Some Kind of Animal

by Maria Romasco-Moore

  I will come to see her, sit in a chair in the corner. The smell of medicine. Of bleach. A doctor talking to Aggie about vitamin deficiencies. My sister’s bare head lolling on the pillow. Her eyes shut. Floating.

  * * *

  —

  Outside, the sun sets. I don’t know what time it is, but I don’t dare turn my phone back on. Brandon nods off slumped back against the couch. The woman leaves the TV on, but she turns the volume down. She shows me a small room in the back of the house with a twin bed. It’s covered in piles of clothes, but she says I can push them onto the floor. Says, You can stay here long as you need to, honey. She leaves me there, goes off to her own room, the television still flickering through the open door.

  I sit for a few minutes amid the clothes. I could stay here. Keep hiding. I don’t think the woman would tell anyone about me, even if she is a junkie. She’s kept Brandon a secret, hasn’t she? I could leave my sister out there. Leave her in the dark the same way she left me for so many years. This is her fault, not mine. I owe her nothing. That one’s not mine.

  I stand up instead, walk into the living room. The door to the woman’s bedroom is shut. Brandon’s eyes are shut.

  The truck keys are where the woman left them, buried under crumpled burger wrappers. I extract them slowly, trying not to crinkle the wrappers. They still smell of oil and salt, globs of melted cheese clinging to them like scabs.

  I walk toward the door. I can’t leave my sister to her fate. I’ve got to prove that Mama was wrong. I stop with my hand on the doorknob. The parrot is perched on top of the bookshelf again, watching me with one beady black eye. It cocks its head, questioning.

  I turn around and walk through the dark kitchen. Ease the door to the porch open. The birds rustle on their perches. I unlatch their cages one by one, whisper at them to be quiet, please. They are sleepy, blinking unsteadily at their freedom.

  “Come on,” I whisper to the ragged-feathered gray one.

  When it doesn’t move I reach in and coax it onto my uninjured wrist. It shuffles on, nodding its head, sharp little talon feet digging into my flesh. I carry it back through the house.

  I stroke its half-plucked back as we walk past Brandon toward the door. He moans in his sleep and I lose my nerve, hustle back into the little bedroom.

  There’s a window behind the bed. Kneeling amid the clothes, I push the thick curtain aside with one hand. I open the window, kick the screen free. It falls onto the tall grass below. I hold my arm out into the cool night.

  “Go on,” I tell the bird. When it doesn’t move, I give it a gentle nudge with one finger. It unfolds its wings, flaps a few feet into the air, perches on the gutter. I climb out the window and circle around to where Brandon’s truck waits in the driveway.

  I fumble with the keys, my hands shaking, until I find the right one. The door swings open and I climb inside, shut the door again. I stare at the dashboard. I’ve never driven a car. Dakota has been teaching Savannah, letting her tool around empty parking lots, and Savannah tells me it’s easy. I turn the key in the ignition. The truck grumbles to life, shaking beneath me. I grab the steering wheel, bite my lip. Brake on the left, gas on the right. Right?

  I press on the gas pedal gently with my foot. Nothing happens. I swear. Parking brake? I grapple with the lever by my side. The car lurches forward a few inches. I slam my foot on the brake.

  There’s a tap on the window.

  I jump in the seat, turn to see Brandon blinking at me through the glass.

  In a perfect world I would slam on the gas, make a daring getaway, but I haven’t even figured out how to go backward yet and before I can do anything, Brandon’s got the door open. I should have locked it. I wasn’t thinking.

  “You trying to steal my truck?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  That makes him laugh.

  “You’re something all right,” he says.

  “I’m not going back to town, okay? I’m going to the woods. I’m going to find her before they do.”

  He stares at me for a moment. I reach out for the knobby thing, the gear shift, sticking up next to the parking brake, which I have finally remembered is how you go backward. I’ll push him away from the door, maybe. Book it.

  “Okay,” he says. “Shove over. I’ll drive.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We rattle up the hill, away from Needle, away from Lester. My plan is to go back to the camper. Maybe my sister will be there, waiting for me. If she isn’t, I’ll check the cave. I’ll check every place I can think of until I find her. Will people still be out searching now that it’s dark? I have to get to her before they do. I should never have left her alone out there. She was only doing what she was told. What Mama told her to do.

  Never tell a goddamn soul.

  Not even me.

  We pass the narrow gravel drive that leads through the woods to Grandma Margaret’s house. I wish we could drive with the headlights off, but there are no streetlights up here along the ridges and the moon is hidden by clouds, and in the darkness we’d probably just hit a deer or something and then where would we be?

  “Is that the turn up there?” I ask. The sooner we’re off the public roads, the better. “Did we pass it?”

  “No, it’s a little farther.”

  There’s a light up ahead and I think it’s someone with a flashlight and my stomach clenches, but it’s too bright for that, I realize. Up over the crest of the hill ahead of us, another truck appears, headlights blazing.

  These roads are narrow, so Brandon steers to the right shoulder, slows a little, but the other truck doesn’t go rumbling past us. It veers suddenly, swings sideways, and stops, blocking the road.

  “Shit,” I say, sliding down in my seat. Brandon slams on the brakes.

  The driver’s side door of the other truck opens and a woman steps out with hair like a gray thundercloud. Face hard and thin as Aggie’s face. Mouth pulled down at the corners.

  Grandma Margaret. She turns and reaches into the bed of the truck for something. I slide down farther, crouch below the dash. Did she see me?

  “Who’s that?” I hear her shout.

  “She’s got a rifle,” Brandon whispers. Shit shit shit.

  “Girl went missing round here,” Margaret shouts, her voice muffled only slightly. “We got to stop everyone.”

  Brandon cranks his window down a few inches.

  “I haven’t seen anybody!” he shouts back.

  “Well, all the same,” Margaret says. I can tell from her voice that she’s walking closer. “I’m just going to have to—”

  She stops speaking. My leg is starting to cramp from the awkward way I’m crouched. I wish I could see what’s happening.

  “Brandon,” she says.

  He flinches.

  I sit up.

  Margaret’s eyes dart to me, but she doesn’t move. She’s standing about five feet in front of our truck with the rifle braced against her shoulder. Pointed right at the windshield. Right at Brandon. An easy shot.

  “Jolene, baby,” she says, “get out of that truck.”

  She’s wearing a camouflage jacket printed with false trees. She is out here hunting me. Brandon and I don’t move a muscle. My heartbeat ticks in my ears, loud as a hammer.

  The headlights from the two trucks stare each other down, the beams dissolving into one another. Dust swirls in the light. I focus on that dust, the little dancing motes.

  Margaret tilts the rifle up and fires into the sky, a crack like a falling tree. Brandon sucks in his breath. If anyone is searching nearby they would have heard that. I glance at the trees, half expecting to see the whole population of Lester come streaming out of the dark.

  I wonder if Margaret is thinking about Mama, if she’s picturing that day fifteen years ago when Brandon showed up on her front porch before the
sun was up.

  Behind her, the passenger door of the truck opens. A moment later, hobbling around the side of the truck, comes none other than the goddamn pastor, his ankle in a brace.

  “Come on out, Jolene!” he shouts. “It’s okay.”

  He’s talking to me, but both he and Margaret are staring at Brandon. They must think they know the situation. He is a murderer. A monster. They must think he’s kidnapped me or something. Must think that this evil man has got ahold of their innocent little Jolene. Lured her away from the flock. Little lost lamb. Big bad wolf.

  They are writing their own stories. They think they know me, but they don’t. They think they are going to save me, but they can’t. I don’t need saving.

  I want them to understand that I chose this, that I made Brandon come here, not the other way around. I’m the one in charge here, the one with the power.

  I want to hurt them. To show them how little I care what they think. So I do the only thing I can think of in the moment. I click my seat belt free and let it slither back across my chest into its holster. I turn and I grab Brandon’s jacket in one hand and with the other I yank his face toward me, and I lean forward and in full, perfect, view of Grandma Margaret and the goddamn pastor I press my lips against his. The most wrong thing I can think of. It’s not much of a kiss. Dry and too hard, his beard scraping my face, but it only matters how it looks to those two.

  Their worst nightmares come true. Mama all over again. Wild girl. What I would give to see them now. What I would give to see their faces.

  A gunshot cracks into the silence. Brandon jolts away from me. I think for a second I am dead. I think we’re both dead. Maybe I went too far. I slide down quick, off the seat, crouch again beneath the dashboard. There’s a hole punched clean through the windshield, little silvery cracks spiderwebbing out from it. There’s no pain in my body, though. No wound. Brandon’s folded up beside me. His breathing is fast, loud. I can feel it against the side of my face. My hands are shaking, heart going way too fast for sitting still.

  “Oh Jesus Lord!” I hear the pastor shouting. “You could have hit her. Did you hit her? You didn’t hit her, did you?”

  “You just stay back.” Grandma Margaret’s voice. “You’ve done enough.”

  “Are you hit?” I whisper to Brandon. I can’t see his face, can’t see anything but the underside of the dashboard. I’m already regretting the kiss. That wasn’t like me at all. Savannah’s the one who would do something like that.

  “No,” Brandon whispers back. Should I explain to him why I did it? I don’t want him to get the wrong idea.

  I won’t pretend it wasn’t a little thrilling, to do something so wrong. But I don’t like him that way. He’s probably my uncle, after all. There’s another shot, then, and a sort of pop, and the truck slumps a little to the left. It’s even more terrifying than when I was a kid and Margaret shot out the window at the trees. She’s insane.

  “Brandon Cantrell,” shouts Grandma Margaret, “you get the hell out of that truck with your hands up.”

  “We should do what she says,” Brandon whispers.

  “They’re monsters,” I say. “You were right. They’re the monsters.”

  Brandon gives something between a cough and a laugh.

  “You really are just like her,” he says.

  And this time I know he doesn’t mean my sister. He means Mama. I know he does.

  I grin, in the dark, despite myself. I would almost kiss him again, though maybe on the cheek this time, just for saying that. It’s the best gift anyone could give me. “By God if you don’t get out of the truck I will come in there and get you!” Grandma Margaret shouts. “Don’t think I won’t. You all know me.”

  Brandon shifts beside me. I think of him cowering in the forest as the men with guns came to kill him and his brother. How scared he must have been. He was only sixteen.

  Well, I’m only fifteen, but I’m not scared.

  I’m just like her.

  I sit up.

  “Grandma,” I say, one hand on the door. My hand is still shaking slightly but that’s just adrenaline, not fear. I’m not scared. I refuse to be scared. “Don’t shoot him. I’m not moving until you promise.”

  “Little girl,” she says, “you don’t know what you’re playing at.”

  I think of saying please, of begging, crying even, pretending to be frightened or sad. But I’m not going to give anybody here the satisfaction. They think they know me, but they don’t.

  “If you shoot him I’m telling the police you did it in cold blood.”

  We stare each other down through the tiny cracks in the windshield. Brandon is still crouched under the dash, powerless. I’m thinking of all those daydreams I used to have in school. Henry and I fugitives, persecuted, living in the woods. It’s like those dreams are coming true, but twisted.

  “Fine,” says Margaret. She swings the rifle up to rest on her shoulder, threatening only the stars.

  I slide out of the car.

  My feet hit the gravel at the side of the road. The trees are so close. The dark of the trees. Leaning toward me, welcoming. I could just run into their arms, run and run and never stop.

  But I won’t. I’m not scared. I refuse to be scared. I’m going to stare them down. I’m going to face them. I take a few steps forward. I feel like I felt back at the camper. I am strong, electric.

  Mama was wrong. She was wrong.

  I’m hers.

  I’m more hers than my sister could ever be.

  “Come on over here, baby,” Margaret says, her eyes on the truck. The left front wheel is flat, slumping down in a black puddle.

  The pastor is limping toward me, a funny lopsided almost-run, going faster than you’d think a person with an ankle in a brace could go. Margaret shouts at him to hold still, but he doesn’t listen. The pastor barrels into me and I’m so confused. Is he trying to knock me down, is the truck rigged to blow and he’s going to shield me from the blast?

  But he’s hugging me, squeezing me so hard I can barely breathe.

  “Fucking hellfire,” says Margaret. I try to twist to see what Brandon is doing. He should run, I suppose. Get away into the woods. Hide. Like he’s so good at. Like he’s been doing all his life. Like Mama. Like my sister.

  I will not hide.

  “The devil got you,” the pastor whispers into my hair. He sounds like he’s crying, voice thick and clotted with snot. “I won’t let it happen. Not again.”

  I can see Brandon out of the corner of my eye. He’s sliding over to my side of the truck. He’s climbing out. Is he going to run?

  “My baby,” the pastor says.

  “I’m not your baby.” I try to push him away, but he holds tight. Like he held my sister. Everybody always trying to tell me who I am. Who I should be. Trying to hold me back.

  “Let go of her,” says Brandon, beside us now. His voice is steady as still water.

  The pastor ignores him.

  “You might be,” he says to me.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, Jo.” The pastor leans back just far enough to look me in the eyes. There are tears in his. “I should have told you sooner.”

  And it hits me, hard. I understand.

  Everyone always said Mama was friendly, too friendly. I knew what that meant. Everyone always said Logan was probably my father, but not for sure.

  You might be.

  “I said let go of her.” Brandon grabs the pastor by the shoulders and yanks him away from me. I’m stunned, thankful. Brandon isn’t gentle. The pastor stumbles, then pivots and throws a punch, which Brandon dodges.

  “You should have stayed the fuck away,” the pastor says. He throws himself at Brandon, knocking him against the side of the truck.

  I might be. Might be his baby.

  The pastor lan
ds a punch in Brandon’s side. Brandon hits him back hard, right in the jaw. The pastor stumbles back, nearly falls. Grandma Margaret swings her gun down from her shoulder, aims at the two men.

  The pastor must have had sex with her. With Mama. I don’t want to think about it. Don’t want to think about what that means. Did Aggie know?

  With a chill I remember the things he was saying in the woods. The Lord brought me here for a reason. I’ve got a second chance. I knew I had to come back for you.

  “Jolene,” says Grandma Margaret, “you get your ass over here.”

  I move toward the front of the truck instead, getting between Brandon and the gun. I don’t know if he’s my uncle or not anymore, but he as good as raised my sister and I’m not letting Margaret shoot him. The pastor is hissing swear words under his breath. I’ve got my back to him and Brandon, but I can hear them grapple, hear someone slamming against the truck again, a grunt of pain.

  “Do you even know what you’ve gotten yourself into?” Margaret shouts at me. “Do you know who that man is? That’s one of the rotten pieces of shit who murdered your mama.”

  “No, he—”

  She cuts me off. “I warned her, but she didn’t listen. I’m warning you, too.”

  “He didn’t kill her,” I shout. “You did.”

  “That what he told you? Little girl, you ain’t that dumb.”

  “You didn’t even care about her,” I shout. “She was alive. After she had me. She hid in the forest. She didn’t want you to—”

  Before I can finish, someone slams into me from behind, knocking me to the ground. My face hits the gravel. Things start happening very fast. Out of the corner of my eye, a swinging fist. A crunching sound. A shout. Grandma Margaret standing over me. Light glinting off the barrel of her gun.

  I try to push myself up. Brandon is kneeling over the pastor, who is down on the ground, on his back like Henry. Brandon’s got his hands around the pastor’s throat, the muscles of his arms straining, twisting like snakes under his skin. He is stronger than my sister. There is blood on the pastor’s face. You might be. I don’t want him to die. Not really. I don’t want either of them to die. This is too much.