Darrel Curtis sat behind the wheel of his rickety, old Dodge, the engine roaring in his ears, the cab bouncing up and down against the rough asphalt beneath the tires. Outside the speeding vehicle, cold, icy rain slashed against the windshield. A mixture of the heat emanating out of the small vents, the white noise buzzing in his ears, and a lack of a proper night's rest for the fourth night in a row threatened to send the young man to sleep.
"Stay awake, Curtis," Darry muttered to himself.
It was the same story every week. Five days a week he roofed houses. Four nights a week he worked the graveyard shift at the rail yard. Both were hard jobs that required a large amount of energy. An eight hour shift doing either would send the fittest young man into a deep sleep at night. But Darry could not sleep. He got home from the rail yard with just enough time to clean up, grab some breakfast, and head to his next job. He got home from roofing houses at about four in the afternoon. He'd grab a few hours of sleep, eat dinner with his brothers, and then head out for his night's fill of work.
It was Friday today, the best and worst day at the same time. The good news was that at the conclusion of his day of roofing houses, he would get to come home and sleep all weekend if that's what suited him. It was the hardest day because a whole week's worth of getting nearly no sleep wanted to put him into dreamland in inopportune places, like on the roof of a two story house.
Darry hated being this tired. He found he could fight it after a while. A burst of adrenalin would course through his body every now and again. And he always brought along a thermos of coffee, strong and black, to drink as we worked his shifts. No, it wasn't the urge to sleep that brought him down. He just didn't like how he felt drunk or high after being sleep deprived for several days.
He felt funny now. Everything seemed incredibly funny, like how he lived in the state of Oklahoma, which abbreviated to OK.
"OK… that's funny," Darry muttered.
But then he shook his head. He lived in the state of OK, but things weren't always okay. Suddenly, his thoughts turned to his parents, how they were killed less than a year ago in an automobile accident. He thought of his father in particular, of how close they'd been, of how much they looked alike, of how much dad was proud of his eldest boy. A few tears trickled down Darry's face. He hurriedly wiped them away. He hated being tired! It made him too damn emotional.
And now, to make matters worse, his eyes were playing tricks on him. Ahead of him, sitting in the middle of the road, was a wingless angel. She sat on her knees in the orange glow of a streetlight, her back towards the speeding vehicle. Darry wasn't sure why he would hallucinate an angel. He had gone to church when his parents were alive, but he wasn't particularly religious now. Maybe he was subconscious was trying to guilt trip him. He revved up the engine, his foot pressing hard against the accelerator. He wanted to run that angel down. She didn't even exist after all.
As Darry approached the apparition, he expected her to disappear or fly away or something. But she didn't do any of those. Darry frowned hard. He had had hallucinations before, fleeting little insubstantial entities that went away as quickly as they appeared. But this one was different. She was a solid figure. Her shape didn't transform or bend. And when Darry closed his eyes and opened them, she sat in the same spot, unchanged, the rain beating relentlessly on her back.
She was real.
The realization couldn't have come sooner. Darry slammed on the breaks, swerving into the next lane, empty because it was the middle of the night. The car came to a screeching halt, and Darry stumbled out, breathing heavily into the icy air, suddenly very much awake.
"Jesus, lady!" Darry called into the air, his breath coming out in icy puffs.
He began walking towards the girl, his mouth turned up into a scowl. She could have caused a major accident, sitting like that in the middle of the road. But Darry felt the scowl begin to relax as he approached the girl. First of all, she was small, just a little kid. Second of all, there was blood, rusty swirls swimming through the rain water. For a minute, Darry's heart skipped a beat as the thought entered his head that maybe he did hit her after all.
The girl raised her head. Darry couldn't see her face because her thick, long dark hair covered it. With a shaking hand, the girl brushed the strands away.
"Christ," Darry swore under his breath.
Immediately, Darry was taken back to the day he found a member of his gang, Johnny, beat up, bleeding on the grass. His face was a mass of cuts and bruises. This girl looked similar, with a long four inch gash on her forehead.
"Are you all right?" Darry asked.
"I hurt," she whimpered.
It was raining, but Darry suspected that some of those droplets were tears. The girl wore only a white nightgown. She had her arms huddled to her chest, trying to keep the warmth in. Suddenly thinking clearly, Darry ripped his own coat off his body and draped it around the girl. Darry guessed her to be about twelve or thirteen. Who would beat up a little girl?
"Hey, we gotta get outta the middle of the road," Darry whispered. He reached out for the girl, but the child flinched away from his touch.
"I ain't gonna hurt you," Darry muttered. "I almost hit you. The next person along might kill ya."
Darry helped the girl up, and because he didn't know what else to do, he brought her to his truck. He opened the passenger side and helped her inside before taking his seat in the driver's seat.
"Who hurt you?" Darry asked.
The girl gripped Darry's jacket, hugging it tighter around her shoulders. She said nothing.
"I'll drive you home," Darry replied to the silence. "Just tell me where to turn."
"Take the right at the stop sign," the girl breathed. She had a small, whispery voice. She sounded scared.
"What's your name?" Darry asked. He stopped at the intersection, looked both ways, and then turned right.
"Molly," she replied.
"That's a very nice name," Darry smiled. "My name's Darry."
He turned to her and smiled warmly. She turned away.
"Where do I turn now?"
"Take another right on Sycamore. That's my street."
They were now on the street where Darry lived. He wasn't on a first name basis with all his neighbors, but he liked to think he could identify them all by face.
"Just tell me which house."
They were driving in the direction of the Curtis house, but instead of passing it, Molly pointed to it.
"I live it here."
Darry stopped the car and put it in park.
"You live here?" Darry asked, humoring the girl.
"Yes, I do."
Darry frowned. He couldn't tell if the girl was lying or confused. Who knows if the fall that gave her that gash addled her brain?
"This can't be your house."
"Why not?"
"Because this is where I live."
Molly looked down.
"Oh," she whispered.
"Just tell me where you live. I promise, I ain't gonna hurt you or nothin."
"It ain't you I'm worried about." She looked up at Darry with the bluest eyes he had ever seen. "Please, don't make me go home."
Suddenly, Darry thought of Johnny again, of how his parents beat him, how he always had that defeated look in his eyes.
"Ain't there another place I could take you?" Darry asked. "Maybe a friend's house?"
"No," Molly replied. The word came out clipped as a chocked sob burst through her lips.
There were people Darry could have called, places he could have taken the girl. But he would have been late for work, which would be another demerit, which might mean losing his job.
"Look," Darry started. "Why don't you just come in? You can get some sleep and we can talk about it in the morning. Okay?"
Molly looked uneasily up at Darry. The man could see the copious amounts of blood, caked into her dark hair, smeared onto her cheeks, obscuring, but not completely covering, the fresh purple bruises. The white nightgown, underneath his coat, revealed deep red patches of blood. He had never seen a sorrier looking child. Someone had severely hurt her.
"I ain't gonna hurt you," he said again, dropping his voice to a soothing whisper. "You don't have to come in if you don't want to, but it's very cold out here. You're gonna die of frost bite if you don't."
Molly nodded her head once, biting down on her lip.
Darry killed the engine before getting out of the car and helping Molly out. She limped to the front door. Darry saw that she wore no shoes, the bottoms of her feet bleeding freely. As he opened the unlocked door, he was tempted to get towels so the girl wouldn't drip all over the floor. Instead, he walked straight to the bathroom and began drawing a hot bath. From the linen closet he took out a towel, a wash cloth, and a pair of Pony's old pinstriped pajamas that he long outgrown.
"You can clean up in the bathroom," Darry said as he exited the steaming room. "I laid some clothes out for you."
Molly nodded once before limping to the bathroom. She left a trail of water and blood in her wake. Darry just shook his head before going into his own room to get ready for his next job. Usually, he liked a shower before work, but since the bathroom was already occupied, he was content with a dry, fresh change of clothes. When he was clad in a dry pair of long underwear, jeans, flannel shirt, and jacket, he located the first aid kit in his room and went to put a pot of coffee on.
He was drinking a cup, black, in the living room when Molly emerged from the bathroom clad in the old pajamas. She looked even younger and pathetic now, wearing those oversized clothes, the sleeves covering her hands, the pants bunching up around her ankles. All the blood was gone from her face now, revealing the full extent of her injuries, including the congealed gash on her forehead.
"Does it hurt?" Darry asked.
Molly put a small hand up to her face, gingerly touching a bruise on her cheek. She nodded once before shaking her head.
"It feels kind of numb," she replied softly.
Darry patted the spot next to him on the overstuffed sofa. Molly hesitated only slightly before sitting down next to him. She watched as the man besides her took out a bottle of rubbing alcohol and some gauze. He wetted the gauze before lightly dabbing at her forehead. She flinched away as it began to sting.
"I know it hurts," Darry muttered. "But it's gonna get infected if I don't clean it real well."
Molly sat still, cringing only slightly as Darry finished cleaning the wound, fixing a bandage around the top of her head.
"Lemme see your feet," Darry asked once her forehead had been tended to.
As Molly raised her feet, Darry inhaled a gust of air between his teeth. It looked like she had skidded on asphalt, whole flaps of skin pulled away from her body. Darry found a delicate pair of medical scissors in the first aid kit and began to gently cut away the loose skin. He rubbed them with alcohol before bandaging them up.
"Any other cuts?" Darry asked.
Molly nodded before gently lifting up her shirt.
"Shit," Darry swore and immediately wished he hadn't for Molly cringed at the rough language.
Molly's stomach was even worse than her face. The bruises were in various stages of healing, which told Darry that the little girl before him had a history of being beat. In addition to the internal injuries, a large cut spanned from her sternum all the way down past her navel. It looked superficial, though, cutting through only the top layers of skin. He cleaned it up, but didn't think it needed any bandaging.
"Are you hungry?" Darry asked as he tugged down the girl's shirt. "Tired?"
"Just tired," Molly replied.
"Well, I have to get to work. You can sleep on the couch." Darry walked to the linen closet near the bathroom and found a few blankets and an extra pillow. "Here are some blankets and a pillow."
Darry walked back in the room only to find that Molly had already fallen asleep. He spread the blankets over her small body, leaving the pillow on the floor besides her. If she wanted, she'd wake up and it'd be there.
Darry gave the girl an uneasy smiled before walking out the door, getting in his car, and driving to work.