“Sarah?”
I’m trying to go to sleep, Uncle Rusty. I really am. But there’s so much noise. The dog, the lawnmower.I promise, I’ll be a good girl, though. I’ll get a good night’s sleep and pass the test tomorrow. I’ll make a hundred, you’ll see. Applesauce—A-p-p-l—
“Sarah!”
Sarah Woodard opened her eyes only to find the sky on fire. No . . .not fire.
Painted.
The horizon was swathed in orange, red, yellow, deep purple, all of it swooshing back and forth, broad strokes tipping up to the right, up to the heavens, then shooting off in another direction, like a forked tongue. Like a painter who had too big a brush and no idea what he wanted to paint. Angry, angry strokes, so much color. Deep, brilliant color that seemed to soak into her skin, into her eyes, into her heart. Was God mad? Is that what her uncle Rusty meant by God’s wrath? Did He burn the sky before he burned your soul?
“Sarah . . . ”
She blinked at the sound of her name and turned towards the voice.
Nicky Trahan. He was in a hole.
She was in a hole. Felt mud up to her neck, nearly to the top of her throat. Then she remembered the man had come back. He’d been so angry. He kept throwing buckets of mud on top of them and saying they were going to die. Watching him, she’d been so afraid. He’d seemed angry and happy all at the same time.
Sarah remembered seeing fire in the man’s eyes. The same fire her uncle had when he preached in the church on Sunday mornings. With his hands raised up in the air, his feet stomping, yelling at everybody about how they were going to go hell if they didn’t repent. Repent and be saved. The man with the mud had had that same fire. But, his god must have been different because what god would let any man kill two children? Tell him to smother them? Make them so afraid they wound up peeing in their pants? So afraid they cried no matter who was watching?
With her eyes still locked on Nicky, Sarah leaned her head back, felt the mud ease up around her ears, and considered that the mud man’s god and her uncle Rusty’s god might not be so different after all.
She re-focused her eyes on the boy just a few feet away. Nicky was crying openly, not bothering to hide his tears. His seemed to be trying to look everywhere at once, his eyes darting here, there, here, there, snot running out of his nose and over his lips, both of his cheeks wet. Sarah felt a weight on her own face, like something heavy had been glued to her chin and left cheek. She couldn’t see if it was dried mud, and there was no way for her to touch and feel it to make sure.
“I…I thought you were dead,” Nicky cried. “I thought you were so dead! I kept calling you and calling you, and you wouldn’t open your eyes. All day. All day I kept calling you. I thought you had drowned. I thought you had drowned because you’d put your face in it, and you didn’t pick it back up and . . .and . . .” His sobs grew louder until he was wailing.
Sarah had heard people cry that hard before, but only at funerals when her uncle stood at the pulpit and talked about the dead person. About how good they were, and how much they were going to be missed. She’d heard that crying in the church. She wanted to tell Nicky not to cry. She wasn’t dead. She’d only been . . . what? She couldn’t remember anything between the time the man had dropped more mud on them and right now. She couldn’t have fallen asleep, could she? Maybe she’d passed out, although she didn’t know how she was supposed to tell if she had. She’d never passed out before. Not that she knew of anyway. Was it like sleeping?Was it like dying a little bit? How could she just fall asleep in all this mud, especially being so hungry? So thirsty? Maybe that was it. Maybe that’s what was happening. She was dying of starvation. They hadn’t eaten in so long. She couldn’t even remember the last thing she’d eaten.
She glanced over at the burning sky again and tried to remember if it was the sunset or the sunrise. What day was it? How long had they been there?
“…and then there was this snake, and it came up my leg, right up my leg! And then it was on my belly, and I had to hold really still ‘cause it’s head was back like it was going to bite me, so I had to hold really still. Like on television, you know? How the crocodile man said if you come up on a snake, you’ve gotta hold really still, and I did. And I closed my eyes, and I held my breath, and . . . and . . . it came up on my neck. The snake crawled up by my ear, and then it went out the hole, and you wouldn’t wake up. I called you and called you, but you wouldn’t wake up. I was so afraid, Sarah. I was so afraid!” Nicky’s sobs turned to hiccups and gasps for breath.
She wanted to pat him on the back and tell him everything would be okay. But that would have been a lie. A big fat lie. And her uncle Rusty said liars always go to hell. But wasn’t she and Nicky already there? Wasn’t this hell? Was this the pit her uncle talked about in his sermons? No . . . no, he’d said fiery pit. Fiery pit. But the sky—the sky was on fire. And she was in the pit. Nicky was in the pit, too.
“Then I wished…I wished…then I wished I was dead,” Nicky wailed.“I was so scared that I wished that. I wanted the snake to go ahead and bite me and get it over with. I know we’re gonna die, Sarah. I know it. That man’s gonna come back and put more mud in here, and I don’t want it to go up my nose! I don’t that junk in my eyes and my mouth so we can’t breathe and we can’t get up, and I don’t want that! So when the snake came, I really wanted it to bite me but I was too scared, and you were there, and you’d be all by yourself if I died, and . . .and. . . ”
Sarah wanted to tell Nicky thank you for not leaving her alone, but she was too tired to make her mouth move. She knew what he meant, though, about wanting to die. She would have wanted to do the same thing, bring in the darkness on her own terms instead of having someone force her into it. She studied the mud streaks on his face, the darker tracks on his cheeks made by the tears, the mud that made his hair stand up in little peaks on the top of his head. He’d stayed alive for her. Just for her. No one had ever done anything like that for her before.
In that moment, she wanted more than anything . . . more than getting out of the mud, out of the swamp, out of life . . . to buy Nicky a present. Do something really nice for him. Something that would give him a warm feeling like she had right now; the feeling of being hugged by somebody big and strong who cared about her a lot. But there was no way for her to buy a gift, no way to get out of this pit. No way to open her mouth and say thank you.
It took all the energy Sarah had just to blink, which she did once…twice. Then she watched curiously as Nicky’s eyes suddenly seemed to grow bigger and bigger, like something had clamped onto his upper and lower lids and was pulling them as far apart as possible. His mouth opened and closed like he was talking, but she couldn’t hear him. Then his mouth opened really wide . . .
Was he yelling?
Her name maybe?
All Sarah heard was a whining noise. The lawnmower? Where was that cat?
“Sarah, look out!” That time sound came out of Nicky’s mouth when he moved it. His eyes were stretched far to the left, as if he was trying to look behind her. His mouth opened wide again. “It’s back! Look out!”
Gathering all the willpower she had, Sarah was able to turn her head ever so slightly. This would be her gift to him, reacting to his voice. Acknowledging that he’d called her name. That would be her present.
She turned her head a little more . . . a fraction of an inch, a mere fraction, then she saw a flash of movement. Something odd appeared in her line of sight, and it seemed to freeze there, as if the earth had suddenly quit moving. Gravity quit working. Time had grown tired and simply stopped.
Inches away, a small, open mouth . . . two needle-length fangs . . .
Nicky screamed.
The earth moved again, only now it folded time into milliseconds . . .
The small mouth jerked—Nicky wailed—needles flew—
So much pain in her right cheek . . . fire . . . her face was on fire . . .just like the sky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
�
�I can’t believe we stole a fucking boat,” Angelle said, as we pushed against the nose of the skiff to move it off the trailer and into the water.
“Hey, you were the one who started talking about stealing boats in the first place.” I blew a shock of hair out of my eyes.
“I did not! That was Poochie.”
“Huh-uh, you wanted to take Trevor’s boat first thing, remember?”
“That’s different, and you know it. He’s my husband.”
“Technicality.” I gave her a little smile to let her know I was teasing. “Doesn’t really matter. Everything worked out okay. I mean, it’s not like we really stole this boat.”
“Close enough, though. I lied through my teeth, telling Pork Chop that story,” Angelle said. “Vern’s going to come back, see his boat’s missing, and Pork Chop’s going to tell him what I said. Vern’s going to know right off it’s a bullshit story and probably call Trevor. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Nobody’s going to give two shits about any boat when we get back with those kids.”
Angelle stopped pushing and stared at me for a moment. “What makes you so sure now that we’re going to find them?”
“Bottom line? ‘Cause this stupid finger’s never railed me when I really needed it. Now come on and push so we can get out of here. People are going to start paying attention if we don’t get our asses in gear.”
She nodded and started pushing again. “After we get this think launched, I’ll go park the car and trailer back in that grove we passed a couple hundred yards back. Less chance of somebody I know seeing them.”
“Good idea.” As eager as I was to start the hunt, I felt weird out in public without my gloves and kept glancing around. My paranoia wasn’t only about the boat not belonging to us, most of it had to do with how vulnerable I felt. I remembered the tree, the conviction, the heat of shame I’d felt and took a big breath to calm and control the fear.
When it was obvious that Trevor wasn’t returning home with the boat, we’d headed right over to the Bucket, not wanting to waste anymore time. As soon as we got there, Angelle laid out a story that sounded plausible enough. She told Pork Chop and Sook that Vern had asked Trevor, who also worked odd jobs as a mechanic, to fix some doomathingyon his boat.Since Vern had asked for a stat job, according to Angelle, and Trevor was working late at the plant, she’d been asked to pick up the boat for him. That way he’d be able to start working on it as soon as he broke shift and got home. As she spun the tale, Poochie had sprinkled in a few “Dat’s right!” and “Yep, he said dat,” while I just hung back and nodded.
Luckily, Vernstill hadn’t returned from his scouting trip, so Pork Chop had no way to verify the story, and since Trevor had worked on Vern’s boat before, few questions were asked. Sook had simply said, “Sure, go ‘head. Don’t make me no never mind.” And Pork Chop added, “Tell Trevor he can slot in my Evinrude when he’s done with Vern’s and has time.”I didn’t know what Pork Chop meant by ‘slot in,’ but Angelle quickly agreed to pass along the information.
Cherokee had been standing behind the bar while the production unfolded, and I saw in his eyes that he thought the whole boat repair story was a crock of shit. Still, he said nothing, only stepping outside to watch with Pork Chop as we drove away, boat and trailer fishtailing behind the car.
The most difficult part of the plan so far had been Poochie, when we’d insisted she stay home. She’d screeched and hollered, cried and wailed, insisting that since she’d played such an important and convincing role in getting the boat, she should be allowed to go.
It had taken over an hour to calm Poochie down and convince her that she was needed at the prayer tree with their shoes. Someone had to stay and pray to make sure everyone came back home safely. We reminded her, too, that five people wouldn’t fit in a boat designed for two. If she came, she’d wind up endangering the kids’ lives—all of their lives, actually—by overloading the boat.
That last part eventually sunk in because she suddenly became as docile as a kitten, saying, “I didn’t think about it like dat.” But she’d looked so hang-dogged when she said it, I felt sorry for her. Angelle must have felt the same because she’d gone out of her way to make sure Poochie was comfortable before we left. She’d settled her onto the couch, placed an afghan over her lap, left a sandwich and a glass of milk on the coffee table for her, then turned on her favorite movie, which happened to be GI Jane, something Poochie claimed she’d seen forty-two times already. She also swore she’d seen the scene where Demi Moore struggles to her feet, all bloodied in the face, and yells for her master sergeant to, “Suck my dick!” at least a hundred times. Poochie recounted that scene so many times, that by the time we finally did leave the house, I couldn’t get those three words out of my head. I think Poochie just liked saying the word dick.
At first, I’d been a little worried about leaving Poochie alone in the house, what with all the weird things going on lately—Angelle being violated, the dark fucker that had gotten in my face, the one that had slipped across the hall from the bathroom, the moving toaster, shattering light fixture. So I’d suggested we bring Poochie back to the Bucket and have her stay with Sook while we were gone. But Poochie wouldn’t hear of it. She’s insisted that if we were leaving her behind to pray, then she had to be by her tree. No argument there, but it was the way she’d said it that troubled me. There’d been hardcore mischief in her eyes at the time, and her demeanor had gone from wildcat to pussycat to Cheshire cat. A sort of ‘put-on-Demi’s uniform,-shave-my-head-and-get-to-the-business-of-kicking-ass, look.
It was hard to tell whether Poochie was slipping off the deep end or if she had something brewing in the back of her mind. The latter felt probably because concocting adventure seemed to be an abstract hobby of Poochie’s, one she was very good at. Regardless, we’d left her sitting on the couch, movie already playing on the television. The perfect picture of an elderly woman settling in early for the evening. Poochie played the part so well, Norman Rockwell would have been impressed—grossly naïve and more than likely in for the shock of his life, of course—but impressed nonetheless.
“Here,” Angelle said, startling my thoughts away from Poochie. She handed me the towline. “Hang onto this while I go park the car and trailer.” Then she hurried off to do just that.
As I watched my sister drive away, I noticed that the horizon had become a vacuum cleaner, sucking the sun down to its borders, soon to leave Angelle and I with darkness and disadvantage. The moon was already out, a huge gauzy, translucent ball, waiting patiently for its turn to take center stage. Wisps of clouds floated across its face.
A late afternoon breeze carried with it a fecund odor swaddled in humidity. I’d never been anywhere that felt so damned wet. My clothes stuck to me, my hair stuck to me, gnats stuck to me. It was as if the air was made of some kind of glue.
The steady shhoop . . . shhoop shhoop of water lapping against the aluminum hull of the boat made my eyelids heavy. I imagined schools of fish swirling close to the bank to check out the sound, saw them serpentine through labyrinths of vegetation, some of them predators, some prey, all of them constantly on the move. They had no knowledge of me, of my problems, or of the danger Angelle and I might be headed for. In that moment, I envied them their mindless, singularly focused life, to search for food and shelter. Perhaps they had their own horrors to deal with. Perhaps life was one game of eat or be eaten for them. Perhaps I was envying the wrong things.
The water that lie ahead, whether swamp, bayou, river, I couldn’t tell the difference, looked like a tarnished silver highway that stretched on seemingly forever. Along its roadside were cypress trees, many of them heavy-laden with moss that hung from their branches like clumps of course gray hair. Some were only stumps, jagged knees and fingers that rose from the water like gnarled, brown body parts refusing to die. Amongst them were willows, tupelos, maples and cottonwoods, all of them a perch for singing, twittering birds. The shadows created by the lush forest l
ife that packed both banks seemed to converge down the middle of the highway, bringing darkness before the death of the sun.
It would take a lifetime to absorb the richness of this place, but as beautiful as it was, there was no mistaking the underlying sense that came with it—these waterways might be able to nourish and sustain life, but they could also take it away.
I turned my gaze back to shore. Having come from a dustbowl, all of this water—so much of it—was daunting and intimidating. And it didn’t help that I couldn’t swim for shit, nor could Angelle as far as I knew.
I had every excuse I needed to be scared shitless, turn tail, and run. To go back to that dry hole I called home, where all I had to worry about was a mangy old dog scratching on my back screen door and the deadlines from the newspapers I wrote for. Life was easy and quiet back there—as long as I didn’t mind the memories—as long as I didn’t mind the loneliness. And I didn’t. Not really.
Sighing, I wiped sweat from my forehead. Here I was, holding onto a rope tied to a boat, getting ready to fuck all that easy, quiet life. Maybe Poochie wasn’t the only one with a few cogs slipping.
When Angelle returned moments later, her expression was somber, her face slick with sweat. She climbed into the boat and went straight to the motor that sat on its squared-off back end.
“Get in,” she said, squatting near the motor. As I do so, she pulled her hair back in a ponytail with a rubber band from her wrist, then grabbed a red rubber ball that sat in the middle of a rubber hose, which ran from the gas tank to the motor. She began squeezing the ball rapidly, as if working an exercise ball.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” I asked, wondering if she’d have to keep pumping the ball the entire time we’d be moving through the bayou.
“Yep. Just priming the motor.” She gave the bulb a couple more squeezes, then hit the start button on the throttle. The engine sputtered . . .coughed . . . roared to life. A plume of gray smoke rose from the back of the engine, filling the air with the scent of gasoline. Angelle smiled, then motioned to the bench seat near the bow of the boat. “Sit there.”
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