Stutter Creek (2 page)

“I haven’t heard that song in twenty years,” Sam had remarked.

She had almost told him about her dream, then. But he had made her feel so silly when she’d told him about her Grandfather stopping by years earlier, that she hadn’t bothered to try and talk to him about her Gran’s visit.

Beth sighed. None of that was very comforting now. If anything, it made her worry about the awful shadow-dreams even more. And her waking reality was almost as bad. The truth sizzled around her like lightning from a broken sky: her family was gone. She was alone in the dark house because Sam had given up their marriage to pursue happiness with a younger woman. Her father had died from cancer, and Abby, her only child, had eloped with her fiancée just a few short months after Sam moved out.

Beth suspected the elopement was partly Abby’s way of coping with the pain of losing her dad and granddad in one fell swoop. And if her new son-in-law hadn’t taken a teaching position in Italy, Beth would have been even more thrilled for them. Now, she was just sad. And lonely.

Too bad I can’t do something like elope, she thought. Just run off and start anew.
On the other hand, maybe even a minor change of scenery would help.

Chest tight, she got up and patrolled the silent house. She felt like a ghost in her own life.
What had happened to the last twenty years? Had it been nothing but a dream?
Had her whole life been nothing but a dream?
Thoughts, images, and memories roiled through her mind like river rapids, unceasing.

Finally, circuit through the silent house complete, Beth curled up in the living room recliner and turned on the television. At least the noise drowned out the silence. The bluish light of an old movie reminded her of all those Friday nights when she was a child right here in Sandy, Texas sneaking into the midnight living room to watch Shock Theater when her dad had already gone to bed.

She was so exhausted she never even noticed the tiny dots of color that darted here and there around the room. There were dozens of pinpricks of light, every hue and color of the rainbow. Gradually coalescing, they swarmed around her gently, like a delicate diaphanous shawl. Maybe she didn’t see them, but perhaps she sensed them for closing her eyes, Beth finally slipped back into sleep, peacefully.

Sunlight woke her the second time. It was just beginning to break through the white eyelet curtains she had made two years ago. Back when the world was right and her life had been populated with loved ones and plans for the future.

She was lying in the center of Abby’s soft bed just like she’d done almost every night since the elopement. Though she was certain she had retreated to the recliner at one point, it seemed as if it was growing more and more difficult to tell the dreams from the waking.

Glad to see daylight, Beth untangled herself from the heap of sheets and blankets twisted around her feet. If only it was that easy to untangle the remnants of my life, she thought.

Tears formed at the corners of her eyes. It was such a beautiful morning. The March sunlight falling across the bed was almost as warm and golden as that in her previous dream-park.

Sadness washed over her again. There was no escaping it, no place to hide. Not even sleep could shield her. Her father was gone. Even though she’d known he was terminal, she hadn’t been ready. Though he’d suffered horribly, even with the morphine, she still wanted him back. She knew it was selfish; she knew he was better off. But she missed him, needed him. They’d always had such a connection. She’d assumed it was because he’d been her only parent, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe there was something even deeper.

Thinking of her father was bad enough, but then there was Sam, gone but not gone. Betrayer. She didn’t want to think about that, refused to think about it. Refused to acknowledge how her entire life had hinged on her husband and her dad.

She clutched the pillow to her face, and screamed out her pain and anger again, and again, and again until her throat was raw and there was nothing left inside but an old riverbed where tears had once flowed.

After a few moments, she felt what she was hoping to feel—empty and dry. But she knew the riverbed wasn’t
really
dry. Those tears were still there, like a flash flood waiting for a cloudburst. She was beginning to think they would always be there; that the rest of her life would be rolled out before her on waves of tears.

She had to get out, go somewhere. She recalled her idea of a change of scenery. It was almost her last hope. There was certainly no reason to stay. She had taken a leave of absence from work; she wouldn’t have to return until August. Just the thought of preparing her fifth grade classroom for a new group of students made her stomach churn and her chest constrict. In fact, at this moment, she couldn’t envision herself
ever
returning to the classroom. It felt as if Mrs. Evans, the teacher, had been replaced by Bethany Brannock, the timid girl of her youth.
How could I have reverted so quickly, so completely?

She thought the awful nightmares had something to do with her inability to move on. They were every night. In fact, every time she fell asleep, day or night. And they were so real, so depressing, and so frightening.

Stutter Creek, she thought, and she immediately felt a little better.

Struggling from the bed, she pulled a suitcase from her closet and began to stuff it with jeans and T-shirts. Stutter Creek, New Mexico. The place where she and her father had fled after her mother’s death so long ago. The place where she had been both a little girl, and later, a young woman.

The place where she had experienced her first real crush.

Big John.

She was positive she would feel better at the Stutter Creek cabin. Already she felt lighter. Just the thought of doing something, instead of simply wallowing in self-pity, made her breathe a tiny bit easier.

It wasn’t until she was packed and taking a last minute shower that she let her mind drift back to the latest dream. Even in the stream of warm water cascading down her body, Beth shivered. Images of shadows crept into her mind. She wondered if she would ever sleep normally again.
Would the nightmares continue at the cabin?

One thing was certain. The nightmares were getting worse here. They were unrelenting. Beth tried to remember what each one was about, but in truth, she was glad when she couldn’t. It was always just a feeling of doom, and that thick black shadow that blotted out the sun and seemed to soak up the very air around her.

As she stepped from the shower, she spied the grief counselor’s card tucked into the edge of the mirror on her dresser. Cindy, a registered nurse who just happened to be her closest friend, had given her the card only yesterday. She was well aware of the difficulties Beth was experiencing. She’d given her the card in hopes that she could convince her friend to attend a meeting and realize she wasn’t alone in her pain.

Beth recalled the feeling of revulsion she’d felt when Cindy had pressed the card into her hand. She didn’t want to expose her pain in public. And she certainly didn’t want to hear about someone else’s trouble.

But that had been yesterday, before the latest bout of nightmares. Now, well, what did she have to lose? She felt like she was nearing the end of her rope. Besides, Cindy said she didn’t have to speak, or even give them her name. The hospital referred lots of patients there. She said it was the policy of the group to let folks just sit and listen if that’s what made them comfortable. And she promised Beth that if she hated it, she would never mention it again.

Beth looked at the small, non-descript card. Cindy
did
have years of experience with grieving patients. Maybe it was worth a try.

Wrapped in a towel, dripping all over the rug, she picked up her cell phone and tapped in the seven-digit number. She still intended to head for Stutter Creek, but she was half-afraid things would be the same there.
Or even worse.
Perhaps Cindy was right. Maybe talking to a grief expert would ease her mind—and her fears—before she left.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
She pulled the towel a bit tighter and listened nervously as the ringing began.

Chapter Three

Danny kept whining that he was cold. Kurt warned him to shut up. What more could the kid want? He had the hat Kurt had taken off a homeless man in the city.

Kurt knew how to keep his son quiet. The first night Danny had spent with him, Kurt had crushed up a prescription pill he’d liberated from his “buddy’s” medicine cabinet. He’d sprinkled some of the residue onto a McDonald’s hamburger. When Danny complained about the grit, Kurt had grabbed the rest of the burger and tossed it out the car window. The kid never complained about a gritty hamburger again. After that, sleep had taken over, and from then on Danny was seldom awake long enough to register anything.

Kurt was glad the pills made the kid thirsty. That’s what kept him in line. He only gave him something to drink when he did what he was told to do.

After Danny had lured Amanda to stop, Kurt had rewarded the kid with a can of lukewarm Pepsi. Danny had downed it quickly. Then he’d dozed off with his back against a live oak. That was just what Kurt intended. It had kept the kid out of Kurt’s way.

Danny had been too stoned to notice the lifeless body of Amanda Myers pushed down into the front floorboard. He didn’t even wake when Kurt stopped beside the road farther on, wrestled the petite young woman out of the car and heaved her body over the edge of a rough arroyo. Kurt looked at the kid sound asleep in the backseat. He hadn’t seen him since he was a baby, but he’d kept tabs on him all along. He knew this was his kid, even if the damn state had taken him away when his mom had gone missing.

Kurt had been in prison for five years, but that had just been for selling drugs; no one had ever officially connected him to his wife’s disappearance. As a result, he had never been blocked from knowing his son’s whereabouts.

After he was paroled, Kurt had snatched Danny right out of his current foster parents’ front yard. The boy had been playing with a friend when Kurt pulled up in a “borrowed” car. It took him only a minute to convince Danny’s friend to run home to fetch a Band-Aid for the serious-looking cut on Kurt’s hand. Then, when Danny drew closer, to inspect the self-inflicted wound, Kurt had grabbed him. It was almost too easy.

Danny begged to go home. But Kurt had convinced him he was really his daddy and the state had taken him away from him. What could a six year old really know?

After that, the boy hadn’t asked to go home anymore. He hadn’t asked anything at all. He just did what he was told. An Amber alert had been issued immediately. Kurt guessed someone missed the kid. But he’d heard the news on the car radio. The only thing the other kid had been able to tell them was that Danny had been taken by a man with a cut on his hand.

Kurt entertained himself by ruminating on his plan. He was so furious with the people who had taken away his freedom—especially that hotshot blonde Prosecutor—that he had thought of little else for the past five years.

Now, he had it all figured out. Danny was the bait, and blonde girls were the prey. Pretty little blondes like his missing wife, Sherry, and like that interfering Prosecutor. Kurt didn’t want to go back to prison, but someone had to pay for what he’d been through.

His wife had paid as soon as she’d started demanding money from him for things like diapers and formula; now it was time for the Prosecutor to pay. But first, he would show her how powerful he was.

The prison psychiatrist had diagnosed Kurt as a true sociopath. He had absolutely no regard for the rules of society. To Kurt Graham, it had always been about him and no one else.

He had gone through his life totally confused by all the rubbish the system had tried to ingrain into him about compassion, sympathy, and golden rules. None of that made any sense to Kurt. It was survival of the fittest, and that was all. He could spell the word “conscience” but that was as close as he ever got to having one. A conscience only got you in trouble.

He was listed as chronically depressed because he never seemed to fit in. Kurt had been self-medicating long before he got out of junior high school. Alcohol was his first drug of choice. But he’d quickly moved on to others. By the time he was sent to Alternative School for slashing a rival’s tires in the school parking lot, he was already an old hand at making his own drugs or selling himself to get the money from someone else.

As soon as he turned eighteen, he dropped out of school and began dealing drugs in earnest. He had just discovered heroin when Sherry moved in. The two of them were in the same shape. She would do anything for drug money. Neither wanted an actual job, or even an actual life. The fact that they were so much alike was what made them comfortable with each other.

It wasn’t long before she found out she was pregnant with Danny. And although she loved getting high almost as much as Kurt, she had tried to stay off the harder drugs while she was pregnant. She said she had no intention of being saddled with some brain-damaged brat. Then she had seen a reality show featuring a couple that had paid for a woman’s entire pregnancy, delivery, and a bonus. In fact, the couple had been so well to-do, they’d even bought the birth mother a new car.

That’s when Sherry had started trying to stay clean. She told Kurt they could get rid of the kid and get a new car, too.

Kurt didn’t care about any of that. He was strictly a live for the moment kind of guy. So when Sherry quit partying and bringing in the drugs, or the drug money, he knew something would have to change. Giving up his dope just so she could play mommy was not an option. He’d warned her not to ever get pregnant. Obviously, she’d forgotten their agreement.

It had come as a complete surprise to him when she up and moved in with the couple who were planning to adopt the baby, but when they found out about Sherry’s drug history a few months later, they called the whole thing off. In the adoption paperwork, Sherry had checked NO when asked if she’d ever used illegal drugs. They kicked her out.