Chapter 4 #6
“Where?” she asked in that same flat tone. Never once had there been any emotion the entire time she’d spoken. It was like she’d been reciting a story she was almost bored by. Shock, yes, but it went much further than that, much deeper. Something in her had been destroyed beyond repair.
“Away,” Rodney said. “We made a promise to someone, and we need to keep it.”
“Like Chris did?” she asked, staring at the farmhouse.
Rodney nodded. “Exactly like Chris. You know he wanted to keep on talking to you. I bet it was the only thing he thought about after he left.”
“I like that,” she said. “It’s nice to think about. It’s stupid, you know? I barely knew him.” She brushed a thumb over the gun’s grip.
“That doesn’t matter,” Rodney said. “When you know, you know. It’s not fair what happened. To him or to you. But it did. It happened. Nothing can change that.”
“I know,” she said. She opened the passenger door, causing Don to jump. “Would you like to see the barn? We have horses.”
“No,” Rodney said firmly, the skin under his right eye twitching. “Thank you for the offer, but we need to get back on the road.”
She hesitated, her hand tightening around the gun. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to suffer.”
“Suffering is life,” Rodney said. “It’s part and parcel of living. It never really goes away, but you can become bigger around it. Stronger. The things you thought you weren’t capable of are easier than you think.”
She stared at him for a long moment, still halfway out of the RV. “I like you,” she said eventually. “I don’t want you to feel pain. Get out and come to the barn.”
“I can’t,” Rodney said gently. “But if you’d like to go in there, you can. No one here will try and stop you.”
Her face screwed up, and Don thought she was going to cry. She didn’t, and a moment later, the tight mask returned. “Thank you for the ride. You have been so nice to me. My mother’s face is blue and purple now. Maybe I should try and call the police again?”
“Do that,” Rodney said. “Keep calling until someone listens. They will.”
“You promise?” she asked.
“Yes,” Rodney said.
“Okay. I can do that. I will go inside and call the police over and over until someone listens to me. You promised they would, so I hope that’s true.” She looked back at Don. “Do you want to go to the barn?”
“No,” he whispered, hand shaking.
“I didn’t think you would,” she said. “Goodbye.” She closed the door and began to walk toward the house. She didn’t flinch when Rodney started the RV.
“Keep an eye on her,” Rodney snapped, looking at the side mirrors.
The RV began to reverse quickly down the driveway.
Don watched Amelia. She reached the front porch steps.
She looked at the barn. Looked at her gun.
Tilted her head back to look at the sky.
Then she turned and began to wave. Through the partially open driver’s window, they could hear her shouting.
“Thank you for visiting the Diamond K Ranch! Come back soon!”
And then she sat on the steps and bowed her head. The gun hung loosely from her fingers between her legs.
Rodney spun the wheel. The RV lurched dangerously, clouds of dust billowing up around them. He put the RV into drive and shot down the driveway. In the side mirror, Don saw her face, her yellow dress before they crested a hill. After that, she was gone.
Rodney cursed up a storm the farther they got from the ranch. Spitting mad, as Don liked to say. He kept glancing in the side mirror, as if he thought Amelia would be coming after them. Maybe in the SUV. She would have access to it now. Don stared straight ahead, hands flat on his lap.
It didn’t take them long to find the road they’d been on when they’d stumbled across Amelia.
From start to finish, they’d only been with her under an hour, but Don was sore, tense, as if he’d just been in the trenches.
When Amelia had revealed the gun—still talking, talking, talking in that flat voice of hers—he’d panicked.
There were knives in the drawer just across from him.
An electric teakettle in one of the cabinets.
He’d thought about grabbing it and bringing it down on her head. He hadn’t, but it’d been a close thing.
A half hour later, Rodney pulled the RV off the road, using the emergency lights even though they hadn’t seen anyone else since Amelia. He closed his eyes and laid his head against the steering wheel.
Eventually, he said, “That was…”
“I know.”
“I believed her.”
“So did I.”
“She…”
“Yes.”
Rodney’s eyes were wet when he lifted his head. A rare occurrence for the stoic man. Don could count on both hands the number of times he’d seen Rodney cry. He wasn’t quite there yet, but close enough. “Could we have helped her?”
“I don’t think so,” Don said quietly. He’d climbed into the passenger seat shortly after they’d escaped. Now, he reached over and took Rodney’s hand in his. Rodney’s wedding ring glinted in the low light. “She was already gone.”
“I thought…” His throat worked. “I saw her doing it. Walking us into the barn, telling us that it was all going to feel better soon. I can’t— Can you imagine what that must have felt like for the others? Not knowing what they were walking into.”
“It wouldn’t have felt like anything at all,” Don said. “Something they always did, probably.”
Rodney slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “Her parents. A kid.”
“I know.”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, blinking rapidly.
Don rubbed his hands together to try and stop them from shaking. “What do we do? We can’t go back, but we can’t just leave her out there on her own.”
Rodney’s eyes were dry now. A little red, but dry. “Yes, we can. And we’re going to. I’m not going back out there. She’s armed. We’re lucky enough as it is.”
“But—”
“Donald.”
He sighed. “I know. I know.” His thoughts were jumbled, Amelia’s voice whispering in his head. He wondered if he’d ever sleep again. Not that it would matter for long, but still. “Why is this happening?”
“Would it make you feel better if there was an answer to that? An explanation for everything bad that happens?”
He knew what Rodney was saying, what he was talking about. Not just Amelia. Not just the end of the world. It was more than that. They were getting ever closer to him.
“Yes,” Don said. “I think it would. I know that’s not how the world works.
We can know when and how and where, but the why?
That’s what haunts me. You can be surrounded by people who love you, who want what’s best for you, and it’s still not enough.
Because there’s something inside some people that eats up everything good.
All the light.” He paused, stomach slick and oily.
“Some people have black holes in them. They try and escape, they try and break free, but it’s too strong.
Burns up everything until there’s nothing left but ash.
And what does that mean for the rest of us?
If we get too close, we run the risk of getting caught in the pull.
But if we do nothing, what does that make us? ”
“It’s not the same.”
“Bullshit it’s not,” Don snapped. “You saw the look in her eyes. Don’t tell me it didn’t remind you of—”
“It didn’t,” Rodney retorted, cheeks splotchy. “He was nothing like her.”
“I’m not saying he was. I’m saying that they couldn’t ignore what’s in them.
It took them, it changed them, made them mean and cold and nonsensical.
Makes them paranoid, distrusting. And when you pile on this?
” He jabbed a finger toward the sky. “It’s a wonder we’re all not more broken than we already are.
How the hell do we go on every day knowing this is reality? ”
Rodney said, “We do it regardless.”
“What?”
“We do it regardless,” Rodney repeated. “We go on because we know what we’re supposed to do.
We go on because we have to. I can’t just stop.
I can’t just let it go. Not now. Not when it’s the most important thing we’ve ever done.
Should we have done it sooner? Yes. We should have.
But we couldn’t because we know what seeing him again means.
We know what this last part is. We made a promise and we still have time. ”
“I’m scared,” Don admitted.
Rodney lifted Don’s hand, kissing his palm once, twice. “I know. I am too. But we’ve made it this far. Might as well see it through to the end.” He looked away. “But I can’t do it by myself. I need you.”
Rare, this, coming from him. Don knew he was loved, knew it to the moon and back, but every now and then, Rodney would talk like this.
Pointed. Direct. Real. It was one of the million reasons Don cared so deeply for him.
Sometimes, people saw Rodney just as he appeared: a quiet, somewhat ornery old man. He was more. So much more.
“Can we do it?”
“We’ve made it this far,” he said again.
“I suppose we have.”
Rodney turned off the emergency blinkers, flipped the single indicator—even though the road was empty—and began to drive away.