Hurt: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series) (8 page)

24. The Bridge

I leave before Kelsey’s father gets home. I don’t want him coming home wondering what I’m doing there so late. Not that I think he’d mind, and Kelsey assures me it’s fine, but regardless I tell her that it’s time. She’s comfortable on the couch with her legs over my lap, and I think she’d be content to fall asleep like that. I would be too.

Maybe it’s because I know Mr. Page is coming home any minute. Or maybe it’s because I don’t want to rush things. Because deep down, I’m afraid to.

Since every girl I like ends up dead or gone.

Maybe it’s all of those things. Maybe that’s why I don’t spend much time kissing Kelsey before I leave. I know that she wants to—I can tell by the way she looks at me. And I do kiss her once before leaving. Not a good-bye, brotherly, friendly kiss, but a real good one. A kind that might be perfect simply because it leaves you wanting more.

What do you know about kissing, you dork?

I’m driving through the night thinking of kissing Kelsey and about epic love stories. It’s cold, but I’m smart enough to be wearing a cap and gloves and Uncle Robert’s leather jacket. Well, maybe not
that
smart, because I’m not wearing a helmet, but at least I’m warm.

The winding roads tend to look the same, but as I make the usual turns that lead to my house, I find myself on a dirt lane nobody else is going to be driving on this time of night. Then I see a road I’ve never noticed before jutting to the left up a hill.

The Crag’s Inn.

That’s what I first think, because even though I’ve managed to see Iris again, I still haven’t ever been able to find the road leading up to the former lodge on top of the mountain.

No, this isn’t the same road. But it looks similar.

I slow down and then decide to see where it leads. It’s after midnight, and nobody’s waiting up for me at the cabin. At least I hope nobody’s waiting up for me. If there is, I’d better stay out here for a long time.

The road is narrower than the main roads around Solitary, the trees closer to the sides. Perhaps I’ve always missed this road because the overgrowth has been so dense. Now the trees are barren and look like skinny kids huddling together on a cold night.

I drive for ten or fifteen minutes until there is a turn in the road so abrupt that I’m glad to notice it before driving off into the woods. I slow down, and then I see another path descending into the woods.

I steer my bike toward the path so I can see.

The light shows a narrow path flattening with a stone edge on either side, then continuing on into the woods. For a second I can’t make it out, then I hear the sound of a creek and realize that what I’m looking at is an old bridge.

I turn off my bike but leave the light on.

This might be the moment the couple in the audience or the critic in the seat goes,
Come on Chris get a clue what’s wrong with you and why haven’t you learned?
But this is far less frightening than the abandoned cabin I found in the woods. And definitely less freaky than the dark underground tunnel that I can only go forward or backward in. Yeah, sure, I’ve learned there are some nasty things in these woods, like demon dogs and lisping old men, but I’ve also come to understand there are other things.

I still never know when a bridge in the middle of the woods might lead me back to Iris. Or Lily. Or Jocelyn.

It feels unusually cold right here. I look around but can’t make out anything in the pitch black.

I hear the sound of a cracking branch. Then something shuffling on dead leaves in the woods. The crinkle of stone underneath someone’s feet.

Then I see it.

No. Not it, but them.

Figures standing on the edge of the bridge. Dark figures—a group of them—all standing there waiting for something.

Maybe waiting for me.

I can feel my heart racing as I squint to try and make out faces or features. But all I see are these shadows in the shapes of men.

For some reason, I recall the boxcar in the middle of nowhere, which I opened and discovered death inside.

Get out of here Chris now.

I’ve been scared so many times before around this place, but I’m not scared now, not totally. A part of me wonders who these people are and if I can in any way—

Then one figure emerges out of the pack—maybe six or eight total—and starts walking across the bridge toward me.

I want to see a face.

But as the seconds scratch by, I don’t see any face. The figure is cloaked in black and seems to be carrying something large and heavy in one hand.

The light is now directly on his face, but I still don’t see anything. I don’t see skin or hair or features or anything.

Just a shadow.

Okay bright guy now’s the time to bolt before things get really bad.

I start up my bike and am thankful that it kicks in right away, and I head back toward the main street where I came in.

I’ll check this place out in the daytime. When I can see faces and figures more clearly and the night’s not playing tricks.

I shiver and drive as fast as I can.

But I keep expecting a cold hand to touch my neck at any moment and jerk me off the bike and take me back to the hole the figures came from.

25. Some Kind of Hero

I’m sitting on the couch about ten in the morning, watching ESPN and eating a bowl of cereal, when I hear a key unlock the front door and look up to see Uncle Robert walk inside. As if this place belongs to him (and yeah, it still sorta does). As if I haven’t been on my own since coming back to this place (and yeah, I have).

“Finished with breakfast?” he asks as he looks at the bowl on my lap.

“Where’ve you been?”

“I’ll show you right now,” Robert tells me.

He’s wearing a denim jacket that seems to be too thin for the cold weather outside. His leather jacket that I borrowed last night is on the couch beside me. He makes a
huh
sound as he picks it up.

“I hope you don’t mind me borrowing it.”

Robert shakes his head. “Nope. Never wearing that again. And never riding that bike again.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Nearly got killed riding that thing.”

“Don’t tell me,” I say as I stand up.

“What?”

“I don’t want to hear that the bike is possessed or something like that.”

“It wasn’t the bike,” Robert says. “It was the driver. Especially when he likes to drink.”

I glance at Robert, and I understand what he’s saying.

“Why did you stop working for Iris?” I ask.

“It wasn’t for me.”

“Being at the Crag’s Inn?”

“No. Being around
them
.”

The way he says
them
shuts me up.

Because I know what he’s talking about.

Of course, I can’t say it out loud because I’ll sound stupid. But I think back to the people I saw at the Crag’s Inn. And the people I saw last night by the bridge.

“Come on, let’s get going,” Robert says.

“Mind if I wear your jacket?”

“It’s already yours.”

The outside of the silver Nissan Xterra looks worse than the inside. Somehow, the interior isn’t just clean but feels new, with leather seats and a souped-up stereo.

“The rusted and dented look is for show,” Uncle Robert says. “This thing looks like it’s going to break down, but it actually has a brand-new engine in it. With new tires.”

“For your getaway.”

Tired eyes and a messy beard turn my way. “I wouldn’t joke about it if I were you.”

He drives down the road away from the cabin and, after taking a few turns, away from the town of Solitary.

“Where are we headed?”

“To a safe place where nobody will be listening to us.”

“Were they listening to us at the cabin?”

“They might be. I don’t know. I’m just taking precautions. Just ’cause they have no more use for me doesn’t mean they’re done with me. They like to dispose of loose ends. Like your friend Wade Sims. Remember him?”

“You know about that?”

Robert nods. “I saw him chained up on Staunch’s property. And then I heard the news that he ‘crashed’ his car.”

I think about Wade, the lowlife who lived with Jocelyn’s aunt, the man I shot to protect Jocelyn. He left Solitary for a while, but he made the mistake of coming back.

“Everybody seems to know more about everything than I do.”

“They think they know. But they can’t see. I can see like you, Chris. Trust me—it only gets more intense.”

“What do you mean, more intense?”

“I mean worse.”

He turns up the rock music blaring from the stereo till it’s shaking my seat. I guess he doesn’t want to talk anymore about that.

The winding, rocky road (is there any other kind around here?) eventually stops at a dead end near what looks like an old barn on a hill. When we get out and walk toward it, Uncle Robert tells me that this used to be an old mill running beside a creek that’s almost dried up now. As we walk over the crest of the hill, I notice the big, rusted-out waterwheel down the hill right next to a shed. A wooden drain with a top that looks like a ladder connects the waterwheel to the barnlike structure.

We head to the small house right next to it.

“Is this where you’ve been staying?”

Robert nods and then stops by the door, examining something at the bottom.

“I put tape there every time I leave to see if the door’s been opened,” he says as he pulls the creaking door and then heads inside.

There’s really not much to see. It’s just one big, empty room with a floor of old wooden planks that appear to be rotting. There are some empty beer cans tossed around, some used cigarettes, but that’s about it.

“Home sweet home,” he says as he goes to the back of the room and gets a folding chair. He opens it and then puts it in front of me. I feel forced to sit.

“You really sleep here?”

“When I have to,” he says. “When it was warmer I spent a lot of nights outside. I have a hole in the floor where I store things. A sleeping bag. A kerosene heater. I don’t stay here. It’s just for hiding out.”

“But why?”

“Why do I stay here? You think anybody’s coming up here to check for missing persons?”

“No, I mean why did you start hiding out in the first place?”

Robert is leaning against the side of the shelter. He takes a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and lights one.

For a moment, my uncle looks across the room at the bare wall, trying to think of what he wants to say. I sit on the wobbly, uncomfortable chair wondering if someone’s going to break down the door any second.

“When I finally realized the truth about me and about our family, I just went a little postal.” He chuckles in a grim sort of way. “I mean—here I was in my thirties and the prime of my life, and suddenly I discover all this.”

He curses and takes a drag of his cigarette.

“Do you know why my father was gunned down in cold blood on a Chicago street in the middle of winter? Why you were never able to meet your grandfather? I was twenty-one, and I thought it was just another bad thing to happen to Tara and me. But no. It was part of this decaying, rotten hellhole of a town. My father tried to get us out. But there’s no escaping. Not for me or for you or for anybody with blood ties. That’s when I realized that there was no going back.”

“No going back to where?”

“To the life I once knew. That carefree life of doing whatever I wanted to do. I don’t like seeing visions in the middle of the day or at night. I don’t like seeing ghosts. And I didn’t want any part of what that evil man is doing with his followers.”

“You mean Walter Kinner?”

“Yeah. So I refused. But I—I made a mistake. I tried to help Heidi Marsh out. And instead of helping her out, I just made things worse.”

“How?”

Robert laughs and flicks the cigarette across the floor. “I fell in love.”

He walks across the floor like some restless animal. “I don’t know if it’s just that we’re stupid males or if it’s our DNA or what. But falling for the wrong girl is what we do, I guess. I mean—you come down here, and what do you do? The same stupid thing.”

He laughs and curses at the same time.

“I tried to help Heidi out. I really did. Marsh has her drugged up most of the time, and when she’s not doped up she’s scared for her life. He’s ruined her. And he wanted to ruin me, too. I had to make a choice. I was going to try and escape with Heidi, but she just couldn’t. She was too afraid. So I had to let her go. But I couldn’t leave.”

“Why not?”

“Because love doesn’t just go away overnight. It’s different when you’re older, Chris. You’ll understand that one day. I just—I’m no hero.”

I look at him, and I realize that he’s right. He’s no hero. A hero would have fought for his love. A hero would have warned his family. A hero would have risked death.

“Oh, don’t give me that look.” He curses again. “I swear you’re your mother. She used to give me these looks that made me feel so freaking guilty. It was all I got. Guilt, guilt, guilt. I didn’t kill our parents. I wasn’t supposed to take over when they died. But sometimes I think Tara wanted me to. Once the baby, always the baby.”

“They’re threatening her life. And others.”

“Really?” he says in a vicious way, shutting me up. He lights another cigarette and then apologizes. “Listen, this isn’t your fault, okay? But I can’t help you here, Chris.”

“Did I ask for your help?”

Uncle Robert shakes his head. “No.”

“You can keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

“What?” he yells out. “Saving your little behind? If you want to say I’ve been doing nothing, you’re mistaken.”

I’m not sure what to say or why he’s even brought me here.

“All I know is that there’s something big planned. They’ve constructed this memorial for the town’s founder in the middle of nowhere. It’s like they’re planning on rebuilding the old town for some stupid reason. I don’t know why.”

“I’ve been there,” I say. “I’ve seen it.”

“Yeah? Good for you.” He’s not impressed.

“Marsh told me the old man wants me to take his place.”

“He needs one of us to take his place, and I told them what I thought of that. They think I’m too old, too much of a loose cannon.” He kicks a beer can. “Too much of a drunk.”

“That’s why they want me,” I say.

“Exactly.”

“I’m not going to let them hurt Mom.”

He leans over and puts a hand on the table and looks straight at me. “The closer you get to them, the messier it’s going to become. The evil inside them … I never realized that evil like that existed. But that’s who they are, especially that old man. Marsh and Staunch and the rest of them don’t scare me. But that old man does. Because he’s not—he’s not a
he
anymore. It’s a thing. He’s possessed by something horrible.”

I think of the face of the old man I saw in the tunnel and again at Staunch’s house.

I can only nod because I don’t want to admit that I’ve seen it too.

“When they were after me—when they wanted me for their purposes—I started to change, Chris. And that’s why—that’s why I’m warning you. You’ve got it inside of you to be some kind of hero, and that’s fine I guess, but you don’t understand. I started to become like them.”

“I’ll never be like them.”

“Do you believe in God, Chris? In Jesus?”

“I do now,” I say.

Uncle Robert nods. “Good. Good for you.”

“Do you?”

“No. No way.”

“You’re like Mom.”

“God took away everything from me and never once bothered to tell me why. And instead I’ve got this mocking evil monster laughing at me. I don’t want a part of any religion or spiritual battle.”

“Even if you—”

“Nothing,” he shouts. “I’m not here trying to protect you. I’m trying to warn you.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m staying around to make sure my sister makes it back home in one piece, and then I’m going to tell her everything I can before leaving. That’s all I’m going to do. All I can do.”

“A real hero.”

He curses again. “If you think that’s gonna make me feel guilty, you’re mistaken. I’ve felt a lot worse these last few years. And I’m just trying to prepare you. The worst is yet to come.”

Suddenly I realize that all the anger I’ve felt toward my father in the past year has been wrong.

This man in front of me is the one I don’t want to become.

I’ll be lucky if I can be the kind of man my father is. To have a faith like his.

’Cause I’m beginning to realize without that faith, this is where you end up.