All the Wicked Girls

by Chris Whitaker

  They walked back to the cruiser and drove back into Grace.

  Lights burned bright in homes, trucks passed by with low beams.

  *

  Noah sat alone in the dialysis ward. The Transit bus had been bad; he’d stood the whole journey ’cause folk had taken to riding it just to pass through the dark wall. There’d been reporters at Mayland when he got off. They’d seen him and started yelling and scrambling. A Briar County deputy kept them away.

  Missy had sat with him and told him how stupid he was, how bad it could’ve been skipping dialysis. But she’d seen the news so she kept her tone soft and held his hand. She told him he was lucky and he smiled at that.

  He watched the television and saw news reports on every channel, cutting from the square to Hallow Road to aerial shots of the edge of the Deamer land. They showed a photo of the Bird, grainy and faded but Noah felt cold when he saw it.

  His name was Harvey Hail Deamer, and reporters had it he was sent to live with an aunt in Odessa shortly after his sister Mandy died.

  There were missing girls in other states so they were trying to piece Harvey’s movements over the years. Despite the talk, he was the only Deamer living on their land.

  What happened to the rest was still being worked out.

  The press cooked up old reports of Panic events, ran a timeline like it was even close to being linked. They showed a shot of Richie Reams from way back, then a shot of Franny Vestal and her devil house by the woods. Then they showed Mandy Deamer, and Noah stared at her smile and was glad he was a believer ’cause that was the only way it could be all right. Heaven. They were all in heaven now.

  When he was done he left the ward and took the elevator to the third floor. He saw another deputy, who smiled and nodded and told Noah he’d done good.

  “Can I go in?” Noah said.

  “Sure,” the deputy said.

  Noah opened the door careful, in case she was sleeping.

  Amber was sitting up in the bed, her parents either side.

  Jessie-Pearle got straight up and lunged and nearly knocked Noah off his feet. She squeezed him so tight.

  “Jesus, Mom,” Amber said.

  “Thank you,” Jessie-Pearle said into Noah’s ear, then kissed his cheek and held his face in her hands.

  Jimmy King stood, locked Noah with a serious gaze, and nodded; his eyes were red. Noah extended a hand. Jimmy shook it then pulled him in and hugged him quick.

  “You need anything, ever . . . you’re family now.”

  Noah smiled and didn’t know what to say.

  Jessie-Pearle made eyes at her husband. “We’re goin’ down to get some coffee.”

  Noah waited till they were out the door then pulled a chair back and sat.

  “I’m Noah, by the way.”

  Amber nodded, then closed her eyes tight. Noah took her hand. They sat like that till a nurse looked in and asked if she was all right and she said yeah like she was.

  “Raine . . . her sister?” Amber said.

  “I ain’t sure.” He hadn’t seen her since her momma led her from the station.

  “I would’ve died.”

  “You don’t –”

  “I just want you to know.” Her voice cracked. “That man, he said he was waitin’ on a full moon. He would’ve done it, like the other girls.”

  They sat quiet for a while, both realizing they were perfect strangers. Noah looked down at his father’s badge. He thought of TV cops and all those bright colors and how long and far they lay from the outside.

  “They want me to talk to a shrink,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  “They look at me different.”

  “Who?”

  “My parents. They reckon they want to know, what went on down there, but they don’t.”

  “All that shit he was sayin’, that man.”

  “The cops want to know, about the other girls.” She stared at the sheet covering her, her voice flat and quiet. “I ain’t got nothin’ to say. The things he said, it didn’t make no sense.”

  “That’s the way it’s been, ain’t nothin’ neat ’cause life ain’t like that. Questions ain’t always answered. None of it matters now. He’s gone and you’re here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You can come hang out, when you’re feelin’ better maybe. If you want to come to Grace, or maybe we can come see you.”

  She nodded.

  “Is everything else okay?” he said, ’cause he knew.

  She placed a hand on her stomach. “The baby is still there. My parents know but they ain’t said nothin’ ’cept that it’ll be all right. That it’ll all be all right.”

  “I’ll let you get some rest.”

  He smiled and stood and turned toward the door.

  “Noah.”

  He looked back.

  “You’re brave, you know that? Most boys ain’t, they just think they are.”

  “You’re brave too,” he said.

  She lay back.

  The halls were quiet, the strip lighting bare. He was brave and he was fierce, and he stopped in the restroom, locked himself in a stall, and cried.

  *

  Purv walked along Jackson Ranch Road then cut into the square. The warring sides had packed their shit and headed home. There was a cold feel to Grace, not just ’cause it was dark. The sandbags still cut the grass in half; there was litter all over. Purv looked up at the station, stopped and sat awhile on the stone steps. He worried about Raine and about Summer. And he worried about Noah. Purv had failed them; he should’ve got the gun and shot the Bird himself. He was nearer but couldn’t move, would’ve stood perfect still and watched the Bird claim them all.

  He got up and walked over to St. Luke’s and kept his pace slow ’cause he didn’t really have no place to go.

  He saw the gravestones and wondered if they’d have a space for Summer. She was small like Raine, just a kid.

  He looked up at the church and the bell tower, the colored glass and the big fuckin’ cross. He leaned down and picked up a rock. He hurled it and it hit the big wood door. He heard someone yell so he took off, running so fast the town lights streaked.

  He stopped at the bottom of Dove Ridge, one of the pretty streets, hands on his knees and panting. He glanced over at the Beauregard house and saw them saying grace through the drapes, candles on the table and silver shining above the fireplace. And then he glanced at the porch, at the bottom of the steps, and that’s when he saw it, perfect and calling. Pastor Lumen’s scooter.

  He walked over and saw the old man had left the keys in ’cause there weren’t no one dumb enough to steal it. He thought of that shit Pastor Lumen had said about Noah, how he deserved to be sick, that shit about past sins.

  Noah was low, Purv could already see his smile.

  Purv handled it like a pro, hopping curbs and gunning the engine till it whined so loud he thought it’d blow.

  He pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit it, then rode one-handed in the direction of Noah’s place, like a motherfuckin’ badass cowboy.

  He didn’t notice the car beside till the lights flashed blue and red.

  Purv watched the new cop get out, the cop that was over from the Sheriff’s Office till the shitstorm died.

  “You need to call Black,” Purv said, as the cop opened the cruiser door and pushed him into the back.

  “Chief Black is busy, or ain’t you seen the news? I’ll cut you a break and let your parents deal with you.”

  “Seriously, I ain’t fuckin’ round. You need to call Black right now, he’ll sort this,” Purv said, fear in his voice.

  “Scared of what your daddy will say? You should be. Stealin’ from a pastor, shit, he’ll probably give you a hidin’. You won’t be able to sit for a week,” the cop said, laughing.

  *

  Raine had spent the day lying in Summer’s bed. She curled herself around the cover, buried her head beneath, and broke into cold sweats.

  She heard her parents leave
, the truck start and pull away and she knew they were going to stand out by Hell’s Gate, on the other side, where moonlight still fell in swathes of empty color.

  She heard the door, felt herself move out of the room and down the stairs like she weren’t there, like she was just a bystander.

  She opened the door to Black. He didn’t wear his hat, just carried it like it no longer fit.

  “Are your parents home?” He spoke soft and kind and she hated him for it.

  “No.”

  He nodded and turned.

  “What did you find?” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “I can’t breathe, Black. She’s mine, more than she’s anyone else’s. I got to know now.”

  “We found a truck, burned out.”

  “Where?”

  “Edge of Deamer land . . . where Hell’s Gate forks the Red.”

  “And?”

  “I should speak to –”

  “What did you find?” she said loud and hard.

  He held up a clear bag and she saw the ring in it, Summer’s ring with the blue stone that matched hers. Their daddy had brought them home when he got out. They didn’t ever take them off. Not ever.

  She closed the door and climbed the stairs. She reached over and picked up the photograph in the glitter frame and held it awhile.

  It fell from her hand when she cried.

  The glass smashed. She slipped the photo out, grasping it tight, and she saw something behind. It was a flower pressed flat, and as she held it up to the light she gasped ’cause the checkered bell cast a lantern-pink glow over the room. And she wondered where her sister had got an Alabama Pink from.

  Her sister. She had to see the place where the cops found her ring. The place where the Bird had taken her.

  She walked down the stairs and grabbed the keys to her momma’s truck.

  *

  Purv sat by the window, and if he strained real hard then he thought he could make out the sound of crickets. The front door was locked. The back door was locked.

  They were downstairs. He could hear the television and maybe it was Jeopardy or Family Feud or some other game show his momma liked the visual of. Smiling families.

  He crept into their bedroom, picked up the telephone and dialed Noah.

  “Where were you?” Noah said.

  “Couldn’t get away,” Purv said.

  “Oh.”

  Noah knew. Always did.

  “You want me to come over?”

  “No, it’s all right,” Purv said.

  “I saw Amber King,” Noah said. His voice was quiet.

  “Yeah. How’s she doin’?”

  “She’s healing, the cuts, they cleaned ’em up but she had this look in her eyes like the Bird took somethin’ that can’t be put back.”

  “Is the baby all right?”

  “Yeah, the baby’s all right.”

  “That’s good.”

  Purv looked around his parents’ bedroom. There was a cross tacked above the bed. They left the drapes open so streetlight fell in.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Purv said.

  “Me neither.”

  “They reckon Olive Braymer fought back. They found a knife, had her prints, and a bad scar on the Bird’s stomach. He weren’t done, all that time, he was just healing up.”

  “Too bad she didn’t kill him.”

  “That was fucked up. The whole thing. Raine, havin’ to hear him say that stuff. Watchin’ him get blown away like that. I mean, you see that shit in movies . . . you pulled the trigger, Noah. People are sayin’ you’re a hero just like your father.”

  He heard Noah laugh but knew there weren’t nothing behind it.

  “You reckon that means I could be a cop?” Noah said.

  “ ’Course it does.”

  “I was thinkin’ about New Orleans.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I reckon we should go soon.”

  “Me too.”

  “We got a letter from Social Services this mornin’. They want to come again. And my grandmother, with her mind gone like that. She’s got friends to look out for her, the church. She ain’t gonna miss me, probably won’t know I’m gone.”

  “We’ll go. We can find work. We’ll take the Buick, get a new door, plan a careful route. The guy in Windale, the one I was tellin’ you about, he can get us fake cards. Real good.”

  “I was thinkin’ maybe we could ask Raine if she wants to come.”

  Purv smiled ’cause Noah sounded nervous.

  “Purv?”

  “Yeah, I reckon that’s a good idea. Though she’d have to square it with Joe. Imagine havin’ him on our tail for three hundred miles.”

  Noah laughed.

  There was quiet for a long time.

  “I was also thinkin’ . . . I know we don’t say it, but maybe we got a raw deal. Our lives . . .” Noah said.

  Purv swallowed. “Yeah. Maybe, when you think about it.”

  “We got this though, now. We get to go through it . . . side by side. I ain’t even sure what I’m sayin’. I’m tired, I guess. We don’t cry, right?”

  Purv held the receiver away for a minute ’cause his voice wouldn’t hold. “We don’t cry. We’re brave and we’re fierce.”

  “We are. We don’t forget that.”

  Purv set the phone down.

  He crossed the hallway quiet. He went into his bedroom and climbed on his nightstand and reached on top of his closet. He grabbed the hunting knife and lay down and waited.

  *

  His father came for him just before midnight, when the liquor made way for the anger.

  Purv raised the knife, gripping it tight, holding it level with his father’s face.

  It was then he knew it was a mistake. The kinda mistake you don’t recover from.

  He dropped the knife, his arm twisted up behind his back till he felt his shoulder slip from the socket.

  He fell forward, his face against the window.

  For a moment he thought he saw Noah at the end of the yard. But then the sky flashed bright, and the yard lit, and there weren’t no one there at all.

  And as the storm finally dropped on the town of Grace, Purv had the life beaten all out of him.

  47

  When the Storm Comes

  It was late but the first wave of thunder was loud enough to see the people of Grace rise from their beds. Lights came on and robes were pulled tight as kids pressed close to windows, their anxious parents beside. They stopped frozen ’cause of the sight in the sky. The cloud was twisting. Hopes of it fading quiet died. Doors were locked and prayers were said. Those with shelters made their way down with packs they’d readied. Some called family, others called the police department.

  *

  The agents working the Deamer land moved out of Grace as the sky crackled and flashed. A young agent, the same guy Black had spoke to, craned his neck so far back he ended up on his ass. No one laughed ’cause no one could turn from the cloud.

  At the end of the Deamer track, standing in a line behind the tape, was Joe and Ava and Tommy and fifteen of their people. A little way up were families of the Briar girls and their friends. And standing alone at the end was Peach Palmer. She paced a while ’cause she couldn’t stand the waiting. And when the deputies turned she slipped under the tape and ran toward the woods and the town beyond.

  “Raine?” Tommy said.

  “Home. Safe,” Ava said.

  They looked over at Grace lit under flashes of fire in the sky.

  *

  Raine kept the high beams on and her speed down till she got to Lott and then she floored it. She didn’t pay mind to the storm ’cause she didn’t much care if the whole sky fell onto Grace.

  She kept to the back roads ’cause she reckoned Hallow Road would be tight with visitors and cameras and cops.

  She tried to follow the Red but the tracks didn’t hold a true line so she crossed from Windale to Grace and back, from rattling thunder to e
asy starlight.

  A couple miles up from the spot where Richie Reams’s cock had once washed up she saw a line of police tape reflecting back at her. She parked in the grass and looked out the windshield at the deep tracks in the mud where they’d come and taken the truck away.

  There weren’t rain yet but the wind had picked up fast and it whistled around her momma’s truck, rocking it from side to side.

  She climbed out and moved slow, her head bowed low and eyes locked on her feet as she walked the woods.

  She carried a heavy flashlight and shined it a couple of feet out.

  Her throat was sore and her arms were heavy but she kept moving, beyond the cut of the truck beams and into shadow. The wind whipped so loud she couldn’t make out the sound of the Red but she knew it was near.

  She came to a spot where black-burned roots and leaves spread wide and she knew that was where the truck had been.

  The calm that took her was so sudden and total that she almost smiled, ’cause she couldn’t feel it, not at all. She was close to certain her sister hadn’t been there. She held out her hands wide and she heard nothing but the sweep of tree branches above as they moved together.

  The wind rose and died and rose again but when it dropped away to nothing she shined the flashlight out far and drew a sharp breath, ’cause glowing back at her were the light eyes of a hundred Alabama Pinks.

  When she was small she’d wondered if they were real, the flowers so rare a lifetime of searching weren’t enough to find them. She reached down and picked one, and she shone her flashlight through the bell and watched the pink glow fall.

  And now Summer had one, and Raine thought hard about where she’d seen another. When it came to her she turned and she ran the trail back to the truck.

  *

  Noah eased the Buick down Lott, the wind slamming it so hard he fought to keep the wheel straight. He’d tried to sleep, but he’d turned and rolled in shallow dreams. He’d woke sweating and thought maybe he was sick. But then his mind had run to Purv, so he’d picked up the telephone and tried calling him but the line was out.

  He jammed the brake pedal when a trash can dropped from the sky and landed beside the hood. Then a cop car swerved in front and Black jumped out. Noah watched as he bent low and ran over, then climbed into the Buick.

  Noah expected Black to yell but saw nothing but sad in his eyes.