Chapter 4: Release
It was summer in New Mexico and I was six. By the way sunlight spilled in horizontal beams over everything, bringing along with it a sluggish, slow sleep, it was late afternoon. Heat waves bubbled up from the black pavement and the houses across the road shimmered and shook, the heat distorting color and light. Sweat clung to my small back, and the hot liquid ran from my forehead, rolling and splattering on the sidewalk. The hot air stifled life, sucking the marrow of it until everything under the sun was dry and cracked, dead. It even had the power to kill time; for in that moment outside of my house in New Mexico, nothing moved. Nothing stirred or turned. With the sun trapping them, making them drowsy and tired, while they were unguarded, the heat would slowly burn them, shriveling away at skin and grass. The world was caught in a fiery cage of gold and time stopped.
And yet, against all odds, against normality and what should be, something did move. It slithered along concrete, and oozing and sliding, it ran red against my white shoe. I followed the trail of blood from my shoe to Corwin. He was six and three fourths and he never let me forget that. He was lying face down on the concrete, his head lying oddly against the bump in the sidewalk, his shaggy sandy-blonde hair covering his round baby face. The red rubber ball from our four-square game had stopped bouncing and had rolled next to my mother's white house. There was a smudge on it, a darker red than the rest of the ball and very similar to the red that had stained my shoes.
"Corwin?" I asked, again abnormally breaking the spell of the afternoon heat and sun.
He didn't move.
"Corwin, pick up the ball and lets play."
I didn't know why I was crying but the sight of blood, his blood, told me something was wrong. He had never played this game with me and I didn't understand why he was doing it now.
"Lets play. Come on. Pick up the ball."
Behind me I heard the screen door open and women voices echoed, like a stone drop in an eternally black ominous cave. They also broke the rule.
"Reid, Corwin, come in for dinner." My mother called. She saw me standing in the driveway, tears pouring down from my face.
"Honey, what's wrong?" My mother was immediately on edge. She bounded down the steps, the wine glass in her hands shattering on the deck as she threw it down. Corwin's mother followed.
"Dear, where's Corwin?" She asked. "Where is-,"
And she screamed. Mom pulled me up into her arms, twisting and trying to hide me from the scene. But my eyes still watched over her shoulder. Corwin's mother was clutching her son to her chest, sobbing and shaking, cursing and crying. She buried her face in his chest and continued to rock back and forth, her wails bringing the neighbors from their houses.
"Don't look, baby," Mom whispered in my ear and out of the corner of my eye, I saw she still couldn't tear herself away.
"Mom, why won't he pick up the ball?"
The woman at the end of the driveway continued to weep and howl, the noise cutting places into my tiny heart I didn't know I had. Neighbors rushed out, one on a cell phone. Corwin's mother pushed away his hair, showing the small plump face that I had come to recognize over several years. I remember his eyes being a brown that made you think of rising cookie dough: gooey and sweet. Now I knew I would never see that sparkled happiness in them again. Because they would never open again. His always-pink cheeks were thin and pale, lank and dry as his hair. The afternoon had drained him of life. The afternoon had won.
Later that night, Mom was packing. I sat in her bed, my favorite pillow behind my head and a cup of warm chocolate in my hands while she moved from room to room, putting things into suitcases and boxes.
"Mama, why did Mrs. Mavis yell at you so much?" I asked.
"She is upset at God and took out her anger on me."
"Why?"
"She wants someone to blame for a mistake. For an accident."
"Mama, what if it wasn't an accident?"
She froze and looked over at me, her expression mingling between horror and surprise.
"What do you mean?"
"Is Corwin in a better place?"
"Yes, honey, he's with God. Now what this about not being an accident?"
She crossed the room in a few quick strides, taking the untouched hot chocolate from my freckled hands and put it on the bedside table. "I will always love you, no matter what happens. But you've got to be truthful. What happened outside?"
My throat felt the razor edge of tears and again, the cause of the tears weren't clear.
"Corwin, he cheated at two-square. He did a cherry bomb when the rules definitely said you couldn't!" I squeaked. "But then I got mad. Real mad. I said I'd smush his face in and he fell over. And then I threw the ball in his face. His head turned on the bump in the sidewalk, like he heard a noise, 'cuz it moved really fast and then there was a pop kind of thing. Like when you step on a twig or a red leaf. And then blood got on my shoe."
When I looked up from my shaking hands, I could not read my mother's face. She only stared, but everything, in a word, was closed. Her eyes were blank and her lips were tight, although a muscle had not moved to make her face this way. That face was emblazoned in my memory forever and in time I had managed to make my own version of that face. But there, as a child, it was the scariest thing I had ever seen my mother do.
"Am I the one Mrs. Mavis wants to blame?" I asked after a long silence.
My voice made my mother stir. Her eyes came back to life and her mouth curved upwards. She kissed my forehead, lingering there in reassurance and then shook her head.
"No," my mother said gently. "She still has no one to blame. Her anger is between herself and God."
She kissed me again and resumed her packing. The very next day we left with everything that could fit in our car and were gone, leaving for Manhattan New York, in a puff of black exhaust that clouded any hope of looking back.
*~*~*
The trip to the hospital was remembered in flashes.
Someone was checking my pulse and shouting very slowly, "She's alive."
Then the ground was falling out from below as people in blue lifted me somewhere. There was muttering and other sounds and I knew there was a crowd forming. After a long period of darkness, I saw people shoving needles into my arms, one very scared looking man holding electric paddles, watching my heart beat. Then, there was a white light and a steady beeping, and I felt my eyebrow being pulled at, then my cheek and my upper and bottom lip, all on the same side of my face. The light grew brighter until I couldn't see anything and it hurt to open my eyes.
And then rushing stopped.
The only other sound besides my shallow breathing was the harsh beeping of a heart rate monitor, confirming that the person to whom it connected was alive. I opened my eyes to a dimly lit hospital room. A feeble glow from a florescent bulb was the only light source, companied by a few streaks of hallway light that escaped under the door. I flexed my fingers, then moved my arms. Pain was thrumming through me like oil in a car.
My mother had told everyone that the death of Corwin L. Mavis was so traumatic we had to move or I'd go insane. That was partly correct because for weeks after the incident, I was nearly catatonic. And that was two thousand miles away. It was absurd that anyone would suspect a six year old of manslaughter but evidence was stacking up against me, which was probably another reason why my mother took everything and us, and left for Manhattan. I hadn't thought about that day in years, which was part of the brilliant plan devised by my mother, seemingly bullet-proof until the murderer wanted another lick of death, which was probably something she didn't consider.
If she was alive, she would know exactly what to say. How to make it better. But could she even look at me? The incident fifteen years ago was most likely an accident, but this. This was something else. I wanted her dead. I wanted her gone, away from me forever. And the wish came true.
I killed Ani Clark.
Had her body been found yet? Was I a suspect? How could I not be? I was in twenty feet of her body and her blood covered me. Were the cops waiting until I awoke to start questioning me? Or were the doctors keeping them away until I recovered completely? The air around me was heavy and thick, pressing me into the bed and clogging my lungs. Did Dina know? If she didn't, she would soon. Would she vouch for me in court? Or would she be happy if I went to prison? I would finally get the "help" I needed. And, she wouldn't have to deal with the delinquent that is ruining the community. No more embarrassing nightly drop-offs. No more cops telling her what to do. She could live her life without housing a criminal.
With that, I decided. I was going to leave Manhattan, and never come back. No one wanted me here and I didn't want them. I didn't need anyone. If I got far enough away, the cops would never find me. Somewhere, away, I would start a new life. Forget my old name, the old people, the old places that made up Reid Robinson.
I sat up from the bed and pulled the IV out of my arm, the clip off of my finger and slipped onto the floor. Immediately the monitors next to me started going haywire and a large black lump in the corner of the room that I hadn't noticed before jerked and I jumped back, startled.
"Where are you going?" The voice was not at all groggy, but firm and harsh. It was Dina.
"I'm leaving. I don't need a hospital to get better."
"Why did you have a gun? From what the police told me, you were near a bridge when they found you. What, Reid, were you going to do?"
My hand stopped on the handle and I glanced back over my shoulder as Dina stepped into the light. She was horribly pale. Purple bags of skin lapped under her eyes and her nose was bright red. There was a glassing covering to her eyes. Someone could say she was sick, but I knew better. She had been crying, and hard. She walked in front of me, quickly sliding over the door.
"Nothing. I need to leave."
"No, you are going to stay," Dina snarled and for the first time in years I felt the blush of childish obedience. "You were hit by a goddamn car!"
I've done something worse. Something much, much worse. If I tell you, you're going to wish I was dead.
She would never let me go willingly but she'll hear news reports, and then eventually she will put two and two together. As much as I hated it, Dina is not a stupid woman. I should be long gone by then, but the trick is getting there first.
"Back off." I let all the hate and pain and anger over the past eleven years rise to the surface, concentrating it all into my face. For a moment, Dina looked repulsed by what she saw. A knot was forming in my throat, making my stomach sick. This was the last time I would see Dina and I knew what I had to do. "Leave me alone. You can't tell me what to do and never could."
Dina stared but I refuse to meet her glance head on.
"You'll never make it out." She said as though I hadn't spoken. "You're at risk-" I grabbed a dumpy arm and shoved her sideways, and stormed through the door.
A whirling alarm went off. Two guards appeared at the end of the hallway, walking very slowly towards me.
"Come on, ma'am, lets get you back to your room," one said. I saw the glint of a needle and a syringe behind the other's back.
"Everything will be alright."
I stared at them momentarily before turning and launching myself down the other hallway. They immediately broke out into sprints after me but I was simply too fast. But run I still did. Patients stared out of their windows to watch as I jogged lightly past, followed two guards in white coming by a few seconds later. I turned down a hall, the florescent lights bright and glaring but giving the impression of a heavy blackness on its way. As door upon door went by, I finally saw something that made me slow down and stop. A white door, discreetly placed between two restroom signs, that read, "Possessions".
Curious and unperturbed that two large men were chasing after me, I opened the door and slid inside. There were metal racks and bags with various things inside of them. It looked to be alphabetical. I found R and sure enough, there in the back lay my jeans, boots, shirt and jacket. The jeans felt good and secure around my legs and the jacket smelled of Manhattan, the city I was leaving behind. As I finally zipped up the last boot, a problem arose and it would require some major thinking to solve. I had no money, no car, the last paycheck from the Bonanza the only source of cab fair and food. Usually, half of that money would go in as rent, but since I hadn't paid the landlord yet, I had about $300. That would get me maybe to Maryland, or Rhode Island. From then I would need a cab but a cab won't take me cross-country. How far could $300 get me passed the border?
Feeling as though something very hard and solid was approaching at a terrifying speed, I reached back into the plastic bag that held my clothes. The Magnum that I had bought earlier that day was readjusted into the back of my jeans and seeing an air vent, I popped it open and crawled through.
The air vent led out to the back of the morgue. I kicked out the door and started out towards my apartment.
*~*~*
It was getting dark, and car after car passed by me. Why wasn't I flinching every time a noise popped behind me? Why wasn't I terrified that I would be found? Inside my mind, it was cold and thick and slow, the lethargic feeling drugging my brain into submission. From there, idiotic calm spread to my fingers and feet, making me walk as though in a fog. All I could see was Ani's beautiful face tarnished by blood and her eyes wildly and oddly hungry. That only made me slow even more, but by instinct I continued on. The world around me was dully loud as though cotton balls were shoved into my ears and now the steady beat of my own heart was all I heard.
The drunken shell encased around me was only dumbly shaken when I arrived at my apartment. It was a classic three-floored, brick-walled building with concrete stairs and sliding-down ladders on the sides. My hands found keys somewhere on my person, unlocked the rusted lock and I stumbled through. The hanging lights appeared to be eyes, scrutinizing me and immediately knowing my sins. They shook their bulbs disapprovingly as my leaded feet pulled themselves up the stairs.
My apartment door was unlocked and even that received no reaction from my deadpanned face. As I reached for the light switch, my thumb scratched the chipped wood and a splinter jabbed its way into my hand. The pain made that deadly fog flicker, as though I was waking up from a deep sleep, and in surprise and shock, my legs tangled in each other and I fell over. Pain was pounding into my hand and huge tears welled up into my eyes and poured down my pale face. A sob burst through my throat and I gasped, a feeling besides pain wracking through my body. It was a disgusting feeling, gross and sticky and sickly. I started to shiver, the poison eating my very skin away. I wanted to claw my eyes out of my head, tear my flesh from my bones and pull my hair from my scalp, leaving that bleeding, bruised self far behind and be someone completely new. Guilt from taking a human life, sending a human soul to heaven or hell before it was their time was going to be my demise. Suicide was a coward's way out, a permanent problem to a temporary solution: that's what Dina had always said and I had always believed her. But now death, that pure empty blackness from which nothing returns, sounded like absolute paradise.
The Magnum felt warm against my back, like a comforting hand of a friend. I peeled away the skin on my hand to reveal the splinter in the center of my palm. My nails were bloody, and fresh blood was pouring out of the gash in my hand, but I continued to claw away the flesh. Suddenly the pain lessened and I saw in the drop of blood at the end of my elbow the thick wooden dagger. No, suicide wasn't the answer but staying here wasn't it either.
*~*~*
It was reaching midnight when I left the apartment, a note to Dina on my bed with the keys folded inside. A long thick black coat swished around my ankles and finally I hooked up the last button that hung above my knees. That was the only thing I changed before I left the apartment. Though I only took a variety of clothes and a few toiletries, I didn't change out of my torn and bloody wardrobe. The blood from the splinter still remained on my skin under the long black arm of the coat.
The bus station was always open and there was only one young girl manning the window. Her bright blue hair covered her face and I shoved her arm with my good hand, shaking her awake.
"What? I'm not sleeping," She grumbled, her eyes still bleary with sleep, before giving me a truly ugly glare. I returned with one of my own, and her eyes narrowed before she jostled the computer's mouse beside her. "What do you need?"
"What's the farthest place away from here for the cheapest?"
A thin eyebrow jumped but she didn't look away from the screen as she typed in something to the keyboard.
"A bus for Kankakee, Illinois leaves in two hours for $175."
There goes more than half of my money.
"Great. I'll take it."
A small ticket jutted out from a yellowing box inside the ticket booth as I handed her the money. The girl's painted nails snatched the ticket and handed it to me under the small opening in the window. I reached for it but suddenly the girl pulled it back, a curious glare on her face.
"Where are you going at midnight, and willing to wait two hours for a bus to go to the middle of nowhere?" Her eyes narrowed, a testing edge to them.
"Why are stupid nosy gothic-posers always asking me that?" I snarled and snatched the ticket out of her hand. "Oh, that's right, because some people have real jobs and leave the rest to the high school drop outs."
Anger flexing inside of me like fire, I stormed off in the other direction and waited inside of the glass-cased seat. The inside was covered with gum and torn posters of worn-out rock bands and independent slogans. I glared forcefully at each of them, the gym bag in my hands clutched tightly to my chest. The dark outside was shifting slightly due to the muck on the glass windows and my eyes narrowed, angry that for once nothing could be still and quiet. A wind was shoving a paper cup along the road in front of me, the glass cutting me off from the cool breeze but sending a soft whistling into my ears. I looked up and saw that the girl in the booth was gone. The whistling continued. A street lamp above me glittered, a buzzing sound echoing in the night as the wires kept trying to connect. Finally, the light went out and the buzzing stopped. The whistle from outside grew louder and the cup was thrown forcefully into a wall and crumpled. Now in complete darkness and surrounded by a haunting wind, I got up and started to walk off towards the next light. That light failed and so I turned back towards the station but one by one, the lights outside flickered off, the only light coming from the booth. The girl still hadn't returned.
The booth was too far away and as I stood in the dark, it seemed to get farther away. A cold rush ripped up my back, the pain in my shoulder giving off a slight twinge. Suddenly, I realized that the dirt did not cause the moving shadows seen inside of the glass-case: the shadows were moving because they weren't shadows of stationary things, they were black lumps in the dark moving towards me. Thankful that I wasn't engulfed by the wave of awareness, I started to race into an empty lot outside of the bus station. The bare shrubs slowly grew up into trees, the dark around me getting thicker and heavier as I raced farther and farther away from the bus station.
Now I was panting, sweat dripping down my back and the cold air sharpening itself against the insides of my lungs. I couldn't tell what exactly was following me but with the past couple of days being the way they were, I was fairly sure it was either my stalker or the black vortex Abyss. Either way, my lungs would catch on fire before I stopped. My foot caught on a hand-like root and I tumbled out onto an empty field. The city was far behind me, the buildings glittering like watching bystanders to a murder. The Hudson River lapped up onto the shore beside me. It twisted and shivered like a greedy snake waiting to devour another body.
Throwing my bag to the ground, I felt the blood rushing in my ears and my scarred hands were clenched into fists, partly readying myself for a fight and also to stop them from shaking.
"I'm ready for you!" I heard myself shout, turning my attention back towards the edge of the trees. They sat; ominously still and black like an eternally thick veil, they were waiting to reveal the horror that stood in their dark shroud.
"Come on out and fight me. You don't scare me anymore!" My voice stayed calm and firm, glinting with ferocity as sharp as a knife, yet my heart was beating erratically. If something didn't try and kill me soon, I would die of an uninteresting heart attack.
Silence followed my challenges and the moon, the river and the city looked from the trees to me and back to the trees, all knowing of what was to come and simply excited to see the events play out in live time. I, however, refused to look away from the trees.
A wind waved across the field I stood in, ruffling my hair and I jostled my head slightly to remove the strand of bright red hair blocking my vision.
In that fraction of a second, the trees parted slightly and a dark shadow leapt from them and moving with inhuman speeds, it tackled me to the ground and hissed violently in my ear.
Fear erupted in my veins and locked my elbows as I fought it back. A scream bounded into my throat but I kept in down with a gasp. As though the thing sensed my fear, it snarled and hissed and growled. Its claws or paws had a steel grip around my shoulders and in a fleeting moment, I realized it was going for my neck, just as Ani had. Instinctually, one of my booted feet came up and kicked it directly in the chest. It flew over me and I leapt forward, rolling, trying to create as much space between it and I. As I rolled, something hard pressed into my back and the permanent solution became clear once again. My feet hit the ground and, faster than I believed possible, my hand pulled the gun from my jeans, unlocked the trigger and I spun around to aim.
The thing was already back on its feet and coming towards me by the time I turned around. Before giving them permission, my fingers that were coupled around the trigger squeezed. The bullet exploded from the barrel and drove straight home. The deafening sound of a gunshot shattered the silence and the three onlookers glanced away, knowing what was to come next, the horrible shock reaching them only seconds before it hit me like a truck.
Moonlight wrapped the figure in light, the moon feeling sorry for the doomed creature, for as it stood wobbling on all fours, I could see that it was human. A young man with unbelievably bright blonde hair was shaking as blood poured onto the ground. A frightfully white hand reached up to the wound and then the victim's face looked up at me. He had a sharp nose, a large jagged scar that raced up his left eyebrow and the most angular jaw line and cheeks I've ever seen on a person. But his two electric blue eyes sat surprised and shocked in his head. Traces of odd playfulness were fading and slowly the bright blue grew darker and darker as his life slipped away. I stumbled forward, my hand outstretched towards him.
"Please don't die."
He blinked slowly before he frowned slightly and fell to the ground, his hand shinning in wet blood.
I was sick. The past days were causing me to sway; the days of remembering pain and wallowing in misery, the days of anger and hate, the days of immobilizing depression; all ending with the smash of a bottle, biting words never to be forgotten and the silencing ring of a gunshot; all ending innocent life, those days were sending shockwaves in my body, clogging my veins and filling my skin. They filled and filled, packing away inside of me until finally, I could hear nothing, or see anything, except the thumping in my chest. As the blackness that had been following me finally took over my senses, I fell to the cold earth. With the dull drumming in my chest against the ground, my hand reached out to the boy's in front of me. Darkness closed in and I stopped fighting. With my hand touching his, this stranger's, I passed out.