Solitary: A Novel (42 page)

My bride waits in the glowing circle, waiting for me to rescue her and reclaim her as my own.

Everything up to this moment has been manageable. It hasn't all made sense, but I've been able to get through it. My mother's nightmares and the sound of the wind at night and the strange tracks on the deck. The secrets and guilt that Jocelyn has carried. Her past, her present. The town secrets and the darkness and the strange premonitions.

All of this has seemed manageable.

Maybe I've just deluded myself and convinced myself of a lie.

But now, standing at the edge of the woods, seeing Jocelyn, I know that it's all changed.

Nothing is manageable.

I spot her a mile away.

She is a vision in white. The fires that surround her make her glow.

They also make the figures in red stand out like blood on a dove.

Everything changes-I change.

I don't feel my feet running toward the circle of stones. I don't feel my heart thumping and my breath stopping and my pulse racing as I sprint across the field.

I don't hear my voice screaming out her name.

I no longer care about anything.

There's no fear holding me back.

There's no shadow causing me to slow down.

I reach Jocelyn and feel her and know.

She's gone.

She knew this would happen all along, but I gave her the worst thing one could have in this sick and twisted world.

I gave her hope.

I don't hear my voice screaming out because the wind swallows it whole.

I don't feel the tears streaming down my cheeks.

I no longer have any idea where the gun is. I dropped it in my terror and rage.

I'm at the base of a large stone rock holding her cold, lifeless body. All around her are dry chunks of wood, all lined up as if they're part of bonfire.

Jocelyn is here, tied to this big boulder, wearing a white dress like a bride.

Her throat and wrists slashed.

Slashed some time ago.

I want to throw up, but I can't.

I want to slash my own throat and wrists, but I can't manage to even look out of my blurry, messy eyes.

I shake. And convulse.

I'm screaming.

A hand touches me. Somewhere.

I would like to think I still held my gun, but I don't. I'd like to think I'd break out fighting and beat the whole lot of them, but I'm weak and worthless.

I crumble to the ground right beneath where Jocelyn's body is tied.

"Chris," a voice says.

I feel snot and tears and sweat all clumping on my face.

I'm shivering like a pathetic dog.

"Chris, look at me."

The voice is familiar.

I look up and see the figure hidden in white. Behind him stand figures in red, all holding burning torches. Figures I ignored as I rushed to Jocelyn. Twenty or thirty in all, maybe more.

"Listen to my words carefully, boy. Listen and remember."

I can't stop shaking.

Something in me is gone. Something in me-a very vital part of living and breathing-has simply disappeared.

"Listen right here. We don't need you. You leave, and we'll forget you. Do you understand? We'll let you go because we don't need you. This has nothing to do with you, Chris Buckley. Never has."

I hear something that sounds like a wounded, dying animal.

Sobs. Gasping, ghastly sobs.

They come from me.

"We can do this to your mother, Chris. To your father. We can do this to anybody who means anything to you. But not to you. You will be forced to live through it. Hell is not dying, Chris. It's knowing. It's knowing and living."

I sink to the ground and put my head down and want to die.

A hand grabs my hair and forces my head up.

"You'll live and you'll know, Chris. And you won't tell another single soul. Do you understand?"

I nod.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes," says the voice of some wrecked person. Is it my voice?

The hand lets me go, and I collapse into a pile of mush.

"Leave and never discuss this again."

I stand.

I shake.

"Now," the voice orders.

Jocelyn is there, right in front of me, that sweet angelic face. Beauty like I've never known. A soul larger than life, a soul just trying to make it by.

A soul that loved me.

I let you down.

I let you go.

I let you die.

"Now!"

I glance at Jocelyn one last time then start to walk away.

As I near the edge of the trees I start to turn, but I can't.

I hear the crackling of an inferno behind me.

I see the glare of the smoldering blaze move along the sides of the trees.

I want to turn around, but I can't.

I don't see what's happening. I already know.

The smell of black, hellish smoke reaches my nose, and I double over and throw up what little there is in my stomach.

Then I turn around and see the bonfire.

The flames reach the heavens, as if daring them to do something about it.

The shivering doesn't stop.

Even when I'm home, some time much later, and when I'm under my sheets with the door locked and the pillow over my head.

The shivering won't stop.

My body won't stop grieving.

I want to shut off my mind, but it's still somewhere in those dark woods.

It's too far behind to make sense of anything.

My heart is frozen, cracked, chipped, lifeless.

And as for my soul-

That's the thing that went missing the moment I saw what happened to Jocelyn.

I'll never be the same.

Regardless of whether I have one day left or twenty thousand, I'll never be the same.

The sun comes up.

The skies open up.

The new year arrives.

It's midday and I've asked Mom if I can borrow the car to go into town.

She has no idea, not a clue about the hell I've walked through.

I don't want her to know.

I can't let her know.

They threatened me, and I didn't believe it.

I believe now.

I park alongside the tracks and then walk down them until I reach the old railroad signal.

I walk through woods and get to where the growth subsides.

I see the old barn.

Perhaps I should know better-perhaps I should do something-perhaps I should do nothing. I don't know. All I know is that I'm here and I'm doing this.

Not for answers.

But for myself.

As I walk on the dirt road that leads to the barn, I see a creature standing there as if guarding the building.

It's a wolf.

Its the same wolf that I saw that day in the woods by the creek.

It's gray and tall and beautiful.

It stands there, and part of me wants it to attack me.

I wouldn't fight it. Not today. And not tomorrow.

I'd let it slash my throat and my wrists. Almost gladly.

Instead, it stares me down for a moment, then it bolts off into the woods.

I continue down the path, reaching the opening to the barn.

Part of me is afraid of what I'll find.

Then again, I'll never be afraid again.

When you lose something so close and personal, there's nothing left to worry about losing.

I reach the stall and see that the door is shut.

As I look inside, I don't see or hear anything.

I check out the hay, but don't find anything in it.

The little puppy is gone.

I curse, and I wish there was a god above me to hear it. Because it's Him I'm talking to.

Not even the puppy.

Not even this little, tiny creature named Midnight that made Jocelyn happy.

Why?

I don't get it.

Why?

Then I hear a shuffling sound. There's something behind the wood of the stall I'm standing in.

And I see it.

A little black face. Bold black eyes. A wagging tongue. A flat little nose.

Midnight bolts out of an opening in the wood and rushes toward me, wagging her tail.

I pick her up and hold her in my hands. The dog feels like it weighs two pounds. She's shivering. I know that she's sick-I don't have to be a doctor to tell.

"I'm here, it's okay," I say as I hold her. I sit down in the stall and gently rub Midnight's fur. I feel her body shaking.

That's when I start to cry.

It's the first time all day that I've done so.

Maybe it's just that I wanted to be alone-to be far alone in my own private place.

I weep tears I didn't think I had in me as I think about Jocelyn.

Midnight licks my hands.

I look toward an open window that peers out past the woods into the open sky.

"Why?"

I don't need to address the one I'm talking to. If He's there, He can hear me.

"Why?" is all I ask.

I just want to know.

I want to know why I got so close to saving someone and yet ...

And yet.

Midnight looks up at me.

"I'm going to take good care of you, got that? Nothing's going to happen to you. Nothing at all."

I wipe my eyes and look at the four walls surrounding me.

Then I see something at the edge of the stall. Something dark-a book.

It's the Bible that I gave to Jocelyn.

Inside is a letter.

I keep the Bible shut and pick up Midnight, then leave.

I already feel watched.

Now that I know that Midnight is here and alive, I want to take her to get her warm and to get some food in her.

Then I'll look at the Bible and what's inside it.

Maybe.

There's a town full of mysteries out there. A town just outside my door.

A town full of evil.

I sit in my bedroom, full of questions, full of fear, feeling alone.

I finally pull out the Bible that I gave Jocelyn. The Bible that my father gave me. I slip open the letter and read it.

It's not dated. It's in her handwriting.