by Katy Regnery
I guess it means calling my old friends to see if they still have room in their lives for me. I know that my closest friends will be happy to have me back in circulation. And though it will take courage and strength to say yes when they invite me out for drinks or to a BBQ, I’ll finally have the will to say yes. Even though my heart might still ache for Jem, it’s time to start saying yes again.
Maybe I’ll take my bike out of the shed behind my house, wipe off the cobwebs, and oil the chain. I could join my old biking club. I don’t know if there will be anyone I know still there, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to meet some new people, I guess.
I don’t know if my friend Mona still works at the Petal Salon and Spa near the bar where I used to work, but I could stop in and see. After two years, I could use a cut and color.
Maybe I’ll get some paint and repaint a few of the rooms in our house—my house—too. Freshen it up. Make it new. Make it mine. Start over.
Live again.
“Gah!”
I’m so engaged in my thoughts of home, I trip over a tree root in the path and fall to my knees with a cry. Gasping at the pain in my palms and knees, I push up from the ground and stand gingerly. My palms are bleeding, and my pants have ripped open at one knee. I wince at the mix of dirt, debris, and blood seeping from the tear.
“God!” I yell, looking up at the sky, fresh tears of rage mixing with raindrops. “Can you cut me a break? Please?”
He answers with a loud crash of thunder, and the rain starts falling sideways.
“Thanks a lot!” I sputter, crying as loudly as I please in heaving sobs.
My palms are a mess of mud-covered, bloody scrapes, so I use the back of my hand to push wet tendrils of hair from my face and let my tears fall freely, the warm saltiness mixing with the cold rain and slipping between my lips.
“It’s not fair!” I cry, fisting my broken hands at my sides. “He was good! He was young! I hate you for letting this happen!”
Another crash of angry thunder makes me cower a little, but I straighten my spine a moment later, turning my face to the onslaught of rain.
“I don’t want to be alone!”
Lightning brightens the dark sky for an instant, a jagged burst of white-hot light followed by a crack of fury.
“Please! Help me!” I say in a broken voice, my shoulders slumping as my strength is sapped.
I sigh heavily, a drowned rat, drenched and muddy, and shield my eyes to look up ahead.
The path is empty, but another strike of lightning draws my eyes to a structure of some kind off to the right. I squint. Yes. A cabin? No. A lean-to. A dark-brown painted clapboard lean-to. I cry even harder with relief as I approach. One of the many lean-tos placed strategically along the trails in Baxter State Park, it’s the ideal place to sit down, clean my knee, and wait out the worst of the storm.
“I take it back,” I mutter at the sky. “You came through. Thank you.”
Wiping my tears away, I move purposefully toward the little hut, only noticing, when I am a few feet away, that there appears to be someone else inside. Though I can’t see very well through the wind and rain between us, it looks like there’s someone sitting on the bench in the back.
Stepping up onto the floor of the lean-to, I almost sigh with relief as the loud patter of raindrops on my jacket ceases, but my heart flips over when my vision clears and I realize who’s sharing the tiny space with me.
Wayne.
You’re just tourists in my dreams.
He stares at me as I stand on the edge of the platform, his eyes slipping to my chest, then down to my ripped pants and bleeding knee.
A chill races down my spine as his lips tilt upward just a touch.
“Well,” he says, looking at me square in the eyes, “if it ain’t Grandma.”
Grandmaw.
I know he’s calling me that because I’m ten years older than my companions, but truth told, he and I are probably right around the same age. He grins at me and my skin crawls, but I force myself to hold his gaze, trying not to look intimidated, though he is easily twice my size and we are very much alone.
“Looks like you got a li’l scraped up there, huh?”
“It’s, um . . .” I gulp. “It’s Wayne, right?”
I don’t take another step into the lean-to, just stand on the edge, staring at him, trying to figure out whether to stay or go.
“Ayuh,” he says, pursing his lips. “It’s Wayne, all right. Ol’ Wayne, walkin’ all by his lonesome.” He cocks his head to the side. “You lost or somethin’? Thought you was walkin’ with friends.”
“They, uh . . . well, it started to rain, and I . . . well, they . . .”
As I mumble, he drops his eyes to my chest again, lingering there as he adjusts his glasses. I glance down quickly to find my windbreaker is plastered to my breasts, my freezing nipples clearly outlined through my T-shirt and the thin Gore-Tex slicker.
I cross my arms, and Wayne slowly raises his glance, his eyes darker now.
“All them fine friends got washed away, huh?”
“Um, no. They’re waitin’ for me,” I lie, hoping he’ll buy it. “I hurt my knee. Just wanted to clean it quick, and then I’ll be on my way.”
“Don’t matter nohow to me,” says Wayne, reaching into his bag. I brace myself—for what? I don’t know—then relax when he pulls out an old-fashioned thermos. He tugs the cup off the top with a pop and unscrews the canister, pouring some steaming, amber-colored liquid into the cup. “Tea and syrup and scotch. Nectar of the gods.”
I nod, edging into the lean-to a little more. I want to sit on the bench and tend to my knee, but there’s only one place to sit, and I don’t especially relish the notion of getting closer to Wayne.
“Want some?” he asks, holding out the cup.
I loosen the straps on my pack. “No, thank you.”
“Ha! Lookit that. You got some manners, after all.”
He lifts the cup in cheers and grins at me, showing off his yellow teeth. He winks before throwing back his drink, his eyes locked on mine the whole time.
There is something about the way his eyes seize mine and hold them that makes me feel trapped, that makes me feel like . . . like his prey.
Get out of here. Get out of here. Get out of here.
I look away from Wayne, glancing quickly toward the trail, hoping to see some hikers coming or going, but there’s no one in sight. By now, the guys I passed before I fell are probably well out of earshot.
“See yore friends out there, waitin’ for you in the downpour?” he asks, his voice mocking.
I turn back to him and I can see it on his face. He knows I was lying. He knows that I am alone.
“Want me to take a look-see at your kneesie?” he asks, placing his empty cup on the bench beside his fatigue-style pants. Hunting pants.
My stomach flips over at the cajoling tone, and I look out desperately at the still-sheeting rain.
“Um,” I say, starting to feel breathless from the increased pounding of my heart. “No, um . . . I think I’ll just—”
“No, huh?”
“No, thanks,” I say, turning back to him.
“No, thanks,” he mimics, snickering softly as he leans down to rummage through his bag again.
I reach up and tighten the straps I’ve just loosened. No rain is bad enough to spend another moment alone with Wayne. He creeps me out way too much.
“Um . . . I’m just going to, uh, keep going . . .”
I don’t want to take my eyes off Wayne, but I need to turn my back to him to step off the lean-to platform, so I pivot quickly, taking a step forward when my feet fly out from under me and I am suddenly yanked backward.
I am thrown to the far left corner of the lean-to, landing on my battered knees, my hip bone slamming into one wall, which causes my forehead to crash into another. My head whips back from the force, and the left side of my face scrapes against the filthy wooden floor. The wind is knocked from me, and I blink rapidly, su
cking in a sharp breath. A flash of panic—of pure, visceral dread—sluices through me with such velocity, the adrenaline rush numbs my pain.
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” says Wayne from behind me. “Yore friends ain’t waitin’ for you.”
I flatten one hand on the floor and brace the other on the wall in front of me, trying to right myself in the tight space. My fingernails curl, clawing at the dirty planks on the floor, but my movements are sluggish.
“Please,” I mumble, my voice hoarse. Weak. Breathless.
“Please?” repeats Wayne. “Please let me walk with you! Please be kind to strangers! Please have a sip of my goddamn motherfuckin’ drink!”
I am still trying to sit up when his boot slams into my left side. This time, the pain is so sharp, I scream, my head lurching forward where it slams against the wall again. Bright flashes of light—lightning? fireworks?—blur my vision as I mewl in pain, tears spilling from my eyes. Every movement hurts as I maneuver into a half-kneeling, half-fetal position, facing the corner of the lean-to, hunching over in an attempt to protect myself.
I’m dazed and disoriented as I glance back to see Wayne squat down behind me.
“There we go,” he says. “You lookit me when I’m talkin’ to you, Grandmaw.”
I keep my arms clasped protectively, pathetically, over my chest as I suck in shallow breaths in sharp spurts. My hip throbs in pain as it twists slightly so I can face Wayne.
That’s when I see it—the glint of metal in his hands—and my heart, which is already racing, starts skipping beats, making me even more light-headed.
Oh, my God. Is there any way out of here? Away from whatever he has planned for me?
“P-please,” I sob, vaguely aware of something wet and warm trailing down my forehead. Am I bleeding? I want to reach up and wipe the blood away, but I pull my knees closer to my chest instinctively. My eyes stay trained on the shiny blade of the Bowie knife.
“You don’t look so good,” says Wayne, leaning forward.
I smell his breath—a mix of stale cigarette, scotch, and syrup—and avert my face. But he doesn’t like this. He reaches for my chin and grabs it, forcing me to look at him.
He holds the knife up to my face, using the blade to lift a strand of my hair. And though I am repulsed by the fact that he is touching me, I don’t move. Each breath I take feels perilous, but I can’t control the jerky rise and fall of my chest.
Releasing my chin, he takes one stubby finger and slides the digit across my forehead. When he withdraws it, smeared in my blood, he draws it to his lips, licking the red slick slowly. “You don’t look good . . . but you taste just fine.”
He pulls the straps of my pack away from my back, and I hear the blade slice through the thick nylon. The weight of the pack falls from my shoulders, slumping against my backside, the only thing between me and Wayne.
“Turn around,” he says.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Turn around!” he yells, his hand landing roughly on the base of my neck. “Now!”
I pivot awkwardly to face him, my back to the corner of the lean-to, Wayne about six inches away. He grabs my backpack and throws it over his shoulder so there is nothing between us but air.
“Drop yore arms.”
“P-please,” I sob.
He plunges the knife into the wood to the right of my ear, and I gasp, my breath wheezing and loud in my ears.
“Do it!” he yells, yanking the blade out of the wall.
Slowly, shaking uncontrollably, with tears and blood slipping in streams down my face, I lower my arms.
“Yore titties is like headlights,” he says, a high-pitched giggle following this observation.
His tongue darts out, and he licks my blood from his lips as he stares at me from a few inches away.
Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, God.
“P-please, Wayne. P-please—”
“Shut the fuck up,” he growls, still staring at my breasts. “Yore ruinin’ it.”
Oh, God. Oh, God. No. No. Please, no.
“W-Wayne,” I say, shaking my head. “P-please. P-please d-don’t—”
“What?” His eyes slide up from my breasts, angry, affronted. “What? You think I’m a fuckin’ rapist? Fuck no! I ain’t want yore cootie pussy, Grandmaw.”
Why his words comfort me some tiny bit, I have no idea. But I whimper “thank you” as I stare up at him, literally backed into a corner, completely at the mercy of a madman. Is it possible that I can live through this nightmare?
“Thank you,” he mimics, so close, his vile breath dusts my face with every word. He giggles again. It’s childlike and feminine and turns my stomach. I vomit into my mouth, gagging as I swallow down the bile. Wayne doesn’t seem to notice—he’s smiling at me like he’s on autopilot. “Ask me what I do like. Ask me! Come on! It’ll be fun!”
“What?” I say, tears blurring my vision as he passes the knife back and forth from one hand to the other.
“No. Not like that. That’s not fun!” he says, frowning, the knife stilling for a moment. “You gotta ask me, Grandmaw. You gotta say, ‘Hey, Wayne, what do you like?’”
His eyes are wild with excitement, his lips stretching into a terrifying smile.
I swallow. “W-Wayne . . . what . . .”
I can’t speak. No more words will come out because I am sobbing softly, my body quaking with terror.
“You’re wreckin’ it!” cries Wayne, his face turning furious. His hand raises the blade over his head. “Ask me what I like!”
“No!” I wail, dropping my head to my knees and wrapping my arms around them. I hold myself as tightly as possible.
Jem. Jem, I’m so sorry. Mommy. Dad. Oh, God. I’m so sorry.
Wayne roars his fury just as I feel the steel point slice my skin open, forcing its ugly coldness into my side, the pain so intense and so unbelievable, I scream. I know I scream, though the sound feels like it’s apart from me, not a part of me. It sounds far, far away.
I list to my other side, still clutching my knees to my chest as the blade rips through my hip a second time.
I scream again, but this time it isn’t about Wayne or the knife or even the pain.
It isn’t about losing Jem, or Derrick Frost Willums, or never hearing my mother sing the Beatles to me again.
It isn’t even about living the last two years in unimaginable, freezing darkness, every waking moment a nightmare that I couldn’t escape from.
I am not screaming for my past or my present.
I am screaming for my future.
I am screaming because I know I want it and someone is taking it away from me.
I am screaming because my eyes are closing and the steel blade keeps landing and my arms can’t hold on tightly to my knees much longer.
I am screaming because the stabs don’t hurt anymore, which means I must be dying.
Again the blade.
Again the sound of my scream, weak and soft, torn from my fading soul.
And then . . .
Darkness.
Cassidy
My first, and strongest, instinct, upon watching Brynn separate from her group and start climbing alone, is to follow her.
Follow her. Follow her. Follow her.
It is a chant in my head. A mantra. And it takes only a few seconds for it to chill me to the bone.
Is this what it had been like for my father?
Would he see a beautiful girl and think to himself:
Follow her.
Talk to her.
And then, suddenly, and maybe without any warning:
Touch her.
Rape her.
Kill her.
Could it really be that simple? The escalation from admiration and interest to evil and destruction?
And if I follow her, will I be walking in his footsteps?
Inhaling sharply with the horror of it, I sit back down on the boulder, close my eyes, and count slowly and carefully to one thousand, seeing the numbers in my mind and
acknowledging every single one before moving on to the next. I have no idea how long it takes me—over fifteen minutes, I assume—but when I am finished, I’m thoroughly soaked. I open my eyes, and the trail before me is empty.
Brynn is gone.
And something inside feels suddenly hollow.
Empty and longing. Aching, almost to the point of pain.
Slicing through my fog of yearning, my mind presents a simple question:
Why?
Why do I feel so empty?
Because I am a normal twenty-seven-year-old man who saw a pretty girl and wished to know her?
Or because somewhere deep, dark, and murky inside—somewhere I can’t feel and almost can’t fathom—I don’t just want to know her—I want to hurt her?
What is it that would bring me satisfaction? That would fill the emptiness?
Knowing her?
Or hurting her?
To my shame and fear, I don’t know. I’m not certain. I can’t answer these simple questions of meaning and intent, which makes me growl softly in frustration and despair.
Pushing off from the boulder, I survey my surroundings. Rain still falls in sheets, pelting and angry, and even from where I stand under a thick canopy of trees away from the trail, I am getting drenched.
I had set forth this morning with two goals in mind: the first, to reach the summit and admire the vast beauty of my world; the second, to feel like a part of humanity for a few harmless hours, to listen to the voices of other people, see their faces, watch them communicate with their words and bodies.
No issues with the first goal. But I grimace, rubbing the scruff on my chin with my thumb and forefinger, as I review the second. Is it bad that I’d wanted to be around people? To feel human—like a part of the human race, the collective community of man—for a few precious hours? Or was it breaking my word to Gramp and Mama?
I see two men walking quickly down from the summit, heads down, clearly on a mission to get back to their car below.
Hmm. So it’s still passable, despite the rain.
I want to see the summit today—even as rainy and cloudy as I know it will likely be. I may have failed or bungled my second goal, but I can still meet my first.
No doubt Brynn is far ahead of me by now, I think, the idea comforting and sad at once.
