Long Gone Man (2 page)

Three

The singer scrambled for the
door handle. The Dodge was tilted well to the right, angled towards oblivion. She leaned against it to give herself purchase to lift the door. A cracking sound, the shriek of wood splintering, came from underneath the van.

Terror gave her strength. She lifted the door, jerked her skirt free, and catapulted herself to the pavement. Crablike, she scuttled backwards.

Spread-eagle on the pavement she could see under the body of the van, saw the small fir trees that held it on the brink of nothingness. She waited for the Beast to fall off the mountain but the trees held.

The singer's pulse slowed and she assessed her situation. Her leg burned where the skin had been scraped off, but everything seemed to work. She searched about her for her backpack, its rough texture under her hands familiar and comforting. She pulled her pack to her chest and got gingerly to her feet.

Turning slowly in a circle, she listened for any sound to tell her there was some other living thing about. She heard only silence.

There was neither the sound nor any smell of humanity in the air. Only the moisture on her face and the scent of evergreens told her about her surroundings. She cocked her head, listening again for any sounds in this damp swirling netherworld. No night birds called, if there were such things. She didn't know.

Maybe another car would come along. Only minutes before, that had been a terrifying thought, but now it would be her deliverance.

The fog clung. Droplets of moisture formed on her skin. She wiped them from her face. She shivered and rubbed the goose pimples on her arms, then she pulled a long-sleeved man's shirt from her backpack. Could the headlights, shining up into the sky like beacons, be seen in the fog? Would they bring help? She considered this while she buttoned the shirt. She realized that any aid might be hours in arriving.

She had to start walking. Which way to go? She hadn't seen any lights nor met another vehicle, but someone must live up here or why would there be a road? Down, she decided, was easiest, and she'd always been a girl who liked the easy thing so down she would go. But nothing was turning out to be easy.

Her skirt was stuck to the blood drying on her knee. Carefully, she pulled it loose and took her first hesitant steps. It seemed very dark beyond the lights of the Dodge. There was a flashlight in the back of the van but it was lost to her. And the gun, that was gone as well. She should have put both in her backpack before starting up the mountain. Too late to worry about that now; too late for lots of things.

Still she stood there, wary of leaving. She was forty-six years old and everything she owned hung on the edge of the mountain. She no longer had her guitar, which provided her livelihood, or the van that was her home. But she was alive. And her money, all forty-five dollars and change, was in her backpack. The echo of her harsh laughter surprised her. Well, wasn't it something to laugh at? Forty-six years old, in the year 1994, and all she had to show for all that living was a ragged backpack and under fifty bucks, not even a dollar for each year of her life.

She slung the bag over her shoulder, nodding into the dark and telling herself to get on with it.

But it wasn't that simple. The road surface was covered in fine grit and small stones, which moved under her feet. Cautiously, she started down the road, staying well to the right, away from the drop off. She followed the edge of the deep ditch full of rubble that ran along the mountain wall. She'd never been a physical person. Walking was something to be avoided, necessary hard work if no other means of transport was available, but not something she chose to do.

And nature was not her thing. She felt safer in a back alley of any city than she did out here in the wilderness. Uncertain of what the risks were, her imagination quickly exaggerated them. She wished she had the gun.

A dozen yards down the curving road, Beastie's lights grew fainter. She paused, not wanting to leave the comfort and safety the soft illumination offered. But the reassurance of the lights wouldn't last long. She turned away from the faint glow and walked around a bend into deep blackness, where neither stars nor moon penetrated the night. She halted, trying to make out the road before her. Slowly her eyes adjusted.

At a walking speed, the fog didn't seem as thick, or maybe it was lifting, but the solid mass had turned into clouds of wispy dampness. She stopped, wiped a hand across her face and listened. She could hear something . . . or someone. She concentrated. Nothing. It was gone. She told herself it was the wind and started forward. Loose stones on the pavement sent her sliding with arms windmilling.

She was breathing heavily when she got herself stopped. There it was again. She heard something over her own panting. Laughter maybe? Coming from above. She peeked back over her shoulder, telling herself it was nothing, was only her imagination. But she wished she could be certain she was alone.

A small breeze came up, lifting and swirling the fog. The eerie churn of dampness, shifting and changing, was like walking through ghosts.

Four

The singer's eyes became accustomed
to the dark and she was able to pick out details. She realized that the ditch bordering the road had ended and the sheer rock wall was closer to the pavement here, so close she could reach out with her fingers and touch the cold, damp surface. Another twenty feet and huge ferns and brambles slapped against her and caught on her clothes, sending her farther out onto the pavement to avoid the green fingers reaching out for her.

Every few yards she stopped, straining to hear the sounds of an approaching car, afraid that in the switchbacks she wouldn't hear them until they were on top of her. But there was no car. A road with no cars was unnatural for the singer, but then being so far from a city was beyond her normal experience. She decided on a plan if a car did come along. She pulled a white T-shirt out of her backpack. She would wave it at anyone who might be on the road, so they could see she was there.

Along the gritty, sloping surface, pebbles rolled beneath her feet and threw her off balance. Her gait turned to a shuffling pace. She cursed the night, the road, and the sins that brought her here, but most of all she cursed a man.

She questioned if revenge was worth it. Had she hung on to her rage for too long?

Suddenly she became conscious that there was no longer a rock face beside her. She reached out a hand and then she felt with her foot. Not even a ditch. A paved surface went off to her right. She sighed with relief and edged cautiously forward before she hesitated. Was it wise to leave the road for this lane? This narrow driveway, like so many others she'd tried before finding the road up the mountain, might end at an empty clearing in the woods, leaving her worse off than she was now. But none of those detours had been paved. This small detail gave her courage. Guardedly, she followed the drive, which curved upward.

Now that she was surrounded by trees, the night came alive. Somewhere close a twig snapped. She paused and listened. An owl hooted and small things scurried in the leaves along the drive. The sounds of nature were magnified by her dread and fear.

She moved faster. Trees and bushes were knitted together along the path, trapping her. The barrier they formed was too dense to break through, so continuing on or going back were her only choices.

She hummed softly to herself, needing some human sound. This road was far steeper than the one going down and soon her calves were burning, her thighs screaming in pain. No longer chilly, she pulled the extra shirt off and stuffed the limp garment in the canvas bag.

Something crashed in the shrubbery beside her before a giant creature burst out of the trees. She yelped and fell back. With one enormous leap, the animal was gone, crashing into the thick brush on the far side of the drive.

“It's a deer, a deer,” she whispered, but her heart raced just the same.

What had frightened it? Were there wolves in these woods? She wasn't strong enough to fight off a wild animal or fast enough to run away. She stood fixed to the spot, waiting for whatever was chasing the deer to appear, straining to hear and to see. Sweat cooled on her skin and she shivered.

A dog barked. At least she thought it was a dog, but the fog distorted and changed the high-pitched sound. Was it up ahead or behind her? More sharp barking. It seemed to come from higher up, in front of her. She moved the backpack around her body and held it before her like a shield, struggling to hear and to figure out where the danger was, but there was no more barking.

She was too tired even to curse. Her breath was labored and raspy, her legs were on fire. Exhaustion told her to sit down, while terror pushed her forward and told her to hurry. But where was she hurrying to? What waited for her at the end of this lane? The only thing she was certain of was that whatever she was moving towards had to be better than what had already happened to her. At least that's what she told herself.

The fog, wispy and fine, took on a yellow glow above and beyond her. A radiance like a soft halo—surely it was a light. The sight renewed her strength and joy pumped adrenalin into her veins. She followed the curve of the drive to the left as more security lights flicked on, illuminating her way. Ahead was a dim outline of a house. Safe now.

Soft beacons shone upward along the front of the building towering over her. A circular garden, protecting the front of the structure, also showed small pools of light set near the ground. She hobbled around the bed of greenery and stood before the broad facade of a two-storey, cedar log house with a double front door. The windows on either side of the door were dark and empty, but off to the left a flagstone path led to lighted French doors emanating comfort and security.

She bypassed the front door and went eagerly to the entrance off to the side, knocked, and waited to be welcomed.

The door was flung back. A tall young woman stood there. In her hand she held a gun.

“Come in,” she said.

Five

The woman holding the gun
had a long, sculpted face with bones that were strong and prominent. Her fine hazel eyes, blazing beneath black brows, demanded attention, but it was the gun that held the singer's eyes.

The woman with the gun stepped aside. Behind her on the dark wood floor, a man lay spread-eagle on his back. She gestured with the gun and repeated the words, “Come in.”

Still standing outside the door, the singer glanced from the man to the woman and back again before stuttering, “Is . . . is he dead?”

“I don't know but I certainly hope so.”

It was a cruel answer. It was said as if they were talking about an ugly stain that had suddenly appeared on the dark walnut flooring, something that must be dealt with, rather than a human being. The woman, in her late twenties and dressed in a black turtleneck sweater and dark jeans, turned away from the singer. The light caught her mahogany hair, long and full and shining damply.

The singer hesitated on the slate step. Would she be shot if she tried to run? It was possible, but the hard truth was she was too drained to even try. She stepped into the room and lowered her pack, letting it slide from her hand to drop onto the floor.

She stared at the body then moved her backpack aside with her toe. “I'll check . . . see if he's still breathing.” She moved slowly forward, keeping her eyes on the hand holding the gun.

When she got to the man she bundled her long, orange skirt in her left hand and knelt stiffly. The man's head was turned away from her, so she couldn't see his face. A dark hole, a thin trail of blood and ooze leaking from it, was high in his left temple. It seemed such a tiny wound to end an existence, but there was no doubt in her mind that life had fled. Still, she put out her hand and pressed her fingers to his cold, lifeless neck.

“He's dead.” Using the oak desk, the singer pulled herself to her feet, wincing as she straightened her left leg. “He was shot in the head.” It seemed a stupid thing to say. The woman with the gun could see this for herself.

The singer stared down at the corpulent body. Her wiser self was telling her to get out of there and disappear. It was how she normally handled trouble, disappearing into the background or down a dark alley, or hitching a ride out of town until the trouble blew over, but those options had been taken away from her. She asked, “Who is he?”

“John Vibald.”

Surprise overcame the singer's normal wariness and she blurted out, “Johnny Vibes?”

The young woman lifted her head like an animal sniffing the air for danger. “You know him?”

“Oh, yeah.” She stared down at the body. Revenge had slipped through her fingers. “Knew him back in the seventies when he was a long-haired rocker.” The whole trip had been for nothing. “He was beautiful when I knew him, twenty years ago.”

The young woman waved the gun at the prone figure. “You mean before he turned into this bloated piece of crap?”

The singer started in shock. She wasn't the only one in the room who hated Johnny Vibes.

The smell of the blood, in addition to other human matter she didn't want to identify, was making her stomach unreliable. “Could . . . could we go somewhere else? Could we go in there?” She gestured to her left through an archway to another room. “I need fresher air.”

“All right.” The tall woman crossed the room with a fluid grace, unconcerned if the stranger she'd just let into her home was following.

The singer went to retrieve her backpack, which she'd abandoned by the still-open French door. She wondered, for a brief moment, if she could run out into the fog ahead of the gunshot that would surely follow her. Could she hide deep in the woods and wait for morning? Then what?

She stared into the night. The creatures out there were just as dangerous as the one in here, and there were still things she wanted to know about her old enemy. She picked up her backpack and limped into the second room, relieved to be away from the body of Johnny Vibes.

The singer said, “Who are you?”

The beautiful young woman slid the pocket door closed behind her and leaned back against it. “I'm Lauren Vibald.”

“Are you his daughter?”

“I'm his wife. Now who are you and what are you doing here?”

It was too late to pretend she didn't know Johnny, just as it was too late for what she'd come here to do. “I'm the . . . I'm Singer.” She drew in a deep breath. “Singer. My name's Singer.”

“Singer?”

“Yes.”

“Singer what?”

She normally excelled at lying, even prided herself on it, but the night had knocked her off stride. She gazed at the room, all walnut paneling and hung with grotesque tribal masks from multiple cultures. Two tobacco-colored leather couches sat facing each other on either side of a stone fireplace.

“My name is Singer Brown.”

Lauren Vibald pushed her hair back from her face. “Good thing the room isn't puce. Singer Puce would be a hell of a moniker to go through life with.”

Singer smiled in spite of herself.

Lauren pushed away from the door and swept past Singer, trailing a cloud of exotic perfume.

Strangely, for all her ranting and anger, there was nothing threatening about Lauren Vibald, even with a weapon in her hand.

Singer clutched the canvas sack to her chest. “How about putting that gun down before we have another accident?”

Lauren pivoted around to face her. “Accident?” Hope flamed in Lauren's face and her voice was full of an eagerness to believe, like a child wanting to be told it was only a bad dream and she was safe. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “An accident.”