Coming Back (14 page)

August 2013 (Before)

Christie

I thought back to the bravado of leaving that cabin in the woods, flipping the bird at the devil, and then I looked all around myself at the cost of that decision.  The trees looked the same in every direction – tall, thick, and utterly indifferent to my plight.  The prospect of dying alone in a forest filled me with sadness as much as it did pure terror, more than I could have known when I stepped out into the cool air.

When the sun came up on that first day, it appeared that my crazy dash in the dark had been more or less in a southerly direction.  Seeing as I had no idea where I was, that seemed like as good a direction as any to try to keep to.  At the very least, it would take me farther away from my prison.

I’d run for every waking moment since that first night, as fast as I could in the first few hours and at a steady pace for the next two days.  Now though, the chocolate was half gone, the water was almost completely gone and I had run out of running, so to speak, but I kept on walking.  At least the food poisoning seemed to be finished wrecking me.

One foot in front of the other, the sun on my left in the morning, my right in the late afternoon and somewhere ahead-ish in between.  I saw nobody, nothing but birds and insects, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched, especially at night.

In the dark, the forest seemed a lot less indifferent.  Every sound had some sinister meaning, and I actually slept in trees after that first night, wedging myself into branches that stopped me from falling out but cut off my circulation so much that I woke up with no feeling in an arm or a leg several times.

The grazes from my nearly blind sprint stung when I didn’t manage to push branches and bushes out of the way.  It was like death by a thousand cuts.

More and more, the forest blurred into background noise and I let my mind wander to some dark places.  If a girl died alone in the woods and everybody thought she was already dead, does anybody even care?

Tears flowed down my face and the fighter in my mind scolded me for wasting precious hydration.  I told it to shut the hell up and they flowed even more.

Nobody would ever know that a girl named Christabelle Jayne had been swallowed up by this forest.  Nobody would know how much I’d been hurt, how much I’d fought.

One foot in front of the other.  Again.  Again…

I was going to do good things.  I loved all the way.  I was going to be a good mom.  I was going to lift my kids up in the air and feel the sun on our faces.  I was going to laugh.  I was going to help people and stand up for my friends and sister when they needed it.

“I promise I was,” I murmured.

Apparently my plan wasn’t good enough for the universe though.  None of that could ever happen now.  The best I could do was make sure
He
didn’t win.

My stomach was making me daydream about my mom’s waffles when I heard a whizzing sound followed by a solid ‘
thunk’
and I saw something with a fuzzy orange tail lodge itself in a tree trunk just in front of my face.  The last time I saw one of those, it had been sticking out of my rear end back in Warfields Park.

I looked to my right and saw him, murder on his face, as he stomped through the forest towards me, reloading his gun as he did so.  I froze in place, but only for a second, because it seemed I hadn’t run out of running after all.

With a scream, I bolted away from him and heard him curse as the trees and undergrowth put too many obstacles between us for him to have a clear shot.

How did he find me?

He didn’t look like any skilled woodsman I ever saw, no hunter that could tell you how many deer had passed through this spot in the last three days.  So how did he find me?  The forest was endless.  There were no paths.  This
couldn’t
be happening.

“I’m going to
bury
you where I catch you, you fucking bitch!” he screamed through the bushes.

I held my hand against my mouth to stifle another scream.  Terror flooded me with a tidal wave of adrenaline, enough to make it feel like my heart was going to explode, and I ran, I ran for my life until even the faintest hint of him moving through the woods was lost behind me and my lungs and throat were on fire from the maniacal gasping for air.

By the time I collapsed against a tree, I was bleeding from several reopened cuts and a plethora of new ones, but their pain paled in comparison to the burning in my throat.  I had tied the blanket around myself in a kind of sling to hold my bottle and chocolate, and I retrieved my water from it now, downing every last drop and holding it upside down over my mouth until no more dripped out.

I almost threw the empty bottle away, but instead I stashed it back in my blanket-sling, hugged my knees, and stared at my feet for a while, trying to coax my heart down out of the red zone.  How did he find me?

My running shoes were streaked with mud and general debris from the undergrowth, their formerly bright colors faded with use and the ordeal of the past few days.  Was this my third or fourth pair since he’d first told me to ‘get on the fucking treadmill or else?’

I couldn’t remember.  It wasn’t really important, they’d certainly be my
last
pair of shoes anyway.  I wondered if he was kicking himself for stealing these for me, making him trek that much farther into the forest after his runaway stock item.

Both shoes still had the little tag that was supposed to set off the alarm when a thief tried to take them out the front door.  I’d long since stopped wondering why he’d risk stealing shoes, given what else he was involved in.  Perhaps he bought them from the person who
did
steal them.  Who knew?

My brow furrowed and everything seemed to go silent as I looked at that tag and concentrated.  Had it just… flashed a faint red light?  There!  Did it happen again, or was I just seeing things?

I tried to cup my hands around the tag to cut off the ambient light and make it easier to see and held my breath as I waited with growing terror.  My lip was quivering when that little red blip showed itself again, and I bunched my fists together before forcing the heels of my hands against my eyes as if I could stem the new flow of tears.

“It’s not fair.  It’s not fair.”  The excuse I’d often given my parents when growing up was the only protest I could come up with now.  I hated the sound of my voice, defeated and weak.

I clenched my teeth together and looked at my feet again, reaching for the tag on the right shoe.  I’d barely touched it when I heard something coming through the woods straight towards me.  It was
Him
.

“No.  No.  Noooo,” I moaned.

The tags were both securely attached.  I couldn’t break them, I couldn’t rip whatever the shoes were made from, though I tore a nail off trying.  I looked all around with wild eyes as if there might be something that could help me.  Someone.  Anything.

There was nothing.  There was nobody.

It’s just you, Christie

I pulled the shoes off, got to my feet, and hurled them as far away to my left as I could before beginning another headlong crash through bushes and branches that seemed to almost
want
him to win, slowing me down by tripping me, cutting me, and sapping what little strength I had left.

“Please,” I begged.

April 2014 (After)

Christie

I remembered on really old cartoons where the main character would be going down a hallway and looking in doors, searching for whatever cartoon characters search for.  Sometimes when they’d open a door, they’d find that on the other side was a set of train tracks leading straight towards them and there was a freight train on the way.

They’d slam the door shut, wipe their brow, and move on with their cartoon lives.  When I woke up in the morning I felt like that, except there was no closing the door.  There was no stopping the locomotive that was about to tear through my world.

Written on the side of my train was ‘Accept the truth.  Get even.  Move on with life.’  There was a time, more than one, when I thought I was done for.  So many things had taken their bites out of me, tried to drown me, make me lose myself.

For a while, they
did
, but since I’d been back, I’d been surrounded by so much love and support that I not only felt like I was
alive
, for the first time I really felt like
me
.

I’m Christie fucking Jayne, and you can’t kill me

That didn’t mean I wasn’t scared.  Who wouldn’t be when a train was bearing down on them?  But with my friends behind me and my family all around me, I would survive.  In some form.

A lump developed in my throat.  If I had someone to hold my hand and my heart, there might be more to my life than mere survival.  There might be happiness.  There might be love.

I blinked away some tears as I got dressed before composing myself and stepping out of my room, because love wasn’t a sure thing.  Either way, Dean had to know the truth.  He, more than anybody, had brought me back from the brink of a deep ocean that I never would have climbed out of, and he needed to know.

My parents were downstairs when I made my way to the kitchen, but my dad looked like he was about to leave.  Amber was nowhere to be seen.

“Where are you off to?” I asked.

“Uncle Terry fell off a ladder painting the house yesterday.  I’m gonna go call him a moron in the hospital.  You want to come?”

“Oh… uh, no.  Sorry, I’ve got to stick around here today.”

“Everything alright?” my mom asked.

“Yeah.  Sure,” I lied.

“Well, if you’re going to be here, could you do me a favor?” my dad asked.

“What might it be?”

“I got a whole bunch of seedlings I was going to plant in the front garden today.  Do you think you’d be able to plant as many as you have time for around whatever else you’ve got going on?”

I smiled and gave him a hug.  “Yeah, I can do that.  Give my love to Terry and Jude, OK?”

My dad kissed the top of my head and hugged me back.   “Will do, kiddo.  I asked Amber, but she suddenly remembered an important business meeting.  She’s a busy girl for somebody who isn’t in business.”

He gave my mom a hug and kiss too, and she lifted one of her feet behind her like one of those women in a romance movie from the fifties.  It was sweet enough to keep the smile on my face, and then I accompanied him out the front door so he could show me where he wanted everything to be planted.

It was good weather for it, and I approached the work at a leisurely pace.  I had no intention of finishing, my dad wouldn’t want to completely hand over the presentation of his pride and joy to anybody else.

A refreshing breeze puffed through every now and then to help keep me cool and, when that wasn’t enough, a wispy cloud floated in front of the sun.  My mom came out a couple times with a cool glass of juice, ice cubes clinking as she walked, and a snack for me, and I ate them on the front steps, enjoying the peaceful sounds of my small town.

Little pieces of beauty were everywhere.  I felt lucky to have a chance to see them.

Sometime around mid-afternoon, I was getting to the point where I was thinking about calling it a day for gardening.  Looking between the remaining seedlings and the area my dad had pointed out, I thought there was probably an hour or two of work left for him to do.

The sun was past its hottest but still shining brightly, and I was just taking my gloves off when a shadow darker than any cloud so far that day suddenly fell on me.  I felt a jolt of fear at the sudden evidence that I wasn’t alone and gasped as I looked up.

There, standing on the other side of the fence not three feet away from me, I saw the silhouette of a man, the sun right behind his head so I couldn’t make out his features.  I brought my hand up to shield my eyes and try to see more clearly as I half-fell backwards away from him.

Dean

“Welcome to Preferred Rentals Rapid City, Mike speaking.”

I leaned forward over my notepad, holding the handset against my right ear with my left hand and gripping my pen in my right.  Those were the longest fifteen rings of my life.

“Hi Mike, this is Dean Hawking with the Warfields Police Department, Missouri.  Is the owner available?”

“That’d be me, but I already told the other guy everything I know,” said Mike.

“What other guy?” I asked.

“The officer, or detective, or whoever it was that came out to see me this morning.  I don’t know anything else, sorry.  So, if you don’t mind, I’ve really got to…”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up there.  I think, I hope, this is an unrelated matter.  I’m actually calling about a vehicle you rented to a Mr. Kodey Garrod, and I was-“

“Nope, same thing,” Mike interrupted.

“What?  What happened?”

“You boys sure do have a problem with the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, don’t ya?”

I clamped my mouth shut on a surge of frustration and breathed deeply through my nose a couple of times.

“Sir.  Listen to me, because this may be very important.  I don’t know what happened, but I need to.  So
tell
me what happened with Mr. Garrod.”

“He trashed my car is what he did,” said a slightly pacified Mike.

“He returned it damaged?” I asked, feeling a wave of relief that Kodey was still in South Dakota.

“No, I mean he set the damn thing on fire and burned it completely out.”

“Where did he do that?” The relief disappeared as quickly as it had come.

“Just outside Glenwood, Iowa.”

“Glenwood, Iowa?” I asked, writing it down.

“Yeah.”

“When did that happen?”

“Last night sometime.”

“Did the officer say if Mr. Garrod was in custody?”

“They don’t know where he is.  I take it you don’t either?”

“OK.  Thanks for your help.” I ignored his question.

“Alright, bye,” said Mike.

Just outside Glenwood in Iowa.  I brought up a map on my screen and did a search for it.  After a second, the page zeroed in on a town southeast of Omaha.  Not too far to the west was the Missouri River.  My hand was shaking as I reached into my drawer to pull out a ruler.

I zoomed out on the screen until Rapid City was in frame, then held the ruler up to the screen with Rapid City at one end and Glenwood in the middle.  Following along the edge with my finger, I passed within a few miles of St. Louis.  Not far away at all from Warfields.

The ruler clattered to my desk and I felt the blood drain from my face with a sudden certainty.

It’s him.  He’s here.

I picked up my phone and dialed Christie’s cell, my own breath and heartbeat so loud in my ears as I listened to the phone ring and ring… and go to voicemail.  I hung up and dialed again, only to get the same result.

“It’s Dean, please call me urgently when you get this.  I think he’s in town, Christie.  Get inside, lock the doors, and
call
me.”

I dialed the Jaynes’ landline and almost yelled with impatience at the time it took between hearing the click of somebody picking up the phone and hearing a voice.  I prayed it would be Christie’s, but it was her mother.

“Mrs. Jayne, it’s Dean.  Is Christie with you?”

“Hi Dean, yes, she’s just out front, I’ll get her for you.”

I held my hand over the mouthpiece and quietly cursed my way through a heartfelt thanks.  “Tell her to get inside, OK?  Lock the doors.”

I could hear Mrs. Jayne opening the screen door at the front of their house.  “Why?  What’s wrong?” The shift in her tone matched exactly what I was feeling.

“I’ve been making some inquiries on Christie’s case, and I’ve got a bad feeling about this one guy.  It’s probably nothing,” I tried to give her reassurance I didn’t have, “but I just want to make sure Christie is safe until I can come by and show her a picture.  I can be there in five minutes.”

“Uh… OK,” she said and then went quiet for a few seconds.  “Christie?”

I waited for the sound of Christie’s voice in the distance, my heart forcing its way into my throat.  I got on my feet when I heard Mrs. Jayne call her daughter’s name, louder this time, and get no response.

“She was just doing some gardening.  I can’t see her, Dean!  What’s happening?”  Mrs. Jayne was quickly ramping up to hysterical levels.

“Look all around the house.  If you find her, get inside and call me.  If not… I’m on my way.”

“Dean…”

“I’ll be five minutes-“

“Dean!”

“What?”

“Her phone is still here, on the porch.”

“I’m on my way.”

I hung up and ran towards the exit, desperately sorting through my keys and running into Rusty along the way.  I grabbed him by the sleeve and whirled him around in the direction I was going.

“C’mon, get in your cruiser, meet me at the Jaynes’!”

Rusty looked like he was about to make a smartass comment, but then did a double take at my tone as he slowly started following me.

“What’s going on?”

“I think he’s back.”

“He?”

“The guy that took Christie.  Meet me there.”

I was out of the door and sprinting to my car with everything I had in me and heard Rusty behind me, heading to his own at top speed.  My car went straight up to seven thousand R.P.M and I dumped the clutch, peeling out of the car park with my face set in furious concentration.

“Let her be OK, let her be OK,” I muttered through clenched teeth.