Hurt: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series)

by Thrasher, Travis

  The baby’s cries get louder. And they’re coming from below.

  Underneath the bridge.

  So that’s what I’m looking for? The thing that’s different for everybody?

  I scan both edges of the bridge, and then I look over one of the stone walls to see down. I see a small stream but nothing else.

  The baby sounds real and terrified and wailing.

  I don’t think about it any longer. I rush to one end of the bridge and then head down the sloping hill next to it. I make sure I don’t slip and slide the rest of the way. It’s not far to the bottom. It’s not a huge bridge. Just big enough to do its job back when it had one to do.

  The half-oval opening underneath is black, and raindrops are dripping from it. The baby must be nearby, but I can’t find it. I jerk my flashlight back and forth and can’t see anything.

  Then I spy something underneath the bridge.

  Along one of the dark walls.

  Something light blue.

  A blanket.

  This is not happening. Maybe I’ll wake up any minute.

  I rush to the blue blanket and pick it up, and the first thing I think is how light this baby feels. It wiggles and moves and continues to scream.

  “Shhhh—it’s okay. It’s okay, I’m right here.”

  I don’t know what to say to a screaming baby found underneath a dark, desolate bridge at night. The few times I’ve held a baby in my life, I haven’t known quite what to do.

  For a minute I gently rock the baby as I look into the darkness underneath the stone structure.

  There are at least half a dozen figures standing on the opposite side of the bridge, near the opening.

  At first I just see their legs, then their bodies. Some are wearing overcoats, others are in heavy gray or black coats. All of them look wet with rain. Some wear hats while others have long hair, like a pack of bikers or hunters or something.

  Yet even as I shine the flashlight on their faces, I can’t make out any expressions.

  All I see are eyes.

  Not shining or red, but just holes that are darker than this night.

  They all face me, just standing there, maybe twenty yards away.

  Then I see something behind them, something flickering, kind of like the way a fire gives off floating embers that drift off into the night. These floating orange and red things hover behind them.

  I feel not only cold but sick, like I might pass out or throw up or throw up while passing out. All the while the baby continues to wail.

  Do I sprint back up the hill, or do I stay here until the figures leave?

  I think this for about two seconds. Then I rush out of there, being careful because now I have a life in my hands.

  My body is shivering, but I’m not worried about me.

  How’d this baby get down there?

  I start up the hill, then slip and regain my footing, then carefully walk up the bank.

  I hear breathing sounds behind me. Somehow amidst these screams that could wake the dead, I hear breathing, sucking sounds behind me.

  Maybe the screams did actually wake the dead.

  Then I hear something else. A moaning sound. Like the sickly breathing is turning to a bunch of moans.

  I wipe my doused face with a wet arm, since my other arm has the baby. The rain is coming down harder, the baby’s screams getting louder.

  When I get up by the road, I see another figure. No, several.

  Across the street.

  They’re everywhere.

  If I’m supposed to die, then I die. If they want the baby, they’ll have to take it from me. If I’m not meant to leave, then that’s that. Shaking and shivering and soaked, I climb up on my bike and try to start it with this baby in one arm.

  I get the bike started, then slowly begin to ride away from the side of the road.

  A figure in a leather overcoat is walking toward me.

  I see holes for eyes and that’s it. Somehow the face is missing everything else.

  Of course that could just be an illusion. A mask or a bandana or something.

  It holds out a hand, and I look to see what it’s holding. A weapon? Some weird occult thing?

  But no.

  It’s a baby’s rattle.

  And I swear—it’s just—

  Red and covered with blood, and did I ever look to see what baby I’m holding?

  With one arm locked as tight as possible around the screaming baby, the other arm locked on the handle of the bike, I get away from this hellhole.

  The sound of the motorcycle engine isn’t enough to cover up the wailing on the ride home.

  48. Babysitter

  The only thing worse than finding a crying baby at the bottom of a deserted bridge in the woods is getting off the motorcycle and not hearing a sound from it.

  There’s no way it fell asleep.

  I carefully walk up the steps to my cabin and unlock the door. I’m finally inside where it’s warm and dry. I turn on a light and look at the wet blanket, wrapped like a burrito.

  I breathe in and then touch the outside of the blanket. My hands are shaking. No, make that my entire body is shaking.

  Part of me doesn’t know if I can open it up.

  I kneel on the carpet next to the fireplace and gently put the baby on the floor. Then I peel off the first layer of the blanket. Then another.

  And then I see its eyes. They’re black and lifeless.

  Then I see the hole in the cheek, and I jerk up and away and plow into the lamp on the side table.

  On the floor is not a baby but some really old doll that looks like it’s been rotting in the woods.

  A doll.

  I’m losing my mind.

  My heart is racing and my mind is doing cartwheels and I’m looking at a doll on the floor as if it’s going to sit up and ask what’s for breakfast.

  This is insane insane crazy insane.

  I curse out loud just so I can hear something, anything.

  Outside, the rain keeps falling.

  I heard that thing crying. I know I did.

  It takes me like five minutes to finally go back over and get rid of the wet blanket covering it.

  It’s a doll with eyes open, and it looks very, very freaky. Half of its dark hair is gone, and other parts besides its cheek have been chewed away.

  It seems like there should be a note on the doll, like a prank note from Pastor Marsh.

  Of course, around here there are no pranks. Everything is real. Every nightmare is true. Every horror story is something coming to life.

  Part of me wants to burn the thing right here and now.

  I take off my wet hat and then wipe my wet hair and face. Then I take the wet blanket and wrap the baby back up. I leave it there on the floor.

  Maybe it will be crawling up my stairs later. Which will be fine.

  There’s no way I’m getting any sleep tonight.

  No way.

  49. Solitary for Starters

  So let’s see here.

  Let’s say you just picked up the saga right here with the screaming baby turned to a decaying doll.

  What have you missed?

  Oh, where can I begin?

  It’s three in the morning, and so far baby dearest hasn’t managed to crawl up the stairs with a steak knife.

  There’s still time, Chris. There’s still time.

  Let’s see—I move to Solitary and fall in love with the girl that the evil people have decided to sacrifice on New Year’s Eve.

  Yeah, that’s right. That’s what I thought too. Come on, for real, there’s no way!

  But it was real, and there was a way.

  Before this sacrifice happened I met my moth
er’s creepy aunt Alice with her selection of mannequins. Perhaps this doll escaped from her house.

  I saw a weird mountain man with a big German shepherd who ended up being my uncle in costume. The man, that is. Not the dog.

  There were the nightmares my mother had.

  There were the tunnels underneath our cabin.

  Oh yeah, don’t forget the cabin in the woods. Or the mannequin maker.

  There’s the creepy pastor and the ignorant bully. But both answer to a twisted man name Staunch who answers to my great-grandfather.

  And they all say I’m special and that somewhere down the road I’m going to get a special key that does something special for a special reason.

  I don’t want to be special. I want to be normal.

  Will a key unlock a land full of wild dogs and smiling mannequins and screaming babies?

  Thanks, I’ll pass.

  I could go on, but this makes my head hurt. I would love to sleep, but I don’t want to wake up cuddling the baby doll downstairs.

  What exactly were those men out there on the bridge?

  I’m assuming men, because they were all big. Ghosts maybe? Possibly the dead Indians that haunt the bridge? Or maybe demons guard it?

  Or maybe there’s another answer I haven’t thought about. Something that makes even less sense.

  They’re magical elves guarding the road to Frodo and Bilbo.

  Yeah.

  They’re Jedi Knights with double-edged light sabers that are just waiting for a chance to get back at George Lucas for creating Jar Jar.

  Yeah.

  They’re shadows of all the things you fear the most made into physical form.

  Wait a minute—I was on a roll, but that’s not funny.

  I don’t feel funny at all.

  I feel alone.

  For a long time I toss and turn and can’t tell whether my eyelids are opened or closed.

  Sometimes it just doesn’t matter.

  50. A Smell, a Taste, a Touch

  Before I head to see Pastor Marsh to give him the sweet little decomposing baby I found by the bridge last night, I decide to check the mail.

  Real stories, true stories, don’t follow a rhyme or a reason. Bad things happen. Life moves on. People leave. Others come.

  Sometimes you find yourself wet and cold battling something that may or may not be alive.

  Then you find yourself opening a letter that has a $25,000 check inside.

  Chris:

  You do not know me, but I know you.

  I’m not a part of your life in Solitary but hopefully am a part of your future.

  This check is for your first year at college. More will be coming.

  William Faulkner said this: “Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

  This is just a little help at making that happen.

  A friend and distant relative

  MG

  I just laugh.

  I laugh because I don’t even think I’m going to make it to graduation. If I do, I’m not sure what’s going to happen next.

  I think of the famous clip from an NFL coach during a press conference: “Playoffs? Playoffs? I just hope we win another game!”

  That’s how I feel about college.

  College? Don’t talk about … college? Are you kidding me? I might be the High Priest of Puppy Chow by then, so don’t talk about college!

  I laugh in a sad, cynical sort of way.

  I love cracking myself up.

  It’s either that or I’ll be crying.

  At least I have a baby to console me now.

  That’s just so wrong.

  I decide to take the wrong baby to Pastor Make-It-Right.

  I’ll think about the check from the anonymous friend and “distant relative” later.

  Much later.

  Jeremiah Marsh’s office at church looks like any ordinary office some bigwig at a company might occupy. There’s a desk for his secretary or assistant right when you enter, but I guess they don’t work on Saturdays. A sliver of light shows beneath the closed door next to the empty desk.

  I know Pastor Marsh is in there, because I called him on his cell phone.

  I don’t knock but open the door and see him at his desk with his laptop on. He looks up just as I toss the doll onto his desk, and it slides onto the floor by his side.

  “There’s my special present I got last night.”

  He leans over and picks the doll up, then studies it. “I didn’t expect this.”

  “What did you expect?”

  Marsh puts the doll down next to a stack of books on his desk. “I try not to expect anything around here. Expectations can be a bad thing when you’re constantly being surprised.”

  “What’s that doll supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, I don’t,” he says, imitating my voice.

  “That bridge is haunted, right?”

  Marsh smiles his deviant, snotty little smile. “It’s not a favorite place to visit at night.”

  “But have you ever seen things there?”

  “Be more specific.”

  “People. Beings. Ghosts.”

  He shakes his head. “No.”

  “That’s the second time I’ve seen them.”

  “And as I’ve told you—you have a gift, Chris.”

  “That’s not a gift. Seeing monsters in the middle of the night is not a gift.”

  “It is when you learn how to control them.”

  “I don’t think there’s a way to control them.”

  “No?”

  He leans back in a leather chair that looks expensive. Everything looks expensive, from the dark wood desk to the plaques on the wall and the portraits of his family.

  Portraits that include children.

  “I think Kinner might disagree with you on that,” Marsh continues.

  “I heard a baby crying. I picked it up.”

  “Has anybody ever told you about the suicides in Solitary? There’ve been quite a few of them. Young kids, too, not just older people. And it all comes from people who see something that disturbs them, that completely freaks them out. Some people just can’t handle it.”

  “What’s finding a baby supposed to mean?”

  “I do not know. I have ideas.”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “It could have something to do with your mom. You don’t have a sibling. But maybe your parents tried to have a child, and your mother miscarried. Or maybe you’re a father and don’t know it.”

  “I’m no father.”

  “You sure? Something didn’t happen with the skinny little blonde you’ve been running around with?”

  “No.”

  “Sometimes you see a part of the past, Chris. Sometimes you see the future. Sometimes you see something that is ailing you. Sometimes you see something that will save you.”

  “The baby was real.”

  “Terror is real,” Marsh says. “Hopelessness is real. It has a smell, a taste, a touch. Despair and horror. They’re very real.”

  “But you’ve never seen those men around the bridge?”

  Marsh shakes his head.

  “But if I can see them—who are they?”

  “They’re the ones who go out to deliver the terror and despair. They’re loaded down with it, like Santa Claus coming on Christmas Eve. The difference is they don’t slide down your chimney. They sink into your soul.”

  “What was the number for? Why 1820?”

  “That’s when the bridge was built
,” Marsh says. “If you go there during the day, you can see a marking with a date.”

  “What if the card said 1945?”

  “I don’t believe there’s a card that says that.”

  I let out a sigh. “So why did you want whatever it was that I got last night?”

  “I wanted to make sure you went through with it. And to learn what sort of strange things you might have seen. As always, Chris—you never disappoint me.”

  51. Hundred-Year-Old Grandmother

  I waste the rest of the weekend away.

  After going to see Marsh, I come back home and don’t leave again until Monday morning. I shut off my phone and don’t go online. I just curl up on the couch with Midnight at my side and watch television and eat junk food and drink soda.

  When Monday arrives, I am surprised to see that Kelsey never tried contacting me. No texts or emails or phone calls. Nothing.

  I just go through the motions of school.

  I’m exhausted.

  Thinking hurts. Feeling hurts. Being anxious and scared hurts.

  Maybe things are finally starting to catch up to me. I’ve slowed down enough to realize what is happening and why.

  It’s all just very, very tiring.

  I don’t see Kelsey at all on Monday. Not that I was looking for her. The day tick tocks away, and I expect nothing remotely interesting to happen.

  Nothing interesting except coming back home and finding Mom there.

  Her car is in the driveway, and she’s standing in the kitchen when I open the door.

  I rush over to her and give her a hug.

  Yet a weird thing happens.

  She doesn’t hug me back.

  “I can’t believe you’re back,” I tell her.

  But I spoke too fast.

  The lifeless, expressionless face that stares at me isn’t Mom. Physically she’s here, but she looks different.

  “Mom? Are you okay?”

  She nods slowly. “Yes.” Her voice is a whisper.

  “You don’t look okay,” I say.

  You look a bit like you’ve been having shock therapy.

  “I’m just tired.”

  I want to ask how she got out and what happened at the place she was staying, but I can tell she won’t be able to answer.