I grabbed at him blindly, feeling the bones under his thin frame. “You’ll help me?” I gasped at him. “Please say you’ll help me. I can’t do this on my own.”
He put his chin on my forehead and held me close. “You have my word,” he said quietly. “I’ve got you, boy. I’ve got you.”
They leave after he’s shot Abe in the head, Christie almost looking horrified,
Griggs snapping at her and waving the gun in my direction. The sound of the gun cut off my voice, and I find I can no longer speak, or even make a single noise. My breath whistles in my throat as Griggs snarls at Christie to let him go, that he was just doing what she was no longer capable of. Did she want them to go to jail? Did she want this whole operation to get completely fucked over? She doesn’t have time to answer—her phone rings, a sharp sound completely out of place in the horror that is this shack.
“Hello? You’re on your way back? How close are you? Shit. You should have
just waited until after the goddamn storm had passed! It’s too late now. Just get here as quickly as you can.” She hangs up the phone and tells Griggs they need to finish in the caves. “Leave him here,” she says without looking at me. “We’ll deal with him later.”
Griggs glances back at me and then follows her out into the storm, switching off the light as he goes. The naked bulbs overhead go out, and the only light that remains is from the lantern on the table near the door.
I slide from the wall and lie on the ground, as much on my back as my bound hands will allow.
I don’t think I can process what has just happened. My old friend lies on the ground, mere feet from me. He’s on his stomach, his head still turned, facing me. Eyes closed, mouth slack enough to show slightly yellowed teeth. Were it not for the circular wound on his temple dribbling a small amount of blood and the fact that his arms are still secured behind his back and his legs tied together, it’d look like he is just sleeping. An awkward position, to be sure, but he could just be sleeping.
Sleep sounds good right now. I wonder what would happen if I closed my eyes. I’m tired. I think I might be done. Cal’s gone. Abe’s gone. Big Eddie’s long gone. Everything I touch gets taken from me. Everyone I love dies. It’s only a matter of time for my mother. Mary. Nina. Christie, though she’s not the same in my mind anymore. Everyone I love will be gone, and I’ll still be here, in this shack in the middle of the forest during a black storm that will cause the river below to rage. Michael said we’re all tested, that this is how we find our faith. How else could we know love unless it was taken from us? I know love. I don’t need it to be taken from me to know it. I know faith. I don’t need it to be tested in order to understand it. God and his games are beyond me now. I can’t even find the desire to pray, not that it would be heard.
Memories like ghosts. Memories like knives.
But I’m tired. So very tired. I feel my strength leaving me, and I wonder if I’m going into shock. It wouldn’t be surprising. Things have happened that are very shocking. I laugh quietly at this, my punch-drunk mind finding humor in the wordplay. The ceiling above me looks like it’ll give way any minute. Maybe the river will rise all the way up past the banks until I’m submerged in its murky waters. It’d be so easy to drown. I don’t want to see the ceiling anymore. I don’t want to see Abe’s sleeping face anymore. I just want to close my eyes.
So I do. It’s dark. I tilt my face toward the ceiling.
My father sings: “Sometimes I float along the river—”
I sing: “For to its surface I am bound.”
My father sings: “And there are times stones done fill my pockets, oh Lord—”
I sing: “And it’s into this river I drown.”
And as soon as I sing the last word, a drop of water falls from the ceiling and lands directly on my tongue. It slides to the back of my throat, leaving a trail of water in its—
wake up —wake. It doesn’t taste like rain. It doesn’t taste like rust from sliding along the roof of the shack. It tastes like—
wake up wake up
—the river, like the river from my dreams, the river where my father drowned, the river where Cal’s body lies. It tastes like sorrow and skin. Anger and bones. It tastes like everything I’ve ever wanted to say to those who are gone. It tastes like I love you. It tastes like I miss you. It tastes like I am so angry you’re gone. It tastes like—
up benji wake up cal wake wake
—regret. It tastes like knowing you can never go home again.
But most of all, it tastes like strength.
“Wake up!” a voice shouts in the shack. It’s deep, that voice. It’s familiar. It’s loud. It’s angry. It’s here with me, but I can’t. I just can’t. I don’t want to wake up. I don’t want to open my eyes. “Wake up!” my father roars, right next to my ear. It’s unexpected, and I jerk awake, my eyes flashing open, sure I will see—
my dad father big motherfucking eddie
—someone standing above me, sure I am no longer alone and that memories, like ghosts, have risen, have become corporeal.
But he’s not.
There’s no one there.
I shift on the floor, frantically looking around for the owner of the voice, even though I know who it is. Even as I twist my head, a sharp pain cuts into my finger. I gasp at the suddenness of it, piercing through all my other aches in body and mind. I roll onto my stomach, away from the wall, trying to see what I cut myself on.
Estelle’s gift to her husband lies on the ground against the wall.
“Wake up,” I say. “I gotta wake up.”
Yes, boy, Abe whispers in my mind. You gotta wake up, because sometimes, all we want to do is to jump into that river and drown. It’s easy. It’s relief. It’s the warm embrace of death. But it’s also selfish. It’s selfish and solves nothing, and that is not who you are. So you wake up.
I don’t want to die here. I can’t die here. I have to tell people what I know. I have to tell the world what has happened. If not for my father, then for Cal, who only wanted to protect what was his. For Abe, who deserved more than to die on the dirty floor in a derelict shack in the middle of the woods. They deserve more, and only I can give that to them. Then I can sleep. Then I can float on the river’s current and drift away.
Like ghosts, my father says.
Like knives.
I lie back on my side and count to three before I jerk myself up and onto my ass, using my legs as leverage against the floor. My ankle screams at me, but I ignore it. The pain is nothing. It’s nothing compared to everything else.
Then I’m up and take a moment to catch my breath. The air inside the shack is stifling and hot, the little cracks in the walls not enough to ventilate the inside. Another splash of water lands on my head and trickles down my face. The rain thunders on the metal roof, and it sounds like a rushing river.
I press my back up against the wall and scrabble for the open pocketknife. My fingers brush the blade, and I follow it back until I reach the handle. I twist it up in my fingers until the blade is pointed up. My fingers are sticky with blood, sweat, and grime. I can’t let it slip. Not now. I don’t know how much time I have, but it can’t be much.
I press the blade flat against my wrist and slide it up against my skin until it’s under the plastic zip tie. It cuts into the already sliced flesh and I grit my teeth. This is nothing. The pain is negligible, I tell myself. I’ve been through worse. I’m going through worse. The searing of the knife into my flesh? This is nothing.
But the pain grows as I twist the knife, until the edge of the knife is pressed against my wrist, the sharper edge against the plastic of the zip tie. Blood drips down my fingers. I close my eyes and try to visualize my hands behind me. Instead of focusing on the damage I’m doing to my wrist, I focus on what I have to do to make this work. I grip the handle of the knife tightly with my knuckles.
A sound, above the rain. A low rumble. Lights roll up through the shack, flashing through the metal slats. The sound
of tires on gravel. The harsh squeal of brakes.
A truck, a large one by the sound of it.
Not much time, I tell myself. Not much time at all. You going to do this? I am.
I grip the knife as tightly as I can. Taking a deep breath, I lift my knuckles up
and down, trying to press it as hard as I can into the plastic and away from my flesh, but it’s not far enough. Each sawing motion nicks my wrist again and again, the point of the blade stabbing into my arm. Blood flows more heavily. I grit my teeth and press up again. The sting of tearing flesh causes my eyes to water. I don’t even know if this is working. I don’t even know if Estelle’s gift is cutting into the plastic at all. Maybe the knife is too dull. Maybe the plastic is too strong. Maybe the only thing I’m doing is cutting my wrist. It’s not going to work. It’s not going to—
The zip tie gives a little. The sawing motion is becoming harder to do because the knife is cutting into the plastic. The pressure around my right wrist lessens slightly. It’s working. I saw up again and tears stream down my face as my wrist is sliced again. More blood drops onto my fingers and gets onto the handle of the knife. The zip tie gives further. Blood flows onto my knuckles and the knife cuts deeper and I think it’s about to—
The knife tumbles from my grip and lands on the floor. I reach for it and close my hands around the handle. Dirt from the floor mixes with the blood on my hands. I try to grip the knife, to twist it again, but I can’t get a good hold on it. I drop it and try to rub my hands against the back of my jeans, the back of my shirt. I can’t get them clean, not enough so I can hold onto the knife again.
The door to the shack rattles. I freeze, waiting for someone to open it. It doesn’t. Just the wind. It’s just the wind.
The zip tie has been cut, though not completely. I try pulling my wrists apart. The pain causes my vision to gray, but there is some give, the plastic seeming to stretch. I put my wrists back together. My hands are soaked in blood. I don’t know how badly I’ve cut myself. Abe still sleeps in front of me, but he’s not asleep. Not really. My vision tunnels again and I bang my head against the wall behind me, thunder covering up the rattling of the metal. I hit my head again. And again. And again. New pain shoots through the fog. I’m awake. I’m alive. I’m not asleep. I’m not in the river.
I close my eyes as my arms tremble. And knowing what will happen if this doesn’t work, I take in a deep breath and jerk my arms apart as hard as I can, with all of the strength I have left. The strain against my arms is incredible, and the muscles burn and start to cramp. I tilt my head back until it hits the wall. I grit my teeth and pull harder, the zip ties cutting into my skin even further. My head feels like it will explode, like my eyes are bulging from the sockets. Just when I think I can’t take the pressure any longer, I reach down deep within me and find the last reserves I have left and give just a little bit more.
The band around my right hand breaks.
I bring my hands to my lap, crying out softly at the tingling of blood circulating again through my arms, like a deep vibration. I hold my injured wrist to my chest and rock back and forth, hitting my head against the wall behind me. I think this might be a dream and it isn’t the zip tie that has snapped, but my mind. This can’t be real, that I’m still tied up and sitting in this dirty place.
I open my eyes.
I’m free from the tie, though the skin on my right forearm looks shredded. The blood isn’t gushing as much as it’s oozing, so I probably didn’t cut as deep as it felt like. I grab the knife and use it to cut off a strip of my shirt. I tie the strip around my wrist carefully, slipping the ends through and into a knot. I pull one end with my teeth and the other with my good hand. The pain is excruciating, and my eyes water. The cloth is not enough to completely stanch the flow of blood, but it has to be enough. For now.
I cut the ties around my legs and then close the knife and put it in my pocket. I stand shakily, my legs and feet still slightly numb. I move slowly around Abe, not wanting to hurt him any further (because he’s sleeping, I tell myself). I reach the door to the shack and peer through the cracks in the slats. It’s still daylight out, though the light is very weak, hidden behind the black clouds. The rain is still pouring as hard as I’ve ever seen it. The fresh air through the slats is the best thing I’ve ever smelled. I inhale as deeply as I can, but it’s too much and I start to cough. This hurts my chest, and I wonder if I’ve cracked a rib or two.
Once I stop coughing, I look through the slats again, but can’t see anything. I can’t quite remember where I heard the sound of the truck stopping. For all I know, I imagined it. I need to get out and get my bearings. Caves mean I’m north of the river and where Calliel landed, if they’re the ones I’m thinking of. The caves have been closed off for as long as I can remember. No one has a need to go up there, or at least they never did before. There’s nothing in them, no mineral deposits of any import (not since all the gold was mined), and no drawings on the stone walls from the Umpqua Indians who lived here centuries before. Nothing about them was supposed to be special, not anymore.
I have to get out of here. I have to get back to town.
Thunder cracks overhead. Lightning briefly illuminates the darkened sky.
Of course, I think. Of course the storm won’t let up. It’s a test, remember? It’s God’s test, and he’s going to flood the earth until we all float away. Once the surface is covered, the Strange Men will pull us down into the dark, and we’ll find out what it truly means to love. What it truly means to have faith.
I shake my head, trying to clear my mind of these odd thoughts. I feel woozy. I’m so tired. I could lie down next to Abe, maybe. Just for a little while. Just to sleep. Maybe it’ll—
A hand on my shoulder.
A breath on the back of my neck.
A smell of the darkest earth.
I whirl around. There’s no one there.
“I know,” I mutter. “I know.”
I take the knife back out of my pocket and open it. I press my hand against the door. “I’ll come back for you,” I tell Abe. “I won’t leave you here, I promise. I’ll come back for you and take you home, and the world will never bother us again.”
He doesn’t answer.
I pull the door open slowly. The blast of cold air is wonderful against my fevered skin. My face is instantly soaked and chilled. That clears more of the lingering fog in my head. The air feels clean and free. I almost want to take off running, but I don’t think my ankle could take it. I’d get shot in the back, knowing my luck. The door opens to the forest stretched out in front of me, running down a steep hill. There is nothing down the hill or to my left. I look right and see a road. On this road is a large paneled moving truck, backed up to a rocky outcrop that rises from the forest floor. And by the rear of the truck stand three men.
I jerk my head back inside the shack. It looks like Griggs is one of them. The other two I don’t recognize, but through the rain I can’t be sure. I close the door again and go to the wall of the shack facing the truck. I shuffle some of the garbage bags filled with empty plastic bottles. The smell coming from the bags is almost overwhelming. I force myself back to reality and kick another bag out of my way. There’s a large crack in this wall, near the floor. I slowly drop to my knees, ignoring how my whole body aches. I press my face up against the crack in the wall.
Griggs stands facing away from me, his sheriff’s hat and uniform obvious, even through the heavy rain. The other two men are facing me, listening intently to something Griggs is saying. He’s punctuating his words with his hands and eventually he points back toward the shack. The other two men peer around him with obvious interest. I freeze, feeling their eyes roam over me, and even though I’m sure they can’t see me, it looks as if they are staring right at me. They turn back to Griggs, who taps his watch. One of the men shakes his head and says something Griggs obviously doesn’t like. The sheriff grabs him by the collar of his coat and slams him into the side of the truck. Griggs pul
ls my Colt out of his coat pocket and presses it against the other man’s head. The third man does nothing, standing with his arms crossed, occasionally glancing over at the shack.
The man pressed against the truck struggles in the sheriff’s grip. Griggs snarls into his face and twists the gun into his temple, and it’s all I can do—
look away, benji, look away
—to keep my anger from rising. I want to knock down the door and fly at Griggs, break him apart. I grind my teeth together and dig my fingernails into my palms to try and keep centered, to keep aware. The red sheen that threatens to fall over my eyes is held at bay, at least for now.
Griggs drops the man from the side of the truck and takes a step back. He waves the gun toward the rear of the truck. The other two men shake their heads but seem to do what he asks. They go to the back of the truck and open the large rear door. They pull down a long metal ramp and set it on the ground. Griggs says something else and disappears around the truck. The other two stand, leaning into each other. I’m too far away to see their lips moving, but they seem to be talking. They look back at the shack again and then follow the sheriff.
The truck. Unguarded. Headlights still on. The keys might still be in the ignition.
“I’ll come back for you,” I promise Abe as I stand. His face is turned away from me. I ignore the bloody hole in his head. “You won’t stay here. I’ll come back.” My heart stutters in my chest, but I push it away.