by Chris Bostic
Vince at least knew better than to try to prank me. He watched me the whole time we walked down the hallway. Then into the reception area, and over to the desk.
“Dude, stop,” I whispered.
His eyes drifted to the couch. “I just keep hearing you scream.”
“There was more than one,” I said, not able to hold back a little swipe.
“I know.”
“It’s okay.” I gave him a quick hug. “You were there when I needed you the most.”
I looked around the room, hopefully for the last time. Having come from the bar earlier, that left two directions to try: the museum or the unmarked door. “What do you think?”
“Whatever gets outside quicker.” Vince turned to the others. “Which way did you guys come from?”
June wrinkled her forehead. “I-I’m not sure.” She looked to Mike.
“It had to be there,” he said, pointing to the museum door.
“So what’s back there?” I asked.
“An older lobby.” He spread his hands wide, horizontally then vertically. “Big and tall.”
“Nothing like this,” June added. “It was pretty wrecked.”
“That’s where we came in,” I said. “We can get out that way.”
“That’ll work,” Vince said.
He went to the doors and shoved one open. Stepping through, he held it so we could enter yet another hallway. The difference was dramatic.
Narrow passageway. Dungeon-like. It was only thanks to the glow sticks that we had any idea where we were going.
“You guys can lead.” Vince passed his white stick to June and held me back. “Lights in the front and the back.” When I looked at him funny, he whispered, “So we can turn around if we need to.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, but didn’t quite believe it. After everything we had been through, nothing would make me feel safe until I was back in the hotel. Maybe not even then.
As we trudged down the dark hallway, crazy thoughts ran through my mind. Like what would I need to tell Pete about what happened? Or Vic? Certainly nothing about Vince, at least nothing from after the attack.
I really didn’t want to retell the story at all. I just wanted to curl up in bed and maybe wake up a month later. But I knew they’d see the bruises, and Vince’s shirt over my tank. And….
Tears threatened to break loose. A chill came over me, and I shuddered, spilling a couple droplets down my face again. I quickly wiped them off.
“You’re quiet,” Vince whispered.
“That a problem?” I snapped, and followed it up with a pitiful sniffle.
“Of course not.” He paused as if considering his words. In my estimation, that was a good idea. “I just worry. The wheels are turning up there.” He pointed at my head. “That’s dangerous.”
“For who?”
“Probably me. You too.” He leaned over to get even closer to my ear. “I don’t want to pretend like I know things, but it might help to just ramble about anything. You know, mindless chatter to keep yourself from thinking about other stuff?”
I nodded but kept quiet. He probably wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t in the mood to be told what to do. Maybe he could tell. Despite his unsolicited advice, he didn’t try to talk to me either.
Energy-wise, it had to be the low point of the trip, physically and emotionally. The darkness wore on me. The silence wasn’t helping, but there was nothing to say.
I felt like he sensed that. He kept close; then closer. His hand slipped into mine, and I didn’t fight it. I didn’t want to. I needed that touch. Craved it.
We made it all the way back to the old lobby without another word between any of us.
“We’re back.” Mike leaned against the nearest wall to catch his breath.
I noticed Vince wobbling too. Also rubbing his head with his free hand. It seemed like he could drop any second. I leaned into him to keep him on his feet.
June shot me a weird look.
I couldn’t know how much she remembered, or had been told earlier about Pete, but this clearly seemed out of place to her. Friends didn’t act like that.
I looked away. It was none of her business, just like it was none of my business if she was knocked up by the old timer.
“Ready?” June asked Mike.
He grunted a reply I couldn’t make out and didn’t move. I pulled Vince to the giant front door. I put one hand on it but didn’t push.
I looked at our clasped hand and sighed. He gave me a sad smile and nodded.
“Back to the real world,” I mumbled.
“Yep.”
I couldn’t let go. “I wish I could say it was fun while it lasted.”
“It had its moments.” Vince squeezed my hand, crushing the prongs on my engagement ring into my hand until it felt like it would draw blood.
Damn it hurt, so I just squeezed harder. Maybe the pain made it all worthwhile. It seemed especially fitting since it had to be my middle finger experiencing the most agony.
I nearly laughed, only to practically burst out into tears when Vince let go. It was one of the loneliest moments of my life, and that’s saying a lot—but that could have been the heightened emotions talking.
I pushed the door and was not greeted by sunlight. Or twilight. Or hardly any kind of light.
That was partly because I couldn’t even force the door wide enough to let myself out, much less Vince. He pushed with me, and we got it wide enough.
I took a tentative glance outside before stepping over the threshold. No Pete or Vic. Or anything.
Seeing nothing but the grayness of trees at sundown and the vacant parking lot prairie, I went for it, and immediately realized the air was significantly fresher outside. While I sucked in a breath of freedom, Vince held the door, staring back inside.
“Are they coming?”
“I can’t tell.” Vince squinted. “Mike’s really slowed down.”
There was no way I was going back in there. “I got the door if they need you.”
“I’m not much help.”
I didn’t get all sappy then. We were outside. I was free. Things that happened inside couldn’t happen outside. None of them.
I took a few more deep breaths and tried to relax. That wasn’t happening, so I went to pacing while Vince stayed by the door. Eventually, my pacing took me to his side.
Moth to a flame, I supposed.
“I wonder where Pete and Vic are at?”
“They should’ve been here,” Vince said, annoyance dripping from his voice. “Where the hell else would they be?”
“I dunno.” I punctuated my own irritation in robotic bursts of annoyance. “They shoulda been here. At the lobby. Waiting for us.” I shook my head. “And nothing.”
“I don’t even know where to look for ‘em.”
“I’m tempted not to,” I muttered and focused back on Mike and June. “Anyway, I wish they’d hurry up.”
“They’re coming. Mike doesn’t look good.”
I peeked around Vince and had to agree with his assessment. The older man shuffled his feet like my granddad.
“Looks like he’s the one that needs the cane now.”
“Maybe a walker.”
I looked up at Vince. “You?”
“I’m fine.”
“If you consider fine to be half-dead…and maybe half-drunk.”
He straightened up a little. “I think I’ve sobered up a bit after all that.”
“I could use a drink.”
Vince pointed across the parking lot to where we had come from much earlier. “There’s several thousand barrels of good stuff back there. Remember?”
“Good, huh? It’ll be hard to forget that stuff too.” I ran my bandaged hand over a swollen cheek. “Tempting though.”
“It’s at least a good antiseptic.” Vince looked back inside, then back to me. “You wanna go? We can probably get there and back before Mike gets out here.”
A couple minutes earlier and I wouldn’t
have considered it. I took a moment to mull it over and ultimately decided against going. Splitting up wasn’t the right thing to do at that moment, especially with my fiancé and his having bailed on our plans.
“We need to stay together.”
Vince stared back inside. “We might not get outta here tonight if we wait for them, but….”
“I know. We have to.”
They did make it outside eventually. In fact, Mike looked a little better once they made it to freedom and he had a minute to suck in that post-rain, cool evening air. I supposed the fresh air would do that to anyone. I already felt a little better; a little more focused.
We just needed to find the road and never come back.
“You guys good?” I asked.
I didn’t get a verbal reply, but their body language said they weren’t giving up yet. June continued panting as Mike rested on her shoulder. The big guy looked like he could crush her, but she was surprisingly resilient. Especially for being pregnant.
I wished I could help her, but I had my hands full with Vince. He was by no means fine. Not useless either, but unsteady enough that I didn’t want him so far away that I couldn’t catch him before he fell.
Or maybe I just didn’t want him that far away. About all I could do was break his fall if he went down.
“Then let’s go,” I said and looked back to the rack house one last time. Then the front door of the old castle façade. “Good riddance.”
CHAPTER 24
We stayed along the edge of the building. Perhaps to have something to lean on if we got wobblier, but maybe because it seemed safer than out in the wide open of a barren parking lot.
At the corner of the building, I pulled up short. Vince nearly ran up my heels.
“What’s up?” he said, leaning over my shoulder, his bare chest brushing again my shoulder. I just pointed. “Oh.”
The building changed dramatically, as did the parking lot. The area for parking was much smaller, but the weedy oasis had been replaced by the solid black of new asphalt pavement. Unsurprisingly, no vehicles were sitting in the twenty or so freshly marked spaces. But the transformation was amazing nonetheless. The building too.
It was perfectly clean on the lower two floors, with a newer stonework accent at ground level, and shiny sheet metal above. Over a doorway was the now familiar Blackbird Creek Distilling artwork.
“It’s a brand new entrance,” Vince said.
“Right where we were at.” I pushed off the building to take a few steps out into the parking lot. The shape of the doorway matched what I had seen from inside the new reception area, with one glaring detail.
I froze up, shuddering. “That wasn’t th-there…”
“What the….” Vince let the words fade away.
We stood there, staring at a hole where the door handle should have been.
“Someone just broke in,” he murmured.
“While we came out here.” I waved for June and Mike to catch up. “We’re not finding out who. Let’s get outta here.”
I explained what we’d seen in short bursts as I urged them on. Mike kept looking over his shoulder.
It seemed to take forever to get halfway across the small parking lot. At the far end stood a much lower building than the others. Thin, tall windows gave the appearance of only one story, but the overall height was more like two floors.
The good asphalt quit where the parking lot squared off. The road split, running around both sides of the low building. Neither was paint striped. The hard surface had basically been reduced to gravel by Mother Nature.
Dense trees lined both sides. There was no sign of the creek.
I tried to get my bearings from the smokestack. It was directly behind us, which I took to mean the creek would be on our right and the highway somewhere off to the left.
I took Vince’s hand and steered him the latter direction. I wanted out of sight of that broken door as soon as possible. So, once again, we started to pull ahead of Mike and June.
We went for the corner of the building, following the gravel road that was at most one lane wide. I got the impression it used to be a circle drive.
We kept going around the corner and got a glimpse of the scale of the building. Though squat and narrow from the parking lot side, it ran a considerable way along the gravel road.
I pulled up short again. Vince had slowed enough that he didn’t run me over that time. He panted in my ear, leaning over my shoulder, as I pointed along the wall.
About a quarter of the way down, two pairs of legs hung out the side of the building. I would have recognized those neon tennis shoes anywhere.
“Pete. And Vic.”
“Huh. You found ‘em,” Vince said.
His hand immediately slipped off my waist, making me realize for the first time that it had even been there.
I took a couple steps out into the middle of the road to find out they were sitting on an old loading dock. Their heels tapped against the building like two kids sitting on a bench at the park.
My blood boiled. After what I’d been through, they were sitting in the wrong place without a care in the world.
Before I could call out, Pete leaned out of the opening. He looked to his right first, then back to his left, spotting us. He jumped off the dock and hurried over, Vic on his heels.
I let them come to us.
“What happened to you?”
“You don’t want to know,” I mumbled, then realized his question was more of an expression of us being late than any specific observation on his part.
“And why do you have Vince’s shirt?” Vic snarled.
“It’s a long story,” I said, still waiting for Pete to hug me. Or say anything about my bruises.
He stood aloof, eyeing the two of us. “We were waiting forever.”
“It looked like it. Sorry to have inconvenienced you.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I just-” He tilted his head like a curious dog. “Your face. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“We shouldn’t talk about this now,” Vince interjected. “We just need to get outta here.”
“We can if you’re done screwing around,” Vic replied.
That hit close to home in more ways than one. My cheeks burned bright red.
“So what about the shirt?” Pete asked, not giving up as easily as Vic. “And those bruises?”
“They’re not gonna tell us,” Vic whined and pulled at Pete’s arm. “Let’s just go like they want. They can keep their little secrets.”
That raised my hackles even more than her other jab.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” I snapped.
“Grace,” both the guys said in unison.
That wasn’t stopping me. There were way too many pent-up emotions to hold back.
“Some asshole tried to rape me and you’re worried about a goddamn shirt!” I pulled it off and threw it at Vic.
“Rape?” Vic quieted.
“Say what?” Pete said, stepping closer. Concern was evident, especially now that he could see what was left of my tank. Not to mention the scratches on my shoulder.
I put up a hand to block him. “I’m fine. Vince handled it.”
“Oh, crap. I’m so sorry, Grace.” Vic folded her hands in front of her. “I shouldn’t have-”
I waved her off. That gave Pete the opening to ask, “And how’d he handle that?”
“He killed the bastard.”
“Oh, shit.” Pete followed that with a second curse, probably more than he’d said all year.
Vic’s mouth hung open. Vince looked down at his feet, uncharacteristically introverted in the moment.
“What now?” Pete asked. “What are we gonna do?”
“Get outta here,” I said. “Call the cops?”
“That’s not a question,” Pete replied. “You kinda have to do that.”
I hadn’t really thought about it. Obviously, I had been ass
aulted, but the perpetrator was dead. That sort of evened things up in my book. Besides, I didn’t want Vince in any kind of trouble.
I shrugged. “Guess I’m not thinking clearly.”
“We have to, Grace,” Vince said. “You know that.”
“Of course.” Someone would find the body at some point, and Vince had an iron clad alibi. I just didn’t want him to go through that. And I really didn’t want to have to explain it all again either. It had gone so poorly with Pete and Vic that I could only imagine talking to the police would be that much longer and more painful.
“I just want to forget it. Never think about it again. Never come back here.”
“That’s not an option anymore,” Pete said.
I looked to Vince.
He nodded. “Yeah, I’m afraid not. Not the first part.”
“Fine.” I shrugged again. “I knew that. Guess I just needed to hear it out loud.”
Vic handed me back the shirt. “Go on.” She sighed and went to hug me. “I’m sorry about all that.”
I leaned into her but didn’t put my arms around her. It stung to have been accused almost as much as it stung moving my shoulder to put my arms back through the shirt sleeves.
We stood in awkward silence while I pulled the shirt down to where it covered my shorts. It looked like a nightshirt, and all I could think about was going to bed—but knowing I couldn’t. The police would interrogate me before there was any rest to be had.
“Who’s that?” Pete asked, pointing to the corner of the building. “Mike and June?”
“Yeah. We found ‘em.”
“They’re not moving too quickly,” Vince said, and went back to help.
I followed along with Pete and Vic. Before we got to them, I heard the sound of tires humming on asphalt. I looked up through the trees and couldn’t see anything at first. Then I caught a glimpse of distant headlights in the twilight.
“We’re close to the road?” I asked Pete.
“I think.” Pete looked back to the loading dock. “We weren’t sitting there long, but I’m pretty sure we heard a couple cars up there.”
“Thanks for waiting,” I said, intending to be serious.
Pete didn’t take it that way.