Shadow of the Past (30 page)

“I know, I know. I’m just glad that he
didn’t find you and that you’re safe. I mean, it’s horrible about
your Dad and brother but I’m just glad he didn’t get to
you.”

She rubbed at her eyes and took in a
deep breath. “I wasn’t in any danger.”

“What are you talking
about?”

“I wasn’t in my room, Mark. I wasn’t
even home.”

“What?”
Well, this is a thrilling new development.

He remembered the vision of that night,
and how Corwin had been asking where she was and he’d thought she’d
hidden from him, but if she wasn’t there, then where . .
.

“I wasn’t there. I was out. I went to
go see Steve.”

Let’s not lose sight of
what matters here, okay? She’s fine, physically, and now you guys
have a lot more in common. So she went to see Steve, after you
explicitly asked her not to and was at his place until, what, 1am?
The important thing is that she’s just unfaithful, not unfaithful
and dead.

“I know you didn’t want me to but I
just went to pick up his notes and when I couldn’t read them I told
Ryan to just go, since he drove me, and I guess he went out and
came back when Corwin or whatever that thing is was at the house.
I’m sorry.”

“Wh . . . why are you sorry? I mean, I
didn’t want you too but that was a mistake. You can do whatever you
want. It’s not like . . .”

She looked away.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

I’m sorry, okay,
Steve had said.
For
everything.

“I can’t . . . How could you?” he said,
stepping towards her.

“Mark,” she said, turning around to
face him. “It didn’t mean anything, okay?”

“Is that supposed to make it better?”
he said.

“Mark, stop it. I didn’t want to lie to
you but this isn’t really that important now.”

“I realize that,” he said through
gritted teeth. “But that doesn’t excuse you going off and doing god
knows what with my supposed best fucking friend!”

“I said stop.”

“Why? Why the fuck should I? I mean,
it’s not every day that you realize your girlfriend is just a cheap
whore who will--”

He didn’t get a chance to finish as his
head snapped back, propelled by the force of her fist.

“Fuck you!” she screamed as he
staggered backwards. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you! My brother is
dead and my Dad may be crippled all because of your stupid
bullshit, so you can just fuck yourself!”

He ran his fingers along the inside of
his lip, and they came back tinged with blood. “Right, that’s fair.
You screw around then get to hit me. Fine.”

“Mark, don’t--”

“Don’t what?” he snapped. “Don’t argue
because this is all my fault anyway? Why don’t you just say your
brother is dead because of me and get it off your chest and then
you and Steve can live happily ever after.”

“I don’t want Steve and don’t you dare
try to twist this around and try to martyr yourself. You kept
saying that you were going to take care of it but all you did was
read a book and try to keep it to yourself! If this whole thing
wasn’t so goddamn crazy I’d go and tell Detective Prescott
myself.”

“I get it. I fucked up and it’s all my
fault. You’re right and I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could’ve
done to keep this from happening, but the fact of the matter is
that you were at Steve’s fucking around before you knew all this
had happened. I guess you knew even then that you were done with
me.” He turned and headed for the car.

“Fuck you!” she screamed at him as he
stopped at the car to get his backpack. He didn’t stop or turn,
getting comfortable with the rage boiling inside him as he headed
out of the park just short of running. He wasn’t going home
yet.

He had a stop to make first.

Steve was almost to his house when he
heard running footsteps coming up behind him. He stepped over to
the side to give whoever was hauling ass room to get by and glanced
over his shoulder to see if it was one of the piss-ant 8 year-olds
that lived up the block. It wasn’t, and it gave him time to roll to
the side as Mark plowed into him.

The two tumbled onto his neighbor’s
lawn, backpacks coming off as Steve tried to roll Mark off of
him.

“You fucker!” Mark yelled, grabbing a
fistful of Steve’s jacket and swinging wildly at him with the other
hand.

“Stop! Stop!” Steve batted away Mark’s
poorly aimed blows and squirmed his way out of his jacket, giving
him a little bit of breathing room.

“Fuck you! Fuck you!” Mark finally
landed a solid blow to Steve’s chest, knocking him back onto the
ground. Mark dove back down on top of him, but Steve managed to get
a leg up, plant it on Mark’s chest and then send him flying away
with a push. Steve got back onto his feet and moved away from
him.

“I’m sorry, okay! I swear I’m
sorry!”

“Fuck you,” Mark said, lunging at him.
Steve sidestepped out of the way and knocked Mark to the ground,
pinning him to the grass with a knee in his back and a forearm in
the back of his head. Mark thrashed and writhed on the ground like
an animal, screaming obscenities at him. Mark’s uninjured arm was
pinned under him, and his other was flailing at him with murderous
intent until Steve grabbed it just below the bandage and twisted it
behind Mark’s back.

“Stop it, Mark, please! I’m sorry,
okay. I am really, really, sorry.”

“Fuck your sorry, you worthless
backstabbing piece of shit!” Mark’s cheek was pressed into the
ground, and only one eye glared up at Steve, red-rimmed with tears
and blazing fury.

“Just calm down, okay? Please.” He
looked around hoping none of the neighbors had come out to
investigate what was going on.

“Why? So you can rationally explain why
you stabbed me in the back during one of the worst times of my
life. Is that why?”

“No, because if you don’t I’ll break
your arm,” Steve said, giving the captive arm a rough twist. Mark
yelped in pain. “Just settle down, okay?”

“Go to hell!” Mark hissed in pain, but
the thrashing all but stopped.

“If I let you up, will you try to hit
me again?”

“Maybe.”

Steve twisted again. Mark gritted his
teeth, but didn’t cry out.

“No.”

“Good,” Steve said, pushing off of Mark
and quickly getting to his feet.

Mark just rolled over and propped
himself up, glaring at Steve with raw hatred.

“Jesus, I haven’t had to do
that to you since the 5
^th
grade,” Steve said, picking up his bag without
taking his eyes off Mark.

“Go to hell.”

Steve sighed. “You’re repeating
yourself, man. Not good.”

“You want something new and original?”
Mark said, getting to his feet. “How about this? I despise you. I
always thought that you’d be my friend no matter what, but now I
find you’re no better than Jack and his pack of assholes. Shit,
you’re worse. At least they are upfront about making my life
hell.”

“For fuck’s sake, Mark,” Steve said.
“No one makes your life more hell than you do. You’re always so
fucking melodramatic about everything.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mark said, shaking his
head. “You screw around with my girlfriend and I’m being
melodramatic and over-reacting, is that it? You sick
fuck.”

“Look,” Steve said, but then stopped
and shook his head. “Y’know, I can’t even argue with you. You’re
right, I’m an asshole. But I just . . . it just happened, okay? I
don’t think she’s the girl for you, and--”

“But she’s the girl for
you?”

“No, she just . . .” Steve let out a
sigh. “I just wanted to and I guess I didn’t think it through. I’m
sorry.”

Mark shook his head and turned away
from him. He was quiet for a moment, and then walked over and
picked up his bag. “You fucking rich-kid prick. You want something,
and you get it, no problem. When I want something, just one lousy
thing in my entire lousy, miserable life you’ve got to have it too.
What the fuck did I ever do to deserve a friend like
you?”

Mark turned and walked away. He must
have known that Steve didn’t have any answer

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

What did I ever do to
deserve a friend like you?

The question haunted him all the way
home and until he was lying face down on his bed, screaming with
rage into his pillow.

Hey, if it makes you feel
better she’s right when she says it’s all your fault. I mean
seriously, if Corwin wasn’t so obsessed with ruining your life, her
dad and brother would be alive and kicking instead of . . . well,
the opposite.

He screamed even louder at that, but he
knew that it was true. Everything she’d said was true, and now she
hated him even though he still loved her. He couldn’t even be truly
angry at her given what he’d brought into her life. If anything he
deserved worse than being cheated on but he couldn’t imagine
feeling more miserable. There wasn’t anything that she’d said that
wasn’t true, and what he’d said to her? Fuck, he deserved every bit
of this and more.

Well maybe you’ll get lucky
and he’ll go after Steve next.

But why bother? Corwin had completely
destroyed the fabric of Mark’s life. If there was anything else he
wanted it was clear that he could just take it. It wasn’t as if he
could do anything to stop it.

“Just come and get me,” he said,
pulling a blanket over his head. “I’m done.”

Darren had been sleeping,
face resting on the cell door. He pulled away and the sweat from
his face stuck the mesh to his face for a second. With the furnace
blazing at full blast during the middle of summer, the heat had
become unbearable. Life had devolved into a haze of sitting at the
door and watching the fire in the furnace dance its magical
dance.

Except for when he came in
and took them. And if they stopped moving for too long, it was down
from the chain, chopped into pieces and into the fire with
them.

Like Suzie Morris, a week
ago.

Like Oscar Lukacs, two days
ago.

He looked over his shoulder
at Randal, now his only cellmate. He was exhausted, lying flat on
his stomach with his head turned to stare at Darren with blank
eyes. The Shadow Man had been coming more and more often for them
now, but Randal had taken the brunt of the beatings since Oscar fed
the fire.

Darren turned and looked
back at it. Some of the coal rolled and settled, but it just burned
on quietly. Darren squinted, watching the patterns in the flame
change in front of him and the mix of dark black coal and
soot-stained bone burning in the chamber.

“Why do you do that?” Randal
said.

“Do what?”

“Stare into the fire like
that.”

“It’s something to do,”
Darren said, turning his attention back to it.

“It’s horrible,”

“I dunno,” Darren said. “I
think it’s kind of pretty.”

The upstairs door opened.
Darren could feel Randal begin to shiver from across the cage.
Darren supposed he should be frightened too, but he didn’t care. He
couldn’t stop him from coming, so all he focused on was the fire in
front of him.

The cage door squeaked open,
and the Shadow Man ducked his head inside. He glanced towards
Randal, and just as his weight shifted to go for the boy in the
corner, Darren stopped him in his tracks.

“Take me.”

“What?” Randal said, but
he’d had already been forgotten. The Shadow Man stared down at him,
and after a moment he nodded and reached out for Darren.

“No, stop it!” Randal said,
crawling across the floor of the cage. The Shadow Man kicked at
Randal, knocking him back onto the ground where he lay still. He
dragged Darren out by a handful of tattered shirt. He didn’t
struggle, but he didn’t walk either. He just hung limply as he was
dragged across the floor, never taking his eyes off the
flames.

The Shadow Man stood Darren
up with one hand and grabbed the chain hanging from the ceiling
with the other. Darren raised his hands and stood on his tiptoes,
letting the chain wind tightly around his wrists. Now, seeing him
fully by the light of the furnace, Darren remembered seeing him
around the neighborhood before. He’d been limping down the street
and Darren’s mother told him that it was impolite to
stare.

He let go of Darren’s shirt,
and Darren blinked away pain and tears as the rusty chain bit into
his wrists with all his weight. Corwin walked over to the furnace
and knelt in front of it.

He bowed down, rolling open
the bundle of cloth that lay on the floor and revealing the
instrument Darren knew all too well.

The cane.

He got back to his feet and
began to walk slowly around Darren. The familiar ring of the blade
being drawn echoed around the room.