And so she ran, tripping over uneven ground, into the thick grove-lined roads. The doubt in her mind was becoming thicker and more imposing by the moment. Fear—what had happened to her mother and Robert? She’d lost consciousness before seeing the result of her mother’s bloodcurdling scream. She had to choke back desperate tears and try to convince herself that they were fine, that everything was going to be fine. Her stepfather was not half the man her birth father had been. She had come to hate him this evening for his cowardice and inability to protect them. But now she wished she had never thought so ill of him.
Through the trees, an occasional glimpse of the sinking full moon sped her steps through the rising and dipping roads. Her lungs burned with exertion, and from the pervasive scent of smoke from the fires glowing all around—newborn ruins, adust in the heart of hell. She ran as fast as her legs and dissipating stamina would allow her, and even when exhaustion chewed at the muscles in her sides she kept running. Across the bridge spanning Beaver Kill, and then west. By the time she arrived at what had served as home for the last eight months, what hope she’d harbored had all but burned out.
And when she walked through the wide-open front door, her breath caught in her throat and she choked. Her mother and stepfather were already dead.
The next few hours were a hazy blur seen through a veil of tears. When the sun began to rise, she accepted that there would be no waking—this was reality, and her family’s lifeless bodies were silent testaments to that fact. Her mother’s throat had been slashed like a kosher pig’s. Her stepfather, too, had been undone; blood pooled on the hardwood floors of the kitchen where his form rested. In that silent death cradle, nestled between those heartless trees, there was nothing to stop her screams from shredding what remained of her mental stability.
Annika tried to call the police and paramedics to help, but every number she dialed went to dead air. In her bereaved panic, she couldn’t help but wonder if the doctors and police of this cursed town hadn’t orchestrated the bloodbath themselves; more likely, the fires blazing through Arbordale had devoured the phone lines leading out of town. After abandoning her tearful attempts at calling for help, she could do little more than curl up in a fetal position and sob.
She spent the hours before dawn in a daze, drifting in and out of lucidity as her mind tried to invent cunning traps and conspiracies of its own delusion. There was nothing to cling to; each thought that died yanked her once more to the surface of the sea of loss, and each breath she took was another nail in her own coffin. When the first rays of light came, and some semblance of calm thought entered her mind, she could think of no other course than to leave this damned place behind. That was the only thing to do. There was nowhere for her to go, but anywhere had to be better than the graveyard her home had become.
Annika stumbled into her room, almost tripping over her father’s revolver. It was just where she’d dropped it during the second invasion. She looked it over, feeling a familiar sense of helplessness, and began to pack her bags once more. This time, nobody interrupted her as she put away several more changes of clothes with trembling hands. Though she worked slowly, with a deliberate detachment, she found herself thinking more and more about that revolver. She had to take it with her—there was no debating that—but picking it up now was dangerous. It was an invitation to recklessness.
And though she tried to keep her mind from it, she began to obsess over the thought of freedom—the relief from this unwaking hell. Letting go of her severed attachments and letting the chips fall where they may. Her pace slowed, and her heart climbed into her throat. She swallowed hard and turned from her stuffed duffel bag, moving toward that revolver. She bent down and picked it up. The comfortable weight was nostalgic and bitter.
This is a fine piece of workmanship, she heard her father saying on a winter day. It was one of the last times she’d seen him before he’d been gunned down in the line of duty. It had been the only time the Ruger had failed him. With a sniffle, she opened the cylinder and inspected it. Three unfired bullets. That shouldn’t have surprised her, but for some reason it did; five minus two was invariably three, at least barring the intervention of magic. She rolled the barrel gently, as her father had taught her, and listened to the soft clicking. It was her lullaby.
Fingers shaking, she swallowed hard and clicked the cylinder shut. She sucked a deep breath into her lungs and, adrift in a haze of memories, walked into the living room and out the front door. She sat down on the old porch swing and began to rock to and fro, staring at the faint illumination filtering through the trees and early morning mist.
Her mind drifted as she brushed her thumb over the grooves in the weapon’s chamber. William had been the best father she could have asked for. Though she’d been born out of wedlock, and though she’d been given the surname Hallström by her mother, he had always been there for her. He’d been a Sergeant in the NYPD, and as Annika grew he’d taken it upon himself to teach her the skills that any self-respecting American should know. From her ninth birthday on, he would take her to the shooting range every two weeks. That was the beginning of Annika’s dream to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a police officer. Even when her mother started dating another man, it did nothing to pull Annika away from William; the two were inseparable. Until his death.
A week before her mother was to be wed to Robert Carter, he was killed in a standoff. Annika, fourteen at the time, was crushed by the news. That her mother could not be bothered to delay her wedding was salt in that bloody wound. Her father was gone, and she had not even his surname to remember him by. Now, even her mother and Robert were gone.
She inspected the Ruger, indulging herself one final time in the memories it held. For a brief moment that smile returned, and she let herself feel a mote of joy that if there was a heaven she’d be seeing him again soon. Unless the damned Catholics were right about suicide, anyway. She opened the barrel, rechecking that the three chambers were still loaded. She closed the cylinder on the first bullet, pulled the hammer back, and tucked the barrel under her jaw. Her eyes fell shut, and her hand began to tremble. She willed her finger toward the trigger, but it was magnetically repelled by the conflict in her mind. Drawing breath through her clamped teeth, she dwelt on the suffering that surrounded her. Arbordale was her apocalypse. Nowhere she could go from here would be welcoming; there was nobody left to take care of her and nowhere for her to belong. Dwell though she might on those miserable manifestations of grief, the ghosts of despair would not let her finger down upon the trigger. Her mother wouldn’t have wanted this. And her father . . . no, she couldn’t do that to him, wherever he was. Her arm fell to her side in defeat.
It was then, when her eyes drifted once again to take in the mist of the early morning, that she noticed something. Up ahead, where the dirt road split the trees, a figure approached. She squinted into the mist, her heart beginning to pound. After she observed its motions, however, she realized it was not a third visit from the robes of darkness—it was the boy, Mark. He was coming down the road toward her, clothes covered in blood and dirt, a duffel bag over each shoulder. As he approached, he did not make eye contact. Annika could only stare, unable to move. He stopped at the bottom of the wooden steps, his gaze upon the ground.
Had he come to finish her? When he met her gaze, however, she saw only sorrow in his eyes.
“I was on my way out of town,” the boy said, “when I realized that I owed you an apology. Forgive me. I did not mean to get you involved.”
Annika was speechless. Her tongue turned to sand in her mouth, and the taste left her at a loss. Forgive me? Apology?
He took a deep breath and averted his gaze again. “With Golgotha’s death, the Vigil is history. I . . . I know not what happened to your friend. Specifically. But all evidence points to her death in the rituals of the Vigil. I merely hope you may find solace in the fact that it’s over.”
“Over,” she repeated. That word echoed all the numbness in her body.<
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“I am leaving Arbordale. I shan’t return. I wish you the best.” With that, he turned and began to walk away from her house with a terrific haste.
Annika’s head drooped, chin to collarbone, and her chest began to shake again. From the cavernous loss in her chest, she again found that spark of her father’s passion. You think this is just about Sammy? she thought. Don’t you realize what I’ve lost? Don’t you realize what you’ve cost me? Who the hell did he think he was? To think that the loss of everyone she cared about could be settled with a simple sorry?
Her head snapped up. His back was just beyond the broken gate. “Stop,” she muttered, though he did not hear her. She started after him, stumbling a little on the uneven stairs. Squinting through burning eyes at his retreating form, she lifted the Ruger with a shaky arm and squeezed the trigger. The blast kicked her arm back and sent a plume of dirt and shredded grass into the air in front of the boy. He jerked and looked over his shoulder at her. “I said fucking stop!” She continued her march until she was only a couple yards from the boy, and there she halted. Heavy breaths shaking her frame, she raised the gun once more. Both hands wrapped around its handle, she pointed the barrel dead center of the boy.
His eyes showed no trace of fear. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Annika’s jaw tightened, and her teeth began to chatter. “This is your fault. It’s all because of you and those fucking . . . You took Sammy from me. You took my mom from me. You took everything away from me!” The revolver was heavy in her hands, and again her vision turned into indistinct oil stains. “I lost everything because of you! Don’t you get that!? Don’t you have any conscience at all!?”
“If you’re going to shoot me, then just get it over with.”
“I will!” She fought back a sniffle and tried to get her shaky arms under control. “God help me I will!”
“What are you waiting for, then?” he asked, his voice gentle. “If it will make you feel better, then hurry up and kill me.”
“Shut up!” She glared into the pale irises of the boy and tried twice to pull the hammer back before she succeeded. Even with the revolver three feet from his chest, he showed no trace of fear. She choked. “Why?”
The boy did not respond. He just stared at her with that vacant, ghastly expression.
Her shoulders shook, and she tried to keep her threatening aim steady. “Why me? Why did this have to happen to me? At least tell me that much!”
“It happened because I’m a fool,” he said in a grave tone. “It happened because I was arrogant. Because I thought I was in control.”
Her aim faltered again. She waited a moment for him to conclude the thought. But no conclusion came. “That’s it?” she choked out.
He nodded.
Annika focused on the dirt beneath her feet, trying to stop the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. “You’re telling me that . . . The only reason they died was because you were stupid.”
The boy said nothing.
“There was no . . . No grand purpose, no rhyme or reason to their deaths.”
Again he said nothing.
“There was no reason at all, no revenge, no punishment, no . . . No message, nothing at all—nothing at all, except that you made a mistake.”
Though he considered her with a sorrowful gaze, he remained silent.
Unable to believe the insignificance her family’s death had played, unwilling to accept the purposeless massacre she had been swept up in, she sucked a deep breath into her lungs and raised the Ruger until it pointed at the boy’s head. The barrel bobbed up and down. Her muscles clenched in an attempt to steady her aim. Once more, Mark showed no reaction. She tried for a long moment to wrangle the fury she felt and just pull the damned trigger. But try as she might to summon her courage and hatred, she could not commit to murder.
“I care not what you do to me,” he said, “but will shooting me really make you feel any better?”
Memories of her mother’s bloodcurdling shrieks came back to her. Even if she could commit to murdering the boy, she knew that his suffering would be nothing compared to her mom’s, her stepdad’s, Samantha’s. The barrel of her father’s Ruger dipped. With a sigh, she held the hammer in place using her thumb. She depressed the trigger until she felt the hammer try to drop, and then eased it down into its resting position. “No,” she said, the revolver slipping from her grip and tumbling to the ground. “It won’t.”
“Forgive me,” the boy said again. “I wish I could—”
In one explosive motion, Annika lunged forward and threw her right fist across the boy’s jaw. He stumbled back, hands flying to his face. The bags on his shoulders swung from the impact, twisting him off balance. A groan slipped out between his fingers. With a shout, Annika flew toward him, closing the gap. This time a left cross snapped his head to the side and threw him off his feet. He went down into the dirt, and she threw herself on top of him. Her fingers coiled about his throat and she began to squeeze.
Eyes on fire, she bared her teeth. “Why should you be the only one to not suffer!? You think you can fuck with me and get off without a, without . . . ” Her voice caught in her chest, and she pressed her thumbs harder against his windpipe as the tears washed the image of his expressionless face away. “Suffer! Suffer like they did! You don’t—you don’t get to, get to be the only one! You’re not, you’re not special, you don’t get to be the only one. You’re gonna, you’re . . . you’re . . . ”
The will bled from her, turning to tepid water. Her hands grew weak. After a moment, she released her grip on his throat. She flopped backward into a sitting position, numbness spreading again. Even with the rage bristling in her fingers, killing him wouldn’t have satisfied her. It was just a distraction, and an empty one at that.
The boy coughed and looked up at her from where he lay. “Do you not wish to kill me?”
She shook her head, the hollowness deepening. “What’s the goddamned point? If I’d just died instead of letting you save me, then none of this would’ve happened. Couldn’t kill myself either, so I should at least be consistent, right? Some way to thank you that would be.”
The boy sat up and rubbed his throat with one hand. She caught a glimpse of the bright, weeping burn running along his left arm. “If that is your decision,” he said. Without another word, he got to his feet and hoisted his two bags onto his shoulders once more. He started down the path leading to the outskirts of Arbordale. As she followed him with her gaze, he looked over his shoulder at her. “Take care of yourself.”
“What are you going to do now?” She asked the question before it had entered her mind.
“I need to find someone. Everything that happened here tonight . . . It will be nothing compared to what happens if I cannot find Lily.”
Annika didn’t say anything; it sounded like he was talking to himself rather than her, and it was rude to interrupt. She watched, confused and vacant, as the boy and his two bags drew further away from her. The mist grew thicker further down the road, and soon his form vanished completely.
Watching as the boy disappeared into the mist, something took hold of Annika. Somewhere in the swirling pit of loss, there was an epiphany. Years later, she would be unable to say what it was that came over her, or what lapse in logic sealed her decision. Perhaps it was pity, or perhaps it was her own fear of being left alone. Perhaps it was a fascination, a morbid interest in the boy. That he had sat there, willing to die, when he could have just as easily killed her with the flick of the wrist or less. Whether god or demon, this boy was remarkable, dangerous, important. Her path was set. She scooped her father’s revolver up from the ground, gave it a quick brush, and ran back to the shell of her house.
In her room, she dropped the revolver back into the memento box which still sat on her bed. Then she went to work gathering the last of the things she would need. She zipped up the duffel bag, slung it over her shoulder, grabbed an old pack of matches, and made her way out to the living room. She sn
atched up the set of keys hanging on the hook near the door, shoved them into her pocket, and picked up the latest edition of the Catskill Press newspaper from the shelf. Just for nostalgia, she skimmed the front page. The dated forest fire report reminded her how much she’d always hated this backwater.
Annika took a final moment, drinking in the last look of their ill-fated home, and then struck a match. The phosphorus sputtered, and then held the flame’s shape. She brought the match to the corner of the newspaper. The fire caught, and a roaring blaze began to eat through the paper. Embers and dust, she thought as she gazed into the makeshift torch. She tossed the burning newspaper into the still-overturned couch and walked out the front door for the final time, whispering a silent word of goodbye to her mother and stepfather.
She went to the driveway, where the family’s gray flatbed pickup waited. After throwing her bag into the back, she got in and set the keys into the ignition. The engine fired up, and she took a moment to compose herself. No more tears. No more weakness. This is a new beginning. She then backed out of the dirt driveway and started driving down the same path the boy had been walking. It did not take long for his shape to emerge from the shrouds of mist. She pulled up alongside him and cranked her window down. “Hey, get in,” she called to him.
He looked over at her, a perplexed look on his face. “Get in?”
Helixweaver (The Warren Brood Book 2) Page 28
