"Hey! Jacinta, please-" The rain was ice against Bo's cheeks. He realised he wasn't wearing pants, that he was dressed in a shirt and underwear and nothing else. Too late to turn back now. Jacinta rounded the corner and Bo staggered to catch up, the concrete cutting his bare feet. "What'd I do? Come on, Jay-"
He was close enough to tap her on the shoulder when she whirled, slapping Bo in the face with her umbrella. "Get the fuck away!" Her eyes were huge and her lips curled back in a snarl as she battered him across the head. Something crunched, although whether it was the umbrella or his skull Bo couldn't tell. "Get away from me!"
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Bo snatched the umbrella out of her hands. She turned to run but Bo was faster. He grabbed her sleeve and reeled her in, hand after hand. "I just want to talk-"
"Get away! Help!" She drove her knee up into Bo's gut and his breath whooshed out in a great plume. "Somebody-"
Any feelings of charity he'd had evaporated in that moment. He'd been through a lot with Jacinta - sleepless shifts spent stitching idiot's faces back together, double-checking paperwork after surgeries gone wrong, the inevitable quiet moments in the tea-room after a patient had passed. And now...
His fist flashed out before he could stop himself. Her head snapped around, teeth clicking together on her tongue, and Bo took the opportunity to grab her around the neck. She was still kicking, wailing through bloodied lips, but it was easy to drag her back down the street. If anybody was watching through their curtains as Bo hauled her up the stairs, he didn't think they'd recognise him through the rain.
She squirmed as he struggled with the doorknob. "Let go, let-"
"Shhh, please." He clamped his hand over her mouth and she bit deep into his fingers. There was no pain, just a heat and a sudden wetness. Spit and blood trickled over his knuckles. "The neighbours will see! Jay, please, just-"
Teeth clicked on bone. She'd bitten all the way through, down to the roots. This time the pain was sudden and sharp, and he howled, punching her in the back of the head with his free hand. Jacinta let go, wailing as Bo pulled her through the door, and then he slammed it closed behind them and jammed the lock.
She was strong, stronger than he'd expected from a woman so slim, and the moment he relaxed she was free of his grip, scrambling on hands and knees across the floor. She was almost to the stairs when Bo caught up. He grabbed at her wrist and she whirled, dragging her nails across his cheeks.
He reeled back, clutching his face. Blood ran thickly between his fingers. "Jesus, Jacinta, what's-"
He blinked. For the first time, he saw her as she truly was. A small woman with narrow eyes and thinner lips, her broad nose spattered with Bo's blood from where she'd bitten into the meat of his hand, her pupils tiny and terrified.
Not Jacinta at all.
It wasn't fear or confusion that guided his hand but fury. He'd been lied to, had walked out in the rain and been bitten and bled dry and it wasn't even her? The anger throbbed in his throat.
His fist came down. She screamed. His fist came down again.
It was only when she quieted that Bo began to shake. He looked at his bloodied knuckles and the woman lying motionless on the floor and felt vomit rise in his stomach, even though he didn't have anything left to vomit up. Her hair was matted and her eyes were swelled so much that even if Bo had known her he wouldn't have recognised her. The ends of his fingers throbbed. His skin was barked down to tender red flesh.
"Jesus," he whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry." He knelt beside her and tried to brush the hair back from her face but it was stuck there with blood. "Jesus Christ I didn't mean it, I swear. I-"
Basement.
It wasn't his word. It came from somewhere unbidden, just like the anger that had guided his hand, the red mist that made him grab her by the hair and swing her to the ground.
"I-"
Basement.
He tried to swallow but his throat was full of spikes. He could feel them twitching, dragging furrows through his flesh.
There were things he remembered, and things locked away. Jacinta's expression as he bore her down behind the reception desk in St Jeremiah's. The betrayal in her eyes.
His mouth was dry. It hurt to blink. "Mother Mary and Jesus and God fucking-"
Bo couldn't stop his hands. They worked beneath the woman's arms, lifting her, dragging her back towards the stairs. Her heels thudded on the wood as they descended, like a drumbeat in time with Bo's frantic pulse. He wanted to stop but his legs moved automatically, stamping down the stairwell one after the other, tugging him along as much as he was tugging the woman.
The smell grew thick in Bo's nostrils. He gagged as he reached the bottom of the stairs. It was a stink of rotten fruit and meat turning grey and soupy. The floor squelched beneath his feet. Something cold oozed between his bare toes.
He didn't want to look at the shapes in the corners, the lumped figures curled in upon themselves. The ruin of their faces, their throats, their chests. It was easier to close his eyes and let his body do the work as he bound the woman in place. Then, his eyes still firmly shut, he retreated to the stairwell.
A crunch underfoot. A bone snapped in two. "Please," he whispered. "It isn't me. It isn't me. I swear this isn't me."
His legs took him upstairs. His hands closed the basement door. His legs took over again and carried him to the parlour, where he sat on his haunches, watching the world pass through the gap in the blinds.
There was something beyond the rain, he thought. Something big and shadowed, far beyond the houses. It tugged at his chest... no. At his throat. He felt it pulling like a string through his Adam's apple. It ached.
From below came a thump. A pause. Another thump. Was it the pipes again? He'd have to ask his friend to look at those, whenever he got back.
It was simple to close his eyes and drift away to the drumming of the rain.
Chapter 7
Kimberly drove blind. She had no idea where she was running to, only that she had to get away, to leave Rustwood Heights and Peter far behind. She shot into the tangle of suburban streets, not recognising any of the houses or cul-de-sacs.
It was only when she glanced down and saw the gas needle hovering above E that she realised she was in trouble. "Fuck it all," she whispered, and took a hard right. There was a gas station somewhere past the playground, and their prices were always low. There had to be money in the glovebox...
It wasn't until she'd filled the tank that she realised what she'd done. The posters in the gas station windows, the red sign out the front, the lilac hedges that guided her off the street and up to the pump. She knew them all but didn't know why.
Her mouth was dry as she got back behind the wheel. "No way," she whispered. "No chance in hell."
She put distance between herself and the gas station fast and tried to get her head back in order. She had a full tank, enough to drive halfway through the next state, but her so-called husband would have the police after her if he thought she was trying to run. There was only so long he could keep lying to them about their marriage, but she didn't have the patience to wait it out. She needed to be gone.
What had he said just before she'd split out the door? An appointment with Keller at two. That was the smoking gun. If she missed it, Keller would call home. Peter would contact the cops, and she'd get grabbed before she'd even had a chance to run.
The appointment, then. A token appearance. Tick the right boxes and smile when Keller asked the hard questions. He'd probably phone Peter afterward to let him know everything went well, and she'd have a few hours grace to cross the state border.
Maybe then she could figure out which goddamn state she was in.
The road up to St Jeremiah's was a winding death-trap, and it was a relief to finally hit the peak. The receptionist was unfamiliar. Kimberly had to cough twice before he looked up. "I have an appointment with Doctor Keller?"
He directed her to the third floor, where she waited outside Keller's office
with her hands in her lap, counting off the minutes on the clock mounted on the far wall. Twenty minutes after two, she gave up waiting and went back down to reception. "Can you page Doctor Keller? He's not-"
The man behind the desk rolled his eyes. "I'll try."
The call boomed through the corridors. Kimberly waited. Doctor Keller didn't appear. "He's very busy," the man said. "If you'll just-"
Kimberly walked away. She stalked the corridors, hands in her jacket pockets, wincing when something tugged in her stomach. She passed nurses who glanced at her sideways, always looking like they were on the edge of asking her who she was and if she knew where she was going. She cut them off with a glare.
And then, when she'd almost given up and was turning to leave: "Mrs Archer?"
She spun. Doctor Keller had emerged from a side door, dressed in blue scrubs and in the process of peeling off a pair of latex gloves. "I wasn't expecting you until... ah. I lost track of time. Slap on the wrist, that."
Kimberly glanced past him. The door was unmarked and had no handle, only a complicated looking keyhole. "What's in there?"
"Drugs," Keller said, with a grin. "The prescription closet. Doesn't matter how many locks we put on it, things still go missing. Now, if you'll follow me..."
Keller's office was a closet in itself, barely wide enough for his desk. The walls were bare apart from a calender dated 1969, featuring Katharine Hepburn in a sharp black suit. Keller's desk, on the other hand, was a wasteland of paperwork. The only space not covered in yellowed legal pads and prescriptions was a circle right before Keller's chair... the perfect size, Kimberly thought, for an exhausted doctor to lay his head down and nap.
Keller coughed, stretched, and cracked his knuckles one after the other. "Interesting times, Mrs Archer. Which is appropriate, considering your interesting diagnosis. Are you still thinking about Aaron?"
His name sent a worm of panic writhing through Kimberly's gut. Two weeks now, two weeks he'd been waiting... "No. Not once."
"You're sure? It would be a remarkably quick recovery from a psychosis as vivid as yours-"
"I'm a bit short on time, Doctor."
"Of course. You probably want to get back to your child. How is the little darling?"
She ran her mouth on autopilot. Keller didn't have a clipboard or check list of questions, but there was still a strange weight to his inquiries that made her uneasy. When he asked how she took her coffee it felt like she was undergoing some strange Freudian evaluation, and when he questioned how she'd been interacting with Peter...
"Do you mean, whether we slept together?"
"If you're comfortable discussing it."
"I'm not, actually."
"I'd assumed as much. Your relationship with your husband is... strained, still."
"Why'd you ask if you already knew?"
Keller sighed. "He phoned before your arrival."
"Did he ask you to hold me here?"
"He was concerned, Mrs Archer."
"He can sleep easy. I'm fine, okay? One hundred and one percent." She flashed her most winning smile. "If we're done-"
"Of course." Keller reached across the table; his handshake was strong but dry. "Have you considered taking a holiday? Find a babysitter and use the time to reconnect with your husband?"
"I didn't realise you were a marriage counsellor."
"I've been married. I know where they go wrong well enough to help others avoid the same traps."
"That's not an official qualification." Kimberly's smile grew wider. "If you were to take a holiday... where would you go?"
Keller raised one eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"Enlighten me. Where's a fun place for a young couple to get away from it all?"
"I haven't taken a holiday in years," Keller said. "I used to. But hospitals need doctors, and I'd usually spend one night in a motel before disaster struck and I'd get called back. After a few years, I stopped trying."
Kimberly took a deep breath, trying to place her thoughts in an orderly line. "Do you drive?"
"Of course."
"Which route has the nicest scenery?"
"I take the South Bulwark bridge," Keller said. "It takes you past, uh... small town, cute. Lovely bakery. And after that... Well, it's been quite a while."
"But the bridge doesn't... it has an end, right?"
Now Keller looked genuinely confused. "All bridges do, Mrs Archer."
"Yeah." She turned away from his eyes. "Obviously."
The rain had eased by the time Kimberly left St Jeremiah's. She spread the map out across the dash, her finger hovering over the Warren Brown tunnel. She remembered the darkness there, the thick smog choking her vision, making her pulse thud in her temples. The false light sliding over the windshield as she emerged onto the same road she'd entered from.
She couldn't take that tunnel again. Not in a million years. But there were other ways.
When Kimberly had first looked at the map she'd had eyes only for the exits, but now she took in the shape of Rustwood, the peculiar walls thrown up by the mountain range encircling the town along its northern border, the rivers sealing it in on the west and the ragged line of the ocean shore along the east and south. The town had expanded to fill that space, streets and boulevards splitting and wending like the spread of an infection until they pressed against the foothills of those mountains. They formed a neat hexagon, a six sided city with three exits leading out along the circumference.
She traced over the map until she found South Bulwark Bridge. Less than ten miles from the hospital as the crow flew, but an hour's drive when she took the winding mountain pass into account. The dash clock read three-thirty already. Time passed too fast in this town, she thought. Too much bullshit distracting her from what she was supposed to be doing - getting home to her fiancé. They'd fought that day on the platform, sure, but the thought of holding Andrew tight and feeling his heartbeat against her chest almost made her cry.
She missed home. She missed everything. Andrew's smell, his coughing laugh...
Andrew? Aaron. She meant Aaron. The town was getting to her. Or was it the drugs, the residue of those tablets Keller prescribed? She hadn't swallowed one since being released from hospital. No way could it still be messing with her head. Or could it?
Her knuckles were white on the wheel as she left St Jeremiah's behind.
South Bulwark Bridge appeared over the horizon, great white pillars of concrete emerging from the rain and mist like spectres on silent patrol.
Kimberly pulled off to the side of the highway. The engine idled as she stared out over the choppy ocean, water churned to foam by distant storms. The edge of Rustwood. It was a relief, in a way, to know the town was real, that it had bedrock geography. She figured she was on the east coast somewhere, probably not far from New York. The town must've been built on a peninsula, and South Bulwark would lead... where? Another coastal town? Mexico? Did it matter? Anywhere was an improvement.
The seat vibrated beneath her butt. Slowly, her left hand stole down to her stomach, tracing over the caesarean scar. The ache that couldn't possibly exist.
Tunnels that looped back upon themselves. A husband she'd never met and a baby she hadn't carried.
Maybe it was insanity. Maybe she'd been kidnapped, drugged, and hauled halfway across the country to play a part in an elaborate farce. Or maybe she was dreaming, blood pressing against her brain after the impact with the C train.
In dreams, all you had to do was find the right exit. Aaron was waiting on the far side. He had to be.
She flicked on the high-beams to cut through the pounding rain and, her pulse thudding in her ears, rolled forward on to the bridge. It was four twenty-five PM.
There were no streetlamps along the edges of the two lane bridge, but her headlights were bright enough that she could make out the white lines dividing the road. The macadam was smooth and the car didn't grumble as she guided it out over the ocean. The South Bulwark Bridge was bare-bones, a concrete slab hemmed in
by steel guardrails. She could barely make out the ocean beyond the bridge; the rain was intense and a low mist was coming off the waves, writhing around the concrete posts that marked distance. There were no oncoming cars. She was alone.
She drove.
The pillars flashed past rhythmically and the burr of tyres on the road was soothing, and it wasn't until Kimberly tried to tune the radio that she noticed the dash clock. She'd been driving across the bridge for five minutes in an almost straight line and had yet to see the far end.
Her fingers shook on the radio knob. It only spat static - no reception this far out from land. She leaned a little harder on the gas. The car grumbled, but obeyed.
Five minutes later the needle was pushing sixty and she was still on the bridge. The mists had lifted until she could see the concrete pillars receding into infinity, blurring into a distant nova, a promise of an end. But no matter how she pressed the pedal, that shimmer of light that marked the far coast never grew any larger, any closer.
Her knuckles were white on the wheel. "You can't beat me," she whispered. Her tongue was thick and heavy in her mouth. The pedal was almost to the floor, the borrowed Volkswagen shuddering with the strain. The clock ticked off minutes. She'd been driving a quarter of an hour now. The nape of her neck was slick with sweat.
She drove until the dash clock read five PM. She did the calculations - just over half an hour at sixty miles per hour. Thirty-something miles. What had Fitch said? The longest bridge in the world was twenty-three miles long and she sure as hell wasn't in Louisiana.
The mists blurred past. The clock hit five-thirty and the fuel needle began to dip. The road ahead was smeared by tears of frustration. "Please," she whispered, "please, stop. I just want to go. I just-"
Then, out of fog came flame. A blaze of light in the centre of the bridge, not electric but warm and fluttering.
Kimberly eased on the brakes. Her heartbeat thudded harder as she saw figures shifting before the fires. A crash, she thought. Someone had skidded out, hit the concrete barriers, maybe even flipped their car. Lucky they hadn't gone through the guardrails and into the cold ocean below. God, if there were people trapped inside...
Rust: One Page 7
