Rebirth (6 page)

I squeezed her hand hard. “Jesus, what?”

“Him, then Kevin, then - then that Fred…” She stopped suddenly, rhyming off the names I would hate forever after. I said nothing more, I only listened. “Earl first, cornering me in the kitchen after – after I left your room last night… was it last night?” She looked away again trying to focus.

The sauna was the best place in the house to have this secret conversation as it had a heavy wooden door, and the bathroom door itself was shut and locked. If she wanted secrecy, this place would offer it.

“He said he wanted to kiss me. He said he’d been lonely.” She released my hand and placed both hands on her knees, perhaps unconsciously forcing them together. “I told him I wasn’t interested. I told him no…” I could see the memories play out on her face, and she frowned deeply. “Please don’t tell Sid. Please…” She wept involuntarily and caught her breath. “I’m so ashamed.”

“No,” I said automatically. “No, Caroline. This is not your fault, don’t you do that.”

“What if I had let him kiss me?” She questioned.

“Goddamn it, Caroline.” I was livid. Not with her, but with her thought process. “You are the victim.”

“He said he was lonely. He said they were all so lonely.” Jesus Christ, all of them, animals! “I – I hate them now.” She had every right. I should kill them for her, I thought.

Caroline continued to relive the memory. “He took my wrists and pulled me into him, into those yellow teeth… and I fought him, I did, Sara!” It was crushing to hear the details.

“Then I felt a sharp pain in my stomach.” Her hand moved to her midsection.

“I know, Caroline.” I massaged her shoulder. “And Sid will know that too.”

“No! Please don’t tell him, Sara.” I wanted to so he would take matters into his own hands and kill that fuck. All of them. But I’d promised.

“Okay, Caroline, I won’t. If that’s really what you want, I will keep my promise.” It ate me up inside, but maybe she’d change her mind in time.

“He dragged me to the basement by the neck, I – I couldn’t scream or speak.” She was stone-faced now. “I tried to wiggle free, but he was too strong. When we reached the bottom of the stairs I knew I was in trouble. He kept dragging me across the floor and I went limp. I thought maybe my dead weight would make it harder but he kept going. Then he threw me on the couch and I said I would scream and he hit me in my face.” A hand moved slowly to her temple where I guessed Earl had punched her.

“Jesus Christ, Caroline. I’m so sorry.” I stroked her hair. I wanted to make it better for her. I thought briefly how this could have been me.

Tears burned my eyes and I rubbed them out. I felt I needed to be strong for her. She continued her story saying that Kevin and Fred had followed. The attack had clearly been planned in advance. Tears rolled down both of our cheeks. Had they only spared me because of my pregnancy? What if I hadn’t revealed this the day before? A full-body shiver went through me. How had it come to this?

“But they were drunk; I could smell the gin on their breath, in my ear. Maybe if they weren’t drinking…”

“Jesus, Caroline.” I managed through my hoarse throat. “Don’t give them anything. They did it, that’s enough. Don’t give them anything.”

“I don’t know how long I laid there. I don’t even know how I ended up in the cold room. I just knew I couldn’t face any of them.”

“Where was Sonny during all this?” I asked, propping myself up.

“Never heard his voice.”

“Sons of bitches.” I growled through clenched teeth. I vowed I would kill them then and there. The how and the when would eventually present themselves.

Chapter Eleven

The night Earl, Fred, Kevin and Sonny left to chase the flags, I found myself in the addition with Seth, trying to keep busy while we kept watch - as we had countless times before. It was a chore, one which I’d always dreaded. The boredom of sitting alone and staring out the windows, often into an abyss of blackness, was numbing. When the clouds dominated the skies and there were no stars, moon or even a faint flicker of light in the distance to focus on, your shift, in what we had nicknamed Skylab, seemed doubly painful. Of course, with the absence of light, seeing the enemy was made all the more easy, as they would carry either a torch or a flashlight, something to light their way in the darkness.

This night did not produce an enemy, thankfully. Nor was the sky as black as it once was. Clouds moved slowly, offering us a glimpse of a star or even the moon. It was waxing Gibbous that night. Gibbous, a term I had learned recently, in one of Joel’s childhood books. Having read virtually every book in the house, I had turned to purely educational reading, and then finally to educational children’s books. I liked to think of the moon waxing rather than waning; the idea it would reveal itself gave me hope. Watching it wane made me feel as though it would disappear again, as it did in the beginning, and maybe forever this time.

While poking around in Earl’s things - he and the other three had taken to sleeping in the addition - I came across a booklet under a pillow, a journal of sorts. It was one of Kevin’s sketch books, with a black textured cover and about 200 bright white pages. Many of these pages had been filled with a very steady hand. The penmanship was impressive. It was Earl’s handwriting; I recognized it immediately from his maps and charts and timetables which he’d posted around the house.

After thumbing through the pages I closed the book, my interest falling back to the cover which had been carved with a knife. The carving formed words, and the words alarmed me for several reasons.

MY STRUGGLE

The title itself told a story. But knowing Earl, and relating the title to a history lesson on the Discovery Channel a few years back, MY STRUGGLE became profoundly more disturbing when translated into German; Mein Kampf. Hitler’s autobiography, and political ideology which propelled him into his role in infamy. Knowing Earl, he knew exactly how this title translated, and to whom he would be comparing himself. How would I live with someone I hated, someone I wanted dead? I opened the journal again and read, suddenly feeling Seth’s eyes upon me.

“Are you sure you should be reading that, Sara?” he questioned timidly.

“What’s the harm? They won’t be back for days.”

“What did Caroline say to you today when you found her?” he asked, changing the subject.

“She’s fine, Seth,” I lied. In fact, I wondered if she’d ever be fine again. “She had an episode.” I was sticking with that answer. People seemed to stop asking when you said the word ‘episode’.

“Okay.” He let it go and I started flipping pages, hoping to gain some advantage over Earl by reading his secret thoughts.

“I was impressed more than anything with the way Gareth carried himself. The total control he had over his membership inspired me.” He referred to the leader of the flags, who had hoped to grill each of us in an attempt to weed out supposed ‘sympathizers’ to the Reaper’s ideals. Gareth was a small man, and he ruled with fear. Joel saw that.

I read on. “Gareth was well spoken, superior in his demeanor. People need to be led. People need to feel safe. Gareth offered those things. Two things to rule: offer safety and offer leadership.” He was taking notes the whole time!

“Leadership is often thrust upon an individual. Joel was voted our leader, and Joel cracked under the pressure. What is better is to take leadership, there is power in that and people respect power.” I felt a pang of anxiety. He was building himself up to lead us all, and he would take control. As I read on, I found more passages that related to leadership; entire pages filled with plans to lead an army of his own, schematics of battles we’d fought. He took nothing for granted. He learned from everything and he documented it. I’d said before that Earl was too intelligent to have such a scary side. The very idea of Earl in control made me sick with fear.

Flipping through more of the text I stopped again at a section entitled; Sexual cleansing - the immediacy of procreation. “The purpose of life is to procreate and evolve. In a world where humanity has likely lost most of its populace, procreation is key to the survival of the species. What does not encourage procreation cannot be allowed to consume resources. A sexual cleansing is necessary. The homosexuals need be exposed and exterminated, so as not to consume that which will feed humanity’s future.”

“So, whose journal is it? Kevin’s?” Seth sounded despondent. My heart went out to him. I knew he was gay, I’d always known, and reading Earl’s grand plan, I wondered if he knew it too.

“No, Earl’s,” I replied and cleared my throat. Should I show him? I felt I had to protect him.

“So, what’s he saying? Kill the flags - good. Hate your neighbor – good. No more ammo – bad. Something along those lines?”

I laughed and smiled at him, then shook my head.

“He’s fucked, Seth, and I’m afraid we’re in trouble. He’s talking about taking control, leading us all.”

Seth didn’t like the sound of that. “Earl can go fuck himself. The guy’s a pussy with a gun. I’d never follow him.”

“But what if he used the others to back him up? We’re two women and two men. He’s got four men.”

“Well, I can’t see those guys actually forcing us to do something. I mean Jesus, we’re all friends here right?”

I thought of what they’d done to Caroline and almost used it as an example but stopped myself.

“I think they’re all under his spell and are capable of anything. The most we can hope for now is that the flags get to them before they get to the flags.” And I meant it. They would be doing us a favor if they killed Earl. I feared for our futures and for the future of my baby if he returned.

Chapter Twelve

Earl, Sonny, Fred and Kevin returned to the house a week later. My heart sank at the sight of them. One, two, three, four, I counted as they moved through the front door, no worse for wear as far as I could tell. Sonny went straight to the kitchen, passing me without a word.

“What happened?” I asked, struggling to contain my hatred.

“We got them,” Fred said on his way to the basement. I became nervous: they were all behaving strangely.

“Well, is something wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing to concern yourself with.” Kevin marched past me, following Sonny into the kitchen.

“You fucking pussies!” Earl cried from the front hall. I jumped out of my skin. I flushed at the sight of him.

“Rest easy, Sara.” Mistaking my rage for fear, he approached me. “We got all of ‘em!” While he spoke, he flapped a piece of something between his fingers. He also wore a colored cape draped over his shoulders.

“Oh my God.” As he got closer I could see what he held. It was skin, flesh! I backed off automatically. “What have you done!”

“This is my prize!” he shouted. “All of ours! Think of it as our flag, courtesy of the flags!” Then he removed the cape from around his shoulders, threw it over the railing of the staircase and went to the kitchen. I was frozen in terror at what I was seeing.

*****

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The mental image of human flesh draped across the railing just one floor beneath me was too horrifying for words. I could only imagine what my subconscious would conjure up if I allowed myself to sleep. I had seen so much death by this point, nothing should have shocked me. But this blatant desecration incurred a new level of horror. Finally, when I could toss and turn no more, I got up and wandered outside, escaping through the bedroom window, crossing the rooftop and navigating down the TV antenna to where Sonny was standing on the back patio.

Chapter Thirteen

“Talk to me, Sonny.” I begged him. “Whose skin is that?”

“It’s Gareth’s,” he replied. “Jesus, Sara...” His head lowered and his eyes closed.

“I don’t think I want to know any more.”

“We killed them all. We killed most of them in their sleep. But when the guns went off a few of them woke up, and we shot them down.” He paused. “Maybe to them it was all a dream, you know? Doesn’t everyone hope they’ll just die in their sleep?”

“Yeah,” I said, mesmerized by the monotone of his voice.

“We shot them like cattle. One, two, three… they fell like sacks of potatoes, blood everywhere.” Judging from his tone, Sonny had realized revenge wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

“I wish you hadn’t gone, Sonny.”

He turned then and looked at me wearily. “Yeah. Me too, Sara.”

He continued to describe how Freddy had located Gareth during the early part of the melee and secured him to a tree with rope, letting him watch his army be gunned down in front of him. Earl swaggered over to Gareth when the last of his followers were dead, and before cutting his throat, said; “Ever seen an animal skinned, Gareth? Know how many animals I’ve skinned? Enough to know how to skin a man.” Then the knife came out and Earl slid it across Gareth’s throat slowly, a shallow cut. Thick red blood ran slowly down his neck and chest, collecting on his robe. The cut was not deep enough to kill, only to torture. Gareth’s mouth opened as if to protest and Earl jabbed the knife down on his tongue cutting through his jaw. He left it there for a time and circled his victim, sizing him up.