Delia

by Jason LaVelle

  *****

  “So everyone knows we’re together,” Francis said as he worked his knife into the smooth bark of the large beech tree that Delia was leaning against.

  Delia observed him curiously. Francis had carved a large heart into the skin of the tree, which he was now filling with letters. “We are in the middle of the forest, I do not think this will be a good place for an advertisement,” she said.

  Francis paused and looked over at her. As usual, his dark brown hair was a disheveled mess, falling over his eyes so that he had to brush it away to see her. As he stared at her he smiled. His face was terribly handsome. His eyes were a warm chocolate, filled with what he called love as he looked at Delia.

  Delia repeated those words back to him, the I love you words, but she didn’t really know exactly what they meant. She was very attracted to him, and she certainly felt desire as she admired his finely shaped body and his rough but boyish face. Having accidentally discovered the art of masturbation one evening after a bath, she knew what lust was. She had been drying herself off between her legs when her hands felt compelled to apply just a little more pressure to the spot between her thighs. She had laid back on the bathroom floor and thought of Francis touching her there.

  She hadn’t told Francis about it. They were only sixteen, and while the sweet confusion of pubescent hormones had begun coursing through both of them, they were still largely innocent. Sure, there had been kissing over the years, mostly initiated by Francis. While the kissing was enjoyable, as was the occasional touch to her breasts, Delia just didn’t feel as passionately about it as she knew Francis did. None of it seemed to compare to the time she had spent alone in the bathroom. She kept trying, though, so now as he stared into her eyes she gave him a warm smile.

  “But I do think it is lovely, Francis.”

  Francis gave up a large crooked grin and turned back to his work. “We know it’s here, Dee, and we’re the only ones that matter, aren’t we?”

  Delia hesitated for a moment. She knew what Francis would like to hear, but in her heart she knew the thing that mattered most to her was completing school with perfect grades so that she could enter a good vocational school and become successful. There were other things that also mattered much more than the two of them: bankers, mortgages, jobs, houses, children. But Delia didn’t say any of those things. Instead she replied only, “Yes, of course.”

  Delia stared off into the woods around them, the musky smell of earth enveloping everything out here. Her hair looked pretty today, blonde curls that bounced lightly above her shoulders. Francis had been toying with the buoyant curls enough that she’d had to slap him away, lest he pull apart her hard work.

  “I need to return home, soon,” she told him.

  “I’m almost done here, Dee.”

  “All right, then.”

  “There!” Francis exclaimed triumphantly. He stepped away from the old tree and held his hand out to her. Then he pulled her next to him to observe his artistry. Carved into the flesh of the tree was Francis + Delia surrounded by a slightly misshaped heart. Delia sighed to herself and patted his hard chest with her palm. Francis was sweating, even with his shirt rolled up to his elbows, revealing his heavily muscled forearms.

  Delia leaned over to him and kissed him deeply on the lips, mostly because she knew that he really enjoyed it when she did this. She wrapped one hand behind his neck and squeezed a little, putting more pressure into their kiss and then pulled away abruptly.

  “You did a nice job. All of the forest creatures will know not to mess with me.” Delia gave him a playful look and then drew him away from the tree. “I need to return home now. Walk me there?”

  “Of course,” he replied. They started to walk but Francis stopped her suddenly and pulled her close to him. He stared intently into her eyes, and there was something troubled about his face. “You know we are meant to be together, don’t you?”

  His voice was a little too serious and his broad chest suddenly seemed intimidating. The tendons in his neck were unnecessarily tense and Delia felt a shiver of fear. There was no hesitation in her response, however. “Of course I know that, Francis. I love you. Now please walk me home.”

  His face softened at her response. “Of course, I’m sorry. Sometimes I just worry about you.”

  “Well you needn’t worry about me, Francis. Now hustle up, I am nearly late for dinner.”

  As Delia pulled Francis along, her mind was filled with an odd sound, like a hard wind was blowing, but the trees around her weren’t moving. She had heard that sound before, and as they walked, she started to recollect where. Ever since her father had killed her mother and tried to end her life as well, her mind had been shared with another presence. She did not talk about it or consciously think about it. It was just an unshaped thing that seemed to reside within her.

  The sound was dying down into a gentle rustling now, but Delia could not shake that strange feeling of unease that always accompanied it. For the first time in a long time she felt fearful. There was nothing she could do about it, though. Their paths were locked together in the dance of time now, more so than she would have ever imagined.

  *****

  Delia startled back into consciousness to find herself collapsed on the deck in the early morning sunlight. Her dream was still fresh in her mind, and the roar of worried thoughts was pounding against her skull once more. Delia lifted herself from the deck, noticing a large and unfortunate lump where her forehead had connected with the wood. She traced her fingers over the carved heart in the old boards. Inside the heart were the same words he’d carved into the tree so many years ago: Francis + Delia.

  He still thinks I belong to him. Back then, he felt like the carving in the tree was his pledge to the world that they belonged to each other. In his mind, that pledge and that agreement would last forever. Then another, more worrisome thought popped into her head. If he had time to carve all of this, he must have hurt Alice. Yes, he would have incapacitated her somehow. He had no doubt taken her to draw Delia to him. Delia only hoped he hadn’t killed her yet, because she feared that was what was coming. Though she hadn’t seen or heard from Francis in years, it appeared that in his mind, Alice was all that stood between them.

  Well, Delia would have to take the bait. She had no choice but to go after Alice. She was not only her friend and lover; she was something so much more than that. Delia felt like Alice was a part of her very core, a part of her existence. Alice was not flawless, but together, she and Delia made something that was more than perfect to her. Delia thought of Alice as her wife, but the words she was really looking for were soul mate.

  Delia finally gathered her senses, stood up and looked off towards Francis’s house. Morning was the most beautiful time of day at the old farm. Crisp white light streamed out over the yard, causing tiny diamonds of dew to sparkle in the grass. The underbrush beyond was laced with reflective jewels as well. Delia had spent many mornings on this very porch with her sister Lilly, watching the sun come up, always in awe of nature’s sparkling light show. It had seemed like their own private miracle.

  Today held none of that magic. Delia stepped down from the porch and headed straight through the yard into the thick tree line than ran parallel to the great wheat fields beyond the farm. Delia didn’t look back at the farm as she left. She knew she might not return from this trip, but she had to try, for Alice’s sake, and for her own. The funeral for Uncle Don was in four hours. Delia doubted she would make it there, and she only hoped she wasn’t heading toward a funeral of her own, or worse, for Alice.

  The woods were unforgiving on her inappropriate clothing. Her slacks seemed to get caught on every bramble she attempted to step over and soon her ankles were adorned with bracelets of burrs. She still had on her nightshirt, but that was just made of thin cotton, and the sharp branches were poking and tearing against her at every turn. It seemed that she was not making progress fast enough, so she began to run through the woods.

  Sh
e was slow at first. It had been years since she had actually run, and the flats she wore were not designed for running through bushes and trees. Several minutes went by before her legs started to find joy in the hard rhythm she now put them through. They felt like they were doing what they were made for. Soon she was running hard, and her feet seemed to be gliding through the underbrush.

  Her shoulders bobbed through the branches instinctively now as her body found the rhythm of its childhood once more. Her breath came hard, but the burn within her lungs was a welcome distraction from the terror and worry she was feeling.

  The noise in her mind had become so great that the waves of sound careening through her head actually appeared to be taking shape. She began to see shadows darting through her vision. They were twisting and moving, dancing in front of her.

  Maybe this is a visual migraine? She had heard about the strange phenomenon from a Belgian doctor, but she doubted that’s what she was experiencing now. It appeared her special gift was evolving further.

  Just what I need.

  The shapes that appeared to her now did not really impede her vision; they were simply a part of it. As she ran, the strange shadows, that had no place out here in the white morning light, branched out from her mind and started treading alongside her. Her eyes darted back and forth through the woods as she observed the shadowy forms. They began to look more and more humanoid, crouching down beside trees, examining the ground before darting forward in the direction she was heading once more. What the hell is happening here?

  Confusion swam into her already overcrowded mind and she forced it away. She couldn’t think about this strange phenomenon now. It’s all in my head anyway. She needed to focus on moving through the woods quickly. The dissonant roar in her head had quieted now, or perhaps it was masked by the sound of her own heavy breathing. Either way she plodded on, harder and faster with each stride.

  Her legs became more accustomed to the run and she covered the distance quickly. In only fifteen minutes, the butcher’s house began to loom beyond the trees. Instead of heading straight to the house, where Francis was no doubt waiting to ambush her, or holding Alice hostage inside, Delia decided to be a little more sneaky and a lot more careful.

  She changed directions and skirted around the yard, still hidden in the trees, until she came up behind the meat house, where the butchering was done. When they were children, Francis had shown her the secret back door to the meat house, where his father would come to smoke his special tobacco. Delia’s gait dropped down to a walk, and then she slowed herself even further. She was hit with the pungent, overpowering smell of rotten flesh. When she broke through the edge of the tree line behind the barn, she saw why.

  Through a black cloud of flies a heaping pile of mutilated cow and pig carcasses appeared. Jesus Christ, he isn’t even burying them; he’s just throwing them behind the barn. Delia choked down the bile that was gurgling up through her throat and leaped the last few feet up to the back door. She placed a hand nervously on the knob. What if it’s locked? She turned the handle. The door swung open into the cold darkness of the meat room.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Alice had never been more terrified. When she woke, with a blinding headache, she was not where she should have been. The last thing she remembered was sneaking downstairs to have a cigarette. Now she was lying on her side on a patchy, dry section of someone’s yard. It was overgrown with weeds, and the soil was rocky beneath her. As she tried to lift herself from the ground the real panic set in. She was bound, hand and foot. Her wrists had been tied together behind her back and her feet were restrained at the ankles.

  “Help!” she cried out. “Somebody help me! Delia!”

  “Don’t you worry,” a deep, rusty voice said from behind her. “I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

  Alice flopped like a fish until she was flat on her back and was face to face with the man who had spoken. She gasped when she saw him. He looked like a monster.

  Even after years of work as a nurse in the army corps, working with everything from burns to bullet holes and amputations, she could not deny that this man was truly hideous. His disfigurement was more than just his scarred skin. His eyes were like black holes, filled with God knows what, but Alice was sure it was something evil. She did not yet realize who he was, though it should have been clear immediately.

  “You, you kidnapped me?” she asked in a frightened voice. “Why did you do that? What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t want anything from you, whore. I want what’s mine. I want my Delia back.”

  Shock smacked her in the face. “Francis,” she breathed.

  The man nodded. “It was foolish for you two to come back here. Then I realized it was just God bringing back what was always mine. She belongs to me, you know. She promised to be mine forever.”

  Alice was frantically shaking her head.

  “A promise you made her break!” he yelled.

  “No, I didn’t,” Alice pleaded. “We fell in love!”

  Francis hissed at her. “She was mine and you took her from me. Now I will take her back.”

  “She doesn’t belong to you or me. Delia made her choice, and she chose to be with me.” Alice’s bravery was not rewarded.

  Francis stood and planted his prosthetic firmly on the ground then swung his other foot at her, smashing it into the side of her skull.

  As the world went black around Alice, she heard him say. “She is mine.”

  *****

  Alice’s head felt like it was going to explode. As she came back to consciousness once again, the throbbing in her head had tripled, and was now dangerously close to outright killing her. She had suffered two severe traumas to the head. She knew she was concussed, and dehydrated, as she was still lying in the yard under the bright morning sun, which was now warming everything considerably.

  “Well, I think I’m about ready for you.”

  Alice startled, then did her fish flopping maneuver once more so she could see Francis. He was a few paces away and stood over a gaping hole in the earth, with his shirt off and a shovel in his hand. She did not know what his intensions were yet, but panic began to surge through her.

  “Ah yes, you have every right to be scared,” he continued, seeing the fear in her eyes, “because this will be the end of the road for you.” Francis graced her with one of his hideous smiles.

  “Help! Help me!” Alice began screaming repeatedly. In between scream she could hear Francis’s laughter.

  “That’s it, girl, just keep at it!” He continued to laugh as he walked up to her, leaving the shovel by the hole he had dug. Alice tried to flop away from him, which got yet another chuckle from Francis. He stooped down and grabbed her by the arms.

  “Come admire my hard work, why don’t you?” With that, he dragged her over to the deep hole he had torn into the yard. Alice was trying to wriggle out of his grip, but there was no way she could do that with her hands and feet tied up. Francis pulled her right up to the edge of the pit, so that she could look down into it.

  “You may want to stand on your tippy toes, I’m not sure I got the depth just right,” he snarled at her, then shoved her feet first into the hole. Alice screamed as she fell and landed in a crumpled pile atop her bound ankles. A moment later she felt a pile of dirt smack the top of her head. “It might be a little quicker that way, but I’d stand up if I were you.”

  Alice wriggled herself against the sides of the hole to try to get into a standing position. It was easier than she thought it would be. The pit was narrow, only a couple of body widths in diameter, and probably five and a half feet deep. All the while, black dirt was raining down on her from above. She did indeed need to stand on her tippy toes, and when she got herself upright she was standing with just her head protruding above the earth. The rest of her was being slowly buried.

  Alice was panicking, and anytime she tried to move out of the position he wanted her in, Francis would whack her face with the shovel. It seemed
to take hours for him the fill in the grave where she stood, and when the dirt reached her chest, the weight of it started to press against her lungs. That was extremely unfortunate, since the panicked heaving of her chest demanded more and more room and now it felt as though she was suffocating.

  Adding to the unreal horror of her predicament was Francis’s singing. It was soft and melodious – a disturbingly happy sound coming from a heinous monster.

  “And if I kiss you in the garden

  In the moonlight

  Will you pardon me?

  Come tip toe through the tulips with me”

  Alice’s voice had given out on her, and now she was suffering in a wheezing silence as Francis worked to complete her tomb. I am going to die. Yes, it did seem to be a certainty that she would expire. Please don’t come, Delia. Don’t let him get you too. Even as she thought it, she knew she didn’t mean it. She did not want Francis to get to Delia, just as she didn’t want to die. Nevertheless, she wanted Delia to come and try to save her.

  Though it was dwindling quickly, she still held a small amount of hope. Delia had told her she would always look after her, and Alice believed her. Save me. Please save me, Delia. The weight of the earth had gone from uncomfortable to excruciating. As Francis piled more dirt around her, the earth’s embrace became heavier and heavier, making it hard for her lungs to expand enough to breathe. Her body fought harder to suck in air, but the harder she fought, the less she was able to draw in. Finally, she began to cry.

  Alice was not strong today, not resilient like she had been her whole life. Perhaps she had let herself go, perhaps the practiced strength she had learned from years of boarding school teachers had begun to wane. She had survived and overcome great obstacles and now she was weeping like a baby. She felt like it was not Francis who was torturing her now but her own weak emotions. She had lived so well for so long. Is it just my time to go now? No, it was not. Alice knew it was not her time, but her brain wasn’t functioning right.