“What the fuck do you want?”
The one-eyed man replied in a stark tone. He said, “To talk, to counsel, to understand.”
“Well, One-eye. You don’t mind if I call you that do you? You one-eyed piece of shit,” The blue-eyed man said. He laughed at his own retort.
“If you feel you need to,” the one-eyed man said, unblinking and stiff.
“After all this time. Well, come on, let it out. Let us hear it then. Goddamn, have a seat. Take a fucking load off.”
He pointed with the gun in front of his own feet, motioning for One-eye to sit down. A long silence followed as they stared at one another. The one-eyed man remained at the tree line. With a gust of air from his lungs, the blond-haired man stood and shrugged his shoulders, waiting for the other man to speak. Given nothing more than the cold stare from the solitary eye, he felt insulted by the muted response. He lifted his gun and jabbed the air with the barrel.
“What do you want, you one-eyed demon? What?”
“To hear you say it.”
“To hear me say what?” The blond-haired man dropped his hand to his side, stunned by the question.
“Whatever you feel that needs to be said.” One-eye stood regarding him with a look of certain discrimination.
The man laughed and knelt down beside the fire. He continued to chuckle as he poked at the coals with a stick. He would look up from time to time at the man standing at the edge of the trees watching him. A great while passed as the one-eyed man waited for an answer. Unsure of what to do, unnerved in a peculiar way by the stranger, the blond-haired man aimed his gun at the other man’s single eye and thumbed the hammer back.
At an eased pace the one-eyed man squatted down to level his head with the blue-eyed man. A placid air around them, the sound of the fire popping and crackling were the only noises audible in the wide of the universe. The blond-haired man lowered his gun.
“Who are you?” He asked the man with a forced calmness.
“They called me Theo once, long ago.”
“Theo?” The blond-haired man huffed, looking him over. “You don’t look much like a Theo.”
“What do I look like then?”
The man chuckled to himself. He said, “You look like shit.”
There was only the tranquil stare of Theo. The blond man stopped laughing at his remark as the seriousness exposed itself. Feelings of inexplicable dread took hold. The deadpan gaze and the still night air made him feel nervous. He could not think clearly.
“Why do you follow me?”
Theo responded quick, calm, matter-of-fact. He said, “To understand.”
“Understand what?”
“You.”
The blue-eyed man grit his teeth and threw the stick he held into the fire. His annoyance showed.
“What about me? Make some fucking sense.”
“I want to hear what you need to say,” Theo said. “What do you feel inside, Frank?”
The blond-haired, blue-eyed man’s mouth opened. Struck speechless for a moment, he hesitated. His eyes widened and he became nervous. He struggled to understand what the other man said to him.
“How…how the fuck do you know my name?”
“Why? Does it bother you?” Theo said. His face froze and held the same blank expression as he spoke. “Tell me if it bothers you. If any of this bothers you, tell me, and I will stop. I will let you go back to what you were doing before. Does it?”
“No. It doesn’t bother me.” Frank said. He jumped to his feet. “What the fuck do you want? So help me God, if you don’t tell me right now, I’ll blow your other eye out the back of your head.”
Theo’s mouth curved into a grin, but his eye never showed he was smiling. Frank stepped towards him with the gun aimed at his skull. The fire sparkled in the cold staring eye under the tangled and stringy hair. Outrage flared within Frank’s mind and his pulse quickened. His hand faltered holding the barrel steady.
“Can’t forget?”
“Forget what?” Frank said. He strained to understand the question. “What can’t I forget?”
“We all try. We do. But it won’t go away. No, not for us. It will never fade for us.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Frank rubbed his eyes with a trembling hand. He shook his head as he stepped back and braced himself against the truck. His mouth opened and snapped shut again. He reconsidered the question he would have asked. Frank was too afraid he already knew the answer.
“Do you miss her?”
“Who?”
“Your wife,” Theo said. His voice was lower than a whisper, more the sound of breath exhaled.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Theo moved forward to stand on his knees and crossed his hands over his midsection. With an odd grin frozen on his face and an unsympathetic look in his eye, he appeared to tempt Frank to act out in anger. Frank looked at Theo kneeling as he paced back and forth like a caged animal. The other man knew something he was not telling.
“Do you miss her?”
Frank erupted, shouting at the one-eyed man. He said, “Of course I miss her. Why the hell wouldn’t I?”
“Did you really love Clara?”
Disbelief struck Frank again. Her name was redolent of vanilla and fresh cut flowers, hearing it felt similar to a secret treasure long forgot and discovered again by chance. Waves of memories crashed inside his mind, full of pain, regret, and grief. He collapsed to his knees, joining Theo on the cold ground. His thoughts felt shattered, fragments fell away into chaos, as though his senses were inside a sweeping current. There was a sharp pull at his chest, a deep unsettling in his gut. The air felt dense on his skin. He answered in a captive daze, eyes welling with tears.
“Yes.”
“Do you remember what you have done?”
“Yes, I remember,” he said. His lips felt numb. His jaw seemed heavy.
“Are you seeking absolution?”
Frank looked at his questioner, his mind tried to focus on the words. Images of the past filtered up from their hidden passages and darkened corridors. They came from the places inside he dared not go. The sensation of falling made him lightheaded. The memory of Clara standing over him, offering her hand to help him up, it was the same vivid horror as it was back then. Vomit erupted from his mouth, hot and acidic, it rained out from him, and covered the ground between the two men.
Strong convulsions of his stomach muscles forced him downward, the top of his head rested on the cold leaves and thick globs of his still warm vomit. Shots of white-hot pain entered his skull behind his eyes. His lungs felt weak and he could not catch his breath. After a few struggled gasps, he slammed his fist onto the ground and inhaled a deep gulp of air. The darkening that formed in his vision faded. His body shuddered from the intense feeling of ice shards piercing his spine. Frank remained doubled over and pressed his face into his hands as he cried in an uncontrollable fit.
Long and agonizing minutes passed as he kept his face buried in his hands. He could still see her blood covered figure, clear as that afternoon in the middle of May. They had made plans to escape to the white beaches in the Caribbean only days before. She had picked out her evening wear, the places they would sightsee, and made special plans to do what young lovers do when visiting exotic islands. But it all dissolved from him when he walked into the one place they were supposed to be safe. His stifled sobs filled the otherwise quiet serenity of the night air.
“Can’t forget?”
Frank pushed himself up and leaned back to sit on his feet. He let his arms fall to his side. His eyes, swollen and wet from the burning tears, lost focus and the world blurred. He sat breathing, lost in his thoughts, lost in unwanted memories. Theo continued to watch him with rigid and unwavering fascination.
“Can’t forget?” He repeated in a steady tone.
“No, no, no. I can’t fucking forget it.” Frank leaped to his feet, pounded at his chest, and reached his hands toward the heav
ens. He said, “I’ll never be able to forget. Bad as I fucking wish I could forget. I will never be able to forget.”
Frank launched himself toward the kneeling man. He grabbed Theo’s tattered shirt in his hands and shook the man with violent jerks as he screamed in his face.
“Why can’t I just forget? Why do I have to goddamn remember her like that? Like…that?” He stumbled back from Theo, held his chest with crossed arms, and fell back to his knees. “I…can’t…fucking forget.”
Frank yelled at the man who prodded him, taunted him until he could stand no more. He screamed violent obscenities at Theo. Slobbering and gnashing his teeth, he punched at the ground with his balled fists. Spittle formed in the corners of his lips making him resemble an animal gone rabid.
Exhausted, he slumped forward and gasped for air. He wept aloud and pawed at the grass and dirt with his hands. Frank fell over on his side, covered his face with his hands, and continued to weep.
“What did you do to her?”
The way he asked, the implication of it, enraged Frank. He stood up and without hesitation, punched the one-eyed man on the cheekbone. The force should have knocked him out, or at least to the ground. Instead, the man’s head turned away when struck, and with a whipping action, he faced Frank again with a crooked smile. A small red bump was the only evidence of the strike.
Frank staggered back in confusion, his hand ached from the impact, and the pain was a steady radiation up his arm. Cold chills came across him. It suddenly felt all wrong and seemed to be off in some unusual way. He looked back to the one-eyed man who stood firm on his knees wearing the frozen crooked grin, unblinking and motionless. A low chuckle came from within the darkness of the trees, it seemed to change and come from the man in front of him. Tricks of the mind, Frank thought as he rubbed his face with his sore hand. It was because he was tired from the day’s walk. He watched as Theo opened his mouth to speak, the words too low to hear and caused him to step forward.
“What did you say?”
“I asked,” Theo said. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?”
He spoke in a tremendous voice. The sound was like thunder or a wild lion’s roar. It made the air vibrate, pulsing with each word spoken. Frank rushed him and hit him with repeated strikes of his fists. He pushed him into the soil, kicked at his stomach, and used the heel of his boot to stomp on the tormentor’s head. Spent and weary, Frank stepped backward and tried to catch his breath. Laughter came from Theo’s bloody mouth of as he pushed himself back up to his knees. His cackle became high pitched and disturbing. Frank picked up his dropped gun from among the grass and confronted the once more kneeling Theo.
“You son of a bitch. You don’t understand. You’ll never understand,” Frank said. He yelled into Theo’s face. “She was my world. She was everything to me and I lost her.”
“Lies,” Theo said. “Lies, lies, lies, and more lies.”
Theo smiled, a low chuckle crept past his throat. He clapped his hands with a slow rhythm beside his face. Mocking Frank, he mimicked a tear running down his bruised cheek with a filth-covered finger. He stopped chuckling with an abrupt sucking of air and returned to his silent judgmental stare. Frank’s hands quivered and his chest heaved. Lost again to the rage, the always persistent and engulfing rage, he raised the gun up and pointed it at the single fire lit eye. He thumbed the hammer back. The click of it resounded in the heavy air. There was no attempt by Theo to shield himself. Frank looked at the man in disgust, and the solitary eye stared back at him. It was unblinking, piercing, and cold.
“I’m going to kill you now,” Frank said. “Do you want to say anything else?”
The one-eyed man raised his thin arms up and held them as if Jesus crucified. He leaned his head forward, pursed his lips together, and gave a gentle kiss to the end of the barrel. His eye never broke contact with Frank’s own as he kept his mouth pressed against the gun. Frank’s breathing was the only sound in the frozen air until Theo spoke.
“Set me free,” Theo said.
His words were subtle and pleading, but firm and commanding. The crooked grin reappeared in a quick display before Theo opened his mouth wide. Frank pulled the trigger, the spray of bone and brains coated the trees behind them. He watched Theo fall backward. His body limp and heavy as it came to rest on the ground. The smell of gunpowder filled the air, replaced slowly by the smell of the dead man’s emptied bowels. Frank stood over the body and tilted his head at an angle to admire his work. He stared at Theo’s unblinking eye, his gaping and blood speckled mouth, and viewed him with quiet disregard. Frank fired another round into the cursed eye, finally fulfilling a long-held desire.
He stepped away from Theo’s body, returned to the fire, and tossed more wood into it. Frank rested his back against the truck. He fought the growing fatigue as he tried to keep himself awake in case the others attacked. Watching the flames grow, he thought over the strangeness of it, the insanity of what had happened.
Then again, the world ain’t the same anymore. It’s all changed now, right is wrong, and wrong is wronger still. Damn it all anyway. Just damn it all straight to hell.
Frank reached into his bag and retrieved his emergency bottle of medicine. It held a few painkillers and some antibiotics he found along the way. He took the pain pills and watched the fire burn. Occasionally he rubbed his sore and aching hands and stared at the stars overhead but not once did he look at the dead body. Even the sounds of angry cries from within the black shadows of the trees could not make him turn to look at it. He sat and waited for morning, half expecting the man who called himself Theo to sit beside him at the fire.
Have to get south now. First chance I get, I’m heading south.
13
Ben stood on the overpass looking down at the destruction of the small town. Vehicles littered both double lanes of blacktop as far as he could see, some burned, others sat with doors and hoods open. All were abandoned and forgotten. He lifted his father’s binoculars again and turned to look to the west at a solitary car parked on the side of the road. Ben considered whether to scavenge in any of the vehicles but decided it best to stay away from them. He watched buzzards gather in the ditch near the single car and wondered if they smelled someone died inside.
Then again, it could also just be a dead animal in the ditch.
It was late in the day, and he needed to find a spot to camp. After a drink of water and an adjustment to the way his pack hung on his shoulders, he urinated from the concrete guardrail to the grass median below. He looked at the tall dead grass. His gaze shifted to the cracked asphalt roadway. A momentary intrusive thought to jump from the overpass crossed his mind.
Just one small step. It would all end. It probably wouldn’t even hurt that much. A couple of seconds and it would be over.
In the distance, the sound of thunder rumbled across the sky. The threatening rainstorm moved closer to him. He rode for a short while, passed the exit to the small town, and noticed another sign that gave the distance to Jackson. He felt sickened when he saw the various animal bodies that hung on the metal posts. Each stacked one over another and all lashed together with bright orange colored extension cords. Ben let his eyes wander across the menagerie of wildlife and birds, he wondered if someone tried to recreate Noah’s Ark. To understand what it meant, or represented, was for other minds to decipher. His real interest in the sign was the number of miles left to travel. The number shown was one hundred thirteen, followed an arrow pointed toward Jackson. It was slow progress, hard-gained from his current weak state, but he accepted it.
Another mile went by, and he was in a small curve of the highway. He noticed a car with the front end wedged between two pine trees on the side of the road. He stopped a quarter mile from it and looked around for any signs of humans. The view from the binoculars revealed nothing inside the car that he could detect. He pushed the kickstand down with his foot and he stepped from the bike. He set his pack down, pulled the rifle from his shoulder, and made his way into the cover
of the trees. Ben took almost a half hour to make it to the car, often pausing as he thought he heard the sound of talking. He looked into the interior of the gray colored car. It was empty, clean, and almost new.
He returned along the road to gather his bike and backpack when the rain started. The drops felt ice cold as they landed on his neck. He hid the bike beside a large oak tree, piling leaves over it to avoid detection, and hoped it would not entice someone to sneak up on him in the car. He intended to see if he could crawl into the trunk to hide, but when he opened it, he discovered it full of books. Paperback, hardcover, large ones and small ones all neatly stacked inside. To toss them out would take too long and stood a chance to draw unwanted attention. He looked for the keys, hoping to drive it instead of riding the bike, but they were not inside the car.
He pushed his pack into the floorboard and crawled into the backseat. Ben spread out his sleeping bag to cover not only himself but the backpack as well. He made sure for the fourth time that all of the doors had locked before he pulled the bag over his head. He listened to the increased rainfall on the metal roof of the car as he hugged the revolver to his chest. The smell of new plastic and other chemicals gave him a slight headache. Darkness approached sooner with the thick rain clouds overhead. He felt gnawing hunger in his belly. It would have to wait for morning when he could better see what was outside.
The drumming melody of the raindrops lulled him for a long while, and occasional rumbles of thunder stirred him from dozing. His thoughts drifted back in time to before they left home and started south. He remembered his father, Marshall, standing each day in the doorway, listening to the radio as the news came in. Each new broadcast grew grimmer and far more disturbing than the last. Reporters from around the country continued to deliver various information of the civil unrest. The government officials promised everything was under control. Days passed, the reports grew harsher and more graphic with warnings about the rate the virus spread, and the frightening symptoms it had. His father stood at the door, leaned inside the frame, and stared across the road at the empty field.
The Wretched Page 9
