The Rules of Burken

by Traci Finlay

  I don’t know what propelled me toward Lake City, of all places. When I was younger, our family would drive over every Christmas to the Festival of the Pines, then again for the Greatest Fourth in the North carnival, where Ian would spin the teacups so fast, Chrissy would throw up. Other than that, Lake City’s biggest accomplishment is their self-proclaimed title of the “Christmas Tree Capital.” Big deal, when all of northern Michigan is a mess of evergreens.

  I downshift to a trot, civilization and Lake Missaukee visualizing ahead. I guess I’m here, although I’m not exactly sure what here is, or how this is any safer than Cadillac. I don’t know if Ian can run fifteen miles, but I do know he can’t carrying an axe, so I skip over a wooden fence and a plot of grass, and finally stop on the beach of Lake Missaukee. Besides a parked minivan with two teenagers making out inside, the beach is deserted. My breathing a humid disaster, I circle the sand with my hands on my hips, taking in my surroundings and dubbing this a mistake. Every building lining the street shies away from me with dark windows and locked doors, probably having been closed for hours. I keep reaching in my pocket for my phone; I want to know the time and this sucks, but Ian would be able to track it, and it’s better off on the table.

  I kick off my shoes and wade in the water, and then—screw it—I dive in, fully clothed, and the shocking cold temperature feels amazing on my overheated body. “Don’t judge me,” I say to the moon as I float on my back. “I have no place to go. Nowhere to be.” I look down at my cut-off jean shorts and faded yellow tee sucking to my body—I’m probably drier now that I jumped in the lake. With my ears submerged, I can actually hear my heartbeat, rapid at first, then slowing as my breathing regulates.

  I pull out my ponytail, and my hair drifts in long wheat-colored cords. Assuming the star position, I glare at the idle town around me. The teenagers from the van have spread a towel on the beach and are flat-out having sex. I’d feel uncomfortable, but honestly, I was here first.

  “Where is he?” I whisper to the moon. Tears prick my eyes and plunge into the water. I’m homeless with only the (soaking wet) clothes on my back. Ian will probably find me sprawled in Lake Missaukee and drown me.

  That morbid thought sits me upright, and I splash out of the water, wringing my shirt and twisting my hair into a bun. I sigh and sponge through the sand, irritated that the humping teenagers are shocked and acting like they didn’t know I was there, and now I feel like a pervert. I pretend I’m blind until I reach the sidewalk, wondering if she’ll be able to get him back up again, or if I’m just the world’s biggest cock block.

  The headlights of a car blaze at me as I cross the street. A drunk guy flops his head out the back window and garbles a derogatory pun about my drenched state, and I cock my head because I’ve been in this comatose town for fifteen minutes, and does everything have to relate back to sex? People must really, really be bored here. I can’t say I blame them.

  I’m heading east on Houghton Lake Road and thus, farther from Cadillac. It doesn’t take long to squish through the rest of the town, and if I thought the town was dark, I’m not ready for the blackhole that is the outskirts. A couple houses scatter amongst long plains of corn and trees and nothing, and then I spot a dirt road secretly curving into a thick forest.

  A snowmobile trail. I glance around and duck down the path. If only I could get inside somewhere. All this open space is making me vulnerable. But at this hour—it must be after midnight—I’m borderline lost, hands-down scared, overly exhausted, and soaking wet. Plus, it’s frustrating knowing that all sixty people in this Podunk town are having sex, and I’m tugging on my underwear and wondering if my orange is still on the table.

  I trudge on, trying to make sense of why I’m even doing this. Ian is my life. I can’t think of one time in my twenty-four years that he’s ever taken advantage of me, betrayed me, or hurt me. Sure, we have brother/sister squabbles—don’t all siblings?—but Ian has always done everything he could to make me a better person. He sacrifices; that’s just how he is.

  I think about the night our mom left. I remember lying in bed wondering what happened, how I was suddenly a thirteen-year-old girl with no mom. I felt guilty, angry, lonely, and forsaken. Then Ian came and silently stood in my doorway, watching me break down. He knelt by my bed and gathered me in his arms like he was a father and not so much a brother who’d just been abandoned by his mom, as well.

  I had wept into his chest. “A couple hours ago we had a mom. And now we just don’t.”

  Then, like the chains behind Jacob Marley’s ghost, more horrible memories follow. And it’s the shock of change that always delivers the most blinding blows. The shock of betrayal will fester later, right when I think my capacity of pain has peaked. But it just launches me into a whole new realm of pain. Pain that goes beyond feeling and penetrates my other senses. Pain that has textures, colors, and tastes. Pain that has faces and voices and clashing personalities.

  That familiar wave of shock saws into me now—only a few hours ago I lived with my brother, we wrestled in a ditch. Now I’m somewhere in Lake City with no place to go because he’s trying to kill me.

  A sob catches in my throat. Placing my hand over my mouth, I fall to my knees. My other hand follows, anticipating a riot of sobs, but something isn’t right. My knees are cushioned in something soft and cold. Looking down, I realize I’ve been trekking on sand. I pause my tears and look around. The path is too wide to be a snowmobile trail, and the sand is baffling. Where am I? Have I wandered onto a rapist’s paradise in Michigan’s most boring and sexual city? Because that’s something that would happen to me.

  I see a clearing ahead and stand, stumbling toward it. And sure enough, a deserted hunting cabin dollops in the middle of the clearing, flanked by a propane tank that Ian would call a pig. A naked clothesline stretches across the backyard. I eye it suspiciously. There’s no way anyone lives here (except maybe a rapist).

  I step onto the tiny excuse for a porch (or a murderer), trip over a bucket (or a cannibal), and jerk on the door (or Ian).

  “Of course,” I say to the locked doorknob, and I meander to the window to peek in. Sheer drapes blanket across the inside, but cast hints of a couch, a TV, and a dinette, and it’s only by the grace of the moonlight that I can see anything at all.

  I feel like Goldilocks as I decide to try the back, but I find an identical locked door. I lean against the paneled siding, and, realizing I’ve graduated from being locationally challenged to officially lost, I slide my butt slowly down the wall. My wet jeans make a funk, funk, funk sound against the aluminum panels until my tailbone slams onto the ground, and I resume my sobbing.

  The sobs turn into full-blown wails mixed with dramatic gasps, and I storm around the little yard, punching in windows, snapping clotheslines, and kicking at the door, consequently breaking it open. With a poignant scream, I march inside and slam the door behind me. I might as well have just sent up a flare for Ian.

  I’m too deep in the woods to even entertain thoughts of electricity. I squint around the one-room cottage, the moonlight butter-knifing through the sheers. I wipe the tears off my face, barricade the doors, and fling myself onto the couch … that feels like burlap.

  Despite the rough cushions snapping at my skin, my damp clothes, the hunger pains in my stomach, and my parched throat, I fall into a disturbing sleep, half-dreaming that I’m snatching peeks of Ian looking at me through the cottage window. I even have dreams within dreams, where I wake up and Ian is standing over me with his axe.

  Between nightmares, I lie awake and imagine how different things would be if I’d just turned the wrong way, maybe gone a little slower while Ian was swinging that axe. I could be dead right now. People would be talking about it; I’d be on the news. Charlotte Stahl died today. Really? How? Axed to death by her brother. Wow, I guess she should have…

  What? What’s the predicate to that sentence? What have I done that constitutes having to run for my life? My mind replays the scene over and o
ver, and I kick and dodge my way through so many nightmares, I eventually tumble onto the floor.

  I sit up and look around, my heart leaping around inside my ribcage. I feel someone in the room. I can’t spring off the floor fast enough. I finally stagger from the cottage, barreling down the sand path as fast as my gelatin legs can go. I lose count of how many times I trip over a root or step in a pothole, slamming into the ground. My body is shutting down, and not just from fear—I haven’t eaten or drunk anything since yesterday afternoon, and I’ve run nearly twenty miles since then.

  By the time I’m back on Houghton Lake Road, a narcoleptic gray light hovers in the air. The sun is about to rise, and, realizing that no one is following me, I force myself to calm down and steady my breathing as I head back toward downtown Lake City.

  I have no money and no idea how I’ll get food and water. But one thing at a time—first, I need to get as far away from the woods and the darkness and creepy little houses as possible. I want human contact more than I want sustenance right now.

  Foster’s Supermarket is the first structure I see silhouetted against the morphing gray-purple glow. I meander through the empty parking lot and stop at the door, waiting for it to open. Within five minutes, a brown Buick Regal putts into the parking lot and a white-haired man almost stalls out in front of me, pushing his equally white-haired wife out the door while he parks.

  The lady clutches her purse as she peers at me through her cataracts. I can’t blame her—I can’t imagine how terrible I look. I give her a crooked smile, but she raises her eyebrows, tightens her lips, and looks away.

  I clear my throat. “Excuse me, do you know the time?”

  She raises a shaky wrist and looks at her watch. “It’s just before seven.”

  “Thank you.” I smile politely. “Um, so, they open at seven?”

  “Mm-hmm.” The woman clutches her purse a little tighter while her husband shuffles up next to her.

  He eyes me through his bifocals. “Hi there,” he barks as he jingles his keys in his pocket.

  “Hi. Getting groceries today?”

  “What was that?” he whistles.

  “I said are you getting groceries this morning?” I say louder.

  He chuckles and tugs at his callused earlobe. His hearing aid jostles around in his ear like a squirming fetus. “Sorry, honey. You’re gonna have to speak up.”

  “Can I have a dollar?” I shout.

  The woman glares at me while her husband mouths my words, and his face lights up when they finally register. “Oh, oh, does the lady need a dollar?” he asks his wife, reaching for his wallet.

  “Mmyes,” she answers as the front door opens, and she brisks past me into the store. I grin as this decrepit old fart of a godsend sifts through his wallet and hands me a five-dollar bill.

  “Thank you!” I cry, and he pats my shoulder and hobbles behind his wife, chortling.

  Five dollars! I never knew I could be so excited over this sum of money, nor would I have ever dreamed of begging money off an old man. But I’m officially a beggar now. Besides, I saw how happy his gesture made him, how a light spring highlighted his slow shuffle. I imagine a thick cloud of dust erupting from his chortler; who knows how many years it’s been since he last chortled?

  I skip inside and follow my olfactory senses to the bakery. Purchasing a glazed donut, a hot chocolate, and snatching up two bottles of water, I smash a dollar and twenty-seven cents in my pocket and exit the store.

  I survey the parking lot. Cars are starting to drift in, and I evaluate each person as I chug the first bottle of water. I don’t even know what to look for; I need to get as far away from Cadillac as possible, so interrupting a mother making a quick milk-run to ask if she could drive me to Ohio is out of the question.

  A dowdy orange Dodge Ram pulls into the parking lot, and I perk up. That looks like something that has high intentions of traveling. I shove the rest of the donut in my mouth and suck the sugar off my fingers as I watch a churlish man get out of the driver’s side. To my surprise, the passenger door opens, and down drops a pudgy boy with his hair shaped into an atrocious mullet, his bare belly protruding between a barbeque-stained tank top and oversized camouflage pants. The man, in his mid-thirties and sporting a pair of baggy jean shorts, ghastly hunting boots, and a majestic buck splayed across his sweatshirt, slaps a worn-out Toronto Maple Leafs hat on his thinning sand-colored hair and heads toward the store.

  I have to consciously hold my mouth closed as I watch the pair, and he rakes his eyes up and down my form as a huge grin smears across his face, his teeth the color of healing bruises.

  “Mornin’, ay,” he calls with a Canadian accent, and he tips the bill of his hat at me.

  “Hi,” I squeak.

  He stops and squints at me. “You headed somewhere?”

  I take a swig of hot chocolate in an attempt to hide a shudder. “I don’t know. Are you headed somewhere?” His grin is big and cheesy, and I wonder if I just accidentally said the magic password that will land me up on the beach towel tonight. Did I just make him think I’m a prostitute? At seven in the morning in front of a grocery store? In front of his kid? Wow, Lake City. Just … wow.

  “Buddy and me are headed to Bay City. Just grabbin’ some stuff for the road and we’re out.” Fer the rood an we’re oot.

  I blink. “Bay … Bay City?” He might as well have said Disney World. Bay City is over a hundred miles from here.

  He chuckles. “Yeah. You’re headin’ that way, too, ay?”

  I shift. “Umm…” My eyes drop to the pudgy little boy, who looks at me like I’m an ice cream cake, which is fine—a kid can look at me like I’m an ice cream cake, and it’s harmless. But when a grown man looks at me like that...

  I look back at him as he waits patiently, and he takes his hat off to run his hands through his hair. That’s when I see a swastika tattooed on the side of his partially shaved head.

  “Nope. No, I’m good. Thanks.” I step off the sidewalk toward the parking lot because there’s no way in hell I’m getting in a car with him.

  “You sure?” he calls. And just as I’m about to flick him off, a black Mustang squeals into the parking lot, the driver resembling Ian to a horrifying T. I freeze. The maniac lurches into a parking spot and stretches himself out of the car, clearly not Ian, but the piss is already scared out of me, reminding me that time is ticking and my choices right now are swastika or Ian.

  Swastika, I guess? Dear Lord, what has my life become…

  I turn around. “Listen, I don’t have any money.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t matter. I’m goin’ that way anyway.” Gooin that wee anywee.

  I swallow and step toward him. “Okay,” I whisper, and ironically, my first thought is how Ian would kill me for doing something like this.

  I think his face is going to disassemble. “All right. We’ll discuss payment later,” he says softly, and turns to go into the store with Spanky in tow.

  Shit. What did I just sign my soul over to? This guy is going to rape me, kid or no kid. My heart thuds. Should I stay here and get murdered? Or go with this guy and travel a hundred miles to get raped? I grab the back of my neck and spin a few circles.

  Neither choice is going to end well. Both may end in murder. Why are all roads leading to the death of Charlotte? What have I done to deserve this?

  I hear the thump of boots behind me and turn around.

  “You ready, miss?”

  I woke with a start. Someone was in my face, and there was definitely a flame between me and the rude awakener. “Hey!” I shouted and instinctively raised my pillow, about to use it as both a baseball bat and a fire extinguisher.

  But I heard a sweet giggle and caught a glimpse of pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles. Somehow, flames weren’t as intimidating when founded upon pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles.

  “Happy Birthday,” Chrissy chirped, inching the cupcake closer to my face. “Make a wish.”

  I laughed a
nd relaxed back onto my pillow. “I wish that you never scare me like that again.” I propped on my elbow and looked up at her. “And that you can sleep over tonight. Can I make two wishes?”

  Chrissy shrugged her fragile little shoulders. “Sure. Especially since one of those wishes is already granted. And I’m not talking about the ‘never scaring you’ one.” She winked and jostled the cupcake in front of me.

  I leaned forward and poofed the candle out. Then I reached to hug my best friend. Chrissy latched a tight grip around my neck. “Happy Birthday,” she repeated.

  “Thank you, Chrissy.”

  She retreated from the embrace and stood, placing my cupcake on my nightstand. “I’ll see you at school, okay? Remember not to bring lunch! I’ve got that taken care of.” She fluttered out the door calling a quick, “Love ya!”

  I shook my head and grinned. Looking back at my cupcake, I mumbled, “I love you, too, Chris.”

  I swung out of bed like a tetherball and stood in front of my dresser, gazing in the mirror. I didn’t look any different, now that I was twelve. But then it was silly to think that I’d wake up one morning and look as ravishing and grown up as Chrissy.

  Chrissy was going to be thirteen in a few months, but she looked at least fifteen. And with her potion-green eyes and heart-shaped dimples framed by lengthy chocolate spirals, I wondered why she was even friends with me. I gazed at my androgynous face in the mirror, thinking that if not for my long hair, people would mistake me for Ian Stahl’s little brother. Especially with my stick-figure body.

  Chrissy was already wearing a bra. When I voiced my disgust one day while comparing bodies with her, she scoffed. “Then stop all the running, Charlotte. You never eat, and all you do is run around with your brother. If it weren’t for your blond hair and blue eyes, people would mistake you for a holocaust survivor.” I noticed she didn’t say the same for Ian, who had filled out nicely after puberty.