has to be this way.”
He started forward again. The light in his eyes that told her that any shred of humanity he may have once had was gone. She began to roll the chair towards the funeral pyre, every muscle fiber in her arms firing with adrenaline. Jack, aware of what she was about to do began to sprint, the axe gyrating back and forth across his torso as he ran. It was a test of wills, a race to the finish, but Jack was faster and he was closing the distance quickly. When he was no more than five yards from her Abby threw herself to the ground, crawling the last few feet on her elbows. She reached outward trying to bridge the last few inches between the burning torch she wielded and the mass of dried wood.
Jack kicked her in the abdomen, sending a blinding pain throughout her entire body, making her want to double over, but she continued to reach outward, the funeral pyre just a few mere inches from the flame of her torch. Jack raised the axe high, positioned over her like lumberjack about to make the final cut. The last sound Abby heard was the whoosh of the axe splitting the air before it buried itself deep inside her shoulder, splintering the bone beneath like arid kindling.
I’ve failed. Her last thought wafted its way through her brain. I’ve failed and he has won.
Just as all hope was about to fade, the tip of the torch caught the edge of the pyre. A tense second passed before the wood began to smoke. Abby looked up at her husband, a horrified look spreading across his face like wildfire in high wind.
And then the pyre erupted in a volcano of crackling flame sucking the oxygen from the room and raising the temperature to unbearable heights within a matter of seconds. The roar was indescribable, a culmination of snapping kindling and eviscerated oxygen drowning out Abby’s thoughts and chilling Jack to his very bones. Thick acrid black smoke began to fill the room, billowing out in a perfect circle before finding the walls and rising upwards in wispy plumes.
The body of the demon caught fire emitting a piecing shriek and then the stench filled the chamber, rich and overpowering. Even Jack’s eyes began to water from the putrid odor.
NO! Finish her!
The last shrieks of the demon reverberated through Jack Darrow’s head. He brought the axe down again. The pointed end caught the left side of Abby’s neck making a disgusting sucking sound as he pulled it free. Massive amounts a blood began to pour from the wound. Abby tried to scream but all that erupted from her mouth was a thick sticky red bubble growing larger as the air escaped from her lungs before rupturing into a sprinkling of red mist that coated her face and clung to the strands of loose hair about her forehead.
Jack collapsed to the ground, dropping the axe and burying his head in his hands. He began to weep, morbid wailing sounds muffled by his fingertips. Grasping his knees he drew them up close to his body, rocking back and forth on his haunches and wailing like a small child who had lost his mother.
“What have I done? Abby, oh God Abby.”
He rolled Abby onto her back. Blood ran down the sides of her face, pooling at the base of her neck. Her eyesight began to cloud, and then shrink inward until only a small sliver of light remained. She was barely aware of Jack’s shrieks. A swirling tower of light erupted upwards through the ceiling and well above. It was peaceful, serene, and she felt herself drawn to it. Slowly the pain and decrepitude of her earthly body began to ebb and she found herself drifting upwards, floating above her corpse which lay broken and bleeding. Jack sat beside her, rocking back and forth. She couldn’t help but feel pity for him. He was nothing but a frightened child alone now with the world he hated so much. And then her vision shifted towards her friend. Brenda sat looking upwards behind the wall of white dancing flame, a small smile on her decayed and cracked lips.
Oh my God Brenda! She had forgotten about the little girl. Guilt and fear replaced the peaceful feeling and she struggled against the light pulling her upward. Abby felt herself racing forward to the ground once again, the wind whipping against the sides of her face with such force that it droned out all of the sound around her, until she felt herself slam into the hard cement floor driving the air from her lungs until...
She drew breath.
The pain was unbearable, her ravaged body screamed out in protest, begging her to leave, but Abby wouldn’t listen. Slowly she felt the tingling sensations in her fingertips as she began to claw her way towards the little girl.
Abby, what are you doing? It will close, the window will close and you’ll be trapped here, just like us!
But Abby didn’t listen, intent on saving her friend from the eternal emptiness of this God forsaken place. With each pull she felt the sting as she ripped her fingertips from their cuticles. With each heartbeat she felt more of her precious blood expunged from her body. The light above her began to fade, growing dimmer in thick air. Still she pressed onward, watching the fiery cage grow nearer
and nearer. When she was just a few feet from it Brenda began to plead again.
No, Abby. Forget about me, the light is fading!
The little girl was crying now, thick wet tears ran down her cracked and disheveled face. With one last effort Abby pulled herself into the burning flames feeling the searing heat as it liquefied her flesh. A small opening began to form within the wall of fire. Abby looked up and pleaded to her friend with petrified eyes.
Now, Brenda. Go Now. Take your brother!
“But you’ll be trapped here.”
Her tears became larger.
GO NOW! DO NOT WORRY ABOUT ME!
Brenda hesitated a moment longer and then upon seeing Abby’s determination leapt forward, skirting the flames until she stood free beyond their grasp. Abby watched as another form began to take shape, materializing out of the smoke and gloom. A small boy no older than three looked out at her. He was dressed in sneakers and overalls, bright blue eyes peered out at her from a wall of charred flesh. He smiled at her and mouthed three simple words.
Thank you Abby.
The overhead light spread outward until it engulfed the two children. The charred flesh that surrounded their bodies began to fall away, replaced with soft pink tissue until two unscathed beautiful children stood before her. It was then that Abby Darrow was able to look upon her friend fully for the first time. Golden ringlets of blonde hair fell around the sides of her face, crystal blue eyes peered out from long dark lashes. A beautiful blue dress, white socks, and shiny black shoes completed the vision.
“Oh, Brenda you’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful.”
Abby’s words flowed from her lips and for the first time since her accident they seemed in a word, perfect.
She watched as the light grew brighter and the two children began to rise upward. Brenda stared down at her with a dazzling smile.
“Thank you Abby. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
And then the children disappeared into the light, and Abby cascaded into darkness.
FIFTY-ONE
Jack Darrow carried the broken body of his wife along the wooded path behind Myers Creek. Her arms and legs dangled and swayed as he walked, a constant lifeless reminder that she was dead. He had killed her, killed the only woman who had ever loved him. His heart was heavy, like a sack of rocks buried deep within his chest. His only solace came in the form of the birds that chirped their melodious songs along with each step that he took. Before Abby’s arrival the woods around Talcott Manor had been silent for nearly a century, but his loving and faithful wife had allowed them to sing once again. She was indeed a miraculous woman.
Darrow walked until he found a spot that would suit his needs, a small clearing just off the wooded path where he could dig a shallow grave. He laid Abby down on a bed of soft leaves and drove the front end of the shovel into the earth. It was not as he envisioned it. No longer was he digging a grave to conceal the remains of his wife from prying eyes, no longer was he digging a grave among the trees to leave her to rot, instead he dug the grave in a place where he felt at last that she could find peace, a peace that he was never able to give her.
The ground was hard. Chill winds blew in off of the ocean, telling of the foreboding winter. Darrow labored for nearly two hours until he had dug a trench long enough and deep enough to hold the body of his precious Abby. As he laid her to rest in the shallow grave he wiped the tears from his eyes.
“Rest in peace Abby.”
His words echoed through the trees and down the valley, but they felt empty and hollow. He scooped the last few shovels of loose earth over her grave and with his deed done he bowed his head in a moment of silence. He dropped the shovel, letting it fall where it lay and started the long trek back towards Talcott Manor. He couldn’t be sure, but for a second he thought he heard the call of a raven, a long drawn out squawk filtering through the trees and singing homage to a life cut short.
FIFTY-TWO
I guess I could be bitter about the whole experience, but what would be the point in that? Jack Darrow was a man who lived his life according to his own rules, as strange and as warped as they might be. I no longer feel any sort of hostility towards Jack Darrow, I simply wish that things could have turned out different, but in the end I know that things happen the way they were meant to be. I take solace in the chirping of the birds, the winds that blow through the tops of the trees, and the knowledge that somewhere high above, two beautiful children watch over me. They are my salvation, my shred of sanity in an eternity devoid of logic.
Deep in the hills behind Myers Creek just off the wooded path we walked every day. In a small clearing where the shadows of the oaks and the pines blend together lies a shallow grave, and the woman in that grave is me.
Part III
REVELATIONS AND REPERCUSSIONS
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined... to strengthen each other... to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.
-George Eliot
FIFTY-THREE
I was born Abigail Eileen Anderson in the small town of Broquerville Oklahoma. A black dot on a state map, the kind of oil town where if the wells dried up so did people’s pocketbooks. My father was a roughneck, working the oilrigs from dawn ‘til dusk, my mother a homemaker, back in the days when that was still considered an honorable profession. I was born in June on a beautiful summer day, and I guess the year really isn’t important anymore. My delivery took nearly 21 hours of labor and nearly killed my mother. The running family joke was that I didn’t want to leave my mom, and for the next 17 years I rarely did just that.
I’m not sure what it was that drove me away from that small town and the loving family who cared so much for me. Perhaps the boredom in Broquerville just became too great, perhaps the excitement and call of the open road was just too tempting, or maybe it was the cowboy in tight chaps (his name really isn’t important anymore either) and the allure of the rodeo circuit that pushed me from my fledgling nest. Sure I often wonder what my life would have been like had I stayed. I’m sure I’d be married to someone other than Jack Darrow. I like to picture him as a kind and loving man with the kind of smile that lights up a room. I’m sure I’d have children. That’s probably the biggest regret I have about my life, not having kids, not getting to watch them grow up, offer guidance, tend to scraped knees, or make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on warm summer days. I’d have a menial job in that small town, the kind that doesn’t pay much and where you spend most of the time yakking with customers and fueling up on the latest gossip than you actually do working. And most likely I’d still be alive, alive and healthy. It’s funny, all the things in life that you take for granted until they’re gone. The bottom line is I made my decision and the rest is history.
Jack on the other hand didn’t have much of a choice in life. He was dealt a shitty hand and played his cards the best he knew how. You could argue that he was a killer, a sociopath, even a monster if you wanted to, but I know that had he been given a better start in life he might have turned out okay.
Whenever I feel anger or scorn at Jack Darrow I try to think about what his childhood must have been like, chained in the basement and constantly beaten and belittled by the one person who was supposed to protect him. He never knew his father, and he rarely spoke of him. He said once that his mother told him that his father was a transient, a worthless junkie, drifting through life and passing through town the night Jack was conceived. Whether that’s true or not, I can’t say. What I do know is that Jack left home when he was fifteen, and spent the next six years incarcerated in a juvenile detention center. He didn’t leave by choice, you don’t get a chance to make your own decisions when you’re fifteen and kill your own mother.
He never talked much about that either, the first murder he ever committed. Saying once that his mother was beating him again for whatever reason she came up with, spilled milk I think it was. Anyway she was hitting and screaming at
him and he just snapped, went off the deep end so to speak, and grabbed a pair of scissors off the kitchen table and stabbed her in the neck. Then he cut out her voice box so she could never yell at him again and placed it in the garbage disposal, but it got caught in the gears and spat back out, hitting him if the face. Jack always said that it was his mother’s way of getting the last word, even in death she was still bitching at him.
He cut off her head and buried it face down towards his bedroom in the cellar, saying that his mother was always looking down at him in life and death couldn’t change that. His sisters came home that afternoon from school and found their mother’s headless corpse. Jack was escorted to the detention center that night. I’m not sure what happened to the girls, I believe their grandparents raised them and I hope they turned out okay, better than Jack did anyway.
I suppose you want to hear the rest of the story, what happened to Jack, the sheriff Randall Jackson and his family, and I suppose I have time to tell it, it won’t take long. The same day that Jack buried me in the woods he was down in the basement polishing his revolver and about to end his own life when the shit really hit the fan.
FIFTY-FOUR
Randall Jackson knew something wasn’t right the second he pulled his Cherokee up the gravel drive that led to Talcott Manor and saw the front doors wide open. Even from the seat of his truck some twenty yards away he could see the blood, a massive trail of sticky redness pooled on the porch and striping the front steps. He was on the radio right away, belittling himself for not having listened to Ellie sooner. Things had spun out of control and in the back of his head he feared they were about to get worse.
“Denny, come in. I need you over at Darrow’s place ASAP. We got trouble.” He had to fight the urge to go storming into the house alone, but he knew better. This was a task in need of backup.
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