Then the trunk pops shut, and her mother’s striding around to the front of the car and the expression on her father’s face seems like it was all for nothing, even though it’s left Marjorie with a single, clear thought that keeps repeating itself.
There’s something in that trunk Daddy doesn’t want anybody to see.
But if there is, then her mother’s missed it somehow. She’s found some kind of rag, and she’s using it to wipe the antelope’s blood off the windshield.
But Daddy’s frozen solid, staring dead ahead again, watching her mother’s every move.
Marjorie sees it before her mother does.
The thing she’s using to wipe the windshield isn’t just a rag. It’s black. The material’s thick and not absorbent enough to wipe the blood away. And on the side she’s pressed to the windshield, Marjorie can see a familiar starburst design. When her mother retracts it slightly from the glass to ball more of it inside her hand, light winks through the center of the star, and she realizes it’s an eyehole.
For Marjorie, there’s only one way to make sense of what she’s seeing.
If her father’s a monster, then it means monsters aren’t what the world thinks they are.
Her mother’s wiping slower now, as if she’s realizing the thing she’s found in the trunk won’t get the job done. She pulls it away from the windshield, holding it in two fingers like you might a dead rodent by its tail. Uplit by the headlights at her waist, her face looks ghostly, her expression unreadable.
For a moment that slows Marjorie’s heart, she’s convinced her mother is quietly experiencing the same revelation she just came to. Yes, the stocking cap can only mean one thing. It means her father has done terrible things. But his reasons for them must be complicated. They know who Beatty Payne is. They know who he is at dinner and while he watches television and when he comes through the front door calling out to them as if just saying their names aloud soothes him. And so together, quietly, the three of them will discuss what this discovery really means.
Just the three of them. As a family.
Thank God they’re out here alone, free from others’ eyes, judgments, and definitions. Maybe her mother will finally see what vast open plains can bring you—the space needed for essential secrecy, the kind of secrecy that can help a family survive anything.
Her mother realizes none of these things.
Instead, she lets out a scream so powerful it sounds loud enough to be heard all the way back in Lubbock. And when Marjorie sees the pickup that just flew past them slam on its brakes and pull a U-turn in their direction, she realizes her mother has destroyed their family with a single, unending cry.
20
Amarillo, Texas
Her mother’s scream is playing on a longer tape loop than usual in her dreams, and for a second or two, Marjorie thinks the wind chimes along the porch are to blame. Then she realizes it’s the ringing phone. If it’s one of the calls she’s expecting, they won’t hang up no matter how long it takes her to answer. She’d disconnected the machine a few days ago; the only messages she needs this weekend are from her boys, and she’ll receive those herself, thank you very much.
Rising from her recliner tightens little bolts of pain in her right hip, but the voice of one of her boys will make the effort worth it, she’s sure. She picks up the pump-action shotgun she’ll be keeping within easy reach all weekend and walks through the darkness to the jangling phone.
She dozed off just after dusk, and so the only illumination in the house is coming from the oven light in the kitchen, like a lantern that’s been left on in the recesses of a cave. It’s dark out, but the expansive, dry land around her house looks darker than usual. A few days ago, she got up on a ladder and unscrewed the bulbs from the security lights ringing the roof of a barn that hasn’t seen a horse in years. Dangerous work for a woman of her age but essential preparation for what’s to come, and worth the risk because it’s for her boys. Even though they didn’t wake her, the wind chimes along the house’s broad front porch are playing a vaguely harmonious concert. It’s a sound that’s always filled her with confidence and focus, a reminder that the breath of the universe is something that can be played to your advantage.
She answers with a clipped greeting, and a familiar male voice says, “Good evening, ma’am. Is Sheryl there?”
It’s Wally, the gentlest of her boys. The first time she’s heard him in months, and the soft sound of it relaxes the tension in her shoulders and has her smiling faintly as she rests her forehead against the wall next to the phone. His little eyes always make him look a little sleepy, and he usually sounds it, too. But not right now. Right now, he sounds cheerful and confident, which means his ride’s gone well so far. If he’d asked for Susan, that would mean he’s being followed. Samantha, and the seedling somehow escaped. The latter could mean a daytime delivery if he lost time to catch up with the little bitch, and daytime deliveries are a last resort.
“I’m sorry, did you say Sheryl?” Marjorie asks, doing her best to sound like a daffy old lady who isn’t quite sure who lives with her.
“That’s correct, ma’am. Sheryl Peterson. She gave me this number.”
Peterson. Another good sign. If he’d said Sheryl Murphy, that would mean his seedling had a hard outer shell and the Head Slayer hadn’t been able to crack it.
And if he’d asked for Sheryl Wilcox, that meant the seedling was already dead. Not their plan, but sometimes it happened. So long as there was proof afterward that her boys hadn’t simply gotten carried away and released their urges too soon, it was a forgivable mistake.
“Well, that’s odd—there’s no Sheryl here. Could you read me the number?”
“Sure.”
She grabs a pen that’s sitting by the phone and writes it down. Including the area code, the first three and last two digits are the same as her number. But the five in between have been changed to the seedling’s height and weight, as they’re listed on her driver’s license. 5ʹ6ʺ, 210. A big one, for sure. No doubt the woman’s mouthy to distract from the fact that she doesn’t take good care of herself. Well, good. It’s about time she learns her lesson, then.
“Sorry, son, but sounds like Sheryl gave you the wrong number.”
“Ah, well. Thanks for your patience, ma’am.”
“Sure thing. ’Night, now.”
When he hangs up, a burst of wind turns the wind chimes into piano keys. She feels as alert now as if she’d just guzzled a mug of coffee.
They’re coming. Her boys are coming.
Maybe she’s too cautious when it comes to the phone calls, but she knows right where the junction box for the landline comes onto her property, and she checks it regularly for anything that looks like a bug. They’ve been doing this for over a decade now, once a year. Even better, not a single one of their seedlings’ disappearances has been linked with any of the others. Just more women who vanished without a trace. But even her method for obtaining that information is defined by secrecy and compartmentalization; her boys can use the internet to keep tabs on the investigations into the disappearances of their brothers’ seedlings but not their own. So far, the whole thing’s been pretty damn foolproof, and it’s kept her boys coming back year after year.
Men like her boys aren’t brought down by the things they do in the moment; they’re brought down by the things they leave behind.
Every year her boys return, bearing gifts.
Every year they stay for a while, their urges purged, their true selves revealed and honored, and once again, she’s able to enjoy her family. Her real family. The one she built.
The wind dies, the chimes going silent, and in the sudden quiet, she hears a sound she shouldn’t. A sound that would seem ordinary in town but way out here on her property is as out of place as a subway announcement.
A car door closing.
Could it possibly be one of her boys?
No way. For starters, they wouldn’t just show up without calling, and they’ve never
arrived in a plain old car.
Without turning on any of the lights around her, Marjorie Payne picks up her shotgun and steps out into the night.
21
Seiling, Oklahoma
They’ve stopped somewhere along the road to hell. Maybe so he can relieve himself; Zoey’s got no idea. She wouldn’t be surprised if the monster pissed fire. The visual makes it easier somehow. Not as effective a coping skill as imagining herself Paris bound with her sister in some softly lit airplane cabin. But ironically, imagining her captor wreathed in supernatural abilities puts a kind of soft focus on the awful nightmare he’s managed to assemble with basic, everyday implements.
He’s gone now, outside the truck, she’s sure. But she can’t be sure, really, because a divider separates her from the rest of the cargo container, and the straps keep her from turning her head.
She can just see that tiny camera mounted on the wall that probably allows him to watch her while he drives.
She’s in silence again.
Someday, someone may learn of the horrors that were visited upon her this night. On the TV specials about her murder they will play music that’s more scary than sad while the camera pushes in on photos of her from happier times. But by then she’ll be a name, a statistic, a face in a collage, because surely this predator has killed others. Over drinks after work, groups of women across the country will talk in serious tones about what happened to her and the other faces in the collage. But what they’ll really be talking about is him, the killer, the monster. They’ll try to find just the smallest ways in which she was to blame for her own abduction. Did she let her guard down too far? Did she trust a suspicious stranger? She can already hear the narrator for 20/20 or Dateline or 48 Hours describing in vaguely disapproving tones how she left the deck door open so her beloved cat could reach the litter box and that’s how the monster got in. But deep down, the world will only remember her to the extent that they can convince themselves they’ll never end up like her. They will say her name only as long as it takes to convince themselves they can outsmart or outwit her fate should the monster ever come for them.
She won’t be there to defend herself, of course. Won’t be there to tell them that when evil like this comes for you, you never see it coming until it feels like the ground underneath you has suddenly thrown you upward. You will be too busy ending a relationship, coping with the pain of speaking up for yourself for the first time, or maybe just unloading the groceries or sliding into your car in a lonely, empty parking lot. The point is, you will be too busy living life to notice the approach of someone who only wants to take it, and only those whose lives have been taken know this.
Rachel would have known, she thinks, Rachel would have seen him coming.
Just like her big sister realized something was wrong with that security guard who approached them outside the mall when they were little girls. She’d been six, Rachel ten. They’d been standing outside the mall waiting for their mother when he’d approached, all gentle and solicitous, bent over and whispering, like there was something he had to say that might embarrass them and he was trying to be kind about it because they were so fragile and young. He told them their mother had had a problem trying to pay for something and they needed to come with him so there wouldn’t be any more problems. Later, Rachel would tell everyone that it was the patch that did it. This guy’s shirt was the same color, but the patch was in the wrong place. She’d seen some mall security guards earlier, and their patches had been on their shoulders, not their lapels.
That’s why Rachel responded to the man’s strange whispered story with a single question. “Who are you?”
And the man had said back, “I’m security, young lady, and your mother’s in trouble and I’m sorry but you need to come with me right now or she’s going to be very upset with you.”
Again, Rachel had said, “Yeah, but who are you?”
Later she would realize it wasn’t just her sister’s defiance that angered the man. It was her confidence. He reached out and grabbed Rachel’s wrist, and Zoey’s eyes filled with tears in that moment because it was all so confusing. It was confusing because Zoey, too, could sense there was something very wrong with the man, but she thought it didn’t matter. She thought they had no choice but to go with him and by being sassy Rachel would only make the man’s wrongness turn more wrong.
And the man gave voice to these thoughts when he said, “Now, listen here, missy, I’m a grown-up, and that means you have to do what I say.” His tense jaw revealed a roil of darker emotions beneath his words. He wanted something and he wanted it now, the same way Zoey sometimes wanted her mother’s chocolate chip cookies before they were done cooling on the tray.
“Liar!” Rachel screamed. And when Zoey felt a firm grip on her wrist, she realized the man hadn’t grabbed her. Her sister had. She was dragging Zoey back toward the mall and screaming, “Run, run, run!” And then they were inside again where there was music and frosty air-conditioning and people staring at them because they were running so fast and then suddenly they crashed into their mother, whose arms were full of bags, and the story came rushing out of Rachel so fast she started crying, too. And the dawning fear on their mother’s face, the way she dropped her bags and hit her knees and took Rachel’s face in her hands as if she needed to touch her daughter to absorb the impact of her words—all of it made Zoey feel better because her mother’s reaction meant that another grown-up knew something was very wrong with the man who’d tried to make them go somewhere. Blinking back tears, Zoey looked behind them and saw the man hadn’t followed them, and that’s when she knew for sure, Rachel was right, the man was a liar.
The cops came and asked them to tell the story again and again, and everyone searched the mall looking for the man, and all of this made Zoey feel better because the world of grown-ups was doing things around her that felt right and normal again. They even ran a sketch of the guy on the local news, but they never found him. And Rachel was praised as a hero, a young woman with good instincts, who knew the number one rule of growing up—never go anywhere with strangers.
Meanwhile, Zoey lived with the dreaded knowledge that she would have gone. That she would have never thought to question the man’s authority.
“You were six, Zoey,” Rachel said the last time she brought it up. True, she’d had too much wine and they’d been tearfully sharing memories of their mother, gone several years now, but still. The memory of what had passed through her mind that day had stuck with Zoey in ways she didn’t want to recognize when she was sober. But Rachel was steadfast as always; there was, she insisted, a massive gulf in experience and wisdom between the ages of six and ten, and so it had been her responsibility to rescue them both from who knows what fate that wolf in security guard’s clothing would have delivered unto them both.
But Zoey’s still haunted by the fact that she can’t be sure how things would have gone if their roles had been reversed.
Look at how silent she’s been since this nightmare began.
The truck creaks. She hears the cargo door opening. She could scream, but it would be a pathetic, muffled, phlegmy thing thanks to the gag sitting against the back of her throat. He’s standing over her now, the man with the big broken-looking nose and the knife slashes for eyes.
“I spoke to Mother,” he says. “She’s excited to meet you, Zoey Long.”
He likes whatever he sees in her eyes. Maybe it’s brokenness, or despair. She feels too exhausted for fear. And he seems to take pleasure in saying her full name, a reminder that he rooted through her personal belongings and probably left none of them behind. So that when her absence is finally noticed, people will think she willingly got into someone’s car, carrying her own purse.
How can I be this exhausted, she thinks, when I’ve barely made a sound?
When he starts unlatching the mask’s straps, she realizes he’s probably going to put the tube back in, which means she’ll have only a few seconds to be someone other than that terr
ified six-year-old who was too afraid to say no to an adult even as he radiated malice.
Maybe the truck’s soundproof, or at the least, he stopped somewhere no one would hear a struggle.
Either way, the time to decide is now.
Gently, he pulls the mask free from her head, starts slowly sliding the gag free from her throat. When its rubber passes her lips, he gives her a small smile, as if he’s done her a kindness.
That’s when Zoey spits in his face.
22
Lubbock, Texas
1970
In the end, justice—real justice, not the kind trumpeted by braggart cops and disingenuous newspaper reporters—comes from the heavens above on a late spring evening almost a year to the day after her father’s accident. But the weeks and months between contain a series of degradations so constant and severe Marjorie Payne can endure them with only silence and her teeth clenched so tightly she’ll end up suffering persistent jaw aches well into adulthood.
In the beginning, no one can believe an injured animal brought down the Plains Rapist. The cops are sure Beatty Payne’s undoing has to be the work of a potential victim who managed to escape into the night and was still too afraid to come forward.
But when they search for evidence of her, all they find is a dead pronghorn antelope a few yards from where her father claimed he’d struck one and, stuck to its forehooves, tufts of fabric matching the blue-and-white plaid shirt he’d worn that night. One of the cops later tells a reporter that if they’d actually paused to consider the extent of the injuries that had left the Plains Rapist handcuffed to his hospital bed—two broken ribs, a bruised lung, and a broken collarbone—they’d have realized no woman could have done it. No ordinary woman anyway. Unless she’d had a shovel.
Blood Victory: A Burning Girl Thriller (The Burning Girl) Page 17
