The Way It Ends

by Marnie Vinge

  Suddenly she wished that she had followed her instincts and stayed at work for the evening.

  “I’m sorry,” Mark said. “That was probably inappropriate.”

  “It’s true,” Vanessa said quietly.

  She stared into the pool, the pink of the wine all but vanished.

  “To be honest, things with Teresa haven’t been wonderful for a long time. Probably since Molly was born. Don’t ever have kids,” Mark laughed. “No. I’m kidding. I would never regret Molly, but things certainly changed after she came.”

  Vanessa smiled hollowly.

  “You deserve sainthood for putting up with him,” Mark said.

  Vanessa looked back at him.

  “You think so, don’t you?” she asked.

  She was struck by the earnestness in Mark’s gaze. There was something else there, too. Pain, she thought. She recognized it. She saw it every night as she brushed her teeth, getting ready for bed. The pain suffered by those who have lost something great.

  Mark reached a hand up to her face and stroked her cheek gingerly, as if testing the waters. Vanessa didn’t stop him. She leaned the side of her face into his palm, almost like a horse, nuzzling its favorite stable hand.

  Mark brought her face to his and kissed her. It was so gentle. So different than loving Tom. There was something pure about it. The root cause of the kiss hadn’t been overwhelming desire on either of their parts, but instead a longing for comfort. A yearning to feel safe in someone’s arms again.

  Vanessa kissed him back. Mark pulled away.

  They sat in silence beside the pool for a few moments. Vanessa finally stood and made to excuse herself.

  “Vanessa,” Mark reached for her hand.

  She let him take it and looked over her shoulder, unsure if anyone on the patio could see them.

  “I don’t regret that,” he said.

  And Vanessa knew in that moment that she didn’t regret it either.

  But she would.

  IONE

  I pace in the study, the sun setting outside, casting a red glow into the room that makes the walls look as though they are bathed in blood. Suddenly, a shadow appears outside the doors that keep me inside. A man.

  Tom.

  I rush to the door as he unlocks it, slipping inside like a snake.

  His lip is bloodied, his eyes wild. I reach for his arm.

  “Tom, you have to let me see her,” I plead.

  He bats me away without a word like an annoying insect. I follow him as he stalks around to his seat behind the desk. He collapses, an exhausted heap of a man. I look at him for a moment.

  Sweat stains the neck of his button-down shirt and blood has dripped from the corner of his mouth—someone struck him—onto the blue fabric, staining it a deep purple.

  “What happened?” I demand.

  “Nothing!” he bellows. He reaches for the phone and fumbles around, looking for a piece of paper in the stacks on his desk. Finally, he finds it. With trembling hands, he begins to dial.

  I watch as his fingers hunt for the numbers on the old rotary phone. With each crank, the ancient machine trills, one step closer to connecting him to the outside world.

  He waits only a couple of seconds before I hear a voice on the other end, muffled by Tom’s ear against the phone.

  “We’re sending her out,” he says and then hangs up the phone.

  It makes a short-lived ringing noise as he bounces in back into its cradle, an unwanted child.

  Tom looks defeated. Broken.

  He opens a drawer to his right and digs deep into the farthest recesses of the desk. I watch, arms crossed and eyes wide as he brings out a revolver. The barrel is long, clean, and threatening. My stomach knots at the sight of the weapon.

  “Tom,” I say cautiously.

  He looks at me, a sad smile playing on his lips.

  “This is how it has to be,” he says. There’s a distance in his voice. It carries a faraway note. And I wonder if I’m going to be able to reach him.

  “No, Tom,” I say. My voice quavers. I’m frightened by the sight of the weapon. The imminent promise of death that it brings. I wonder suddenly if I’ve ever been closer to it—to death. In my research, I brushed my fingertips against its cold cheek. But now, now it whispers in my ear, its breath cold and rotten on my neck like an undead lover’s.

  Suddenly all the mystery, all the romance that death has held for me evaporates like gasoline on hot concrete.

  I’m terrified. Panicked. My breathing becomes ragged. I watch as Tom checks the chamber, spins it, and locks it into place. He rears the hammer back, the click menacing and solid in the room, taking on a presence all its own. It’s like the weapon is a third person there with us.

  “Tom, stop,” I barely get the words out. My voice is mousy, barely there. It sounds too loud even though it’s hardly audible. I feel like one misstep might make the weapon fire.

  He sits the gun on the desk in front of him.

  “Why should I?” he asks.

  He looks at me, genuinely curious as to what reasons I might give him not to do what he’s about to do. The question, though, is enough to tell me that he wants a reason to put the weapon away.

  “You’re that child’s father,” I say, finding my voice like unsteady footing on the edge of a crumbling cliff. “No matter what happens when you leave this place, you’re that child’s father. And that baby needs its father. Take it from me.”

  He looks at me.

  “My dad died when I was nineteen. I never knew him as an adult, as a friend. Don’t take that away from your child on purpose. You would be a great father, Tom.”

  He looks back at the gun and places a hand on it. My stomach tightens. Instead of butterflies, I feel a million crawling creatures struggling to free themselves.

  Tom spins the revolver like the bottle we spun in the closet of my parents’ house at that party when I was fourteen. I pray that it doesn’t land on me.

  He spins it again. And again. And again. The steel scrapes across the varnished wood, making little circular scratches with each revolution. I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until he stops, the barrel pointed at me.

  “Does that make you nervous?” he smirks.

  “Tom, put it away,” I say sternly.

  He picks up the gun and turns it over in his palm as though examining it for the first time. The metal glints in the sunlight, a bright flash of steel that sends a sharp pain behind my eyes, but I don’t look away.

  I watch him, the whole thing unfolding in slow motion like a train wreck that I can’t stop. He turns the gun over again and places it back on the desk. He looks at me.

  “Come here,” he says.

  I look from him to the weapon and back again.

  “I’ll put it away. Just come here,” he bargains.

  I cautiously move forward. With each step my legs feel more like gelatin, like I’m marching toward the gallows. But if I can get the gun from Tom, I can get out of here and get to Birdie.

  I step up next to him in the chair. He turns toward me. He reaches a hand up for mine and jostles my arm until I uncross them, letting them fall at my sides. He brings my hand to his lips, kissing the back of it.

  “I always knew you’d do great things,” he says.

  I look down at him. Whatever those words would have meant to me seven years ago, they’re just a breath across his vocal cords now, sounds that are less meaningful than a coyote’s howl in the night. It’s laughable.

  “I did great things,” I say. “Without you.”

  “That you did,” he smiles. “You never needed my help.”

  My hand hangs limp in his. He massages the back of it like he can rub life into it. Like he can make me feel something for him again. But the only thing I feel as I look down at him is the greatest depth of pity.

  I reach over and take the gun. Tom doesn’t move. I tuck it into the waistband of my jeans.

  “Tom, you have to turn yourself in,” I say.
<
br />   He drops my hand.

  “Birdie will have the baby. They’ll be alright. But you might not be if you don’t go out there right now and turn yourself in.”

  A bit of setting sun catches in his ice blue eyes, making them look almost as clear as a crystal. He stares up at me and reaches again for my hands.

  “You have to help me,” he begs. Tears choke his words. “This isn’t how this was supposed to go. I never wanted this.”

  “No one did,” I say. “Let me use the phone.”

  He stands up and steps away from the desk. I sit down and grab the piece of paper he had earlier. A phone number is scrawled on it. I begin to dial.

  The phone rings. The landline sounds hollow, like I’m listening for someone’s voice at the other end of a pair of tin cans held together with a taut string. Suddenly, someone’s on the other end. A male voice. Young.

  “This is Wyatt. Is this Tom?” he says.

  “This is Ione Larsen,” I say. “I’m a journalist.”

  “I’m really relieved to hear from you,” Wyatt says. He sighs audibly. “I won’t waste any time lecturing you about how dumb it was to go out there because you’re probably smart enough to have figured that out already,” he says.

  “Indeed,” I say.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “Yes. I wanted to check on the pregnant girl, Birdie.”

  “She’s not with you?” Wyatt asks, an edge suddenly in his otherwise calm voice.

  “Tom called a few minutes ago and told you he was sending her out,” I say and glance around the room. Tom looks up at me from his seat by the window.

  “He didn’t call us,” Wyatt says. “You need to get out of there, Ione. Okay? Can you get out?”

  I look at Tom, his eyes meet mine.

  “I don’t know,” I say. I touch the gun in my waistband.

  “Keep him talking to you,” Wyatt says. “If he’s talking to you, we can stall for time.”

  “Okay,” I say. I look back down at the desk.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” Wyatt says. “We’re going to get you out of there. Alive.”

  “You sure about that?” I ask.

  “As sure as I can be,” he says.

  His words are no comfort in this bleak landscape. I know that the odds aren’t in my favor at this point. But my mind races to Birdie. Where the hell did Vanessa take her if she hasn’t made it out?

  I contemplate telling Tom that she’s still on the compound, but then I think it might only upset him further. Might make him more irrational.

  “Thank you, Wy—” the words are on the tip of my tongue when a jaw-rattling thud thunders into the back of my skull. I’m knocked across the desk. The phone goes flying. The world tunnels and dims.

  I look up and roll myself over.

  Standing above me is Tom holding a leather-bound hardback Bible that’s got to weigh more than ten pounds. He brings it down across my jaw, the leather stinging and the weight of the volume sending stars shooting from behind my eyelids.

  I cry out.

  I can hear muffled words in the receiver, hanging over the side of the desk. Tom grunts with the effort of striking me. And he brings the book down again. I’m too dizzy to fight him. I bring my arms up, trying to block his strikes.

  He stops for a moment.

  I regain my composure; my head throbs, and I try to stand. I look around the room for him. And then something slams into the back of my head. And just before the entire room goes dark, I see, at my feet, a gilded replica of a Ford with a name inscribed on the gold plate at the bottom.

  I read the words as Tom grabs the gun from my waistband. He steps over me. And as the room dims, I see her name on the plate.

  Birdie Hauer.

  BIRDIE

  As Tom left the room and the door slammed backwards, Birdie looked at the doorknob. The doorknob—so carefully selected by Birdie—chipped a piece of the drywall before vibrating from the force used to throw it open.

  Birdie hunches, her hands on her lower abdomen, imagining that’s where she should put them if she were to have a contraction. She tries to remember every movie scene she’s ever had the displeasure of viewing where a woman went into labor. The blood between her thighs has already dried to a chalky consistency. She needs to get out of here. Now.

  She throws her head back and yowls. The wounded animal noise comes out of her with great effort. The air from her lungs required to make it sends a shock wave through her shoulder, reminding her of exactly where root tendrils of the infection have hooked themselves. Tears sting her eyes, the pain almost overwhelming.

  She bites her cheek until blood pools in the crevices between her teeth, spilling hot iron onto her tongue. She swallows it down, the sharp edge of her bite bringing her back to the moment.

  She’s left there with Vanessa, who waits until she hears Tom throw open the doors to his study before speaking.

  “We have to go. Now,” Vanessa says.

  Relief comes over Birdie. The idea that she’s so close to getting out of this place is almost intoxicating. She has to remind herself that she’s not free yet.

  Vanessa slings Birdie’s good arm over her shoulders and allows the girl to lean on her. Birdie lets her absorb the majority of the impact of each step, but each time she places one foot in front of another, the weight of her pregnant belly tugs at the flesh of her shoulder, making it almost impossible to keep moving forward.

  They take the stairs one at a time. Birdie puts one foot on each new step and then the other. One by one, they reach the bottom floor of the house. Birdie clutches her pregnant belly with her wounded arm, resting it against the hard knot that is the child in an effort to stabilize her wounded limb.

  Vanessa gets the door opened, propping Birdie for a moment on the railing of the staircase. She loops Birdie’s arm back over her head and carries her outside. Birdie does her best to walk, but it takes great effort on her part. Each step is a reminder that she needs medical attention. Immediately.

  Birdie groans, hoping that Vanessa will interpret it as a response to a contraction instead of just a reaction to the pain she feels in her aching shoulder. On her cheek she can feel the radiant heat from the growing infection just below. She wonders how deep it’s gone. She wonders how close she is to sepsis. The thought is jarring and helps her quicken her step, matching Vanessa’s pace.

  Together they hobble out of the house onto the darkened porch. Birdie’s eyes slowly adjust to the quickly dimming light of the evening. A red cast in the western sky signals the end of another day at Revelation Ranch. Her last, she hopes.

  A coyote howls in the distance—not far away enough for her taste—and Vanessa leads her down the steps of the porch, one at a time. Birdie lets her. She takes Vanessa’s hand, steadying herself as she descends, and her feet find the dusty red dirt that makes up the land that she had so carefully selected for Tom only a year ago. It strikes Birdie as wild how much things had changed. Where this had wound up. If she’d been asked to imagine this six years ago, she would have barked with laughter. Tom had always been in complete control, and now things were quickly spinning out of reach for him.

  Birdie spots the red Jeep in the dusky light. The sight of it is enough to steel her for the remaining steps that stand between her and freedom. She puts more weight on her legs with each step, peeling herself from Vanessa when they reach the vehicle. Vanessa reluctantly lets her go and Birdie makes it to the passenger side door where she loses her footing, falling to the dirt, the air sucked from her lungs by the impact.

  “Fuck!” she screams. She draws the word out, a primal noise and a primal word. Dust billows in a cloud around her and she draws a sharp breath, the red dirt polluting her lungs. She sees stars dance at the periphery of her vision. The pain is too overwhelming. She’s going to pass out.

  “Get up!” Vanessa is suddenly at her side, pulling at her good arm, forcing her to her feet. Birdie allows this, nearly limp against her benevolent captor’s g
rip. Her head lolls forward and she can smell the infection—the sweet and rotten scent of dried blood covering her bandages—and it’s enough to bring her back for just long enough to help Vanessa’s efforts to get her into the passenger seat of the Jeep.

  Birdie lets her head collapse against the headrest. The sound of the door shutting is distant. Her eyes flutter open and she sees a Vanessa-shaped shadow jog to the driver’s side of the Jeep. She throws the door open and the interior light comes on, momentarily blinding. Too bright, she thinks. She squeezes her eyes as tightly shut as she can and sees the veins of her eyelids glowing like tiny red rivers on a map.

  Vanessa jumps in the Jeep and keys the ignition, killing the cabin lights. Birdie is grateful for this small mercy. The pain she felt earlier seems distant now. Her shoulder like a lighthouse far away in the fog, signaling the danger of landfall to a boat that’s lost its sail. She thinks she might capsize. And the thought isn’t at all terrifying.

  The Jeep is a cocoon and she settles in at the sound of the engine turning over. Suddenly, she’s reminded of road trips that she took with her cousins as a child. Never with her own parents, always her aunt and uncle. Her own household hadn’t been stable enough for anything as mundane as a road trip. She was grateful for those summers. She can smell the beach—Padre Island, Texas—but when she opens her eyes, she only sees the desert landscape of the panhandle of Oklahoma.

  Vanessa turns them around in the makeshift driveway area in front of the main house. She guns the engine, taking off too quickly, and Birdie rocks into the door. She groans at the impact but it’s dull compared to the fall she took only a few moments before. The thought that the pain is lessening troubles her.

  I’m going into shock, she thinks.

  The thought covers her like a wool blanket. It suffocates her. Her breathing quickens. And just up the long gravel drive, maybe two hundred yards from the house and still a football field from the road, Vanessa stops the car.

  “Birdie,” she says as she kills the engine. The hum dies and leaves an aching silence between them. Birdie forces her eyes to focus on Vanessa. The quiet of the isolated car surrounds them, presses in on them. It makes Vanessa’s voice seem to take up physical space.