by Rick Hautala
Don’t you know what really happened, Ray? Don’t you realize, even after all these years, that Mikie never did it? That he wasn’t the one who pushed you through the trapdoor?
“Are you sure there’s nothing the matter?” Ray asked.
His voice seemed to come from far away, echoing with a rippling distortion that further heightened Edward’s rising panic. “I dunno, man. You’re looking kinda pale.”
“No, I—” Edward replied in a voice that sounded extraordinarily thin and strangled. Those cold hands hadn’t eased up their ever-tightening grip on his throat. He tried to laugh, but in the dimly lit room, even his own breathing was frightfully magnified, sounding like the hiss of heavy raindrops, bouncing off a metal roof.
Don’t you know that I did it? That I was the one who pushed you!
The words reverberated so clearly in Edward’s mind that he was absolutely convinced, if Ray was listening hard enough, he would have been able to hear them in the muffled silence of his living room.
Don’t you realize that I’m the one who tackled you from behind! That I knocked you down into the cellar! I’m the one who broke your back and put you into that fucking wheelchair for the rest of your miserable, goddamned life!
“—I really just started thinking about how it’d been too damned long since I’d seen you. You must’ve heard about the fire we had out at our house.”
“Oh, yeah—sure,” Ray said, nodding. The motion made something on his wheelchair squeak. “And you’re staying out at your mother’s house until you rebuild. Don’t worry—I may not get out of the house much, but I’ve got my antenna out. I know just about everything that’s going on in this town.” He snorted as if about to spit, then added, “For all the fucking good it does me!”
A florid rush filled Edward’s face. He realized that, no matter what topic of conversation he tried to bring up, he or Ray seemed inevitably to bring it back around to the uncomfortable subject of Ray’s confinement to a wheelchair. Like a jagged gap left by a broken tooth, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t stop yourself from probing it with the tip of your tongue. Was this because, at least subconsciously, Ray did know the truth of what had happened out at the abandoned mill that day?
For the next half hour or so, Edward never relaxed as he remained seated on the couch, talking with Ray. They covered a wide scope of topics, but their conversation always steered clear of anything of any depth or anything that might raise the specter of Ray’s injury. They discussed recent events around town—the new hardware store that had opened and closed within the span of a year, the residents of a local housing development who were suing the developer for absconding with the funds; and they reminisced a bit, talking about “old times,” but Edward could tell that this kind of talk made Ray just about as uncomfortable as it made him. At one point, Ray casually mentioned the hiking accident last spring and asked how Dianne was doing. Edward immediately sprang to his feet and clapped his hands.
“Oh, shit! Oh, shit!”
He glanced at his wristwatch and saw that it was almost twelve-thirty. He had been so preoccupied that he had forgotten all about meeting Dianne back at the house for lunch and then driving her to Portland for the appointment with her doctor.
“Hey, can I use your phone?”
“Sure,” Ray replied as a look of consternation crossed his face. “It’s in the—”
“I know where it is,” Edward snapped as he raced out to the front hallway, picked up the receiver, and hurriedly dialed his home number. Ray’s phone was an old-fashioned rotary type, and Edward’s impatience bubbled over as he waited for the slow-turning dial to spin back.
“Come on … come on!” he muttered, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor. After the dial had stopped turning after the last number, he gritted his teeth, still tapping his foot, as he waited for the connection to be made and for the phone to start ringing on the other end. Once … twice … three times the receiver buzzed in his ear, but nobody picked up at the other end.
“Is everything all right?” Ray called from the living room.
“Yeah! Yeah!” Edward paused and listened to the fourth ring. “It’s just that I forgot to … do something.”
Edward’s frustration rose like a black cloud as the steady ringing continued at the other end.
“Come on! At least Brian should be home!” he whispered, his voice rasping in his ear through the receiver. Another ring blasted. “Where the hell is everybody?”
But he knew the answer, at least a part of it. Wherever they were, they certainly weren’t at home. Anxious and impatient, Dianne had probably driven out to the house site looking for him; but by now, probably pissed as all hell, she was no doubt on her way to Portland—if not already there, sitting in Dr. Collett’s waiting room and nervous as hell about what was going to happen within the next half hour.
And where was Brian?
Well, who knew where the hell he was. A slight tingling raced through Edward when he considered the possibility that—against his wishes and orders—Brian might have gone back out to the mill, but there was nothing he could do about that right now, either.
“Goddamnit!” Edward muttered.
A cold wave of guilt swept through him. He had been so wound up in his own concerns and guilt that he had entirely forgotten about Dianne and how she must be feeling. He listened to the unanswered phone ring a few more times before finally giving up. Resisting the impulse to slam the receiver down, he instead gently depressed the button, cutting off the phone in midring.
“Hey, Ray,” he called out, painfully aware of the low tremor in his voice. “I have to head on home. There’s something I have to do.”
A voice as irritating as the raw scratch of sandpaper whispered in his mind: But there’s something you have to do here, too, Eddie! … You have to admit it! Admit what you did! Didn’t you come over here today to tell Ray—finally, after all these years—what you did to him? Didn’t you want to confess it all and—at last—take the guilt and blame that Mikie has been carrying all these years?
Edward closed his eyes, fighting hard to hold back the tears that welled up inside him. His hand was slick with sweat as he put the receiver back into the cradle.
But I can’t! another, nearly frantic voice whispered, sounding like a child inside his head. I can’t do it! After all this time, what good would it do? I’ve paid for what I’ve done. Every day of my life since that day, I’ve paid!
From behind him, he heard the soft whirring of Ray’s wheelchair as he negotiated the turn from the living room into the hallway. The sound was like a red-hot spike that slid up along the core of his spine, raking the nerves in each vertebrae like a xylophone.
But you HAVEN’T paid enough! the first voice whispered, harsh and slithery like a snake. And you can NEVER pay back enough because of what you made your brother and Ray live through their whole lives! How can you EVER give ANY of that back to either one of them?
Edward’s pulse was banging heavy drumbeats in his ears, almost drowning out the sounds of the wheelchair as he turned to face Ray. Knowing how bad he must look, he kept his head titled to one side. He opened his mouth and licked his lips, desperately wanting the words of confession to be there, but he knew they wouldn’t come.
They would never come!
Not after being buried inside him for so long, down in the core of his soul where they had rotted and turned to a sour, black, eternal agony.
“I … I have to … to drive Dianne to Portland,” he said in a voice that sounded completely shattered. “For a … for a doctor’s appointment. I completely spaced it off until you mentioned her.”
Before Ray could say anything, Edward turned and started for the door, not wanting or daring to look his old friend straight in the eyes. He knew, sure as hell, that his guilt would be written all over his face. He fumbled with the doorknob but was unable to turn it. An icy chill stabbed through him, almost making him cry out when Ray said, “Well thanks for dropping by. It’
s good to see you after all this time.”
“Yeah,” Edward said through his clenched teeth.
The doorknob finally yielded, and the door swung open with a chattering shriek of rusty hinges. The sound set Edward’s teeth on edge, but he tried to ignore his reaction as he stepped out onto the front steps. A warm blast of summer heat washed over him like a torrent of hot, putrid water.
“Drop by again,” Ray said, his voice sounding muffled from inside the cool gloom of his house.
From behind, Edward could hear the mechanical whir of the wheelchair as he came up behind him. He knew he was going to have to turn and say goodbye, but he was terrified that just seeing Ray’s face—his housebound, pale skin and the wounded accusation in his eyes—would completely unravel him. Without another word or even a backward glance, he started down the walkway to the curb to his parked truck. He could still feel Ray’s gaze boring into his back, and he couldn’t stop the voice that was screaming wildly in his mind: He knows the truth! the voice said with a razor-sharp edge bordering on hysterical laughter.
You can pretend he doesn’t know, but he does! After all these years, this has been the secret you two have been sharing—the secret that you have an unspoken pact never to reveal! And the reason he doesn’t say anything about it, to you or anyone else, is simple. He knows it’s killing you, eating at you from the insides like a vulture, tearing raw flesh from your still barely beating heart.
And he’s enjoying the hell out of it all … every damned second of it!
Confined to his wheelchair, it’s the height of pure entertainment and revenge for him! He’s absolutely loving being able to watch … or even just think about the gut-squeezing guilt and misery you’ve had to live with every day of your life since that day.
This is Ray Saunders’s ultimate act of revenge … watching you unravel like this!
Chapter Twenty
Unwrapping
Dianne was feeling no better—even worse, actually, once she was seated in Dr. Collett’s waiting room. She crossed her legs at the knees and couldn’t stop shaking her foot rapidly back and forth as she ran her fingernail along the cloth seam of the couch arm. After waiting at the house until it was almost too late, she had scrawled a note and left it on the kitchen table:
“WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU??? THANKS A LOT!”
She had stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her so hard the window rattled and almost broke. Throughout the drive to Portland, she had worked over and over in her mind what she would say to Edward when she saw him back at the house later this afternoon.
Why you lousy, rotten son of a bitch! You tell me you love me, but when it comes right down to it, you leave me stranded high and dry! Everything’s that happened to me has all been your fault, and you don’t even have the common decency to come in here with me! What the hell’s the matter with you? You probably don’t even dare come and see what I look like now.
Is that it? Are you afraid to see me and face the reality of what you did to me?
She didn’t care if he had genuinely forgotten about the appointment or if he had gotten delayed for some reason, legitimate or otherwise. The least he could have done was call; and the bottom line was, no matter what else he said about being supportive and loving and caring and all that, it was bullshit of him not to show up when he said he would! He’d let her down on the one day she genuinely needed him. And the truth was, he was never really there for her!
Ever!
Shades of things to come, perhaps? Dianne thought bitterly.
Gathering tears stung her eyes. She was fuming with anger as she slid her fingernails up underneath the couch edge and sawed at the loose stitching. Her tongue pushed furiously against the metal prison of wires as she mentally formed the words she wished she had the physical freedom to scream out loud. Her heart went cold with the thought that soon, within the hour, those restraining wires would be gone, and she would be able to speak—and shout—if she wanted to.
“The doctor will see you now.”
The sudden voice broke into her reverie like a gunshot. Startled, Dianne looked up at the nurse who was standing in the doorway. She rose shakily to her feet, feeling as though she had to say something, but the only sound to come from her throat was a muffled groan.
Oh, shit! This is it! she thought nervously.
The nurse held the heavy oak door open for her, then turned and beckoned for her to follow her down the narrow corridor to a small operating room. She paused in front of a half-open door, slipped a manila folder into the plastic holder on the wall beside the door, and then signaled for Dianne to go into the room.
“Have a seat and make yourself comfortable,” the nurse said cheerily. With a sweep of her hand, she indicated the padded dentist’s chair. “The doctor will be with you in a moment.”
With that, she was gone, closing the door softly behind her. Cold dread filled Dianne as she listened to the soft tread on the nurse’s footsteps going down the hallway.
“Hey, com’on now,” Dianne whispered as she looked around the room. “There’s nothing to get nervous about. It’s going to be a relief to get this frigging bird cage out of my mouth.”
The overhead fluorescent light reflected off the pure white cabinets and stainless steel equipment so brightly it stung her eyes. She quickly scanned the medical diagrams and charts on the wall, then took a deep breath and eased herself into the chair. The cushion made a loud whoosh sound, and she almost giggled aloud, thinking it sounded like a soft fart. She took another deep breath and tried to settle herself. She gripped the armrests and placed her feet onto the padded footrest, but the tension kept winding up inside of her. When she glanced down at her legs, she had a momentarily dizzying sensation that she was suspended high above the floor. Like a wash of cold water, a prickly chill quickly spread upward through her body. In an instant, her legs, her stomach, her entire body felt numb, completely lifeless. A tightness gripped her throat, and her heart pounded heavily in her chest. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead.
Hey, com’on! Get a grip!
She realized she hadn’t been breathing deeply and tried to take a long, steady breath, but the flood of panic was too strong now; it swept her up like the blast of a hurricane wind. Her breath came in short, whistling hitches through the wires in her mouth. The back of her throat was clogged with thick mucus and felt like it was on fire.
Com’on! Jesus Christ! Get a grip on this! You should be excited, relieved to be getting rid of this stuff finally!
She started wiggling her feet, but the senseless feeling wouldn’t go away. No matter what she tried to think about, she couldn’t stop the powerful surges of anxiety that were gushing inside of her. She knew that behind it all were her worries and concerns about how she was going to look after the wires were gone, but all of those were swept aside by the surging charge of anger that churned in her stomach like sour acid. No matter what she tried to think about—Edward, or Brian, or their home, or the house they planned to build together, or anything that she had enjoyed doing, at least before the accident—everything filled her with a dizzying nausea.
And then, when the memory of what she had seen that night out at the mill popped into her mind, she felt a violent surge of fear and hatred that was so strong it terrified her. No matter how many times she told herself that, given her circumstances, such feelings and thoughts were normal, it seemed as though now all of the violence and hatred she had ever felt were coming to the front, ready to burst out of her. Just like her mother, who after years of abuse had finally fought back, she was going to get even for what had happened to her.
Jesus Christ, just stop it, please! Stop it!
She closed her eyes and pressed her hands hard against her face. Her skin was flushed, as though she had a fever.
What the hell am I thinking?
She didn’t dare consider that question honestly because, at least in the darkest corners of her mind, she was afraid that she already knew the answer. Over th
e last few agonizing months, she had tried her best to deny it, to disbelieve it so much that it just wouldn’t be so; but she couldn’t stop thinking that, once the wires were out of her mouth, she wasn’t going to be the person she had been before her fall off that mountain ridge. She already wasn’t! And it was one person’s fault!
Oh, God! What the Christ have I become?
She feared that, over the past several months, while her face had been healing and her broken jaw had been mending, she had slowly but inexorably been altered, externally and internally, and now it was just a matter of time before Dr. Collett revealed what she had already become—
A monster!
And she couldn’t stop thinking that it was all Edward’s fault; and that one way or another, when this ordeal was finally all over—goddamnit!—he was going to have to pay for everything he’d put her through!
Dust swirled in the air as Edward drove the truck into the driveway, but even before he had switched off the ignition and gotten out, he realized he was too late. The car was gone. Muttering a curse under his breath, he started up the walkway to the house, nervously jingling his key ring in his hand. The back door had been left wide open as if someone had left the house in a hurry.
“Holy shit, she must’ve been really pissed,” he said when he entered the kitchen and found Dianne’s note on the table.
“Where the hell were you?” he read aloud. Every syllable made his eardrums flutter, and a warm rush went up the back of his neck. “Thanks a lot!”
Sighing, he crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it into the trash can, then turned toward the doorway. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he called out, “Hey, Brian! You home?”
