Strange in Skin
by
Sara V. Zook
PUBLISHED BY:
Imagine Press
ISBN: 978-1-927404-15-7
Strange in Skin
Copyright © 2012 by Sara V. Zook
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. I dedicate this book to my children, Coen, Avery and Lucas, who inspire me daily to keep reaching and keep growing as a person.
Prologue
Wes. Where was Wes? Emry’s eyes struggled to focus as he came to. His muscles ached from leaning against the cold steel of the tower with his feet propped up. He got to his feet . The sudden noise of his boot knocking over an empty beer can startled him. He ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. He realized it had happened again.
He licked his dry lips and stared up at the darkening sky. Why did it keep happening? Why couldn’t he control it? He let the questions linger in his thoughts momentarily and then pushed them aside. He wouldn’t allow himself to dwell on it anymore. He had to face it, the answers would never come.
He was on the top of the tower, the sound of crickets humming from below. He had come here to relax and talk with his friend, Wes. But Wes was gone.
He hurried around the winding stairwell running down the side of the tower, his hand tight on the railing for support. Had Wes gone home and left him here? Surely not.
He slowed halfway down the ladder and looked to the ground below. Nothing but empty cans. He smashed one of the cans near his boot in frustration, then kicked it over the side. He peered over the railing to watch it fall, but his eyes strayed to a different spot on the ground. A sudden burning crawled up from his stomach and into his throat. There was something near the ladder. His mind struggled to catch up to the racing thoughts. It couldn’t possibly be, could it?
Emry gripped the ladder tighter. His boots clanked with every hurried motion against the metal as he made his way to the bottom.
He realized he had been holding his breath and took a moment to gasp in air. He looked toward the ground again. He was three quarters of the way down. His stomach tightened at what he saw. He knew what it was. Wes, his best friend, lying in a twisted position on the ground, his lifeless eyes staring up at Emry. Shards of bones poked through his broken body as dirt and blood speckled his white t-shirt.
Emry couldn’t take his eyes off his friend. He bent down to touch his arm, then decided against it as he slowly backed away. Wes had fallen from the tower somehow.
What had happened? Why couldn’t he remember?
Panic settled in. He felt as if his lungs were collapsing. His stomach churned and he covered his eyes with his arm, unable to bear looking at his friend any longer. This was real. This was really happening.
Unable to contain them, tears streamed down his cheeks as he turned around, his eyes searching for the path that led out of the woods. Finding it, he ran as fast as he could as the adrenaline pulsated through his body, the darkness of the night right on his heels.
Chapter 1
I shuddered as I gripped onto the diminishing mound of pamphlets in my hand. My footsteps echoed off the hard prison floor. I looked at Buck Brady beside me.
“Creeped out yet?” Buck asked. “Yeah, actually.” I had felt like a prostitute the entire time I had been here. The prisoners hadn’t taken me seriously. They didn’t care about their souls, they just wanted to make nasty comments to me inviting me into their cells.
“Looks like you’ve caused quite the commotion. These guys are going to be fired up all day now. Look what you’ve done,” he teased.
“I guess they don’t act like this to my father.”
A shallow chuckle croaked from Buck’s throat. “Not exactly. Wonder why Pastor James sent you down here today. Not really a place I would want to send my daughter to.”
I hadn’t a clue. “Mrs. Anderson needed him this morning.” “Mrs. Anderson.” He repeated the name as if he was going to back it up with more words, but instead, hesitated. “Strange,” he blurted out.
I narrowed my eyes at him as we came to an abrupt stop at a bunch of unoccupied cells. “So, these ones are empty? Is that it?” I pulled back the sleeve of my sweater to get a look at my watch. It dangled loosely on my scrawny wrist. “It’s almost noon already.”
“There’s one more inmate in the very last one. I think it would be okay to skip him, honestly.” “Why should I skip him?” I eyed Buck warily.
“It’s just Emry Logan down there, but you’ve wasted half your day on this crap.” “Crap? You think my father’s ministry is crap?”
He instantly looked remorseful. “That’s not what I meant.”
I didn’t know exactly why I was becoming so defensive of my father’s ministry to the inmates. I felt
that this was a total and complete waste of time. These men had no interest in repentance or knowing Jesus or the Bible. These men seemed hopeless, and I wanted to run out of here and never make the mistake of stepping foot in this hellhole again. I had thrown each and every paper at the feet of the prisoners so they wouldn’t touch me. I was afraid of getting too close to them, afraid they’d grab a hold of me and never let go, or even worse, that some of their corruptness would rub off on me and seep into my skin, ruining me. I felt way too pure to be in their midst, maybe even too good. I was about to change my mind and turn around and leave when Buck began moving down the corridor again.
“All right. Follow me.” A feeling of emptiness washed over me as we came to the end of the hallway. Buck stepped in front of the cell first, lifting his arm to show me the last inmate. I hesitated and then bit my lip and took a step forward, waiting to hear the man say something rude and totally inappropriate, but to my surprise, the man didn’t even look up.
My eyes strained as it seemed the light was very poor at this end, and I realized that part of the fluorescent light bulb was out, making the yellow glow even more intolerable here. The prisoner had his back turned to us as he was seated in a small wooden chair. His head was down, and his shoulders slumped over. I looked to Buck to question what he was doing. He just seemed to be sitting there, thinking.
Buck shrugged, giving me no answer. What was I supposed to do here? Should I just toss the brochure on the floor like I did with the others?
“Um, sir?” I whispered, sounding out of breath, my heart thumping wildly in my chest.
There was no response. He sat completely motionless.
“Logan, turn around here!” he snapped.
Slowly the man composed himself and turned around. I gasped at his face. He was so young, barely in his twenties. His face was clean shaven and his rusty brown hair combed back by his fingers. He stood, but his eyes were still looking down at the floor. He was tall, lean, and built, his muscles exposed underneath the too-small orange jumpsuit he wore.
“Um, hello,” I said. “This is just a pamphlet for you to look over if you want.” He finally looked up at me, his blue eyes piercing and beautiful as if they sparkled in the gloomy, dark corridor, unaffected by the yellow fluorescent. I found myself staring at his eyes, unable to look away. They were gleaming because they were wet, wet with tiny pools of tears but not enough to make them spill from beneath his eyelids.
“It just basically tells you what we’re about, and how we can minister to your spiritual needs.” I realized this was the most I had spoken to an inmate the entire time I was here, and he wasn’t speaking back. He looked utterly sad, and I knew then that he had been crying while sitting there slumped over. My mind raced with why this man was here. What could he have possibly done to deserve to be locked up in this dungeon? It was as if they had secluded
him to this section of the prison, away from everyone else. Without hesitation, I put my hand in through the bars, holding out the brochure toward him.
He stepped closer to me.
Buck changed his stance as if on guard, ready to intervene if necessary.
I gave Buck an uneasy look, and then my head turned slowly back toward the inmate he had called Logan. He stared back at me with those sad, beautiful eyes, as I realized there were tiny freckles darting over the bridge of his tanned nose and his cheeks. A strand of hair fell in his eye as he looked down at the floor and then back up to meet my gaze. He gently took the piece of paper out of my hand. I pulled my arm away.
“Thank you,” he whispered. His eyes were glued to mine. He didn’t seem to realize that Buck was there beside me.
I nodded and crossed my arms together in front of my chest feeling a chill in the air around me. I looked down at the ground and then towards Buck, my stomach in knots. “Ready?” Buck asked.
“Yeah,” I mumbled and turned to leave.
“Excuse me, Miss?”
I felt the muscles in my stomach tighten at the sound of the inmate’s voice. I spun back around.
“She’s all done here, Logan. Go back to what you were doing.” Buck’s voice had an edge of real anger to it this time. I ignored Buck and took a few steps backwards to where I had just stood and peered in at him. “Are you related to Pastor John James?”
“Anna,” Buck huffed impatiently, and I realized his concern at once about giving this prisoner too much information about myself.
“Anna, is it?” The prisoner raised his eyebrows slightly.
I heard Buck make another huffing noise, annoyed that he had let my name slip out so easily. “That’s none of your business, now is it, scumbag?” Buck pressed his chest against the bars, trying to be as intimidating as possible. His eyes looked fierce. The young man stood a few feet away from the door of the cell, his face completely expressionless.
I found myself standing directly beside Buck, dangerously close to the bars, and staring into those glorious blue eyes. “I’m his daughter,” I suddenly blurted out.
“What are you doing?” Buck grabbed my arm and whipped me around as I found myself being dragged down the corridor. Why did you just say that? My heart began to pound as I realized that this man had been in here for a reason. He had done something terrible to be locked behind bars in a prison. He was dangerous. Here I was blurting out silly things. Buck must think I’m a complete idiot.
We got out to the front lobby. Buck grabbed my coat and turned to look at me, still furious. “He’s locked up, Buck. It’s not like he can hunt me down or anything.” I tried to make it seem ridiculous, the way he was acting just now, although I knew he was right.
He held up the coat for me. I put my arms in the sleeves that had been dampened by the rain. “You have no idea what he’s capable of,” Buck said.
I pulled the coat around me as my fingers clumsily attempted to clasp all the buttons together. “I’m really sorry.” “Anna, look, it’s no big deal, okay? You aren’t in any danger. You don’t have to worry about it.” Buck bit his bottom lip as if he was pausing to think, and then his eyes softened again as he saw how upset I was getting.
“Please don’t tell my father,” I begged, thinking of how upset this would make him if he knew. He sighed. “It’s not really a big deal, like I said,” he repeated. “You were just being nice. You’re always nice.” He forced a smile. “I won’t tell your dad,” he added, putting his arm around my shoulders and guiding me toward the door. “Look, the rain stopped.”
I turned toward my pale yellow car parked right outside.
“It was nice seeing you today.”
I nodded and took off out the door. I practically dove into the driver’s side of my car.
I carefully put the white porcelain plates down on the huge oak table that fit perfectly into our little dining room. My mother bounced around like a ballerina carrying in a pitcher full of iced tea and bowl after bowl of food for supper. The table was soon filled with piping hot mashed potatoes and vegetables, the steam rising and disappearing beneath the beautiful antique chandelier that brightly lit the square room.
“Seems like an awful lot of food for just us,” I mumbled.
My father came in and gave me a quick peck on the cheek and then held out my chair. “Please, sit.”
Matthew, my disabled brother, came around the corner as my mother wheeled him toward the table to his usual spot. His eyes became enlarged as he saw all the food. He clapped his hands together excitedly and we all laughed. Seeing Matthew so happy made me feel better. I didn’t know why I was in such a sour mood, but the events of the morning had haunted me throughout the day.
We all piled mounds of food on the beautifully decorated plates and were silent for a minute. “Prayer, shall we?” my father said.
Bowing my head, I found it difficult to concentrate on praying. I heard my father’s words, thanking God for the day, the food, those who prepared it, but my mind kept wandering back to the jail and Emry Logan. He knew my name. Anna James, Pastor John James’ daughter.
“So how was your day today, Anna?”
My head snapped up, and I realized that I was the only one not eating. Matthew was digging into his mashed potatoes.
“Well,” I began, realizing my mother was staring at me intently. “I made it down to the jail.” “What?” My father practically jumped out of his seat. His eyes shifted to my mother who set her fork down and began chewing on one of her fingernails. “You went down there?”
“Uh, yeah.” I narrowed my eyes at her. She hadn’t told him? I thought this had been his idea. “Why on earth would you do something like that?” he demanded. I could see him begin to lose his temper, something that rarely ever happened. He was always in such control of his emotions.
I sighed and then scooped my spoon into the middle of my own potatoes and let them slide back off again. “I thought you two had this all planned out. You know, the pamphlets and all.”
“I had no idea. I would have never sent you down there. Were you alone?”
“Well, if you don’t count Buck.” I peered into my father’s eyes which now seemed wild and alarmed.
“Helene?” He demanded an answer, knowing where to place the blame right away. My mother shrugged and tried to smile. “Honey, somebody needed to do it. You were busy with Mrs. Anderson and all. How’s her son?” I was amused at the way she attempted to change the subject. There was no getting around it though. “I would’ve done it tomorrow.”
“Honey,” my mother said calmly, her voice never rising. “You can’t do it tomorrow.”
This seemed to silence my father momentarily. “Do you have any idea what those men are like, Helene? Anna should never have gone down there to listen to those filthy mouths.” My father knew exactly what kind of things had been said to me. It made me slightly embarrassed that he knew. I gnawed on a dry piece of chicken and swallowed hard. It seemed to stick in my throat, and only the cool gush of iced tea allowed it to go down.
“Anna, it wasn’t so bad, was it?” My mother nodded toward me.
I looked away from her. “It was fine, really. Buck kept things under control.”
The meal went on and nobody mentioned my little visit to the prison again.
“I’m going to bed,” I told them as I dried the last plate and put it away in the cupboard just above my head.
“Okay, hun.” My mother came over and kissed my forehead.
“Night.” My father was sitting at the table reading his paper. He looked up at me momentarily and then continued reading, his glasses falling down to the bottom of his nose.
“Night, Matthew.” I gave him a quick kiss and hurried up the stairs. The privacy of my own room felt so peaceful and relaxing. I quickly took off all of my jewelry and placed them each carefully into their specific spot in the cherry jewelry box perched upon my dresser. I changed into my flannel pajamas and looked in the mirror to pull
back my hair. I pressed my lips together tightly and then released them. I turned my head from side to side inspecting every angle of my face. This is stupid, I thought after a few minutes. Why should I care what I look like? I have never cared much before.
I sat down on my bed. A feeling of guilt rushed over me. Why was I feeling like I was hiding something from my parents? Nothing really happened today. I closed my eyes in the darkness quickly and then reopened them. A sliver of moonlight came in from my window, making shadows appear on the adjacent wall. I closed my eyes again and tried to relax. I did feel tired. This day was exhausting in so many ways. It was nothing at all like I had expected it to be.
I knew that the world was generally bad. I knew that bad people existed out there and that terrible things happened to many different people on many different levels. However, I had never really come into contact with any of it. Nothing ever bad had happened in my family. My parents didn’t really fight. Sometimes someone from the church would leave and go to another church or move away, but that wasn’t so horrible. At that jail today, those men stunk of impurity, of sin. They weren’t the type of people I was used to being around, which were proper, well-behaved Christians. Seneca’s crime rate was pretty low. Every once in a while you’d hear of a kid getting into trouble with drugs at the local high school or someone had too much to drink and drove home a little tipsy getting a DUI, but that was about it. No one was ever murdered. Were those men murderers? What had they done to get such a punishment as being locked up behind bars? There were bad people right here in Seneca, I realized. They weren’t acting out obviously because of where they were, but they were still here right in the middle of our little nested, secure town.
The realization made me shiver. I pulled a side of the comforter up and swaddled myself in it. Shutting my eyes again, I took a deep breath and listened to myself exhale. The wind was beginning to pick up outside. Rain again maybe?
My mind began to drift again. I was beginning to fall asleep, and then I saw his face. Emry Logan. I repeated the name multiple times in my mind. I pictured his beautiful face as if he was standing in front of me again. His head was bent downwards toward the floor, his rusty brown hair falling into his face. I pictured his arms, his biceps protruding even underneath the bright orange jumpsuit and how slowly he stood up, so tall and lean, almost graceful.
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