The Torment of Rachel Ames

by Jeff Gunhus

  She takes a deep breath to calm herself but the musty air makes her cough.

  “What? Don’t like the place? Lacks a woman’s touch is what I think,” Granger says. “Let’s go outside. Sure you didn’t come over here unless there was somethin’ on your mind.”

  He gestures towards the door and she walks outside, more than ready to get away from the cabin and all the dead animals. Granger follows her out to the chairs by the smoldering campfire and adds a couple of logs. A few minutes later, the wood blazes as they face each other in the two chairs.

  “So, anything exciting happen at work today, dear?” Granger says.

  “I want some answers.”

  “What? No foreplay?”

  “The first time we met—”

  “You mean the first time I scared the shit out of you.”

  “Right. You said something that night that's stayed with me. About the cabin.”

  “The cabin. So, it's happening already, is it?”

  “What? What's happening?”

  Granger gets up from his chair, picks up a long stick and uses it to poke the fire, sending a shower of sparks up into the darkening sky. “Hard to know,” he says. “It's different every time. Why don’t you tell me what’s happening?”

  “There's a door.”

  “Go on.” Granger reaches down to the ground and scoops up a rooster walking past him. The rooster fusses a little, but then rests comfortably tucked under Granger’s arm as he strokes the bird’s head.

  “I found this door, a hidden door. Somehow, I knew the door was there even though it was hidden, if that makes any sense. Like it was calling to me.”

  “Did you open the door?”

  “Once.” She recalls the wall being intact when she left the cabin. “I think.”

  Granger sits back down heavily in his chair, the rooster in his lap like an accessory dog used by a Hollywood starlet. “Lady, either you opened it or you didn't. Which is it?”

  “I don’t know. I keep having these dreams. They’re so real that I think I’m someplace else, but then things… change back… like they were before.”

  “Someplace else? Where do you go?”

  “You don’t know what's going on either, do you?” she says, her voice cracking. She stands up. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Sit down!” Granger barks. The words come out as a command and she sits out of instinct. Granger stares at her while he pets the rooster on his lap, which seems more than happy to just sit there. Granger’s eyes screw up like he’s in a windstorm only he can feel.

  She shifts uncomfortably. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I'm just trying to figure you out.”

  “Great, that makes two of us. This all has to make sense somehow.”

  “Make sense? Why? Are you one of those people who believes everything has a purpose?”

  “I don't have time for this,” she snaps. She considers that she might have been wrong to come to this place. Maybe Granger didn’t know anything after all.

  “You said you want to know what's going on,” Granger says, his voice laced with anger. “I'm trying to tell you.”

  She leans back in her chair, breathes deep and nods for Granger to continue.

  “Now, I'll ask you again, do you believe everything has a purpose?”

  “I don't know. I used to, but...”

  “Now you're not so sure.”

  “Something like that.”

  Granger grins wickedly. “Welcome to the club, my girl. The Society of Miserable Sons-A-Bitches.” He places the rooster on his head. “You get a funny hat and everything.”

  She smiles in spite of herself.

  Granger kisses the rooster, puts it back on his lap and strokes it gently. “There, that's better. Maybe now you're ready to listen. Because what I'm about to tell you is the most important thing you're ever going to hear.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” she says.

  Granger ignores the comment. “There are immutable rules to the universe that cannot be circumvented. That cannot be suspended no matter how clever you are, how beautiful you are, how wretched you are.”

  She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. Granger watches her closely.

  “So, you know what I'm talking about.”

  She laughs but it comes out hollow and false. “Not a clue.”

  Granger looks smug. “That’s not true. You see clues of the truth every day. Sure, maybe you can’t describe it in words, but you can feel it, can't you? Sure you can. Every human can on some level. Right at the edge of consciousness. Something so pure and unalterable, that it’s terrifying. So absolute that you can't bring yourself to acknowledge it no matter how much you want to. Tell me you can’t feel it.”

  “All I feel is that I’m losing my mind.”

  “Losing your mind? Shit, that would be a blessing, wouldn't it? The mind is our worst enemy.” He nods to his lap where the rooster sits, allowing itself to be pet. “Imagine. To be like this bird here. No worries. No shame. No guilt.” Granger tickles the rooster's neck with his thick, dirty fingers. “He's not thinking about tomorrow. He's just thinking that it feels good where he's at so he'll stay there. Pretty soon he'll have urges. Maybe to eat. Drink. Shit. Maybe he'll fuck one of them plump chickens over there.”

  Granger bends down and kisses the rooster on the head. Then he grabs it by the neck and twists. The rooster spasms violently, then goes limp. Granger opens his hands. “And just like that, maybe he won't.”

  “What the hell?” she cries out, shocked by the sudden violence. Bile rises in the back of her throat as she stares at the dead bird’s broken neck. “Why'd you do that?”

  Granger stands. “Because this animal lives by the rules. Life comes and then it is gone. Nothing to be down about that. Same rules apply to all of us.”

  Granger tosses the bird on her lap. She bats it away and it lands on the ground. “Besides, I’m hungry and that’s dinner.” He walks toward the house. “Make sure you get all them feathers off. Nothing spoils dinner like feathers in your teeth.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rachel watches Granger disappear inside the cabin. She nudges the dead chicken with her foot, fighting down her revulsion at the man’s violence toward the poor animal. She looks over her shoulder at the canoe waiting on the shore behind her and considers making a break for it. Paddling straight across the lake and then a short walk to her car followed by a fast ride the hell out of there. But something stops her. Granger knows more than he’s told her, she knows he does. The same way she knew there was a door hidden in the cabin walls. She decides that if putting up with Granger’s special brand of crazy is what it takes to find out what’s really going on, then so be it.

  She bends down and picks up the dead chicken. With one long look at the cabin, she takes a handful of feathers and pulls.

  An hour later, the sun now set, the chicken turns on a spit, roasting over the campfire. Granger kneels and shakes salt onto the meat.

  “What do you know about the cabin?” she asks.

  Granger peels off a piece of meat and takes a bite, then rotates the spit. He eyes Rachel, sizing her up. “Not quite ready yet. A little while longer, I think.” He sits back in his chair, watching the fire.

  “I've been thinking about your little speech,” she says. “About the rooster.”

  “And?”

  “And it's bullshit.”

  Granger's eyes narrow. “Really? Enlighten me.”

  “Our minds, our capacity to think, to feel, to remember, that's all that makes us human. Without that, we're reduced to animals.”

  “Reduced? It’s a biological truth that we are animals, like it or not.”

  “We’re more than animals,” she says. “Or we at least have the capacity to be. Trying to block out the past is like blocking the sun with your hand. You can convince yourself you made the sun disappear, but you didn't. It burns whether you look right at it or not. How’s that for a rule?”

  “
The sun, huh? That's pretty. You should be a writer.”

  She stands. “I want to understand what's going on here. These wolves, bizarre birds, Ollie sweeping leaves in the woods.”

  Granger doesn’t look happy at the mention of Ollie’s name but he lets it slide. He shakes his head sadly, like he’s taking pity on her. “I used to be just like you. I did. But I fixed it.” Granger leans forward. “What if I told you I could show you how to get rid of the past once and for all? Not just block the sun, but destroy it?”

  Granger reaches behind his chair and pulls out a small brown bottle without a label.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What if I had the power to take all your pain, all your memory of pain, all of it, and make it disappear forever?”

  “There's no way you can do that,” she whispers.

  “I asked you what if I could? Would you take the deal? Would you make that bargain with me?”

  Wolves howl in the distance. A wind stirs the trees. The fire blazes higher, spitting sparks into the night sky.

  “The nightmares would be gone.”

  She hears sirens in the distance. People shouting. The smell of a fire. She puts her hands to the sides of her head to try to block it out.

  “I can make it all go away.”

  “All of it?”

  “All of it.”

  Three wolves appear on the edge of the forest, hackles up, eyes glowing with the fire's reflection. She sees the wolves and looks back at Granger.

  “If you could promise me that…”

  There’s movement at the edge of her vision and she turns back toward the wolves. From behind them walks a small, blond boy in shorts and a Star Wars t-shirt. His skin is tanned and, even in the dark she can see his piercing blue eyes. The boy stops between the wolves and stares at her.

  “The pain,” Granger says. “Think of the pain.”

  She stands and stumbles toward the boy. “Little boy. What are you doing? You can’t be here. Come to me. Nice and slow.”

  The boy turns and runs into the forest.

  Granger grabs her by the shoulder and spins her around. “No more nightmares. No more pain. You can forget forever.”

  “Didn’t you see that boy?” she says, pulling away. “He can’t be here.”

  She runs toward the forest, finds the trail where the boy disappeared and sprints down it. The trees close in around her and block out the moon. Enough light filters through the branches that she can see the boy far ahead of her. She catches only the smallest glimpse of him before he disappears around a bend in the path.

  “Stop! It’s not safe out here,” she yells.

  The path narrows, walls of briar and stinging nettles pushing in from either side, encasing the trees that rise up to form a canopy overhead. Decaying logs lie across the path, some big enough that she has to crawl over them on her stomach. She’s not sure how the boy could be outpacing her, but he is. On top of one fallen log she has a good view ahead and she spots him ducking down a side trail, the ferns so thick that they close in behind him as he passes.

  “Wait!”

  She runs harder, falls and scrapes her knees. Back up on her feet, she sprints after him, the branches ripping her clothes and scratching her skin as she passes. The trail suddenly opens up onto a meadow ringed with ancient trees. A low-lying fog covers the ground, glowing in the moonlight; thick and swirling like a living thing. She runs through it, drawing a vortex of fog behind her. She can’t see the ground with the fog coming up to her chest.

  “Where are you?” she shouts.

  She looks behind her and sees three wolves in the tree line, their eyes glowing red. They leap into the meadow, disappearing as they run into the fog. All she can see are ripples just under the mist’s surface as they run toward her.

  She hurtles forward, stumbling blindly over the uneven ground. She gets to the end of the meadow and bolts down a path. She takes one turn and slides to a stop in front of a wall of fallen trees.

  On every branch is an enormous black crow. Hundreds of them. They turn in unison to look at her and she sees they’re not crows at all. They’re all like the bird she killed at the cabin, a head of red skin with human lips and wide staring eyes. Only these don’t have their mouths sewn shut. These have their lips curled back to reveal sharp, bloodstained teeth.

  A cluster of them are on the ground in front of the tree, piled up as they scramble and fight over something. They turn to look at her and she sees they are feasting on the bloody carcass of the fawn she saw her first day at the cabin.

  She screams and runs the other direction. The second she does, the birds explode into high-pitched shrieks that fill the forest.

  She runs, desperate to find the boy. Just as desperate to get away from the birds.

  There’s a snarl from the path ahead of her. The black wolf steps forward, blocking her way.

  She runs to her right, creating her own path through the dense growth. The brambles scrape across her skin. Vines wrap around her legs and she has a pulse of terror that the forest itself has come alive.

  But the ground gives way downhill and she breaks free. She loses her balance and tumbles down it, protecting her head with her arms. All she can hear are the screams from the birds. The snarls of the wolves closing in. The sirens from the fire trucks and first responders. The roar of the fire. She rolls to a stop but stays on the ground, her hands clutching her head, covering her ears, useless. They have her this time. There’s no escape. No need to even try. She curls up in a ball and waits for the end to come.

  “Rachel. Thank God,” says a voice. “She’s over here.”

  She feels an arm around her and the voice, John’s voice, is right next to her ear.

  “It’s all right. I’m right here. I’m right here.”

  She leans into him and squeezes her eyes tight. Slowly, like someone turning down the volume on a radio, the noises in her head fade. Soon, it’s just white noise, a steady, unrelenting sound in the background.

  “Come on,” John says. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  She gets to her feet, holding on to John’s arm. She’s surprised to see a second flashlight beam dancing nearby. It’s Ollie and he looks scared.

  “You okay, miss?” he asks as she passes him. “You aren’t supposed to be out here on your own like this. Not how things work around here.”

  She stops. Her body shakes from the adrenaline surge from the chase, but she ignores it. She stares at Ollie. “You said that before. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Ollie looks confused and more frightened all at the same time. He looks to John for help.

  “Come on,” John says. “You’ve been through a lot. Let’s get back to the cabin. We can talk there.”

  “No, I want to know what he means,” she says, her voice trembling. “Just how are things supposed to work around here?”

  Ollie turns off his flashlight as if that will make him invisible. “Sorry, miss,” he says from the dark. “That’s not for me to say.”

  John pulls her toward him until he’s whispering in her ear. “Let’s just get back to the cabin. And I’ll tell you what you want to know. I promise.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rachel sits on the weathered old couch in the living room, watching John closely as he pours them all coffee. Every one of his movements stirs a gnawing sense of premonition in her chest. She gives the wall the barest of glances. As she expects, there’s no sign of a door or any damage to the drywall.

  “You gave us a scare, is all,” Ollie says. “How did you even get out there?”

  John walks behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder as if to quiet him. Ollie looks apologetic and waves away the offered mug of coffee. John hands a cup to her and sits next to her on the couch. The way he looks at her twists a knot in her stomach and she can’t figure out why.

  “We should go,” Ollie says. “Let her get some rest.”

  “Stay,” she says. “You said we would talk. You prom
ised me something.”

  John hesitates, then nods. “I’ll catch up with you later, Ollie.”

  Ollie doesn’t mask that he doesn’t like what’s happening, but whatever complaint he has about it, he swallows and heads for the door. She follows and watches out of the window as he climbs into his pickup truck and drives away. She turns back to John and looks at him with her head cocked to one side.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks from across the cabin.

  “It just occurred to me that you didn’t even ask me what I saw out there.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  She looks back out the window, raw doubt eating at her stomach. “How long did you say you’ve owned this place?”

  “What’s that?” He seems surprised by the change of direction.

  “How long have you owned this cabin?”

  “I don’t know. Years.”

  “How many years?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Why?”

  “Would you say five years? Ten?”

  “Something like that.” He puts down his coffee. “Look, whatever you got into out there tonight shook you up pretty good. How about you head to bed? I’ll sleep out here to make sure everything’s all right and we can talk tomorrow.”

  She walks to the kitchen and pulls open a drawer and wraps her hand around her gun. “So which do you think it is? Five or ten?” She pulls out the gun. “Seems odd that you wouldn’t know.”

  “Does it really matter? I think—”

  “I think it does matter,” she says, walking toward him, raising the gun in front of her. “I think it really fucking matters.”

  John stands up, his hands out to either side. “Okay, let’s just relax here.”

  “What have you been putting in my food?”

  “What?”

  “You brought food. Those drinks. There must be something in them. Right after I got here, it’s when I started seeing things. And I can’t… I can’t remember things.”

  “Just put the gun down, all right? We’re just talking here.”

  She cocks the gun. “How did I find this place?”