Pressed into the corner, the old man looked up, seeming to glare right into Tobias’s eyes. “Enjoying this, you little fuck?” he asked. “You little brat! You fucking Tom!”
With a chill, Tobias realized the old man could see him. If he had been in his corporeal form, he would have shuddered.
“Why’s he call everyone ‘Tom?’” asked one of the guards.
“Short for peeping-tom,” said another. “He thinks we’re invading his privacy.”
The man’s eyes bored into Tobias. “I fucking hate your bratty little ass! You’re the reason I’m here!”
“What’s he talking about?” asked a guard.
“Who knows? Who fucking cares?” said another.
They grabbed the old man and shoved him to the floor, breaking his eye contact with Tobias. They wrenched his arms behind his back and snapped manacles on his wrists, faces portraits of disgust at the feces that dripped off him.
“That’s a new one…haven’t seen an inmate gas himself before…not such a tough guy, are you, inmate?”
“Fucking Toms,” muttered the prisoner.
A cold presence swept through the door, and the temperature of the room dropped ten degrees in thirty seconds.
“Hello, my love,” said a female voice.
Tobias turned. The thing standing outside the doorway sickened him. Her skin hung loose on her flesh—as if her skin was several sizes too big. It had blackened like the mummified remains of something long dead. She had long, ivory colored talons where she should have had fingers, and her eyes were like coals of hatred when she looked up at him.
“You!” she screamed and raised her talons.
Fear sang through Tobias. A memory swam into his mind: an eleven-year-old’s memory of being trapped in the forest maze, being chased by…by…something horrible. He tried to run, flailing about like a madman until he remembered he had left his body in Millvale. He relaxed and went back to floating in the corner. Nothing that thing can do to me while I’m projecting, he thought.
“Is that so?” she crooned, her voice laden with threat.
But she did nothing. She didn’t even try, just stood there staring daggers at him. Without breaking her glare, she floated through the door like a dancer and stood in the center of the room.
“My love,” she crooned.
“Yeah, babe,” the man whispered.
“The fuck?” asked a guard. “Is he hallucinating for real?”
“The time is coming. Be ready. Father says to tell you that all will be made right. Your revenge on the town will be sweet. On all of them that yet live.” She hooked a cruel-looking talon at Tobias. “Including this one. Father says that when you see this brat in the flesh, you may have him.”
“Excellent, babe. I can’t wait. Babe? I love you, babe.”
“And I, you, my love.”
“What’s he jabbering about now?” asked the guard with the shield.
“I don’t think even he knows, Sarge.”
The blackened, mummified-looking thing reached toward Tobias with a clawed hand. She flicked her talons at him as if she were waving away flies.
Something pulled on Tobias like a long bungee cord at maximum extension. He fought to stay, to see what happened next, but with a loud pop…
…he was back in his body. Strapped to a bed in Millvale.
And he had to pee.
7
“Cut off?” Mike hissed. “What the blue fuck do you mean, I’m cut off, Jack?”
Jack looked at him with hard, cold eyes. “Which part of the concept is confusing you, Chief? I’m not serving you anymore booze. You’ve been here since, what? 5:30? How many highballs? I’ve lost count, and you haven’t eaten a thing.”
“The fuck you saying, you fat fuck? Gimme another highball and do it right the fuck now!” His voice slurred with drink, almost, but not quite, incomprehensible.
“I knew it was a mistake,” muttered Jack. He turned and walked toward the other end of the bar.
“Fine!” yelled Mike. “Give me something to eat, then! I don’t care what…just as long as dinner comes with another highball.” Jack stopped but didn’t turn back to him. The man’s fat shoulders rose and fell with a big sigh. He shook his head…like he pitied Mike. “Who the fuck do you think you are, you…you…you fat fuck? Pity? You pity me? Well, fuck you, chummy! Give me a motherfucking highball, you big tub of lard.”
Jack turned then. His face was angry and set, eyes blazing. His hands clenched at his sides, he stomped back to stand over Mike, glaring at him. “Get out, Mike.” His voice was soft but cold and distant.
“The fuck I will! Highball!” Mike slapped his hand on the bar. “I want another highball!”
“Get out, Mike,” said Jack, tension splashed across his face, voice still soft, cold. “Get out, or I will throw you out.”
Mike looked at him, bleary-eyed, red-cheeked. He looked him up and down as if appraising horse-flesh. “You ain’t got what it takes to throw me out, Jackie-boy. You’ll try, sure, but all you’re going to throw out is your back.”
Lightning-quick, moving with an economy of movement that belied his weight, Jack leapt across the bar and clamped his hands on Mike’s upper arms. With a heave, he picked the Chief up and carried him bodily toward the door.
“Hey! Hey!” shouted Mike. “Fuck are you doing, Jack? Put me down! I was just kidding!”
Jack didn’t speak, didn’t slow, didn’t lower Mike to his feet.
“Listen to me, you fat motherfucker! If you don’t put me down right the fuck now, I’ll yank your goddamn liquor license on Monday, and then where the fuck will you be? Out on your ass!”
Jack reached the front door and kicked it open with his big foot. With a grunt and a final heave, he threw Mike outside and slammed the door.
Mike landed on the concrete sidewalk with a bone-jarring thud. His teeth snapped together on the tip of his tongue, and he howled in pain. A couple out for a late-night stroll averted their eyes and crossed to the other side of the street.
“Jus’ a bartending dispute,” he croaked. “Nothin’ to see here.” He waved in the general direction of the couple without taking his eyes off the door to Lumber Jack’s. He climbed to his feet and dusted off his pants, getting angrier and angrier. “Throw me out?” he muttered, voice like molten steel. “Throw me out? Don’t know who you fucked with, you fat fuck. I’m…”
He took two steps forward and put his hand on the door, trying to push it open. The door wouldn’t budge. He pounded on the door, breathing harder and harder as rage took control of him. “Don’t know who you fucked with, Jack! Open this door! Open it!”
When the lock snicked, and the door opened, it surprised him into silence. He stood there, gaping up into Jack’s livid face.
The big man had a sawn-off bat in his hand, and he tapped it against the palm of his other hand. “Time to go home, Mike. I don’t want to hit you with this, but if you make me, I will, and I’ll sleep like a baby tonight. Betcher ass, I will!”
Mike went cold all over, then flashed hot. “Oh, is that so?” The drunken slur had left his voice, each syllable crisp and clean. “And what are you going to do when I arrest you for threatening a police officer? Or when I shoot you in your fat motherfucking face?” His hands shook with rage as he scrabbled around his waist, looking for the Glock 23 that lay locked in the glove box of his Caprice.
“You are unarmed, Mike,” said Jack. “Go on! Get!”
“I’m unarmed now, yeah,” said Mike in a frigid voice. “But that can change, fatso. That can change in a hurry.”
Jack sighed, shoulders dropping. Moving with that scary-fast grace he’d shown a few minutes earlier, Jack closed the distance between them, raising the bat as he came. Mike cringed away, arms up to shield his head. “Just go, Mike,” sighed Jack, letting the bat drop. “Go and don’t you ever come back here.”
Mike looked up into Jack’s red-rimmed eyes and saw he meant it. Mike’s shoulders slumped, and his gaze dropped
to the gutter. “Sure, Jack,” he murmured.
He turned and walked toward the side lot.
Behind him, Jack hawked and spat.
Mike turned the corner and let the rage come. His eyes teared up with it, his breathing accelerated with it, his hands clenched, unclenched, clenched, and unclenched with it. By the time he got to his car, his thoughts were a jumble of recrimination, shame, rage, and hatred.
Instead of getting in on the driver’s side, Mike stomped around to the passenger side and ripped the door open. He bent at the waist and pounded on the glove box until it opened. When he picked up the pistol, his grin was bestial, savage.
8
“Oh, shit!” Shannon squeaked when she saw Mike slam to the sidewalk. She nibbled her lips as Mike picked himself up and dusted himself off. She stuck the tip of her thumb in her mouth and bit it as Mike started to pound on the door and yell.
When the door opened, and the big bartender stepped outside holding a bat, she squeaked again. She fumbled with her phone, meaning to call 911, but dropping it instead.
The bartender seemed to float forward and raised the bat like he was a ballet dancer. Shannon winced, expecting the bat to fall and split Mike’s head like an over-ripe melon. Mike flinched and sidled away. Jack said something to Mike she couldn’t make out and then pointed up the sidewalk with the bat. Mike nodded and turned to walk away. The bartender spit on the ground and Mike winced.
Her heart raced, and she wanted to run to Mike, to comfort him. “Don’t worry, my love,” she whispered without being aware of it. Mike turned the corner into the bar’s side lot and stomped toward the back of the building. His movements were jerky, angry. She gnawed on the end of her finger, breathing heavily.
Mike straightened by the driver’s door of his cruiser. “Just get in, my love,” she whispered. “No one saw anything.” The Chief glanced around the empty lot, and then almost ran to the passenger side of the car. “Oh, no,” she murmured, filled with a terrible fear.
Mike straightened, his face a grotesque mask of frustration, shame, and anger, but he wore a smile on his face—an ugly smile. In his hand was a black lump of something. He turned and almost skipped back toward the front of the bar.
Without deciding to, Shannon popped open the door of her worthless little car. The dome light flashed, and as it did, Mike shot a glance in her direction, but without seeming to recognize her, turned back toward the bar. He rounded the corner and stood on the sidewalk in front of the bar, muttering something.
“No, my love,” she said without realizing she was speaking aloud. She shot out of the car and sprinted toward Mike.
His arm lifted the black lump that had to be his gun. His arm came up, seeming to move in slow motion. Shannon poured on the speed but felt like she wasn’t getting any closer. Mike’s gaze was intent on the door of the bar, and the gun was up, pointing where he was glaring.
“No, my love! No!” she screamed.
Mike spun toward her, gun held at the ready.
She froze, stopping in mid-stride. She put her hands out toward him, mouth working but no sound coming out.
“Oh,” he muttered. “It’s you.”
“Yes, my—” She snapped her mouth shut on the words. “Yes, Chief. It’s me, Shannon. Shannon Bertram.”
He looked at her like she had a monkey nestled in her hair.
“From Town Hall,” she murmured.
“I know who you are, Shannon,” Mike said. He looked down at the pistol in his hand and dropped it like it was hot. “Fuck am I doing?” he muttered.
“It’s okay, Chief,” she said, walking toward him.
“Mike. Call me Mike,” he said. His head came up, and his eyes found hers. “If you’re going to spend your evenings looking out for me, we should be on a first name basis.”
Hot blood filled her cheeks, and her eyes smarted. “You…you knew?”
He smiled a thin, joyless smile. “Yes. And I let you do it, night after night, because I’m just that kind of guy.”
“Oh,” she said, not sure what to say. “It…It was…”
“Yes, it was,” he said, looking her in the eye. He bent and picked up the pistol. He held it out to her. “You better hold this for a while.” His voice shook with emotion.
“Are you…are you sure?” Shannon took the pistol with her thumb and forefinger, holding it away from her body like it was a snake.
“Yes, I’m sure. Shannon…”
“Yes, Mike?” Something inside her belly flipped over and wiggled at the idea of calling him Mike to his face.
“I…I… This is hard to admit.”
“There’s nothing you can say, Mike, that would make me think any less of you.”
One eyebrow quirked, and he flashed a half-smile at her. “Don’t be too sure, Shannon.”
She made a helpless little gesture with her free hand. “What were you going to say?”
“I need help. I’m a…” Tears glistened in his eyes. “I’m a drunk, and I…”
“Shh, my love,” she whispered and wrapped him in a hug.
He let her hug him for a moment and then pulled away. “Since it’s a night of confessions, Shannon, I have to tell you something. I’m—”
“I know, Mike.”
“But I’m never—”
“Shh,” she said, putting a finger to his lips. “Don’t say anymore. Come on, Mike. You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”
“No, I’m fine—”
“Shut up, Mike. I will make you dinner, and you will sleep on my couch. Tomorrow is soon enough to decide what happens next.”
“Do you know how beautiful you are, Shannon?” Mike breathed. “You shouldn’t waste yourself on me.”
Hot blood flooded her cheeks for the millionth time that night, and something in her belly tingled. “I’m not—”
“Yes, you are!” Mike said. “Inside and out.”
Shannon wondered if her cheeks were blazing like brake lights. She thought they must be. “I…I…”
Mike looked at her, kind eyes, beautiful smile. “Yes, you are,” he whispered.
9
Drew lay awake, unable to sleep, and he didn’t know why. His mind kept swirling around in circles, replaying the conversation with the two troopers. “Oneka Falls” kept spinning through his thoughts like a cork bobber in a whirlpool, sometimes dipping under the surface but always popping back up.
It made little sense. Drew had no family there—no family anywhere, for that matter—hell, he didn’t even know anyone from Kanowa County, let alone Oneka Falls. But the town seemed important to him on some level. He couldn’t leave it alone, he kept prodding it like a loose tooth.
He never went to bed this early. Sleep and he were not friends, they ignored one another until it was no longer possible. Falling asleep required work rather than the release it seemed to be for others. He didn’t dream—never. Sleep was more of an imposition, something he had to do, but hated. A chore. A waste of time.
He twisted and rolled, trying to get comfortable in the RV’s bed. Even his eyes refused to cooperate; every time he closed them, they popped right back open after a few moments.
Finally, he gave up on sleep and switched on the little spotlight set into the wall at the head of the bed. He glanced at his book, but he didn’t want to read. He considered watching one of the DVDs he bought but never watched, but the thought of sitting still and staring at something flicker on a screen appealed to him even less than reading. Maybe a game? He swung his legs over the side of the foam mattress and yawned. “Oh, sure,” he muttered. “Now yawn.”
Shaking his head, he got up and walked to the entertainment section of the RV. He made it as far as turning on the television and the Xbox before he switched both off again. A game wasn’t what he wanted. Needed.
He flipped the lid of his laptop open and squinted at the bright screen. “Google Maps,” he said while he typed. “Oneka Falls.” He waited as the map drew in, and then stared at the dot on the map off 158, but it m
eant nothing to him. His eyes roved the area around the little dot, skipping over the green clumps that were the state parks in the area. He zoomed in a little, trying to see the roads in the town, and when he saw the words “Thousand Acre Wood,” his eyes froze in place.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even close his eyes. His mind was calm, but his body wanted to be moving, as if in a full-blown panic. The words, the name of the forest, meant nothing to him. Nothing. Nothing at all, he thought, over and over. He slammed the laptop closed and shoved it off his lap and onto the couch next to him, looking at it as if it were alive.
Drew got up and pulled on a pair of jeans and slipped into his sneakers. Lying there, trying not to, but thinking, thinking, thinking, wouldn’t work, he had to be moving, had to be doing something. He went outside and unplugged the power and water tethers and lowered the RV on to its wheels.
“How much is that puppy dog?” he murmured to himself. “Where is the puppy?” He was almost unaware of the phrases he was repeating aloud. It was a cognitive trick a psychiatrist or psychologist had taught him to derail errant thoughts and depressive cycles.
He climbed back into the Odin Desperado, continuing to mutter nonsense sentences, slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. He pulled the RV out of his slip and let it idle up the short lane to the RV park’s exit.
He couldn’t stay there. He couldn’t. He had to be moving, had to be on the go. He was going to visit Oneka Falls, anyway, might as well get moving.
It wasn’t like he would get to sleep, anyway.
10
It was pleasant not to have a hang-over. By all rights, he should have one after all those highballs in Lumber Jack’s, but Shannon had forced so much water on him that he’d been up half the night peeing. He smiled at the memory of how sweet she’d been. Then he remembered what had brought her running to his side and blushed crimson.
“It’s okay,” Shannon whispered.
“But last night—”
“Last night is the past, Mike. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
Mike scoffed, but not in an unkind way.
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