This wasn’t happening. This place felt like my worst nightmare. It literally looked like hell on earth. If Annabelle so much as walked into this tiny town, she’d find out exactly where I was hiding.
“You’re speechless. I knew you’d love it,” Ian said. “It’s only twenty minutes from Ann Arbor, which is great. It’s easy to go and see a movie or go to the mall if there’s not a game playing here in town. We love our football,” Ian said, before adding, “Maybe a little too much.”
I barely heard his last words. This hick town was only twenty minutes away from the cult??? Twenty minutes wasn’t near far enough away, not even close. I tried telling myself to breathe, but every time I tried to take a breath, it felt like there was pure water in my lungs.
“Come on! I’ll give you the tour.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me through all the children in costumes and berated parents chasing after them. Besides them, I saw a gang of high schoolers in baggy pants and backwards snapbacks...potential victims? Did this town have its own cult? I gulped.
“Why are all these teenagers dressed like they’re from Detroit?” I asked in a squeaky voice.
“Oh, that’s just the style. Kids here either try to be a total redneck or all gangster. They’ll grow out of it,” Ian said casually, waving his hand.
These kids had probably never seen a ghetto, let alone lived in one. As he drug me through the crowds Ian began explaining things very rapidly. “This is a pretty big farming community. It’s how it got started, old German farmers coming here and growing crops, and others coming along and running the mill and all. I’m pretty new to the area, even though my family’s been here my entire life. We’ve lived on our farm for twenty years and they still call it the old Kiessler place, but that’s how it is here. You’ve got the same families living here since it began, and they all breed like rabbits. I can’t count how many relatives that my students have, half of the kids are related to one another. One thing you’ve gotta be careful about here is gossip. Word gets around in no time flat, and by the time you know it you did something you never did, you know what I’m saying?”
“Ian...” I said, but he cut me off.
“Oh, and one thing you HAVE to worry about is relationship issues. Everybody around here dates everyone else, and before you know it somebody’s telling you that they heard you’ve slept with half the town and they want to know if it’s true. If we’re not careful people will think we’re together, so let’s watch it, okay?”
“If people here talk so much why are you holding my hand in front of everyone?” I hissed.
Ian stopped, looked at our joined hands, and then dropped his grip hastily. “Oh. I guess I forgot to think about that. You don’t think anyone saw, did you?”
I hit my head with my hand.
“Well too late now anyway, best you can do is ignore whatever you hear,” Ian informed me happily. “You want to get a carmel apple? Or walk downtown? I usually pass out candy but I’ll skip this year for you.”
“No no, it’s fine,” I shook my head rapidly. “The kids are depending on you. I’ll just uh...take a look around.”
“I don’t want you getting lost. You don’t know anyone here,” he said, a frown on his face.
Like you could get lost in this town. Just keep walking and in about an hour you’d probably end up in the same spot you started at. “I won’t go past Main Street, and I can see the apartment from here,” I said. “I promise I won’t wander off.”
He hesitated before letting me go. “Fine. But meet me back here when you’re done, okay?”
“Yeah, I will,” I said, dismissing his words. I began walking in the opposite direction, up the road to the gas station. I wanted a pop or something...Ian had given me a twenty the first day he brought me here, and not having left the house I still hadn’t spent it. I planned to conserve it, but I knew that the longer I kept it the more and more suspicious Ian would get if he caught me with it unbroken. I didn’t want to spend his money, but I needed it for a bus ticket out of here. Fifteen dollars would do...I would just get a small soda and leave it at that.
As I walked into the gas station, I was floored. What the hell? There were liquor stores that had less booze than this gas station did! It filled up the whole back wall and a quarter of the store. Did all people have to do around here was drink? Manchester and Ann Arbor couldn’t be any different. I crept through all the trick or treaters and grabbed a orange pop from a cooler, heading to the cash register to pay.
The pop dropped out of my hand as I saw Landon standing in the corner of the store, looking at the energy drinks with a tired face.
I rushed to his side. I grabbed his arm and pulled him to a quieter part of the store, watching as his eyes grew wide as he stared at me. “Landon,” I hissed. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” he asked me in return, glancing over his shoulder. “Holy shit Christie, we all thought you were dead!”
“I almost was. Does she know I’m here?” I squeaked in panic, looking around.
“No. She’s not with me, but a few of the others are. You had better get out of here before one of them spots you.” Although there were bags under his eyes, his face showed nothing but panic.
“Why are you here, Landon? Tell me the truth. I need to know,” I said quickly.
“Annabelle sent me,” he said. “Shit, I haven’t gotten sleep in days. She’s on some sort of new tirade. Asked us to come here and take a look around.”
“This small town? She’s bound to get caught here. How stupid is she?” I questioned.
“Don’t say she’s stupid,” Landon snapped, and I was taken aback. “You and I both know she’s the smartest person we’ve ever met.”
I couldn’t fight that. “Are you absolutely sure she didn’t send you to find me?”
“For crying out loud Christie, what did I just tell you?” he said, a little too loudly. “She’s not after you, she’s just looking to claim some new territory. It’s too dangerous to stay in Ann Arbor. The police are starting to get suspicious. We’re gonna have to move sometime.”
After all these years, the police were finally starting to catch up with Annabelle? Their timing couldn’t have been worse. I looked around. “Come with me. There has to be a place we can talk.”
“I can’t. I have to get this job done.”
“You’re exhausted, you obviously can’t do it very well. Why’d she pick you?”
“I volunteered.”
“Why?”
“You should know by now that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her, Christie.” Landon smiled, and the sleepiness showed through.
I backed away. “You’re going to get yourself hurt, Landon.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think so. Now that you’re gone there’s an opening for her new right hand, and I’m the best candidate. You were her favorite.”
“Yeah, and look what happened to me,” I pointed out. “She used me, then tossed me aside, after leaving me for dead in the streets.”
“You were the one who chose to leave.”
“Are you saying that me getting attacked was my fault?” I asked, outraged.
“I don’t know what I’m saying, okay? I’m tired, I want to finish scouting around and I want to give a good report so I can get some sleep,” Landon said. “Listen, it’s been nice seeing you again, Christie. Hopefully we’ll meet up again later.”
“If Annabelle moves in here I’m gone,” I threatened. “You won’t see me.”
Landon began walking towards the door. Before he left me alone, he said, “You know, Annabelle wants you back. You hurt her when you left. She thinks you’re dead. I bet if you came back to the cult she’d take you in again. You might still have a chance with her.”
My heart pounded. The last sentence he had given me caused my heart to both fall apart and be resurrected in hope at the same time.
I did the only thing that made sense at the time and ran. I ran to get away from that small town, f
rom Ian, from Landon and from everything. I was no longer safe here. But no matter how fast I ran I could never get away from Annabelle. Her ghost followed me around every turn, haunting me as it had for the past three years, and she was making me lose my mind. I never should’ve met Ian...I was grateful for everything he had done, but no matter what he did to help me I was still me and I was dangerous. People like me tended to get everybody else around them hurt. I was better off on my own, away from people.
There was only room for one person in my life, and Annabelle had taken it. Everyone else played second fiddle.
Going north wasn’t an option. I opted to go south, as far as I could get. After all, I wouldn’t freeze to death sleeping on the streets there.
I began heading out of town, down the long highway next to the high school after I got away from Main Street. I ran the whole length, as far as I could until I nearly collapsed. I wasn’t thinking clearly, but driven by fear I harshly put one foot in front of the other until my heart felt like it would burst. I had nothing but the clothes I was wearing. Ian had planned on making me dinner. As a trailer passed me on the road a couple of cows mooed from the inside, and I vaguely wished that I was with them.
It had been about two hours before I realized I had gone in a circle. By this time, it was night. I had stumbled into a cornfield and somehow wandered my way back to Main Street, my eyes never seeing anything but Annabelle’s willing face, my feet unable to stop. By this time of night the town was deserted. I walked down the center of the road, stumbling as if drunk, hoping a car would come and end this nightmare.
My aimless wandering led me down to the UAW hall, near a bridge that slowly crumbled over the River Raisin. By this river was a tank, a WWII machine that was meant to kill and destroy. I gaped at the tank, transfixed, unable to tear my eyes away. Why was mankind bent on ending one another, ending itself? This giant tank was nothing more than an elaborate suicide machine, a weapon meant to murder others before turning on itself...
As I was backing away from the tank I didn’t pay attention to where I was going. My foot caught on a broken slab of concrete and I tumbled backwards head over heels, skidding down the side of a sharp slope that led to a hill under the bridge. When I finally stopped tumbling my feet were in the water and my head was pounding. The bridge was above me, shielding me from view, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the long extended pipe of the tank.
The temperature was falling fast. I closed my eyes and curled up in a ball, wanting the world above me to stop spinning. In my dreams, the nose of the tank turned to point at me.
Ian
Christie had been gone for too long. It was midnight and I hadn’t seen any sign of her since we’d separated in town. All the festivities in town were done, and I definitely knew that there was nothing worth seeing in Manchester this time of night. Did her attacker find her? I thought before banishing the thought from my head. Manchester was safe. It was virtually invisible to everyone who didn’t live here. The chances of her being found here were slim to none. When it was 3 AM and she still hadn’t shown up I went to bed, hoping she’d be back in the morning.
The living room was empty when I woke up. I went to work, thinking that maybe she’d just met some friends and decided to hang out with them, but when I came back she was still gone. Maybe she left for good, I thought, my stomach falling to my feet.
I shook myself out of it. No. For some stupid reason, I didn’t think she would leave. Not without saying goodbye. I called in sick for the next day and hopped in my truck, driving all around town to try and find her. When I didn’t see her I circled the surrounding area, Chelsea, Saline, Tecumseh, Ann Arbor, hoping I caught a glimpse of her. I never did.
Now I was starting to panic. I searched all through the night and into the afternoon of the next day, checking in the exact same places I already had. I drifted along at a slow pace while scanning the road, pissing off everyone behind me. Right now I couldn’t really care less.
Dammit Christie, I thought. Where are you?
Chapter Four
Christine
I had been lying underneath the bridge for three days. I hadn’t eaten, and I had barely slept. I was waiting to die, waiting for my body to slowly waste away or freeze to death. It was almost cold enough, but not quite. In a few more days, it would be.
“Christie!” Ian’s panicked voice called above me at the edge of the bridge and I winced at the sound. “Christie!”
I knew he spotted me. I heard the sound of his frantic footsteps as he slipped down the side of the embankment towards me.
“Christie,” he said for a third time. He slid the coat off of him and wound it around me, gathering me into his arms. “What happened? Did someone hurt you?” he questioned, his face close to mine.
I looked blankly ahead. “No. I tripped and fell on Halloween, and I’ve been here ever since.”
“Didn’t you try to walk back up?” he asked.
“No,” I said in a dull tone. “I wanted to be here.”
Now he really looked worried. “Come on. We’re getting you home.”
Ian cradled me as he made his way up the side of the bridge and onto the sidewalk. His truck was idling on the bridge. Why he had taken a car when his apartment was a short walk away, I didn’t know. Maybe he had driven all over looking for me?
He put me in the passenger’s seat and snapped me in, rushing over to the driver’s side and firing up the heater as high as it would go. He then took my hands in his and began rubbing them frantically to try and warm them up. “Your hands are freezing. Do you feel ill?”
“No.” I let Ian take my hands in his without protest. For some strange reason, I felt nothing but famished. “Can I get something to eat?” I asked him, my stomach rumbling.
Ian looked at me, surprised. “Well of course you can. I’ll buy you lunch. But first I want you to warm up, make sure you’re okay. The hospital...”
“No,” I said sharply, turning my icy eyes on him.
He made an angry noise, the first since I had met him. “You’re so stubborn. We’re going whether you like it or not.”
“You don’t own me. They can’t help me if I refuse treatment,” I said back.
He rolled his eyes. “You really like going at concrete walls with battering rams, don’t you?”
“What?”
“It’s a saying. Sometimes I think you don’t want to go to the doctor’s because you like me taking care of you.”
I blushed, but Ian mistook it for warmth blossoming in my cheeks. I started shrugging the coat off my shoulders and said, “Okay, I’m really hot now.”
“Keep that coat on,” Ian said. He fired up the truck and blazed up the road to Main Street. When Ian pulled into the Coffee Mill I realized that since he had shown up Annabelle had not crossed my mind once.
It was a cute little coffee shop, a charming, warm atmosphere that was stocked with wooden furniture packed closely together and knick knacks all along the walls. It was an awkward time of day, late afternoon, so nobody else was in there. “Order something big,” Ian said as we sat down. “And don’t make it cheap.”
A waitress came up to our table almost immediately. We sat waiting for the food in silence, him fuming and me waiting for the explosion. Even though I acted like I didn’t care, my insides wiggled. I had never seen Ian angry, so I didn’t know what to expect.
When our food arrived the quiet almost ate me up. Ian picked at his food, barely putting anything in his mouth. He looked so irritated. I finished off everything on my plate, thinking it would cure his bad mood, but it did nothing. Taking another gulp of my drink, I said, “I’m sorry that you went looking for me. I didn’t want to waste your time.”
“That’s not the point!” he said, and he banged his hand on the table. I jumped, and the waitress glanced our way. “You don’t get it! I was really worried about you. I had no idea what to think when I couldn’t find you. Why’d you go wandering off?”
“Something happene
d, okay?” I said. “I bumped into an old friend and he and I got into a fight. I lost it for a minute, alright?”
This old friend sounds like a great guy already,” Ian mumbled. “And three days is a lot more than a minute.”
“I’m fine now. I don’t even see why you care,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Because you’re my friend, I’ve told you,” Ian said through his teeth, picking up his iced tea.
“We’re not...”
“I don’t care if you don’t think I’m your friend. I consider you my friend and you can’t change that.” Ian put his drink down with a clank.
I sighed in defeat. “Okay,” I moaned. “You’ve saved my life twice now, so I guess you’re my friend. But I can’t keep mooching off you like this. I’ve got to move out and get a job and...”
“No Christine. You’ve got to stay at my apartment and get better.”
“Are you telling me what to do?” I said, my voice rising.
“No, but...” He put his head in his hand and rubbed his eyes. “Christie, I just don’t want to have to carry you back to my apartment again. You scared the crap out of me when you disappeared. I’m just scared to let you out of my sight now.”
“You aren’t my keeper,” I said. “I can do whatever I want, when I want.”
“I know you can,” he said. “But I don’t think you’re ready to be on your own yet. If you don’t want to live with me you should move back in with a friend or something.”
“I don’t have many friends.”
“Well then that leaves me,” Ian said. “I can’t stop you from leaving, but I can ask you not to.”
He sighed. “I’m saving you from living on the streets. Christie, just think about it, okay?”
I pushed around a piece of parsley on my plate. I couldn’t stay if Annabelle was moving in. But would she really pick here, this tiny town with little prospects? Probably not. There was no one to recruit here, little to steal and few to manipulate. If I knew Annabelle, she’d pick somewhere that would be easy to hide. My three days spent under the bridge had been an overreaction. “I guess you’re right. I don’t really have anywhere to go right now. I should stay with you. But you have to compromise. I want a job. I don’t want you to be paying for all my expenses...I can be your roommate, instead of your charity case.”
These Starcrossed Lives of Ours Page 4
