The Absence of Mercy

by John Burley

  “Dad?” The voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “Yeah?”

  “Were you scared?”

  Ben felt his face contort as if he’d been struck. His lips tightened into thin white lines that he pressed firmly together. He looked back at his son solemnly and nodded.

  Joel seemed to consider this carefully for a moment, then he looked up once more into his father’s eyes and told him, “You don’t have to be scared anymore.”

  “—floor?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What floor?” a female voice asked again, pulling Ben from his reverie.

  He looked around. He was standing in front of an open elevator. A young woman was perched just inside, her right hand preventing the door from sliding shut.

  “Oh… Yes, thank you.” He stepped across the threshold. “Fourth floor, please.”

  The woman reached forward and pressed the button. She appeared to hesitate for a moment, then asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Ben replied. “Why do you ask?”

  She smiled at him. “You were talking to yourself.”

  “Oh. Sorry about that,” he apologized. “I was just… thinking of something that happened a few years ago.”

  She nodded.

  Ben glanced down at his feet, slightly embarrassed. Joel’s voice (“You don’t have to be scared anymore”) still echoed inside of his head. He looked up at the woman standing beside him. “What did I say?” he asked.

  “I think you said”—she paused, frowning uncertainly—“‘But I am.’”

  31

  It seemed that she was always in the woods, in the dark belly of the forest. She ran panic-stricken through the trees, the bramble snatching at her calves and ankles with its greedy carnivorous claws, tearing deep red fissures into her flesh. Her chest heaved with exertion, the dank air filling her lungs over and over and yet never quelling the incessant burning within. Branches grasped at her shoulders as she passed, slowing her escape, trying to pull her to the ground. The voice in her head raced around on its little track (… low and quiet… cover myself with leaves… distance between us… run right by me…) and ended up right back where it had started. She could hear him coming for her, could sense him getting closer, could almost feel the outstretched fingers brushing up against the back of her neck. Her sneakers dug for traction in the wet mud. He was so close now. She could hear his breath coming in quick, measured gasps. She couldn’t shake him, couldn’t hide from him, couldn’t outdistance or outmaneuver him. Soon he would be upon her, his fingers tightening around her throat, his teeth sinking deep into her neck.

  She glanced backward—saw him barreling through the bushes a few yards behind her. In utter terror, she propelled herself onward, leaping over a thick nest of bramble. Then suddenly, she was falling, her body accelerating downward past a wall of mud and roots that jutted out at her like gnarled, severed limbs. She fell for several seconds, then landed awkwardly, feeling the snap of her left ankle as she struck the bottom of the ravine. The pain was excruciating. She rolled over onto her back, her hands clutching the deformity of her lower leg, and she opened her mouth to scream. Then she stopped, the cry dying in her throat before it was uttered.

  He was looking down at her from the lip of the precipice high above, his features unrecognizable in the darkness. There was no sound except for her own ragged breathing and the soft rustle of tree limbs in the wind. The two of them stared at one another for several seconds, and she had time to think, This is not how it happened before. This is something different. Then she watched as he got down onto his stomach and swung his legs out over the edge, his feet searching for purchase amid the sporadic knobs of roots protruding from the wall. “No,” she whispered, peering up at him as he began lowering himself slowly, one foothold at a time, toward the bottom of the ravine.

  There was no option of standing or running, she realized, looking down at the ruined, grotesque angulation of her ankle. She tried to pull herself up into a seated position, but the slightest movement of her leg brought the dull, throbbing pain to a sudden, unbearable crescendo that blanched her vision and caused her to teeter on the brink of unconsciousness. Maybe that would be better, she thought to herself. She did not want to be awake when he reached her, could not endure the horror of simply lying here sprawled in the mud, watching him close the distance between them.

  “Got to wake yourself up,” a thin voice sounded somewhere off to her left. She turned her head in that direction. In the dim light, she could make out the shape of a female figure lying on the ground about fifteen feet from her current position. The face was turned away from her, but the voice had a familiarity to it that she almost recognized.

  “Are you okay?” she asked the girl, for there was something not quite right in the shape of the torso, in the stillness of the chest that did not rise and fall with the usual cycle of breathing.

  “Look! He’s already halfway down.” The girl pointed with her left hand toward the figure above them. Two of her fingers were missing.

  “I… I can’t move,” Monica told her. “My ankle… it’s broken.”

  The girl turned her head to look up at the night sky. The top of her right ear, Monica could see, had been torn away, leaving behind a jagged, glistening line of cartilage.

  “You’re not where you think you are,” the girl said. “The worst of it is already behind you. You’ve already made it to the roadway.”

  “What roadway? I don’t understand.” Monica glanced upward. The figure had almost completed his descent. Soon he would be—

  “Wake up!” The girl’s voice was filled with urgency.

  Monica shook her head. “No. I can’t just leave you here.”

  To her surprise, the girl lying beside her began to laugh. It started softly, then rose in pitch and volume until it filled the night sky above them. A moment later, the figure descending the wall reached the bottom. He turned and quickly traversed the few remaining yards between them. There was an instrument—something long and sharp—in his left hand, and he began to raise it high over his head. Monica turned to look at the girl. “I can’t leave you here!” she wailed.

  “No? You sure about that?” The girl turned her head so that she was staring directly back at her. The girl’s face was a mirror image of Monica’s own, only the eyes were dead and vacant. “You sure about that?” it said again, as the left arm of the figure looming above them began to swing downward.

  “Wake up!” she screamed, and she wasn’t certain which body she inhabited now—the living or the dead. “Wake up! Wake up! WakeupWakeupWakeup!!”

  The instrument plummeting like a raptor from the sky…

  And somewhere in Children’s Hospital her eyes flew open, staring into the darkness of a room she did not recognize, her body still bracing itself for the blow.

  Part 4

  Pieces

  32

  Ben brought the car to a stop, nestling the right wheels up against the curb. Vehicles crowded the small street on either side, an unfamiliar spectacle in this sleepy community whose inhabitants had grown unaccustomed to the finer points of parallel parking. Half a block down, Tony Linwood was climbing into his parked cruiser. He glanced over, and Ben raised a hand. Tony smiled and waved back.

  “Quite a turnout,” Susan commented from the front passenger seat, unbuckling her seat belt.

  “Yeah,” Ben replied, taking stock of the swarm of people congregated on the front lawn of the Dresslers’ residence three houses down. After eleven and a half weeks in the hospital, Monica Dressler was finally home, and the whole town, it seemed, had come here to welcome her back.

  “Dad, can I have a slice of this when we get inside?” Joel asked from the backseat. On his lap, he was holding a pie that Susan had baked this morning in anticipation of the event. It was covered with plastic wrap, but the warm, sweet smell had still managed to permeate the car during their short trip.

  “You fat pig,” Thomas whispered from the se
at next to him. Joel stuck his tongue out at his older brother, who reached over and pinched his left flank hard enough for Joel to yell out in protest. The pie plate tottered precariously in Joel’s lap.

  “Stop it,” Susan hissed, glaring back at them. She’d been irritable most of the morning. Most likely, Ben thought, it was the prospect of coming here today. Despite Monica’s excellent recovery, his wife still found the topic upsetting to talk about. Some tragedies, he supposed, fell too close to home.

  “Shall we?” Ben prompted, grasping the latch to his door.

  They stepped out into the August sunshine. The air, thick and humid, hung on them like a grumpy child demanding to be carried. Tiny insects weaved in frenzied clouds in front of Ben’s face, and perspiration dampened the back of his shirt as he walked with his family up the street. They ascended the front steps and laced their way slowly through the crowd, extending greetings and engaging in brief conversations as they went.

  The interior of the domicile was full of friends and acquaintances, and Ben was reminded of the similar reception at Children’s Hospital many weeks ago, a time when things had not looked so promising. The somber concern etched into many of those faces was gone now, replaced by a jubilant, almost giddy atmosphere of celebration and relief. They had pulled through this together, it seemed, and at the center of it all was Monica Dressler, who sat on the couch in the family room like a china doll on display, a glass of apple cider resting on her lap. She glanced over at them and waved, the pleasant smile surfacing like a reflex.

  “Come on,” Thomas said to his brother in a rare display of inclusiveness. “Let’s go say hi.”

  Susan shot them a look but said nothing, taking the pie from Joel’s hands.

  Ben placed a hand on the small of her back. “It’s okay. Let’s find Paul and Vera.”

  “I’ll need to get over to the hospital soon,” she advised him. “I still have some patients I need to check on.”

  “Sure,” Ben acknowledged, trying not to be angry with her. Standing here amid the din of cheerful conversation, the attack nearly three months behind them and with no similar events since then, he couldn’t help but feel optimistic. The fingers of anxiety and dread that had taken hold of him following the murder of Kevin Tanner had loosened their grip significantly, their presence now feeling like a scar from a wound that had almost healed. The worst of it was behind them, he felt, and like almost everyone else here he had chosen to embrace the idea that this town would indeed recover. He was riled by his wife’s reluctance to do the same.

  A hand fell upon his right shoulder. “Now, there’s a man who looks like he needs a drink.” Ben turned to encounter Paul Dressler, smiling broadly.

  “Hi, Paul. Good to see you.” He looped a hand around Susan’s elbow, and she too turned to greet Monica’s father.

  “Thanks so much for coming,” Paul said. “It really means a lot to us.”

  Susan smiled. “You must be so relieved to have her home again.”

  “We’re very grateful,” he said. “The doctors and nurses took such good care of her. And the thoughts and prayers of everyone here played a major role in getting her home so quickly. Vera and I are overwhelmed with gratitude.”

  “How’s she feeling?” Ben asked.

  “Much better,” he replied. “She has pain, of course—part of the healing process—but they’ve given her medication for that. They set her up with a physical therapist five days a week. They have her walking on a treadmill, exercising the muscles in her left hand, working on getting her strength back… all kinds of things. They don’t take it easy on her, either. She comes home pretty exhausted.” Paul glanced to his right and spotted his wife near the entrance to the kitchen. He waved for her to join them.

  “Hi, Susan,” Vera said, walking over and giving Ben’s wife a hug. “I’m so glad you were able to make it.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it,” Susan replied, and Ben smiled to himself, recalling the resistance he’d had to contend with at home. “Paul was telling us about Monica’s physical therapy,” Susan noted.

  “Oh, yes,” Vera said, rolling her eyes. “They work her so hard. I honestly don’t know if it’s good for her, so soon after being released from the hospital.”

  “The doctors said it’s important,” Paul reminded her. “We want her to be able to regain as much function as possible.”

  “I know,” she said. She turned a conferring gaze toward Susan. “It just seems a little extreme, is all.”

  “I’m sure the physical therapists know what they’re doing,” Ben’s wife responded, trying to reassure her.

  Vera turned her head to study her daughter from across the room. She was sitting on the couch next to Thomas, who was resting a hand on her shoulder and conveying some piece of juicy gossip to her in hushed, conspiratorial tones. Monica listened for a moment, her eyes cast slightly up and to the right, then her face broke into a wide grin and she brought her left hand up to cover her mouth as she laughed. From this distance, the two prosthetic fingers looked natural and uniform with the other digits. Vera turned back to Ben and Susan, who had followed her gaze. Her face was contorted into a mishmash of pain and gladness. “Thomas has been so good with her,” she said. “They’ve become close over these past several weeks.” She smiled, her eyes glistening with moisture. “It’s good to see her laugh.”

  Susan nodded. “Is she saying much?”

  The volume of the conversations around them seemed to decrease slightly, as if this were a question on everyone’s mind.

  Vera’s face took on a hard, protective look that Ben had seen once previously when he and Thomas had visited Monica in the hospital. (“They said she’ll probably wake up very soon,” Vera had told them then. “Dr. Elliot says there’s no reason she shouldn’t.”)

  “She talks plenty,” Vera advised them. “She’s able to make her needs known to us.” She searched their faces for understanding, and Ben found himself nodding supportively, wanting to place her fears at ease. “She’s been through a lot,” Vera continued. “The doctors said she’ll open up more with time.”

  “She doesn’t recall much about the incident?” Susan asked, and Ben shot her a reproachful look. This was obviously uncomfortable territory for Monica’s mother.

  “No, not much,” Vera replied, looking down for a moment at the tan carpeting beneath their feet. She looked up at them again, her eyes weary. “And given the circumstances, I think that’s best, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Susan agreed, taking Vera by the hand, her body transforming into a soft posture of empathy—a physical bearing, Ben thought, that seemed to come so much more naturally to women. “Yes, I do.”

  33

  “Are you sure you’re ready?” he asked, positioning his player for the penalty shot. The electronic crowd on the television screen in front of them roared with simulated fervor. “I’m not gonna take it easy on you this time.”

  “Go ahead. Bring it,” she replied, adjusting the Xbox 360 controller in her lap. She used her right hand for most of the controls, but she could still use her functional left thumb on the D-pad and left stick. She’d never been one for video games in the past, but her physical therapist had suggested that thirty minutes a day would help with her fine motor control, and Monica found that the games also helped pass the time, particularly when her friends came to visit. Anything to take the attention off me, she thought.

  Thomas’s striker moved slightly to the right, then his body was in motion and he kicked the ball toward the upper left corner as Monica’s goalkeeper made a diving leap in that direction, deflecting the soccer ball up and over the goalpost.

  “No goal!” she exclaimed as the crowd went wild. “What a save!”

  “Lucky,” Thomas remarked. “You anticipated that one.”

  “No, I’m just faster than you—even with only one good hand. Here, let’s take a look at the instant replay.”

  “We don’t need to watch the replay,” he said, but the slow-motion
video was already under way.

  “It looks even better the second time,” she teased him, and he covered his eyes in protest.

  “That’s two games to none,” she said. “You ready to quit?”

  “Absolutely,” he replied. “I know when I’m beaten.” He rose and made his way to the kitchen. “You want anything from the fridge?”

  “No, I’m good,” she called out, returning the equipment to the cabinet beneath the TV.

  Thomas returned to the living room, a glass of juice in his hand. He sat down on the couch and looked at her, shaking his head.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You’re doing great. Two months ago you were just getting home from the hospital, and now you’re kicking my butt in soccer.”

  “Video soccer,” she clarified. “It doesn’t take much athleticism to sit in front of the television pushing buttons. It’s the real-life physical activity that still gets me.”

  He shrugged. “Little bit at a time. Feel like going for a walk?”

  She glanced out through the window and frowned. “It looks windy outside today.”

  He said nothing, just sat there sipping his drink, studying her with those cavernous green eyes.

  She sighed, realizing how pathetic the excuse sounded—even in her own ears. Since returning from the hospital, wandering more than a few blocks from the house made her nervous. She could tolerate the trips to her physical therapy appointments, which were indoors and took place in surroundings that were both familiar and unchanging, but being outside was a different animal altogether. For the past eight weeks, Thomas had been helping her with that anxiety, encouraging her to take walks with him throughout the neighborhood during his frequent visits. There were days, in fact, when it wasn’t so bad—when she could imagine going out by herself, could imagine returning to the activities she’d taken for granted only five months before. But there were others days—ones like this one—when that degree of comfort and independence still seemed a long way off.