Like, Follow, Kill

by Carissa Ann Lynch

  So much had changed since the last time I was here … but then again, nothing had changed at all.

  Residential buildings lined each side of the street, like graves, dark and devoid of life.

  The sign for Roberta’s hardware shop was old and fading, but it gleamed, the s flickering off and on, and making the head pain return.

  There wasn’t a soul in sight.

  But then karma intervened, as she often does, and from the corner of my eye, I spotted movement on the sidewalk. An old lady emerged from the store, tugging on a newly purchased Black & Decker. Well, I’ll be damned.

  The light melted back to green, but my foot was stuck on the brake pedal. Paralyzed.

  The old lady turned her head and our eyes met.

  I can just imagine how I must look right now … hair twisted into a sloppy bun, ghost-white makeup on my face. My face!

  I’d nearly forgotten my scars. I held up a hand, trying to cover them.

  But the lady was smiling—smirking, really—and I knew she had seen me.

  Because Bonnie Brown sees everything.

  Bonnie had every reason to smirk at my scars, every reason in the world to hate me … after all, it was I who caused the death of her son.

  But my ex-mother-in-law had hated me long before I killed him. Oh, how the Browns loathed “outsiders”. On family holidays, I’d kept my mouth shut and sat at the table with all the other “others”—Chris’s brother’s wife, his cousin’s girlfriend-of-the-month …

  I haven’t seen Bonnie since the accident.

  Bonnie gripped the vacuum handle with one hand. Slowly, she lifted the other. For one brief, hopeful moment, I thought she was going to wave at me. But then she pointed. It was only then that I heard the sound, a blaring car horn behind me. In the rearview mirror, a teenage boy in a black Volvo shook his arms wildly back and forth. And beside me, Bonnie was still staring, only she wasn’t smiling anymore. I opened my mouth. Waited for the scream to come.

  But it didn’t … it never does …

  I smashed my foot down on the gas pedal, the truck jolting forward dangerously. As I self-corrected and straightened up the wheel, I glanced back in the mirror. I couldn’t see my mother-in-law anymore. But the boy behind me was angry; he swerved into the lane beside me, lips silently moving—cursing me, no doubt. He passed me on the right.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, watching his taillights disappear down the street.

  Sorry. I smacked both hands on the steering wheel.

  Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

  Jesus, I’m fucking sorry.

  A thousand times I’d said that word—sorry—after the accident … to Chris’s family, to my sister, to strangers … to a version of Chris that didn’t exist anymore, to a phantom in the sky.

  But my apologies made no difference. And nothing made a difference when it came to the Browns. They hadn’t even let me attend my own husband’s funeral.

  He was cremated. His body and soul reduced to gravel and bits.

  They’d suggested that I have my own separate ceremony for Chris. Only “family and friends” were allowed to attend theirs … and of course I didn’t fit that bill.

  The Browns knew good and well that my mother and father were dead, that the only living relative I had left was my sister.

  I could hear them now, the whispers at the funeral:

  Camilla had her own ceremony for Chris.

  I heard the whole family showed up: party of two.

  Cue laughter.

  I didn’t ease up on the gas until the main strip of town melted like butter from my periphery.

  I drifted past cornfields and farmhouses until there was nothing but trees and pastures. Branches swayed on both sides of me, their bony fingers reaching down for the truck, their whispers floating through the open cracks in my windows …

  Through the blurry trees that whizzed by, I could make out a set of twinkling lights. The water tower. It was there that Chris had proposed.

  We’d carried bottles of beer to the top, climbing slowly, and nervously, up the rickety, twisted stairs.

  The top of the tower opened into a small, empty room. From all sides you could see the entire town of Oshkosh. The view was breathtaking, but my eyes were drawn to Chris.

  That cramped space at the top of the tower was barely large enough for the two of us … but we kept scooting closer, passing a bottle of beer back and forth. And finally, long after midnight, we were properly drunk enough to make out. Like teenagers, we were hungry with lust, ravenous and breathy as we kissed and petted … eventually, Chris laid flat on his back, and although it was uncomfortable as hell, he pretended it wasn’t, and he offered his chest as a pillow for me.

  It was a few months later that he took me back there to propose.

  The water tower was one spot, but there were so many more. There were traces of Chris all over town. The one-stop-shop where we picked up milk and a carton of eggs on Saturdays. The donut shop we frequented on special occasions. The church where we were married.

  Inside my drab prison cell, I was safe from reminders. But here … here, I couldn’t avoid Chris’s ghost for long. He is everywhere.

  Despite seeing Bonnie and places that reminded me of Chris, it did feel good to drive. I rolled the driver’s window all the way down, letting the October chill rush in; suddenly, it felt easier to breathe than it had in months … more air to go around out here in the open, not dense like the air in my tomb-like apartment.

  The outside world is a scary place, but so is being isolated … inside, outside … does it really make a difference? My life is miserable either way … but Valerie … maybe now I’ll have a chance to do something different. A road not traveled before …

  Suddenly, the trees evaporated and the neighboring town of Mirasu emerged. The lights on the hamburger stand and ice-cream parlor blinked back at me, accusatory: red black red black red black.

  Can’t we stop? I’m starving, Chris had said.

  The fair has better food, Chris. You promised me a Snickers, remember? You even said you’d try one. They’re not gross, I promise …

  There was a syrupy tone in my voice, my tongue thick and dry the way it always was when I’d had too much to drink.

  But Chris hadn’t noticed … How could he not know I’d been drinking? Why was he no longer paying attention?

  The tiny mom-and-pop eateries swished past as I sped up. The site of the crash was coming, only a few miles ahead … I hadn’t come this way since, since … I hadn’t been this way at all since the accident, I realized.

  Okay, have it your way. You always do. Chris squeezed my leg, his fingers trailing up and under the hem of my skirt …

  His fingers were rough—too rough. Fucking stop! I’d screamed.

  Signs for the highway emerged.

  I flipped my right blinker on, but instead of taking the highway, I yanked my wheel hard to the left.

  If you blinked, you’d miss the skinny dirt road that led up Hogman’s Hill. I skidded, then self-corrected, and slowed down to a crawl.

  I needed to make a quick stop at my mother-in-law’s house.

  Chapter 6

  Bonnie Brown’s two-bedroom house was perched at the pinnacle of the hill, looking down on me. If there were neighbors, they were deep down the sides of the hill, out of sight.

  The small bungalow was picturesque, flower baskets dangling from the awnings in the front. They creaked in the wind, swinging back and forth, like a warning.

  Each window was dark, encased in pale-blue shutters, and a slow curl of smoke arose from the chimney. I knew that no one was home, but I couldn’t shake the eerie feeling of being watched as I slowly wrenched open the door to the truck.

  Bonnie’s house had always reminded me of that gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel. Cutesy. Homey. Evil lurking inside it.

  But my ex-mother-in-law wasn’t evil, not really. She was unkind to outsiders, and overly protective of her children—not a criminal trait, just an annoying one
.

  I didn’t know exactly how she’d react to my presence here, but one thing was certain: I wouldn’t be welcome. Would she claw my eyes out, vengeance for her beloved son? Or would she simply turn me away? For my sake, I hoped to never find out.

  Her Subaru was nowhere in sight. I slammed the door to the truck and ticked the minutes off on my fingers, trying to calculate her possible distance. She would have had to load up that vacuum and then drive home, and Bonnie always drove the speed limit. Also, who’s to say she didn’t have more errands to run? For my sake, I prayed that she had several.

  I wasn’t here to confront her or hide in the bushes and spring-attack when she got back. No … I’d come here for one reason, and one reason only: to take what is mine.

  The urn belongs with me, not her.

  I’d imagined this moment so many times in my fantasies … taking my revenge, stealing my husband’s urn. And seeing her on Main Street, it made me realize that it was now or never. Who knows how long it will be before I leave the house again? Might as well make the most of it before I hit the road to find Valerie …

  In the back of the house, Chris’s old Dodge was parked somewhere … but I refused to go around and look. Too many memories of us riding together, me scurrying to the middle seat to get closer to him …

  I still carried Chris’s old keyring, and it rattled in my hand, the jingle an ominous sound on the too-quiet, windy hillside. On it were keys to my apartment, the truck, Chris’s truck, and keys to the now-totaled Buick. I shivered in the dark, wind whistling through my hair, which was greasy and damp with sweat.

  I’m about to break into someone’s house. This must be a new low for me. But then I imagined Chris’s body, slumped and headless, bloodied in the seat beside me … No, this is a minor blip in my history of misdoings.

  The keyring also held a spare key to Chris’s mother’s house.

  The front porch light was on as I plunged the key into the lock and turned it. It clicked, and as the front door creaked open, I took in a sharp breath.

  I should have been afraid.

  I should have turned around.

  Should have jumped back in the truck and gone home …

  If I stopped to think about what I was doing for one second, my rational side would take over … but that part of me is fading …

  Too late to turn back now.

  Keep on going.

  If Bonnie caught me sneaking inside her house … at best, she’d call the cops. At worst, she’d blow a jagged hole through my head with the 9mm handgun Chris bought her two Christmases ago.

  Fuck it. Now or never, remember?

  I nudged the door with my black combat boot. Then, feeling confident that no one was inside, I prodded it the rest of the way open.

  Bonnie had been a widow for as long as I’d known Chris; all her kids were grown. Well, most of her kids were … one of them is dead because of you, I reminded myself, grimly.

  “Anybody home?” my voice was a shrill squeak in the silent darkness.

  Rich smells of cooking oil, flour, and ginger permeated the air.

  As I looked around the kitchen, with its old-timey apple and duck designs, the holidays spent here with Chris came rushing back to me. My stomach filled with a sour sense of dread. No, not dread … remorse. A flash of a former life … a former version of me that was semi-happy.

  I was happy, wasn’t I? Sure, his family didn’t like me much. But Chris … his love had been fiery, and doggedly loyal.

  I just need to get in and out, quickly. Get this over with.

  A dim bulb over the kitchen sink created a sickly puddle of light on the floor. I shuffled through the kitchen, trying not to see Chris, perched on the too-small stool at the bar. Shoulders hunched in laughter, plucking hot ginger snaps off a clean white plate. Chris, smiling at his sisters and brothers, sharing some inside joke I’d never know the punchline to. And the shadow of me, sitting in the corner, probably wishing I could go home … but loving the chance to see Chris so happy, so at home with his own kin.

  I don’t have time to reminisce!

  My legs were healed, but slower … I tried to move quickly, scissoring my way through the narrow kitchen and following a skinny, dark hallway. I tried not to look at the pictures that lined the hallway … family portraits, portraits that contained Chris …

  The end of the hallway was like a welcome breath of fresh air. It ended with a stone step down, that led into Bonnie’s sunken living room. Two Easy Boy armchairs rested on either side of a creamy suede loveseat. Before Chris’s father died, this had been his and his dad’s favorite spot to watch football and races on Sundays, according to Chris. I’d often wished I could have met Chris’s dad, that perhaps he was nicer than the rest of the family …

  I knew exactly where the ashes would be—on the fireplace mantle.

  But as I approached the hearth, I was surprised to see the same old pictures that were always there … pictures of Chris’s father and grandparents. His siblings and their children … no pictures of me and Chris anymore, I noted. Well, I can’t blame her for that.

  On the center of the mantle, there was a shiny gold water pot that had been passed down for generations: an antique. It had whirls of blue and yellow, fragile patterns of flowers around the trim. If you breathed too close to it, Bonnie would freak.

  The first time I met her was right here in this living room. She was smiling then, a sweet, kind, old lady. But now I know she was putting on airs, and when she pointed out the lovely pot, I made a mistake: I reached out and touched it.

  Bonnie had grabbed my finger and squeezed. “Oh, no. You can never touch that. I don’t even let my kids do that,” she had snapped. The sharpness of her words, the quick-change in her demeanor, had startled me. I’d flushed with embarrassment. But as quickly as she’d snapped at me, Chris had jumped to my defense. “Mom, don’t be so uptight. She didn’t know … Jesus.”

  Bonnie had turned to me and apologized, but her teeth were firmly mashed behind her lips, not used to her son defending another woman against her.

  Even now, I didn’t dare touch the pot. But there was something else sitting on the shelf beside it, something shiny and new.

  A sleek brown box.

  When I’d heard that they’d had him cremated, I’d always assumed they’d had his ashes put in a fancy urn, like the ones you see on TV.

  But this was just a plain, simple box … shiny and smooth, it was pretty but nothing special … Could this really be Chris?

  Carefully, I stood on my tiptoes and eased the box off the shelf.

  I was moving too languidly—only minutes to spare if Bonnie came straight home from town …

  I lifted the box with both hands and stepped back from the mantle. It was surprisingly heavy. Hands shaking uncontrollably, I placed the box on Bonnie’s low glass coffee table and, after taking a deep breath, I knelt on the floor in front of it and attempted to pry open the lid.

  It didn’t budge. To my surprise, the box was sealed tightly shut.

  Well, this must be Chris. Has to be …

  I lifted the box, carrying it out in front of me like a precious jewel I wanted to keep close, but not too close, and in my head, I could see myself tripping in the dark, Chris’s ashes spreading out like a Japanese hand fan all over Bonnie’s neat, white carpet … now that would be my luck.

  I waded through the other rooms, all the while telling myself I was running out of time.

  Bonnie’s bed was neatly made, a flowery quilt covering it that she’d probably sewn herself. Bottles of perfume and gold-framed photos of Chris decorated her dresser. One of them had been altered—a photo of Chris and I, picking peaches. Only now, the half of the photo that had once contained me, was gone.

  I glanced in the bathroom and dining room, taking one last look at the place Chris had once called home. I never appreciated it before, but now … now, I wanted to soak it all in.

  I stepped outside, carrying the ashes and my duffel bag. The night ai
r felt too hot, too airless all of a sudden …

  Carefully, I rested the box on the planter beside the front door while I locked it back up.

  As I turned back toward the driveway, I half-expected to see Bonnie standing beside my truck, hands on hips, waiting for me. That disapproving look etched on her face.

  But there was nothing but darkness blooming over the truck, still and silent.

  Glancing back at the house one more time, I couldn’t help thinking that it had once seemed so vibrant, teeming with family, and now it seemed sad and lonely. For a split second, I felt guilty for taking the ashes.

  What right do I have? I certainly don’t deserve to have them.

  But then I remembered how mean they all were, how they wouldn’t let me say goodbye to my own husband.

  What right did they have to lock me out? … I was Chris’s best friend, not them!

  I climbed back inside the truck and secured Chris’s ashes on the seat beside me.

  Somehow, having him there, felt right.

  This time I won’t let anything happen to you.

  “Remember that road trip we always talked about? Well, better late than never,” I whispered. My hands were jittery as I shifted the truck into gear.

  Slowly, I descended back down the hill. The tunnel vision returned, the effects of the vodka still pumping through my veins. I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone else was driving, taking the wheel from my hands …

  Chapter 7

  A flurry of rain pounded the windshield, the wind so wild and vicious, it blew the truck from side to side on the road. I was determined not to slow down, accelerating until I was forced to on account of the hydroplaning.

  The radio was staticky, my phone signal drifting in and out, then disappearing completely.

  Where am I? It felt like the middle of nowhere, and I would have believed that if not for the heavy Mack trucks speeding up in the two lanes beside me, metal bodies booming like thunder and rattling me from side to side.

  I kept waiting for the storm to die down, outside and inside of me, but it never did. Leaving town on a whim was reckless … not only that, it was stupid. And after a few hours on the road, I got the feeling that I was riding with the storm, not through it … that maybe I was the cause of the storm, or the storm itself.