by J. Thorn
As Pete watched, consumed with the sudden urge to go back inside and bring her another blanket, she slowly turned her head toward him, as if following the flight path of a bird in a dream, and he almost ducked down beneath the sill for fear she'd wake and see him peering in at her like some kind of peeping tom. But he waited a moment, then straightened, his face pressed to the glass.
Who are you? he wondered, smiling slightly as he cocked his head to see better through the rivulets of rain streaming down the pane. Where d'you come from? He pressed his fingers to the glass, wishing it were her skin he was feeling beneath them, knowing her flesh would be infinitely warmer. He closed his eyes, confused by this yearning for someone he didn't even know, and not for the first time chided his foolishness. But the warmth inside him countered the uncertainty. She would wake, and she would need a friend, that was all there was to it. And if they forbade him his visits to see her, then he would sneak out. He had done it all the time for Valerie, even if she'd never learned that he'd been watching her, looking in on her from time to time like a guardian angel. On reflection, that had probably been for the best. She hadn't loved him anyway.
He wondered if it would be different this time.
The rain hammered the glass and needled the back of his head like nature's way of opposing such foolish thoughts, and he opened his eyes. The cold trickling down the nape of neck chilled him as he checked to make sure his father or Doctor Wellman hadn't suddenly appeared at the door.
The coast was clear.
Thunder made a sound like barrels tumbling down a stairs.
Pete turned back to the window, saw that the girl was awake, and watching him, and his mouth fell open.
A split second later, he was surprised when the girl did the same.
Then she screamed.
-5-
"They'll come looking for her, you know. Someone will come looking for the girl. If not the cops, then her family, and even if by some miracle they don't, she's going to wake sooner or later and she'll want to go home."
Jack nodded his understanding and wiped tears from his eyes. "I know that. When she's able, you'd best just put her on a bus home. Though it might not be wise to keep her here longer than you need to. Take her to a hospital, soon. Tomorrow mornin'. Tell 'em you found her on the road and patched her up best you could. They'll get the cops involved and figure somethin' out for themselves."
Wellman finished his drink. "And you don't think it will all lead back here?"
"Doesn't matter if it does. We won't know nothin'."
"I will, Jack, and I'm a lousy liar."
"You won't know more than that you found her by the road. Half-truth's better than none, ain't it? And the girl'll be in good hands."
"Then what? Think they won't go poking around by themselves? And I'm only a doctor, not a surgeon. I can patch her up, but I can't give her what she needs."
Jack put his hands to the sides of his head and squeezed, as if hoping to compress the frustration. "Then drop her off somewhere. Drive into Mason City, leave her by the—"
A sudden terrifying shriek made them both jump. Jack's right hand flew out and knocked over his empty glass. It rolled toward the edge of the table but he caught it in time, then looked in desperation at the doctor, who rose and swallowed.
Overcome by panic, nerves frayed, "Why?" Wellman asked. "After all you've said, why did you bring her here?"
Jack stared dumbly. He had no ready answer, only unspoken apologies for an act he knew had endangered them all.
Pale-faced and trembling, Wellman hurried down the hall.
A moment later, Jack quickly and quietly stood and headed for the front door.
*
The face vanished from the window. It didn't matter. Whether or not she could see them, Claire knew they were close. She could smell their suffocating stink—a mixture of unwashed bodies, blood and engine oil. She screamed, and would not stop screaming, because despite what they had told her, despite what they had whispered lovingly into her ear, their noxious breath warm against her skin, someone would come. Someone would hear.
Casting a fearful glance at the window, empty now but for the rain, she felt a dazzling burst of panic and pain as she remembered being tied to the stake, remembered the feel of them taking turns as they violated her, tore her asunder, tried to reach the part of her she was keeping from them, the only part of her they still, after all their torturing, hadn't yet destroyed.
Her soul.
As if on cue, her ribs seemed to tighten, her lungs cutting off the breath required to carry the scream, and it died, became an airless croak that drained her. Searing pain chewed on her extremities, as if despite the warmth that lay upon her like an invisible lover, she was suffering from frostbite. Her body jerked of its own volition; her teeth clacked together hard enough to send a bolt of fresh, clear glassy pain to her temples. In her right eye, through which she could see nothing, a smoldering ember ignited anew, and she tried to scream again, as her hands—wounded hands bandaged bleeding hands—flew to the burning epicenter of her suffering and found no blood, no damage, only a soft, slightly damp gauze. She began to weep, and felt consciousness reel away from her, then back again, as if she were on a swing. Slowly, like fires lighting in the dark, other sites of pain registered across the terrain of her body, reaching toward the surface of her skin with flaming arms. Her back arched and she opened her mouth, but the scream she could hear in her ears stayed trapped in her throat. Her skin felt scalded.
Madness danced through her, offering itself up as an alternative to the unbearable suffering, and she grunted, pummeled by invisible fists of pain, and tried to listen.
Any minute now, that soothing velvet voice told her. Any minute now they'll be back with their knives and their ropes and their filthy things, ready to do to you what they did to...to...
She closed her eyes, opened them again. Darkness in one; light in the other. The room seemed to jump and jitter every time she tried to focus. The rataplan of the rain at the window was designed to distract her, to make her believe it was the dirty finger of one of them, eager to draw her attention, but she didn't look, didn't care. The pain was too much now, and even that didn't matter because pain meant she was alive, and alive meant they hadn't done to her what she'd seen them do to the others, to her friends, and she couldn't understand why they hadn't done the same to her, couldn't—
And then she did.
She hadn't let them.
She had escaped, survival instinct taking control of her, muddying her mind, narrowing her thoughts into one single inner cry of primal self-preservation.
Loosening rope burning her wrists. The dimwitted single-minded smile of her captor, as he tugged down his pants with trembling hands. Claire, arching her back away from the stake, spreading her legs, exposing herself more fully, watching his eyes drop to the raw wounded lips there. Come on, come take it you dirty fuck. Her fingers fumbling, tips jabbed by the sharp point of a sliver of wood from the haphazardly stacked pile behind her and to the left. Reaching, weeping, gripping...Come closer. Swaying her hips despite the pain, the degradation, watching his fascination as he approached, his stubby cock springing free from his shorts, the tip glistening. Come closer...The memory of her friends, of what had been done to them, the black fire seizing her, the pain, the anguish, the horror...the rage. Come on! Then he was there, leering at her, hands outstretched to paw her breasts and her own hands were suddenly mercifully free, the rope falling to the floor. His mouth opening, eyes reluctantly leaving her body, frowning as he realized what that severed snake of rope on the floor meant, then a moan, low in his throat as she snatched the wood, swung it around and...
She had fled them in a dream, and woken now to find that was all it had been, for wherever she was, it was no place she knew, no place she wanted to be. It was a bed, and had it been an earthen one she might have understood. But the sheets were clean where she hadn't bled on them. The room was tidy where there were no instruments and knives.
Knives.
Squinting, hissing through her teeth at the pain, she raised herself up on one elbow, and like a barrel full of rocks falling on its side, the pain seemed to tumble through her, settling in one half of her body, adding weight to the arm she was using to hold herself up. She took a series of short painful breaths as the light grew hazy and spun away from her, then she slowly, slowly opened her eye fully, willing it to focus on the small metal tray by the bed.
Knives. Lots of them, some still wet with her blood. The tools they'd used to fix her, sew her up so they could tear her stuffing out again.
She tried to smile but her lips felt like taut rubber, so she settled for a huffed laugh and the momentary surge of warmth that almost dulled the pain in her chest at the thought of what she was going to do with that knife—a scalpel, she noted.
Any minute now...
Yes, any minute now, they would barge into the room, those dirty seething bastards, but no matter how fast or how strong they were, they would not get her again.
They would not get a second chance to kill her.
Because she was going to do it for them.
-6-
As he approached the girl's room, Wellman heard the front door slam shut. Jack was gone, and that was good. His account had shaken Wellman, threatened to drain him of his resolve, imbuing in him the temptation to just drive the girl ten miles up the road and dump her somewhere, to avoid whatever her presence might call down upon him. But he was not going to do that, felt guilty for even thinking it. Once the girl was fit to be moved, he would put her in his car and drive her into Mason City, to one of the hospitals there, and once she was checked in, his next call would be to the police. The girl would have to be identified, her family told where to find her, so they could begin the long heartbreaking and arduous process of rebuilding their lives. He knew what that was like. He had been there himself. Hell, still was there, and he didn't envy them the journey.
What he didn't know was what would happen when he returned home after doing what he knew in his heart was the right thing. Would the Merrill clan be waiting for him? Would they simply demand to know what he'd done with the girl, or would they already know, having forced the information out of Jack? Surely, if they were indeed responsible for what had happened to the girl, wouldn't they now be too busy uprooting themselves and moving elsewhere in anticipation of a major manhunt once she was found?
He couldn't think about that now. He was old, and he was scared, and given too much consideration, the fear might consume him. All he knew was that he had watched a woman he had loved, still loved with all his heart, die in that room once and had never recovered from it, despite doing all he could to ease her suffering. He had prayed for Alice Niles's forgiveness the night he refused her request for help, and she had died too. He would not idly stand by and watch another human being perish if it was within his power to prevent it.
The screaming stopped.
He hesitated at the door, listening. The silence in the wake of her scream seemed bottomless, and unsettling. After a moment, he gently gripped the handle of the door and eased it open.
"Miss?" he asked quietly, like a bellboy afraid of disturbing a guest, which was, now that he thought about it, not all that inaccurate, for until she decided whether or not to live or die, he was bound to serve her.
He stepped into the room.
She was awake.
Steel gleamed just above the covers.
Her body convulsed, just as he saw the scalpel in her hand, just as he noticed the fresh blood on the sheets.
Rain sprayed the glass as he hurried to her side.
She looked at him, frowned slightly, her face the same shade as the pillow beneath her bandaged head.
"My name is Doctor Wellman," he said, struggling to keep calm as he sat down on the bed and gripped her wrist. He was relieved to see that she had not had the strength to make more than a superficial cut, but it was bad enough. "I'm here to help you. You've been badly injured." A quick inspection of her other wrist revealed a deeper wound. It was from this the majority of the fresh blood had come. Still looking at the dreamy puzzled expression on her face, he reached blindly out and tugged open the nightstand drawer, fumbled inside until he found the bandages, and began to unwind them from the roll. As he wrapped her wounds, a flicker of pain passed briefly over her face.
"Am I dead?" she asked him in a whisper.
He summoned a smile. "You're going to be fine."
"I shouldn't be. Don't touch me." The struggle she put up was child-like, and not hard to restrain without causing her further discomfort. After a few moments, the strength left her.
"Hush now," Wellman soothed. "I'm a doctor. I'm not here to hurt you. I want to help you."
"Are they here?"
"Who?"
"Those men. They took the skin from Danny's hands. And his face. They pulled it off like it was a Halloween mask." Her breathing caught. Her face contorted into a grimace as a tear welled in her uncovered eye. "They hurt me. All my friends are gone. Everything is dead. Make it quick."
His smile faltered. "Honey, I'm not one of them. Listen to me now." He gently stroked her hair. "I'm a friend."
"All my friends are dead."
"How many were with you?"
She didn't reply. At length, she seemed to drift off to sleep, but whispered, "I have to die now. If I don't do it, they will and I can't let them." Her eyelid fluttered. Wellman did not panic. She wasn't going to die. He knew that. Her pulse, though weak, was constant. Her breathing was fine, her pupil no longer dilated. Unconsciousness was probably her only solace from the pain and the horror, and he permitted her the escape. While she slept, he wrapped her wrists and injected her with a dose of morphine in the hope that it would ease her dreams and numb the pain, at least for a little while. Then he set the tray with the instruments against the far wall, pulled a chair close to the bed, and listened to the rising wind trying to drown out the sound of her peaceful breathing.
He would wait a while for the bleeding to cease, before he sewed her up again.
Until then, he would pray.
And when he was done, he would take the girl to his car and head for Mason City.
We'll get you home, he promised.
-7-
Her room was in darkness.
Luke stood by the door, fists clenched so she wouldn't see them trembling, because even in the dark he knew it would not escape her attention. The room smelled of sweat and bodily fluids, but he did not mind. It was his mother's perfume to him, and ordinarily soothing.
But not this evening.
Now he craved the smell of cooking meat and kerosene, of wood smoke and sizzling fat that would soon permeate the air outside as his brothers burned the bodies. It was a ritual he had been a part of for so long he had ceased to appreciate it. But he appreciated it now, would rather be drawing that pungent mixture of aromas into his nostrils than the smell of shit and piss and vomit that hung in the air in the small squalid room his mother called her own.
From the wide bed, shoved into the corner farthest from the window, where the darkness was thickest, he heard the sound of her moving, just slightly, maybe raising her head to look at him, to peer at him through the muddy gloom. The bedsprings did not so much creak, as whimper.
"Momma?"
"Boy," she responded in her bubbling voice, as if she was forever gargling.
"Momma I—"
"Come 'ere."
He pretended he hadn't heard because it was safer by the door, and that in turn made him feel guilty because he knew if he stayed here she would not rise up and come get him. She couldn't. In over two years she hadn't left that bed, not once, and in daylight, when the clouds covered the sun and the flies obscured the window, it was hard to tell where Momma ended and the bed began. It was all darkness, with lumps of paler matter here and there.
That bed, like the woman in it, dominated the room. Papa-In-Gray had told them in the same reverential tone he u
sed to begin their prayers every night before supper, that their Momma was a saint, a suffering martyr not yet found by the grave. Wires'n springs'n flesh'n fat, he told them, like it was the opening line of some long forgotten nursery rhyme. There was no Momma anymore, he said, not the way they remembered her. Now she was a mass of suppurating bedsores, fused to the mattress where old wounds had healed and the torn flesh and pus had hardened to form a kind of second skin around the material and bedsprings beneath. The mattress, once plump and soft, had been worn down by her weight to almost nothing, a wafer thin slice bent in the middle, pungent, soggy and stained by the fluids that had soaked down from her corpulent body over the years. The boys took turns washing and tending to her wound, grooming her, scooping out the large quantities of fecal matter that gathered between her enormous thighs, then giving the remaining stain a cursory, half-hearted scrub before leaving her to wallow in the vestiges of her own waste.
She complained endlessly, spoke to herself day and night, sometimes sang little songs in a voice barely above a whisper, and was quiet only when they brought her food.