Damaged

  “Yes,” he says. “I am.”

  It takes me a long time to drag him up the stairs and back inside the cabin. There are a few brief moments when he regains just enough consciousness to move his legs in a semi-crawl, but I do most of the heavy lifting. I leave the windows open for a breeze, but it will be unbearably hot in a couple of hours.

  I fill a jug with water from the bathroom and use it to wash him off. I wipe off the sweat, the remnants of vomit, the dirt and leaves and pine needles from the ground. I am as gentle as possible across the terrain of his scars, the bubbly pink new flesh he earned from saving my life. What scars have I earned from saving his? I try to make him clean, but I know there’s no way I will ever be able to wash away his pain and sadness and desperation.

  Then I feel a hard whack against my calves.

  “What the hell?” I turn around and see the woman from the front desk, humpbacked and tugging on her oxygen machine, with a broom in her hand pointed at me.

  “You two! You get out!” she yells, swatting at me with the broom. “You bring the devil here with your liquor and your fornicating!”

  “My friend,” I plead. “He’s sick. We just need to stay one more night.”

  “No!” She hits me in the knee. “You leave now! He’s sick with the devil.” Then she whacks Hunter in the shins, but he doesn’t even move. I pull the broom out of her hand and it takes all my strength not to hit her with it. I throw it out the door and she looks at me in horror, lets out a bloodcurdling scream, and scoots away in her ragged pink slippers, tugging her oxygen machine along behind her.

  “My gun!” she cries as she shuffles away. “My gun!”

  “Shit!” I throw our stuff in the trunk and somehow manage to drag Hunter into the backseat. I will deal with making him comfortable later. My hands shake on the steering wheel, but this is no time to be scared of driving. Survival trumps fear. I speed away from the campground as fast as I can.

  Once my breath gets back to normal, I pull over to cushion Hunter’s head with a pile of clothes and set an empty pot on the floor in case he has to throw up. He doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t acknowledge me as I bend and twist his body. But he is breathing. His skin is warm. I convince myself that is enough. It has to be.

  I spend the next few hours flipping through radio stations. I can’t focus on the words, can’t decipher their meaning. It is just noise to fill my head, to crowd out the fear. When it threatens to take over, when panic fills my head with static and I feel the car drifting out of my hands, I count my breaths. I count signs. I count trees. I count everything.

  I check on Hunter constantly—barking his name, reaching back and shaking him to semiconsciousness. I leave him alone only when he grunts acknowledgment. I look in the rearview mirror for signs of life—a tiny twitch of the eyelids, his chest moving in and out. He does not speak and his eyes are always closed, but his absence is a relief for now. I am not ready for him to be awake. I am not ready to talk about this.

  But talking is inevitable. He cannot stay asleep forever. And I cannot keep driving for the rest of my life. I have to stop sometime.

  “Kinsey.” It is several hours later when I finally hear his weak, strained voice from the backseat. The late-afternoon sky is dark purple with clouds. The radio says a storm is coming.

  What am I supposed to say to him? “Hi, how’s it going? How was almost dying?”

  “Kinsey,” he says again. I look in the rearview mirror and see him halfway propped up on one elbow, his hair disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, the skin around his eyes and throat bruised from the force of his vomiting.

  “You need to drink water,” I say as sternly as I can. If I act angry enough, he won’t see my fear.

  “What happened?” he says, looking around the car as if for clues.

  “You’re asking me what happened? You’re asking me? You overdose and almost die and you’re asking me what happened?”

  “Almost died? What are you talking about? I didn’t almost die.” But I can tell he doesn’t fully believe what he’s saying. I can tell he’s scared too.

  “You weren’t breathing, Hunter. Your lips were blue. For all I know, you have fucking brain damage.”

  “Oh god,” he says, sinking back down onto the seat.

  “Oh god is right.” I pull the pill bottle out of my pocket and throw it at him. “This is what you were sneaking around Chicago for?”

  I watch his reflection as he picks up the bottle and looks at it sadly. “They’re for anxiety.” I can’t imagine his voice sounding any more pathetic.

  “Is that a doctor’s diagnosis? Was it a doctor you bought it from?”

  He tosses the bottle back weakly. It hits the dashboard and rolls onto the car floor. “Take them. Throw them away somewhere I can’t find them.”

  “How many did you take, Hunter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How many? Five? Ten? A hundred?”

  “I don’t know. The bottle was full.”

  The bottle is half-empty. There are at least twenty pills missing. “Jesus, Hunter.”

  He meets my eye in the mirror for a second, then looks away in shame. “I don’t remember taking all those.”

  “I don’t care. I’m done caring about you.”

  “Don’t say that,” he says. I can’t bring myself to look at his sad puppy dog eyes. As mad as I am, I know I’m no match for those.

  “This is the deal,” I say. “You will be sober for the rest of the trip. You will not touch me. We will drive as much as possible. We will stop only when necessary. We will not fuck around. We will get to San Francisco and we will part ways. Then you can drink and do drugs as much as you want. You can overdose and die for all I care because I am never going to see you again anyway.” Thunder cracks in the distance and a white vein of electricity pulses in the clouds.

  A sound like choking escapes his throat and for a second I think he’s getting sick again. But when I look back at him, I see his face in his hands and his shoulders shaking and hear a guttural sound and I realize he is weeping. My chest caves in and all I want to do is go to him, wrap my arms around him, and make him stop hurting. But I cannot do that. I am done trying to fix Hunter. I keep my eyes on the road and I drive.

  “I’m sorry,” he cries. “I’m so sorry, Kinsey. I don’t know why I’m like this.”

  I don’t respond. I just keep driving into the storm.

  I want this day to be over. I want to close my eyes and have it magically disappear, and when I open them again it’ll be tomorrow or, better yet, days from now, when we reach San Francisco and I can finally rid myself of Hunter, rid myself of his drama and all the feelings I have wrapped up in him. With him gone, maybe I can stop caring. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe.

  But it is only afternoon, still hours until sundown, though the sky is already as dark as night. The clouds rumble over us and a light rain starts to fall. I look at Hunter in the rearview mirror and he is already out, cried himself to sleep like a baby. I feel like a guard, and Hunter is my prisoner. How did this become our relationship?

  I reach down and pick the pill bottle up off the floor. The prescription is for someone named Hong Kim. Is Hong Kim the one who sold them to Hunter? How much did they cost? Or were they stolen? Did someone get hurt for these? Someone besides Hunter?

  I roll down the window and throw the bottle onto the freeway.

  The clouds roar above us, shaking the car. Lightning flashes a split second later, way too close. The sky has cracked open and now it’s dumping water, not even raindrops but gallons, bucketfuls. I turn on the wipers full speed but they do nothing. I am driving through an ocean. I can see nothing but gray waves pounding against the windows. I can’t see the road. I can’t see the lights of other cars.

  It is not black. There is no forest, no drunken headlights. It is too wet for fire. But still, I am
driving. Hunter is in the backseat. A too-familiar configuration. My hands shake. I do not feel them. I can’t hold on if I cannot feel them. I can’t keep driving if I cannot breathe, if my head fills with static, if I close my eyes and drift away to wherever Hunter’s dreaming.

  I can barely make out the sign for an exit. I turn the wheel and we are flying off the freeway.

  And then, silence.

  Then black.

  Red.

  Screaming metal.

  We are thrown through space in slow motion.

  Camille is screaming.

  My head hits the window.

  A force like God’s fist pounds us back into the ground. I don’t know which way is up, don’t know if we are on the ground or in it, don’t know if this is rain or fire, home or road, Camille or Hunter, life or death.

  “Kinsey!” Hunter shouts from the backseat. Now I know where I am. Camille is not next to me. I am not drenched with her blood. I am in a world where Hunter says my name.

  I spin the wheel and press the gas and the car shudders as it finds its way back onto the road. My body is shaking so hard I can barely keep my hands on the steering wheel. A burst of lightning illuminates the road for a split second, and now I know which way is forward. If I just go slow, we’ll be okay.

  “There’s a sign,” Hunter says. His hand is on my shoulder. “Take a left here.”

  I am gulping air. I am drowning.

  “Stop the car.”

  Stillness. Muted rain pounding on metal. The car intact. There is no fire.

  “Are you okay?”

  There is no room for words in my mouth.

  “Just breathe. We’re okay.”

  My hand reaches forward and turns off the car. It is not connected to me.

  And then the door opens. The rain suddenly amplified. Hunter vomiting into the storm. The sound wakes me up, focuses my eyes. I see a rickety old building in front of us. A broken fence. A sign that says DANGER.

  “I can’t be in the car anymore,” Hunter groans. His head is hanging off the side of the seat, out the open door, getting pounded with rain.

  A sign says QUARRY. This shack must be the office. The windows are boarded up. A broken lock hangs from a crooked door. A NO TRESPASSING sign is covered with graffiti.

  “We can’t stay here,” my voice croaks.

  “Yes we can,” Hunter says, and stumbles out of the car into the rain.

  “Hunter, wait!”

  But he’s lurching toward the shack, stepping over the fallen fence, kicking garbage and broken things out of his way. He trips and lands in the mud and the rain pounds him into a puddle.

  “Fuck!” I hear him yell through the thunder.

  I get out of the car and am immediately drenched. Hunter pushes me off when I try to help him up. “Get back in the car,” I say. “We shouldn’t be here.” But he ignores me as he stumbles toward the shack, as he climbs the rickety steps to the small porch, as he kicks open the door and enters the darkness.

  As soon as he gets in, he slumps on the floor and curls up on his side. “Tired,” he says. “Need sleep.” I try to pull him up but he’s too heavy, dead weight. We aren’t going anywhere until he decides we are. I slide down the wall onto the floor because I don’t know what else to do. I sit on the dirty floor next to Hunter’s already sleeping body, a puddle forming beneath us from our drenched clothes. The rain pounds on the tin roof of the porch, a sharp percussion replacing the low roar of the storm. It is dark in here, with only a few patches of pale light where boards do not completely cover the windows. The floor is covered by a thick layer of dirt, and cobwebs line the ceiling. A few pieces of broken office furniture have been pushed into one corner. In another, someone had made a bed out of piled cardboard. The melted remains of candles make a waxy mound on the floor beside it. Rusty tin cans are piled in another corner.

  But it is dry. The air is still. The storm is muted. And Hunter has crawled over to the pile of cardboard and made himself a nest.

  “Hunter, that’s dirty! You don’t know what kind of bugs are in there.” But he’s asleep. He will be for a while. I’m stuck here until he wakes up.

  I must keep myself busy. I must keep my hands and mind full. If I don’t, I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know what kind of madness will sneak its way through, will find me cowering and trapped in this hovel, trading thunder and lightning for darkness and filth.

  I run a few things over from the car. I make the trip as fast as I can but still they get wet. Somehow I manage to help Hunter into drier clothes and his sleeping bag, though his eyes remain closed the whole time. I tidy up the space a little, find a table and chair to push against the wall, hang up our electric lantern on a nail in the corner, pull a loose board off a window to let in a stream of pale, sickly light. I can see how this might be a decent home for a pioneer or a hobo. So I guess it makes a decent enough detox for a rich, troubled boy and his hapless attendant.

  I have no idea what time it is. I have no idea where we are. I lay out my sleeping bag on the hard wood floor and try to sleep, but every time I close my eyes I see flashes of red, feel myself flying through space and jerking awake. There is just barely enough light to read by, so I try to focus on the book I brought. But the words all look like little scratches, like bite marks, like hostile, angry scars. I can’t remember what the book is about. It feels weird and heavy in my hand, like it’s no longer made of paper.

  And then something cold around my wrist. Something wet and fleshy.

  I freeze. My body goes numb.

  I can’t feel anything but the tight grip, the long dead fingers, my own pulse fighting its capture.

  I jump up, my arms flailing. I throw the book into the dark, cobwebby corner. I hop around and brush myself off spastically. I look around and of course there’s nothing. ­Hunter’s still sound asleep on his cardboard bed. If he’s here, why am I scared? If he’s here, how can the darkness touch me?

  I crawl closer to him. There is just enough room on the cardboard for me. I am too tired to care what kind of vermin have made their nests inside. I curl next to him in my sleeping bag and notice I am shaking. I can feel how close to the edge I am, can feel myself teetering on the fine line between staying in control and losing it.

  Even though his back is to me, I can still smell Hunter’s sick, rancid breaths. I fall asleep breathing in his poison mixed with the wet, musty air of this ruin we have found ourselves in.

  * * *

  Why is it so dark?

  Where am I?

  Where’s Hunter?

  I am trapped here.

  She has finally caught me.

  I am finally hers.

  My throat pulses where her fingertips branded me. I try to scream but nothing comes out, like someone reached in and stole my voice. I am not dreaming. It didn’t even take a nightmare to get me here. It is dark and this is real and I am taken.

  No, I am in a different kind of hell. This shack, in the middle of nowhere, next to a toxic boy. It is still the same day. The rain has let up, but random drops still bang on the tin roof, sending bullets through my brain. I feel antsy. I need to move.

  I stand up, stretch my legs, and walk to the car. The ground is a giant mud puddle. The air is still thick with moisture. Water falls in fat drops from trees. I find Hunter’s phone in the glove compartment, on top of a stack of brochures and maps we’ve picked up at rest stops along the way. I know there’s no reception here, but maybe I can listen to some music or play a mindless game on his phone. I press the power button, but nothing happens. The phone is dead. Of course.

  So I take the pile of brochures instead. At least they’ll kill time. At least they’re something to look at with pictures, with empty words that don’t require much more than a short attention span. I sit on a bucket on the porch of the shack and start going through them slowly, on
e by one, trying to imagine all these places I will probably never see. Parks and lakes, outlet malls, a town where it is always Christmas, a petting zoo where all the animals are pygmies, a reptile farm, the world’s largest coffeepot, and countless other tourist traps. But I am not a tourist. Not anymore. I am simply in transit. This is just a stop in the middle of nowhere, on my way to somewhere.

  After a brochure about a combination cherry farm/go-cart track/paintball course, I flip to one with a picture that looks eerily familiar. I stare at it for a long time, trying to figure out where I’ve seen this particular scene before—the fence, the small building with the tin-roofed porch, the mottled sunlight painting the canopy of old oak trees. It could be any old building in any old ghost town, but I shudder when I recognize it as the one I’m sitting in right now. The weather in the picture is more cheerful, making it look more like a setting for a historical building and artifacts rather than the broken-down shed and garbage I assumed it was. Without thinking, I turn around, as if to check to make sure there’s no photographer standing there right now. It’s as if someone took a photo of this place, Photoshopped out the rain and mud and darkness, then erased me. It is a picture of the world without me.

  The heading on the brochure reads “Old Quarry ­Historical Site.” My heart races as I skim through the information about the surrounding flora, fauna, and geology; trail maps; safety information; and history of the abandoned quarry. My heart rate starts to slow back to normal as I come to a picture of its towering chiseled walls, the nine-hundred-foot sheer limestone cliff. What am I getting so worked up about? It’s just a brochure. They included a photo of this building because it’s part of the history.

  But just as I am about to throw the brochure on the ground with the other ones, I see something strange in the photo of the quarry. On the rim of the cliff, at the very top, is a tiny figure. The cliff is lined with a fence, but the figure is standing in front of it. How could the brochure makers have missed that? Surely they’d want to avoid picturing someone so obviously breaking the rules.

  I look closer and my heart stops.