Wuther

by V. J. Chambers

  He found a napkin on the floor and pressed it against the blood. “Hold that there.”

  “Heath, I don’t think it’s bad.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded.

  He got out of the car, back into the rain, and went forward to inspect the tree.

  It was huge. There was no way he was getting past it on the road. It covered both lanes. The terrain on either side was all woods, so there was no getting around it either.

  Heath kicked the tree trunk. “Fuck.”

  He went back to the car. “Is there another way out of here? That tree’s not going anywhere.”

  “No,” said Cathy. “This road dead ends at the Linton’s house.”

  He dragged a hand over his face. “Then we’re trapped.”

  Cathy touched her stomach. “Something’s not right.”

  “What?” He looked at her, concerned.

  Abruptly, she threw her head back, screaming in pain.

  “Cathy?”

  She panted. “It’s the baby. I think maybe the accident knocked something—” She screamed again.

  Heath felt panic shoot through him. “Cathy, you can’t do this right now. We’re trapped behind this fallen down tree.”

  She let out another bloodcurdling yell.

  Fuck. This was bad. This was very bad.

  2013

  Heath flung open the door to Thera’s room. “Hello, Catherine.” He was holding a gun. A pistol. It was dangling from his right hand. He wasn’t pointing it at her, but he wasn’t making any attempt to hide it.

  She shrank backwards on the bed. This was it. He was going to kill her.

  “Stop sniveling,” Heath said. “Get up. Off the bed.”

  Her whole body shaking, she did as she was told. As she got closer to Heath, she realized he was dirty. His clothes were covered in mud, as were his hands. There were dark streaks on his face. His hair hung in tangles. He looked demented.

  She stifled a cry.

  Heath gestured with the gun. “Out of the room. Go on. You can do it.”

  She walked out of the room. She was so shaky, she could hardly hold herself up. “Listen, Heath, please don’t kill me. I know I made you mad, and you probably think—”

  “Stop being melodramatic,” said Heath. “We’re going downstairs. I’m behind you. Walk.”

  She squeaked. She was too afraid.

  He held up the gun. “Go, Catherine.”

  She scurried forward.

  The hallway seemed darker and smaller than usual. She noticed that the wallpaper was peeling off the walls at the corners. It was a little bit yellowed with age as well. It was old, maybe from the seventies judging from the color scheme.

  The wooden floor was warped, and she stepped carefully, afraid she’d lose her balance.

  “For god’s sake, you can go faster than that,” said Heath.

  She looked over her shoulder at him. She tried to move faster, but it was hard. She was afraid of tripping. Her pulse was racing and her whole body felt stiff.

  “You’re such a little scared bunny,” said Heath. “Sometimes, I see your mother in you, but other times, you’re so much a Linton, it makes me want to tear you to pieces.”

  Thera was seized in an ecstasy of terror. It was impossible for her to move. “I don’t want to die,” she managed.

  “Then go down the damned stairs,” growled Heath.

  Pulling together every shred of courage she had, she managed to get moving again.

  She made her way down the steps ahead of Heath.

  “Into the kitchen,” he said.

  Was that because it would be easier to clean her brains off of the linoleum when he shot her to death?

  But she got in there. Gage was sitting at the table already, his face stone.

  “Sit down,” said Heath, gesturing with the pistol.

  Thera collapsed in her chair, her lower lip trembling. “Oh god, you’re going to kill both of us?”

  “He’s not going to kill us, Thera,” said Gage, reaching for her hand. “Heath’s never killed anyone.”

  Heath chuckled long and low, the laugh of a madman. “Of course I have, Gage. You really think your stepfather shot himself?”

  1995

  There was blood everywhere. Something inside Cathy had broken, and it had all come gushing out of her.

  Heath had put the car in gear when it happened, going back to the Linton’s house. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe he could call an ambulance? Someone to move the tree? Maybe a doctor could drive to the tree and then walk the rest of the way in?

  While he was driving, he’d seen the lightning. A huge, huge tongue of it, coming straight down in front of him.

  And when he got to the Linton house, it was on fire. The whole place was ablaze. He thought maybe the rain would have put it out. But the wind must have done its work too well, spreading it everywhere. It was too much fire for even the rain to stop.

  He didn’t know what to do.

  Cathy was yelling and crying and moaning next to him, and there was so much blood. There was so much of it.

  He drove back to the tree.

  He tried to move it, tried to drag it out of the road.

  But it was impossible. He couldn’t budge it.

  When he came back to the car, Cathy was quieter. Her face was white, and her lips had turned a funny purple color he didn’t like.

  She turned accusing eyes on him.

  “You’re going to be okay,” he said, pulling her into his arms. He was lying. He knew it. If he thought she was going to be okay, then he’d be doing something right now. But he was giving up.

  “I’m dying,” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “You and Eli did it to me. It took both of you, but together you killed me.”

  “Cathy.” His voice was anguished. “Don’t talk like that. You’re my life. You can’t die. I won’t let you.” But he was letting her. He didn’t know what else to do.

  “You killed me.” Her voice was bitter. “How long do you think you’ll live after I’m gone? You and Isabella can raise your baby together. You’ll forget about me.”

  “How can you say that?” he said. “You know I could never forget you. You know that losing you will drive me absolutely mad. You know I can’t exist without you. You’re the other part of me.”

  She looked up at him. Her eyes were hollow. Her expression was desperate. “I’m going to hold onto you, and I’m going to take you with me. Or I’m going to stay somehow. I don’t want to be away from you. I just got you back, and I’m not letting you go.”

  Tears started coming out of his eyes. He didn’t bother wiping at them. “You’re not dying. Stop saying it.”

  “I am,” she said. And he didn’t like the way she looked at him, like she was looking through him, like her eyes weren’t focusing. “I can feel it coming for me. I’m weak. And everything’s cold.” She touched her stomach. “The baby’s probably dead too. They might have to kill me to get it out.”

  “Never,” said Heath. “You’re not— You’re going to be fine. Just stop thinking, talking like you’re not.”

  “When I’m gone, I’ll be free. Finally free.” She drew in a long, slow breath. “I always felt like I was being crushed, Heath. Like everything was suffocating me. I couldn’t get free of any of it. You did it. And Eli did it. And the damned farm. And my baby. My baby too. She crushed me. But I can see it now.” She got a very faraway look on her pale face. “I can see that I’ll be free. Nothing will hold me in anymore.”

  He felt wild with terror, but he still didn’t know what to do. He kissed her lips. They were cold. “You can’t do this, Cathy. This is the worst thing you’ve ever done to me, and you’ve done a lot of awful things. You can’t leave me without you. How am I supposed to handle that? How am I supposed to keep existing in a world without you? If you die, I swear to god, I won’t be able to control myself. The things I’ll do. You can’t, Cathy. You can’t.”

  She
moaned softly. She lifted one hand, her fingers trembling. She touched his face. “Heath. My Heath. The other part of me.”

  He kissed her again. “I won’t let you go.”

  She smiled weakly. “Don’t worry. I know that you would stop it if you could.”

  “I am going to stop it. You’re going to be fine. We’ll talk about this, and we’ll laugh. We’ll talk about how ridiculous it was that you thought you were going to die. We’ll talk about how scared I was…” He choked on a sob. “Jesus, Cathy, you’re scaring me.”

  “I love you,” she said. “I’ve always loved you. So much it hurt.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “But nothing will hurt anymore,” she said. “I’ll be free.”

  “I mean it. Don’t say things like that.”

  She didn’t respond.

  He shook her. “Cathy!”

  A sob overtook him. It felt like something inside him was breaking.

  He shook her harder, making her teeth chatter against each other.

  “Ouch, Heath,” she said, her voice quiet. “I’ll tell Mama if you do that again.”

  He shut his eyes. No. “Cathy, stay with me.”

  “Can you see it Heath?” she asked. With effort, she raised her hand and pointed. “It’s the fields in summer. And Mama is in the kitchen, making dinner, and Daddy is in the living room putting on a record.”

  Everything inside him was shattering apart. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. Things weren’t supposed to be this way. She wasn’t supposed to die.

  A small smile played on her lips. “We can’t run around the house. We’ll make the record skip.”

  He lay his face down next to hers, let the tears come.

  She wrapped her hand around his, her grip weak. “I want to play, though, don’t you? Will you come play with me? Will you run with me?”

  He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t breathe. His soul was dying.

  * * *

  It had taken Eli so much longer to get home than usual due to the storm, and when he came to the tree in the road, less than a mile from his house, he was frustrated and angry.

  But there was nothing for it. He got out of the car into the wind and rain. He’d have to walk the rest of the way. He climbed through the woods to get around the tree, and when he did, he saw that there was another car parked on the other side.

  He went over to the car. As he got closer, he recognized it.

  Heath’s car.

  What was that fucker doing here?

  He yanked open the driver’s side door, sticking his head inside. “Listen, Heath—”

  Then he saw them. Heath was holding Cathy, whose head was lying at an unnatural angle, her eyes glassy. She looked very, very pale.

  Heath was stroking her cheek over and over, whispering her name. He was crying.

  Eli dove into the car. He touched Cathy’s neck, feeling for a pulse.

  Heath didn’t even seem to notice him.

  Cathy’s skin was too cold.

  “What did you do?” said Eli. “What did you do to her?”

  Heath didn’t answer. He just stroked her face, whispering her name.

  Eli slapped him across the face. “Snap out of it.”

  Heath looked at him dully. “Oh. You.”

  “What happened?”

  Heath swallowed. He seemed disoriented. “The tree fell. And then Cathy started bleeding. And I went back to the house. And it was burning. And I came back here and…”

  “Burning?”

  Heath nodded.

  “What about my parents? Did you try to get my parents out?”

  Heath furrowed his brow in confusion.

  “What about the baby?” Eli was starting to feel like he was going crazy.

  “I think it’s dead too,” said Heath in an absent voice. “She said she thought it was dead.”

  Eli drew in a shaky breath. What did he do?

  “You have a car?” said Heath. “On the other side of the tree? We have to take her to the hospital.”

  “You just said she was dead.”

  “Maybe she’s not,” said Heath.

  Eli got out of the car. He could see the smoke from here. His house was on fire. Should he go to his parents?

  Or should he try to save his baby? Cathy?

  He leaned back inside the car. “Isabella?”

  Heath looked confused. “Uh… she ran off before the lightning hit the house. I don’t know. She’s pregnant.”

  What?!

  Eli took several deep breaths, trying to think, trying to decide what to do. He wasn’t good at this kind of thing. He wasn’t strong. He’d never been the one to take charge. He’d always been good little Eli, go-with-the-flow Eli. What did he do?

  He marched around to the other side of the car and opened the passenger side door. “Help me get her out.”

  Heath stared at him with uncomprehending eyes.

  “We’re taking her to the hospital,” he said. “Like you said.” He couldn’t go into a burning building. But he could take Cathy to the hospital. Maybe save their baby. Maybe… He shook his head, feeling tears threaten. “Why was she out here? Why was she with you?”

  Heath only shook his head.

  “Come on, help me,” said Eli, reaching for Cathy, trying to pull her out of Heath’s arms.

  Heath bared his teeth like an animal, tightening his grip on her.

  “You have to let me take her,” Eli said. “We have to try to get her help.”

  Heath’s eyes narrowed, but he slowly nodded.

  * * *

  The nurse appeared in front of Eli, holding a screaming baby. Eli could see her limbs thrashing out, as if she was struggling against the air itself. He was frightened. He’d understood the idea of the baby, the one that Cathy was growing inside her, but now he realized that his understanding had only been abstract, and that he hadn’t really understood what it meant.

  A baby.

  Flesh and blood.

  Angry.

  Pink.

  Small. So small.

  “You want to hold her?” said the nurse. “The other man said you were the father.”

  Eli’d stayed out of the room where they took Cathy, watching instead through the glass. He’d watched as Heath had to be pried off Cathy’s lifeless body. Heath was in a frenzy. Eli couldn’t muster anything like that. Cathy was gone. She wasn’t in that body. The only thing that had been in there was the baby.

  He held out his arms.

  And the nurse set the weight of the tiny, squirming, screaming thing in them.

  The baby stopped crying.

  She blinked up at him with unfocused blue eyes.

  Eli was stunned. She was beautiful.

  The world kept going around him, but for Eli it seemed to slow down, like the tiny girl is his arms had anchored him, tied him down. She was the only thing that was important anymore.

  He sat down on a chair, gazing down at her.

  He wouldn’t look away from her face, even when the nurses brought him a bottle to give her, even when Heath was dragged out by the hospital security, shrieking and raving. The baby was his. She was the only thing that made sense. She was the only thing that had come out of this mess of his life. And she was beautiful. He didn’t think he’d ever loved anything quite like this.

  He was so caught up in her that it took a long time before he remembered the rest of the world. All of the things that had gone wrong.

  His parents.

  The house.

  When they’d brought Cathy in, Eli had reported the burning house, but he hadn’t gone back to find out what happened. When he got the news, it wasn’t good. The house was destroyed. His parents hadn’t gotten out. They were dead.

  Cathy gone. His parents gone.

  And no sign of Isabella anywhere.

  He was alone, and he had nowhere to go. He had nothing. Everything had burned up.

  But he had a baby he had to take care of. All her things had burned u
p too. The clothes and toys and the crib that Cathy had picked out. It was all gone. He didn’t have a car seat to transport the baby.

  But it turned out the hospital wouldn’t let him take the baby anyway. She was a little bit premature, and she’d been trapped inside Cathy’s body after Cathy had died. The baby seemed strong, but they wanted to keep her in the hospital to make sure.

  So Eli spent the night there, feeling numb and ragged.

  * * *

  At dawn, Heath burst into the farmhouse. He tore through the house, yelling Matt’s name.

  Matt was in the den, a bottle of whiskey sitting on the edge of his desk. He went through his drawers. When Heath appeared in the doorway, Matt pulled his pistol on him.

  “I told you never to come back here,” said Matt. “You’re trespassing, and I can shoot you if I want.”

  Heath’s eyes were wild, bloodshot. There was blood on his face. It looked like he might have torn at himself with his nails. He looked disheveled and half insane. “She’s dead.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  Heath began to walk towards Matt like a zombie, deliberate and menacing. “Cathy’s dead.”

  Matt’s voice got softer. “What? What happened to her?”

  “It all started with you,” said Heath. “I took care of Floyd, and everything was going to be okay, but you came back.”

  Matt tightened his grip on the pistol, narrowing his eyes. “What do you mean, you ‘took care of’ him?”

  Heath kept coming. “You came back, and you forced us apart. If you hadn’t done that, none of this would have happened. She’d never have met Eli at school because I would have been there.” He banged himself against the chest.

  “What did you do to my father, you son of a bitch?”

  “She wouldn’t have met him, and he wouldn’t have put that damned baby in her, and it wouldn’t have killed her trying to come out.” Heath’s face twisted. He grabbed hunks of his hair and tugged on them. “It’s your fault she’s gone.”

  “You killed my father, didn’t you?” said Matt. He pulled the trigger.

  The gun went off, loud and brash, echoing through the house.

  But Matt was drunk, and his aim was off. He didn’t even graze Heath. The bullet lodged in the wall behind him.

  And Heath lunged at him, his movements graceful and fluid. He took the gun from Matt’s hand and pushed Matt down into the desk, the gun at the base of Matt’s neck.