The Absence of Mercy (12 page)

Thomas held up a hand. “Hey, I'm not telling you anything. Except that you sound like you're in serious need of a beer.”

“Nah, I stopped drinking,” Devon said. “It was making me stupid. There comes a point when it's easier to get drunk than to get mad. That's a dangerous place, T. When it's all you have, it's important to hang on to your anger.”

“Oh yeah? Then why the big party?” Thomas pointed a thumb in the direction of the house full of drunken teenagers directly behind them.

“Oh, that.” Devon cast a dispassionate glance up the steps toward the back door. “It'll provide a topic of conversation for when my folks get home. I have a responsibility to wake them up if I can. Lord knows I keep trying.”

They sat in silence at the foot of the steps, listening to Axl Rose belting out “Paradise City”—an oldy-but-goody—from the living room speakers just inside. Devon returned the clubs to the golf bag, clapped his friend on the back, and started up the steps toward the back door. “Plus,” he said, “I have to admit I enjoy the background noise.”

Thomas rose from his own seated position and ascended the steps behind him.

The party started breaking up around 1:30
A.M.
Twenty minutes after Devon placed a call to the cab company, a line of checkered taxis were assembled in front of the house. A number of people called their parents for rides home, and the kids who were only
mildly
intoxicated set out on foot. A few people lingered—they always do—but by 2
A.M.
most of the crowd had dispersed. Thomas, himself, had set out on foot around 1:45. He had a long walk and needed to save some of his energy for shimmying back up the rope into his bedroom.

Bret Graham bid good night to Cynthia Castleberry. Her hand touched his arm one last time, and he placed a delicate kiss on her right cheek. “Call me,” he said, placing a slip of paper with his phone number into her soft palm, and he thought this time she would.

Devon, who was ready for the place to clear out, began cleaning up the kitchen. That was enough to make even the die-hard partiers realize the time had come for them to go. The art of attending a good party, of course, was to linger right up until the cleanup begins, and then to get the hell out of there before you wound up with a garbage bag in your hands. There was a fine line between being part of the problem and being part of the solution, and it was important to determine which side of the line you wanted to end up on at 2
A.M.
Most people picked the former.

Brian Fowler and Monica Dressler were among the last people to set out on foot for home. They exited the community, turned right, and continued along Powells Lane to the north, talking and joking about the party. Ernie Samper had been totally shit-faced by the end of the evening and wound up giving a fairly decent reenactment of Jim Carrey's karaoke performance of “Somebody to Love” from
The Cable Guy
. Toward the end of the song, Ernie had been pelted in the side of the head with a spinach-dip-laden cracker, which had started a brief but rather messy food fight. Around that time, Devon had started calling for the cabs.

“
Don't yoou want somebody to loovvve?
” Monica now sang, as Brian gesticulated spastically to the imaginary music.

“Yeah, baby. Summer of luuuvvvv!” he proclaimed into the night. Somewhere nearby, a dog began to howl, which sent them both pealing off into laughter.

“Watch out for that spinach dip,” Monica warned.

“Incoming!” Brian yelled. He ducked his head and ran forward along the street, crouched at the waist. Monica laughed. The sound came out as a powerful snort, and she covered her mouth with her hands.

“Captain Pig at six o'clock, Commander!” Brian snapped to attention, saluting an imaginary officer.

“Shut up,” Monica admonished him, trying to sound stern. She couldn't hold it together, though, and another snort escaped her.

“The swine approaches, Commander!” Brian said. “Shall we deploy the slop-guns?”

“You'd better shut up, Fowler,” she said, and this time he did. One shouldn't call a girl a pig more than twice, even in jest. At sixteen, he didn't know much about women, but he did know that. He waited for her to catch up.

To change the subject, he said: “Hey, have you gotten started on your paper for Ms. Bradford's class, yet?” They shared English together and had a book report due next Thursday. Brian hadn't begun yet, and if his usual and customary strategy was to be followed, he probably wouldn't begin the project until late Wednesday evening.
An Incredibly Insightful and Comprehensively Developed Book Report on J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye,
he planned to call it—or something of the sort. He paused for a moment:
Catcher in the Rye
? Or was it
The Catcher in the Rye
? He couldn't remember, but a small detail like that might sink him if he wasn't careful. He'd make that his first research question.

“. . . tomorrow.”

“What was that?” he asked.

“I said I've already put together an outline. I'm planning on working on the report tomorrow.”

Brian was impressed. “You made an outline?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “It's part of the process. It helps me organize my thoughts. How do
you
write a paper?”

Wow,
he thought.
Girls are so weird
. Nevertheless, he considered her question carefully for a moment. Develop a process? Organize your thoughts? That sounded like a lot of work. It might even take more than one night to complete. Maybe even
several
! No, no—that wasn't for him. “How do
you
write a paper?
”
she'd asked. The answer had always seemed so obvious to him.

“I just fuel up on Mountain Dew and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups,” he responded seriously, to which Monica smiled, shaking her head.

They crossed the bridge over Route 22 on foot and followed the road to the left onto Ross Ridge Road. Here the lane cut through heavy foliage, and trees hugged the pavement closely on both sides. Three hundred yards ahead, a black mailbox stood sentry at the entrance to a dirt driveway leading to Brian's house. They stopped here for a few more minutes to talk, then Brian proceeded down the driveway and Monica continued on along Ross Ridge. Her family lived in a cluster of homes off Bluck Drive, less than a half mile ahead.

She walked along, listening to the soft sound of her tennis shoes slapping and scuffing themselves across the wet asphalt. She thought of the party, of the swarm of teenagers spilling out onto the front lawn at the end of the night, of the sense of isolation she sometimes experienced even while among her friends, of the feel of Thomas's hand on her shoulder and the way her heartbeat had accelerated at his touch. The rain had stopped falling at least an hour ago, and the sky had cleared, revealing the depth of space above her. She looked up into the heavens, realizing that what she was seeing were not the stars themselves exactly, but merely the arrival of light from those celestial bodies after a long journey through time and space. The vastness of that distance made the light of her own brief existence seem almost inconsequential.

She stopped walking in order to push herself up onto her tiptoes and stretch her arms out toward the sky, watching the shimmer of starlight as it played through her fingers like tiny grains of sand. That was when she heard a step. One single step, and then nothing.

She listened.

Silence played out as if it had something to hide.

A single step that had not been her own. It had been faint, but she'd heard it. She stood there quietly, listening now more intently to the night sounds all around her.

She was cautious now, holding her emotions at bay. She did not run. She did not look around. She pretended that she hadn't heard, and began to walk again—just a little faster. Up ahead, she could see light cresting the hill, and she knew that on the far side of that hill was the community in which she lived. It lay maybe two hundred yards ahead. It was a tangible thing.

She stopped again, quickly. This time there were two steps before the silence. She heard them distinctly.
Step-step
. Silence.

She stood there in the middle of the street and tried to think. She told herself to remain calm. But all she could think about was the sound of those stealthy footsteps—
step-step,
silence—and what it meant. Someone was following her. Stalking her. They didn't want to be heard, but they were taking two steps for her one, trying to close the distance.

Should I run?

She could feel the adrenaline pumping through her, but her legs felt wobbly and she didn't trust them to do what needed to be done.

Should I scream?

It was almost 3
A.M.
, and the night was very quiet. Her scream would be heard. But how much time would pass before help arrived? Five, maybe ten minutes? That would be too late. And if she screamed now, she thought that whoever was following her would waste no time in trying to overtake her. In a way, she would be beckoning him to either cut loose or finish the job. Some primitive instinct told her that he would not cut loose. Not now. He was too close. She could feel it.

Step-step,
silence.

There it was again. But where was it coming from? She glanced behind herself into the darkness, along the route she had just traveled. The road seemed to disappear into the forest on either side, as if it were being swallowed whole. She could see perhaps sixty feet in that direction. Beyond that was blackness. She looked at the trees to her left and right—tried to look past them into the shadows—but the foliage was thick here and it was impossible to see beyond the edge of the woods. Besides, the footsteps were not coming from the woods; she was certain of that. The sound they had made was flat and crisp, like the sound of her own footsteps on the asphalt. Whoever accompanied her tonight was either lurking in the shadows of the road behind her, or . . .

Step-step-step
. Again, silence.

Her follower seemed less concerned now about being heard, which meant it wasn't crucial for him to close the distance unnoticed. Because he had her now. He was close enough. And even if she ran, he must feel certain that he could overtake her. But the crest of the hill was so close now: a hundred yards, if that. Maybe he was underestimating her. She could run fast if she needed to. She knew she could. Her legs no longer felt wobbly and untrustworthy; they felt strong and prepared for whatever was to come next. But it was either now or never. She had a choice to make. If she faltered, it might be too late. She paused only long enough to draw in a deep breath and set her sights on the horizon the road ahead of her made as it topped the small hill. If she could reach that, she would stand a good chance of making it the rest of the way. She could hear the drum of her heartbeat strong and steady as it coursed through the frame of her young body.
I am strong. I can do this,
she thought to herself. Then she ran.

She ran with a dogged intensity of purpose—her legs pumping up and down, propelling her forward with all the force she could muster. She covered half of the remaining distance between her initial position and the top of the hill in perhaps eight seconds. She listened as she ran, anticipating the sound of pursuit, but behind her there was only silence. She had time to think that perhaps there was no one there at all, that the footsteps she'd heard had been nothing more than the product of an overactive imagination combined with a touch of alcohol. The image of her hauling ass up the hill at top speed, running only from her own imagination, made her feel stupid and more than a little embarrassed. She allowed herself to slow slightly, listening more intently for any more footsteps except her own. There were none. She stopped and looked back. Most of the road was still shrouded in shadows. Nothing moved or uttered a sound. Even the insects had been startled into silence by her unexpected fifty-yard dash. She placed her hands on her hips, breathing heavily, and she let out an uneasy laugh.
I'm such a moron,
she thought.

Then she heard it again: footsteps, coming quickly—running this time! They grew distinctly louder, and still she could detect no movement along the roadway behind her.
Doesn't matter,
she told herself.
Get the hell out of here!
She once again turned to run.

That was when he crested the hill ahead of her, blocking off her only route of escape—her only plan. The distance between them was only fifty yards, and he closed it quickly. To her credit, she wasted no time, for there was really none to waste. She followed the only course of action that occurred to her as she turned left and barreled into the woods like a panicked animal. The branches slashed at her face and the bramble tore through the legs of her pants, leaving thin red marks on her ankles. She cut a jagged path through the scrub, trying desperately to lose him.

For a moment, the tactic seemed to be working, for she could hear him floundering behind her as he tried to push his way through the thorny undergrowth. A single thought raced around in circles inside her head as if it were a dog on a track:
If I can put some distance between us, I can find a place to hide! I can lie low and quiet in the darkness! Cover myself with leaves! He'll run right by me! If I can put some distance between us, I can find a place to hide—lie low and quiet in the darkness! Cover myself with leaves! He'll run right by me! Low and quiet . . . cover myself with leaves . . . distance between us . . . run right by me . . .

As she ran, her breath slid in and out of her chest in terrified, ragged waves. Her legs shot out into the night, feet scrambling for purchase on the wet leaves and uneven terrain.

(. . . a place to hide . . . low and quiet in the darkness . . . run right by me . . .)

And she could make it! She could!!
Just a little more distance was all she needed.
But where was he
?!