Unfolding

by Jonathan Friesen

  For ten minutes, it shook him, and it felt I was invading a moment not made for me. I could run out, but that would be more intrusive, so I grimaced my spine into a crouch and waited and watched, my eyes growing big.

  Saul finally moved toward the table, pausing to glance at the girl he fronted, whose confident face smiled down upon him. He grabbed his sleeve, rolled it up to the elbow, and reached for the knife. He cut himself slowly, deeply, the blade moving easily through his fleshy forearm. I couldn’t watch. I wanted him to stop, and my fingers clawed the bench.

  He glanced up again, and in the soft glow of the candle, crimson dripped down his arm and into the bowl.

  What is this place?

  Finally, he took hold of the towel and applied pressure to his fresh wound. He stood, let his gaze rise to heaven and prayed, before shuffling toward the door and vanishing. I didn’t dare stand, not for many minutes. But I could not remain; Arthur’s plan was in motion. He and Stormi would likely be waiting on me. I finally rose and slipped out, bursting to tell Stormi what I saw, hoping she could make sense of something.

  I made it halfway to the cabin, and heard more footsteps behind me. Arthur was running, a metal gas can clutched tight.

  “Here!” He pressed the can into my gut and jammed a set of twenty keys into my hand. “One of these should start one of the cars parked in front. There’s not enough gas in there to get far. I need to find where he stores the rest.”

  I’d not seen Arthur panicked before. The sight set my heart thumping. “Well, you’ll never guess what I saw in the prayer shed. Saul, blood-letting in front of a girl, or a photo of a girl, I mean, there were a whole bunch—”

  “Go, Jonah! Stormi’s in the garage.” He shoved me and raced back the way he came, quietly entering the cell across the courtyard from ours. My mind spun, caught hold of something solid, and I dashed toward Stormi.

  She stood outside the garage, all doors gaping behind her.

  “He did it?” Her eyes lit, and I handed her the gas can. She gave it a shake, and slumped. “There’s not enough here.”

  “I know. He’s getting more. But I have news too.” I handed her the key ring. “Wait, how do you know which key goes to which?”

  Stormi let her digits stroke the keys’ notches, as old Mr. Fredricks had run fingers over his Braille books. She paused on a key. “Caddy. This is an old Caddy.” She snaked through the garage, stopping at a rusted Cadillac parked in the front row. “This one. This one here. Fill it.”

  “But what if it doesn’t—”

  “It’s parked in front. I know the key. Better idea?”

  I didn’t move.

  “Fill it.”

  I popped the gas door and let a trickle ooze into the tank. Half spilled onto the ground, but I didn’t tell Stormi.

  “There’s even less here than I thought,” I called.

  Stormi hopped out of the car. “We need Arthur. He’ll bring more. He’ll bring—”

  Last July 4, Jimmy Kleinman waltzed over to his pyrotechnic display and flicked his cigarette lighter. Gullary’s designated fireworks man, his shows were large and unique, drawing folks all the way from Hinman to the spectacle.

  But the last explosions of the night—the grand finale—did not take place hundreds of feet up, as desired. Nope, they blew right there on the ground with a shake that felt atomic to those of us gathered fifty feet away. The first fireball set off others, and folks screamed as the ground shook. Jimmy was not hurt, and local conversation rewrote the ending as the best finale ever.

  The explosion that rocked the garage felt like that.

  “Arthur!” I dropped my gas can and sprinted back into the compound, Stormi at my side. Men stumbled about, dazed, their faces glowing orange in the fireball that burned on the far side.

  The cell Arthur had entered was engulfed, as were the adjacent ones.

  “No,” I whispered. “That was where he was!” I pointed. “He went in there!” Stormi shook and grabbed me by the arm. “This is our only chance.”

  I did not move.

  “He’s gone.” She hugged me quick and hard. “He’s gone for nothing if we don’t get out.”

  “There’s nothing left.” My mind spun. “He was right here, talking to me. Just like back home on the bus. Gina was right there, and then she wasn’t and now he isn’t.”

  It makes little sense now, what I said and the hesitance I displayed, but explosions steal a mind’s rational thought.

  “I need you to snap out of this now!” Stormi yanked hard and I stumbled, falling backward toward freedom. “Maybe he made it out. Maybe he wasn’t inside.” I grabbed Stormi by the shoulder. “We said we wouldn’t leave here without him!”

  “There is no him to leave with!”

  From behind the meeting room, Q appeared. “Water! Get water. Douse the houses on the west side! Douse, you fools!” His shocked gaze caught us, and he broke into a run.

  “Come on!” Stormi shouted, and we turned our backs on our friend, my friend.

  We jumped inside the Caddy, and Stormi fluttered the gas, the engine sputtering.

  “God, now would be a really good time to show up,” she hissed, and fluttered it again. The engine wheezed and coughed, and beneath her coaxing, roared to life. Stormi eased out, in front of a gasping Q, who slapped our trunk. With a near empty tank, conservation was more important than speed.

  “He’s dead.” My own voice sounded far away.

  Stormi checked her rearview and flicked the gas light on the console. “He knew it might happen.”

  “Did he tell you?”

  “I just knew.”

  I glanced at Stormi. She knew and she let him go. She stopped the bus in Gullary, but let Arthur race to his death. How little I understood the ways of prophets.

  CHAPTER 15

  Echoes of the explosion played over in my mind.

  The panic of our escape subsided, and was replaced by a sickening sense that I was the reason Arthur was no more. It was our friendship, not his and Stormi’s, that drew him to his death, and I closed my eyes and saw his parents.

  Arthur’s dad was the tax guy in town, punching out numbers and pushing up glasses with oversized frames. He worked late into the night, every night, even on Christmas Eve. He was a joke in Gullary, his work ethic simultaneously appreciated and mocked.

  He would be up now. Pushing his pencil and clattering his keys. Did he feel it? Did he feel a sudden hole in his world? Likely not. He probably readjusted those rims and kept on working.

  “Arthur’s dead,” I said quietly.

  Stormi peeked nervously in the rearview. “Yeah, a lot of people die.”

  How harsh the comment sounded, hanging all uncaring-like between us. Who was this girl?

  “But not a lot of them are my friends.”

  Stormi’s shoulders sagged, and she sighed. “I’ll feel it soon. I will. I promise. It’s just that right now, I need us to get as far away as possible.”

  The Cadillac was thankful for the sip, rewarding us with far more miles than I thought possible, but eventually it coughed and lurched. Once, and again.

  “That’s it.” Stormi pounded the wheel and leaned back, gravel crackling beneath the last spin of rubber. “That’s it.”

  We crunched to a stop. Far in the distance, a speck of light. The bar.

  “Come on, Jonah. This is where we walk.”

  We left our getaway vehicle with the keys in the ignition, and moved awkwardly through the darkness. We weren’t alone. The yowl of coyotes filled the night, and our pace quickened. But we had a beacon; how powerful was that one pinprick of light, drawing us forward.

  Our conversation fell in staccato bursts.

  “There are shrines back there,” I said.

  “Probably. It’s like I told you, it’s like a cult.”

  “Shrines to a bunch of teens.”

  Stormi thought a moment. “Probably teens like us that Winston brought in.”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t
matter now. Stormi, what do you want to do once we reach the place? Where do we go next?” My eyes grew suddenly heavy. “Arthur’s parents, we need to tell them.”

  “We can call.”

  Stormi hummed, softly and peacefully. I thought of home, of Mom and Dad, and of Gullary. I missed it—no, not true. I missed what it was before. When Gina and Arthur were alive, and dreams of Stormi were only dreams, comfortable and out of reach. Now I felt like one of Tres’s chess pieces, always moving, playing a game where kids die, Stormi could be mine, and my family was a memory. I felt older, stretched, unsettled.

  Noise from the bar reached our ears. Little had changed. The explosion that rocked our ears must not have reached this oasis, though the flatness of earth made me wonder how it could have been missed. Cars roared and people shouted, maybe the same people as before, unaware that my friend was now dead.

  We reached the crowd and again pushed inside. The bartender glanced up quickly and swore. “I did not think I’d be seein’ you again.” He glanced over our shoulder and toward the door. “There was three of ya, wasn’t there?”

  “Arthur,” I said. “There was an acc—”

  Stormi stepped hard on my foot. “He went home another way.”

  “Home, huh? You still have one? Then you best leave and you best leave now. Distance is your friend.”

  Stormi hung her shoulders. “We have no car, no truck.”

  “Then you’re in a heap.” He glanced at her sideways. “Unless you got something else you’d part with.”

  Stormi closed her eyes and reached beneath her top. “This.” She stroked the gold necklace. “Can you help us?”

  How willing she was to part with my gift. I shouldn’t have been affected. My gut shouldn’t have turned. Not after Arthur. Besides, the stupid thing was from Tres, and I was only the messenger. But, shoot, I was the messenger. It had come from my hand.

  “I gave you that,” I said softly.

  “I’m listening now.” The bartender held out his hand.

  Stormi turned to me, but did not risk my gaze. “Take it off. Please. What else do we have?”

  I slowly swept up her hair and fumbled with the clasp. Clumsy fingers finally achieved the goal, and I held it up before Stormi. She took hold and gently lay it on the bar.

  He picked it up, turned it over in his hand. “Where’d it come from?”

  That didn’t follow as being important. “Probably a jewelry store,” I muttered.

  “I’m talking about the who of it. Who gave this to you?” He peered at Stormi, who pointed at me, and I winced.

  “All right, um. It came from a guy I knew. A guy who wanted to share something with his granddaughter.” I lowered my head. “Name’s Tres, if you need to know.”

  “Tres.” He slammed it down. “Nope. I won’t take this. Don’t want nothin’ to do with this. Take it on out.”

  Stormi’s face reddened; gone was any desire to hold on to the gift. Clearly she was deciding how mad to get. Fortunately, we had other problems to deal with. “We need transportation, and this must be worth—”

  “More than you know.” He lowered his voice and pushed the necklace toward me. I slipped it into my pocket.

  We stood there, lost, stuck. I must have looked the part, as a minute passed and the bartender rolled his eyes and drummed his fingers.

  “Fine. You didn’t walk here,” he continued. “What happened?”

  “Our car is sitting in the road, out of gas.”

  “Make?”

  “It’s a Cadillac,” Stormi said. “Low miles. New timing belt. They go first on those engines.”

  He looked off, dug in his pocket, and slammed down a set of keys. “Rusty Chevy truck parked around back. Old as the hills, but twice as tough. You take it. You’ll need it. I’ll have one of my guys outside pick up your ride. Keys in the ignition?”

  “Yeah, thank you,” I grabbed the keys. “Why are you helping like this? You don’t know our names. I don’t know yours.”

  The bartender closed his eyes. “Fourteen. For years, my name was Fourteen. You ain’t the only ones to make it out. And if anyone else does, I’ll be here.”

  We backed toward the door. Stormi wanted to leave, was trying to—I could see her tensing—but she lost her fight.

  “What do you know about Tres, anyway?” she asked.

  Fourteen broke into a broad smile. “Most honorable man I’ve ever met. And the angriest. I expect him to be back around soon. I’ll tell him you passed through.”

  “Rather you didn’t,” Stormi said. And she was gone.

  Fourteen chuckled. “She can’t run forever, kid.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  Fourteen picked up his paper and settled into his seat. “I’m a bartender. You hear quite a bit. That, and Tres was here not five hours before you came through the first time. Good man. On a mission, I’d say.”

  I turned and joined Stormi behind the bar. Who was this Tres? A nobody? That was the line in Gullary. A petty thief. One to pity, according to Mom. One to fear, according to Q and Stormi. One to respect, according to Fourteen.

  I remembered all the days I treated him like a chore, as though he was hardly human.

  “Keys.” Stormi softened. “It’s just us. Like I planned it. The road and us. A new vehicle the police won’t be chasing. Tres likely thrown off our scent.” She reached for the keys. “We might have our lives back.”

  “No. We’ll never have them back,” I muttered. “They’ve been purchased, right? Arthur, maybe Winston soon, once Q has his way. Our lives are worth more. They have to be.”

  We drove into the night, reached the highway, and Stormi soon took the fork north into Kansas. North felt broad and open, and with every mile, Stormi relaxed.

  Maybe my Stormi.

  That night I dreamed of Stormi, road trips, and the curves of each.

  Unlike most journeys through the subconscious, the dream stuck with me into morning, plastered a goofy smile onto my face all day. The particulars will remain mine alone, but suffice it to say that it was filled with words of affection and melodramatic moments. We swore our devotion to each other, ’til death do us part.

  ’Til death do us part. It’s an overused phrase, until death actually touches you.

  Stormi tapped my leg. “Wake up. We’ll stop here.”

  I worked my body upward. “Here?”

  Morning had not come, and somewhere in the expanse that is western Kansas, guided by stars or gift, Stormi had turned off the highway and then turned again. She had found “here.”

  “We’ll be safe for the night.” She eased into a cleared expanse between fields. “Tomorrow, we can choose where to go, who to be.”

  “Given limited resources, I think I’ll stay me.” I lowered my window and listened to the sound of wheat rustling around us. Pushing out, I wandered the clearing, the unnatural clearing. There should have been a field here.

  “This place feel off to you?” I called.

  “It’s over here, Jonah. Go turn on the headlamps.”

  Stormi’s voice was caught up by the wind, but her form stood not far in the distance. I ducked inside the truck, did as instructed, and joined her.

  She stood frozen in front of a cement cauldron. It was circular and massive, maybe fifty feet across, and who knew how deep.

  Inside, in heaps and shadows, thousands of objects. Broken plastic and glass, twisted metal and a tennis ball, and thousands of things hid by the night. I glanced at Stormi, who nodded at the plaque on the cement:

  WINDROW, KANSAS

  May 23, 1998 Population: 410

  May 24, 1998 Population: 0

  Here we gathered after the storm.

  Here we gathered all that we lost,

  and moved on.

  “I’ve heard of these. It’s a storm cemetery. A tornado hit right here and the whole town took off.” I glanced around. Four wooden structures stood nearby, bent with the weather, bent like me. A house, a garage, a silo, and a sh
ed.

  “Must have been a scary night,” I whispered, recalling the images on the SMX museum’s walls.

  Stormi walked back to the truck and soon we stood in darkness. She returned and took my hand. “I think it was. For tonight, what do you pick—house or garage?”

  I’d seen too many horror movies. “Garage. Unless it’s filled with pitchforks and stuff, then the house.”

  The side door creaked open and we entered. The moon shone through where glass had been, and in its light I found a smooth stretch of ground, and lay down in the dirt. My back slowly loosened, and I found comfortable. Stormi shifted and rolled. Shifted and rolled. I found another dream, one where the darkness around me vanished into light, and a scream announced the breaking of dawn. I sat up quickly.

  “Jonah. And hello, Stormi. It’s been some time.”

  Tres wandered around the perimeter of the garage, pausing to peek out the cracks in the wall.

  “Tres.” I rubbed my eyes, trying to make sense of where we were, how the three of us found each other. “Are people out looking for you too?”

  “No, Jonah, I done served my time long ago. I served it and then some.”

  Stormi pressed into me, her hand squeezing my thigh. “What do you want?”

  Tres knelt on the ground and scribbled in the dirt before taking a seat. He reclined against the wall, resting forearms on his knees. “Guess I be wanting a lot of things.”

  “Arthur’s dead,” I said, and Tres’s gaze shot up.

  “Arthur, my chess friend. That is unfortunate. I’m sorry, Jonah.” Tres shook his head. “That . . . I did not see that coming.”

  I knew I was supposed to be afraid of him—Stormi sure was—but his were the first comforting words I’d heard since the old guy from the Hive touched my back.

  “Well, I’ll get right to the wanting question, but first I need to tell you a story.” Tres let his head thump back against the wall. “You two like stories?”

  No and yes, Stormi and I answered simultaneously.

  “This tale begins decades ago, with a man named Everett—Jonah Everett the first.”

  “My granddad.”

  “The same. Now shut up.” He reached in his pocket and lit a cigarette, exhaling long and slow. “Your grandpa, the mayor of your fine town, grew sick and tired of all us miners and our rascally ways. Too much drinkin’ and carousin’ for his liking, too much petty theft in Gullary. So he and the town council, the Circle they was called, took matters into their own hands. They sectioned off a portion of the town jail for us ‘petty offenders.’ No trial, no judge. The Circle held folks as they saw fit.”