Authors: Mark Nykanen
“Slow down!” Kerry yelled even more frantically than before. Her hands turned rigid on the steering wheel. Vibrations from all four tires jarred her wrists.
Her heart thumped louder than the Jeep when it jumped back onto the highway. The vehicle began to straighten.
Diamond Girl didn’t fight her, but she did press harder on the gas.
Kerry screamed as the speedometer clocked a hundred and five. Then she felt Diamond Girl’s hands creeping onto her chest.
She swore, and elbowed her off. Diamond Girl had messed with her mind, but Kerry would be damned if she’d let her mess anymore with her body.
Diamond Girl slowed to a more reasonable ninety, and her hands returned to the wheel.
“I’ll take over. The car,” she added pointedly, the first emphasis any of her words had claimed.
“See,” she eyed Kerry, who now sat cross-armed against the passenger door, “you do have fun with me.”
“Let me out,” she demanded.
“Here? This is the middle of nowhere.”
Nowhere sounded fine to Kerry. Nowhere, she figured, was anywhere but here. She’d gladly take her chances with another car passing in the night. What were the odds of a second crazy pulling over? Two in one night? The odds had to be in her favor, right? But when she looked into the darkness, she found no comfort there. The world suddenly seemed filled with crazies.
“I’m taking you back.” Diamond Girl interrupted one set of fears by introducing another.
“Back where?”
“To the road, the one that goes to Ashley’s.”
“No! Don’t take me there.”
“I’m going to drop you at the gate, and then I’m taking off. We’re real close to Ashley’s road, and if I don’t get you a few miles from here, you’ll be waving at some car just like you waved at me, and calling the sheriff before I can get away.”
Hope, real hope, had dawned at last. Kerry said nothing, unwilling to snap the spell.
Diamond Girl turned the wipers on high as the rain thickened. The gesture was so … normal. It made her seem, well, not normal—nothing could make Diamond Girl seem normal—but sensible? Maybe.
“Why don’t you go to the cops with me?” Kerry ventured. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I’ve got plans, and that’s the last thing I want to do.”
“Plans? What are you going to do?” Kerry wanted to encourage the conversation because Diamond Girl sounded almost sane. After all, if she had plans, then she was thinking about the future. Maybe she passes through phases, Kerry thought, like the moon when it glows and grows, and then darkens and shrinks.
Diamond Girl offered an authoritative nod. “You’re definitely going to be hearing about what I’m doing, and when you do you’re going to know it’s me. It has nothing to do with Ashley.” She waved her hand as if she were dismissing a pesky autograph hound. “I’ve got my own plans now.”
“What are they?”
But Diamond Girl’s attention was grabbed by a distant fire.
“That’s got to be the compound,” she said.
She turned down the road.
“Please let me out,” Kerry pleaded.
“Stop whining. I told you I’d let you out by the gate.”
The fire seemed to grow larger as they sped toward the compound. The gate, much to Kerry’s horror, stood open, welcoming, which must have been how Diamond Girl had left it when she’d stolen the Jeep. But she kept her word, braking quickly. She cut the engine, and jumped out with the keys. The moment the locks disengaged, Kerry kicked open the door and backed away. But Diamond Girl wasn’t even looking at her. She climbed up on the roof, towering over the flatlands that surrounded them.
“It looks like the foundry,” she reported. “It’s gone. All I can see are some smaller fires where it used to be.”
Kerry kept backing away. She didn’t give a flying fig about the foundry or the fires. All she cared about was her freedom, keeping it at any cost, bolting into the damn desert, if need be.
As she considered this, Diamond Girl spun toward her and raised her arms, as if reaching to the stars.
“Yes,” she whispered, and even with the rain spattering the Jeep, the damp earth, Kerry heard her. A stage whisper, a cunning sibilance that embraced her ears as Diamond Girl’s hands had embraced her body.
She lowered her arms until both of them pointed straight to Kerry. A red glow lit the side of her face.
“I can’t make you go with me. That was Ashley’s mistake, thinking he could make me do something I didn’t want to do. Like my parents.”
She paused, and Kerry saw a strange look appear on Diamond Girl’s face. Wistful? She wasn’t sure, and it passed so quickly that she wondered if she’d imagined it.
“So I’m not going to do that to you. But I’m going to make you
want
to come with me. You’ll see. Someday you’ll want it more than anything in the world. You’ll hear about me, and you’ll let me know. You’ll find a way, and I’ll come back for you then. I promise.”
What the
hell
is she talking about? Kerry backpedaled madly, trampling brush and stumbling; but never,
never
taking her eyes off Diamond Girl, who jumped down from the Jeep and threw open the driver’s door.
The dome light filled in all the shadows on her face, and she looked as excited as a child about to board a roller coaster for the first time; a child eager to begin a long scary plunge with a great scream of joy, of delicious, delirium-inducing fear. A child about to grow up in ways that she has only begun to imagine.
Kerry stood by the gate unmoving, unsheltered, long after the Jeep’s taillights melted into the night. When she felt certain that Diamond Girl was gone for good, she forced herself to walk toward the highway. She might be hours from rescue, but each step, she assured herself, was bringing her closer to a warm drink and final safety.
She hadn’t moved fifty feet when a pair of headlights coming from the compound stole her shadow from the blank darkness.
“Oh shit!”
She raced back to the slim refuge of the gate and tried to hide behind the post. As the headlights grew brighter, she bundled herself into the smallest possible ball, and shut her eyes, as if this could add to her cover.
Behind her lids, the lights enlarged, and the pixels of fear expanded. The tires grumbled on the road, and then stopped.
She burst from the gate post and ran into the soggy desert, suppressing the screams that wanted to rip from her throat.
A horn sounded, and a man yelled, “Kerry. Kerry! Stop.”
The only man she knew around here was Ashley Stassler, and she’d run until her legs dropped off before she’d stop for him. But then she heard a dog’s deep bark, and a woman with a wounded voice trying to shout to her.
Kerry halted. Ashley Stassler never called her by name, only Her Rankness; and the only other woman who’d ever been out here, besides Diamond Girl and her murdered mom, was Lauren, though it didn’t sound like her.
“It’s me, Ry Chambers,” the man shouted. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ve got Lauren in the car.”
The cute older guy with all the wavy hair. She remembered him. But she was still too wary to rush back to the road. She took light steps, fully prepared to pivot and flee if this horrifying night took one more dark turn.
It wasn’t until she drew within twenty feet of the Land Rover that she could make them out.
Ry helped her into the front passenger seat, which she had to share with Leroy. Lauren herself lay stretched out under a blanket in the back. She was gripping her leg, and her face looked severely bruised and bloodied.
“What happened to you?” Kerry said.
“Stassler shot me in the leg, and it hurts like hell.”
Ry started driving toward the highway. “Do you know the way to the hospital?” he said to Kerry.
“Sure. Take the road to town, and I’ll show you from there.”
Lauren shifted on to her side. “We found Leroy out here too. I wonder who else we’ll find on this road.”
“As long as it’s not Stassler, I don’t care,” Kerry replied.
“It won’t be him,” Lauren said in a strained voice that immediately broke. “I promise you … it won’t be him.”
A S
ALVATION
A
RMY
S
ANTA RANG
his bell in the rain. Lauren reached into her wallet and stuffed a ten dollar bill into his red bucket. She rarely passed one of these Santas without donating at least a few dollars. She’d been feeling exceptionally generous since she’d survived her ordeal in the desert. Generous
and
grateful. Never again would she take any aspect of living for granted. Smells, sights, sounds, all her senses teemed with intensity.
Might be love too, she said to herself with a smile. For months now love had been weaving its wonders into almost everything she did and thought. Ry had been a marvel, helping her through all the physical rehabilitation, and holding her through the long nights when the ghostly visage of Ashley Stassler would invade her dreams and destroy her sleep as surely as he had tried to destroy her life.
They’d rented a small house with a big fenced yard three blocks from the university. The single-car garage had become her studio, and while the view wasn’t nearly as impressive as the one she’d known in Pasadena, the company she kept—Ry and Bad Bad Leroy Brown—had proved so much better. A starter house, she thought, for a starter family. She hoped.
She all but skipped up the steps to Bandering Hall, immensely pleased to feel so much strength and spring in the leg that had been wounded. Last week she’d started running again, amazed at how the body and mind healed. She’d been extraordinarily pleased to see both coming together in her work, transforming tragedy into sculpture. Her pieces had never been edgier, or better.
The door to Bandering swung open, and she moved aside for a young woman carrying a brightly colored painting cloaked in clear plastic.
Lauren hurried inside, and took the stairs to her office, beaming when she unlocked the door and saw the tiny Christmas tree sitting on the corner of her desk. Tree? She knew that was a stretch. More likely the top foot or so of a pine that Ry had lopped off, and then decorated for her with dozens of bulbs the size of BBs: red and gold and purple and green and silver, all those wonderfully lurid colors that heralded the season so boldly. She loved them. She loved the tree. Most of all, she loved the man who’d given it to her.
He’d brought it by this morning, and promised to rendezvous with her after lunch. He was busy on the last chapter of his book. Not the one he’d planned on writing, but the one dictated by the gruesome evidence that had surfaced in Stassler’s compound. Ry was exploring the links—and they were legion—between Stassler’s sculpture and his insanity. Other authors were writing books about Stassler too—his murderous methods had become sensational news—but none of them possessed Ry’s firsthand knowledge of the man and his madness.
As she sat down, her computer screen came to life, displaying a schedule delightfully unencumbered. Even Dr. Aiken, the curmudgeonly chair of the department, had been moved enough to lighten her load. Not that she’d ever forgo teaching entirely. She derived such genuine pleasure from lecturing, showing slides, and working with her students in the studio. And they appeared more receptive than ever to her guidance. Kerry’s work, in particular, had evolved in ways unimaginable for most undergrads. But then the woman herself had endured the unimaginable. She was no longer a girl, and Lauren would never think of her that way again.
Ry strolled into the office with mischief in his eyes. It was as visible to Lauren as the mauve scarf that hung from his neck.
She’d been so surprised and flustered the first time he’d walked in. What had she been expecting? A Mr. Peeps maybe, or a twenty-something burning with misplaced literary ambition. Certainly not a desirable physical specimen with a head full of intelligent questions. That just didn’t happen very often in a university, or anywhere else for that matter, now that she thought about it. Brains or brawn? Take your choice, and take your chance. But with Ry she’d never had to. She’d lucked out. She knew it. And she wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass her by.
He kissed her and squeezed her hands, and this moment, above all the others, sealed her decision.
“I have an idea,” she said.
“What’s that?” he asked as he sat in the chair next to her desk.
“Let’s get married.”
“Married?” he repeated, as if the word were an especially dangerous allergen.
“Yes … married,” she said, though with less assurance than she’d felt a moment ago. Only last Christmas Chad had backed away too, and for the same reason.
“I think …” Ry paused, “you should see what Santa brought before you say another word.”
Santa? For a moment all she could think of was the Salvation Army Santa she’d seen on her way back from lunch. But then her eyes settled on the outstretched arms of the tiny tree. Below the glittering bulbs she spied a small package in white tissue paper, hidden behind the skinny trunk by a scheming hand.
“Should I open it?” she teased.
“No,
don’t
do that,” he replied as playfully.
She picked it up and peeled away the tissue paper slowly, savoring the full romance of the moment.
A red velvet box appeared, and when she opened it she saw the ring, and the sparkle of the stone.
“I can’t believe you beat me to the punch,” he said with a laugh. “I slipped it under there this morning when you weren’t looking, and I was going—”
She put her finger to his mouth to silence him, and then replaced it with her lips.
A
WOMAN IN A BLACK
, knee-length coat knocked softly on the door of a single family home in East Alton, Illinois.
Within moments, a dark-haired girl no older than eight answered.
“Is your mommy home? Or your daddy?” the woman said.
“Mommy,” the girl sang out, “there’s someone here to see you.”
Her mother walked to the door, drying her hands on a dish towel. She looked friendly, and smiled when she spoke.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, I hope so. I used to live here when I was about her age,” the woman’s eyes alighted on the child, “and I wondered if I could take a look around before I leave town today. I just …” and now her voice broke, and when she began to cry she appeared less like a woman than a child herself. “… I just came from my mother’s funeral.”