Part 6 (2/2)
”I'm not a princess, and I don't want to be a princess. It's a strange way of looking at it, but if you hadn't lived like you did, I don't think we would be together now. I didn't really fall in love with you until rehab.”
The bridge up ahead came into view. The sign in front of it said Blue River Bridge. Keep Under 20 Miles An Hour. The bridge extended for half a mile, the overhead beams shading them from the bright sun. Half-way through the journey, they peered down into the raging river. It was a dark blue torrent that furrowed and flowed. Before they could exit the bridge, there was a steel bar blocking the way. There was a control post, a box large enough for somebody to sit in, but n.o.body was there. Brock got out of the car for a closer look at the control post.
”h.e.l.lo, anybody here?”
The door to the post was wide open. The control panel was on. Brock noted the metal box with a note on it that asked for a dollar to cross. He dug into his pocket and came up with the single bill, praying the creases wouldn't prevent him from using it. The machine accepted the cash, then it whirred for a moment, and finally, the steel bar lifted up. Flas.h.i.+ng red lights hurried him on as the console lit up, counting down from fifteen seconds to cross before the barrier came back down.
Brock rushed back to the car, took the vehicle out of park, and sped through to the end of the bridge. ”Where's the booth guy? Is he out to lunch or something?”
Hannah didn't care. She was entranced by the woods. ”I'm falling in love with this scenery.”
”It's woods. All woods.”
”Yeah, but look at it.”
Milkweed and ferns marked the edges of the woods. Hannah was delighted when she caught a group of five turkeys waddle about in a group. ”I've never seen one for real.”
”Nature at its finest. Turkeys.”
The woods were so thick, Brock wondered when any actual people would come into being. As much as it was awe-inspiring to look through threads of the trees to catch an occasional gray tailed fox skirt ahead or a cottontail rabbit eat the daises spread out everywhere, he was eager to see Angel.
The clearing was a gra.s.sy area where the earth dipped into a creek, a tributary feeding into Blue River. A man stood before the water in ragged clothing, the wardrobe having seen many dirty expeditions. The man himself seemed to be in his sixties, his distraught face intense from the arc of blood trailing down his features from a bruise next to his eye ”We have to see if that man's okay,” Hannah insisted, urging Brock to pull over. ”He looks out of his mind.”
”That's what I'm afraid of. Why don't we go into town and call the police?”
”But he's bleeding, Brock. You would want help if that was you, right?”
He pulled over, giving in, and stepped out of the car. ”Okay, but you stay here. That's the deal. If something happens, you drive into town. No arguments.”
”Why are you talking like that?”
”I guess I'm scared wondering why the guy is bleeding. What if what did that to him is still in the area?”
He told her to lock the doors, then Brock walked towards the stranger. The man didn't notice him approach. He was standing erect and eying the creek and beyond it.
Brock wasn't sure what to say, so he toned down the urgency in his voice. ”Can I drive you back into town, sir? You look like you could use some help.”
”I'm not going back there!” The stranger snapped. ”You're another one of them they've suckered into coming here. They keep drawing them in, but things are changing. Yes, they're going to get worse. There's tension in the earth. They're arguing. Fighting with each other. Battling to be the next to decide things.” The man wept, ”They're going to kill us all eventually.”
Brock was puzzled by the cryptic words. He caught a better view of the wound that had bled to the point the man had to close his eye, the red was so thick. Someone bashed him a good one over the head. Maybe somebody robbed him and left him without a car.
Knowing that had to be it, Brock wanted to urge the stranger back into town, have him sit in the back seat, and they would take him to the hospital. ”Why don't you come with us? I'll gladly give you a ride. You're most welcome to come with us.”
”Aren't you listening?” The man snarled, sending a face full of hatred Brock's way. ”I said I'm not going back. I won't play their games anymore. I don't care what happens. I don't care! Just stay away from me. Don't you dare get any closer to me!”
”Tell me what happened to you. I only want to help.”
The man dug into his windbreaker and removed a .32 caliber pistol. He aimed it at Brock, the man's eyes as cold as the blued barrel. ”I want you to go. Leave me be! I'm enjoying my final moments, so go away!”
Brock's body froze. He knew Hannah was freaking out watching the distressed man pull out a firearm on him. He became his own life negotiator. Brock was surprised at how calm and cool his words left his mouth despite the war going on inside his head. ”Okay, whatever you want. I'll leave. Just don't shoot me.”
”Then get going.” The stranger c.o.c.ked back the hammer and raised the gun at Brock. ”I can't trust anyone. Anyone alive, you can't trust.” From anger to an honest warning, ”You watch yourself. We're nothing against them. They have plans for us.” He laughed with a sickening wheeze. ”It's already happening. There's nothing we can do.”
Brock held up his hands and nodded in understanding, though the rant made no sense. ”Okay, I'm going. Don't shoot me. Please.”
Brock was unable to shake the icy cold sensation that something was really wrong.
You know nothing about this man. You need to back off and call the police. Let them talk to the loon and figure it out.
After taking a series of careful strides to the car and not taking his eyes off the disturbed man, Brock got back into the car, hit the gas, and sped on as far away from the stranger as the wheels would take him.
”Do what you will to me!” The old man shouted at the sky, throwing his head back and challenging the suspicious silence deepening around him. He knew something would intervene against him being so close to Blue Hills' town limits. ”I won't fight you any longer. I know I can't win.”
He kept walking forward, determined to leave this town behind. The old man was named Ned Barnes. Ned crossed through threads of the knee-high creak water. The water was ice cold, but also soothing. It reminded Ned he was a living, breathing, thinking, though altered, man.
Ned forded the waters and then walked up a short hill on the other side and kept walking closer to the bridge where he could cross out of town to Igneous County. So close to the bridge, Ned was halted, forced to slow, stop, and then dodge the baseball-sized pockets of turf exploding up from the earth, what was shredding gra.s.s and soil and spitting it higher than the old man's head. The holes expelled putrid and caustic gases. With each boil and pop, a bellowing and incinerator-intense heat crossed his body, scalding him. Then syllables, words, and screams shot forth from the holes. Voices surrounded the old man as the terrain became deadlier with each step.
Losing his gun after nearly tripping, he shouted at the sky, ”Go ahead and kill me then!”
More holes burst from the ground, and Ned turned his ankles between two broken footholds. The quadriceps of his legs were singed by the blasts of scalding air, liquefying his flesh. Suffering through the horrid pain, he did what little he could to crawl on as more holes threatened to cook him alive. An unintelligible mantra spread across the air. Ned was forced to listen as a larger hole caved in below him, allowing more words to break free: ”Nothing in escape/lose all your ambition for life/lose hope/lost forever/you will burn/or follow us and obey/play with us/play our game/or burn burn burn burn.”
The words cycled over and over, faster and faster, the hundreds of voices distinct and varying in intensity of emotions. As the heat rose to extreme levels, the gra.s.s around Ned burst into flames and spread like wildfire. The man's facial features dripped into the deepening hole beneath him like threads of hot wax. It wasn't more than a few seconds before Ned sank into the earth, splas.h.i.+ng into the black oil beneath the earth and evaporating.
Hannah wanted to call the police. When she dialed her phone, she hissed in frustration. ”My cell phone's dead. d.a.m.n it.”
Brock was calm, knowing they had left the crazy man in their dust. ”Okay, I'll check mine.”
”What did he say to you, Brock? Why did he pull a gun? Why was he bleeding? Jesus, tell me something.”
”Give me a chance, I will.” Brock didn't mean to snip at her. He dug into his pocket for his phone. He tried to turn it on, but the screen was dead. ”I bet we forget to charge them at the hotel.”
Hannah checked the side mirror and the rearview mirrors, her eyes as wide as he'd ever seen them, wider than in the movies where she played a damsel in distress. ”So what did he say? What happened?”
Brock tried to lower the panic level of the situation. ”He said he's not going back, and that's he's leaving town. He said he was finished with something. He claims there's something dangerous nearby, but he's probably disoriented. It looked like somebody hit him on the head. I've heard stories where parents with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's will just walk out of their house and go off somewhere and vanish. Maybe that's our guy. He left his house and got lost. Or maybe he left his house, fell down, hit his head, and the rest we just saw.”
”But what about the gun, Brock? Did the old man dodder into a gun shop, pick up a firearm, and then go back to being a dumb old man? He was scared of something. I saw it in his eyes.”
”Hey, you don't have to tell me. He aimed the gun right at me.”
Hannah gripped his arm. ”We stop at the first place and call the police.”
<script>