by Aaron Polson
“He killed her?”
Stacia’s head swung from side to side. She fixed her eyes on Wayne. The light was dim, yes, but Stacia’s eyes smoldered with grim intensity like two polished lumps of coal. “No Wayne. There’s more rope. A chair...”
The ax slumped in Wayne’s hand. “Somebody tied up there?”
Stacia nodded. “Looks like they were. There’s blood. Blood on the ropes.”
“Who’s blood?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But the woman… I’ve looked everywhere but the basement.”
Wayne’s eyes roved over his shoulder, tracing the way he’d come. There was a man outside—definitely a man. He’d seen him leave before either of them entered the house. They assumed it was Dan, but… What if Dan was in the house? What if there was more than one… Wayne’s grip tightened on the ax handle.
“We need to go.”
“The basement… What if she’s—”
“Stacia. Stop. Listen.” He stepped closer to her. His free hand touched her shoulder, pulled her closer to him. “We have to go. I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but we aren’t part of it. This isn’t somebody’s house, it’s a hideout or something. I don’t know… We shouldn’t have—”
“He needed help,” Stacia sobbed.
“We didn’t know.”
“And the woman?”
Wayne shook his head. “Are you sure you saw her?”
Stacia shuddered. “I don’t know. I don’t know… The blood, oh God… There’s blood up there… Like somebody pulled against the ropes. Somebody was tied up there, Wayne.”
“We’ll go out the front. Head across the field and get the Camry running.”
Stacia took a deep breath. “I can’t go yet.”
“Stacia, I’m not fighting you.”
“The woman…”
“We’re leaving.”
“Let go of me, Wayne. Let go now.”
“Stacia, we are—”
The blow came suddenly, a sharp crack to the side of Wayne’s head. Bright lights flashed in his eyes, a blinking vision of tiny stars. He reeled sideways, dropping the ax. It thudded on the floor. His eyes winked shut. Each heartbeat rocked his head like another hit. His sore left arm swung behind him, colliding with a wall. He steadied himself and rubbed his eyes.
She was gone, again.
“The basement,” he muttered. Staggering, he stooped for the ax and lumbered into the kitchen. He found the basement stairs behind a half-way open door. He limped down, one step at a time, until he made the concrete floor below.
“Stacia…” Even speaking made his head howl in pain.
“Oh… Wayne.” She shone a light toward him. “Sorry. I used the flashlight.”
He touched the side of his head. “It hurt like hell.”
“Over here. There’s a door. Locked.”
“Locked?” Wayne stepped closer.
A white-painted door interrupted one of the stone walls. Stacia touched it with tentative fingers as though worried it might burn. “I already tried the door. It’s locked.”
Wayne moved toward the door, a small child drawn to a new bauble. The pain in his head howled with each step. “Locked?”
“What’s back there, Wayne? What’s behind the door?”
He knelt, placing an ear to the door. “Quiet.”
“What if—”
“Stacia…” Wayne stood, trying to focus through the pain. “Let’s go. It’s a dead end. We’re done with this little adventure.”
A quick, sharp click sounded behind them. A bolt shot through Wayne’s back, a lance of razor-honed fear. The back door. Someone had come back to the house. Dan or…
“Kill the light,” he whispered.
“What?”
He shoved her aside. “The light.”
Without the flashlight, darkness swallowed them. Wayne leaned slowly toward the stairway leading to the kitchen. Shadows moved. A shape moved. A man. The light clicked on and Wayne jerked his face away from the stairs.
A small whimper edged from Stacia’s lips.
“We’re stuck,” he whispered.
She shuddered.
“We could get out of a window.” He moved across the basement, dodging a few empty cardboard boxes. He leaned the ax against the stone wall and tested the handle on the window six feet above the basement floor. The rusted metal handle felt cool and rough in Wayne’s hand, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Locked?” Stacia asked.
“No,” Wayne said. “I think it’s stuck. Rusted shut probably.”
“What do we do?”
Footsteps thumped overhead.
Wayne picked up the ax and worked the point of the blade between strips of metal on the window. He held his breath. His face bloomed red with the effort as he used the ax as a lever. The window groaned, but didn’t give. Drawing back, he gave the hand a whack, hoping to dislodge it. Metal sang against metal with a dull clang.
“Wayne.”
“I know.” He waited, listening for the footsteps. When none came, he walloped the handle with the ax again. This time, the metal whined, and the handle shifted. He tried it with his hand again. With effort, the handle gave and the window opened inward.
“It’s open.”
His fingers worked the window’s reticulating arms back and forth until the action was smooth.
“I can’t get through there,” Stacia said, staring at the v-shape the inward facing window made with the wall. “If the window would open all the way… Maybe.”
Wayne glanced toward the stairs. Light still warmed them from the kitchen. “I can probably break off these arms. It’s either that or make a run for it out the back door.”
Stacia nodded. “What about you?”
“I’ll boost you first, and then you help me out. You just have to grab my hands and give me something to grab onto.”
A thump sounded from the floor above.
“Hurry,” Stacia urged.
He hit the arms with edge of the ax. The metal sang out again. On the second hit, the first arm gave way.
“He’ll hear…”
Wayne brushed his forehead and moved to the other side. Two hits didn’t break the arm, and before he could crack off a third, a voice descended the stairs.
“Hello?”
“Fuck,” Stacia whispered. “Oh Jesus… Oh Jesus…”
Wayne swung the ax over his shoulder, bring the blade down on the remaining arm. It popped free, and the window flopped open, hit the wall, and clattered to the floor. The glass panel shattered with a quick, sharp tinkle.
Footsteps crossed the kitchen.
“Go,” Wayne said, bending down to hoist Stacia through the opening. She stepped on his hands and pushed through the window. Wayne’s left wrist screamed.
There was a large clunk from the kitchen.
“Hello?”
Stacia yelped.
Wayne lifted the ax. He turned to see a large, bullish shape at the foot of the stairs.
“What the fuck—”
Wayne turned and threw the ax toward the hulking shape across the front room. There was a grunt and crash. Wayne hopped to the edge of the window, caught Stacia’s hands, and forced his body through the window. The window frame scraped his shoulders and hips. He spilled onto the grass, landing on Stacia.
“C’mon,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her across the lawn.
“Wayne… the front door…”
“Keep running,” he yelled. “Don’t stop.”
The flashlight clicked on.
“No—”
It tumbled to one side. A gunshot rang from the house.
Wayne choked on his heart. He kept running. Pain jarred his hurt ankle. The knee-high grass scratched and pulled at his pant legs. Night air pinched his cheeks, but he ran. He ran without thinking, without any prod but blind panic, and nearly ran over Stacia.
“Jesus,” he muttered, skidding to a stop.
“I threw the light,” she p
anted. “I threw the light to trick them.”
Wayne mopped sweat from his face with a shirt sleeve. “God… You tricked me.” He wrapped her in his arms and squeezed. They fell to the ground, heaving. Neither spoke while they caught their breath. Wayne looked back across the field. The tiny flashlight beam moved. It rose and winked out.
“They found your light.”
Stacia nodded.
“We need to get moving.”
“The car…”
Wayne pressed his hand against his forehead. “The tire’s still flat. We can’t take the time. We’ll have to walk.”
“It’s miles.”
“We don’t have a choice.” Wayne stood up and dusted off his jeans.
“Wayne…”
“Don’t say it.”
“Back there. I thought…”
“Let’s go.” He glanced over his shoulder, scanning the dark field for a sign of someone, anyone in pursuit. The expanse of blue-black shadow lay in eerie silence. “It’s not safe. Not yet.”
They climbed the embankment to the edge of the road, Wayne first with Stacia following. He stopped near the top, turned, and offered her his good hand. The left had begun to throb again. The endorphins had either worn off or burned out; Wayne wasn’t sure which. They weren’t safe, not yet. Not if Dan decided he needed to find them.
“Thanks,” Stacia muttered. Her head fell forward. “I look like shit.”
“I love you, Stacia. I love you.” Wayne swallowed hard. “Let’s get down the road a ways and maybe stop at a farmhouse. Maybe someone can let us use a phone.”
Stacia reached in her pocket and produced her cell. “No signal, right?”
“There hasn’t been all night.”
“Jesus, Wayne.” Stacia had taken a few steps, but now she stopped, her head tilted over her shoulder. “Look.”
A pair of headlights shone from the field below, a little north of their route from the house. The lights swung around in a big, looping curve, following the same road Dan’s Caprice had taken less than an hour ago.
“He’s coming.”
Stacia stifled a sob.
“We’ve got to go.
He held Stacia’s hand tightly in his, squeezing until he felt her fingers might turn to pudding. “C’mon babe,” he said. “We gotta run.”
“My God…” Stacia started moving, too slowly at first as if her arms and legs were rusted stiff. “Who is he?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Wayne spoke in quick bursts between breaths. “Drugs maybe. Maybe a drug house.”
They rounded a long, sloping curve. A hill blocked the side of the road on the east, but the embankment and acres of open field spilled to the west. A small ditch sat at the bottom of the hill, a ditch full of downed limbs and grass and debris. Wayne’s knees, wrist, ankle, and chest ached, ached more than he could imagine after a short jog.
A set of headlights burned the pavement behind them.
Wayne shoved Stacia toward the hill side ditch, and they tumbled over the shoulder together, landing in a shallow pool of muddy water and rotten leaves. The chill cut to Wayne’s bones. He quickly sat up, watching the car speed away.
“It wasn’t him,” Wayne said.
“It wasn’t?”
“No—it was a newer car. A Honda.”
He climbed onto the asphalt again, stopped and turned to Stacia.
Lights warmed behind him.
“Wayne—”
“I’ll flag this one down.” He held out his hands.
“Wayne!”
He turned just at the Carpice slipped around the curve. Its lights, unrelenting high beams, ignited him. He crossed his face with his left forearm. Stacia. Stacia still had a chance. “Run,” he shouted. “Run the other way. Get to a house. Get to safety.”
With that, he turned and scampered as fast as he could, feet thudding, away from the ditch where Stacia hid. His thoughts flicked from his wife to the engine growl swelling behind him. He ran until he felt his chest might break open, but then he was falling, falling. The pain came a moment later. The world winked to black.
- 2 -
When Wayne woke, he was aware of motion and little else. The aches came later, first his head still throbbing from Stacia’s blow, then his sprained wrist, and finally dull sting from his right leg. His ankle. He opened his eyes to the backseat of a strange car.
Panic grabbed him by the throat.
The Caprice.
But no…
The seats were too small. The back seat was too small. He was cramped, folded into a human pretzel lying on his right side. He pushed up on an elbow.
“Easy, buddy,” a voice said.
Wayne opened his mouth. His tongue felt like a hunk of rubber.
“Emergency room okay?” the voice asked.
“Okay,” Wayne said. His voice, dry and cracked and hoarse, surprised him. “Yeah.”
“Funny to find you on the side of the road like that. Horrible night for a stroll.”
Wayne blinked hard and refocused. There seemed to be only one person in the front of the car. One person… “My wife.”
“Huh?”
“My wife is back there.”
“Nobody else on the road. I saw the Toyota. Figured you must have had a flat. Was that your car?”
Wayne’s head answered with an aching thud, thud, thud.
“Well anyway, no sign of a woman—your wife. Not at the Toyota, anyway. Slowed down to check and see if somebody needed help. Found you a couple hundred yards away, lying on the side of the road. That your car?”
“Yes,” Wayne said. He patted his jeans, searching for his wallet. “My wallet…”
“Huh?”
“I lost my wallet.”
“Maybe you left it at the car.”
“No.” Wayne started to shake his head, but stopped because of the pain. “No, I had it…”
“They’ll take you at the hospital either way. There’s a law.”
Wayne closed his eyes, focusing his thoughts. Jumbles of images floated like fog through the ache. What happened to Stacia? Where was she? What had happened to him? As if answering his final question, his ankle gave a sharp jab. Had he just fallen while running? Had he just sprained his ankle and fallen to the side of the road?
“Your head looks pretty bad, buddy. Doesn’t look like it’s bleeding anymore, but you might want to have the doctors look at it. Might need stitches or something.”
Wayne’s fingers probed the side of his face and then slowly walked to the hairline above his ear. The hair was matted there, thick and heavy with congealed blood. Stacia hadn’t drawn blood when she hit him, had she?
No.
The blood was new. He forced himself into a sitting position and slumped against the back of the passenger seat. His stomach lurched as he moved. Up ahead, the stranger’s headlights painted the stop sign at the end of Wellman road. They were only a few miles from Lawrence.
“No hospital,” Wayne said.
“What’s that?”
Wayne turned, regarding his anonymous benefactor, the crazy white dude who stopped for a bloodied black man on the side of the road in the middle of the night. He was an older man, skin wrinkled and grooved with deep lines. A pair of gold framed glasses rested halfway down the man’s nose.
“I said no hospital.”
“You probably should see a doc. Looks like somebody hit and run you, buddy. Looks like somebody left you for dead.”
Dead.
Stacia.
“I need to go home.”
Ahead, a stoplight blinked red at the intersection of U.S. 24 and Route 40. Wayne rubbed his forehead. It was late… Well after midnight. He’d been out for an hour at least, maybe two. The stranger slowed to a stop at the light, and leaned over the back seat. His eyes flicked up and down as if he was sizing Wayne, trying to peel away the top layer and see what was inside.
“You should hit the hospital, buddy. Call the cops, too. Whoever did this to you…”
<
br /> “No cops.”
The stranger turned and pulled away from the light. “What’s the street?”
“West 7th. Just off of Lawrence Avenue and Sixth. We’re at the corner in a brick ranch.”
“Right.”
They moved through the near-deserted streets in silence. When the man turned onto Lawrence Avenue, he said, “You sure about this? I can still get you to the hospital.”
“This is fine,” Wayne said. His mind raced through possible scenarios, possible courses of action. “This is just fine. Right here, the brick one.”
When the stranger’s car stopped, Wayne opened the door and slid his legs across the back seat. “Thanks,” he said.
The stranger grunted in reply.
“My name’s Wayne, by the way. I didn’t catch yours.”
“Daniel,” the stranger said. “My friends call me Dan.”
Wayne nodded, his stomach suddenly cold. Coincidence. He blinked hard. “Thanks, Dan.”
After Wayne climbed from the back seat, Dan pulled away, The old man’s face made a pale dot against his windshield and then vanished up West 7th. Wayne turned to the house and limped to the door. His ankle protested a little as he moved, but not as much pain as he had expected. Good. He grabbed the knob without thinking and pushed his other hand in his pocket for the key. There was no key.
Someone had taken the keys and his wallet.
Cold needles pricked his neck.
His wallet. His keys. Someone could have been in the house. Someone could be in the house as he stood on the porch. He tried the knob. Still locked.
“Thank God,” he muttered.
Wayne stooped and felt under the welcome mat. Stacia always insisted on leaving a key. Wayne always felt it was nearly the same as leaving their door wide open. His fingertips walked along the concrete stoop until they touched the key’s edge. He was inside.
The house was dark. Too dark.
Wayne had never really been afraid of the dark, but as a child, empty houses had bothered him. Even as he grew older, he would turn on all the lights in the house when his mother was out for the night. His hand hesitated at the light switch; Wayne’s mouth was dry. What if someone was in the house? What if they locked the door behind them?
He shook his head. He needed to sever that thinking before it took root. Stacia might need him. Stacia did need him. He flipped the switch and limped to the kitchen. After finding the Advil and popping four with a glass of lukewarm tap water, he grabbed the athletic tape, hobbled to the dining room, and slipped off his shoe. He hadn’t wrapped a sprained ankle since his days a trainer in community college, but he remembered the basics. Peeling back the sock, he glanced at the ankle. It was puffy and a little discolored, but not as bad as he’d seen. The Advil would help. He pulled up the sock and started wrapping.
