by Keith Knapp
This was a really stupid plan.
Rachel took aim at an oak twenty feet to her right. With a throw that signified she still had some of that old arm left from three years spent on a softball field, she let the rock loose. It sailed the twenty feet silently and hit the tree with a crack. A perfect pitch. The rock splintered the bark, tumbled to the ground and rolled away.
The three robed women turned in unison toward the sound. The setting sun caught their faces. Features were hard to come by on their heavily shadowed mugs, but Rachel could easily imagine the mean sneer each of the women gave. The kind of sneer that meant business.
Their communal hum-moan turned into a hum-growl and all three rushed towards the woods and away from the shed together.
I can’t believe that worked.
Rachel moved like lightning to the back door, a sprint of sixty feet that she made in just a few seconds. Thank you again, three years of softball. She reached for the door handle. She didn’t have a backup plan in the event the door was locked, but luckily for her the knob turned freely. She was in.
As she looked around, the first thing that struck her wasn’t a sight but an odor. Nothing foul, just an over-abundance of air-freshener. Something flowery. Lilac? Yeah, that was it. Gobs and gobs of lilac. The place was doused with the stuff. No wonder those three ladies were wearing masks; it was downright near impossible to breathe in here.
As Rachel struggled to keep the air going in and out of her lungs despite the syrupy air, her eyes went to Brett. He was now awake and staring back at her, a look of utter happiness and bewilderment on his face. “Rach!” he exclaimed.
“Bretty, Jesus, thank fucking God you’re alright,” she said as she knelt by the bedpost and began to untie the sheet strapped to his left arm. “I don’t think we have much time.”
And time didn’t seem to be something they had an abundance of. The beekeeper ladies could return any second, and try as she might Rachel couldn’t get the knot on the sheet undone. It was some nautical job, one where you could pull on one end and the whole thing would come unraveled. She couldn’t seem to find that end.
“You okay?” she asked as she tugged on the knot some more.
Brett shook his head. She now saw that there were tear stains down both of his cheeks. He’d been crying in his sleep. “I had dreams, Rach,” he said. “Really bad ones this time.”
Brett now saw what Rachel was attempting and said, “Right back pocket.”
He leaned to his left, exposing his right back pocket. Rachel pulled a pocket knife out from there. She smiled. “Smart boy.”
“Jimmy always said to keep one handy. I just couldn’t reach it, is all.”
“It’s alright, Bretty,” she said. But it wasn’t alright, was it? No, it was pretty fucking far from alright. She cut the sheet hold his right arm.
Brett put on a fake smile as Rachel cut his left arm free, then his feet.
“Help the lady over there,” he said.
A St. Bernard sat at the foot of the woman’s bed, its leash attached to one of the posts. For a second Rachel thought that one of the demonic dog-things that had gotten Jimmy was now staring at her, ready for desert. So excited to see Brett when she first entered, she had missed it. But this dog-thing wasn’t a monster, just a dog. It’s tail thumped on the ground off of Rachel’s look.
Trying to slow her already thunderous heart, Rachel took a deep breath. She started in on one of the sheets holding the woman to the bed. The woman stared up at her blankly.
“So what the hell is going on here?” Rachel asked, freeing the woman’s arms.
“Wish I knew.”
The woman’s arms were free. Rachel moved down to the woman’s feet.
“There were these three women,” she said. “I have no idea what their deal is, but they seemed pretty intent on keeping us here.”
“No kidding. These ain’t no Granny-knots.”
With her legs now free, the formerly bedridden women sat up and rubbed her ankles. “Where’d they go?”
“Dunno, but I’m not sure how long my little distraction will hold, so if we could just-”
Suddenly Rachel couldn’t talk anymore. All thoughts were suddenly out of her control and drifted to…Scott Franklin? She hadn’t thought of him in years, but there he was in the theater of her mind, kissing her in the back of his car in the Sherman Oaks Galleria parking lot. Level 3.
“You okay?”
The woman’s question, which had become the question of the day, was enough to bring Rachel out of her memory.
“Yeah,” Rachel said. “I just-”
A man’s voice from the other room: “Hey, what’s goin’ on in there?”
Rachel’s heart leapt to her throat. One more jolt like that and she’d be having her first heart attack at twenty-eight. She had completely forgotten about the two people in the other room.
There isn’t enough time, she thought. Those weird ladies would be back any second. By now they must have realized they’d been had.
Brett slid off the bed and got to his feet. “I’ll get them,” he said and opened his hand. Rachel tossed the pocket knife into his waiting palm.
* * *
“I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.”
Mike looked up at the smiling young man standing above him with absolute puzzlement. The guy was obviously distraught about something and was doing his best not to give into it. He wouldn’t be getting an Academy Award anytime soon. Dry tears covered his face and his voice had that shaky I-Was-Just-Crying-My-Ass-Off sound to it.
The kid pointed to his Darth Vader shirt. “It’s from Star Wars,” he said. “You’ve never seen Star Wars? Not the new ones. The old ones. I like the new ones, sure, but-”
“Can we play Siskel & Ebert later?” Mike snapped.
The Star Wars fan gave Mike a sheepish look like he’d just been scolded. He then began to undo one of the knots around Mike’s wrists.
“How’d you get free?” Mike asked.
“My sisterlaw came.” He meant sister-in-law, but Mike understood what he was going for. “And those ladies, they’ll be back soon.” He wasn’t looking Mike in the eyes—he was looking everywhere but. And the kid’s hands were shaking.
“Didn’t mean to snap at ya, kid. Sorry.”
“S’okay,” he said. “Happens. We need to hurry.”
It wasn’t okay, Mike could tell that much, but they could worry about becoming pals later. Yanking his other arm free, Mike pointed to Jillian. “Get started on her. I think she’s still out.”
“But your legs-” the kid began, then stopped himself when he Mike pulled a pocket knife out from his jumpsuit and began slicing away at the knotted sheets around his ankles.
“Okay,” the kid said with an odd smile.
The kid had both of Jillian’s arms free by the time Mike got over there. Jillian moaned. She wasn’t awake yet—she was still too far gone to be able to get out of the shed on her own—but at least she was coming to.
Mike undid one of her legs while the kid got started on the other.
“I’m Brett,” he said.
“Mike.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mike.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout earlier,” Brett said. “I just had a bad dream. I have bad dreams sometimes. Shakes me up. It’s how I roll.”
It was then that Mike was able to tell there was something different about Brett. He wasn’t retarded, no, but he wasn’t a college scholar, either. If Mike were a shrink—and he was pretty far from it—he’d say the kid was emotionally damaged. Hell, in this day and age, who wasn’t?
With all of Jillian’s limbs now free, Mike moved to the top of the bed and hoisted one of her arms over a shoulder. Brett was about to do the same with her other arm when the front door flew open.
The three ladies in white stood motionless in the doorway, staring at their patients, observing them with careful consideration. The silent stand-off lasted no more than ten s
econds, but it felt much longer than that to Mike. Their gazes seemed to hold them there, to temporarily freeze them in place.
“We have enough,” the three beekeeper ladies said in perfect unison. Then they lifted their arms and pointed toward the back door. “You will go to The Town,” they said. “You will find what you need there.”
THE TOWN
21.
Jillian’s chin at long last lifted from her chest a quarter of a mile away from the shed. Her neck cracked and popped. Rachel was certain the trucker woman would need twenty visits to a chiropractor to make her joints right. And a lifetime’s worth of therapy to make her mind right.
“Put me down,” Jillian moaned.
“No,” said Mike.
“We need to keep moving,” Rachel said.
“How’d we get out?” Jillian asked.
“They let us go,” answered Rachel.
“And who the hell are you?”
“She’s Rachel,” Mike said. “Kid over there’s Brett.”
Brett politely nodded, making sure to keep a strong hold on Jillian until Mike said otherwise.
The shed was slowly becoming a speck in the distance behind them and would soon be impossible to see in the growing darkness. The back door was closed and Rachel could just make out the flicker of a candle in one of the windows. She didn’t see any of their caretakers outside, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Or perhaps they were following them. It was almost night, there was no moon yet to give them even a taste of light, and she didn’t want to slow down for a second to find out.
Sure, they had let them go, but you couldn’t trust someone dressed as a beekeeper. Which brought up the question as to why the hell they were going in the direction the three ladies had pointed in.
“Put me down or I’ll put you down,” Jillian said.
“Okay, put her down,” Mike said. There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that even in her current state, Jillian would have no trouble taking down Mike if she really wanted to. “Five minutes. Then we move on.”
While Mike and Brett slowly lowered the trucker to the ground, Rachel knelt next to Brett. He looked up at her, the puffiness around his eyes fading, and smiled. “I knew you’d come for me, that you’d have a plan,” he said.
She smiled back and ruffled his hair. “And how’d you know that, sport?”
Brett shrugged. “You an’ Jimmy’re always getting me outta jams.”
“Sure we are. We get you into a mess, then right back out of it.”
Brett’s smile grew. There was the kid she knew and loved. “You sure do. And my arm, Rach. Look at my arm.”
So she did. “They wrapped it,” Rachel said.
“Yeah. Why do you suppose they did that, Rach?”
The answer to that question eluded Rachel Martin. Where was the logic in keeping a bunch of people prisoner, then healing them? To keep them alive, of course. Dead prisoners did you no good, if you wanted something, that is. And they must have wanted something, otherwise…why all the trouble? And she couldn’t help but wonder if the dog-things had never appeared if those ladies would’ve been able to help Jimmy.
The thought of Jimmy being ravaged by the dog-things played again in her head, a repeat she’d rather not watch, and her own smile faded. Brett could see in her eyes that something was wrong. She couldn’t hide it. And it was only a matter of time before Brett asked-
“Where’s Jimmy?”
Or a matter of seconds.
Not sure how to answer, Rachel let her head fall. But her expression hid nothing, it was written all over her face and he’d already seen it. She wouldn’t be getting an Oscar anytime soon, either.
Brett’s eyes, suddenly red and full of tears again, stared up at Rachel. His cheeks started to quiver, then his lips, then his whole head, shaking back and forth: No-no-no-no.
“Brett, I-” Rachel started. She figured there was no point in saying whatever it was she was about to say. How would she put it? Your brother landed in a pile of a mess. Then some dogs ate him. She put her arms around his neck. Brett hugged back tightly.
“What h-happened?” he said, still trying not to cry.
“He fell, honey,” Rachel began, “and then-” She couldn’t go on.
“And then what?”
“He didn’t make it, Bretty,” Rachel said, and now she was trying not to cry, too. “He didn’t make it, and I’m sorry.”
Patting Brett’s head, Rachel delved deep into her brain for something, anything, to say. But there was nothing. Her mind kept whirling back to the dog-things. Shit. The fucking dog-things. Her mind had been so twisted up by everything-
-like that weird memory of Scott Franklin coming out of nowhere, what was that all about?-
-that she had plum forgotten that they were still out there. By now they had surely finished (with Jimmy) and would be hunting for more. Unless they were full from Jimmy.
Rachel didn’t want to think about that, and it was safer to assume they were still out there. She considered them all lucky that they hadn’t sprung on them during their little escape. But now, out here in the wilderness…
Rachel got to her feet, pulling Brett up with her. “We need to keep rolling.”
“Jesus lady, give him a sec,” said Jillian. “Can’t you see he’s upset?”
Besides the threat of the dog-things, Brett’s sadness was the only thing Rachel could feel. She looked into his eyes, and Brett looked back and understood. He may have been slow at times, but when it came to understanding his sisterlaw and trusting her every word, Brett got that, no trouble at all. With his arms around Rachel’s waist, they began to walk again.
They walked in silence for the better part of an hour. No dog-things attacked them.
The sun twinkled away to nothing more than an orange glow on the horizon. Brett never let go of Rachel and didn’t utter a peep, clearly lost in a reverie of his brother. Rachel explained to the others their day (sans the robbery and the death of Frank Bancroft) up to Jimmy being eaten by the dog-things; that information could stay buried forever as far as she was concerned. Suffice it to say, she didn’t have much to tell them.
“So I guess the practical question to ask would be where the hell are we going?” Sophia asked when Rachel was done with her story.
“The Three Stooges back there pointed in this direction,” Mike said, then aimed a finger the way they were walking. “Said there was a town up there.”
“And you trust them?” Sophia snorted.
“No,” said Mike, “but I don’t have any better ideas. I’m not too sure where we are, maybe up in Topanga Canyon. Someone in the town up ahead’ll have a phone and we can call a cab.”
“And the cops,” Sophia added. “Those ladies back there have some serious legal trouble coming their way.”
* * *
Darkness fell about thirty minutes later, bringing visibility down to less than a foot. Everyone was well beyond tired and had succumbed to dragging their feet across the grass instead of taking full steps. Despite the naps provided by the women in the shed, their collective energy had been drained. Roscoe kept his nose close to the ground; his version of dragging feet.
Every five drag-steps, Mike gazed up at the stars. There were no familiar constellations up there. At this time of year in Los Angeles he should be able to see Ursa’s Major and Minor, maybe Leo. Mike saw none of those star clusters—or anything remotely recognizable—up above. The sky was just a gathering of haphazardly placed white dots.
“What’cha lookin’ at?” Jillian asked.
“The sky.”
“No shit, but how come?”
“My father was a star-nut. Every summer we’d go up on the roof with a telescope and a six-pack. Before he’d get to number five, he’d point out constellations to me. After five beers he would just start making shit up. Cadillac Bumper or Chainsaw, stuff like that. Some of ‘em stuck, real or fake.” He paused, looked down to his feet (drag-step, drag-step, drag-step) then looked up again. �
�I don’t see any of ‘em.”
Jillian followed his stare to the heavens, bounced her eyes between stars, past the few clouds in the sky. She then raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think I’d know one if I saw it.” Then she changed her gaze to the ground and watched her own feet shuffle. “When you’re drivin’ like I do, those little yellow lines on the side of the road become your friends, you know, showing you the way, letting you know you’re goin’ in the right direction.” She sucked in a breath. “I sure wish I could see some now.”
Mike smiled, then realized something else. “You know what else you don’t see?”
“What’s that?”
“Lights. No city lights. I don’t know where we are but we’re pretty far from L.A. Or any city. I don’t think we’re anywhere near Topanga Canyon.”
* * *
Sophia broke away from the group and took point. Somewhere up ahead Jody could be in trouble, maybe in another shed similar to the one they had just escaped from, maybe eating a burger at a McDonald’s—every town had a McDonald’s.
That was, of course, if Jody was there. Sophia wasn’t ready to admit to herself that she may not find her daughter in the town—if there even was a town—up ahead at all. Her logical side couldn’t lose sight of the fact that out of all the people on the freeway during the earthquake, these four were the only others she’d seen. There must have been over a hundred people on the 101 when it collapsed, and now there were five plus one dog. There had been the old lady in the car, but she was dead.
No other cars. No debris. No people.
Sophia looked back at Rachel. “You see anyone else while you were out there?”
“What?”
“Before you came to the shed, you see anybody else?”
“No,” Rachel said. “No one else. Just Jimmy.”
Brett put his hand in Rachel’s. “He’s in a better place, now. That’s what mom always said. When you die, you go to a better place.” Then as something of an afterthought: “That’s how God rolls, huh?”
“Yes, Bretty. That’s how God rolls.”
