I tried to fight back but was helpless to do anything. He flipped me again as if I were nothing more than a rag doll, then pinned me on my stomach to the soaking ground. The collapsed front tire rested just inches from my face.
“Wake up, Harden!”
A fist slammed into my lower back and seemed to push a kidney right though my skin. I howled through the pain, and then thought immediately of the recording device. He’s going to find it, and then he’ll kill me for sure.
“What the fuck!” I screamed. “Get off of—”
He cut me short by pulling my hair back and leaning into my ear. I could smell the tequila on his breath.
“You’re alive now, aren’t you? Feel it, Harden. Feel it. This is what I was talking about.”
I didn’t feel alive at all. I felt asleep. It all seemed to be happening on another plane of existence, one in which I had no control at all.
He yanked so hard on my hair I was certain my scalp was going to rip completely off. God, I wanted to hurt him back. I’ve never wanted to hurt someone in my life as much as I wanted to hurt Coyote in that moment. I almost forgot about the girl dying in the car just feet away from me.
“You want to know what it was like to kill that boy in the woods?” Coyote said into my ear. “It was the best feeling in the world, Harden. I consumed him. He was mine for the taking, and I took.”
Was the recorder still on, and was it capturing this? I couldn’t do anything but hope, and the next thing I knew I was on my feet, but only because he had yanked me effortlessly off the ground. I didn’t understand how the hell he was so strong. Maybe he did have some kind of power.
Coyote dragged me to the passenger side of the car, where the door appeared intact. He yanked it open and shoved me inside. Next to her. For a second, my cheek touched hers, and her skin was cool wax. I heard her shallow, raspy breaths. She smelled of mints mixed with the coppery fumes of blood.
Coyote squeezed his face inside the car with us. His body pressed up against mine from behind, blocking me in.
He grabbed my right hand. It happened so fast. Everything was happening too fast.
He pressed my hand against her mouth, covering her lips and nose. I tried to pull back, but I couldn’t. Goddamnit, why couldn’t I move my hand? He was too strong.
The girl’s eyes grew so wide they seemed to breach their sockets. She tried to flail underneath me, but she couldn’t move.
“Stop!” I screamed.
“Feel it,” he replied. Coyote was right there. He was everywhere.
He pressed harder.
I think I screamed. I don’t remember. I do remember feeling the girl’s teeth beneath my fingers. She was trying to bite me.
“Feel it, Harden.”
I pulled and pulled, but my hand was glued to this girl’s face. She stared at me with a look that will haunt me forever. Not even a look of fear as much a look of why are you doing this to me?
Then she started to die. Her body shook and heaved under my weight. I was suffocating her and I couldn’t remove my hand.
I felt her tongue on my fingers, desperately trying to burrow between them, seeking even the smallest of air holes.
I’m sorry, I wanted to scream, but that would have made everything real. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.
In the dim light, I could see her eyes begin to roll. A heavy wetness rattled in her lungs.
Coyote pressed harder on my hand. His knee pressed into my lower back. I never felt so helpless in my life.
“You’re killing her,” he said in my ear, inside my head. “Your face is the last one she will ever see. You are the last moment of her existence. Understand that, Harden. You’re not her murderer. You are God to her.”
“Please stop,” I pleaded, aware I was now crying. But Coyote was a boulder I could not move.
Blood welled in her eyes, and two dark tears rolled down her cheeks and stained her neck.
Then she was gone.
Her eyes stayed open, but she was gone. The moment a person dies is unmistakable. In an instant, she was nothing more than a bloody doll.
She was dead, and I killed her.
Coyote released his weight and yanked me back from the car. I collapsed on the curb and immediately threw up. The rain showered over me but it could not wash away what had happened.
I looked up and he towered over me, fists balled, hair hanging in wet, ropey strands over his face. I thought he was going to kick me, but instead he merely turned away, perhaps thinking I was only a shell of a man, no longer—and perhaps never was—any kind of threat. Maybe he was right.
Coyote removed his soaking shirt and wiped down the outside of the car door. Then he reached in and wiped anything that we had touched.
That was when I charged at him.
Everything I had left I put into attacking Coyote. I wrapped my arms around his legs and managed to lift him off the ground, slamming him hard onto the street. If a car was coming, we’d both be run over, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t just going to hurt him.
I was going to kill him.
I could tell I caught him off guard, but he quickly adjusted to my attack. He slammed his elbow into my ear and I thought my head was going to explode. With the speed and strength of an Olympic wrestler, Coyote was then on top of me again, pinning my stomach to the street and my hands behind me, his knee in my lower back. I struggled and fought him, but I couldn’t do anything. I was a little boy, helpless under the weight of an older, stronger man. All I wanted to do, for once in my fucking life, was fight back, and even if I died inflicting my own harm, at least that would be something. I did not want to die as simply as a bug being stepped on.
“You’re a part of this now, Harden. The police will come soon, and you killed her. You can go or stay. If you go, you go with me.” He pushed my bones deeper into the asphalt. “If you stay . . . well, good luck to you.”
His weight suddenly lifted.
I turned over, and saw Coyote running up the hill through the cemetery. In a few seconds he was gone, lost among the dead and their homes.
I only waited a few seconds before I ran after him.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The rain mixed with my sweat as my feet slapped the hard pavement beneath me. Up through the cemetery, onto Watkins Road. Behind a house, onto another street. I wanted to stop. I wanted to turn around. Go back. Wait for the police. But I didn’t know how. It was as though once my initial instinct to run was acted upon, my body couldn’t rewind. There was no other course.
And then I saw Coyote in front of me. It was dark, and he had a good lead, but I just made him out in the moonlight.
The chain of events from the last few minutes flashed through my mind.
Coyote knew he could cause a car accident. He knew someone would eventually drive down that road, and it would swerve to avoid him. He knew the wet pavement would cause the car to lose control. The moment Coyote realized I wouldn’t join him, he decided to kill someone and implicate me in it. It was the only way to keep me on his side. It was the only way to control me.
He had bet his life on it, and he was right.
I had run away. I was a coward, and he had predicted all of it.
I stopped.
I gulped at the thick air, trying to drink it in. I tasted the sweat on my lip, salty and warm, mixing with rainwater.
I thought of her. I thought of her eyes. Dead, vacant eyes.
Suddenly, Coyote stopped and turned.
I struggled to hold still, almost hoping he couldn’t see me. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want him to see me.
But he did. He looked right at me. I couldn’t see his face, at least not clearly, but I knew he was watching me.
I thought I saw him shake his head. I could almost hear his voice in my head.
Don’t do it.
He was reading my mind, I thought. He knew. He knew what I had to do.
I thought of my father. I could see him, watching me, as if he were dead
and looking down upon me. It was such a strong sensation I almost looked up, though I knew he wasn’t there. Yet I could feel his gaze pierce me, and inside I could hear his judgment. Would I do the right thing? Or would I continue to be a disappointment to him? Was this the moment, he wondered in my head, that I would find what he found? Salvation? Was this the crisis I needed?
Do it, Harden. Go back to her. Get help. Tell the truth. Whatever road you start walking down now, you’ll be on it for quite a while. Choose the right one.
Coyote kept watching me. I could only see his outline. A scarecrow hoping for company at the back of a barren field.
This was my future. I could see it as clearly as I could still see the blood of that girl in my mind. This was the rest of my life. Right now.
I spit on the ground, jettisoning bile from my mouth. I reached down and patted my crotch, feeling the recorder. Everything still seemed to be in place. Whether or not it had captured anything was a different story; I would have to wait to find out.
As I turned, I knew Coyote would keep watching me. I didn’t care. I began walking back to the car. Soon the police would be there, and I would tell them everything that happened. Explaining things would go a lot easier if the device had recorded any of the last few minutes.
I heard footsteps behind me, growing louder.
Faster.
Harder.
I turned.
Coyote was no longer human. He was an animal. Suspended in midair.
Reaching.
Clawing.
He knocked me off the ground.
I heard a crunch as my head hit the pavement. Pain seared through me, but I didn’t lose consciousness.
I tried to stand, but he pushed me back to the ground and kicked me in the ribs. I lost all breath and desperately tried to suck in fresh air, but it wouldn’t come.
Then there was another sensation.
A prick in my skin. The sting of a needle.
A sensation of cold in my chest.
Then everything went black.
PART III
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
SEPTEMBER 1990
Harden woke in the cell, as he had done countless times before, cold and hungry, soreness seeped into his bones, and a rancid taste in his mouth, the flavor of rotten meat. None of this was new. Yet there was something different this time. He could feel it.
He eyed the scar on the back of his right hand. It was healed over with only a thin red snake of a line across the bones. He slid his hand under his shirt and felt the stitches. Or where the stitches had been. They’d removed them some time ago—maybe a week? Now a series of raised bumps replaced the open stomach wound Bill had been so happy to give him.
The scar felt the same to him.
Since the game, the other Baby Face had been the only one in contact with Harden. The man talked very little. Bill seemed to have disappeared. Maybe Bill had been fired. Maybe Bill was dead.
Harden stretched along the floor, feeling the pain in his joints. He didn’t know how much longer he could last. Since the day the second Baby Face had Tased him, Harden had thrown himself into his writing. He would never leave here by escape—two painfully failed attempts made that clear. He had to write to live. It was a long shot, but it was his only hope. He didn’t have the strength for anything else. His book was nearly done.
He wondered what Coyote thought of his latest chapters.
Harden hadn’t been harmed since the day Bill cut him. That day seemed like months ago. Perhaps it was. He wondered if Emma was still alive. He thought about that a lot. Maybe more than anything else.
Harden rolled over and opened his eyes. He had no idea how long he had slept. He never did. This time, though, it felt like he’d slept for days. He scratched at his beard, which was at least two inches long. He fucking hated his face covered in hair, but, as with everything else in this situation, there was nothing to be done.
Again he felt the sensation of something different in the cell, but Harden couldn’t tell what it was. Something had woken him, and it wasn’t the cycle of either the sun or moon, because he had no concept when one was up and the other was down. His gaze first caught the typewriter. He hadn’t put his last bit of manuscript by the door, he remembered. Instead, fatigue had overcome him, and he’d bedded on the dirt floor without even removing the last page from the machine.
But it was gone. Gone, too, were the other pages, once neatly stacked on the desk.
Harden’s eyes opened wider and he tried to force alertness on himself, but it was like trying to see clearly through a pair of glasses that weren’t yours.
They’d never removed the pages when he was sleeping. They’d always made him stand in the corner before collecting the pages. When did they come in? How had he not heard them?
The answer came to him as a dull ache in his left arm. He looked over and saw a small bruise just below his shoulder. In the center of the bruise was a very small hole, nearly imperceptible.
They injected me again.
He moved his gaze to the dirty lightbulb and focused until the image finally became sharp. His body was weak and his mind torpid, but this small exercise made him finally feel awake.
He felt a sharp urge to pee. He struggled to his feet, shuffled to the corner, and relieved himself in the bucket.
I’ve been out a long time, he thought.
He zipped, turned, and that’s when he saw something he wasn’t sure was even real.
The door was open.
Not much. Just an inch or so, enough to create a vertical slat of light that widened as it pierced the dull grayness of his home. But it was open.
He would have run to the door if he could, but only slow, steady movement kept him from falling. It could be a trap. They could be waiting on the other side with the Taser, just to destroy his hope. Harden didn’t care anymore. He had given up hope, so he had nothing to lose. He just directed himself to the light and didn’t think much about the consequences.
He reached the door, brushed his greasy hair out of his eyes, and peered through the small opening, seeing nothing but the wall on the other side of the hallway. He strained to hear the faintest noise, but there was only silence.
Harden opened the door.
He took a hesitant step out into the light, waiting for a blow to strike him at any moment. But none did, and the only assault came from the intensity of the fluorescent bulbs above him. His eyes struggled against the piercing brightness.
He turned and looked back inside his cell, seeing it as the Baby Faces had seen it—from the outside. In that moment Harden decided if he was going to die, it wasn’t going to be back in there. If they found him in the hallway, he would try to kill them. Knowing he most likely couldn’t, he would ask them to finish him off. Anything but being put back in that room.
Movement on the floor of the cell caught his eye.
Charlotte.
Whether the spider had seen the open door and was also trying to escape, or if she had finally decided to bite Harden, she was heading directly toward him. He hadn’t seen her in days, maybe weeks, though every time he closed his eyes to sleep he would wonder if she would come out to crawl on him. Inject him with her poison, just because she could. When he woke, Harden would often spend the first minute or so delicately searching his body and clothes for signs of her.
She kept coming toward him. Straight line. Full speed. Harden stood and watched until she nearly made it to his foot. Then he softly raised his shoe and stepped on her, crushing her beneath his toes.
And that was that.
When he lifted his shoe and saw the smeary remains, he felt a faint surge of energy. Harden had, at last, defeated something.
He turned and looked down the hallway. The door of the other cell was open, as was the door at the far end of the passage, revealing the stairs behind it. It was as if the prison wardens had just abandoned their posts. He had to look for Emma.
As he got closer to her cell, he heard only silence. He did
n’t know if he could bear looking inside. What if he found her in the same state he had discovered Derek? The thought was too awful to consider, yet it was the only thing he could think about. Still, he had to look.
Oh, please, God.
His legs nearly buckled in relief when he saw the cell was empty. No Emma. No table, chair, or even bucket. He looked at the dirt and found not even footprints on the hardened earth. Thin lines stretched in haphazard patterns on the soil, as if lightly raked. None of this meant she was safe. But at least he didn’t find her body.
Harden left the cell and made his way toward the stairs.
CHAPTER FIFTY
He’d been here before, centuries ago it seemed. He had been about to walk up the stairs then, but instead he went to the other cell and discovered Emma. That was as close to freedom as he had made it.
As he put his foot on the first step, he wondered how far he’d get this time.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as he listened to his weight press on each riser. His ascent was slow, and he expected at any moment a Baby Face to open the door at the top and kick him back down the stairs. The muscles in his legs had grown weak enough for him to burn with every step, and he knew he wouldn’t have the energy or the power for any kind of fight.
One step at time. The old wooden stairs creaked under whatever weight he still had. Halfway up, he took a moment to rest.
Finally, he reached the top. Harden placed one hand on the round doorknob and wondered what he would do if it was locked.
It wasn’t. It turned easily in his hand, and the sound of its mechanics seemed to echo in the stairwell. He pushed the door open a few inches.
A kitchen.
A kitchen?
Holy shit, he thought, it’s just a kitchen. An old one, small and simple, something out of another era.
Harden opened the door all the way.
Then he started to cry.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The normalcy of the house overwhelmed him, but what triggered his weeping was the sunlight. Real sunlight, streaming in through dirty windows and faded, laced curtains. Harden hadn’t seen sunlight in a long time. He walked through the kitchen and into an open living room, which was small, simple, and sparse. In the vague sense, it reminded him of his father’s house. Functional, spartan, depressing. The air was stale, and even had a touch of rot to it.
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