Gideon

by Alex Gordon

  Oh, let me in . . .

  “Come with me.” Connie reached out to her younger self. “I have to take you out of here.” She waited for the touch of a smaller hand in hers, and when she didn’t feel it looked to the place where the girl had been, and found her gone. “What did you do to her?”

  “I don’t need her anymore. You’re here now.” The young boy smiled. “You’re safe.”

  “Safe from what? Safe from who?” Connie stopped as voices drifted from the distance. She looked in the direction she had come, and saw Virginia Waycross wandering amid the trees, voice rising and falling and bouncing like echoes in a canyon. She still wore Mike’s barn coat, but her other clothes had changed. She had put on her old White Sox cap, a tan shirt, and old brown cords instead of jeans.

  Connie started toward her, but as she walked the air grew thicker and thicker. “I’m here, Virginia!” She struggled to breathe, fought for every step. “Virginia!” But her friend kept walking in the opposite direction, and disappeared among the trees.

  She can’t hear you.

  Connie shivered as the voice filled her head. Felt the chill drift of air, smelled crawl-space stink. “Jim? Virginia’s wearing different clothes. How long have I been here?”

  Time’s different here. Jim drew alongside. You’ve crossed the border into the wilderness.

  “I can’t be in the wilderness. I’m still alive. You can only enter the wilderness after you . . . die.” Connie reached out and pressed her hand against air that felt as solid as a wall. “Why? I don’t understand.”

  We sang his song. We let him in. Bloody tears coursed down Jim’s face as the summer sun faded and the sky clouded and the breeze grew cold. Everything that happens from here on is our fault. Shadows flickered amid the trees, then stepped out into the dimming light. Norma and Junior, Ashley and the girls, their faces grayed and grinning.

  “Jim, please.” Connie cried as her family crowded around her, tugging at her with their clawed hands, pulling her deeper and deeper into the gloom. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  We let him in. Jim pushed her from behind, deeper into the gloom. Now we can’t let you out.

  Lauren had intended to drive the two thousand miles from Seattle to Gideon nonstop, but even though the weather behaved and roads remained passable, the panicked energy behind that idea petered out after sixteen hours. So she stopped at a hardware store on the outskirts of Rapid City, South Dakota, and bought a bag of garden-stake twist ties. Then, images of Psycho-grade motels dancing in her head, she booked a room at the fanciest suites-style hotel she could find, wedged a chair beneath the door handle, then sat on the bed and ate a drive-through dinner as she worked the entire bag of ties into wire circlet eyes. When she finished, she scattered the eyes around the room, then turned on every light and lamp, and fell asleep reading her father’s book.

  The next day, she gathered up the circlets and stashed them in the empty food sack, then watched for the lurking living and the walking, talking dead as she headed to her car. Her only greeter, however, proved to be a crow, which hopped after her, wings spread for balance, cawing and cackling. She tossed it her leftover dinner, and it stuffed its beak with as many french fries as it could manage before taking wing and settling in a nearby tree.

  Lauren watched the bird for a few minutes. No other crows disturbed it, so it took its time setting out the fries across the branch, then chomping them one by one. It looked the same as the crows she had seen in her parents’ front yard and outside the coffee shop, but that was only because one large, black bird looked much like another to her. She hadn’t looked closely until now and could see no distinguishing marks that would serve to identify it. Were they all the same crow?

  The bird of the Lady. Something she had read in the book the previous night. “And the Lady said, ‘You will be my eyes and ears in the mortal world.’” Crows were her messengers, her watchers. Their presence was a sign of her grace.

  “Guess I’m blessed.” Lauren loaded her suitcase into the trunk. “Hold that thought.” She spotted her father’s leather jacket scrunched in one corner, took it out, and put it on. Then she tossed a few of the wire circlets around the interior of the car, shoved the rest under her seat, and resumed her drive.

  SNOW SQUALLS DOGGED Lauren across the Plains, but when she crossed into Illinois, the sky cleared. I-88 to state roads to two-lane roads, from the towns large and small to scatters of buildings that wouldn’t show up on any map. The GPS rattled off official road numbers in its femme android voice, but the signs themselves displayed different names: HOARD’S FIELD. RED BARN. OLD ORCHARD ROAD.

  It was around that time that the satellite radio started to crackle and hiss. Lauren hit the scan button repeatedly, trying to find a clear station, but the sparkly tech may as well have been an antique AM transistor for all the good it did. Finally, when the hiss altered to a high-pitched whine that set her teeth on edge, she turned it off, leaving her with the GPS voice and her own thoughts for company.

  As she drew closer to Gideon, her surroundings changed. Open farmland altered to wooded field and forest, stands of apple, oak, and ash mingled with spruce. The road banked and rolled, curving in tandem with the river now visible through the trees. First came the Rock, wide and slow flowing, lined with parks and rest stops. Then, a few miles farther along, came her first glimpses of the Ann, a much narrower river, in some spots no more than a stream.

  Lauren didn’t know when exactly the GPS unit broke down. First the voice started to crack. Then the announcements of approaching turnoffs ceased. By the time she realized that the thing had stopped functioning, she had turned onto a nameless two-lane road that proved more pothole than pavement. She took out her phone, and found that it too had crapped out. Pulled over to the side of the road but left the engine running, fearing to turn it off in case it, too, failed.

  She spotted a small billboard, visible through a mass of road-hugging shrubbery, and got out to see what it read. On the way, she checked if her crow had showed up to greet her. But she saw no sign of it, heard no cawing, and wondered if she had imagined that it followed her, if it had been a different crow after all.

  She kicked through knee-high wet grass and mud toward the sign, hoping for some kind of advertisement, a bit of information that would tell her that no, she wasn’t lost in the middle of nowhere. MARY’S TAFFY, ONE MILE STRAIGHT AHEAD, or something. Anything. My kingdom for a paper map. She had considered buying one back at her last fuel stop, but had decided against it. Seattle gadgeteer didn’t need no stinking paper. Dummy.

  Lauren pulled on her gloves, then tugged at the vines that obscured the sign, which proved to be a plank-and-plywood construct with a homemade look about it. The boards had been used for other things in the past—they bore traces of paint and stain, and were mismatched in width and thickness. But some of the nails still shone and the painted lettering looked bright and crisp, as though it had been recently refreshed.

  Once Lauren had cleared enough overgrowth, she stood back to read the lettering. The single short line of blocky script had been colored violent red trimmed in black, the background a mustard yellow bright enough to make her squint.

  Beware the Outsider.

  —ENDOR 4, 1

  Lauren looked for a signature, some indication of who had painted the sign. Not particularly welcoming, though. No love for strangers in Gideon.

  “Looking for something in particular?”

  Lauren turned so quickly that her foot slid on the mud—it shot out from under, and she fell backward into the wet weeds. She caught sight of a figure across the road as she tumbled, an old man dressed in overalls and a black-and-white buffalo-plaid jacket topped with a bright orange vest.

  “Watch your step.” He made a hacking noise that might have been a cough, a chuckle, or a little of both. “Ice.”

  No shit, Sherlock. Lauren worked to her feet and limped back to her car. Her backside ached, and filthy slush had soaked through the seat of her pants a
nd run down the backs of her legs. She popped open the Outback’s rear hatch and hunted for a towel, while the man continued to watch but made no move to cross the road.

  “Headed to Chicago?” He pointed to his left. “I-90’s that way. Or you can take 39 to 88, that way.” He pointed in the opposite direction.

  Lauren liberated a musty beach towel from the trunk and dried herself as well as she could. Wiped the splatter off her father’s jacket, then tugged it down to cover the damp splotches on her pants. Tossed the towel back in the trunk, and dug out a plastic grocery sack to serve as a seat cover. “Is there a town close by where I can gas up first?”

  The man jerked his chin at the Outback. “If you didn’t leave your car running all the time, you wouldn’t use so much.”

  Lauren waited. “Which way is it, please?”

  “Which way’s what?”

  “A gas station.”

  “About five, ten miles up the road.”

  Lauren bit back a sharp reply, and took a deep breath. “Is there anyplace closer?”

  The man remained silent. Stooped and spindle thin, he shifted a rusty metal toolbox from one hand to the other as his directional gestures demanded. “Lolly’s place, two miles that way.” He jerked his thumb down the road. He could have been any age from a hard-used sixty to a spry eighty, cheeks reddened from cold and exertion, jacket hanging off coat-hanger shoulders and silver hair poking out from beneath a flap-eared cap.

  Lolly. The image in the book, the angry kid with the crew cut. “Thanks.” Lauren spread the plastic bag across her seat. “Do you know who put up the sign?”

  “I did.” The man drew up straight, then stepped out into the middle of the road. “It’s the duty of we her children to spread the Lady’s word.”

  As the man drew closer, Lauren could see the stains on his jacket and trousers, a combination of grime and various spills. Silvery stubble dotted his cheeks and chin, accentuating the rash that spread across his face like sunburn. One of Gideon’s witches? Or just a strange old man who didn’t like strangers? “Not very welcoming, is it?” She jerked her head toward the sign, its colors harsh against the dull foliage.

  The man stopped, coughed, spit. “Any reason why we should?”

  “Why you should what?”

  “Welcome you?”

  Common decency? Lauren started to get into her car when the squawk of an unseen crow sounded. She scanned the trees for any sign of the bird, but saw no movement amid the bare branches and the odd fringe of evergreen.

  “Listen to that.” For the first time, a spark of life lightened the old man’s face. “But you try to get them to come this far down the road. Just try.” He limped toward the sound. “I cut up a possum and spread it along t’fence t’other day. Guts and all, the way they like.” He pointed across the road to the fence in question, obscured by overgrowth. “They didn’t go anywhere near it. Didn’t even call out. Just watched me from way over in the field, all quiet. Wouldn’t even fly over to see what was going on.”

  Lauren squinted through a tangle of branches until she saw the reddish lumps of flesh and strings of intestine hanging from the barbed wire. A tiny head, mouth gaping. She swallowed hard. “You hunt possum?”

  “Hunt? Pah! You don’t waste good lead on vermin.” The man mimed a quick downward thrust. “Shovel blade to the back of the neck. That’s how you kill vermin.” He searched for the crows for a bit longer, then craned his neck so that he could see Lauren’s license plate. “Washington State. You come a ways, Miss—?”

  Lauren nodded, eventually. “Yep.” Since the man hadn’t told her his name, she had no intention of telling him hers. “Why don’t the crows come closer?”

  “Because they’re smart.” The man hacked and spit again, then pulled a rag from his jacket pocket and wiped his mouth. “You smart as a crow?” He continued to dab his lips with the rag as he watched her.

  That’s open for debate. Lauren listened for a few moments more, but the crow had either flown off or settled into silence. She got into her car, pulled out into the road, and headed toward Gideon. Checked the rearview to find the old man walking on the spot where she had parked. He kicked at the grass, then bent slowly and picked up something. Then he spit one more time and vanished into the trees.

  THE NAMELESS ROAD curved and meandered up and down, back and forth. Lauren passed vacant houses obscured by overgrowth, the burned-out shell of some business or other.

  Then, with no warning, she came upon a rise that overlooked Gideon’s town square, a bare, brown space ringed by a scatter of businesses. Beyond that, a few large homes showed through the leafless trees, dull brick Federals and a Victorian painted lady, ruby red trim bright as fresh scars.

  Lauren pulled over to the side of the road. She had tried to survey Gideon online, but what images she found had been blurry, the buildings hidden by trees. She had planned to stay at a local motel or bed-and-breakfast and get the feel for the place before looking up the people her father had noted in his book. But there was no place to get a feel for, no neighborhoods to wander. Thirty-seven years ago, Gideon had been large enough to support a high school. Now it was a smudge on a map that you passed through on the way to somewhere else.

  Lauren watched a single pickup truck drift down the street that circled the square and disappear around a corner. Then her gaze moved to her dashboard and settled on the fuel gauge. She knew that the tank had been well over half full when she stopped to check out the sign, but the needle had moved below that point and now hovered around the one-third mark.

  Dubuque. She had filled the tank just outside Dubuque. She did some quick math in her head, swore, and got out of the car and checked underneath for leaks, sniffed for any hint of gasoline stink. Walked down the road and searched the broken asphalt for drips, but found none.

  Bad sensor. A problem with the gauge. How the hell do I know? Lauren paced back and forth. Lolly’s. The gas station the old man had told her about—maybe they did repairs as well, or could at least diagnose the problem. Gideon didn’t look like a pedestrian-friendly sort of place. From what she had seen so far, it didn’t even have sidewalks. She needed a car.

  She looked out over the town, the old man’s words ringing in her ears. Any reason why we should welcome you? As if he had been lurking in the woods awaiting her arrival. As if he knew why she had come.

  Don’t be an idiot. She got back in her car, fought the urge to floor the accelerator and take off. Instead, she checked her phone, watched the display flicker and fade in and out. No, she couldn’t flee. She had to stay put until she knew what had gone wrong with her car. She couldn’t risk breaking down on a back road. She didn’t want to run into the old man again. Or someone even weirder.

  Or someone even worse.

  Lauren eased the car down the slope and edged around the square, one eye on the fuel gauge. Gideon appeared deserted but for a battered van and a couple of pickup trucks in the parking lot of a diner. The hardware store next door looked dark, empty. The feed store. She turned down a rutted side street and spotted a pair of gas pumps in front of a whitewashed concrete box, LOLL’S GARAGE painted in black block letters on the side. She pulled into the dirt-and-gravel front yard, got out of the car and knocked on the door, peered through the window. Found no sign that anyone was there.

  After a little more pondering, Lauren returned to her car. She swept up the wire circlets that she had scattered about the interior and stuffed them in her pocket, collected her handbag, locked up, then trudged down the road toward the diner, a rickety clapboard sprawl with the name HOARD’S GRILL blinking in red and blue neon in the front window. Heard voices as she drew closer, the crosscut of argument.

  “—need to check the river—”

  “—ain’t going down there no fuckin’ way—”

  “—call the sheriff—”

  Lauren hesitated at the entry, hand hovering over the latch. Then she pushed open the door. An entry bell jangled. Silence fell.

  “Are
you open?” She blinked until her eyes adjusted to the half-light, swallowed hard as she inhaled the weighty aromas of old coffee and cooking fat. The dining room looked like any other, with a counter along the near wall and a line of booths opposite, Formica-and-chrome tables clustered in the center. Four men sat at the far end of the counter while a young woman stood by one of the tables, a tray of salt and pepper shakers in hand.

  “We’re not serving.” The young woman placed a set of shakers on the table, then moved to the next. “Cook’s out.” She eyed Lauren up and down, and frowned. “Won’t be back until five.” She looked about twenty, with streaked light brown hair gathered in a ponytail and a curvy figure packed into black jeans and a white V-neck sweater.

  “Thanks—I didn’t come here to eat.” Lauren pointed in the direction of the garage. “I’m looking for Mr. Loll. My car’s acting up, and—”

  “What kind is it?” One of the men stood. Bulky and bearded, the crew cut grown into a mess of dirty blond curls, Lolly wore dark blue coveralls topped with a battered black parka. “Your car.” He lumbered toward her, eyes straight ahead. “What kind?” He had seemed sullen enough in her father’s drawing, but in person he radiated anger, the threat of explosion beneath the surface.

  Lauren stepped back as he brushed past, trailing stale cigarette smoke and peppermint. “It’s an Outback. Subaru.”

  “Foreign.” Lolly stopped at the end of the counter near the cash register. “Don’t work on much foreign around here. Fords. Chevys.” He dug into the pocket of his coverall, pulled out a couple of crumpled bills, and tossed them on the counter.

  “Jorie Cateman drives that Range Rover,” one of the other men offered. He sat against the wall, his face in the shadows.

  “Yeah, but she don’t bring it to me for service, does she?” Lolly sniffed. “Takes it up to Rockford.” He shrugged. “I’ll look at it. Later today. No promises. Likely have to have it towed somewhere.”

  “It runs. It’s not leaking. I think it’s just the gauge.”