Kin

by Kealan Patrick Burke

  Stepping out from the shelter of the porch, he narrowed his eyes against the rain and looked at the truck. It stared back, headlights dull, chrome fender long past gleaming.

  Pete dug his hands into his pockets. You don’t even know her. He exhaled through his nose. He wondered how long his father would be inside. He was a man of few words, so Pete guessed it wouldn’t be long. Then again the way he’d looked in the hall, all wrapped up in himself, made it seem as if he had plenty to tell.

  He glanced to his left, at the two windows at the front of the doctor’s house. The window to the girl’s room would be somewhere around back.

  Leave her be.

  Knowing he was probably making a mistake, and one that might get him in a world of hurt and trouble, he nevertheless ducked low and moved away from the truck, toward the corner of the house.

  * * *

  They sat facing each other at a small square table, which had once worn a lacy tablecloth, but was bare and scarred now. Since his wife’s death, Wellman hadn’t seen the need for those little touches that made ordinary things look pretty, not when the only thing he had ever considered pretty was buried in cold, uncaring earth. He offered Jack the bottle of Scotch and watched the man pour himself a half glass.

  “Do you know who did this to her?” He accepted the bottle but did not take his eyes from Jack’s face as he filled his cup.

  “Not for sure, no,” the other man said, before taking a draw from his glass that almost emptied it. “I mean…I didn’t see ’em do it, or nothin’, but…”

  “Go on,” Wellman urged when it seemed the man had snagged on his own thoughts.

  Rain pattered at the window. The single bulb above them, hooded by a floral glass shade that was the room’s sole concession to decorativeness only because the doctor couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to remove it without breaking it, made their shadows long and blurry. It was not yet night, but plenty dark, almost as if Jack Lowell and his boy had brought it with them.

  “You remember those kids that went missin’ years back?”

  Wellman nodded. “Backpackers. Couple of guys and their girls. I remember.”

  “Yeah. You remember the big fuss around here at that time. Kids were rich. Once their folks found out that Elkwood’s where they’d last been seen alive, they came down here like an army, put the screws on the Sheriff pretty bad. Newsfolk and everythin’.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I saw those kids.” He joined his hands around the glass. There was dirt caked beneath his nails, his grubby fingertips touching.

  Wellman sat back. “When?”

  “Gave ’em a lift that day. Saw ’em all out there on the road, in that heat, sweatin’ like a buncha hogs. Felt kinda bad for ’em, even though no one in their right mind should be out walkin’ in that kinda heat. So I told ’em to pile in. Took ’em as far as the General Store, though it were closed. Even offered to take ’em farther if they wanted. They didn’t. Heard one of ’em say the truck smelt like cowshit. ’Nother one said I was like somethin’ outta Deliverance, whatever the hell that is.”

  “A movie,” Wellman told him. “’About a bunch of hillbillies who hunt some city folk.”

  Jack considered this for a moment, then smiled, but only briefly. “Yeah. Anyways, I left ’em there, and they went missin’ soon after.”

  “So you didn’t see what happened?”

  “No, but my place’s only about twenty miles from the store. Only other house ’tween here and there is the Merrill’s. Out there in the woods past the river.” At the blank look on the doctor’s face he said, “They don’t come into town much. Keep to themselves. They have a junkyard. Hunt their own food. Buncha brothers, far’s I know. Heard there used to be a sister too, but for all I know that might be just talk. Only one I ever seen in town is their old man, and he’s a scary lookin’ sumbitch. Has a way’a lookin’ at you…like he’s lookin’ inside your skull or somethin’…readin’ your thoughts or…” He trailed off, and drained the glass.

  Wellman refilled it. “So you think they had something to do with those kids going astray?”

  “I do.”

  “But…why? They could’ve gone anywhere. Might even have passed your place that day and you just didn’t see them.”

  Jack raised his glass a little, tipped it in gratitude, and took a sip. Then he smacked his lips and stifled a belch. “I called the Sheriff a few weeks later when I heard those kids’ folks was in town askin’ questions. Told ’im what I thought, even though there weren’t no good reason for thinkin’ it other than a bad feelin’ I got every time I passed that damn place. So McKindrey comes over, tells me he’ll go out there and ask some questions. See if the Merrills know anythin’.”

  “And did they?”

  “Dunno. He never went out there, or if he did, he pretended he didn’t. But the night after I called him tellin’ him what I knew, or thought I knew, I woke up to find Old Man Merrill standin’ in my room with a big rusty lawnmower blade to my throat.” He finished the drink, set the glass before the doctor, who filled it without hesitation and slid it back.

  “Thought I was dreamin’ ’bout Death itself, I swear. He was wearin’ dark clothes: long coat, and one of them hats like the preachers used to wear.” He raised his hand and made a twirling motion with one upraised finger in front of his face. “Big hat. Couldn’t see his face. And he were tall. Least I think he was, but I guess anyone standin’ in your room at night with a blade to your throat with only the moonlight showin’ you he’s there’s gonna look tall, right?”

  “Right,” Wellman agreed, and noted the other man’s hands had started to tremble.

  “He says to me, and I’ll never forget it: ‘I don’t want to kill a good, Godfearin’ man like you even if you is just an old dirty nigger with a big mouth, but I won’t hesitate to cut out your tongue if you keep spreadin’ lies about my family.’ He told me his boys never did nothin’ they weren’t forced to do to protect themselves and the family, and never would. Said they respected our boundaries and we should respect theirs.”

  Jack swallowed, eyes cloudy with the memory. He took a long drink of his whiskey, and it could have been water for all the effect it had on him. “I dunno what came over me, but I sat right up, despite that big ol’ blade at my throat, and I told him to get the hell out of my house. He stepped away, and raised an arm that looked like it belonged to a scarecrow, and pointed at my bedroom door. I looked, saw a boy standin’ there holding hands with Pete, who weren’t more than a little kid himself at the time. He looked sleepy, standin’ there in his underpants, wonderin’ what was goin’ on, and who this kid holdin’ his hand was. And I couldn’t tell him, couldn’t say nothin’ because that other kid, the Merrill kid, was holdin’ a huntin’ knife in his other hand and lookin’ at me like he knew exactly how to use it, like he wanted to use it.”

  “Jesus…” Wellman said, and removed his spectacles so he could wipe a hand over his face. “Jesus.”

  “Merrill asked me if we had ourselves an understandin’.” He shook his head slowly, and finished his drink. “I told him we did, and he left. Mussed up my boy’s hair on the way out as if he were nothin’ more than some ’ol kind uncle come to visit. I didn’t sleep for weeks after that. Sat up with my shotgun and moved Pete’s bed into the livin’ room where I could watch over him.”

  “You tell the boy any of this?”

  “Told him it were a dream. Didn’t see the sense in scarin’ ’im any worse.”

  “They shouldn’t have gotten away with that, you know. No one should get away with that kind of thing. Not in this day and age.”

  Jack looked up from his drink. “I ain’t never told no one what I just told you, Doc, but I’m tellin’ it now because you wanted to know why I didn’t want you callin’ the Sheriff. Even if you do, he’ll tell you he’ll take a look, but he won’t, ’cuz I reckon he’s just as scared of ’em as I am. Maybe they paid him a visit one night, told him what they told me. Bu
t if they find out, it might be you they come see. You understand now?”

  Wellman nodded slowly. He wasn’t sure how much of Jack’s story he should believe. It was madness what he’d been told, but then hadn’t he witnessed firsthand the very worst kind of madness and desperation the world had to offer three years before when he’d been summoned to operate on Alice Niles, a fifteen-year-old girl who’d tried to burn her unborn baby out of herself with a blowtorch, believing it to be the spawn of Satan itself? That particularly frightening conviction had come courtesy of the girl’s mother, Lynn, after she discovered her own husband was the baby’s father.

  What Jack had said scared him, even worse than the realization that had he not refused Alice Niles’ anguished request to aid in the abortion, she might not have felt compelled to take the torch to it. This scared him more, because something had occurred to him that he wasn’t sure he should say aloud for fear of terrifying Jack more than he already was. Assuming it hadn’t already dawned on him.

  What if they saw you, Jack? What if they saw you taking the girl?

  * * *

  She was sleeping, but it was not a peaceful sleep. Even over the rain that sizzled around him and the wind that had risen, even through the thick glass, Pete could hear her moaning low in her throat. One hand was flung over her brow; the other twitched spasmodically every few minutes. Doctor Wellman had washed her cuts and bandaged her eye, or rather the hole where her eye had once been, and put icepacks on her cheeks to help ease the swelling. She looked a little better now, but not much. She was still naked—he could tell by the shape of her, and the raised points of her nipples beneath the material, the sight of which caused something within him to stir—but the sheets were pulled up to her chin, as if she was cold. There were bloodstained cloths, swabs, and a kidney-shaped metal dish full of dark red water on a stand by the bed. Next to these, laid out on a blood-spotted white towel, a variety of steel instruments gleamed like shiny letters surrounded by wild crimson periods.

  As Pete watched, consumed with the sudden urge to go back inside and bring her another blanket, she slowly turned her head toward him, as if following the flight path of a bird in a dream, and he almost ducked down beneath the sill for fear she’d wake and see him peering in at her like some kind of peeping tom. But he waited a moment, then straightened, his face pressed to the glass.

  Who are you? he wondered, smiling slightly as he cocked his head to see better through the rivulets of rain streaming down the pane. Where d’you come from? He pressed his fingers to the glass, wishing it were her skin he was feeling beneath them, knowing her flesh would be infinitely warmer. He closed his eyes, confused by this yearning for someone he didn’t even know, and not for the first time chided his foolishness. But the warmth inside him countered the uncertainty. She would wake, and she would need a friend, that was all there was to it. And if they forbade him his visits to see her, then he would sneak out. He had done it all the time for Valerie, even if she’d never learned that he’d been watching her, looking in on her from time to time like a guardian angel. On reflection, that had probably been for the best. She hadn’t loved him anyway.

  He wondered if it would be different this time.

  The rain hammered the glass and needled the back of his head like nature’s way of opposing such foolish thoughts, and he opened his eyes. The cold trickling down the nape of neck chilled him as he checked to make sure his father or Doctor Wellman hadn’t suddenly appeared at the door.

  The coast was clear.

  Thunder made a sound like barrels tumbling down a stairs.

  Pete turned back to the window, saw that the girl was awake, and watching him, and his mouth fell open.

  A split second later, he was surprised when the girl did the same.

  Then she screamed.

  -5-

  “They’ll come looking for her, you know. Someone will come looking for the girl. If not the cops, then her family, and even if by some miracle they don’t, she’s going to wake sooner or later and she’ll want to go home.”

  Jack nodded his understanding and wiped tears from his eyes. “I know that. When she’s able, you’d best just put her on a bus home. Though it might not be wise to keep her here longer than you need to. Take her to a hospital, soon. Tomorrow mornin’. Tell ’em you found her on the road and patched her up best you could. They’ll get the cops involved and figure somethin’ out for themselves.”

  Wellman finished his drink. “And you don’t think it will all lead back here?”

  “Doesn’t matter if it does. We won’t know nothin’.”

  “I will, Jack, and I’m a lousy liar.”

  “You won’t know more than that you found her by the road. Half-truth’s better than none, ain’t it? And the girl’ll be in good hands.”

  “Then what? Think they won’t go poking around by themselves? And I’m only a doctor, not a surgeon. I can patch her up, but I can’t give her what she needs.”

  Jack put his hands to the sides of his head and squeezed, as if hoping to compress the frustration. “Then drop her off somewhere. Drive into Mason City, leave her by the—”

  A sudden terrifying shriek made them both jump. Jack’s right hand flew out and knocked over his empty glass. It rolled toward the edge of the table but he caught it in time, then looked in desperation at the doctor, who rose and swallowed.

  Overcome by panic, nerves frayed, “Why?” Wellman asked. “After all you’ve said, why did you bring her here?”

  Jack stared dumbly. He had no ready answer, only unspoken apologies for an act he knew had endangered them all.

  Pale-faced and trembling, Wellman hurried down the hall.

  A moment later, Jack quickly and quietly stood and headed for the front door.

  * * *

  The face vanished from the window. It didn’t matter. Whether or not she could see them, Claire knew they were close. She could smell their suffocating stink—a mixture of unwashed bodies, blood and engine oil. She screamed, and would not stop screaming, because despite what they had told her, despite what they had whispered lovingly into her ear, their noxious breath warm against her skin, someone would come. Someone would hear.

  Casting a fearful glance at the window, empty now but for the rain, she felt a dazzling burst of panic and pain as she remembered being tied to the stake, remembered the feel of them taking turns as they violated her, tore her asunder, tried to reach the part of her she was keeping from them, the only part of her they still, after all their torturing, hadn’t yet destroyed.

  Her soul.

  As if on cue, her ribs seemed to tighten, her lungs cutting off the breath required to carry the scream, and it died, became an airless croak that drained her. Searing pain chewed on her extremities, as if despite the warmth that lay upon her like an invisible lover, she was suffering from frostbite. Her body jerked of its own volition; her teeth clacked together hard enough to send a bolt of fresh, clear glassy pain to her temples. In her right eye, through which she could see nothing, a smoldering ember ignited anew, and she tried to scream again, as her hands—wounded hands bandaged bleeding hands—flew to the burning epicenter of her suffering and found no blood, no damage, only a soft, slightly damp gauze. She began to weep, and felt consciousness reel away from her, then back again, as if she were on a swing. Slowly, like fires lighting in the dark, other sites of pain registered across the terrain of her body, reaching toward the surface of her skin with flaming arms. Her back arched and she opened her mouth, but the scream she could hear in her ears stayed trapped in her throat. Her skin felt scalded.

  Madness danced through her, offering itself up as an alternative to the unbearable suffering, and she grunted, pummeled by invisible fists of pain, and tried to listen.

  Any minute now, that soothing velvet voice told her. Any minute now they’ll be back with their knives and their ropes and their filthy things, ready to do to you what they did to…to…

  She closed her eyes, opened them again. Darkness in one;
light in the other. The room seemed to jump and jitter every time she tried to focus. The rataplan of the rain at the window was designed to distract her, to make her believe it was the dirty finger of one of them, eager to draw her attention, but she didn’t look, didn’t care. The pain was too much now, and even that didn’t matter because pain meant she was alive, and alive meant they hadn’t done to her what she’d seen them do to the others, to her friends, and she couldn’t understand why they hadn’t done the same to her, couldn’t—

  And then she did.

  She hadn’t let them.

  She had escaped, survival instinct taking control of her, muddying her mind, narrowing her thoughts into one single inner cry of primal self-preservation.

  Loosening rope burning her wrists. The dimwitted single-minded smile of her captor, as he tugged down his pants with trembling hands. Claire, arching her back away from the stake, spreading her legs, exposing herself more fully, watching his eyes drop to the raw wounded lips there. Come on, come take it you dirty fuck. Her fingers fumbling, tips jabbed by the sharp point of a sliver of wood from the haphazardly stacked pile behind her and to the left. Reaching, weeping, gripping…Come closer. Swaying her hips despite the pain, the degradation, watching his fascination as he approached, his stubby cock springing free from his shorts, the tip glistening. Come closer…The memory of her friends, of what had been done to them, the black fire seizing her, the pain, the anguish, the horror…the rage. Come on! Then he was there, leering at her, hands outstretched to paw her breasts and her own hands were suddenly mercifully free, the rope falling to the floor. His mouth opening, eyes reluctantly leaving her body, frowning as he realized what that severed snake of rope on the floor meant, then a moan, low in his throat as she snatched the wood, swung it around and…

  She had fled them in a dream, and woken now to find that was all it had been, for wherever she was, it was no place she knew, no place she wanted to be. It was a bed, and had it been an earthen one she might have understood. But the sheets were clean where she hadn’t bled on them. The room was tidy where there were no instruments and knives.