The Torment of Rachel Ames (5 page)

Nothing good will come of it.

She closes her eyes and sucks in a deep, shuddering breath.
On a whim, out on a limb.
When she opens them, she’s made her decision to look. She’s going to find out what’s there.

She leans forward, inch-by-inch, her left cheek pressed against the wall, ready to see, ready to know.

Then flames lick out from the hole in the wall and she hears the crackle and hiss of a fire. The sight and sound sends her to the floor on all fours, a sudden pain stabbing through her chest. God it hurts. She’s going to die right there on the cabin floor. The flames shoot through the other holes in the wall. Soon the whole place will be an inferno. Even at this thought, she can’t move. Can’t breathe. It feels like there’s something sitting on her chest.

Even with this weight, and even with the pain, she manages to scream.

Then white hot pain explodes in the back of her neck and races down her spine. She falls to the floor and rolls over on her back. As she does, Granger comes into full view, eyes wild, lips parted in a snarl, a frying pan held over his head.

“For your own good,” he says.

“No,” she manages as the frying pan begins its descent.

This time there’s no pain. Only darkness. And silence.

“
I
s
she going to be all right?”

“How do you mean?”

“You know damn well what I mean.”

“Anger is not welcome here. In fact, one might say it is counterproductive.”

“I’m not angry.”

“You seem angry.”

“No… I… I didn’t mean it that way.”

Pause.

“You are concerned.”

“Of course I am. Aren’t you?”

“The question is naïve.”

“How long will it be?”

“That is difficult to say. An hour? An afternoon? A day?”

“A week?”

“I doubt it. The important thing is that she was discovered in time.”

Pause.

“Would you not agree?”

“Yes, of course.”

Pause.

“This is hard for you. I understand.”

“You have no concept of how hard this is for me, so don’t even imply that you do, you smug bastard.”

Pause.

“I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s been… you know.”

“Wait outside please. I will have you brought to me if you’re needed.”

“But…”

“That is not a request.”

“When she wakes up, tell her… tell her…”

“Tell her what?”

“Tell her nothing.”

T
he air burns
. Acrid and greasy.

She’s in a car but gravity is upside down. Her seatbelt cinches into her neck and chest, holding all of her body weight. There’s pressure all over her face, something suffocating her. She pushes against it and it gives way. Soon she can see what it is. A white bag, smooth as silk, deflates in front of her, falling to the ceiling as it does. The windshield is broken and smoke pours into the car. Her mouth tastes salty and metallic. She wipes it with her hand, which comes back covered with blood. There’s a flash of light in front of her and a rush of heat.

She cries out and sits up. She’s in bed, drenched with sweat, heart pounding in her chest. The second she’s up, she regrets it. Blood surges to her head, punishing her with a headache so intense she has to grab the mattress on either side of her, twisting the sheets in a white-knuckled grip. The greasy burning smell from her dream is real enough and the stench of it in the cabin turns her stomach. Tentatively, she reaches up to feel her head, certain she’s going to find a machete buried in her skull the way she feels. There’s no machete though, just a tender area on the side of her head.

Granger.

It comes back to her in a flood and the nausea rushes back with it. She remembers everything from the night before, ending with the image of Granger and his frying pan.

A voice wafts through the air, intertwined with the burning smell. The voice is singing but it’s rough and graveled, slightly off-key. She knows the voice. Granger’s still in the house.

She looks around the room for a weapon. The bedroom is sparse, just a bed, a nightstand with a lamp and a chest of drawers. She stands and the world spins, nearly throwing her back down to the bed. But she knows she’s in danger so the adrenaline helps clear her head.

The singing is clearer now. Or maybe Granger is louder, she can’t be sure. She picks up pieces of the song.
Amazing Grace
, just like Ollie singing in the woods, but it’s a verse she doesn’t recognize.

“Yea, when this flesh and hear shall fail,

And mortal life shall cease…”

Granger’s singing is discordant and off-key, almost as if he were mocking the idea of the song.

“I shall possess, within the veil,

A life of joy and peace…”

She opens the small closet, still desperate for a weapon. With some effort, she knocks loose the wood rod meant for hanging clothes. It’s nice and heavy, not one of those cheap jobs. She grips it with both hands like a baseball bat. It’s not much as far as weapons go, but it will have to do.

She opens the door and the burning smell hits her like a wall. The short hallway leading to the kitchen and the main room is hazy with blue smoke. She holds onto the wall for balance and walks toward the kitchen, trying her best to steady her breathing.

Granger stands over the counter, next to the stove, his back to her, still humming the song. There are two skillets on the stove that billow with foul smoke. Granger’s elbow works up and down in a scissoring motion, then he turns and dumps a handful of chopped onions into the skillet. The grease sizzles and a new cloud of smoke rises up in the room.

She grips the wood pole in her hand and imagines herself beaning the old man in the back of the head, his old bones shattering from the impact. She steels herself for action, confident that she has the element of surprise on her side. There’s no way the man knows she’s behind him.

“Good morning,” Granger says without bothering to turn around, dispelling that idea. “There’re three aspirin on the table for you.” He points to the front room with the carving knife in his hand. It’s long and serrated, better suited for field dressing large game than dicing vegetables. “Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”

She shakes her head, trying to clear the fog from it. None of this makes sense.

“I know what you did,” she says, surprised at how hoarse her voice sounds. “I saw you.”

Granger turns. His hair is combed back and he’s wearing a flannel shirt with an apron tied around his waist. He looks genuinely surprised to see that she’s holding the wood pole in her hands. It’s not lost on her that he shifts his grip on his knife, the kitchen tool turning into a weapon.

“And I saw you,” Granger says. “And now here we are.”

“You hit me.”

“You can thank me for that later.”

Flames flare up in one of the skillets and Granger turns back to his cooking like he’s Debbie homemaker. “Hope you like your breakfast meats. I’ve got enough for a small army here.”

“What are you…” her voice trails off. In the main room, she spots the table set up with Underwood in the center and a small pile of blank paper next to it. She walks toward it, ignoring Granger.

The room is bathed in morning sun and it reminds her of the light coming from the bullet holes in the wall. She steps over to the wall and runs her hand across it. Perfectly smooth. Not a single hole in it.

“Looking for something?” Granger asks from behind her.

She shakes her head. “There were… holes in the wall last night.” She points to the broken window on the other side of the room, feeling a sense of relief. “A wolf. A black wolf jumped through that window.”

Granger walks over and inspects the area. “A wolf, huh? Window’s broken all right,” he says. “But all the glass is outside. I’m no detective, but I’d say that means it was broken from in here.”

She joins him, wood pole still in her hands, but dragging behind her now. He’s right, there isn’t a single sliver of glass on the floor.

“You can try the wolf story on the guy you rented the place from if you’re worried about a deposit or something. Not sure if he’s goin’ to buy it,” Granger says. “Oh, this is yours.” He pulls her gun from the front apron pocket and tosses it to her. “Not loaded, of course. Not after last night.”

She catches the gun and looks puzzled.

“You know,” Granger says. He shapes his fingers into a gun like he’s a kid playing cops and robbers. He sticks out his lower lip and pretends to be crying as he holds the end of his finger gun to his head, then opens his mouth and inserts it there. Then he grins and lowers his hand. “Like I said, you can thank me later for knockin’ you aside the head. Good thing I came over when I did before you hit anything you were aiming for. Besides, the way you were ramping up, I thought your head was about to explode. You were pretty upset about something.” He waits and she can’t do much more than stare at him blankly. “I guess the thank you will have to wait,” he finally says. “Go on. Sit on the deck, I’ll bring breakfast.”

Granger doesn’t wait for an answer, but goes back to the kitchen, humming a
new gospel song she doesn’t recognize. She almost goes outside as he suggested, but swings by the table first and leans over to look at the paper set up in Underwood.

She remembers the writing session from the night before, the feeling like it was back and flowing again, only to open her eyes and see nonsense on the page.

Now there’s only one sentence typed on the page. And she doesn’t even need to look at it to know what it says, but she can’t help but read it.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

“
H
ope you’re hungry
,” Granger says, banging a plate of food down on the table in front of her before taking the seat on the opposite side of the bench.

Her stomach turns over at the sight of it. For all the smoke and the flames, the plate is mostly bloody morsels of meat and undercooked sausage surrounded by charred potatoes. There are fried eggs with soft centers leaking their yolks in slow dribbles. She closes her eyes and sees the black bird’s damaged eye with its trickle of blood tears. She hasn’t opened the front door yet to look out there, but she did notice there was no broken windowpane, which meant there was a better than good chance there was no bird there either.

“What’s a matter?” Granger says, his mouth full, yolk dripping from his lips. “Dig in.”

She pushes the plate away and drinks the coffee in front of her. She wants something stronger. Granger notices her look toward the cabin.

“I looked for some to add.”

“What?” she says, embarrassed.

“Hair of the dog and all that. You finished off what you had, everything I could find anyway. Maybe that’s why… you know.” He twirls his finger around the side of his head. “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”

She knows she should be offended, but she can’t find the energy. She sips from her mug.

“This coffee is for shit,” she says.

Granger laughs, bits of food flying from his mouth. “I knew I was going to like you.”

She looks out over the lake. “When I first saw you, you told me that the cabin might try to talk to me. And that if it did, I shouldn’t listen because it wouldn’t always be the truth.”

Granger turns serious, even wiping his greasy lips with the front of his shirt. “Yeah, I said that.”

“Something’s happening here,” she says. “And I think you know what it is.”

Granger leans forward and she notices for the first time how intense his eyes are. They’re not looking at her. They’re looking into her. She feels her skin prickle and fights the urge to wrinkle her nose in disgust. “S’pose I do? S’pose I don’t? Think it’ll make a difference either way?”

“Any difference to what?”

Granger makes a grand gesture at the world around them. “Everything. That’s all there is, am I right? Can I get a hallelujah from the choir?”

She stares until she can’t stand the way his eyes look at her any longer. They feel like hands groping her body.

“I guess you’re not in the mood,” he says, licking his lips suggestively. “More’s the pity.”

“What’s wrong with you?” she says, hating that it only comes out as a whisper.

“Says the girl trying to drink whiskey with a bullet chaser.”

“I wasn’t going to…”

“You would have,” Granger says. “That’s as certain as death and the Devil.” He winks at her like she’s a teenager and he’s the captain of the football team. “You can quote me on that.”

“I need to get out of here. The things I’m seeing, the wolves, people sweeping the woods, you showing up and—”

Granger whips his head around. “Sweeping in the woods? You saw Ollie, didn’t you? When?” The Mr. Nice-Guy pretense is gone. Granger’s face twists into a mask of outrage. “Did you talk to him?”

She feels a wave of guilt for bringing up Ollie, especially since she’d specifically promised him she wouldn’t. But it hadn’t been on purpose and now that it’s out there, she finds Granger’s reaction interesting. She senses the power shift in her direction and she wonders why. “S’pose I did? S’pose I didn’t? Think it’ll make a difference either way?”

Granger hits the table with his hand and the plates jump. He stands up. “Tell me. Did you talk to him? What did he say?”

She stands up too, pushing her chair back so hard that it falls over. She leans forward, fists on the table. “Tell me what’s going on at this lake. In this cabin. Tell me and I’ll tell you what Ollie said.”

Granger locks on to her with his intense eyes and this time she doesn’t back down. Finally, he grins, projecting all the false confidence of the bully who backs down when his target unexpectedly fights back. “That’s more like it,” he says. “I was waiting to see if there was some fire in that belly of yours.”

She just stares back at him even though all she wants to do is yell at him to tell her what he knows. Worse, she has the impulse to crawl across the table and beat him, to scratch out his eyes with her nails. She doesn’t know where the idea comes from and she doesn’t like it. “Tell me or get out of here,” she says.

“It’s jus’ not how things work around here,” Granger says.

She imagines Ollie sweeping the woods, leaves drifting down around him like snowflakes, a never-ending thankless job.

“Then get out of here,” she says. “And leave me alone.”

Granger eyeballs her, then hocks up a loogie and spits it on the table in front of her. “To hell with you,” he says and then stomps off the deck.

She watches him leave, willing at first to just let him go. But he was right about one thing, there’s plenty of fire in her belly now. “Thanks for breakfast,” she calls out. “It sucked.”

Granger doesn’t even turn around, he just holds up his right hand and gives her the finger as he walks away.

She picks up the plates of food, wrinkling her nose at the disgusting concoction sliding around in grease, blood and yolk. She thinks about forking it off into the bushes so it doesn’t stink up the house, but she doesn’t want to attract any animals, especially the ones that visited her last night. If in fact they had visited her.

Food disposal comes first, tying off a garbage bag and scraping off all of the leftovers and the solidified grease left in the frying pans. She opens the front door to take out the trash, forgetting until she’s already outside that the front porch is where the bird carcass is. But there is no bird. Just like there’s no missing glass in the window in the door. Or wolves prowling the forest looking for her.

She drops the trash and goes back inside, slamming the door behind her. As she does, the square of the window she thought was broken the night before pops out and shatters on the floor.

“Damn it.”

She bends down to pick up the pieces, knowing if she doesn’t then one will end up buried in her bare foot at some point. As she picks them up, she notices something odd. Stuck to the edge of the glass is a layer of putty. She peels some of it off and rolls it in her fingers. It has the consistency of Play-Doh, soft and malleable. She stands and taps the glass pane next to the section that popped out, then feels the edges. Hard, cracked with age and weathering. The window that broke the night before is brand new. Someone repaired it while she slept. But why?

She opens the door and kneels down on her hands and knees to inspect the decking of the raised entryway. The wood slats are aged, worn by decades of hard New England seasons. There’s dirt rubbed into every crack. A thin layer of moss grows on the far edge where there’s no disturbance from foot traffic. But none of this is what she’s looking for. She puts her eye right up to the narrow space between the boards and examines the length of it before moving to the next one. And the next. On the third try, she sees something and lets out a little cry of excitement. She has to scramble down the short run of stairs to grab a small twig as a tool, then returns and stabs it into the crack. Twisting it just right, she lifts her find out high enough from the crack to pinch it between her thumb and forefinger. Carefully so as not to tear it, she extracts an eighteen-inch, single black feather from the crack. She holds it up, certain it’s from the bird she killed last night. No little raven feather either, but one that looks like it came from the big, ugly son of a bitch she’d first seen.

This was proof. Someone had cleaned up the mess.

Fixed the window.

Removed the bird.

Put the glass from the other window outside.

Granger. It had to be.

But why?

She tosses the feather, goes back inside the cabin and heads straight to the kitchen. One-by-one, she flings open the drawers and rifles through the contents looking for tools. She pulls out a meat tenderizer and puts it on the counter. The same with an oversized salad fork. But when she looks under the kitchen sink, she forgets those options as her hand wraps around the handle of a claw hammer. It couldn’t have been a better tool if she’d imagined it herself.

Hammer in hand, she walks across the cabin, not even acknowledging Underwood still squatting in the center of the dinner table. She heads straight for the wall she shot up the night before, rubbing her free hand over the surface. It takes a few seconds, but she comes to a patch that feels different than the rest of the wall. She looks at it closely, then touches her finger to the spot and pushes, sinking her finger in up to her first knuckle into soft putty. It’s the bullet hole.

“Son of a bitch,” she says to herself. “What the hell are you hiding behind this wall?”

She rears back and smashes the hammer into the wall. It breaks into the drywall, sinking a dent in the surface several inches wide. She swings again, the hammer spinning in her hand so that the claw end sinks in. She yanks on it and a chunk of the wall comes with it, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

With a yell, she hits the wall again. Harder. Ripping through the old crumbling drywall. She slams into it again and again, hardly noticing the rising pile of debris around her feet. She strikes faster, breathing hard, sweat covering her body. She hits the wall until her hands ache and her muscles quiver. Enlarging the hole, working to the edges, knowing in her heart that she’s uncovering something vital.

Then, just as suddenly as she started, she’s done. She steps back from the wall. The surface is obscured, dust drifting in the filtered sunlight. A breeze moves through the cabin, parting the cloud.

And there it is. A door. Right in the middle of the wall.

Begging to be opened.

She stares at the door, slowly regretting that she went looking for it. She eyes the debris covering the floor and wonders whether it’s possible to fit the pieces back together and repair the wall. She spends a few seconds imagining the effort it would take before giving up on the idea.

She walks up to the door and places her hand carefully on its surface. It’s cool to the touch, colder than it ought to be. She’s surprised to see how deep inside the wall the door is set, maybe a foot or more. Part of her was hoping it was just an old exterior door covered up in a remodel, but she knows that’s not the case. She’s looked at the cabin from the outside and if this was part of the wall then it would have stuck out from the wood siding. Besides, when people covered up doors they didn’t leave the handle on, did they? She traces the dull brass handle with her fingers, surprised to find that it’s icy cold.

She takes a step back, her legs unsteady, unsure what she wants to do next.