by Sandy DeLuca
Without warning he pressed the lit end of the cigarette to the inside of my thigh.
“Sammy!” I tried to squirm away from him as pain seared the soft flesh on the inside of my leg. “Sammy, don’t!”
In a flash, his other hand left the wheel and slapped me across the face. The car veered crazily over to the left side of the road and I started to cry.
“You’ve got to do what I say—always.” He removed the cigarette from my leg. An angry red blister had already welled up in its wake.
I sat there in disbelief, crying, unable to comprehend what he’d just done to me.
“Are you gonna do what I say, or are you gonna make me burn you again?” He held the cigarette inches from my eye.
“I’ll do what you say.”
He flicked the Marlboro out the window then passed his finger over the wound it had created. I flinched. He kissed me lightly. My face still stung.
I looked at the emptiness around and ahead of us.
It’s just the drugs. He’s been driving for hours and he’s tired. He’ll be back to the old funny, normal Sammy once they wear off.
I thought then that he only got crazy when he was really high or in one of his rages.
I soon learned that Sammy’s madness had no boundaries.
* * *
The phone rings again. I force myself to answer.
“I’m not the same girl you knew,” I insist.
I hear a heavy sigh, a click and a dial tone.
His words ring in my ears.
I’m coming back for you, Julia.
CHAPTER 22
My mother is high on painkillers. The nurses tell me she’s been delirious since they began a new medication, but it’s the only way they can ease her pain.
I kiss her on the cheek.
“Julia, You’ve been alone in that house for so long. I hope you haven’t burnt it down by now.”
I hold back my anger as I look into her eyes. They’re dull, glazed over.
“Your Aunt Lil just left. She told me what she did—tried to do. Nothing could stop it.”
I pat her hand, remembering how I’ve see the dead as well. “It’s all right, Ma.”
“I’m in so much pain, but I think I’m gonna live. I think he’s gonna let me live.”
“Who?”
She closes her eyes several moments and then they flutter open. “I’m tired, so tired of all this shit. I’m fed up with all the secrets, the dark shit—and that madman. He killed my sister and now he’s coming after me. It’s all your fucking fault—going off like that in ’71.” She grabs my hand. “All he has to do is command them—you. He’s too shrewd and powerful for any of us.”
* * *
We were both flying on speed and washing away our thirst with soda when the pickup truck sped around us. As it passed, the driver tossed beer bottles out the window that flew directly in our path.
“What the fuck?” Sammy clenched his teeth. “Redneck farmer motherfuckers.”
I chalked it up as a rude thing to have done and forgot about it. But Sammy drove on even when the truck had vanished over the horizon before us, his eyes wild again and his mouth moving silently, as if he were swearing or muttering under his breath.
Five minutes later we passed the pickup parked on the side of the road. One of the guys was leaning lazily against the driver’s door and the other had made his way out of the high grass over to the right of the truck.
“Redneck’s taking a piss,” Sammy said, gazing into his rearview mirror. “Haystacks Calhoon and Farmer Brown out partying in the wee hours of the morning.”
The one leaning on the door was really cute. Sort of looked like Gerry; hair to his shoulders, faded jeans, arms folded like the world owed him one. I wondered if he smoked Marlboros when he had a girl beside him. Did he do dirty things to her while they drove along on these silent country roads? Did he burn her when she got scared, or felt uncomfortable? Sammy told me real men always did those kinds of things, and that the likes of Gerry were just poor excuses for his kind. But right then I missed Gerry more than I thought I ever could.
About twenty minutes later the truck once again passed, this time swerving back and forth in front of us. Sammy laid on the horn, his face flushed. “Fucking Rednecks!”
They stopped short in front of us.
Sammy slammed the breaks and I grabbed the edge of my seat as best I could. I saw another beer bottle tumble out of the truck window as tires squealed and the pickup rambled off in a cloud of dust.
As we continued along the highway, Sammy turned to me. “I could kill them,” he said quietly, evenly, “bury them out here in the woods. Nobody’d ever know.”
Joplin’s voice had been blasting from the radio, but for some reason everything had suddenly grown silent, the air stagnant, as Sammy’s words spilled free like a bad omen.
About five miles down the road the truck appeared again. This time it was parked in the middle of the road with the country boys standing on either side of it, making it virtually impossible for us to pass.
Our car rolled to a slow stop. Sammy watched them a moment then rubbed his right fist with his other hand then got out of the car. “Stay here,” he spat.
I was scared to death, unsure of what Sammy was going to do or what the other guys might do to him. I watched Sammy approach them with his usual arrogant gait, slowly closing the space between them until he was only a few feet from them. I could see all three were talking, and one of the rednecks was gesturing, but I couldn’t hear what was being said. I kept waiting for one of them to attack, for someone to throw a punch, but nothing happened.
Within minutes Sammy was back in the car. He shook his head and laughed. “Stupid drunk fucks think just ‘cause we got a Rhode Island plate and we’re under thirty we got to have a stash of weed to share.” He fished around in the back seat for the plastic bag filled with dope, then reached into the glove compartment for rolling papers. “They won’t let us pass until we get them high. I’ll humor them.” He looked at me and smiled, but it was a chilling smile, one void of emotion, cold and dead. “They got no idea who they’re dealing with here.”
A shadow appeared to my right. I looked up and a young man with chipped teeth and dazzling blue eyes smiled down at me. For a second I thought it was Gerry. “Well, look at this pretty thing here. How ya doin’, darlin?” He rested a rifle on the edge of the window. His sidekick stood beside him, a shotgun in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other.
I felt my heart lurch; I hadn’t seen the guns.
“I think Yankee Boy here is right,” the one with the beer said. “He’s got more than good dope to pass around.” He raised his beer, as if toasting Sammy.
“Drive into the woods over there and we’ll have ourselves some fun.”
Sammy smiled wide, nodded. I looked at the magazine under my feet. It was now wrinkled, the cover ripped off and hanging at an odd angle. The girl looked like she was dead now, face frozen in terror, arms dangling off to the side.
“Sammy, don’t make me do—”
“What’d I say, Julia?” he snapped, mostly for their benefit, I thought.
I forced a nod and looked away as he leaned over real close and whispered, “Trust me, it’ll be fun.”
* * *
A doctor enters the room, checks my mother’s blood pressure. “You’ll be fine,” he tells her, then turns to me, and for a moment it seems as though his eyes glow red. It has to be the light, I tell myself. Like in photographs, sometimes, it…it must be the light. “She’s a bit confused right now,” he says, “but your company will do her good.”
He spins on his heels. The faint scent of sulfur fills my nostrils.
My mother grabs my arm. “You’ve been involved with some bad stuff. People have died and at night the faces of the dead leer at me.”
She’s scaring me but I tell myself she’s old and sick and stoned on the drugs doctors keep pumping into her. “Maybe you need more pills,” I say, “something to
make you sleep.”
“No, he’s one of them. So are the nurses. Can’t you smell them? Can’t you see it in their eyes?”
A nurse enters the room. She has orange-red hair. Her white dress seems too short and tight for her plump body. She smiles and I notice lipstick on her teeth. “She’s a bit out of it,” she says so only I might hear.
“I know, it’s okay,” I tell her in an equally soft tone. “I’m just letting her talk herself to sleep.”
The nurse nods. “Visiting hours end in twenty minutes.” She turns, seems to glide through the door and out into the corridor.
Though my hands tremble, I silently assure myself again and again that everything is all right.
CHAPTER 23
My mother closes her eyes.
Raindrops trickle down the windows on the far wall.
“You should try to sleep,” I tell her. “You’ll be fine in a couple days.”
Her body relaxes, and just as I think she’s finally drifting off to sleep, she slowly opens her eyes. “There were a lot of girls,” she says. “Lots of murders, even before you got involved with him.”
I think about the Sunday I waited for Sammy outside the gym. I think about the girl who entered the cemetery and didn’t return.
Thunder crashes and my mother’s frail form jumps. Her face is so white.
“Do you want me to call the nurse?” I ask.
“They won’t give me more pills. They only want to taunt me.” With great effort, she wipes sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “You taunt me too. Why do you even bother coming? Your painting is much more important to you.”
Thunder rumbles again. I hear Sammy’s voice somewhere far off, hear the floor creak as if someone is just outside the door listening to us.
“Were all the bodies buried?” my mother asks.
“I’m going to call the nurse.”
“That ain’t no nurse.”
I can’t handle this and feel myself backing away from the bed, from my mother, from all this madness. “I’ll come back tomorrow night.”
“He’s tricking us. He’s summoning all the demons. They dance around us when we sleep. Lil and all her mumbo jumbo, weak efforts to stop it. You, you’re the one. You’re the bitch who caused all this shit.”
Finally, thankfully, my mother drifts off to sleep.
CHAPTER 24
I gather my bag and coat and leave the room quietly. The hospital hallway smells of sulfur and is silent, but for the pattering of rain.
A young man brushes by and our shoulders touch. He smiles at me. I notice his front tooth is chipped. I don’t believe this. My heart is racing and I smell the odor of pot and beer. I feel the stifling Southern heat when I look into his clear blue eyes. I listen to his footsteps as he makes his way down the hall. I hear him singing an old Joplin tune. I see a lonely road that once led both of us to Hell.
* * *
Once off-road, we followed the men to an old farmhouse then waited as they parked their truck inside a barn. They emerged seconds later and climbed into the back seat of the Mustang, sitting on our supplies and dope.
“We’re gonna take a little ride now,” the Gerry lookalike announced. He pointed to woods in the distance. “Head that way.” He sighed. “Me and my brother Randy here ain’t had good dope in months.”
We drove deep into the woods, down narrow, twisting paths, by fields, past another farm and then into more forest.
“Right up ahead there’s a clearing,” said Randy. Trees parted and what looked like a campground came into sight. “Stop here.”
We all got out of the car.
Sammy rolled a few joints, and we sat in a circle on the grass and smoked, passing one joint after another around, along with bottles of beer.
After about thirty minutes of smoking and drinking, the younger of the two men—the Gerry lookalike pointed his rifle at Sammy. “I’m gonna take her into those trees there. Wait here. When I’m done my brother can have her.”
“Shit, man, do her together if you want,” Sammy suggested. “I like to watch.”
The brothers looked at each other. They were so high and horny they forgot their rifles on the ground and scrambled closer to me.
Sammy smiled at me, eyes glazed. “Take off your dress, Julia.”
I was shaking. Sammy was the only guy I’d ever been with. He’d once tried to get me to have sex with Bob Stanni one night when we were all high but I’d started crying when Bob put his hand on my breast.
“Got to break her in a bit more,” Sammy had laughed as Stanni’s wife whispered in his ear.
“Yeah, in time they all come around,” Stanni said, his hand lingering longer than it should have.
The woods smelled of pot and beer. The brothers had moved so close to me that I could smell their sweat and feel their excitement.
I was scared of having sex with two strangers. My heart was breaking because Sammy had betrayed me and my trust in him.
It was sweltering in those woods, but I had the chills from head to toe. I looked into Sammy’s eyes and saw madness. I began to shake as I bent down and slowly lifted the edge of my dress.
“Take it off,” he said.
Thoughts of the Southern boys picking up their rifles and shooting me flashed through my mind. Thoughts of Sammy up and leaving me here in the middle of nowhere with them occurred to me as well. All the money was in the car. What was to stop him from leaving me stranded and in the hands of two men who’d probably do a lot worse to me than Sammy would ever do?
“You hear me, bitch?”
I pulled off my dress. I was nude underneath because I hadn’t worn a bra and Sammy had removed my panties earlier. Gerry came up behind me and Randy stood in front. Without a word, their hands were suddenly all over me, rough and hard, and I began to drift away as I watched the tree branches move gently back and forth, as the leaves rustled. I was back in my old bedroom, peering out the window on a hot summer night. The cats were perched on the sill, purring and nudging my cheek. The leaves were so green and the tall trees would shelter me if I closed my eyes and listened to their gentle rustling.
* * *
I bolt the door behind me and listen as the rain beats against the house. The things my mother said back at the hospital flood my mind as I remember the things I smelled and saw there.
Mother cat is staring up at me. Her eyes are yellow slits. Her tail flicks as thunder booms.
I crouch down and stroke her head. “It’ll turn to snow later when the temperature drops. Let’s turn up the thermostat and feed your babies.”
She rubs her head against me.
As I head to the kitchen for her food, I hear the rocking chair creak.
CHAPTER 25
I try to eat, but my stomach hurts.
Did I really leave my mother alone with demons?
This isn’t real. None of this is real.
I want to believe that, have to believe that right now. I have no choice. My mind feels like it’s coming apart at the seams, tearing beyond repair.
The rocking chair creaks again and a white shape flickers out of the corner of my eye.
The faint smell of sulfur comes to me but vanishes as quickly as it arrived.
* * *
From someplace faraway I heard Sammy say, “You’re a real woman now, Julia. You look so pretty.”
The trees rustled, things moved in the bushes. The forest had disappeared, Sammy and the men had gone away and I was eleven years old. It was a hot August night. I left my old bedroom and floated down the stairs, onto my blue two-wheeler in the yard. I rode my bike past the old mills, where my parents and my grandparents labored during the textile era. Long ago the buildings had been deserted, companies moved down South, because it was cheaper to produce cotton and wools there. But there were so many wonders in the old mill yards; paths that lead to the river, crows nested in window ledges and within the stone structures. If I stood on the hill, facing the railroad tracks, I had a clear view of the
waterfall. So I pedaled on, delighting in each sight, sound and discovery. Stray cats chased me, as if they knew my secrets, the moon shined above, guiding me.
Aunt Lil sat before me, cards spread out on the floor, a crystal dangling from her neck. “It’s not forever, Cara mia,” she whispered. Tears glistened in her eyes.
I felt Sammy’s breath on my face and a coppery stench filled my nostrils, made my stomach hurt.
I opened my eyes. I was covered in blood. Sammy had cut both men’s throats.
With their semen still dripping down my thighs, I screamed, spiraling away into the darkness and madness, where I saw Aunt Lil standing on her porch. “A new lesson today, Cara mia. How to take away the evil eye with oil and water.”
“I want to come home, Aunt Lil,” I whispered.
Sammy pushed Randy away, pulled me up and off of Gerry then licked the blood from my chest.
“Semen and blood,” he gasped. “There’s power in that.”
I babbled something unintelligible even to me.
“We got to bury them now.”
“I can’t—I—”
He slapped me hard on the side of my head, and I felt pain and a sudden dizziness followed by nausea.
“I had a few teachers when I was learning to box,” he said. “My greatest mentor taught me that a strong mental attitude is much more important than talent—it helps you overcome fear. Be strong, little Julia.”
I didn’t have enough strength or courage left to argue, so I gave him a submissive nod instead.
“You looked so pretty.” He pushed the car keys into my hand and kissed me roughly on the cheek. “Go get the shovel in my trunk.”
I wandered back to the car like a zombie, bloody and dazed.
