Cold Summer Nights (20 page)

“
Summer
?” he cried again.

She met his helpless gaze one last time, tears storming down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said, just before her mouth dissolved.

Rusty couldn’t breathe. He dropped his arms to his side and watched her hazel eyes beg him for help.

He took a step towards her.

“Don’t you fucking
move!
” Chubby shouted.

Her tears faded away with her gaunt cheeks. Her eyes vanished next.

“Get down!” the taller guard screamed, closing the gap.

“Get down, Russ!” Clark yelled.

Rusty didn’t hear any of them. He was too busy watching the top of
Summer’s
brown hair evaporate into nothingness. He glanced down to the blood covering his shirt and hands just before the chubby guard jacked him in the face with the butt of his gun.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Rusty shifted on the concrete floor, pulling his knees up to his chest and staring blankly at the silver toilet in the corner of the small cell. He could already feel the effects of solitary confinement beginning to eat away at his brain. But at least he had his own toilet. It had been two months since he watched
Summer
vanish into thin air and there had been no sign of her since. No sign of her other side either. Sometimes he found himself missing them both. He missed Clark too. Occasionally, he got to see Clark during their one hour in the yard a day, but Clark wasn’t too eager to pick up where they had left off. Rusty didn’t blame him.

If Clark managed to live another thirty years, he would be doing it from a smaller cell just like the one Rusty was in. Last he heard, Clark’s wife had officially divorced him and wanted nothing to do with him ever again. Rusty felt bad knowing it was his fault that Clark would probably never see his kids again. Not unless they had a change of heart when they were adults anyway, which was doubtful after the state of Iowa branded Clark and Rusty cold blooded monsters. There was no way around it because as it turns out, no one really believes in ghosts. Even Rusty’s parents hadn’t come to visit him in over a month now. The last time they were here, they could barely look at him.

He laughed in the dark isolation, thinking that if only Nick could see him now. He wouldn’t believe it. Unfortunately, Nick didn’t have enough time to believe anything. Rusty wished it had been him that night instead of Nick. Anything would be better than this. And, barring some unforeseen illness,
this
would last for decades. Rusty wiped a lone tear from his cheek with the back of his orange sleeve and shivered. “Turn the heat up,
ya
stingy bastards! Not all of us weigh three hundred pounds!” he yelled, shoving a pencil down his cast to reach a major itch on the forearm that had snapped when he hit the ground in the hallway that dark day.

Footsteps began echoing down the hall, growing louder as they came closer. They stopped in front of Rusty’s cell.

“Hey Chubby,” Rusty smiled, discreetly brushing away another tear.

“How
ya
doin
, shit for brains?”

“Oh couldn’t be better,
Quadzilla
,” he replied.
“Any word on the TV?”

Chubby chuckled, a toothpick rolling in his mouth. “Those old boys aren’t going to give you a TV after what you did to their people. You’re lucky to have that pencil and pad of paper.”

Rusty sighed. “Cocksuckers,” he mumbled. “What am I supposed to do all day, Chubs? Count the cracks in the walls again? Make new friends with another spider?”

Chubby shrugged, a blank expression covering his face. “If
ya
can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”

“I didn’t do the crime! How many times do I have to tell you that?”

Chubs laughed, the toothpick wiggling in his mouth.

“I didn’t do it either! I’m innocent! Let me out of here!” Gary yelled, pounding on his cell door across the hall.

“Yeah, me neither! You got the wrong guy, homes!” Pablo shouted from the cell next to Gary’s.

“
Yo
, me too!”
Jamal insisted, in the tiny cell next door to Rusty. “I didn’t do shit! It was my sister!” he said, triggering a burst of laughter from the others.

Chubby shook his head. “Tell your new spider friend I said hello,” he chuckled, continuing down the hall to a rowdy chorus of hooting and hollering.

The End