by J. Thorn
He'd punctuated his third warning with a gunshot, and watched as a fine red mist emerged from the back of the woman's head. She was dead before she hit the ground, and later he had sat in his tent weeping and trembling, and ultimately tried to replicate what he had done to the woman, this time to himself.
Beau had walked in at that moment, a bottle of hooch in his hand, a wide smile on his face that had not lasted long.
"The fuck you doin', man?" he'd asked, though surely the fact that Finch had a gun in his mouth had made it obvious.
Beau had talked him down that night, his "we were put here to do things that ain't always pretty" speech penetrating the caul of misery and terror that had, without him sensing it, overwhelmed Finch. Beau had war stories of his own, tales of men and women murdered in the name of war. Few of them were pretty, but all, Beau contended, had been absolutely necessary.
"I see her every time I blink," he told Beau. "She's haunting me. Her eyes haunt me. I see them gleaming from the shadows, and I can't make it stop. I see her from the corner of my eye, sitting in the dark."
"Bury it," Beau had told him. "Stick it in a box and study it later. It's the only thing you can do."
Finch had, but the crawling sensation, the darkness inside had never left him. It felt like a parasite, feeding off the negative energy, and every time he was called upon to kill, it grew bigger, until it had its hooks in his mind, forcing him to question what kind of creature he was and what kind of future might possibly exist for such a thing. Before, he'd thought the enemy an almost mystical thing, an entity whose very nature meant they would not look remotely human, would be faceless, and therefore easy to destroy.
The eyes of the woman had changed his mind.
And then he'd been called upon to kill again and again, and despite what he'd been told, he had remembered every one of the faces, every glint in the eyes of those who'd fallen before his gun.
Why then, had he thought this would be any different?
"You scared six shades of shit out of that Sheriff," Beau said. "Me too, by the time you were done."
Scared myself too, Finch thought. Everything he'd done to the Sheriff had been governed by the same automatic impulse that had driven him in Iraq after the death of the woman, the knowledge that—as Beau had said—though it would not always be pretty he was fighting for more than his own survival. They'd needed McKindrey's knowledge to have any hope of seeing the operation through and he had switched on a dangerous part of himself to ensure they got what they came for. But perhaps "switched on" wasn't the right way of saying it because it suggested control, and that was something he most certainly did not have over the more frightening aspects of his character. Often, it came unbidden.
Tonight, he knew it would come again.
He looked out the windshield at the dark shadow of a mountain a few miles ahead of them. In the fading light, it looked crimson, alien, something from a Martian landscape.
"Hood Mountain, I assume" Beau said and unfolded a map, his finger tracing a line from Columbus all the way down to Alabama and further, to where a thin thread turned away from highway and entered a geographically barren area.
He looked at Finch. "Looks like we found 'em."
*
When he stepped inside and Claire had the door shut behind him, her demeanor changed completely. Gone was the weak weepy girl who had hugged him, kissed him right on the lips, and sobbed her delight at the sight of him outside. Now her face was serious, her eyes intense as she shoved him aside, moved to the small narrow window beside the front door and peeked out. After a moment, she let the curtain fall and offered him an apologetic smile.
"Sorry about that. I wanted to make sure she was gone."
"Who?"
"My sister. The woman you met. Her name is Kara."
"She seemed nice," he lied.
"Yeah, she usually does. Then you get to know her."
She turned and walked ahead of him to the kitchen. Helplessly he stood, awaiting instructions on what to do next. The abrupt change in her manner confused him, and now he wasn't so sure she really was all that glad to see him.
In the kitchen doorway, she turned. "C'mon."
He followed. "I'm glad to see you," he said, with an uncertain smile.
She had moved to the sink and was filling a glass with water from the faucet. She nodded, tossed back a pair of white pills and noisily drained the glass. Afterward she closed her eyes and sighed.
Pete still stood at the threshold to the room, feeling awkward.
"Why did you come?" she asked him in a coarse tone.
"I said I would, 'member?"
"Not really."
Pete's smile faded. He wondered what had happened between the driveway and the house to bring such a sudden change upon her. "The night I drove you to the hospital," he explained. "We was talkin' about singin'."
"I don't like to sing," she said.
Encouraged, Pete stepped further into the room. "That's right! You said that, then you told me come see you soon's you was better."
"Then you're early," she said.
He wasn't sure what that meant, and so said nothing, just watched as she set the glass down and turned, leaning against the edge of the sink, her arms folded as she appraised him. "Pete."
"Yes Ma'am?"
"Why did you come?"
"I said I would. I promised."
"You already told me that. I want to know why else you came."
"To see how you was. To see if you was all right."
"And?"
"What?"
"And how am I? How do I look?"
"Tired, I guess," he said truthfully. "And different."
"Different how?"
"Your hair," he said. "And the patch."
Absently, she fingered a lock of her dyed hair. "Do you like them?"
"I dunno," he said. "I like the patch I guess. Makes you look like a pirate."
She gave him a slight smile. "You want something to drink?"
"That'd be nice."
"What do you want?"
"Coke's fine, or hot chocolate."
"Haven't got hot chocolate." She jerked open the refrigerator hard enough to send some of the myriad magnets on the door flying. Wide-eyed, Pete followed their trajectory, then looked back to Claire.
"Are you mad at me for comin'?"
"Nope," she said and withdrew a liter of Coke from the fridge. "I'm glad you're here."
Only slightly relieved, he said, "Okay."
"Because," she continued, unscrewing the cap from the bottle, "You're going to drive me to Elkwood."
She slammed the bottle down on the table, and didn't offer him a glass.
"Drink fast," she said.
-33-
Thunder grumbled over the city. Kara parked the car and looked out at the drab gray building in which she worked. The clock on the dashboard told her she was already an hour and fifteen minutes late, but she couldn't care less. Her mind raced with thoughts about the boy who'd showed up at their door. He'd wanted to see Claire, and it was clear by her sister's reaction that the visit had been a welcome one, eliciting more emotion from her than Kara had seen in months. So, though she'd been against the idea, maybe it would work out to be a positive thing in the end.
You don't really buy that, do you?
She couldn't help but grin at her own pessimism, but it was true. She didn't buy it. The kid's connection to the events that had chewed Claire up and spit her out would only justify her dwelling on them for another while, and that was counter-productive to their cause.
Cause. What cause? she asked herself. Naturally she wanted Claire to recover, and soon. But how much of that was for Claire's benefit, and not her own? How much of it was simply a selfish desire to be as free of her sister and all her emotional baggage as Claire wanted to be of her? Kara felt cruel even thinking it, but no reassuring mental voice hurried to debate the theory.
Kara had a life. Granted, not much of one, and even Claire couldn't be
blamed for the worst of its deficiencies, but the idea of being her sister's keeper forever made her chest tighten. It couldn't happen. It wasn't fair to either of them. And what good was she really doing anyway? Trying to curb her sister's self-destructive impulses of late seemed to be having the opposite effect. Claire appeared to be waiting for the opportunity, the right moment before she took that final step over the precipice into the abyss where the demons she had escaped would welcome her back and rend her asunder.
Kara had just lit a cigarette. Now she froze, smoke streaming out around the filter, and thought of the boy. More specifically, she thought of his truck.
She's waiting for an opportunity.
Their mother was at the doctor's office.
Kara was here.
You just gave her one.
"Damn it." As if by some miracle he might sense it, Kara cast a brief apologetic glance up at her boss's window on the fifth floor, then started the engine and reversed out of the parking lot fast enough to force the driver of an oncoming car to jam on his brakes and slam on the horn.
Tires screeching, she headed home.
*
She estimated she'd been gone from the house less than forty minutes, but it could have been a day for all the difference it made.
After only a few minutes, she quit searching the house. The silence that had greeted her should have been enough to confirm what she already suspected. The boy's truck was gone. So was the boy, and with him, Claire.
"Shit," Kara growled, struggling to keep the panic out of her voice because to hear it only worsened the fear that was trying to paralyze her. Calm down, she commanded herself. They could be gone anywhere.
But they weren't, and she knew it.
Quickly, she made her way into the kitchen, and picked up the phone. She had already dialed 911 when she spotted the single piece of notepaper on the kitchen table. She did not hang up, but reached out and snatched up the page, reading as the call went through.
Dear Kara, it said. You know where I'm going. What you don't know, and probably wouldn't understand even if I broke it down for you, is why I'm going there. Pete, in his simple way, does. Together we're going to do this because we have to. There's no other way. I'm guessing you're gonna call the police on us. That would be you all over. But do me a favor. Give it a few hours. Give us a head start. If you don't, I promise you we'll find a way around it. We're young, not stupid. So do this for me. You've been trying to help, and I appreciate it even if you're a pain in the ass 90% of the time. Now's your chance to really do something for me. You never know. This might have a happy ending. Love, Claire.
Kara shook her head and crumpled up the note. The breath had evaporated from her lungs. She stared in shock around the kitchen.
I did this, she thought. This is my fault.
Already she saw what it would do to her mother.
She pictured them standing over Claire's grave, the sky cold and gray, rain speckling the polished oak of the coffin.
"911. What is your emergency?" said a voice in her ear.
She's going to die down there, and I let it happen.
"Hello?" said the dispatcher.
"I'm sorry," Kara said into the phone and ran a trembling hand through her hair. "I need the police."
*
Joshua was tired, and cold. Night was coming and the soft breeze had gathered strength, become a sharp chill wind that scoured the peak of the mountain, blowing red dust in his face.
He kept moving to keep the worst of the cold at bay, his eyes continuously scanning the flat plains that stretched out around the mountain. It was getting harder to see anything out there, and he didn't think whoever was coming would be dumb enough to have their lights on, so it seemed silly that he was up here at all. The thought took hold until it began to let suspicion creep in. What if Papa had posted him as lookout just to keep him out of the way? What if he was slowly beginning to wonder if all his children might be turning against him like Luke and Susanna had? He'd been a baby when his sister had been killed so didn't remember a whole lot about it, but from what Aaron told him, she hadn't gone quietly and so the end, for her, had been messy. Joshua wished he'd been there though because he couldn't imagine it being any different from the other people they'd killed and yet when Aaron spoke of murdering their sister, the gleam that entered his eyes told him it had been very special indeed. Perhaps she had been so corrupted she had changed, revealed her true hellish form before he'd stilled her heart. He'd never know because his brother only spoke about it when the mood came upon him, and never answered questions about it. But it didn't matter. She'd been poisoned and Papa had ordered her death. Luke had been poisoned too, and Joshua couldn't imagine what it must have felt like to spend so much time wrapped up in Momma's dead body. He shuddered at the thought of it, but knew if offered a choice between what Papa had done to Luke and what Aaron had done to Susanna, the former would be the obvious choice. Luke had been granted mercy, the chance at rebirth only because he'd been Momma's favorite. They all knew that. But Joshua was nobody's favorite and so he didn't much like the idea that he'd only been given the job of lookout because his usefulness to the clan was in question.
He stamped his feet and wondered if it would be wise to desert his post, just for a little while, long enough to find Papa and swear an oath that he hadn't been poisoned, that he would serve God until He chose to pluck him from the earth and make him an angel.
He shook his head and frowned, deeply troubled by the direction his thoughts had taken. He was sure he hadn't given Papa cause to doubt his devotion, but now the worry nagged at him.
Then a sound stopped his pacing and his thoughts at the same time.
He was facing out over the west side of the mountain, where a thin ribbon of dirt road threaded through the trees and twisted itself around for miles before coiling around the chemical waste facility and out into the world. From here the road was little more than a pale snake in the gloom, but from somewhere, he was sure he'd heard the distant drone of an engine. Such a thing might have gone unnoticed in a place where traffic was expected, and normal. But this was not such a place and so it registered immediately. For what seemed like hours Joshua stood frozen, ears strained, his heart thumping slowly in his chest.
Then, out there in the growing dark, a muted light pulsed briefly and was gone so fast Joshua wasn't sure he'd seen it at all. It had been as if a giant hand had passed in front of a lantern. He waited another few moments, breath held, the cold forgotten, eyes struggling to bring whatever was out there into focus, but it didn't come again. The trees were thick at the borders of the clearing, so it was possible he'd imagined it, that it had been little more than the effect of staring too long into the dark. But he didn't think so, and if he was wrong and ignored it, they might all pay with their lives.
Joshua allowed himself a smile, and turned to run down the rough path to the cabin. The urge to shriek the news was hard to restrain, but he was wiser than that and kept his mouth shut. It wouldn't take long before he could tell Papa what the old man had been waiting to hear.
He'd been right.
The angels hadn't misled him.
The coyotes had come.
But then he found the way obstructed by what seemed to be darkness itself and felt his muscles tense, a startled cry forming at the base of his throat as, in one fluid move, the man reached down to Joshua's belt and disarmed him, brandishing the handmade knife before shoving the boy to the ground.
Joshua struggled to keep his balance, his arms pinwheeling, feet digging into the ground. Luck was not with him, and he went down hard, his back thudding against the rocks, knocking the wind from him.
"Stay down, kid, and this'll go a lot easier for you," a voice commanded.
Breathless, Joshua rolled over onto his side. Only one, he thought. There ain't but one voice. Bolstered, he reached out, making it seem to his attacker that he was simply trying to find purchase in the uneven terrain. His hand found a rock, heavy and sharp.
The darkness swooped down on him as if to vomit its poison into him, or breathe the foul air from its lungs into Joshua's own, and he struck out, swinging his arm out, the sharp edge of the sandstone rock aimed at where he judged the side of the man's head to be. At the last second, a vice locked on his arm, halting the arc, and dismayed, the boy felt the rock slip from his grip and fall.
He opened his mouth to scream a warning.
The man straddled him, forcing the air out of him again, and pinning his arms to the ground.
He wheezed, struggled against the man's weight, sucked in a breath.
"Don't," his adversary told him.
The breath caught. Joshua tried to scream.
The man punched him in the mouth.
It felt as if the attacker had picked up the rock and rammed it into his face, and for a moment Joshua saw stars, felt teeth come loose and lodge in his throat. He coughed. His lungs burned. He tasted blood. His lips stung. And still he struggled, thrashing beneath the man who was sitting on his legs, kneeling on his wrists, his monstrous face barely visible in the dark, as if they were one and the same.
No, he thought, panicked. This can't happen. He'll corrupt me. He's too close. Papa will—
Abruptly, the pressure left one of his arms as the man tore something with his teeth. In a moment of startling horror such as he had never in his life felt before, Joshua feared it was his flesh. It made a zipping sound as it came away from bone. But no, he knew the sounds of a flaying, and it never sounded like this. Most likely it was tape to bind him or keep him quiet. A second thought followed quickly on the heels of the relief: His arm was free.
