by Platt, Sean
“Why not?”
“Anderson …” Liz tried.
“Because I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
Anderson laughed, then got on his knees and close to his son. For the moment before he opened his mouth to ruin everything, he resembled an excellent father.
“You can’t be a pussy all of your life, so you might as well stop being one now.”
“Anderson!”
He turned his head and glared at Liz. “You had your chance. Now stay out of this.”
Then back to Junior. “If you don’t fight back, then you will always get beaten up. That’s just how the world works. If you want respect, you need to demand it. Even if you have to beat that respect out of—”
“He’s eight years old! This isn’t the lesson—”
“When are you going to shut the fuck up, woman?” Anderson shot to his feet, forcing Liz to shrink back and cower. Then, like the flipping of a switch, he laughed. “I’m not really mad, honey. You know I love you.”
He parted his arms and waited for her.
She felt their son watching and wanted to show him how much Mommy and Daddy loved each other. So she fell against his chest and let Anderson embrace her.
His big hand found the back of her head. He rubbed her scalp, and for a beautiful moment, she could feel his love.
Then he shook her off and turned back to Junior. “Do you see what I’m talking about?”
Junior looked up at his father without answering.
“There are two kinds of people in this world. Those that give the orders and those that obey and shut up. Which one do you want to be, Junior? Do you want to be a leader or a follower?”
Junior blinked up at him.
With finality in his voice, Anderson tried again. “Leader or follower — and this time, I need you to answer me, son.”
Liz saw the fear in Junior’s eyes as he nodded and sputtered the word, “Leader.”
She swallowed, dismayed that Anderson had used her willingness to avoid a fight in front of Junior to undermine her progress with him. She had walked right into it.
For the first time, Liz realized what she had been unwilling to acknowledge before: a seed of hate for Anderson, growing inside her.
And right now, he was watering it.
“That’s the right answer. Now it’s time to start manning up and acting like one. If anyone ever hits you again, I better hear that you hit them back even harder. You understand me, boy?”
Junior nodded.
Liz swallowed a knot that felt more like a rock.
* * *
She hated herself for the next two days, stuck in rumination, thinking about how she and Anderson needed to talk about what happened. But then the situation blew up at school, and Liz couldn’t hide it.
Anderson was already home from his shift when Junior stepped off the bus and into the house with another black eye.
He actually smiled at the sight. When she asked him about it later, Anderson explained that the smile was because he “saw the bruise as evidence of their son finally sticking up for himself, before seeing the error of his misplaced faith and realizing he was still just a pussy.”
“Did you fight back?” Anderson asked after Junior told him about the fight.
“No.”
“And why not?”
“Because I was afraid—”
Anderson knocked him to the floor before Junior could finish his sentence.
“No!” Liz yelled, trying to get between them.
He threw her to the ground.
She found herself beside her son, both cowering as Anderson loomed above them with his dukes out.
Junior surprised them both, leaping to his feet and shoving Anderson in the chest.
Anderson reeled around, and Liz felt certain her son was moments from a trip to the hospital. Lies spun in her head, the things Anderson would tell the doctors. He bumped his head. He fell down. And of course, they’d believe a man with a badge.
But then Anderson’s anger was gone, replaced with a wide smile. “See! You can stand up for someone. That’s what I want to see from you, boy!”
“You hit Mommy!”
“She’s your Mom, not your Mommy. And I didn’t ‘hit her.’ She got in my way. That’s not the same. Besides, I only did it to see if you were a man or a pussy. Now I know you’re a man.”
Anderson turned to look at Liz. Incredibly, he appeared to be expecting an atta boy.
Instead, she stormed into her bedroom, grabbed the biggest pillow off of their bed. Went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Buried her face into the pillow and screamed.
Only after the first round of stifled bellows had died did Liz realize that Anderson was standing right on the other side of the shower door.
“I didn’t mean it.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a sorry,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re invading my privacy right now.”
“You’re not even naked.”
“I don’t give a shit if you see me naked, Anderson. You’re in my space.”
She walked past him and back into their bedroom. Anderson followed behind her.
Liz approached the bed, looking in her dresser mirror across the room. She could see them both, but there was something loathsome in his eyes.
She reeled around but spoke without losing her temper. “You crossed a line just now.”
“Because I interrupted your screaming into a pillow?”
“Because you hit me! Because until today, you could be an asshole sometimes, but at least you never actually laid a hand on me. I’ve always said that was my line, and you’ve always professed to understand that. I’ve put up with a lot of your shit because deep down, I know you’re a good man, even if you don’t always act like one. You try. But I can’t … I can’t put up with this. I put up with it from one man in my life. Never again.”
His face softened, and he took a step toward her, aggressive to passive, palms out in a gesture of peace.
“I am a good man. I promise, Liz. I really love you, and I’m so, so sorry. You know who I am … Remember, I’m the one who kicked your father’s ass for hurting you. I would never ever intentionally—”
“You didn’t push me on accident, Anderson. If you can’t even admit that, then—”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He looked down, then back up at her. “I promise to do better.”
Liz believed him because she didn’t know what else to do.
She let him hold her, the two of them swaying on their feet in the bedroom. Then they parted, and he left her.
Once he was gone, she went for her pills.
Five
October 15, 2011 …
It was getting painfully close to dinner time.
The sun had nearly set, and Liz was running out of ways to convince herself that she wasn’t in the middle of a nightmare.
She had gone out a few times, but none of her excursions amounted to much. She tried walking to the market, or at least toward where she thought the market was, but after trudging for what felt like a mile and a half or so down what had to be the right road, the distance finally got to her — mocked her, really — and she had to turn around.
Liz did find the lake but saw no sign of Anderson or the boat. Had someone taken it? Had Anderson? If so, where did he go? If Junior had attacked him, maybe he’d gone to the local deputies. Maybe the lake led to a river that ran right to the local sheriff’s office. That would’ve been quicker than coming back to the cabin and taking his truck. But Anderson wasn’t the kind of man who would call in someone else to finish his fight.
He would’ve come home and confronted Junior.
She found four separate cabins, plus a cluster of three while looking around, but none were occupied. Her paranoia kept growing and growing. After finally gathering the courage to approach one of those seemingly empty cabins and peek inside of it, she was further horrified to find it not j
ust vacant, but eerily so. It looked more abandoned than merely unoccupied. A shadow danced across the wall and gave her a start, but then when she blinked, Liz saw it was nothing. She called out to dead silence, even though she could still feel the heavy breathing shadow.
Nothing was right. There were still no birds in the sky. The air had gained weight, and at times it felt so thick that she could barely breathe. The trees seemed to be bleeding emotion, whether that made a twig of sense or not.
She and Junior should leave. Just keep on walking until they found someone who could help them, or maybe until Liz could get to a clear signal so she could call Colette or anyone else who might be able to help them.
Liz tried to explore the shed again on three separate occasions, but Junior came out every time, shooing her back inside as if her proximity to the location was somehow offensive.
Maybe she was being paranoid, and it was her fear that would push him over the edge. If Anderson was in the shed, then she had to worry about what she would do to protect them once he was out. And if he was dead … well, then Liz had given birth to a murderer, and this all might be her fault. At least for now, maybe it was best to let him usher her away.
Everything about Junior was eggshells. Different, but not unlike how it had been with Anderson lately. Worse, because at least his father liked to fight, whereas Junior withdrew. It was hard to know anything when her son was stuck in a cycle of silence.
She longed to know his thoughts. All that staring into space … did it mean he was processing whatever had happened last night or was he steeping in denial?
Was Liz doing the same thing?
She didn’t want to face the fear that Junior might have done something to his father. But judging only by his responses, the possibility was more than looming. Whenever Liz circled the thought, she further admonished herself. What kind of a mother was she to think something like that? Junior was only twelve years old, and scrawny, as his father constantly reminded him. Anderson was a big, strapping man.
Liz kept wanting to think about things that made her feel better, but no matter where she steered her mind, it kept circling back to all the ways that being a scrawny twelve-year-old wouldn’t even matter if he really wanted to hurt his father.
Not hurt, kill. Don’t avoid the word.
No! He didn’t kill him. I refuse to believe that.
He might have hurt him, and if so, he was probably defending himself.
But wasn’t it even more likely that maybe Anderson had hurt himself? He was probably drunk. Maybe he’d spilled over into the lake and drowned.
But if so, then Junior had watched his father drown.
Not if he fell asleep. Could’ve slept right through it.
Might be time for another pill or three.
Liz really didn’t want to take even one more, but the panic was eating her skin. She kept telling herself that everything would be okay. She simply needed to wait a little longer. Then everything would be fine. Anderson would be back, making fun of her for being a worried little bitch.
They would laugh and fuck, then he would start drinking, and it would even be fine for a while that their son barely seemed to be living inside his own skin. Colette would arrive on Monday to save them.
Maybe.
She swallowed a pill and put on another pot of coffee. She probably wouldn’t even drink it; Liz just wanted something to do.
“I’m going to look for your father.”
“Didn’t you already look?”
She didn’t answer. She closed the door behind her with a sigh.
The sky began to turn in a hurry, a heavy bank of dark clouds blowing in at a blistering speed. She didn’t make it a hundred feet from the cabin before the sky opened up.
The wind came at her so furiously, she had to push hard against it just to move a few feet forward. She turned around and made it back to the cabin, no less soaked than if she had stepped out of the shower.
The storm was relentless. Less alien than last night’s, but even more severe. She heard branches whipping and snapping, and debris pelting the cabin. And then the sound of a train.
Not a train … a tornado!
“Quick!” she shouted, leading her son into her room, “get in the closet!”
The tempest came closer and closer until it was on them, or damned close. The howling wind, the assault on the cabin’s walls and roof, wind whistling as it found its way in. The entire structure cracked and groaned as if it might give up at and fly off into the sky at any moment. Then the storm would pluck her and Junior from the eye and deposit their battered corpses miles away.
A whole family lost, never seen again.
Then another sound, the warped and warbled cries of animals. Dozens, if not hundreds. The echoes were distorted, and they kept on coming. She covered his body with hers, pressing an ear against his back to squelch the terrible screams.
Then, as sudden as it started, the chaos stopped.
Silence.
Junior cried, “Is it … gone?”
She sat up and looked outside the closet. Her room was untouched.
She stood and went to see if there was any damage in the living room. No broken windows or holes in the wall. The roof was still intact.
She turned to call Junior when the front window imploded. A giant shape slammed through the glass so fast she could barely see what the thing was before it pounded into her legs.
She fell, twisting unnaturally as pain exploded in her right knee and sent her into a pile on the ground.
Junior screamed as her world withered to black.
* * *
Liz woke up, felt the mattress underneath her, and wondered how she’d gotten to bed.
She remembered seeing the monster but had no idea whether that monster was real. Genuine beast, or paranoid hallucination, each was its own breed of terrifying.
“Junior?”
His name was out of her mouth before the pain blossomed in her knee. She shouldn’t have shifted. She sat up in agony, looking past Junior at her bedside to the source of her torment. Sure enough, her right knee was two or three times its usual size and the color of a moldering onion.
“Are you okay, Mommy?”
“I don’t know yet,” Liz admitted. “Give me a minute.”
She might have taken five. The first several were to clear the cobwebs. After that, she took inventory of her pain.
“I’m going to try and walk, okay?”
Junior nodded.
She put her left foot on the floor. As she slid her right leg over, the pain increased. She pushed herself to lower her right foot to the ground, and then she stood, keeping her weight on her left foot at first.
Left foot was fine.
She stepped gingerly forward on her right, and the pain flared so much that she instantly said, “No, no, no,” and fell back onto the bed.
She’d torn ligaments in her right knee when she was fifteen, running on a wet street with her friend. This felt the same. Maybe she’d re-torn the surgical repairs.
“Can you do me a favor?” Liz winced as she lay back down.
Junior didn’t nod, but his eyes said, Just tell me what to do.
“I need my phone, but I don’t know where it is.”
“I can find it for you, Mommy.”
It took him a couple of minutes, but the entire time her fear kept swelling. She was screwed, no matter how she looked at this. Even if she were to get lucky enough to locate Anderson’s keys, she couldn’t drive with a busted knee. She was trapped here in the cabin, either hallucinating monsters or being surrounded by them. Maybe Colette, or one of Anderson’s coworkers, might come looking for them. But something might have happened to Colette, and no one else even knew where they were. Not to mention her sanity. Perhaps she’d overdone it with her meds, but she could also be losing her shit and, therefore, unable to not only walk but take care of Junior long-term in the worst possible case of their having to stay here.
Liz needed something t
o believe in. But her phone still wasn’t working, and she was getting more frightened by the moment, no longer able to pretend that everything was going to be okay.
She closed her eyes, trying to focus past the pain. She had to figure things out.
She kept breathing through the agony, inhaling and exhaling to a tune that only she could hear, though Liz did imagine the screaming trees and heard her son’s nonsensical statement.
Hurry back inside before the trees get mad at you.
She finally opened her eyes to find him staring. She wondered how long he had been looking at her like that.
“Are you okay?” Liz asked.
Junior began to cry.
She opened her arms, and he fell into them, lying beside her on the bed like he did when he was little. He trembled against her, toddler-like, as he cried. “I thought you might die.”
“Don’t be silly, sweetie. It’s just a sprained knee. I’ll be fine. I should have been more careful.”
“You were trying to protect us.”
“Yes, I was.”
She held him for a minute, and then he was quiet. He sat up, his tears gone so suddenly that it was as if he had never even been crying.
He showed her a pair of closed fists.
“Which one?”
Liz pointed to his left hand. “That one.”
He showed her his empty palm, put both hands behind his back, then displayed his closed fists again. “Which one now?”
She pointed to his left again. “Still that one.”
Junior opened his hand, and Liz felt immediate relief seeing the pills. Not hers, Anderson’s painkillers. The good shit he took for “his back.” Just one more addiction he wouldn’t cop to.
“They were Dad’s. I got them from his nightstand drawer. Now they’re for you.”
“Thanks.” She held out her hand as a tear slid down her right cheek.
Junior handed her two painkillers, then got her a glass of water.
She took them and swallowed, waiting for relief to wash over her.
“Is that better?”
“You know,” she smiled, “it already is.” She didn’t feel the opiates kicking in yet, but the knowledge that they would was enough.
