Before I Disappear

by Danielle Stinson

  “Why?” I repeat Charlie’s question. “What did he do to you?”

  “He’s a freak.” The boy’s black eyes narrow to knife points. Eyes I could’ve sworn were blue a few hours ago. “The teacher asked him what he thought about Fort Glory. He said it looked like the inside of a snow globe.”

  My hands tremble. I want to lash out. I want to hurt this boy the way he hurt Charlie, but it will only make things worse. I know because we’ve been here before.

  “Get lost,” I snarl.

  The boys run away, laughing. When they’re gone, I turn to watch Charlie dig the egg out of his pocket. It’s one more problem. One more complication in a life already full of them, but I sag with relief when I see it cradled in his palm.

  We don’t speak as we climb into Rusty. We both know words won’t fix what just happened, just like we both know it will happen again. Rowena and Blaine and all the tabloids might be convinced that some dark force is at work in Fort Glory—a force that’s turning the people here violent, but I know the truth: There are boys like that in every town. Boys that become men. One of their kind has sent us packing from state to state, all the way here to Fort Glory.

  I am done running.

  My cheek stings, but I forget about the pain when I see Charlie curled in on himself, his forehead resting against the glass that’s stained white by his breath. My fingers itch to stroke his face the way I used to do when he was little and Mom was working the late shift. I remember watching him sleep and thinking how beautiful he was. How I would do anything to protect him. Only how am I supposed to protect him from the entire world?

  Seconds pass while I sit there, my hands on the wheel and Charlie hunched beside me. The image of him on the ground fills my mind. Suddenly, I can’t get enough air.

  “We can’t keep doing this, Charlie. For once, just once, can you please try to fit in?”

  “Everything has a proper place, Rosie.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re running out of towns to try on for size,” I snap, more sharply than I intended. I take a deep breath. “You don’t have to win any popularity contests, but couldn’t you just try to be—” Normal. I stop myself from saying it out loud.

  The word hangs between us all the same.

  On the drive back to the park, every minute of silence makes me feel worse. I should take it back. I should tell him I didn’t mean it, but I bite my tongue and keep driving. I want to build a life here. For us to have a chance at that, I need Charlie to hear what I’m telling him.

  It isn’t until we’re back at the trailer that Charlie speaks. “I’ll try, Rosie.” He leans into my window, his expression so earnest it tears at my heart. “I promise. I’ll try.” He gazes at the sky, and a shadow flits across his face. He makes that pained expression he’s been making more and more since we came here. “Can I come with you?”

  Weeks pass where Charlie barely speaks. Already today he’s asked me for three favors. It feels important, but my cheek throbs, and I’m late, and this is just one more thing I can’t deal with right now.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  He shifts so that his body is facing the woods. “The music in the dark. It’s coming faster now. The cracks are getting wider.” He turns back to me, his eyes sadder than I’ve ever seen them. “I’ll be here. Soon. The dark is coming, and I don’t want to be alone.”

  I close my eyes and grip the wheel. “Frankie won’t like it. Stay here and do your homework. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “You promise, Rosie?”

  The question is a sucker punch. For a moment, I sit there, emotions clogging my throat. “I’ll come back, Charlie. I will always come back.”

  I am not Dad.

  Charlie’s shoulders relax. “I know. The music in the dark is loud, but it’s not as strong as the song inside of us. You’ll feel it. Right here.” He fists his hands over his chest. “It’ll bring you halfway there. The rest you’ll have to do on your own. Remember, Rosie. Promise me you’ll remember.”

  I nod even though I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  Watching him back away from the truck, a small part of me caves. Just like it always does.

  “Wait,” I call out. “Let me clean that cut.”

  Charlie shakes his head, his violet eyes anxious. “No, you should go. Right now.”

  “Are you s—”

  “Goodbye, Rosie.” Charlie closes my door, ending the conversation.

  I use the crank to roll down the window between us, but the words I need jam in my throat.

  When I was little, Mom was always offering me pennies for my thoughts. Even back then I could feel it—the wall inside of me that separates the things I feel from the things I can say. Most of the time, I’m glad it’s there, but there are moments, like this one, when I’d give anything to blast a hole right through it.

  Only, I don’t know how.

  I hit reverse. Charlie stands there, one hand raised and the other still pressed to his chest as he watches me drive away. His face grows smaller and smaller in the rearview. I wait for it to disappear completely. Only then do I allow myself to cry.

  * * *

  I arrive at the Hands for Hearths office with five minutes to spare. For a moment, I sit in my truck, staring at the red door.

  We lived near a Hands for Hearths neighborhood in Oklahoma. I can still see the rows of neat houses, hear the hammers as they framed one out a few hundred yards from our trailer. I remember thinking how special that was. To help construct the house that would shelter you and the things that matter most. Home. More than a word. More than a place. More than four walls and a roof meant to keep out the rain.

  On move-in day, the volunteers held a small party for the family on the front lawn. I’ll never forget the father’s expression as he opened the door to his home for the first time. It represented everything I wanted to feel. That was five states, three years, seventy-eight paydays ago.

  The application feels like a three-hundred-pound anvil sitting at the bottom of my bag.

  I smooth out my diner dress and apron. Then I walk up the cement path to the building.

  The foyer inside is decorated with framed blueprints. I approach a sixteen-hundred-square-foot ranch with a porch, and I catch my breath because it is so beautiful.

  There’s a plan just like this hidden behind one of the maps in my room. I keep it with some other things Mom doesn’t know about. Things that belong to a ghost.

  The worst thing about my father is that I still remember him. You can’t miss someone you don’t remember, and I still miss him. Every day.

  It’s strange. I don’t recall the exact color of his eyes, or his favorite TV show, or even if he read to me. What I remember is the taste of the butterscotch candies he kept in his pocket and the calluses on his hands as they helped mine hold a hammer. In my memory he’s a giant. Seven feet tall with work boots that bent the floorboards. The details of his face have gone sketchy, but when I think of him now, I imagine the lumberjack on the Brawny paper towels we can’t afford.

  Mom used to keep a photo of him tucked under her mattress. It was taken on their wedding day. My mother in white was a sun whisper; a spot of light so soft and bright it hurt your eyes to look at it. And even though she was lovely in a way that aches, she could never be more beautiful than he was when he was looking at her.

  Mom took the picture, but I still have the plans. The ones he drew of the house he was going to build for her. Like his memory, the pencil marks have begun to fade, and the print is barely legible. It was their dream, and he’s not here to give it to her.

  But I am.

  FOUR

  Outside the Hands for Hearths office, I grin at the red application folder before I tuck it into my bag. The meeting went much better than I could’ve hoped, considering I spent the first ten minutes making up excuses for why Mom wasn’t there.

  Getting her to the main interview on Friday isn’t going to be easy.

  My mind i
s so preoccupied with the problem of my mother, it takes me a moment to notice the whistling. High-pitched and whining. I pause a few yards from Rusty and scan the empty street. That’s when I notice the sky. I could’ve sworn it was sunny a second ago. Now the clouds are dark, low, and a sickly shade of green. They’re moving fast. Racing each other across the horizon in the direction of Fort Glory like waves drawn in by the tide.

  Something tickles my nose. At first, the current is barely noticeable. Like the whistling, it builds until every hair on my body is crackling.

  Pop. There’s a drastic shift in air pressure. The whistling cracks like glass in my ears, fracturing into a series of jarring notes that slam through my skull.

  Oh God. This sound. It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard. A machine-gun blast in my brain. A vibration in my bones that wants to break me into pieces.

  Two men in coveralls burst out of the mechanic shop across the street. Like me, they stare at the sky with their hands pressed over their ears.

  I’m sure the noise is going to kill me when, finally, it breaks. There’s a CRACK like a hundred cannons firing as a thick band of lightning splits the sky. A tremor runs through the ground, shifting the earth under my feet. Car alarms blare. Windows shatter on both sides of the street.

  Glass is still raining down on the pavement when another wave of sound hits me dead-on. It rolls through my body and into my brain, burning through my synapses. The sheer force of it bowls me over, and then the pavement is there to meet me. Starbursts of pain explode behind my eyelids.

  Gravel bites into my palms, my cheek. I try to lift myself up, but it feels like the entire weight of the sky is pinning me to the asphalt.

  Black spots are dancing at the edges of my vision when the pressure in my head finally lets up. When it goes, the pain goes with it.

  Cold, clean air fills my lungs. The first breath burns, but by the second, my head has begun to clear. I peel my face off the ground and look over the trees in the direction of Fort Glory. There’s no sign of the weird lightning, and the clouds aren’t racing anymore. Instead, they hang overhead like downy pillows ready to smother us.

  The sky. It’s too heavy.

  My stomach lurches as my body fights to regain its equilibrium. A quick sweep of the street reinforces the feeling of wrongness. The men from the auto-body shop are sprawled out on the ground. One of them is knocking the side of his head like he’s trying get water out of his ears.

  Blood drips down the side of his neck onto his stained coveralls.

  A moan echoes down the street. A few yards away, a woman in a blazer is kneeling in front of a store window. She stares at her reflection in the glass, her pupils fully dilated and glittering with a darkness that makes my blood run cold. A jagged sob racks her body as she drives her fists into the sidewalk. Again and again and again.

  The pavement runs red with her blood.

  All around me, people pour out of stores and homes, packing the street and filling the air with their cries. Most of them are focused on the sky. Others stagger around in a daze like the one I can’t seem to shake.

  I’m still regaining control of my muscles when a man in a postal uniform rushes forward to help the crying woman. Gently, he pulls her away from her reflection in the window. Red nails flash as she claws at his face. The man’s shriek pierces the fog around my head.

  More confusion erupts in front of the auto-body shop. The two mechanics who were sprawled out a second ago are now back on their feet and trying to kill each other. A crowd gathers around them. People clap and jeer when one of them delivers a vicious jab that sends his opponent to the pavement. The man is still lying there, motionless, when his partner moves to stand over him, a tire iron clutched in his hand. He lets it drop.

  That’s when I throw up.

  The sound of fighting grows louder. The brawl across the street jumps to the crowd. Violence spreads like wildfire until the road is full of people fighting, running, bleeding.

  I wipe my mouth on my sleeve. Smoke fills my lungs, acrid and thick. What’s gotten into these people? Most of them are acting as scared and confused as I feel, but a few—the men fighting across the street and the woman with the crazy eyes by the store window—have lost their minds.

  Sirens blare in the distance. A cavalcade of police cars races toward us. The relief I feel at the sight of them quickly turns to panic. I have to get out of here. Now. Before they detain me as a witness to manslaughter. And that means I have to get up.

  I’m on all fours when the convoy of cruisers reaches us. They hurtle down the road through Maple, past the brawl and the dead man lying in the road and the swarms of injured people. Directly toward Fort Glory.

  Mom. Charlie.

  Fear is a straight shot of adrenaline, bringing me to my feet.

  Glass crunches under my sneakers as I stumble for Rusty. I’m reaching for my bag when fierce barking erupts behind me. A huge golden retriever dragging a leash lunges at the postman. The man’s shrill scream cuts through the air as jaws lock around his throat.

  I don’t watch what happens next. I break into a run. Rusty is a few feet away when something whizzes past my head. The rock smashes out the back window of a nearby sedan, startling me. One wrong step, and the side of my foot smacks into the curb.

  Papers fly out of my bag as I hit the ground. Right next to the red Hands for Hearths folder.

  I look down at myself. Blood drips from the fresh cuts on my legs onto the hem of my uniform. It’s crazy, but suddenly, all I can think about is how stains like that never come out. No matter how many times you run them through the wash.

  Another rock zings dangerously close to my ear. I don’t pause to see who threw it. Don’t stop to wonder why. There are only two things that matter now, and they are fifteen miles down that road.

  I drag myself to my feet and sprint for the truck.

  The red folder stays with my backpack, abandoned on the sidewalk behind me.

  * * *

  The road to Fort Glory is a minefield of abandoned cars and panicked pedestrians. I drive with one hand on the wheel and the other pressed down on the horn.

  Finally, the turnoff for the town comes into view. It is swiftly followed by a wall of red and blue lights. I hit the brakes. The umbrella tumbles off the dash and onto the floor. My heart pounds wildly—like it always does at the sight of police cruisers.

  Cars are everywhere, a dozen vehicles and a semi obstructing the way into Fort Glory. Motorists huddle in small groups on the side of the road. A handful of police officers and firemen are spread throughout the crowd, administering first aid, restraining a few disorderlies, talking hurriedly into radios. That’s not what worries me.

  It’s hard to put my finger on—something in the lay of their faces and the hesitant glances they keep shooting over their shoulders in the direction of Fort Glory.

  Charlie. Mom.

  I kill Rusty’s engine and step out onto the road. A woman carrying a toddler rushes past me. More follow her lead. The police are pushing them back. Using force when necessary.

  I fight my way through the crowd to the front of the pileup. I stumble when the asphalt under my feet gives way suddenly to grass.

  That’s when I realize what caused the holdup in the first place.

  The road. It just … stops.

  Directly ahead of me, a wall of forest stretches out in both directions, blocking the way into town. Not regular trees. Giant redwoods, swallowing everything in their path. Only, that makes no sense. Forests like this grow over hundreds of years.

  They don’t rise up in a matter of hours.

  I’m still trying to understand what I’m seeing when I spot a familiar face. Rowena Mae. She’s standing a few feet ahead of me, squared off against a fresh-faced deputy.

  “Please return to your car, ma’am,” he tells her.

  “Not until you tell us what the hell is happening.”

  “Look.” A touch of strain enters the young officer’s voice. “I can’t te
ll you something I don’t know.”

  “Somebody here knows something. I suggest you scurry off and find them.” Rowena pierces him with a glare before she stalks off toward the trees.

  He charges after her. “Wait! You can’t go in there. Please, ma’am. Return to the road.”

  “I’m just going behind that tree. You wouldn’t stop an old woman from relieving herself, would you?”

  The police officer’s radio squawks. He turns it all the way down. “The woods aren’t safe.”

  “This spot isn’t going to be safe in about two minutes,” Rowena snaps. “I’ll come straight back. You’re more than welcome to watch if you like.”

  In the end, the policeman’s orders are no match for Rowena’s stubbornness. He turns his back, and Rowena walks away, triumphant. I’m left with half a second to decide.

  I follow Rowena behind some trees and out of sight. She spins, and her green eyes show no surprise as they zero in on my face. “I’m getting to the bottom of this. Go back to the road, Rose. What’s left of it. There’s trouble up ahead, make no mistake. I’m betting it’s not the kind you need.”

  She has no idea how right she is. Drawing attention to myself now could undo everything I’ve worked so hard for. It would jeopardize our home application, or worse, it’d have the police digging into my closet of skeletons. We can’t afford that. I know it, but I also know that where a few hours ago there was a road, now there’s a forest blocking the way into town.

  And my mother and brother are in it.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Without a word, Rowena heads north toward town. I glance over my shoulder one more time, and then I follow.

  The ground is a quagmire of mud that threatens to suction my shoes off my feet. Ahead of me, Rowena huffs and puffs up a steep incline toward the rock rise overlooking Fort Glory. According to the Oregon map of trails I pored over for two weeks before coming here, it’s called Devil’s Tooth. There were multiple warnings in that book cautioning hikers not to climb.

  Rowena stops in front of Devil’s Tooth wearing a formidable expression. “Nothing’s been right since the birds stopped singing. They felt the darkness coming, and by the looks of things, it’s finally here.”