by J. Thorn
Louise nodded, and smoothed a hand over the cushions. She felt helpless, as if of a sudden she was being given a chance to do something right but for the life of her couldn't figure out how to make it happen. All she did know was that she could not let this child go through with what he had in mind. If it turned out he was right, then he would almost certainly get himself hurt, or worse. As bad as it had been to have to live with the guilt of abandoning him, she would not survive long knowing she had let him go to his death. But what could she do?
"I'm goin' to get you some blankets. I'll be right back."
He nodded, and lowered his gaze.
He was not going to stay here just because she begged him to, of that she was certain. He owed her nothing, not after what she'd done to him. So what were the alternatives? She could alert the police, tell them what the boy had told her. But then they'd want to see him, talk to him, find out what he knew. They might take him in and try to control what became of him. Courts might become involved, the social services people. Sure, he was of age, but his slow development might be the trump card the courts used to ensure Louise was not granted guardianship. And if not that, then they would use her unstable past and unreliable present against her. She had no job, no prospects, no way of taking care of him.
So no, the police were out.
Take him to see the girl?
What would that achieve? Fueling his murderous, and quite possibly misguided fantasies could only lead to disaster in the long run. And who was to say the girl wouldn't react negatively, even violently, to his presence? If she had succeeded even a little in creating some small semblance of a life for herself after the incident, in fabricating a new world from denial and necessity, wouldn't Pete's visit cause that to come crashing down around her?
She entered the bedroom. Wayne was already asleep, or was pretending to be as he sometimes did when he didn't want to talk. He was lying on his back, one arm draped over his face, his mouth open slightly. Quietly, she reached down and gathered up the thick woolen blanket on the floor at the foot of the bed, then returned to the living room.
"I saw them once," Pete said, before she had the bedroom door fully shut behind her.
"What?"
"The people who done this. I saw them once, but thought it was a dream."
She came to him and sat on the edge of the armchair, one arm around his shoulders, the blanket on her lap.
"There was a tall man," he said. "Mean lookin'. And a boy, 'bout the same age as I was back then. They was in our house, in my Pa's room. The mean lookin' man was tellin' my father he'd do best to stay outta their business. He was holdin' a big blade. Looked like a lawnmower blade, I think. I always figured I'd dreamed it, but the way Pa was that night before he died...I knew I'd seen him look like that before but couldn't remember when. It came to me though. He was real afraid of those people, and I ain't hardly never seen him scared of nothin' or no one."
Louise nodded, then stood and set the blanket down upon the cushions. "You better get some sleep now, and rest yourself," she said. "We'll try to figure out what to do tomorrow, all right?"
He didn't answer, just scooted forward off the couch and dropped to his knees on the cushions.
"If you need anythin' in the night, you come get me, you hear? I'm just in that room back there."
He nodded, and set about unrolling the blanket.
After a moment spent searching for some words of comfort to offer him, Louise gave up. "Good night," she told him and headed for her bedroom. She had one handle on the door when Pete said, "You gonna come with me to see the girl?"
"I thought you didn't want my help," she said.
"Not with what's gotta be done later. I don't want you nowhere near that. But I need to find the girl. She told me the street, but I ain't sure I can find it on my own."
She looked at him for a moment, at the vulnerability peering out at her from behind a mask of hurt and smoldering anger, and she nodded.
"I'll help you. However I can."
Satisfied, and still wearing his jacket, he wriggled down under the blanket. "Good night then."
"Good night."
With one last lingering look at the boy, she turned off the light.
*
A sound jerked him from sleep. For a moment, in the dark with only the pale glow from a streetlight filtered through the snow and the grimy window across from him, Pete was unsure where he was. The shapes that rose around him as his eyes adjusted were unfamiliar ones, and for a moment fear rippled through him. Gradually, he remembered and allowed a long slow breath of relief to escape him. He relaxed, but only a little. These days, tension seemed to have made taut ropes of his muscles and resting only eased the discomfort they caused him for a short time.
He shivered.
It was freezing outside, and though the apartment was warm and he was still dressed, a chill threaded through him.
At last he sat up, and rubbed his eyes, then squinted into the dark until he made out the faint outline of the TV. Atop it, the time on the VCR read 4:30 in glowing green numerals. Pete got to his feet and kicked his shoes free of the blankets, which, though warm, had felt scratchy on the exposed skin of his hands. He grabbed one of the cushions, replacing it on the sofa before dropping heavily onto it.
I shouldn't've come here.
Since stepping off the bus at the station, he'd felt out of place. Part of it was the fact that he could count on one hand the amount of times he'd been in a big city, but mostly it was because he felt alone, and isolated, as if no matter where he went or with whom, he would still feel as if he journeyed by himself. The death of his father had awoken terrible, frightening feelings in him that frequently debilitated him and left him weeping. He had no mother. He had no father. The farm was gone. Death had cut him loose and set him adrift in an alien world that had never seemed more threatening. Every shadow, every face, every street was a potential threat, and Pete felt in constant danger.
And there was the anger, the awful consuming hatred whenever he tried to picture the face of the man who he'd seen standing in his father's bedroom that night, or when he felt the phantom touch of the child who'd stood by his side, smiling. And though it had taken him some time, he'd finally understood why his father had been afraid, and why Pete had sensed hesitation in him the day they'd picked up the girl. Pa had known what he was calling down upon them by helping Claire, but he'd done it anyway. In Pete's book, that made his Pa a hero, and from what he'd gleaned from comic books and TV shows over the years, the death of heroes was always celebrated, and avenged.
Pete had never wanted to be a hero, only happy. For a long time, and due in no part to his father, and Louise in the brief time in which she had been content to be his mother, he'd managed the latter quite well. He'd wanted for nothing, though he hadn't wanted much. He'd worked and he'd played, and though his future had always been a latent concern, he'd always figured he could cross that bridge when he came to it.
But now someone had shoved him over that bridge and burned it down behind him, taking everything he knew along with it, and forcing him to confront an uncertain future. He was alone, his father murdered, a hero dead. And then there was the girl, who'd been hurt too, left barely alive and lucky to escape. Who knew how many others had had their lives destroyed by these evil men?
They'll hurt you, maybe even kill you too, he told himself when the fear and doubt overwhelmed him. And no one will ever know. But he learned to counter this with steely determination and whatever courage he could draw up from the dark well of pain inside him. I have to set things right. And if I die, then all that means is I'll be with Pa again. This was the simple truth and he embraced it. The people who had done these terrible things to Doc Wellman, his Pa, and the girl, needed to be punished. It was only fair. And he would go alone, for to take anyone with him, as comforting as the thought might seem, would only be putting them in danger, and he was unwilling to bear such a burden.
He looked again at the clock. Only a m
inute had passed. He wondered when Louise would wake, or if he should leave and come back later when she was likely to be up and ready to face the day.
On the street outside, a dog barked.
It was followed by low murmuring.
The dog barked a second time, then yelped.
Pete rose and went to the window, wiped away the cloud of his own breath and peered down.
There were three men in the street, all of them dressed the same. They were talking animatedly, but keeping their voices low so they would not wake the tenants in the buildings around them.
He strained to hear what they were saying, but they were being too quiet.
He returned to the sofa and sat, his head turned toward the window.
Claire's face swam to the surface of his thoughts, and he felt his nerves twitch. He hoped more than anything she didn't hate him for leaving her alone at the hospital, and made a note to tell her that he wouldn't have, if he hadn't been frightened by the amount of people suddenly rushing toward him at once, all speaking at the same time, the look in their eyes serious, demanding answers. He'd fled, and hadn't made it a whole mile down the road before he'd regretted it.
There was still time to set things right. That's why he was here. There would be ample opportunity to explain himself to her in person. The thought made him smile. He imagined her as he'd seen her on the news—scarred and bruised but cleaner and healthier looking than she'd been in Elkwood. Her eye was still gone though, and he ached at the thought of how much pain it must have caused her, both in having it torn out, and waking to find it gone. The picture he'd seen had shown her looking exhausted, the lids of her missing eye stitched together with black thread so that it looked as if she might only have been in a serious fight. Her hair had been combed, her lips colored a little. The sight of her had made his heart beat faster.
Down in the street, there came the rumble of a car engine, the slight squeak of brakes. One of the men raised his voice, but his words were no clearer. He sounded annoyed.
Though Pete had long abandoned the idea that Claire would fall madly in love with him just because he'd had a hand in rescuing her, he hoped more than anything she would be glad to see him. He wondered what she would say when he told her that he was going back to Elkwood to punish the men who had done such horrible things to her. Would she think him a hero, or a crazy fool? Would she try and stop him? It's too dangerous, she might say, and he would have no words to argue, because it was true.
The men down there might hurt him. They might kill him. These things he knew, and it saddened him to think that all he might find back in Elkwood was failure. His father would go unavenged, and he would never see Claire again. And then of course, there was Louise, who he had never dared believe he would find, and yet here he was now, sitting on her sofa while she slept in the other room.
He worried that she might try to stop him, that she might lie to him and lure him to the police station where she would tell them what he was planning to do and they would throw him in jail to prevent it. This sudden concern was so strong he almost leapt to his feet and bolted. But then he thought of the cold, and of the men in the street, and stayed where he was.
A car door slammed shut.
Someone cursed loudly.
Pete sighed, suddenly feeling more alone and more frightened than he'd ever been. Tears leaked from his eyes as he pictured his father as he had last seen him. Fear in his eyes. The terror. The desperation. Why had he left him alone? Why hadn't he known there was something terribly wrong and stayed to help his Pa deal with the men?
Because you're none too clever, he heard his father say. And you never was.
In truth, he had known something was wrong, but the fear of his father if he disobeyed him had been greater, and so he'd taken the truck and headed out to Wellman's. But it wasn't only that and he knew it. He'd wanted to see the girl so bad it had muddied his instincts, made him reluctant to stay with the old man.
And now his father was dead.
Behind him, the bedroom door opened. He turned and saw in the doorway the vague shape of the man who lived here with his second mother. His eyes were dark hollows in the gloom. For a moment he lingered there, watching Pete, then slowly eased out into the room, pulling the door almost shut, but not quite. Then he quietly crossed the room, stopping by the sofa where Pete sat looking up at him.
"What you doin' up?" Wayne whispered.
"Somethin' woke me," Pete whispered back.
Wayne glanced toward the window, nodded pointedly.
"Those men out there?"
Pete shrugged. "Maybe."
"Well, you just forget all about them, now, you hear me?"
There was a hard edge to his voice that Pete didn't like, so he nodded. He knew it was wrong to judge a man he hardly knew, but he couldn't help it. 'Wayne' had driven the car that had spirited his mother out of his life all those years ago and the pain that came with that memory made it impossible to think of the man as anything other than mean. And now the tone of his voice—conspiratorial, vaguely threatening—only added to Pete's disdain for him.
"I'm just goin' for a walk is all. To get some air."
Again, Pete nodded.
"If Louise wakes up, you tell her I couldn't sleep and went down to the All-Night store for cigarettes." He rose, but continued to stare at him. "I'll be back soon."
Curiosity, as it had so often in his life, got the better of Pete and he asked, though he knew he shouldn't, "Where are you really goin'?"
"That ain't none of your business, boy."
Wayne watched him for a moment longer, but then the voices from the street drifted up as if summoning him and he sighed and headed for the door. "Remember what I said," he told Pete, and exited the apartment.
As Wayne's footsteps echoed in the corridor outside, Pete turned his head toward the window and listened to the voices from down below.
-21-
Distant thunder rumbled on the horizon as Papa-in-Gray stared at the wall. Before him was a chipped mug full of some kind of murky brown liquid he had as yet failed to identify, but it smelled like toilet water. He shoved it away from him and stared at the wall. There was little to see there but cobwebs and flaking paint. Jeremiah Krall hadn't bothered decorating the place, though he'd been living here for years. Every surface was coated with a thick layer of dust. A stone fireplace held nothing but a shroud of spider webs speckled with small brown egg sacs. Broken wood littered the place, as if rather than venture into the surrounding woods for firewood, Krall had smashed up his furniture, sparing only one rickety table and two wobbly chairs for comfort. He was a capable hunter, and hunted often, and yet the cabin remained utterly devoid of trophies, skins, or prize animal heads. His living room was just that, a room for living in, nothing more. Still, Papa wished there was something other than the stained surface of the table and that crumbling wall to focus on, because while they might be living in this room, he had come to talk about death, and one he feared Krall was not going to take too well.
He looked down at his fingers, at the faint maroon stains on his skin. It seemed he always had blood on his hands no matter how hard or how often he washed them. He wanted to believe it was a sign from God—stigmata of a sort—that he was doing His work, and doing it well. This would have encouraged Papa, though he secretly wished for more than some ambiguous rusty stains on his skin as acknowledgment of his commitment, reassurance perhaps, however slight, that a life spent worshipping and serving God hadn't been in vain, and that in the end, the Men of the World would not be victorious.
"Gimme strength," he whispered to the room.
As a child, he had questioned the existence of God, reasoning that the beauty of the world was not proof enough, that there had to be something else, something more. Something a child could look to for solace, and hope, for in his world there was little beauty, even less when his mother took the old belt to him for daring to doubt their Lord. She would punish him, and then order him to pray for forgivenes
s. Over time, he learned to view his fervent whisperings in the dark as penance he should not have to give for simply expressing his curiosity, and learned to resent the god for whom they were intended.
Then, one night, everything changed.
He was not yet eleven years old, but he had learned to stop questioning, his doubt a secret rebellion against the mother who had forced him to associate faith with pain. But not believing did not reduce the agony. His mother's big city boyfriend saw to that, and between them they rendered for the boy an adequate picture of Hell.
That night, early in the summer, as he lay in bed eyes screwed shut, tears streaming down his cheeks, the wounds from the belt raw and sore and burning but not nearly as much as the sharp thrusting of the grunting, drunken man atop him, something happened. A particularly vicious tearing sent red pain shooting through him. He gasped, convulsed in the bed and opened his eyes.
There was light, and within it he glimpsed angels, redolent in shimmering muslin robes that did not bind their wings, allowing them to beat at the air, cooling him. Their hair seemed made of frost, eyes a liquid blue, and in them he saw the answer to the questions his mother had refused to answer. Abruptly, adrift on a sea of pain that had carried him to the shores of epiphany, he knew why she had not sated his curiosity. She had been afraid of the power that might be bestowed upon him if God deemed him worthy.
She feared wrath.
The pain ebbed away, became a dull throbbing that kept time with his rapidly beating heart, and he felt a longing for the light as it faded, retreated into the walls.
But what he had seen had been enough.
In that room, bathed in sweat not his own, the stench of alcohol suffocating him, his mother's boyfriend hissing curses down upon his prone form, he had found God, or rather, God had found him, and bestowed upon him a great gift, a gift he quickly used.