by Lucian Bane
Chaos turned red and lowered her head.
“Let me get this chile a right piece of clothes, Solomon!” she scolded, hurrying to the room in her chair. “I have clothes that’ll fit her from when I was a young pretty thing. Oh, come here now and pick you out something. I got tons of dresses sittin up, collectin dust.”
“Jesus,” Joe hissed as he hurried Chaos to Ms. Mary’s room.
“It’ll take two minutes,” Solomon shot back. “And I’d like very much if she wasn’t wearing a see through sheet,” he added.
Chaos stood at Ms. Mary’s closet, smiling at the selection. Solomon hated to hurry her at seeing her expression. Like she were standing at the mall window, dream shopping. She reached in and pulled out a yellow dress and looked at Solomon with the prettiest smile.
“Perfect,” Solomon gushed. “Let’s see you in it.”
“I’ll give you some privacy,” Mary said, rolling out. “And there’s shoes too,” she called. “Get that chile a pair while yer at it. And for heavens sake, find something for yourself, you look like an escaped lunatic in that dreadful outfit.”
Solomon looked down at his clothes, agreeing wholeheartedly. Looking around he pulled out a pair of her dead husband’s overalls and climbed into them. He looked up in time to find Chaos naked and trying to figure out the dress. He hurried to her, his mouth diving on her nipple and sucking with a groan. “God, I want you so bad,” he strained, kissing her lips next before helping her work the dress over her head. He hurried behind her and fastened the buttons while she held her hair to the side, looking over her shoulder with a smile.
“It fits,” she gasped looking down when he was done.
Well… mostly. It sagged a little on her thin frame but she didn’t seem to notice and he wasn’t about to say a word. “Perfect.”
She sucked in a breath and hurried to the closet, pulling out a pair of white, gramma-looking heels. She presented them to Solomon with hope in her eyes. He reached in and got the pair of black hiking looking boots and held them to her. “In case we end up walking, just to be safe,” he said with regret, fighting his smile at the sour look on her face. “When we get to the next state, I’ll take you shopping for all new clothes and ten pairs of shoes,” he promised.
The awe on her face might’ve been sweet if it wasn’t due to a life of severe abuse and neglect. She sat on the bed and put the hiking boots on, and Solomon looked around for anything else they could borrow. Spying an old pair of men’s boots, he shot his hand into both to clear any hiding insects out. Pulling them on, he turned to find Chaos staring down at the black boots on her feet. The end of the sun yellow dress almost reached the top of the boots and Solomon thought that if she had braids and flowers in her hair, she’d make the perfect country bride.
Solomon hurried over and pulled her into a hug, kissing her deeply. “Thank you for understanding.” God, the sweet moan she gave coupled with every little, sad innocent thing she did made him wish they were some place where he could take her clothes off and spend all day giving her pleasure.
Soon. He would.
“Son?”
“Coming,” Solomon called, moaning another quick kiss on her breathless mouth before grabbing her hand and pulling her to the door.
They walked out, and Solomon’s chest warmed at how Chaos turned in a circle to show her dress, her smile so beautiful and fucking innocent. The idea that she hadn’t had many chances to be pretty made him want to murder that motherfucking master.
He thought about the dress he’d found her in and pain stole his breath. Had she put it on and felt pretty in it? Only to have it become the source of her worst nightmare? Likely she considered the memory a fond one since it was the one she met him in. God, how sick.
“Ain’t you gorgeous!” Ms. Mary exclaimed. “Now you come see me when Solomon comes to have coffee. I got stories to tell about him that will tickle you to pieces.”
Chaos gave a huge smile. “I’d like that.”
“Well lookie you,” Ms. Mary said, eyeing Solomon up and down, her jaw slack with her perusal. “So happy they fit you.” She aimed her shiny brown eyes at him with her half-moon grin. “They wasn’t gettin no use while he’s laid up in the grave like a lazy bones.” She cackled and slapped her leg. “I like to joke with him,” she informed Chaos. “We always joked when he was here, I figgered why stop?”
“They ain’t nobody round here, Joe.” Ms. Mary said as Uncle Joe opened the door carefully. “Jimmy done tole ‘em to leave me be and they always listen to Jimmy.”
They? How much did she know? Solomon was torn between getting out of town and asking her a million questions.
“We’ll dig for info when we get to my house, son,” his uncle said, reading his mind.
Solomon hurried out when an emotional episode hit him in the chest. How had he become so attached to somebody he hardly knew? It had to be the trauma he’d endured exacerbating the symptoms.
Back on the road, they drove in silence for quite a ways before his uncle assured, “Jimmy will see to her, don’t worry.”
“God I hope so,” Solomon gasped, shaking his head. “She knows things,” he said. “I bet she knows a lot.”
Chaos laid her head on his shoulder and took tighter hold of his hand.
A few miles later, his uncle muttered, “Oh shit!”
“What?” At seeing him looking at his rearview mirror, Solomon checked the side one and saw police lights. “Oh God,” he whispered.
“Don’t panic, whatever you do. We’re headed back home,” he whispered as he pulled off the road.
“License and registration?” Solomon hissed.
“Jesus Christ,” his uncle muttered, both hands on the steering wheel while looking in the side mirror.
“If they arrest us, we’re going back,” Solomon whispered, terror pumping through him.
“The town helps Master,” Chaos whispered frantically.
Solomon watched in his side mirror as the policeman spoke into his radio as he made his way to the truck. Uncle Joe threw the truck into drive and stepped on the gas, throwing gravel and dirt as he got back on the road.
“Oh fuck,” Solomon gasped, looking back to see the policeman scrambling to get in his car. “He’s coming, he’s coming,” Solomon whispered, facing forward now and putting on his seat belt. “Get your belt on,” he ordered Chaos, looking at his uncle. “You think we can lose him?”
“If I can make it to junction seventy five, I have a detour idea.”
“Jesus, he’s coming, he’s coming. You’re not going to make it to the highway.”
Uncle Joe held the steering wheel tight, eyeing his side mirror.
“He’s coming up, he’s coming up,” Solomon repeated, panicked.
His uncle jerked the wheel right, throwing them as he skidded onto a side dirt road. “Hold on,” he yelled. “It’s been a long time since I been on these roads, but I could draw a map of them.”
Solomon looked back, bracing his body against the cab of the truck. The dust was too thick to see as they flew down the snaky road along the mountain.
“I think you’re losing him, don’t stop!”
“Not a chance!”
They took turns left and right until Solomon was dizzy.
“Hold on!”
“Shit,” Solomon gripped the dash with one hand and put his arm against Chaos as they took a turn into the woods where the road wound like a coiled snake. The bumps rattled their brains and sent their heads nearly into the cab roof.
They suddenly jolted forward and the seat belt slammed Solomon’s chest with the shatter of glass. Dazed, Solomon fought to get his wind back, turning to check Chaos.
“Holy shit!” his uncle said, winded. “Everybody okay?” He looked behind them for several seconds before turning back around and sighing, “I think I lost him.” He put his forehead on the steering wheel briefly then looked up. “That tree… use to not be there. They planted the damn thing right in the middle of the road! There used
to be a road right here. We came down it many times.”
Solomon’s eyes landed on dark red soaking the back of Chaos’s head. “Shit, she’s bleeding!”
She reached with a hand where Solomon touched. “Doesn’t hurt,” she said.
He parted her hair and found the inch wide gash and looked back. “Fuck,” he realized, terrified. “Her head shattered the back glass, oh my God. Are you dizzy? Nauseous?”
She shook her head and Solomon examined her the best he could, panicking at the amount of blood.
“I feel okay, I promise,” she whispered. “A little pain is all.”
Solomon sank in the seat, pain wracking his body in the aftermath. He covered his face. “Now what?” he whispered. “We’re back to stuck in Salem’s fucking Lot.” He slammed his hand on the dash.
“We’ll walk the woods until we find a ride.”
“A ride?” Solomon nearly yelled. “The entire town is probably in on this sick fucking party!”
“Then we’ll walk to the next state if we have to,” he yelled back. “We’ve got weapons and I know how to survive off the land, we’ll make do. We’ll hide. Simple as that. Walk to the next state and find a place to hide until we come up with a plan.”
“Jesus,” Solomon croaked. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Come on,” Uncle Joe said, opening the door. “We need to get moving. It’ll be getting dark soon. We need to hide the truck so they think we’re long gone and don’t come hunting us.”
The thought of that gave Solomon’s muscles just the pep talk they needed to move his ass. The idea of being hunted by those animals while on foot was fucking unthinkable.
Between the three of them, they had the truck practically buried under two feet of foliage. He worried it looked too hidden, like a blob of greenery. Obvious.
There was no time to do anything different and so they set out in search of their first spot to camp.
Much later, they huddled in the dark, not chancing a fire, which meant a lot of slapping off mosquitos. He would rather have that than the cold, and their luck, an early winter would hit them tomorrow.
“I need to tell you something,” his uncle said.
Solomon followed the sound of his uncle’s voice to where he sat with his back against a tree. The confessional tone in the older man’s voice was a tad alarming. He really wasn’t sure he could handle any more bad news.
Chapter Twelve
“We lied to you about some things. To protect you,” he said, quickly, still sounding guilty.
Ah shit. Great.
“Your mother… well you know how she died, and you know your father didn’t take it well.”
A long silence made Solomon uneasy as he waited for the things he didn’t know. Or maybe he did. Maybe Uncle Joe was about to tell him the truth about his mother.
“I thought it was the grief that had him thinking the way he was, he was always calling and talking conspiracy theories around your mom’s death. He was driven with proving she’d been murdered.”
Solomon closed his eyes at that news, and Chaos wrapped her arms tighter around his upper thighs from where she sat between his legs.
“You were already traumatized,” his uncle went on, upset. “The last thing you needed was to be thinking your mother was murdered when there was absolutely no evidence of such a thing.”
“I don’t…” Solomon struggled to find the words to fit his thoughts and feelings. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because he kept saying things about cults,” his uncle said, adding to the slowly connecting dots. “He thought her death was cult related,” he explained. “Said there were signs around town that lead him to believe that, but none of them made any sense back then, it sounded… nuts,” he hissed. “Like a man overtaken with grief, you know?”
Solomon heard it loud and clear, a man pleading to be understood and not held guilty for lying.
“I know you did what you did to protect me, Uncle Joe.”
“I did!” he whispered, emotionally. “I did.”
His final words were firmer, full of conviction, while Solomon’s tongue remained glued to the bottom of his mouth. Numbness coated his insides as he sat there, waiting for his mind and body to respond to this news. He tried to help it by thinking what he should feel. Anger that he’d not been told his father thought his mother had been murdered? Would that have made a difference to Solomon’s young mind? He doubted it. Maybe. Or angry his father never told him? Disappointed that he’d gone all his life thinking she wasn’t murdered?
“Say something,” his uncle demanded. “Cuss me out, yell, whatever. I realize I was wrong.”
Solomon took a deep breath then finally managed the difficult words. “I have something to tell you too.”
It was his uncle’s turn to go quiet for a bit. “Alright,” he finally said like he was ready. “What you got? Lay it on me.”
Solomon’s tongue moved around in his mouth and Chaos found his fingers, lacing hers tightly with his as though to give him strength. She always seemed to read his body language just at the right time. “The psycho that tried to kill me,” he began quietly and slowly, pursing his lips while he toyed with how to say it. “Said something about my mother.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“No, I’m not.”
“What he say? So them sonofabitches killed her?”
“He implied that, yes.”
Solomon waited in the silence, hoping Uncle Joe would just ask questions and he’d answer.
“What exactly did he say,” he demanded.
Not the question he was hoping for. “You want all of it?”
“What do you mean?”
“He said some things… you won’t like.”
This time the silence was tense and Solomon felt the struggle in the air. “What the lying sonofabitch say,” he muttered.
He was right. “There is certainly a high chance he is lying, yes.”
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“He acted like she was a part of their group at one time. That she fell in love but not with her husband, with me. The orphan, Solomon Gorge.” The silence stretched and Solomon hurried to finish. “And… the queen new she’d try to keep me from them. So they…”
His uncle didn’t speak for nearly a whole minute, and Solomon’s hope that he’d counter what he said with some kind of evidence to prove otherwise never came.
“He could be lying,” Solomon said, hoping to get him back on the right track. “Right?”
His uncle let out a long breath.
“Oh come on,” Solomon cried, pissed now. “Say something that makes sense. He said she was their whore for quite a few years! Tell me you have something to counter that with!”
“Oh my God,” he muttered. “I don’t know, son, I don’t fucking know anymore, sis was… sis was sis, she was her own person, fun, carefree, independent.”
“But a whore Uncle Joe?”
“Not a whore!” he yelled.
“Thank you,” Solomon gasped.
“Master was tricked by the curse,” Chaos, said as though reminding Solomon.
He leaned and kissed her cheek. “I know, Beautiful,” he said. “You’re right. Could have been part of the tricking.” But the sickness in Solomon’s stomach said otherwise. It said that his mother was likely a part of what happened and his father had no idea. That he wasn’t positive as of yet. But then… he wasn’t dead so, maybe he was innocent. And if he wasn’t… what did that mean?
“What about dad?” Solomon decided he needed to know.
“What about him?”
“Do you think he could be a part of it? I mean if my mother was, why not him?”
“If he was, why would he be trying to prove they did it?”
“I don’t know, maybe he decided to get out, like her? They lived here, the entire town was in it.”
“I’m sure your dad loves you,” Chaos whispered.
The confidence in her word
s caught Solomon’s attention, like she knew something. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I had a dream. Is your dad Mr. Kratch?” she asked, looking up at him. “I dreamed he was hugging you and I could feel he loved you. And was sorry. It was one of the dreams I know is real. I always smell smoke when I wake up from those.”
“Mr. Kratch?” Solomon looked toward his uncle. “Does Dad have a nickname?”
“Not that I know of, not that one anyway.”
“Mr. Kratch is the nice man that used to sell the cat houses in town on the weekends. I used to talk to him when I went to the cemetery on Sundays to pick the dead flowers.” She hesitated then explained, “It seemed good to not have dead flowers with the sleeping.”
Solomon stroked Chaos’s hair methodically. “Does dad build cat houses?” he asked, just in case.
“No but… he used to build bird houses a long time ago.”
“He had those too,” Chaos said quickly. “Little cute ones. I always wanted one but didn’t have a bird to put in it.”
“Uncle Joe, you have a picture?”
“Uh, no, I sure don’t.”
“Can you try to describe him?” Solomon asked, the niggle inside him growing. God, he hoped she was right.
“Well, when I first met him, I wasn’t sure if he was happy or mad. One side of his face looked happy and the other side angry. And the tip of his pinky was missing.”
“Holy shit,” Uncle Joe said. “That’s my brother.”
“What else,” Solomon asked, not convinced still.
“He always had a wedding ring, a plain silver band. And I wished I’d see his wife but never did. And he had these pretty sea shells hanging from the mirror in the truck. I used to want to touch them. But I never did,” she said, like we might be worried she had.
“What color were the shells?” his uncle asked, astonishment in his tone.
“Like a shiny blue sky.”
“Your mother painted shells,” his uncle said. “When was this? Did he ask you any questions?”
“Lots,” Chaos said. “Then I couldn’t talk to him because…”
