by Jack Phoenix
Rebecca was surprised Elizabeth gave credence to her story. “Yes.”
“You know that he’s dead, right?”
“Yes, I…I know.”
“Then the same thing’s going to happen to Rod!”
“It’s what he deserves.”
Elizabeth crouched in front of Rebecca, putting her hands on her shoulders and shaking her. “Can you stop this? Can you stop this!?”
“ I…”
“Can you?”
She gently removed Elizabeth’s hands. “If I could,” she said calmly as she stood, “I wouldn’t.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Elizabeth covered her face as she began pacing the room, saying, “This can’t be real. This is crazy. This is just fucking nuts, this can’t be real.”
“It is real. You know I’m telling the truth. Don’t you?” Rebecca looked at her inquisitively.
“Yeah, yes, maybe I’m crazy too,” Elizabeth shouted, her arms dropped to her sides, “but for some reason I believe you. I mean, probably what’s really going on here is some kind of hereditary mental disorder, and you’re both suffering from it, and you’re both seeing the same things. It’s some kind shared delusion or something.”
“But you know that’s not true.”
“I don’t know anything anymore. I just know that if my husband’s life is in danger, then I have to do something to stop all of this.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why, because he’s still a human being, that’s why! Look, I know, I know that he’s a bad guy, okay? The marriage is over. He’ll be out of my life one way or another, especially now that he’s suspected of murder, but whatever he’s done, he’s still my husband and he’s still your brother. We can’t just let this go on.”
“Okay,” Rebecca said, crossing her arms, “maybe there is a way to stop it. It’s against my better judgment, but since this is causing you suffering too, maybe I should tell you.”
“Yes, please, for my sake, for my daughter’s sake, we have to help him. Tell me what to do.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that just yet—about your daughter’s sake. I think you should hear the rest of what I have to say.“
“Goddamnit, Becky, just tell me how to stop this!”
Rebecca sat back down in her chair. “It’s really simple. He just has to confess. This all goes away if he confesses.”
“Confesses?”
“Confesses his crimes. They can’t touch him if he’s being held accountable for his crimes by ‘earthly law’ or something. As long as he keeps what he’s done a secret, they’ll keep after him, but once his crimes are known, they can’t touch him.”
“Confession? Okay, so, he has to confess to murdering that girl?”
“No, Liz, not that. Like I was saying earlier, before you go trying to save his life for your daughter’s sake, I think you should sit down and hear the rest of what I have to tell you.”
* * * *
He looked back and saw them flying after him, their fiery red hair blowing wildly in the wind. He couldn’t run fast, and they stayed close behind as they toyed with him. They were harpies now, and they would swoop down, trying to slash him with their talons.
The freeway was ahead of him, and headlights approached from either direction. He came upon a guardrail, and found just a droplet of relief. The noise and roar of the moving vehicles was so loud that it quelled the supernatural screams of his pursuers.
He leapt over the guardrail, and ran into the traffic. Two bright yellow lights approached and barely missed him, the driver honked wildly as he stood on the yellow divider lines between the cars, and relished the noise. It almost brought a grin to his mummified face.
He looked behind him and saw the three Furies moving into the traffic, following their prey. He ran across another lane. The squeal of skidding tires filled the air as one car zipped by him, adding to the commotion. The Furies fluttered about, whirling and twirling in the air like devilish moths as they dodged the oncoming barrage of automobiles. Roderick quickly fantasized about one of them splattered against a windshield.
With an unfortunate step, he leapt backwards in order to avoid being flattened by a black pick-up truck, but ended up stepping directly in front of a red car, which fishtailed and halted a breath from Roderick. Another car hit the red one like a battering ram.
A line of crashed cars appeared with the sounds of skidding metal, loud bangs and stuck car horns. They were of no concern to Roderick, too focused was he on the tenacious Furies still coming, howling. But then there was the spectacular and gut-wrenching sight of a blue car flying into the air, rolling again and again, sending smoke and glass fragments everywhere with a crash. He was a deer on the freeway at the sight, frozen and temporarily unable to comprehend his place, until he tumbled painfully upon the hood and cracking windshield of a yellow sedan.
He rolled off of the hood onto the black pavement, bloody and bruised. The sharp chest-pains possibly a broken rib. The driver of the car, a big woman in a checkered sweater, asked if he were okay, and told him not to move because help would be there soon. Roderick staggered to his feet, spotted the Furies flying towards, and immediately forgot the traffic and wreckage.
They swooped at Roderick, as the checkered woman spoke, ignorant of their presence. A semi, out of control, slammed into the bird-women, and their keens diminished into the night.
As the woman blathered on, Roderick hopped up and down, cheering through bloody gums. Her mouth dropped open and she cocked an eyebrow. He stopped cheering when he realized their aversion was similar to the solar lamps. They no doubt feigned injury and defeat to further humiliate him, giving him hope. Like cat and mouse, they toyed with his emotions.
He hobbled off the road, ignoring the concerned voices of the woman and other drivers who stopped their cars. He managed to block out all these sounds, because they didn’t matter. He would not waste a minute in the scream-less atmosphere, and he was determined to hobble to his destination no matter how painful it was.
Chapter Thirty-One
In her car, tears in her eyes and disgust in her gut, Elizabeth was speeding dangerously on her way back home, her thoughts aflame. Several times she slammed her fist against the steering wheel, bawling. How could she? How could she have trusted such a man? How could she have slept with him, married him, lived with him. What about their daughter…her daughter? How could she have allowed her child to be raised in the same household as him? Her daughter was acting the same way his sister had. Of course she was. It all made sense now. She would get home and hold her daughter tight and promise her that everything would be okay from now on.
Her stomach tightened. She wanted to vomit. No, she wanted to hit something, destroy something. She never considered such vileness would enter her life, a parasitic worm that slithered its way in, until it has consumed everything around it. She hastened home to hold her daughter and burn her husband’s things.
The blood within her veins was magma, smoldering rage, as she considered what her sister-in-law had revealed.
Rebecca was seven years old when the witching-hour visits from her father began. He slunk into her shadowed room like a bogeymen. The initial visits were few and far between. The first time, young Rebecca fought against the invasion, her father telling her the whole time as he held her down with his rough palm over her mouth that it was perfectly normal. Daddies needed these things from their daughters and good daughters didn’t raise a fuss. She didn’t believe him. But he was still her father, a figure of authority and power, and she had always been an obedient daughter. Even at such a young age, she felt the shame. She knew her daddy was doing wrong, but to protect the family’s status quo, she said nothing. She did her best to hide the blood and to avoid sitting awkwardly at the breakfast table due to the pain.
Though a child, Rebecca carried the
burden and the misplaced guilt that eventually came with it. As the visits increased, she became distant from the rest of the family. She stopped smiling, playing, and eating. Her mother practically forced food down her throat, concerned at the change. Rebecca’s one and only comfort was her big brother. She knew that one day little Roddy would be big and strong, maybe even bigger than Daddy. She knew that one day little Roddy would learn of what was happening, and valiantly defend his little sister and rescue her. He was the only one that could still cause her to crack a smile. He was the only one that she felt she could still be close to, laying her head on his shoulder when they watched cartoons. When her brother coaxed her into playing with him, she always wanted to imagine herself a princess who was being kept prisoner by a terrible dragon and that only her brother, who always played the knight in shining armor, could release her.
As Robert’s visits grew frequent, and her estranged daughter lost more weight, her mother insisted they take her to get help. That’s when her father first threatened Rebecca that if she discussed their nighttime play with anyone, she’d be sent away. She would never see her brother or mother again, and be sent to work in coal mines or sweat shops. He revealed that no one loved her more than Daddy. That’s why he visited her.
Rebecca obeyed. The doctor saw signs of early childhood depression. He even mentioned autism. As her mother gasped, her mouth wide with concern, Rebecca discovered these were not normal father-daughter interactions. She didn’t know any other little girls whose mothers had such worry and hurt in their eyes. She knew that she was acting different, and as an introspective child, she knew what caused it. Rebecca decided to tell someone.
Rather than tell her mother or her doctor, she told her brother when they were alone in the backyard. He responded by pushing her to the ground. He shouted at her not to say such things and that he never wanted to hear such grossness again. He called her a liar and a bitch, because little Roddy envied his father. He often said he wanted to be just like Daddy when he grew up, and was jealous their father displayed a genuine interest in what she was doing. Roddy always felt like a failure around his father, as though nothing he could do would ever be good enough.
Rebecca cried for hours in her room that night. Her mother demanded to know what was wrong, her voice stern with concern and frustration. But Rebecca had learned her lesson; she couldn’t tell anyone. It was a ridiculous story that could never happen, so therefore no one would ever believe her. They would just get mad at her like Roderick. Deep in her heart, She hoped her brother would rescue her. Some day he would discover these sinister happenings and defend her. Then Daddy would be sorry.
A couple of years went by, and Rebecca’s melancholy became a natural condition. She never recovered, and signs of sleep-deprivation and depression wore heavily on her no matter what medications the doctors prescribed. Some weeks her father would visit more often than others, and every time he did, she would still struggle. She forced him to force her, but refused to scream.
On one exceptionally rough night, a yelp slipped from her lips. Her father was too distracted by his cruel pleasures to notice the bedroom door crack open. Rebecca saw her brother’s face, peering through the cracked door, as he witnessed what their father was doing to her. She expected him to swing the door open and burst forth, tackling the wretched old man to the ground. But Roderick’s face was unmoving stone. Rebecca implored him with her watery eyes for her brother to save her. Instead he quietly closed the door. Rebecca stopped struggling after that.
She was about thirteen when her mother finally put all the pieces together. Rebecca wondered if her mother had always suspected and been too afraid, like she was, to take action. That night, Roderick, now a young man, was out at a late function when her mother came home from her engagements early and caught her husband and daughter in the act. Rebecca felt ashamed, and the shouting she heard echo through the house revealed her mother would not stand for it. She could hear the altercation become violent, but since she was a frail, fragile creature, she cowered in the corner of her room. The shouting stopped. It stopped suddenly, in mid-sentence. Rebecca heard the front door slam and the car pull away.
Her mother never returned. It was then that Rebecca stopped talking, even at school, and she remembered Roderick’s reaction when their father finally explained the situation concerning his mother to him. He punched a hole in the wall and threw a chair, screaming and crying when his father told him that his mother had left him and was not coming back. She said she couldn’t handle the pressures of the family anymore, with a difficult daughter and a sorry son. Rebecca felt even more alone, one shred of hope gone, but she hoped each day that her brother would take the anger that she saw in him and direct it at their father, the real source of the pain.
The day never came. She did see the night that Roderick came home drunk and sloppy. Tears were drying on his face. He’d been crying about being dumped by his girlfriend. She heard him coming up the stairs, and open her door. He stood there for the longest time, silhouetted in the doorway, and she could make out the shape of a bottle in his hand. He approached the bed, sitting down on its edge and Rebecca slid up to give him room. He put the bottle to his lips and began to down the remnants, dropping it to the floor when it was empty. He sat there, very still, breathing heavily. Cautious and gentle, Rebecca put her hand on his shoulder, which caused him to stir and speak.
“She left,” he said slowly and quietly, “because of you.”
Her eyes were wide with terror when his hand was suddenly at her throat. His face twisted in malice, he grabbed her with his other hand and flipped her over, grabbing at her pajama bottoms and pulling them down. The entire time shouting, “She left me! She left me because of you! You bitch, she left me because of you!”
For the first time in a long time, she struggled and spoke. She screamed, and pleaded. Lying in his own bed, their father put a pillow over his ears to try and drown out the noise.
The next day, Rebecca was found lifeless in a full bathtub. Every sleeping pill in the house and a bottle of liquor were now in her bloodstream as well as water in her lungs. The comment was made that it was a miracle they managed to save her life. It was her father who had called 911.
Upon recovering in the hospital, Rebecca lost the ability to fully acknowledge another human presence, or perhaps gave it up. Even she didn’t know for sure. They told her father and brother that it could be brain injury from the lack of oxygen she had suffered or an effect of the pills with which she’d poisoned herself.
Her father had her institutionalized, completely comfortable with either of those explanations. The medical professionals assured them that they would do everything they could to bring her back to normal. Robert and Roderick were in no hurry to have her home again.
She never spoke or moved for years, until this particular night when she was able to warn a devastated Elizabeth about her husband’s true nature. Elizabeth raced to take her daughter out of that house.
* * * *
As she arrived at the end of their long driveway, Elizabeth saw that the front door was wide open.
“Wade?” she called as she entered the house, but all was silent. “Wade, where are you?”
Her footsteps echoed as she walked through the hallway, but stopped when she saw Wade’s dead body lying on the floor, his head in a crimson pool. She called his name again and ran to him, dropped to her knees, and touched him. She retracted when she saw the thin metallic object sticking out of his right eye. She cried to the Lord Almighty as she rolled him over and lowered her head to his chest, detecting no traces of breath. Grabbing her cell phone out of her pocket, she dialed 911. Her voice quivered as she explained the dreadful sight of Wade’s corpse before her. The voice on the other end told her to remain calm and stay put.
Blood clung to her knees and hands; her best friend’s blood. The man who had been her solid support was gone. What had she done
? What had she brought him into? It wasn’t supposed to be this way; it couldn’t be this way. The cruelty of the universe had pointed at her and everything around her. Any other woman might have cracked under such strain.
“Sam!” Elizabeth screamed as he dashed from room to room. She screamed to the operator, “Oh my God, my daughter! My daughter is gone! He took my daughter!”
“He took your daughter, Ma’am,” the emergency operator responded calmly. “Who took your daughter, Ma’am?”
“My husband!” her voice cracked in the middle of the word as she lost control. “He took her! He killed Wade and he took my daughter!”
“Ma’am, I’m sending the police, they’re on their way. The ambulance is on its way too. Now, what I want you to do is search the house thoroughly, okay? Check every room, behind every door, and check outside, and I will stay on the phone with you until the police arrive.”
“Sam! Sam! Samantha! This just can’t be! He was in the hospital! He was in the hospital, it couldn’t be him!”
“Your husband was in the hospital, Ma’am?”
“Yes! Yes, he was in the hospital! I have to call there! I have to call them!”
“No, Ma’am, I need you to stay on the phone with me. I need you to keep searching the house, and I will call…”
She disobeyed the operator’s instruction to stay on the line, hung up, and dialed the hospital. It was just as she feared; Roderick had gone missing. He vanished from the facility. She hung up as another call rang through. “Mrs. Whith-uh, Liz?” Detective Yost asked on the other end.
“Yes, omigod, Detective, Rod! Rod got out!”
“I know, that’s why I’m calling. Are you at home? You may want to leave and take your daughter…”
“He took my daughter! He took my daughter!”
“What?” the detective’s voice crescendoed. “I’m driving, hold on while I pull over.”