by Blake Crouch
Vi climbed back over the barbed wire fence.
So tired. So cold.
Think, Violet. Think.
She scanned the houses and buildings in the distance.
Nothing moved in the gray, steady rain.
She had Jennifer’s knife hidden up the right sleeve of her tracksuit, the butt of the handle resting in her palm. It had made descending the slippery ladder more difficult, but now she had it, and she prayed he hadn’t noticed.
He was watching her, she was sure of it. Had to figure on surveillance cameras everywhere. Maybe someone helping him.
She could make a run for it, try to reach civilization, but he had her son. Had Andy.
Vi jogged across the road toward a brick building with a fifty-foot chimney on the far end.
Time to get out of this freezing rain.
“Turn left,” Luther said.
Or not.
She veered away from the abandoned factory.
“Now run,” he said.
She accelerated, the shuddering footfalls driving pain through her right ear, where she was beginning to suspect that Luther had stitched the earpiece into her skin.
Otherwise, it felt good to run, the exertion warming her against the chill.
She ran down the street for several minutes before he spoke again, passing ruined automobiles and more rotting houses.
“The housing project. See it?”
“I see it.”
“That’s your destination.”
The building loomed fifty yards away, rising above the oaks whose brown leaves had fallen and become rain-plastered to the pavement.
“What’s in there, Luther?”
Violet crossed the street and stopped out-of-breath where the sidewalk entered the courtyard of a six-story structure that resembled a crumbling L.
“Did I tell you to stop?”
She went on past a collapsed swingset and an overgrown sandbox, its only remnants the two-by-six board frame. A few toys had been left behind—a front-loader, a big-wheel missing its big wheel, plastic green army men scattered in the grass, casualties from some long-forgotten war.
She approached the double-doored entrance which had been leveled years ago, the building’s windows glaring down like a hundred black eyes.
Over the threshold into a darkness that reeked of mildew and decay.
Her wet shoes tracked over the peeling linoleum, and the farther away she moved from the entrance, the darker, more claustrophobic it grew.
Where the lobby intersected with the first-floor corridor, she stopped.
Up and down the hall—pockets of black offset by pockets of dismal light that filtered in from outside.
“Where am I going?” she asked, but no answer came.
She let the hunting bowie slide out of her sleeve and into her hand.
The fear paralyzing, all-consuming.
For a long time, she stood listening.
Water dripped.
The soft moan of wind pushing through one of the upper corridors.
And then...snapping. Cracking.
Woodsmoke.
Violet followed the smell into darkness and then out again.
Daylight passed through the open door of what had been an apartment and struck a wall covered in graffiti.
Clothes and toys and all manner of garbage littered the corridor.
The scent of woodsmoke was getting stronger and now she could see firelight flickering across the wall at the end of the corridor.
“Hello?” she said, and then softer, “Luther, is that you down there?”
Violet came to the end.
In an alcove, she saw the source of the firelight—an oil drum filled with scrap wood burning next to a busted window. Most of the smoke escaped outside, though enough had become trapped to lay down a foggy veil in the room. As she drew near, she could feel the warmth of the fire, and had just noticed the bedroll in the corner under a cardboard box when she heard the crunch of glass directly behind her.
Violet spun around and the first thing she noticed was the smell—rancid body odor laced with booze. She stumbled back, her heart in her throat, couldn’t see anything in the semidark but the shadow of this foul-smelling person advancing toward her.
“I have a knife,” she said.
Her back touched the wall. Nowhere else to go.
Stood there clutching the knife and watching as a filthy man in layer upon layer of tattered clothes stepped into the gray light that filtered in through the window behind her.
He stopped when he saw the knife.
Vi could hear the rain striking the pavement outside and the fire hissing in the oil drum and nothing else.
The man’s face was all but hidden under a wild beard, but his stark blue eyes shone through the tangle, staring her down.
“What are you doing in my house?” he said.
“Your house?”
“My house.”
Vi glanced over at the cardboard box lined with old newspapers, the shopping cart beside it.
“I was just cold, trying to get out of the rain,” she said. “I smelled the smoke, so I came in here.”
“You just want to get warm.”
“That’s all.”
He considered this, said finally, “Put your knife away, and come on over.”
The man walked over to the oil drum. He knelt down and gathered a few scraps of wood and fed them into the fire, then held his hands over the heat.
Violet set her knife on the windowsill and joined him, extending her hands over the flames.
She felt lightheaded, attributed this to thirst, hunger, and the smoke she was breathing in.
“I’m Violet,” she said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
The man watched her. His beard was a deep, greasy black, and the few patches of skin that showed through, dirty but unwrinkled. Her first impression of him had been an old man, but now she reconsidered.
“What are you doing out here,” he asked, “in the concrete barrens?”
Violet didn’t know how to answer that question, so she just stared down into the flames and the bed of embers underneath.
“Don’t you know it’s dangerous out here?” he continued. “Nothing but bangers and people like me.”
In his words, Vi discerned an obvious intelligence.
“What do you mean, ‘people like me?’” she asked.
Now he stared into the flames, which had grown brighter.
Out the window, Vi could see the light draining from the sky.
Darkness falling with surprising speed.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
Luther spoke into Violet’s ear, “Tell him you want to stay the night. You have a lot to learn from him.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Tell him or I will rip Jennifer’s baby apart right now.”
“Can I stay here tonight?” Violet said. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
The man looked up from the fire and studied her.
Nodded.
“What’s your name?” Vi asked.
It took him five seconds to answer, as if he hadn’t said the word in ages.
“Matthew,” he finally whispered.
It was full-on dark within the hour. They sat against the wall beside the oil drum, Vi ravenously drinking water from a milk jug.
Matthew rummaged through a plastic bag of snack food, finally withdrawing a packet of crackers. He offered the bag to Vi.
She didn’t know when she’d eaten last.
Reached in and grabbed a bag of potato chips, ripped them open.
“Thank you,” she said.
They ate quickly and in silence.
When Vi finished, she stared longingly at the bag again, but didn’t ask.
“It’s been a lean month,” Matthew said, “or I’d offer you more. I have to store up for the winter months.”
“You’re going to stay here?”
“Where else you think I’m going to go?
”
“What will you do?”
He pointed toward a stack of books in a corner of the room—must’ve stood six or seven feet tall.
“When it’s warm, I spend my days at the library, but it’s too far to walk there every day in the cold. I’ve been collecting them. I’m going to read them all, starting at the top.”
“What kind of books are they?”
“Mostly philosophy. A few classic novels. Occasional comic book thrown in for spice.”
“Philosophy, huh?”
“I think it’s really the only thing worth reading.”
Violet studied the room. The squalor. Couldn’t imagine spending a night in this place. She knew the vast majority of the homeless suffered from debilitating mental illness, and wondered what storm raged behind Matthew’s vivid blues.
“I’m in a bad spot,” Violet said, her voice just a few notches north of a whisper, wondering if Luther could hear her now. If he could see her.
Matthew wiped a few crumbs out of his beard and stared at Vi. He lifted a jug of Carla Rossi to his lips and took a generous pull. When he’d finished, he offered it to Violet.
“No thank you.”
He drank some more, then rose and fed the fire from the impressive pile of scrap wood he’d lined up against the wall.
“All these abandoned houses,” he said with a smirk, “keep me warm and toasty during the snows. An endless supply of firewood.”
The wine seemed to have lifted his spirits, loosened his tongue.
“I have everything I need here,” he said. “Warmth. Drink. Food. Books.”
“What did you have before?”
He looked at her like she’d cut him but he answered without pause.
“An electricity bill, a cable bill, a cell phone bill, health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, homeowners insurance, VISA statement, Mastercard statement, Discovery Card statement, Mileage Plus card, AVIS card, mortgage, car payment, truck payment, line of credit, fifty hour work weeks, in-laws, accountants, annual physicals, multivitamins, Wellbutrin, Advil, a book club, a bible study group, rec center membership, golf club membership, a basketball game every other Thursday night, poker at my friend Jim’s every other month, four different stops on Thanksgiving and Christmas, sex twice a week, taxes once a year, waking in the middle of the night every night wondering how to keep everything afloat, and beautiful children who grow up so fast I can’t even look at them.”
He hit the wine again—a long and focused pull.
His eyes shimmering.
“I used to live a half mile from here,” he said. “I’ve taken siding from my old house to keep a fire going. This place was so vibrant. Kids always playing in the streets. Block parties. A great community.”
“You were an autoworker?”
“I worked in the GM truck assembly plant for nineteen years.”
“When did it close?”
“Six years ago, when GM moved the operation to Korea. Everyone lost their jobs. When the plant closed, this town just died. Like the old west come to Michigan. Eight months later, the bank took our house. I didn’t handle it well. My wife left, took my boys with her.”
“I’m sorry,” Violet said.
“When I got out of the institution, I came back here.”
“Why?”
“It’s hard to explain. I just felt like this was where I needed to be.”
“Don’t you think about all you lost though? Isn’t it thrown in your face here?”
“Of course. Every day. But after absolute loss, it still continues.”
“What?”
“You. Consciousness. There is life after hope, you know.”
The fire popped.
“And what does that life look like?”
“Not what you’d expect?”
“No?”
“You realize something,” Matthew said.
“What’s that?”
“That you go on. That you can take so much more pain than you think. We’re built for it. It’s almost like that’s our purpose. We’re vessels that exist to be filled with pain.”
“That’s depressing.”
“No, that’s truth. And once you come to terms with it, it changes you. After everything is taken from you, you see that you still have control over so much. Control over how you cope with misery. You realize all the beautiful choices you still own. Like whether to love or hate. Or forgive.”
Violet pushed against her knees and came to her feet. Walked over to the scrap-wood pile and loaded a few two-by-sixes into the fire that looked like they’d been torn from the side of a house. Outside, it was sleeting—the dry tick of ice pellets bouncing off the pavement.
“What kind of trouble are you in?” Matthew asked.
“I lost my husband a year ago.”
“What happened?”
“He was murdered. My life has sort of...unwound...since then.”
“You’ve lost a lot.”
“I’ve lost everything.”
Matthew struggled to his feet and shuffled over to his cardboard box which had once held a refrigerator. He dragged out a pillow and tossed it across the room.
“Sleep by the fire,” he said. “Feed it when it gets low.”
“Matthew,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Come here.”
He staggered over.
Violet reached up and covered the earpiece, hoping her hand would muffle the microphone, if it was even activated.
“You ever see a man hanging around here?” she asked.
“In this building?”
“Shhh,” Vi whispered. “No, I mean...what you called it earlier...the concrete barrens. This whole area.”
Matthew sipped from his jug of wine.
“Like I told you, there’s bangers who come out here to do drug deals, initiations. People like me who try to live quiet and undisturbed. I mean there’s rumors, sure, but I never paid any attention—”
“What rumors?”
His brow furrowed, confused by her sudden interest. “Rumors of a man. They say he brings people here to torture them. It’s just an urban—”
“Who says this?”
“I don’t know. Just in passing by the people who live in or have reason to come to the concrete barrens. We hear things occasionally. Screams in the night. Hear about people dying, strange people around, but out here, everyone’s strange in one way or another. They chalk it up to some boogeyman, because I guess we need monsters, but the truth is, this is just a weird and sometimes dangerous place.”
“What else do they say?”
“Just horror movie crap—he’s supernatural, he’s a demon, he takes your soul.”
“You don’t believe it?” Vi asked.
“Of course not. Then again, it doesn’t mean I go wandering around the old GM factory after dark, or any time for that matter, but people just want to—”
“What’s special about the GM factory?”
“Nothing. It’s just a big empty building, and people say that’s where he’s from. The ruins.”
“Do they have a name for him?”
“El hombre con el pelo negro largo.”
“What is that, Spanish?”
“Yeah, the Latin Kings coined it.”
“What’s it mean?”
“The man with long black hair.”
A shard of ice trailed down the length of Violet’s spine.
“You’ll be okay right here?” Matthew asked.
“Yeah.”
“Look, you’re welcome to stay tonight, but—”
“No, I understand. You’ve been very gracious.”
The pillow smelled like spoiled cabbage, so she rested her head in the crook of her arm, facing the oil drum for the heat that radiated off the metal. Through tiny perforations, she could see the glow of the coals, pinpoints of sun-colored brilliance in the dark.
She closed her eyes.
Cold creeping in from every side except where the heat lapped
at her face.
His voice came through the earpiece: “Violet? You asleep? Violet...”
“I’m awake,” she whispered.
“You sound tired, but I’m afraid your night isn’t even close to over. You handled yourself well up on the tower. That was fun to watch, but in all fairness, purely self-defense. Kill or be killed. Tonight, I want to see another facet of Violet King, specifically, just how cold your blood runs.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the knife, Violet. I’m talking about Matthew. About you killing him while he sleeps.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I can’t, Luther.”
“Matthew reminds me of a dear, departed friend.”
“Luther, please.”
“My mentor. A man named Orson, who, very much like Matthew, escaped into homelessness to find himself.”
“I do not have that in me.”
“Well, that is very bad news for Andy and little Max. Andy you there?”
“Violet?” Andy’s voice.
“Andy.”
“Luther, please,” Andy said.
“Would everyone stop begging me already? I didn’t bring you into this, Andy, for you to plead for me not to do what has to be done.”
“Then what?”
“I just thought you might advise Violet. You’ve been in this situation before, right? You’ve murdered an innocent to save yourself and others. Tell us, Andy, did it change you?”
“Fuck you, Luther.”
“Tell us, Andy, did it change you?”
“Fuck you.”
The wail of a baby filled Violet’s earpiece.
“Andy stop!” she whispered.
“Yes, Luther, it changed me.”
“For the better?”
“Hardly.”
“You still think about them?”
“Sometimes.”
“And this pains you?”
“They were some of the worst moments in a life filled with bad ones.”
“That’s because you’re weak, Andy. I never understood what Orson saw in you. You should’ve emerged from that experience stronger. Harder. A pure human being.”
“So that’s what you’re holding yourself out as, Luther? A pure human being?”
“Violet,” Luther said as she wept softly into the sleeve of her tracksuit. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not rushing you. We’re going to leave you now, so you can have this moment. Please believe me when I say that it can be revolutionary. Life-changing. If you let it be. If you’re strong enough.”