“Now why’nt you just cut that engine and step out here where we can talk face to face?”
His father’s eyes refused the light, but Luke leaned forward a little to peer into them for a moment. He had transcended fear now, the adrenaline in his veins burning through him, lapping at his brain, trying to force him over the border of that place he had kept away from all his life—the place where the truth, and his sister, were buried.
He pressed his other foot down on the gas, the other still on the brake. The engine whined, the sound deafening. The smoke from the exhaust rose like fog around the truck. When his father spoke, he did not hear the words, but understood the message on the lips that formed them.
“You ain’t leavin’ here alive.”
The faint trace of a smile faded from Papa’s face as if he too realized what was going to happen, what had to happen if he expected to maintain control of his children. Unlike the doctor, his grip was dead steady, the black hole of the muzzle targeting a point somewhere in the trembling oval of his son’s face.
From the light side of that secret place in his mind, Luke heard his sister whisper to him, and could almost smell her perfume assailing his senses. We was wrong, Luke. What he taught us was always wrong, and we are the sinners.
Swallowing back the tears, “Who said I was leavin’?” Luke said, and took his foot off the brake. The truck lurched forward, closing the distance between him and his father in a heartbeat. Just long enough for a whispered prayer, a plea for forgiveness, for Luke to shut his eyes, the image of Papa-In-Gray’s livid face made chalk-white by the lights branded onto his retinas as he pulled the trigger.
-12-
“You like to sing?” Pete asked, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to some imaginary tune. “My Pa don’t. Second Ma—I call her that because she weren’t my birth Ma—was a great singer, and even my first Momma weren’t too bad, but Pa can’t carry a tune for nothin’. I ain’t so bad myself, though I always forget the words, so I don’t much like to sing. Prefer to hum. Don’t need the words to hum.” He smiled broadly, and wished he didn’t have to watch the road, but every time he stared into the mirror at the girl lying swaddled in blankets in back, he heard Doctor Wellman’s no-nonsense voice warning him, And don’t you keep leering at that girl like you’re doing now, you hear me? You’re not going to do her much good if you run yourselves right into a semi. So he limited himself to short glances and resisted the urge to pull over for a while, just to sit in the peace and quiet and listen to the girl’s breathing, just so the false breeze of their passage didn’t keep creeping in the window and stealing away the smell of her. But the cranky old doctor had warned him about delaying too, said the girl mightn’t make it if he dawdled, so he kept the truck moving steady through the night, the high beams picking nothing out of the dark but gray ribbon and yellow stitching, and the occasional mashed up bit of roadkill.
He couldn’t believe his luck.
He’d fully expected an earful from his father, especially after the old man had grabbed him and all but flung him into the truck after catching him spying on the girl. Then he’d watched him get drunker and drunker, which was never a good thing, and guessed things were going to get even worse. But to his surprise, his father had told him he was sorry for what he’d done, for the way he’d been to him over the years, and that he wanted to make things right while there was still time. Pete had listened, not entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming it all, but when his old man stood, put his arms around him and gave him a stiff awkward hug, he’d known it was happening for real. A change had come upon his father, as sudden and unexpected as snow in summer. Pete had stayed quiet, afraid if he opened his mouth he’d say something dumb enough to undo whatever had brought about the transformation. Instead he’d just sat by his father, and basked in the kind of attention and affection he’d only ever seen between other kids and their daddies, and had given up expecting for himself. He liked it a whole lot, so much so that, as overjoyed as he was to be entrusted with the girl, he couldn’t wait to get home again.
But for now it was just Pete, the road, and the girl, and he was plenty proud of that.
Go to Doc Wellman’s, his father had told him, a strange look in his eyes. He’ll know what to do. And tell him I’m sorry.
Pete hadn’t really understood what there was to be sorry about. They had, after all, done the sensible thing. But he didn’t want to ruin his father’s newfound kindness toward him, so he’d wordlessly accepted the task and hightailed it over to the doctor’s house. There he’d found Wellman a little nervous, as if he was expecting a tornado to come down and pull away everything he owned. He’d hustled Pete and the girl into the truck, hardly saying anything at all, except to give Pete some stern instructions.
Here’s her address. Listen to me carefully. You give that to the orderlies so they’ll know who to contact. Now get moving, and don’t stop for a goddamn thing, Pete. Not a thing, you hear me? She might die if you do.
At the memory of those words, Pete checked the speedometer and figured it wouldn’t hurt to pick up the pace a bit. Wellman had told him it would take him the better part of an hour to reach the hospital. They’d only been on the road for half that, and the last thing Pete wanted was for the girl to die. They’d say it was his fault, that he hadn’t driven faster, and his father would go back to being angry all the time again.
Pete had his own reasons for wanting the girl to survive. He wanted to hear her voice, to hear her say his name. When they’d loaded her into the truck, she’d been asleep, and still hadn’t woken up. He wished she would, if only just for a few minutes. So he talked to her, keeping his voice low, hoping she might grab onto his words like a drowning man might grab a tossed rope. He wanted her to see who had carried her away from whatever bad things had happened to her in Elkwood. He wanted her to see her rescuer and know his face so she would know who to look for when she was able.
It was not until later, when the road widened and split into four lanes, the sulfuric radiance of the sodium lights jaundicing the horizon, the stars erased from the sky and pulled down to form the glittering lights of the Mason City skyline, that the girl spoke. Slack-jawed by the sheer size of the sparkling canvas overlaid on a horizon he seldom saw uncloaked, Pete at first didn’t realize he was hearing a voice other than his own in the confines of the truck’s cab, but when at last he registered her soft whisper, he jerked in his seat and almost lost control of the vehicle. Forcing himself to be calm, he eased the truck back into the correct lane, held his breath, stomach jittering madly, and raised his gaze to the mirror.
She was looking straight at him.
Instantly, all moisture evaporated from his lips, and a strangled croak emerged from his throat. He had to remind himself to watch the road, but as hard as it had been before, it was next to impossible now that she was awake. He swallowed with an audible click. Hoped she didn’t scream like she had the last time she’d seen him.
“Hello Ma’am,” he said.
“Who are you?” she replied, and for the first time in his life, Pete had to think about the answer.
“Uh…I’m Pete. Pete Lowell. I’m a friend.”
Her voice was soft, so soft he had to strain to hear her over the droning of the tires, the hum of the engine. “Where are you taking me Pete?”
She said my name. The butterflies in his stomach caught fire, lighting him from the inside out.
“Hospital. You know…to get you fixed up and back to wherever you come to Elkwood from. Doctor Wellman told me to take you. Hope that’s all right.” He smiled, forgetting she probably couldn’t see it in the mirror. “We all want for you to get better.”
She stared for a moment, then her one uncovered eye drifted shut. She was silent for so long he thought she’d gone back to sleep, but then he heard her whisper, “I don’t like to sing either.”
Pete nodded, his smile threatening to split his face in two, and felt something like sheer, uncontaminated happiness settle like a warm blanket over h
is soul.
“I live in Columbus,” she said. “You know where that is?”
“No,” he said, and wished he did, if only to seem worldlier than he knew himself to be.
“Ohio,” she said. “When I’m all better, I want you…to come see me. So I can thank you.”
Pete didn’t think he’d ever felt such elation. What had previously only seemed like unattainable fantasies were rapidly evolving into possibilities, and he vowed to explore as many of them as she saw fit to allow him.
Her voice was growing softer, and he felt a pang of sadness that it might be the end of their talk. “Will you come?”
“Yes Ma’am,” he said, grinning toothily. “I swear I will.”
He went back to watching the road.
PART TWO
-13-
For an eternity she lives in a world of dreams, and there is no pain. She is vaguely aware of figures dressed in white constantly shifting in and out of the twilit world between waking and sleeping, but most of the time she does not fear them. Their presence soothes her, represents a reprieve from the pain. Sometimes there are voices but when she tries to focus on the speaker, she sees only blurry shapes sitting on her bed, figures cut from the daylight pouring in through the large veiled window. They tell her things about her body, about her progress, but the words mean nothing. Sometimes there are others, voices she knows, familiar voices that make her heart ache as they weep beside her, and hold her. She does not like to be held, feels her skin crawl as their hands alight on her tender flesh, but she knows they do not mean to harm her, and so she says nothing, even as she withdraws a little more inside her shell. For a long time she says nothing. For a long time she lives inside her head, crouched in the dark peering out at the light, at the endless parade of unclear faces, not yet ready to accept them but glad they are there.
She does not want to be alone.
Alone, the nightmares come unbidden. The men put their dirty hands on her naked body; crush her beneath their weight. She smells their sweat, a stench she will remember for the rest of her life, feels the piercing pain in her groin as they roughly enter her—no romance, no desire—just rape, taking what they want, what they have no right to take, delighting in her objection, relishing the violation over and over again, stealing a little piece of her every time. Then their smiles as they step back to appraise her, crooked yellow teeth gleaming, eyes like polished stones, studying her, taking in every bead of sweat, every hair, every part of her bare battered body. In their hands they hold dirty blades as they turn away like magicians waiting to spring a surprise on the audience. Though she has transcended pain of the physical kind, she wishes for death, for sleep, for escape. Most of all, she yearns for the chance to turn back time, to contest Daniel’s decision to shun the highway in favor of a merry jaunt through the backwoods. But she’d been outvoted, and a little drunk, a little high, and so had kept her mouth shut as they headed off down the narrow path marked by a signpost that told them they were three miles from a town called Elkwood.
* * *
This is where the nightmare began in real life, and in the realm of turbulent sleep, it does not deviate from the script, though sometimes the scenes are rearranged at the hands of a deranged editor.
The four of them, toting backpacks, a colorful bunch: Daniel in a gray Old Navy T-shirt, knee-length jean shorts with frayed hems and sandals; Stu in an appropriately loud lemon T-shirt and red and green floral-patterned Bermuda shorts, his shades hanging around his neck, a NY Mets cap pulled backwards on his head; Katy, more conservative in a khaki “skort” and a lime green polo shirt marred by slight sweat stains beneath the armpits, her dark hair tied back in a ponytail, one thick lock of it following the curve of her cheek; and Claire, wearing denim shorts and a white cutoff shirt that displays her toned stomach and the belly-button piercing she’d had done before they left Columbus. She remembers that ring most of all— a silver circlet running through a small fake diamond—because it was the first thing the men ripped from her body.
Her mind skips to this scene:
She is still dressed, but tied to the stake. She screams against the oil-stained gag as the man she will later attack with the wooden spur laughs through his teeth and pulls the ring from her navel, then holds it up to show her. There is a little speck of her skin still attached. And as he brings it close, she recalls the courage it took to get it done, and the complete absence of that same courage every time she thought of having to show it to her mother.
Then back to the carefree wanderers: Daniel and Stu walking ahead on the shaded road, trading memories of the last drunken night in Sandestin and chuckling while the canopies of oak leaves allowed golden pools of sun to warm their backs, Katy and Claire following, Katy strangely quiet. Bug spray doesn’t dissuade the clouds of mosquitos that hang around them like stars around the moon.
Are you worried? Claire asks her friend when the guys are far enough ahead of them.
About what?
I don’t know. You’re not saying much.
Katy shrugs, smiles just a little. Just thinking. About us.
You and me? Or…
Yeah, Katy replies. Or.
He seems to be all right, Claire tells her, with a nod in Stu’s direction. You don’t think so?
Another shrug. Seems to be is exactly the point. He hasn’t said a thing. Not a damn thing.
Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe it’s his way of letting you know it’s over and done with, water under the bridge.
Katy looks at her then. If you cheated on Danny, you think you’d take him being quiet as forgiveness?
In the dream, before Claire gets a chance to answer, a disembodied hand appears before Katy, dirt under its nails, grime covering the skin, as it drives a rusted metal spike upward, penetrating the soft skin underneath her friend’s chin. Blood spurts, Katy’s eyes widen in horror, but she keeps talking, keeps trying to explain why she did what she did, why she betrayed her boyfriend with someone she had no feelings for, but the words keep getting harder and harder to get out as the spike appears inside her mouth, still traveling upward, puncturing her tongue and driving it toward the roof of her mouth. And now Katy is speaking as if she has never learned the right way to do it, as if she’s been deaf since birth and will never be sure if the words are produced the right way. I… hink… I wanhed… to… hurt him… buh I hon’t knowww why… Then, as the spike continues its passage through her skull, Katy’s eyes roll and bulge, begin to leak blood.
Claire screams.
Ahead of her, in the middle of the road, Daniel and Stu turn, but the movement is not theirs. They are tied to stakes driven deep into the crumbling asphalt, their hands bound behind them, and when they turn, it is at the behest of the wind, as if they are little more than extravagant weathervanes. They are both naked. The skin has been removed from Daniel’s face; Stu’s head is gone, severed at the neck. And yet, somehow they continue to speak, permitted by the skewed logic of dreams to say what they once said in life.
We should have just driven, Stu says. Why the fuck would anyone want to walk in this heat?
You’re missing the point, man, Daniel tells him. Everybody drives everywhere. Unless you’re willing to spend a fortune on some goddamn guided trail in the Rockies, your options are limited. We got where we needed to go, had our fun, now it’s time to get back to nature, see things as people used to see them. It could be our last summer together, so why not draw it out a little?
You’re a fruit, you know that?
Maybe, but you’ll thank me later. We’re going to see things no tourist ever sees.
Claire looks away. The light fades. She is no longer on the road, but back in the woodshed that smells of waste matter, of blood and decay and sweat and oil. There is a window in the wall to her left that she does not recall ever seeing. Through the dirty glass Daniel stands there, once more dressed, his face returned to him but wearing a somber expression as he looks in her direction.
And, I’m losing hi
m, she thinks, as she thought earlier that day. Things are changing. We both feel it. I’m losing him.
She opens her mouth to call out to him, to plead with him to save her, to save them both, but her words are obliterated by the filthy probing fingers that have found their way inside, forcing her to look away from the window and into the face of her nightmare.
Here she wakes, the smell of blood and dirt clinging to her, and she thrashes against it, against the arms that appear to hold her down, to tell her that everything will be okay, that she’s safe now.
But she isn’t, and she knows it. The killers may be gone, but they have planted something inside her with their fingers, their tongues, and their cocks. She feels it all the time now and its getting worse, drawing nourishment from her, waiting until she relaxes, believes those who are telling her there is nothing left to fear before it claws its way out of her to prove them wrong.
* * *
“Claire?”
“Yes.”
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Hospital.”
“That’s right. You know why?”
She nodded, slowly, but still refused to turn her myopic gaze on the man sitting in a chair to the left of the bed. With him came an air of importance, authority. Police, she suspected.
“Can you look at me, Claire?”
She ignored him.
“My name is Sheriff Todd. Marshall Todd. I’m with the state police.”
“Hi Sheriff Todd Marshall Todd,” she said, and the policeman laughed, but it was practiced laughter, a preprogrammed response, the slush left behind by the icebreaker. His voice sounded gritty, worn, and she guessed he wasn’t a young man.
“Let’s just keep it to Marshall then, okay?”
He was trying to be friendly with her, keeping his tone light, but behind it she could sense his impatience to unburden himself of something. Perhaps he wasn’t sure how much she knew, how much of the horror she had seen before she got away. And she wondered how much she could stand to hear. She knew a considerable amount of time had passed. It had felt like years, but the last time she’d been fully awake, the kindly patrician doctor had told her it had been over nine weeks. Countless times over that long stretch of terrible nights and days marked by pain, she’d imagined a convoy of police cruisers cars kicking up dirt, overseen by black helicopters, doors being thrust open, voices shouting as men wearing mirrored shades ran toward a sagging house, guns drawn. She imagined the media helicopters whirling above the organized calamity, flashing lights and camera lights as dirty men in overalls were led out in handcuffs squinting up, then out at a crowd of men and women who were eager to be at them for different reasons. Some just wanted the scoop; others to see the face of pure evil for themselves; and then there were those among them, the quieter ones, who wanted nothing more than ten minutes alone in a dark room with these depraved monsters.
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