by Hixon, Wayne
Autumn took a sip of her coffee, holding the cup sneakily in front of her face, “Oh, I’ll win you back. You’ll see.”
“Gross.”
Autumn laughed at her, hoping Charlotte would think she thought it was gross too.
The girls got away from talking about boys and recounted their week at school, lackadaisically sipping their coffee, two unemployed high school kids killing time. Charlotte thought about the trio that had just left. A quick and uncontrolled shiver ran through her body.
Twenty
Stepping into Jacob’s apartment, the gravity of their situation was driven home. In the time they were at the Wake Up Screaming, someone had been in Jacob’s apartment. It looked like the work of vandals. The ultimate goal seemed to be that of destruction, the only theft that of the remaining vestiges of security the three contained.
The couch bed was gutted, the stuffing and even the springs from the mattress strewn about the apartment. The stereo was caved in. The windows were shattered. Shelves were tipped over. The coffeemaker was smashed. The door had been ripped from the microwave. The refrigerator and freezer were open, their contents strewn about the kitchen. Even from the living room, Jacob could tell all the books, records and CDs had been pulled from the shelves in the study. Many of them looked ripped and broken. The corn plant Jacob had rescued from outside the previous night had been depotted, its leaves shredded. The clublike trunk lay in the middle of the floor, covered in blood.
Blood.
That was the most disturbing thing. Jacob could have dealt with everything else—it was all just stuff when you got right down to it—but the sight of blood immediately shattered whatever stability he had been holding onto.
It was like they all saw the source of blood at the same time.
A dead dog lay against the bottom of the wall that the television had once been against. It was gutted, its fur and skin torn away from its middle in two ragged flanks. Written on the wall above the dog, in what was presumably the dog’s blood, was: RAIN IS DEAD.
“Oh God,” Rain said, covering her mouth with her hand and going toward the bathroom.
It occurred to Jacob that, even though the girl had shared the bed with a murderer for nearly the past year, she had probably never seen actual gore up this close. She had admitted to seeing the dead bodies but, if Jacob was correct in his assumptions, the bodies would have been somehow neat, looking just like alive humans only... not alive.
Rachel looked at Jacob and he knew what she was thinking. She was wondering if whoever did this was still in the apartment. There weren’t a lot of places to hide but the bathroom door had been shut when Rain went in. Jacob grabbed the remainder of the corn plant from the floor and crossed over to the bathroom, pounding on the door.
He heard a muffled sigh come from inside.
“Are you okay, Rain?” he said, almost yelled.
He heard her retch and then say, “Yeah... I just... I’m sick. That’s all.”
Jacob went into the study, wielding the trunk in front of him. He quickly scanned the entire room, subconsciously taking in the devastation that was the result of years of collecting. Turning to his right, he went to the closet and threw the door open, expecting the worst. But there wasn’t anything in the closet. After hearing about Rachel’s evening, he thought he would always have an even greater than usual fear of closets. He came out of the study and told Rain it was all clear.
“Who do you think did this?” she asked.
“Whoever it was knew Rain was with us. Which means they’re a little bit more ahead of the game than we gave them credit for.”
“That’s a scary thought.”
“Damn right that’s a scary thought.”
“Do you think it was one of them?”
“Honestly... no. I don’t think it was the two people Rain was talking about. I think it was someone else. Probably Bones or another one of their henchmen.”
“You really think they have henchman?”
“I think, if they can manage to control people’s minds, then they can pretty much have anything they want.”
“Why aren’t they controlling us?”
“Are you sure they aren’t controlling us?”
“Would we be going to hunt them if they were?”
“Think about it... Last night we take in a stranger. I mean an absolute stranger. After years of not even letting our friends in on our lives we let someone in, someone who almost tried to kill you, and tell them everything we know. Well, almost everything, anyway. And now, we’re getting ready to go visit these fucks. We’re walking right into whatever traps they’ve set for us. Maybe they are controlling our minds. Maybe they’re leading us right to them.”
“But we can’t just sit around and let everything explode. And we can’t just pack up and get the hell out of Lynchville.”
“If we did that I think a whole lot more people would die.”
“Whoever it was, they seem to have a particular hatred for Rain.”
“Yeah, that was kind of what led me to believe it was Bones.”
“Maybe he followed us.”
“It’s possible.”
“Followed us and waited.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it at all. He doesn’t seem the type to let a good thing get away.”
Rain came out of the bathroom and mumbled, “Sorry.”
“No reason to be sorry,” Rachel said.
“I know he did this. That stupid shit.”
“You know,” Jacob said, “you don’t have to come with us. You don’t have to do this. We can drive you to the edge of town, put you up in a motel...”
The girl shook her head before Jacob could even finish.
“No,” she said. “I’m going with you. If I don’t help destroy these things I’ll never be able to live with what I did. I know it isn’t possible to undo what I’ve done but at least I can make sure it never happens again.”
“Stay with us, then,” Rachel said. “And if we come across your sweetheart again, maybe you can rationalize with him. Maybe you can bring him around to our side. I think we’re going to need all the warm bodies we can get.”
“I think he’s too far gone to rationalize with.”
Jacob said, “I think we should probably get going before it’s too late. We’ve already wasted a lot of time and there isn’t a helluva lot of daylight left. I was thinking we could swing by McDonald’s and grab something to eat on the way so the coffee doesn’t make us all jittery.”
“I think we need to be jittery,” Rachel said.
“We also need to be strong.”
“Are you saying McDonald’s makes you stronger?”
“Now is not the time or the place for jokes, Ms. Stokes.”
“Fuck off, Riley.”
“I love you. Even after that last comment.”
“Good. I’ve got you right where I want you then. And I love you too.”
“Let’s stop before we make Rain throw up again.”
“You guys are nice to see,” Rain said and Jacob noticed the look of longing in her eyes. It was the look of an innocent girl who thought, at one time, she had everything Jacob and Rachel had before having it stripped away from her. And that, he guessed, was why she was insistent about coming with them. She might have been interested in righting her wrongs, but she was also mad as hell at the people who she blamed for taking that away from her. “I want to get out of here,” she said.
“Let’s go then,” Jacob said.
They left the apartment and piled into Jacob’s battered old Saab, on their way to whatever cruel fate awaited them.
Jacob tried not to think about it. Thinking, he knew, wouldn’t do him any good. The Devils had the ability to take everything he was thinking and make it somehow wrong. Every thought he had was a trap. Especially if they did have the ability to pick his brain. The goal was to give them an empty bag without any thoughts to pick from, without any conscious or subconscious to warp into their twisted nightmares.
/> They drove the streets of Lynchville, oddly busy with Friday traffic. The conversation was nonexistent. They drove to the edge of town, first stopping at the gas station. Jacob pulled the five-gallon plastic gas container from his trunk and filled it up. He didn’t think this would be enough gas to burn down a house, let alone a house that might not even be there. He didn’t even know what it was they were trying to do. Maybe they were just trying to force some kind of confrontation. The thought of how that confrontation might end petrified him.
If they did this, he thought, if they did this right and they were able to flush the Devils out of Lynchville, then he and Rachel would have to leave as well. That was all there was to it. He couldn’t live surrounded by fear and that would be what remaining in Lynchville would be like. He already knew he wouldn’t be able to live in his apartment anymore. He wouldn’t be able to step foot in it without thinking of that ghastly gored dog lying there on the ground and this whole rather ghastly day, spread out both behind and in front of him. He would go back to clean up and collect his things and that was it. That thought didn’t comfort him at all. He liked his apartment. And now he was going to have to abandon it just because of them.
Finished with the gas can, he went into the convenience store to pay.
They drove across the parking lot to the McDonald’s, getting some food that would hopefully give them a bit of energy. They ate in the car on the way out to the reserve, to Barker Road, to a little valley that maybe, just maybe, contained some portal into an entirely different world. It was both mundane and terrifying. Three young adults sitting in a car, sucking down soda and French fries, heading toward some archetypal nightmare that had, in different ways, haunted each of them.
In the sky, the sun experienced a slow death. Along the twisty winding roads out past the flat farmland, the trees had a strobe effect, filling the car with alternating light and dimness.
That was exactly how Jacob felt.
“It was around here somewhere,” Rachel said.
“A little further,” Rain said.
Up ahead of them was a sort of clearing in the woods and the road rose while the ground beyond it seemed to dip.
“Okay, up there, I think that’s it,” Rain said.
“You remember that from last night?” Rachel asked.
“I have an uncanny knack for directions. Going from town to town, I think you kind of develop that. Or else you just spend a lot of time being lost.”
Jacob’s grip on the wheel had tightened. He pulled the car off the gravel road and onto the grassy shoulder. The sight of Bones’ van was the only thing hinting they were in the right spot.
Jacob, not knowing it was Bones’ van, said, “Looks like somebody already beat us here.”
“That’s Bones’ van,” Rain said. “Isn’t it stupid?”
“Well, it wouldn’t occur to me to paint a skull on my car but it also probably wouldn’t occur to me to kill a lot of people so somebody else could drink their blood, either.”
“He’s probably in there,” she said.
“Wanna see?” Jacob said. “It can be our first challenge. Warm up with the humans before battling the monsters.”
“We don’t have any kind of weapons do we?”
“There’s a tire iron in the trunk. I think that’s about it,” Jacob said.
“So prepared,” Rachel said.
“I don’t think we should go down to the van without something,” Rain said.
Jacob, feeling somehow obligated to act macho, said, “I’ll get the tire iron and go down. If worse comes to worst, he’ll kill me but we all know that no one ever really dies here. Maybe it’ll be an advantage.”
“No,” Rain said. “I think I should go down. I know how to talk to him. But I still want to take the tire iron and I want you guys to be close by.”
“How ‘bout we all just go together?” Jacob said.
“Good plan,” Rachel muttered.
They all got out of the car. Jacob went to the trunk and opened it, the smell of gas hitting his nostrils. He took the can out and put it on the ground before reaching in to grab the iron.
He slammed the trunk shut and said, “Am I the only one who fails to see the house?”
“I don’t see it,” Rachel said.
“Me either,” Rain said.
“Okay, so I’m not just blind. Anyway, this is going to make it kind of hard to burn down.”
“I think we’ll have to wait,” Rachel said.
“Wait for what?”
“Dark. I have this feeling they’re not going to let us see it until dark, when they’re stronger. The darkness is their time. But they do want us to see it. At least, they want me to see it.”
“You could have shared this feeling back at the apartment.”
“Why? So we could hang around there a little bit longer. I know it’s so hospitable and comfortable there right now but I kind of wanted to get out.”
“Your sarcasm does not amuse me. I have a tire iron and some gas. I’m heavily armed, you know.”
“You don’t scare me.”
“Fine.”
Rain was already walking down toward the van and Jacob thought there had to be a part of her that wanted Bones to be in the van. And there was probably a part of her that wanted to find him somehow transformed into who he used to be, the disillusionment lifted from his brain. Jacob saw the first as a grim possibility but he knew the latter was highly improbable. Wherever the boy was, he wasn’t going to return the same person who went into this nightmare.
Rachel and Jacob trailed Rain by about fifteen feet. Rain walked through the knee-high grass until she reached the van. She went to the back of it, her hand on the chrome of one of the back doors. Jacob heard the door click as she depressed the handle.
He took a deep breath as she pulled the door open.
Twenty-one
Rain swung the door open and it seemed to take an impossibly long time getting there and when the door was finally open, Jacob could see Bones spring out of the back of the van, a knife in his hand, throwing himself on Rain, savagely cutting her throat before he and Rachel could move toward her.
But that didn’t happen.
Once the door was open, the only thing they stood looking at was the empty black mouth of the van.
He breathed a tentative sigh of relief. Tentative because it now meant they didn’t exactly know where Bones was. He could be anywhere. He could be coming up behind them right now. Jacob had known weapons wouldn’t work against the Devils but he had forgotten about this potentially treacherous human element.
“He’s not here,” Rain said.
“What do we do now?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t think there is anything to do but wait, is there?” Jacob said.
“But you know how I hate to wait.”
“Well, we could always explore.”
“But then we turn our backs on the house.”
“I have another idea. This might kill a few minutes,” Jacob said. “Rain!”
“Yeah,” she said, still standing up near the van.
“Are the keys in there?”
Rachel and Jacob approached the back of the van as Rain went up to peer in through the driver’s side window.
“They are,” she said. “That’s not like Bones at all. Leaving the keys to his van.”
“Good. I have an idea.”
“So what’s your big idea,” Rachel said.
“Well, I’m thinking the five gallons of gas we have might not be enough to, you know, burn down an entire house... but an explosion. That could do some real damage. So, if the house decides to make an appearance, I suggest we pour the gas around the perimeter of the house, take the van up to the hill and run it into the house.”
“That might be a better idea.”
“And we can just hope it explodes.”
“Knowing our luck, it probably won’t. What time is it, anyway?”
Jacob looked at his watch. “A quarter after five
.”
“How much longer does that mean we have to wait.”
“It should start getting dark around seven.”
“A couple of hours then.”
“So we’re left to wait... always waiting for them.”
“Always waiting for them. A little better when you know they’re coming, though.”
“I guess.”
“You want to get the van up on the hill?”
“Might as well.”
On the other side of the reserve, in the neighborhood of The Oaks, Charlotte Black and Autumn Jackson performed a raid on Charlotte’s parents’ liquor cabinet before they came home from work. The idea was to find the desired substance and stash it in the woods without being seen so when they retreated into the woods later her parents wouldn’t suspect any type of corruption.
Giggling, the two girls found two half-empty bottles of red wine. This was the cheap stuff her parents drank for the occasional special family dinner they had. It wasn’t the good stuff they broke out for guests or her father’s clients. This stuff wouldn’t be missed. Her parents drank enough anyway and Charlotte’s continual removal of things from the liquor cabinet probably made them think they had occasional blackouts and staggering gaps in memory.
Charlotte didn’t feel too bad about it. She thought it would have been hypocritical for them to complain. Besides, she figured the more she drank, the less likely she was to think about Zack. If she spent all night thinking about Zack then she wouldn’t be any fun. Of course, she would be thinking about Zack. She planned on telling Autumn everything, just like she had promised. She was tired of carrying the burden herself. She needed to share these certain dilemmas she had come up against. Ultimately, what she would be jockeying for would be Autumn’s support. She wanted Autumn to approve of Zack and the circumstances of their almost purely physical relationship. She wanted Autumn to say, “If it feels good then, by all means, carry on.” Because Charlotte wasn’t so sure something that felt so good could be a healthy thing.
After selecting the wine, the girls carried it out to the edge of the woods, just far enough in so they couldn’t be seen. It wasn’t entirely legal to build campfires on land that was technically owned by the county. But they were always careful and Charlotte couldn’t see the harm in it. No one had managed to burn down the woods yet and the rest of the neighborhood would just think it was someone burning off leaves.