The Ragged

by Brett Schumacher

  Picking up the journal, Celeste opened it up to the last dog-eared page and started reading. What she found was both disgusting and incriminating, but ultimately unhelpful on her quest to find her husband. Celeste flipped instead to the very last entry, dropping the book in shock when she saw what it said.

  She needed to get to the barn. Now.

  Racing back out to her car through the rain, Celeste’s mind raced about what Andrew might have found out in that old building. She threw the car into drive and made a wide, reckless turn through the front lawn before getting back on the gravel. The rain continued to pelt the car as Celeste sped back down the shadowy driveway, her headlights barely illuminating a dozen feet ahead of her in the storm.

  Pavement came into view, with the field lying just beyond, and Celeste didn’t slow down. There wasn’t any time.

  It was too late to stop by the time she saw the headlights coming from the right.

  ***

  There are no words in the English language capable of describing the abject rage and pain that Andrew felt looking down at the pharmacy script in his hand. At the smiley face cheerfully filling the space where prescription information was meant to be written. The paper shook and crumpled under Andrew’s trembling, tightening grip.

  Tears traced paths down Andrew’s cheeks as memories flashed through his mind. There were all of those nights spent on the porch roof outside Andrew’s window, whispering about how big the world was and about how the two of them would take it on together. There were the days in school when the two of them sat alone in the lunchroom and ignored the whispers of their classmates. And then there were the Fridays when Andrew’s best friend in the world came over and played poker with him and his grandfather.

  Two years’ worth of memories of having each other’s backs, of fighting together to stay afloat in a cruel and unforgiving small town. How many days had he spent with the two of them, both separate and together? How many times had he trusted them with his own life? How many lies had there been? Corvus got to escape accountability. He got to escape punishment for his crimes.

  Andrew’s eyes ran dry as a quiet fury settled over him and all became clear.

  Jax was a dead man.

  Andrew was going to kill Jax for what he had done. Nothing had ever been so clear to him in his entire life.

  He tried so hard to see the good in the world. To see the beauty. But time and time again that goodness proved to be an illusion. His mother was good, and she was taken from him far too soon. His father wasn’t good at all, but he at least had the decency to die young. And he thought his grandfather and childhood friend were good, but the two of them had quietly worked together to end the lives of who knows how many women.

  It was clear to Andrew for the first time in his life that goodness was a lie.

  The sickening crunch of metal in the distance pulled Andrew back to reality, and his heart dropped into his stomach.

  Celeste.

  He threw the receipt on the ground and turned to run back through the tunnel, but instead found himself face to face with the horned form of Amelia Barnett.

  The antlers on her head were lopsided, hanging at strange angles with caked-on blood and matted hair surrounding the points where they met her skull. She was drenched and wearing what looked like a wedding dress covered in dirt and blood and muck. The fabric clung to her body from the rain, revealing an emaciated frame and ribs that shuddered with every breath. Sunken, haunted eyes stared wildly into his as the grimace on her face contorted into a scream.

  She launched herself at him, wailing as their bodies collided and they tumbled to the ground by the workbench. The wind flew out of Andrew’s lungs upon impact, and a searing pain swept through his right shoulder and down through his broken arm. Amelia landed on top of him and launched a flurry of clawed swipes at his face and eyes, the brunt of which he took directly in a pained daze.

  “Amelia stop!” He tried to call out, only for a filthy hand to hook inside his mouth and tear at his cheek, leaving him tasting dirt and blood. The girl wouldn’t stop shrieking, a high-pitched, pained cry of anguish that left Andrew’s head throbbing and his ears ringing.

  It took several swipes to the face for Andrew to get his wits about him. When he did, though, he saw what he needed to do. Following his hunch, he waited for a small break between the swings. When it came, Andrew threw his left arm into the air and grabbed hold of her right antler.

  The screaming stopped for the briefest of moments when he gripped the horn before returning at a greater volume. Her hands shot up to grab at his, and he pushed down hard in response. Andrew heard a small crunch, and a fresh stream of blood came flowing out of the wound and falling onto his face. Amelia yanked her head back, letting out another sharp yelp as she did, and momentarily lost her balance.

  Andrew capitalized on her unsteadiness and bucked his hips to the side, throwing her off of him as she whimpered and clutched at the base of the antler. Seeing her curled up on the ground, he took his chance and made a break for the tunnel. His legs wobbled as he stood up, nearly making him fall over again, but Andrew managed to stay on his feet and charge out of the room.

  Rounding the corner, Andrew found himself plunged into darkness and quickly realized that he had forgotten the lantern in the kill shed. He knocked his head against a support beam, sending a new wave of pain through his skull. He ducked as he ran the rest of the way up the slope, guided only by the ambient glow of the tractor’s headlights bleeding into the tunnel from the trapdoor.

  Andrew had made it to the ladder when he heard another scream from within the darkness. He needed to hurry. Limping footsteps reverberated through the tunnel as he put his good arm on a rung above his head and climbed up a few steps before throwing his arm up to the next rung and doing the same thing. It was a slow and treacherous process, and Andrew almost lost his balance a few times as he climbed, all the while hearing the steps and frantic breathing grow closer.

  His hand had just reached the floor of the barn when Amelia appeared in the light beneath him and screamed again before beginning her climb. Andrew scrambled up over the lip of the hole and rolled onto the ground, struggling to catch his breath. He only had a moment to breathe before the girl’s hand sprang up and grabbed ahold of his leg. Kicking frantically, Andrew managed to land a hit directly in her face.

  Her eyes crossed for a moment before her grip loosened and she fell backward, tumbling back down into the hole. Andrew peeked over the edge and saw her lying unconscious on the ground, her ribcage rising and falling in labored breaths. She was still alive. Breathing a small sigh of relief, Andrew stood up and walked around to the other side of the hole before grabbing the metal hatch and throwing it shut.

  Amelia may have been Corvus’s most recent victim, but she was clearly out of her mind and needed to be contained until Andrew could get her the help she needed. He limped over to the tractor and slowly pulled himself up into the cabin. Throwing it in drive, Andrew turned the vehicle so that one of its front wheels covered the trapdoor. He turned it off and climbed back down to check his handiwork.

  Certain that Amelia couldn’t get out and cause any more trouble, Andrew made his way to the door of the barn and peered out through the rain. Seeing the crumpled frames of two cars blocking the road with their headlights still running, he took off into the storm. Wading through the muddy field again was a much slower process as Andrew half-dragged himself through the muck and mire to get to the wreckage.

  He finally made it to the road and stared in horror at their car, which was bent around the hood of a second vehicle. The collision had happened in front of the driveway, but inertia had led to both cars stopping several feet down the road. The driver who hit her hadn’t slowed down. Andrew knew exactly whose car that was, but he had more important matters to attend to. He hobbled over to the driver’s side door of his car and found it hanging open.

  The front seat was empty.

  Panic welled up inside him, pushing his pain a
nd rage to the side. There was only one thing left in Andrew’s life that he knew for a fact to be good, and that was Celeste. If he lost her, then he would know for a fact that goodness was a lie, because no good world would allow his wife to be taken from him after everything else that he had lost.

  Tears fell again from his eyes at the prospect of losing her, mingling with the rain that pounded down on him from above. He stood there for a moment, lost in premature grief, before realizing that he hadn’t checked the other car. Clinging to that last shred of hope, he set his sights on the second vehicle.

  Andrew made his way to the driver’s side door and found its front seat empty as well. The panic subsided slightly as he realized that both drivers were likely still alive. That’s when the rage returned.

  He limped over to the edge of the gravel driveway and stared into the darkness ahead as rain cascaded down around him.

  It was time to end this.

  ***

  The first thing Celeste noticed when she woke up was the pain. Her head throbbed and the light was too bright, even with her eyes closed. The coppery taste of blood lingered in her mouth, and when she moved her cheeks, she felt a dried stream of blood crack. Did she have a head wound?

  Opening her eyes, Celeste immediately knew that the answer to that question was yes. Rain pounded the roof and the ground outside, and the open front door only amplified the noise. Even the dim light of the living room ceiling was too bright for her eyes to handle, and her headache let her know it.

  Wait. Why was she back in the living room?

  Despite their protests, Celeste forced her eyes to stay open and to look around. She was back in the farmhouse and sitting in the armchair with its back to the stairs. There were cuts and bruises all over her clothes, which hung off of her from the weight of the rainwater they had absorbed. Her arms were pulled behind the chair and her wrists were tied together.

  That’s when the memory came flooding back. The car. Someone had t-boned her vehicle as she was crossing the road into the field. She remembered the flash of headlights and the way her head jerked to the right upon impact before swinging back to the left and colliding with the window. That was when she lost consciousness.

  A sharp metallic scrape from the kitchen caught Celeste’s attention and sent new waves of pain through her skull at the sudden sound. The scraping continued as a voice called out across the room.

  “Oh good,” the voice said. “You’re awake.”

  Celeste didn’t even need to look to know who it was. It was the only person who could have known that she had figured it all out. The only person outside of Corvus who knew what was going on underneath the barn. His accomplice.

  She turned her head toward the kitchen and locked eyes with Jax, who was leaning casually against the counter while sharpening a butcher knife against a honing rod. His wounds from the crash were far less severe but still noticeable. His soaked clothes had a fair amount of blood on them, and he had a large gash on his forehead.

  “Surprised?” He asked with a smug grin.

  “Not even a little bit,” she spat some blood out onto the floor. “Keeping a trophy wall in your place of business might not have been the smartest idea.”

  “None of the idiots around here seemed to notice,” he said as he stood up and walked toward her, methodically running the blade down the length of the metal rod. Celeste did her best not to visibly wince at each scrape. “But I guess it took someone with a big city education to crack the code.”

  Celeste rolled her eyes at the way he emphasized the words ‘big city education’ like it was an insult. Having grown up in a small southern town, she had never understood the vitriol the people there felt for those who chose to go to bigger places or nicer schools.

  “Is that what this was all about?” She asked, not hiding the disgust in her voice. “Some kind of ego trip? A way to feel big and important after living a dead-end life in a dead-end town?”

  Jax moved with surprising speed. Covering the last few feet and dropping the honing rod, his left hand lashed out and slapped her across the face, whipping her head to the right. The room spun. Jax grabbed Celeste forcefully by the chin and turned her head back to face him, brandishing the blade of the butcher knife right inches away from her face.

  “You better watch your mouth and remember who’s holding the knife,” He whispered as he touched the steel to her cheek. Celeste’s breath caught in her throat at the cold of the metal, but she maintained eye contact. A strange, suicidal kind of bravery had filled her body, and she wasn’t about to die without giving that depraved man a piece of her mind.

  “I hope you enjoy this,” she said, leaning forward and feeling the sting of the blade as it bit into her skin. A small trickle of blood fell down her cheek. “Because it’s going to be the last thing ever do as a free man. And you better hope the police get to you first, because if Andrew does, then you’re going to be a dead man instead.”

  Jax’s eyes flicked upward and looked over Celeste’s head, breaking the staring match they had been having. His scowl turned into a smile, and he looked back down at her.

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  He stood up and grabbed the armchair before spinning it around to face the front door. The sudden movement sent her head into another spasm of pain, blurring her vision. Through the daze, she looked out the open front door and saw a familiar form approaching the porch through the rain. Her eyes came back into focus and the figure became Andrew.

  There was murder in his eyes as he limped his way up the porch steps and up to the front door.

  Jax still stood behind Celeste, and he had wrapped his arm around the side of the chair, bringing the knife up to her throat. His other hand grabbed her hair and yanked it to lift her head.

  “I’d stop right there if I was you,” Jax called out.

  The fury in Andrew’s eyes never faltered, but he complied, stopping in the middle of the doorway and raising his good arm in the air.

  “Smart man,” Jax said, reveling in his dominance and control over the situation.

  “Did he hurt you?” Andrew asked Celeste, ignoring Jax’s taunts.

  “I don’t think it’s her you should be worried about.” The words rolled off her captor’s tongue before she got a chance to respond.

  As if on cue, footsteps could be heard over the rain, and a gaunt, dark figure appeared behind Andrew. A grimy hand reached up and grabbed his arm by the wrist, and a second hand held him in place as the figure bent Andrew’s arm behind his back. Andrew turned his head to see what had grabbed him, and a look of similar shock flashed across both his and Celeste’s faces.

  It was the Ragged.

  In the light that shone out onto the porch from the living room, Celeste saw a very obvious detail that Corvus’s paintings and drawings had all left out–the Ragged was just a man. A wild, feral-looking man, but a man nonetheless.

  Decades of muck and grime, now slick from the rain, covered him. He wore several layers of worn-out and tattered clothing, and the smell of death emanated from him, souring Celeste’s stomach. His nails were filthy and overgrown, and his hair was long and matted, covering most of his face.

  “Go ahead dad,” Jax said cheerfully. “Bring him over and tie him up.”

  A new look of shock and horror plastered itself across both Celeste and Andrew’s faces as the filthy older man stepped over the salt line and inside the house, limping as he leads Andrew over to the smaller chair by the bookshelf. He pushed Andrew down into the chair before picking up the length of rope that had been lying on the coffee table and wrapping it tightly around his body. Celeste watched helplessly as her husband cried out in pain.

  Her mind raced as she tried to comprehend what she had just learned. Some pieces of the puzzle immediately fell into place for her, while others no longer fit. Jax, still standing behind her with a knife to her throat, seemed to notice the couple’s surprise. After his father had finished tying Andrew to the chair on the other side of the r
oom, Jax removed the knife from its position by her throat and took a slow, triumphant walk toward the front of the living room to close the front door.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, turning back from the now locked door. “I thought you two had figured it all out.”

  Celeste gulped and caught her breath as he stepped away, thankful to be free of the blade. But more than that, she was relieved that she could finally start working on her escape plan. It was a long shot, but there was a loose thread in Jax’s knot on her wrist that she had started tugging at. She just needed more time.

  “I guess we’re not as smart as we thought,” she said. “Maybe you could enlighten us.”

  Jax had been waiting for that question for a long time, as he launched into an explanation that felt far too rehearsed to Celeste to have been made up on the spot.

  “Well it’s simple, you see,” he began. “My dear old father isn’t well and hasn’t been for years. He left when I was young, running off into the woods to live a better life. A life closer to nature, as he told it.”

  The Ragged, now crouching next to Andrew, grunted softly, as if in approval. Then, he turned and set his sights on Celeste, who did her best to just keep her eyes on Jax. The man stalked over to her as his son monologued, eyeing her, in the same way, a lion eyes a gazelle.

  “Andrew likely remembers this, but I spent so many years angry at dad for leaving me.” Andrew didn’t say a word. He just kept staring intently at Jax. “Of course, nothing lasts forever. After mom died, I decided it was time to bury the hatchet and try to reconnect with my long-lost father. It wasn’t easy. I spent months searching through the forest, looking for him. It was all I could think about.”

  The filthy man had limped over to Celeste by that point. She stopped her work on the knot behind her back, having loosened it considerably. He got uncomfortably close, his face just inches away from hers as he breathed in deeply, the heat and smell of his breath making her grimace.