Furies (61 page)
“We’re going to see them right now. Just keep walking, you’re doing great.” After a dozen steps, the ground seemed to swirl around her, she felt her legs give way. Phil stumbled as he caught her, almost dropping the flashlight. “Shit.” He bent down and hoisted her over his shoulder.
She felt chilled now, her head was aching, her mouth was throbbing. Why do we keep moving? I just want to lie down and go to sleep. His shoulder was digging into her stomach, thrusting into it with every step as he walked through the darkness. Somebody said something about a hospital. Did I have an accident? It all felt like a bad dream, images flickering through her throbbing head. I was at the mall. I was talking to somebody in the food court. He said something about a job. He had to get some papers out of his car. Then … suddenly the grey veil lifted, and everything became terribly clear. “Oh God, where am I?”
“Just shut up, do what I say and you’ll be okay.”
Robbie listened, terrified. The smell of him was sickening, sour sweat mixed with alcohol, and something else, something ghastly, like rotted meat, like death. He kidnapped me, oh God, he’s going to rape me, or murder me. I have to get away, just punch him, kick him, run away, go back to the road, or deeper into the forest. It’s dark, he couldn’t find me, I could hide there until morning, then I could get away, flag down a car, call my parents …
They stopped moving. Lindsay’s breathing was heavy, gasping.
“Please let me go,” she whimpered, “I don’t want to …” She felt herself falling, felt the earth blindly rushing up at her, she cried out, tried to reach out her hands to slow herself but she wasn’t fast enough. A thick wall of pain exploded through her, shattering against the most painful parts of her body, her head, her mouth, casting her back into the numb darkness.
Robbie awoke again. It felt like hours had passed, it might only have been minutes. Where am I? She smelled the sharp deadness of the earth, like worms and rotting leaves. She saw that she was in a hollow of a dense, dark forest. The moon was high, lighting up the tree line that lined the broken hills climbing up into the cold black sky. Where is he? Where’s Phil? I can’t hear him anywhere. Maybe he’s gone, maybe now I can get away, just crawl into the forest and hide, he’ll never find me, not out there.
She tried to sit up, but the pain was so intense, worse than before, she felt like she was going to pass out again. Oh God, what should I do? All thoughts of running away now seemed hopeless. She was shivering so badly her teeth chattered, her whole body shook. “Please,” she called. “Somebody please help me.” There was no answer. Please, I don’t want to die. Please God, help me …
Robbie awoke to the sound of something moving next to her. She turned her head towards it, her head ringing, the roar of blood in her ears. Two eyes looked back at her from only a few feet away. A mirror. I’m looking at a mirror. But why … the girl in the mirror had short, dark hair. It isn’t me at all, it’s someone else, another girl, her eyes are so dark, and the look in those eyes, so filled with despair, with fear, with pain. The other girl closed her eyes, a tear coursing down her cheek.
And Robbie started to scream.
October 21st, 2005
Chalk Valley – 20:00h
The brief rainstorm had dissipated, the thunder had rumbled to an end, the fat, dark smears of storm clouds curled back like a bruised lip across the moonlit horizon. The rain had left the yellow field grass damp and flattened against the ground. Bluebottle flies stirred from the blades of grass, drawn to the sound of the boys’ footsteps and the traces of rank perfume of what lay in the valley below. The beams of their flashlights bobbed in front of them as they walked, sweeping over the brush alongside the path as they searched for firewood. Any wood sitting out in the open was now too damp to burn, so the boys moved deeper into the forest. The flies had been bad enough in the open, but in the thick of the forest they were bloodthirsty, swarming in from all around and descending on the new arrivals.
The teenagers were already partly stoned from the drive up, so they just laughed and swatted the flies away. One boy stepped off the path where the ground was soft and slick and his foot slipped. The second boy laughed as his friend skidded down the muddy slope of the ridge towards the river before he came to a crashing halt at the bottom of the ridge after finally managing to grab onto a tree root. He was covered in black mud and was laughing almost as hard as his friend.
He smelled something that stopped him, a putrid, rotted stench that made him catch his breath. Goddamn, what is that …? He heard the high pitched whine of a deerfly dive-bombing in behind his ear, then two more as they attacked the back of his neck. He turned to run up the slope, then saw his flashlight lying on the ground a few feet away, its beam weak and flickering. He bent to pick it up, nearly gagging from the stench. The flashlight died. Damn, c’mon bitch! He shook it. Nothing. He smacked it hard against the heel of his hand. It flickered to life again, its beam casting a white pool of light on the ground. There was something odd there - like a white chalk drawing of a person on the black mud. The white line was moving. No. It was churning. When he took a closer look, he realized that the line was actually hundreds, maybe thousands of glistening white maggots, each one the size of his baby finger tip, all squirming and wriggling beneath the light around what appeared to be the remains of a human body. Its ravaged, leathery skin was alive with flies that rose in a dark buzzing cloud as the boy stumbled backwards, before they settled back down again. The body was face down, the skull turned partly to the side, the single exposed eye socket was empty and dark, crawling with small red ants, its mouth wide open in a silent shriek.
The boy screamed out loud.
Highway 1, Blind River, BC - 20:30h
The twin beams of Dave Kreaver’s headlights converged before him, cutting a broad white swath through the darkness of the road ahead. The air was filled with the sweet, slightly rancid wet cedar smell from the lumber mills that lined the river’s edge. A pair of headlights appeared in his rear-view mirror as tiny pinpricks of light. Eighteen wheelers ground past him in the oncoming lanes, gearing down in lumbering echoes as they descended the hill, their loads swaying across the orange dividing line as they rushed along the highway just slightly out of control. The headlights in his rear-view mirror were now the size of dimes. The little towns along the Fraser all seem the same these days, Kreaver thought. Whatever unique characters and charm they once possessed had eroded over the past decade, diluted into an amorphous sameness of neon signs for the Costcos, Futureshops, Save-On-Foods, Tim Hortons and Subways that now lit the edges of every town that mushroomed along the highway.
The headlights in his mirror had swelled to the size of quarters. Slow it down, buddy, he thought. The lights quickly flooded the mirror, making Kreaver squint. It appeared to be a truck or van. He watched in the mirror as the vehicle swerved over the median behind him as though to pass, then back onto the gravel shoulder, spewing up a cloud of dust, before swaying back onto the asphalt and straddling the median. Kreaver checked his brakes as the light coloured van then moved up alongside him clocking at what had to be a hundred and fifty klicks an hour. The van’s windows were dark, making it impossible for Kreaver to see the driver’s face until it was lit by the headlights of an oncoming truck. The driver wasn’t even watching the road, he was looking down at something beside him, a map, or more likely reaching for another six-pack of Molson’s. Kreaver didn’t care what the other driver was doing at the moment, he just wanted to be clear of this van, all of his senses were on full alert like mini alarm bells going off inside of him. The van swayed towards him again.
“Fuck you,” Kreaver growled, checking his brakes. The van shot in front of him and rode off the asphalt up onto the shoulder again, tossing up another cloud of dust. The truck in the oncoming lane roared past them, blaring its horn. Kreaver gritted his jaw, pressed hard on the brakes, the tires squealed underneath him and his car shimmied but held. The van kept moving onto the shoulder then off the road, sending up a shower of yellow-orange sparks as its bottom scraped up over the gravel. Only then did the driver seem to realize what was happening and try to slow down, but the van’s backend swept out to the side. It would have rolled over if its tail end hadn’t clipped a stand of poplars first. The van’s inertia made it spin out on the gravel, until it finally shuddered and stalled.
“Goddamn.” Kreaver pulled over onto the side of the road about twenty feet behind the van. His heart pounding, he flicked on his hazard lights and climbed out of the car. He hesitated for a second, then decided to leave his gun behind. He left his headlights on, the car alarm pinging in protest as he shut the door. No movement from anyone in the van ahead. He called 9-1-1 on his cellphone. The operator promised to send someone out within ten minutes. Kreaver sniffed the cool evening air, no smell of gasoline yet, a good sign. He was within six feet of the van when he heard the engine trying to turn over, resulting in nothing but a dying series of metallic groans and clicks. The driver’s door opened with a sharp creak and a man staggered out, his hand held to his head, and kicked the side of the van.
“Hey. Hey! Just what in hell were you trying to do?” Kreaver asked.
The other man just stood there in the white banner of light cast by the headlights, wavering on his feet, his expression blank as he stared at Kreaver. Probably in shock. Or drunk. Or both. He was average height and weight, with dark hair and a lean, pale face. His eyes were unusual, however, almost black, and wide with rage. Kreaver instinctively stepped back, half-thinking that the man was going to try something, and found himself wishing he’d brought his gun afterall. The man blinked, the anger lifting like a veil. “Oh sweet Jesus. What happened?”
“You had a little accident. Are you alright?”
The man paused, still blinking. “Yeah, yeah thank God. I … I can’t start my car.”
“No kidding. I think what we need is a tow truck, and maybe an ambulance for you.”
The man shook his head, stepping closer to Kreaver. “No, I’m okay, thanks though, I appreciate your concern.” He smiled and offered his hand. “My name’s Phil.” Kreaver shook his hand and took a closer look at him. The man’s eyes were rimmed with red, his breath was sour. No question he’d been drinking.
“I’m Dave Kreaver.” He noticed something in the shadows within the van. “You got a passenger in the vehicle?”
Phil smiled. “Yeah, my niece. She’s okay, she was asleep.”
“She slept through that? Let’s see how she’s doing, okay?”
“You know, really, she’s okay. If you can just help me get the van started, or —”
Kreaver walked over to the van and peered through the tinted window. A young girl maybe fifteen, sixteen, pretty face, short brown hair, sat in the passenger seat. She looked unconscious. He tried the passenger side door, but it wouldn’t budge. Locked. “I think she might be injured.”
“Oh Jeez, really? Maybe I better get her to a hospital.”
Kreaver went around to the driver’s side door, wishing he had his flashlight. Another car approached, slowing as it came near them. Then the roof lights came on, spinning like circus tops, a cop car. “Fuck,” Phil said under his breath. He put his hands in his pockets, pulled out some cigarettes, offered the package to Kreaver, who shook his head.
“Not a good idea right now. Your gas tank might have ruptured.”
“Yeah, okay.” Phil’s hands trembled as he put the cigarettes away. He seemed nervous all of a sudden.
The police got out of their cruiser. One of them, a woman, shone her flashlight on the scene. “Hi. Everybody okay?”
Phil smiled. “Yeah, we just had a little accident, Officer, nobody’s hurt thank God. We’ll let the insurance companies settle things. I just need a boost if you could —”
The policewoman shone her flashlight first in Phil’s face, then in Kreaver’s. “Hey Sarge.”