Into This River I Drown (56 page)

“I know,” I mutter. “I know.”

I take the knife back out of my pocket and open it. I press my hand against the door. “I’ll come back for you,” I tell Abe. “I won’t leave you here, I promise. I’ll come back for you and take you home, and the world will never bother us again.”

He doesn’t answer.

I pull the door open slowly. The blast of cold air is wonderful against my fevered skin. My face is instantly soaked and chilled. That clears more of the lingering fog in my head. The air feels clean and free. I almost want to take off running, but I don’t think my ankle could take it. I’d get shot in the back, knowing my luck. The door opens to the forest stretched out in front of me, running down a steep hill. There is nothing down the hill or to my left. I look right and see a road. On this road is a large paneled moving truck, backed up to a rocky outcrop that rises from the forest floor. And by the rear of the truck stand three men.

I jerk my head back inside the shack. It looks like Griggs is one of them. The other two I don’t recognize, but through the rain I can’t be sure. I close the door again and go to the wall of the shack facing the truck. I shuffle some of the garbage bags filled with empty plastic bottles. The smell coming from the bags is almost overwhelming. I force myself back to reality and kick another bag out of my way. There’s a large crack in this wall, near the floor. I slowly drop to my knees, ignoring how my whole body aches. I press my face up against the crack in the wall.

Griggs stands facing away from me, his sheriff’s hat and uniform obvious, even through the heavy rain. The other two men are facing me, listening intently to something Griggs is saying. He’s punctuating his words with his hands and eventually he points back toward the shack. The other two men peer around him with obvious interest. I freeze, feeling their eyes roam over me, and even though I’m sure they can’t see me, it looks as if they are staring right at me. They turn back to Griggs, who taps his watch. One of the men shakes his head and says something Griggs obviously doesn’t like. The sheriff grabs him by the collar of his coat and slams him into the side of the truck. Griggs pulls my Colt out of his coat pocket and presses it against the other man’s head. The third man does nothing, standing with his arms crossed, occasionally glancing over at the shack.

The man pressed against the truck struggles in the sheriff’s grip. Griggs snarls into his face and twists the gun into his temple, and it’s all I can do—

look away, benji, look away

—to keep my anger from rising. I want to knock down the door and fly at Griggs, break him apart. I grind my teeth together and dig my fingernails into my palms to try and keep centered, to keep aware. The red sheen that threatens to fall over my eyes is held at bay, at least for now.

Griggs drops the man from the side of the truck and takes a step back. He waves the gun toward the rear of the truck. The other two men shake their heads but seem to do what he asks. They go to the back of the truck and open the large rear door. They pull down a long metal ramp and set it on the ground. Griggs says something else and disappears around the truck. The other two stand, leaning into each other. I’m too far away to see their lips moving, but they seem to be talking. They look back at the shack again and then follow the sheriff.

The truck. Unguarded. Headlights still on. The keys might still be in the ignition.

“I’ll come back for you,” I promise Abe as I stand. His face is turned away from me. I ignore the bloody hole in his head. “You won’t stay here. I’ll come back.” My heart stutters in my chest, but I push it away.

I move to the door and open it slowly, poking my head out. No movement. I step out into the rain and am instantly soaked. I move along the outside of the shack until I reach the corner. Taking a deep breath, I turn and press my stomach against the wall and tilt my head around the corner.

The truck sits at the edge of the road. The headlights are still on. Farther up there’s a dark hole in the side of the hill. The cave entrance. Lights have been strung up on the cave ceiling, leading deeper into the cave, but the entrance is empty. I gingerly put weight on my ankle, testing it out. The pain is there, and it burns, but it’s not overpowering. I move around the corner of the shack, out into the open, and almost trip. There are four white propane tanks, the kind that hook up to barbeque grills, stacked against the wall. One starts to fall into the others, and I reach out and grab the top to keep the tanks from falling. The sound probably won’t carry, but I can’t take the chance. The top tank is heavy. It’s full. I set it back up and look back at the cave entrance. Still empty.

Now. Do it now.

Shit.

Now!

I take off, running as quickly as I can, sort of hopping to keep as much weight as possible off my ankle. Rain slams into my face, the huge drops almost blinding me. The wind is strong. Thunder tears across the sky above. Forty feet. My chest hurts. Thirty feet. Abe and Cal are dead. Twenty feet. Please let the keys still be in the truck. Ten feet. The look on Cal’s face before he fell off the bridge. Five feet.
Look away.

I hit the passenger door almost running full tilt. I frantically scrabble for the door handle. It’s wet and slides from my hand. I pull on it again. And again. The door doesn’t open. It’s locked. Without hesitating, I turn and run round the front of the truck, the headlights flashing in my eyes. I hit the driver’s door and have started to pull on the handle when I hear the rumble of voices through the rain, coming from the cave entrance, which I have a clear view of. I see movement farther back in the cave. I’m almost frozen, until my father whispers
move, move, move.
I won’t make it up the hill or back to the shack in time. I can’t try and open the door. If it’s locked, I’ll get caught trying to open it. If it’s open, they’ll see the door. The voices get louder. I drop to the ground and roll under the truck.

My breathing is out of control, to the point of hyperventilating. A large rock digs into my back. The sound of footsteps and voices is deafening. The pulse in my neck feels like it’s throbbing. Even though the rain is cold and the temperature has dropped, I start to sweat again. I stare up at the undercarriage of the truck, smelling metal and oil.

I can’t make out what they’re saying until they get closer to the truck and onto the metal ramp. Then their words reverberate through the truck.

“I always knew Griggs was fucking insane,” a deep voice says.

The other voice is higher pitched. “Yeah, that’s fucking hard-core, man. Even the boss seems a little freaked out.”

“Ah, screw it,” Low Voice says. “I’d rather a few people be dead than go to jail. I can’t go back there.”

“I dunno,” High Pitch says, sounding nervous. “What kind of person do you have to be to consider putting a bullet into your own family? He’s just a kid!”

“She’s already done it once. Don’t let the boss fool you. She’s a cold bitch, trust me.”

“What? What do you mean?”

There’s a pause. Then, “Come here.” I hear them move above me and down the ramp. I lift my head to see their feet walking around to the passenger side of the truck, near the door. The rear of the truck partially blocks them from being seen from inside the cave. “It was before your time, man,” Low Voice says clearly. “That kid in there? His daddy apparently found out about this whole operation. Didn’t know about the boss, but apparently knew about Griggs and Walken. She overheard him on the phone one day, talking with the FBI.”

“Oh, shit,” High Pitch breathes. “That guy… that Traynor…?”

“Man, fuck Traynor,” Low Voice says. “The guy was a psychopath. But yeah. Apparently it was the same FBI guy. The kid called him in this time. His daddy did it before. Traynor wasn’t around then, so she got Griggs to do it.”

A chill runs down my spine.

“Do what?”

“Ran the guy off the road when he was going to meet up with the agent. Griggs ran the guy off the road, and he drowned in the river like a mile from here. Fucked-up thing was that it was her brother-in-law.”

The red sheen falls over my eyes. I can’t stop it. I curl my hands into fists at my side.

“Jesus Christ,” High Pitch says. “This is some fucked-up shit, man. Why’re we doing this again?”

“Money,” Low Voice says. “It’s all about the fucking money. But I’m not touching that kid, man. I’m telling you. I don’t even want to be here when it happens. The little shit can die, I just don’t want to see it.”

“What if she tells us we have to go in there when we’re done loading up?”

“We go. We close our eyes. But I’m not pulling the trigger. I can’t do shit like that. But better him than us. Who the fuck is gonna miss him?”

“But… won’t that make us, like, accomplices? Or whatever?”

“I dunno, man. I didn’t go to law school. What the fuck you think I look like?”

“Fuck you. It’s not like….” High Pitch trails off.

“What?” Low Voice asks.

“What’s that on the door handle?”

The pair of feet nearest me turns to face the truck. “What the hell? It looks like blood. Are you bleeding or something?”

“I think I’d know if I was bleeding.”

I close my eyes, feeling the tacky blood on my hands. I hadn’t even thought of it. The rain hasn’t washed it completely away. I wait for High Pitch and Low Voice to drop to their knees to look under the truck. They are quiet as if contemplating what they are looking at, and I slowly pull the small knife from my pocket. If they find me, I’ll take someone’s eye with me, that’s for damn sure.

And just when I think I can’t take it anymore, there’s another voice.

“What are you two doing?” Griggs snarls from the mouth of the cave. “Get the fuck back to work!”

They hurry off back toward Griggs, and I lift my head, watching their feet. All three pairs turn back into the cave, Griggs snapping at both of them, though I can’t hear what they’re saying. I have to stop myself from getting up right now and running after Griggs, burying the knife in his neck over and over again until all of his blood is on the cave floor and I know he’s dead. He killed my father on Christie’s orders. I will see them both dead by my hands.

Wake up,
my father says.
Wake up
.

I almost don’t want to. I want to stay in this black-and-red haze and follow them into the cave and kill them before they kill me. I want to cause as much damage as possible before someone pulls a gun and shoots me through the head. They must suffer for what they’ve done.

It’s a test,
Cal whispers, that familiar rumble causing my heart to ache.
It’s a test, Benji. You must not fall into the black. You can’t go there.

“Cal,” I moan, closing my eyes. My hands start to shake. “Please, Cal. Come back. Don’t be gone. Please come back.”

I don’t hear anything other than the rain.

Without thinking, I roll out from underneath the truck and stand. I pull on the handle, and the door opens. The inside of the cab is warm. The keys aren’t in the ignition, nor on the seat. I flip down the sun visor. Nothing. They keys aren’t here. Low Voice or High Pitch has them. This was a mistake. I can’t use the truck. I’ve got to get the fuck out of here. Now. Now.

I close the door behind me as quietly as possible. I use my sleeve to wipe away the blood and grime my fingers left on the handle. I move around to the front of the truck, gripping the pocketknife in my hand. I’m about to cross back to the shack when I pause. If I’m going to make it, I can’t use this old road. It’ll be too easy for them to find me. The distance back to town is too great, the bridge too far away. I’ll have to go through the woods to where Cal fell from the sky. Where my father died.

They can still beat me around in the truck,
I think.
I won’t be fast enough
.

I grip the knife in my hand and go back to the driver’s side. The knife is sharp, well cared for. Abe said he could never let the blade become dull because it’d feel like he’d sullied his wife’s memory. “Always keep it sharp,” he’d told me quietly. “It helps me remember.”

“Thank you, old man,” I whisper out loud. I tighten my grip around the handle and stab the tire repeatedly. It takes a moment; the tire is thick. But eventually, after hitting the same place repeatedly, the knife goes through the rubber. I do the same thing in three other places, the air hissing steadily.

Low Voice and High Pitch return, carrying crates covered in blankets. I crouch down at the front of the truck and wait until they go back into the cave. Once they’re out of sight, I do the same to the left tire. They won’t go completely flat, not for some time, but it’ll slow them down when they attempt to drive the truck. It has to be enough. For now.

I hobble back toward the shack, moving as fast as I can. I move past the propane tanks and press my back against the wall near the door, out of sight from the truck and the cave. Down the hill behind the shack, the woodland stretches out, intimidating, like the biggest forest I’ve ever seen. The river is about a mile away, maybe less. I don’t know how much time I’ll have before they come back to the shed to find me gone. If I’m not on the road, they’ll know I’m in the woods. With my ankle slowing me down, it might be easier for them to catch up with me. I’m fucked either way. I should hole up somewhere nearby and wait for them to leave, but I don’t know if there’s anyone in the cave with them who I haven’t seen yet. I don’t know how many people are in on this. For all I know, Walken is already on his way up.

Distraction. I need a distraction.

What I need is for them to die.

The wind blows and metal rattles against metal. The propane tanks, stacked against the shack. Completely full. I don’t have matches. I don’t have a lighter. I don’t have a gun to shoot them, though that might only happen in movies.

Something creaks inside the shack.

Abe is awake,
I think, even though I know he’s dead.

I open the door to the shack. Abe still lies on the floor, unmoving. The two old light bulbs overhead swing on their wires. Rain pounds the roof. There’s no—