Ashes of the Unspeakable, page 15
“Did you go to jail?” Gary asked.
“Well, two deputies finally showed up about forty-five minutes later. They’d been out there before. They knew how he was, so they told me to go wait at their car while they checked out the murder scene. Then one of them came over to the car and I went ahead and stuck my hands out for the cuffs, and he told me that he was sorry but my husband wasn’t dead. Then, to beat all, he asked if I wanted them to leave and come back in ten minutes.”
Gary laughed. “They were giving you the opportunity to finish the job?”
“Exactly.”
“Did you?”
“No. I gave it some serious thought though. I looked at him lying there and thought about all the things I could do to hurt or embarrass him. I thought about burning the house down with him inside it. I thought about cutting his private parts off. Instead I asked the deputies to wait while I packed our stuff and then we left for good.”
“Did they charge you with anything?” Gary asked.
“No, the deputies left him lying on the porch. They never took a report. Never even called an ambulance. ”
“Did he come after you?”
She smiled. “My dad and brothers ‘talked’ to him before he even had a chance to think about it. He was in the hospital for a couple of weeks and they went to visit him there. They made their intentions clear.”
“Which were?”
“That they intended to finish what I started if he ever came near me again.”
Gary smiled. “I think I’m going to like your dad if I ever meet him. He sounds like a good dad.”
*
Jim slept better that night than he had in the last several. It was not the comfort of being under a roof, but the comfort that came from being behind a locked door. He’d always loved camping. While many of his friends refused to camp because of fear of bears and snakes, Jim had never lost sleep over those things. What he lost sleep over was the human predators that they were encountering now. He worried about people that might come across them and kill them in their sleep so that they might steal their supplies. He had thought they would be safe enough in the vast wilderness of Mount Rogers that a watch would be unnecessary, and he’d clearly been wrong. When they left this place tomorrow, they would have to start posting a watch every night.
They all had slept better. Everyone was moving about the next morning in a good mood, without the usual grumbling and sluggishness. They took time to pack their new acquisitions carefully. Randi was just glad to have a decent pack again.
“Try to hold onto this one,” Gary said, lifting it so that Randi could slide the shoulder straps on. “You lose them as fast as we get them.”
“I’ll try.” She bounced a few times, settling the weight. Gary helped her adjust the various straps so that the load would ride easier.
In what had become a daily habit, Jim took out his iPhone and pressed the power button. Every day, before heading out, he looked at pictures of his family. It reminded him of why he was pushing himself. It reminded him to be careful and not risk his life. It reminded him of why he had to get home at all costs.
The boot process was always slow. He set the phone down and finished packing his few remaining items into his pack. Today’s plan was to cross the interstate into Bland County. This would be a significant accomplishment in that they would finally feel close to home. From Bland, they would trek to Burke’s Garden on the trail.
By the time Jim closed the lid of his pack and tightened the last straps, his phone had completed the boot cycle. He continued with his pack since everyone else was done, deciding he could look at his pictures when they started walking out of there. Then he heard the text alert.
He froze. It took a moment to register.
When he looked up, everyone else had stopped what they were doing and were staring at him. He let his pack tip over and turned to his phone. There was indeed a text alert on the screen.
“I’ll be damned. There’s one bar of signal.”
Packs dropped around the room. Buckles and zippers flew. Hands scrambled. They all wanted their phones.
Jim stared at his phone. “Randi, you still have your phone? Wasn’t it in your pack?”
“Are you kidding? I’m a woman – I keep my phone in my back pocket.”
“Good damn thing.” Jim unlocked his screen and clicked on the message.
It was from his son:
Dad. I hope u are ok. Hurry home. Neighbors scaring mom.
Jim completely lost his shit. “Hold this so I don’t fucking break it.” He tossed the phone to Randi.
Jim went to the wall cabinets and wrenched a door off the hinges. He began beating the countertop. He swung the door again and took off the sink faucet, but it was unsatisfying since nothing came spraying out. He took the same door and began beating the walls, punching the door through labor law posters, job advertisements, and retirement seminar notices. He roared and cursed. Then he threw the door down and began kicking. He kicked holes in the drywall. When the drywall was gone, he kicked metal studs until they buckled and came loose from the tracks that held them.
“Jim.”
He kept kicking.
“Jim!”
He stopped, his chest heaving.
“Are you going to keep kicking until the roof falls in?” Randi asked.
He didn’t answer. He was blind with a rage that he’d never felt before. He’d never been unable to protect his family before.
Never.
“I read your text.”
Jim turned around.
“I wasn’t snooping,” she said. “It was on the screen when you threw it to me.”
Gary’s eyes were wide, as if Jim was a maniac that needed to be humored. Perhaps he was.
Randi extended his phone toward him. “This is not helping. The best thing we can do is get our asses off this mountain and get home.”
She was right. Jim knew it. His reaction was not helping. He was a parent – an angry parent – but he needed to instead be a responsible parent and, just as Randi said, get his ass off the mountain.
Jim held out his hand and Randi placed his phone in it. He slipped it into the cargo pocket of his 5.11s, shouldered his pack, slipped his holster in place, and faced his friends.
“I’m sorry. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Chapter 13
Banks of the New River
Pembroke, Virginia
The bus turned a corner and rocked on its suspension, making Alice nauseous. She had no doubt that exhaust fumes were contributing to her nausea since she was becoming sleepy despite the adrenaline coursing through her. She was getting close to taking control of her own journey in the way that Jim and Gary had talked about. She had beat herself up enough already for not going with them.
“Boyd, look out each door and tell me what you see,” Alice said.
The man stretched himself out at their feet in the tight compartment and placed his head against the hatch door, peering out the crack for a moment, repeating the action from the other door.
“There are people on the driver’s side of the bus,” Boyd said. “On the right side there’s nothing. Just a bank off the shoulder of the road that drops down to the river. It’s hard to see but it looks steep.”
Alice felt a surge excitement. “That’s the New River. We’re there.”
“What do we do?” Rebecca asked.
On the driver’s side of the compartment, Alice pulled on her hatch door until it latched. “We need to get out on your side. We wait until the bus stops, then we wait for all the soldiers to get off and go around to the crowds on the other side of the bus. If we get out too early, while they’re still exiting the bus, they’ll see us. Once the coast is clear, we climb out, throw our gear over the hill and climb down after it. We don’t move a muscle until the buses pull out and anyone that’s left behind is gone.”
“Got it.” Rebecca’s voice sounded strained.
“Boyd?”
“Got it. I’ll keep watch out the hatch.”
Footsteps reverberated through the bus and echoed in their metallic compartment. When there were no more footsteps, Boyd opened the hatch a little wider and peered out. “That’s it. They’re gone.”
Rebecca pushed her hatch open and unfolded herself. Boyd followed.
Alice slid three of the stolen 72-Hour Go Bags out the door. She’d stolen the bags last night after they’d made their plan and had hidden them in the weeds close to where the buses were parked. Rebecca grabbed one of the bags, Boyd grabbed two, and they began picking their way down the steep riverbank.
Alice slid quietly across the length of the compartment and got out. She closed the hatch, then gently pushed it hard enough for the latch to lock. Click. No sooner had her door locked than she heard the compartment doors on the other side of the bus begin opening. Alice could hear luggage being shoved into the underside of the bus.
That was too close.
She held her breath and stepped through the tall weeds of the bank. It was so steep that she sat down and scooted on her butt, holding weeds and tree roots to slow her down. She joined Boyd and Rebecca near the bottom. They were huddled in the shadow of a thick log that had washed down the river at flood stage and became stuck on the bank.
“That was scary,” Rebecca said.
Alice held her finger to her lips.
The crunching of gravel at the top of the bank warned them that someone was now on their side of the bus. They pushed themselves tighter against the weeds and mossy rocks of the bank, tighter into the shadow of the log. They heard the splatter of liquid and surmised that someone had taken advantage of the private side of the bus to relieve their bladder.
They did not even breathe.
The faces of the three escapees were mere inches apart in the cavity they huddled in. They could do nothing but stare at each other and wait for the person at the top of the bank to go away. It seemed as if they’d never finish. Alice felt a tickle on her hand and looked down. A fat water snake was moving across the back of her hand. She yanked her hand away in fear and revulsion. She hated snakes. The movement of her hand startled the snake and it surged toward Rebecca, weaving through her legs and across her kicking ankles.
Alice was biting her lip to halt her scream. Rebecca sucked in a lungful of air, fuel for the scream that she was preparing to unleash. Alice’s eyes widened. There was no way a scream would go unheard. They were done for.
Boyd’s hand shot out and wrapped around Rebecca’s face, his fingers tight together, trying to seal the scream inside her. This only scared Rebecca more and she twisted her body. Muffled cries escaped around Boyd’s fingers.
They tightened.
Rebecca was sitting in front of him, her back to him, and he wrapped his free arm around her torso, his legs around her waist. He squeezed and clenched his arms, the muscles of his forearms bulging from the effort. The hand that covered her mouth was now covering her nose, too, preventing any air from reaching her lungs.
Alice raised her eyes to Boyd’s face. She expected fear and panic, but was disturbed to instead see what she thought was pleasure and excitement. He was smiling and biting his lip. Alice could see that he no longer even knew she was there.
She did not know what to do. She was scared both for the scream that Rebecca was trying to let loose and for the sudden explosion of violence from this man. Rebecca’s muffled cries now became attempts to breathe. Her face reddened and her eyes watered. Rebecca tugged at this hands but did not have the strength to pull them loose. She was dying. Alice could see the light inside her fading.
Alice then heard the bus start its engine. She patted Boyd hard on the arm. “Let her go. They can’t hear us now. Let her go. It’s okay. Let her go!”
Boyd hesitated long enough for Alice to wonder if he was actually going to comply or if he was going to choke Rebecca unconscious. If he were to choose the latter, she had no idea what she would do. She had nothing in the way of a weapon. Not a pocketknife, not a nail file, not even pepper spray.
He did let her go. He loosened his legs first, then his arms, but kept his hand across Rebecca’s mouth until he was sure that she was subdued, that she was not going to scream. When he no longer had his hands on her, Rebecca surged toward Alice, throwing her arms around her in a terrified embrace. She sobbed quietly, muffling her cries against Alice’s shoulder.
Over Rebecca’s back, Alice watched Boyd as his breathing slowed. His reptilian eyes met hers. His gaze did not falter. She watched the monster recede, slithering back in its cave. Alice had never felt so alone in all her life. Above her was a highway that would lead her home. She had no plan for getting there beyond climbing the bank and starting her walk.
*
Alice was no stranger to walking. When she felt like she needed to burn off steam, she would sometimes walk the high school track back home; however, she found walking down this road to be an alien experience. Accustomed to driving on roads, the act of walking on a highway didn’t feel right. She expected someone to jump out at her any moment and scream at her to get off the road. Anyone who had ever participated in a 5k run or charity walk had probably felt this. Roads were for driving.
Alice felt very exposed. There were houses within sight and those homes probably had people in them. How would they react to strangers walking by their house? What if they had dogs that chased them? She had not thought out all of these aspects of this journey. Even though they were closer to home, there was still a lot of exposed road between her and home. There was also a lot of danger.
She took the lead in their formation, walking purposefully and taking the longest steps, even though she was the shortest of the three. Boyd and Rebecca lagged a little behind, speaking between themselves in a conversation that was not meant for her ears. She had assumed that whatever bond those two had might have been broken by the incident on the riverbank; however, that appeared not to be the case. Boyd had no doubt spun some justification that Rebecca accepted. He’d probably made himself out to be the hero, saving them all from the soldiers, saving Rebecca from herself.
Over the first hour, they went from walking ten feet apart, to three feet apart, to holding hands. Alice could only shake her head. As a Human Resources person, she had long ago accepted that people as a whole were an inconsistent and disappointing lot. Their capacity to make poor decisions was nearly infinite. She could not forget that Rebecca had been facing her and not Boyd when he was restraining her. Rebecca had not seen his face, had not seen his enjoyment at her helplessness. She wondered if they had saddled themselves with a psychopath. She had seen something there, and it was something dark and deeply troubling.
As the day progressed, the heat quickly became a factor. The surface of the road reflected it back into their faces. Alice could already feel herself getting sunburned. The lack of sunscreen served to remind her of all the other items she didn’t have that they might need. She remembered bitterly that Jim had carried sunscreen in that damned Get Home Bag of his because he’d offered it to her once. That did her no good now, except to reinforce that if she made it home alive she would have her own Get Home Bag next time. She would never be reduced to this level of impotence again.
Each of the stolen Go Bags that they carried had eight water bottles in it. Rebecca had finished one of hers. Boyd had finished two of his already, showing absolutely no restraint. Alice was trying to ration herself to sips and not gulps. She had only used half a bottle and worried about even that. When she’d cracked open her first bottle, she realized that finding fresh water to replace what they drank might not be so easy. She was very aware that she was consuming something she had no means to replace. She didn’t know what natural water was drinkable and what wasn’t. If you spend your whole life drinking from a faucet, you assume that any water coming from it is safe and any water that doesn’t come from it is not safe. She had not planned for the resources they would require to get home beyond the 72 hour bags. This was going to be harder than she imagined.
Alice stopped and sat down on the guardrail. She remained determined, but was overwhelmed at the moment by the way her mind was bombarding her with reminders of her lack of preparedness. She removed her water bottle from her pack, took a sip, and replaced it. Rebecca and Boyd joined her, taking seats on the guardrail as well.
Rebecca wiped her forehead with the tail of her shirt. “How far do you think we’ve walked?”
“Maybe three miles,” Boyd replied.
“How far is it from here?”
“I checked the map at camp yesterday,” Alice said. “It’s around eighty miles to the office.”
Rebecca’s eyes grew large. “Eighty? And we’ve travelled three? How long is this going to take us?”
Alice sighed. “You have the data, I think you can figure that out. I’d like to get twelve miles behind us today. That would get us to Narrows.”
Rebecca took her pack off and tossed it down angrily. “This is going to take forever. At twelve miles a day, it will still take us two weeks to even get to the office. Then we’re still not home.”
Alice was becoming less tolerant of Rebecca. Even as exhausted as she was, walking on her tired feet in the relentless sun was preferable to sitting with her. “We can probably work our way up to twenty miles a day after we get used to it. Jim said that fifteen was easy, but that we could quickly work our way up to more than twenty miles a day.”
Boyd stood and placed his foot on the guardrail to tie his shoe. “If this Jim character was so great why did you guys not go with him? Sounds like he was the man with the plan.”
“Because he was full of shit,” Rebecca spat. “He was paranoid, always planning for the worst case scenario.”
Boyd dropped his foot to the ground, stood up straight and considered Rebecca. “Still sounds like we’d be a hell of a lot better off if we were travelling with Jim.”
Rebecca stood, snatched up her pack, and brushed by Boyd, taking long, angry strides up the center of the road. She stopped once to see if Boyd and Alice were following her. She frowned at them, then turned and kept walking.
