My skin crawls as it hits me. I’m not imagining it. He’s been following me.
“You should have been nicer to me,” he says, not slowing down.
I turn around and start to walk. I need space between us.
“Sammy, I forgave you after what you did that night, but you left before I could tell you.”
The blood on his face. The bloody knife in my hand. My bloody wrist—all coming back to me in a haze.
I stop, leaning against a tree as my stomach swirls, and I bring up the coffee from this morning. The acidity burns my throat as I choke it out.
“Shit, Sammy,” he says, laughing.
My face is hot as I stand up straight, and I know he’s not far. I blink away the tears as I stumble away over roots and branches, still trying to create distance.
His cologne triggers the vision again.
Just a few stars shine in the dark sky above as he pushes me over the falls.
He didn’t care that he could have killed me.
He left me naked and alone to take the blame for drinking and driving, wrecking my car, and getting locked up.
And I wanted to show him how he hurt me.
I wanted to hurt him so bad, and I… I didn’t realize seeing me hurt would give him pleasure.
A knife with blood flashes in my memory.
“It was sick what you did,” he says, not even having to raise his voice anymore. “Coming to my house that night, cutting yourself in front of me and my family.”
I can’t remember anyone’s reaction but his.
His lips parted as his eyes opened wide, but then, in the time between the cutting and anyone moving or saying anything, he stared down at my wrist with fascination before making eye contact with me again and smiling.
“You’re freaky, Sammy, and I like ‘em freaky. You know that. But then you up and left me.”
“Leave me alone!” I scream, stumbling over logs and roots, risen from the earth.
“I was trying to warn you yesterday.”
I turn over my shoulder and he’s stopped. Panting, I stumble forward and turn around again. His straight face scares me. There’s no real feeling behind it. There never was.
“Warn me about what?”
“Perry’s lookin’ for ya,” he says with a smile. “I woulda kept your visit back to Crimson Falls a secret, Sammy, but you didn’t have time for dear old Al.”
If Perry finds me, he’ll do anything to get his money back.
“What did you do, Al?”
“It’s only a matter of time before he finds you. Maybe I can’t get what I want from you, but he will. You have to answer for what you’ve done sometime, Sammy. What you took from us.”
Chills run up the back of my neck, and I shake them away.
I took a loan from Perry to go to school and never paid him back. Never thought I’d be back here or see him again, so I took from him, but Al…
“What did I take from you?”
“You were my partner in crime, baby. We coulda had so much more fun together. I had big plans for us—bigger after you proved to me just how far you’d go for me with that little knife stunt. To punish me. To please me.”
You’re sick, Albert.
I want to shout it in his face, but I’m alone with him, and more than anything, I want to get away. I need to get away from the sick feeling, rotting in my gut. The sickness I have inside me—that he sees in me—I need to get out before it consumes me.
I turn around and sprint through the woods toward the path ahead. If I can get to the path, I’ll follow it to my car, and I’ll be out. I’ll be free.
I don’t turn back. I’ll never turn back.
I reach my car and unlock it without looking down at my keys. I turn over my shoulder at the tree line.
Nothing’s there.
He didn’t follow me, or maybe he’s still far behind, in the shadows of my mind just as he’s always been, waiting for me.
This whole place has been waiting for me and I’ve stepped into the darkness again.
I peel out of the lot, down Main Street toward the highway, squinting into the setting sun as tears pool in my eyes.
I’m sorry, Stacy. I’ve failed you again.
With the highway up ahead, I feel hope for the first time since coming back to Crimson Falls. I’m getting out of here before they can hurt me, or I hurt anyone else.
I haven’t thought about Perry in a long time. I can’t face the memory of him—no, not him—of what I did for him.
With my minimal job experience, I knew I couldn’t support myself when I finally escaped the town. I needed a good, normal job. Something that good, normal people did.
I set my sights on being a nurse, and after being rejected from the colleges I applied to, a harsh dose of reality hit. I didn’t have the grades. I wasn’t smart enough.
I decided health care administration would do just as well. A respectable job, still helping people, and keeping me on the straight and narrow. I needed college credits, and when I was accepted into an administration program in a city several hours away, I knew it was my way out.
My way to be a better person.
I was desperate, and my parents had no money for me to go. Even if they did, they’d never have given it to me. They wanted me to stay and rot in this town, just like they were. In their delusional minds, they thought this town with all its crime was no match for us. For our neighbors. I knew they were wrong. I was already scarred from the damage.
I worked at The Crooked Crow for two years as a server and sometimes illegal bartender, saving most of my pay just to come up hundreds short for school. I needed money, and Perry needed someone stupid enough to come along and borrow it from him at a high interest rate I couldn’t even understand at the time.
But it was more than that. He wanted more.
A vision comes back to me as I pass Gilbert Road. Giving him a lap dance after work.
He made me beg for the money for months and asked me to do things I wasn’t willing to do. The lap dances were payment enough for me, and they ought to be for him too.
I take the curve off Main Street, leading to the highway as a car pulls up beside me in the wrong lane.
I squint to make out who it is, but the sun’s in my eyes.
Is that Albert? Has he come to run me off the road?
There’s more than one person in there. They aren’t passing me.
I step on the gas pedal hard and jerk back, ready to merge onto the highway, but the car keeps up beside me and veers into my lane.
I turn the wheel, and the tires crunch over the bumpy gravel as the other car speeds ahead.
“Asshole!” I shout as it races down the ramp toward the exit sign for the town. “Drunken asshole.”
The car skids to a stop in front of me, blocking the road, and I brake hard, jerking myself forward as my car squeals to a stop, squeezing my eyes shut as the seatbelt flings me back against my seat, knocking the breath from my lungs.
I’m less than twenty feet from the car ahead, and people get out of both front seats. Perry and one of his goons, Roger.
My heart thuds in my ears, and the lump in my throat threatens to suffocate me as I sit here, frozen, trying to breathe again as they stroll up to my car with smiles on their faces and something in Roger’s hand.
Turn around, Sammy.
I shift the gear into reverse and step on the gas, but two loud banging noises jolt me to a halt, and I feel like I’m rocking.
The car.
The tires.
He shot out one of my tires.
I step on the brake and shift into drive. I have to turn around.
“Saaaam,” Perry sings so loud, I can hear him through my closed windows as he approaches.
I turn the wheel, but the car’s moving too slow. I knew I should have brought protection. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, and now he’s going to…
A crackling shatter comes from the other side of me. Roger broke my passenger window, and his
arms reach in for me.
“Get away from me!” I scream, and they both laugh as Roger opens the door.
He ducks his head in and grabs me as I try to kick him away.
“Stupid bitch,” he grumbles, grabbing my hair and some part of my sweater, yanking me out as a white pain sears through my head.
All I can hear are my own screams as I fall to the ground, and he lets me go. I scramble to get to my feet, and someone grabs me, pulling me up.
Perry shoves me against the car, and a sharp pain sears across my hand as a shard of glass from my window slices my left palm. I pull it away, cradling it by my chest, watching Perry through the mess of hair around my eyes. His cold stare reminds me of Albert’s.
He’s angry, but he’s enjoying this. They love to see me hurt, like they feel the pain themselves and get off on it.
Blood drips from my hand, and I press it against my chest to stop the bleeding. I can smell Perry’s beer breath as he steps up in front of me and digs his hand into the front of my shoulder.
“You weren’t gonna come and see me before leaving, were ya Sam? Oh, that hurts. That really hurts,” he whispers. “You didn’t forget that you owe me, did ya?”
The pressure on my shoulder is alleviated, but his hand skims down my chest and grabs my breast. A vision of his hands reaching out to me as I danced, inches away, floods my mind, and my stomach churns.
I push him away, and he grabs my throat, sneering at me, bringing me back to the present. “You fucking owe me, you cheap whore, and you’re going to pay me back every last bit of what I loaned you and then some.”
I try to grab at his hands, but the ache in my throat paralyzes me. I can’t move, and I can’t breathe.
He presses his mouth against mine and kisses me. It’s wet and slimy and terrifying, like he’s sucking the rest of my breath right out of me. He takes his hand away, and I grab at my throat, gasping for air as he turns around and says something to Roger, but I can’t hear him.
Roger runs to the other side of the car, and Perry punches me in the stomach.
I double over as a car engine rumbles closer, and as I try to stand, it passes, racing down onto the highway.
Roger moved their car.
If I could get back into mine, I could go. I could drive on a flat.
“Yer a selfish bitch, you know that, Sam? Don’t care about anybody but yourself. You didn’t come back. Didn’t pay your debt. I had to pay a visit to Mommy and dear old Dad, ya know, back when he was still alive.”
I look up at him, and he’s watching for my reaction.
I give him none—but is he lying?
“You don’t believe me?” he asks. “Yer mom didn’t tell ya, I guess. That’s sweet. Didn’t want you to worry. She should be, though, what with yer dad gone.”
“Your business is with me,” I sneer up at him, shielding my aching stomach with my hands and coughing. I can’t take in a full breath, and my neck still aches.
He shrugs. “They said they couldn’t pay me back, and I believed them. I really did, didn’t I, Roger?”
Roger saunters over, nodding, gun still in hand.
“So the thing is, the debt had to be paid somehow,” Perry says in his sing-song voice. “Money’s not the only way, but you know that already. Your lap dances were some of the best I ever had.”
My stomach churns as I remember the late nights after close when he’d come around. Big man in town. Powerful. And he paid attention to me.
Back then, I thought he wanted to see me do well, and I’d beg and plead with him to loan me the rest of the money I needed.
“You wanna dance for me, Sam?”
A vision returns, like a slide show. I danced for him so many times, they blur together.
He’d turn the lights off and keep the music on. He’d blare it. He’d sit down on the chair by the bar and tell me to dance. I was too embarrassed, but he only had to ask twice before I swayed to the music, dancing in front of him and getting closer, using his shoulders as I danced behind him. His hands met mine when I walked in front of him and turned me around, pulling me onto his lap. I’d pull away, but keep dancing just above it until the song ended.
Over time, the embarrassment faded away by taking my vulnerable moment and becoming someone else to get through it. Someone sexy, powerful, who got attention. Who got what she wanted.
I’d become that woman once a week, and when the song was over, because I didn’t have to be myself, I could calmly stride over to the door, turning my back to the monster so I wouldn’t be in the dark with the man who wanted so much more from me. Then I’d tell him to get the hell out while I closed up before Albert got there to pick me up, and he’d listen because he liked it. He liked the chase and being bossed around—sick of everyone always doing what he wanted. Sick of the people who were afraid of him.
Every time, I’d wonder if this song would be the one where the dance wasn’t enough to satisfy him.
I gave him special attention; he gave me the money, and I ran so I’d never have to do another dance like that again.
Perry smacks me across my face, bringing me back to the present again, and I rub my cheek to numb the pain.
“I couldn’t get the money,” Perry says, “and you weren’t around, so no more dances. I had to take one of the only things here that belonged to you.”
My heart races as I imagine Perry following my dad that night. Stabbing him in the back.
He could have, but he wouldn’t confess it to me… He’s lying.
“Why?” I ask. “Why would you kill my dad?”
“Because you have to pay, Sam.”
I shake my head. No. It was Lawrence.
“You didn’t,” I whisper.
“I did, and after stabbing him in the back, I pulled him close and whispered in his ear, just like I’m doing right now. I said, ‘courtesy of your daughter.’” Perry laughs, and the chills, the memories, and the sickness in the pit in my stomach are too much.
My dad, in his last moments, thought I…
I double over in pain and shout, “Get it over with! If you’re going to kill me, just do it!”
He smiles and exchanges a glance with Roger. “Why would we want to spoil all the fun? If you can pay me now, I suggest you do. If you can’t, I’ve got one more thing to take from you before we have our final business meeting, Sam.”
Mom.
I shake my head. “Don’t touch her.”
“Does this bitch really care, though?” Roger asks. “I mean, after her dad was murdered, she didn’t even come back like you said she would. Do you even care about your parents at all?”
“Shut up!” Perry shouts. “Don’t ruin my fun. Look at her! Of course she cares.” He laughs and takes a step back, inspecting me. “This is going to be so much fun, Sam. You go if you want. Get out of town. But you might want to say goodbye to your mom first. Just a suggestion.” He winks at me and nods to Roger. They start to walk away, and my legs shake. “Oh, and we’ll find you,” he says. “Wherever you are.”
I can barely stand and stumble forward, leaning against the car as they walk back to theirs.
Turn around, Sammy.
I scramble back to my car door, slide into the driver’s seat, and turn the wheel back toward town. I drive along the curve, rocking along as my side tilts, and a grinding indicates I’m driving on my rim.
Just get back.
I step down hard on the gas pedal and drive back up Main Street, checking my rearview mirror every few seconds, but they never follow behind.
They’re toying with me. Taunting me.
Gilbert Road comes into view, and the Bakers are going for a walk again. I stop at the end of it, and Cliff points to me. Amelia’s mouth hangs agape, and I remember the bashed-in window.
And my hand. The sting of the cut returns, as if I’d forgotten it before, and everything rushes back to me at the same time.
Perry might have killed my dad. He might be after my mom.
I stumble out
of the car, and Cliff pulls me to my feet as I wobble, almost falling if his hands weren’t around my waist, squeezing.
The dull ache returns from the hit to my stomach, and I moan.
“Easy, Cliff,” Amelia says and squeezes my arm. “Sam, what happened?”
I push the hair from my face, embarrassed at what a mess I am, and Amelia’s eyes open wide in horror.
“I think she was in an accident,” Cliff says, but his voice is fuzzy.
I turn my hand over, and blood is smeared across it. And my head. It feels wet.
“Come on, honey,” Cliff says, wrapping my arm over his shoulder. “We’re bringing you home.”
“Mom,” I mutter, my voice shaking.
Everything is shaking, and gray fuzz from an empty channel on the TV screen is closing in on my sight.
He’s coming.
And I’m falling.
“Sam?”
My heart pounds as a voice calls to me through Red Woods. There’s a shadow hidden in the treeline, but I can’t make it out.
I only know it scares me.
“Sam, you’re safe now,” my mom’s voice calls to me.
My eyes flutter open, and she’s sitting beside me in the dark living room.
“Mom,” comes out like a croak through my dry lips, and she grabs my hand.
“You were in an accident, Sam,” she says.
The car window breaking.
My tire shot out.
Perry’s hand crushing my throat.
I rub at my throat and shake my head, sitting up despite the ache in my stomach.
“It wasn’t an accident. It was Perry. He and Roger blocked me on the road, broke my window and dragged me out, and Perry…” My eyes cloud with tears. I sputter, trying to form the words. “H—he killed Dad.”
An itch in my throat sends me into a coughing fit, and I rub at the spots where his thumbs dug in.
“What? You don’t know what you’re saying. Have you been drinking—”
“He’s going to come here and try to hurt you.” I squeeze her hand, and she studies me. She doesn’t believe me. “Did he come to you and Dad about my debt?”
She presses her lips together.
“He did!”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Why didn’t you tell me? What happened?”
All the Dark Corners Page 6
