Left for Dead: A gripping psychological thriller (15 page)

"It's closed."

"What are you talking about?"

"There's no one here. They probably don't work after-hours."

"Find another one."

"I don't know where else to go."

"He's
dying
," cries the woman.

Jennifer looks over her shoulder into the back seat, the dog is breathing hard now, its ribcage expanding with effort.

"Use Google maps," says the woman.

Jennifer hunts through her bag, but her phone isn't there.

"I don't have my phone."

"We need a proper telephone directory."

"Do they even make them anymore?"

"A gas station will have one. Hurry up would you."

Jennifer does a u-turn and the tires squeal and she guns it back in the direction they've just come from and pulls into the empty Sunoco forecourt. Jennifer looks over her shoulder and finally gets a good look at the woman, at the uncombed wildly frizzy red hair, the flecks of black mascara stuck in the creases beneath her eyes, the nose broken sometime back.

"How's he doing?"

"For God's sake, will you just bloody move it."

Jennifer gets out and half jogs into the building. An old man is sitting behind safety glass reading a battered copy of
Game of Thrones
, a steaming mug at his elbow. A badge is pinned to his faded knit polo. Martin B.

"Martin –" says Jennifer, breathless. "I need help."

He blinks at her.

"That ain't my name. I'm just wearing his shirt." He takes a careful sip from his mug. "You want gas or what? I ain't got all day."

"I need a phone book."

He mutters something she can't hear.

"What was that?" she says.

He puts his mug down.

"I said waste of time it's so old."

"It's better than nothing."

"Hey," he says, getting off his stool and backing away from the safety glass. "What's going on? Someone hurt?"

Jennifer follows his gaze to her hands outstretched on the counter. The left one is smeared with blood.

"I hit a dog."

He looks at her doubtfully then peers through the small rectangle window leading to the forecourt to look at the car.

"We need a vet. Hurry please, he's not in good shape."

The old man looks back at Jennifer and scratches the side of his nose.

"I'll see what I can find," he says finally.

He goes out back and Jennifer hugs her shuddering body and thinks of the lamb's wool pullover in the backseat somewhere beneath the dying dog. A moth throws itself against the naked light and drops into the old man's cup. Martin B, or whatever his name is, seems to be taking forever and Jennifer can't be sure he hasn't fled out the back door, across the corn fields, to the police station to report her as some sort of murderer but then there's a rust-induced groan and the door opens and pseudo-Martin appears with a phone book.

"Like I said, it's old. Three years at least."

He glances down at the moth in his mug, a look of disgust on his face.

"Will it fit?" says Jennifer, pointing to the safety glass opening.

The man tries but the directory's too big.

"Could you look it up for me and write it down."

He nods and leafs through the pages.

"Here we go," he says. "Big Spur Road. There's an emergency clinic there."

He tears out the page and passes it through the chute. Clutching the paper in her bloody fist, Jennifer rushes out the door and gets into the car. The smell of animal feces hit her and the dog has stopped whining.

"I don't think he's going to make it," says the woman, burying her face in Baby's fur.

"I found another place," says Jennifer. "Hold on."

She drives as fast as she can, ticking off street signs until finally the Big Spur Road sign appears on her left, but the clinic, sandwiched between a barber's shop and a Mom and Pop grocery store, lies in darkness.

"It's closed."

"Go see."

"There's no one here."

"For God's sake."

The woman gets out of the car and hits the clinic door with her fist for a full two minutes. A large black man with very thick glasses wearing a Cher in concert T-shirt appears. He comes and lifts Baby from the puddle of watery diarrhea and carries the dog inside the clinic to a small examination room.

"What happened?" he says.

Under the fluorescent light Jennifer can see a bone splinter protrude from the dog's left leg and she tries not to faint.

"She hit him with her car."

"It was an accident," says Jennifer.

"You should take better care," spits the woman.

"He was on the road!"

"He doesn't know. He's only a dog."

The vet turns to Jennifer.

"Why don't you wait outside?"

Jennifer goes and sits in the dark waiting room amongst the rawhide chews and catnip mice. She tastes something foul – excrement, blood and something else, her own sweat – and looks around for something to drink but there isn't anything, not even a toilet where she can wash her hands, so she waits in the dimly-lit silence studying rows of flea treatment packs and birdseed bells and tries not to read anything into the fact there's nothing but total silence coming from the examination room.

It's nearly an hour before they emerge.

"We'll watch him closely overnight, Lenise, and call you in the morning."

The dog is still alive. Jennifer allows herself to breathe.

"Thank you, doctor," says the woman flatly.

The vet pats her shoulder and asks Jennifer to take her home.

*

Lenise does not sit in the front, but in the back, and stares out the window in silence.

"I don't know where you live," says Jennifer, starting the engine.

"34 Pine Ridge Road."

"Really? The Jacksons' old place? That's right across the road from me. I must have missed you moving in. They've been trying to rent it for ages."

The woman says nothing so Jennifer just drives and steals looks in the rearview at the hooked-nose profile and thin-lipped mouth and hand stroking the empty space where the dog had been.

When they pull up at number 34 Jennifer turns around.

"Lenise – is that your name? I'm Jennifer. I just wanted to say how sorry I am about all of this, truly sorry."

Lenise pauses, her fingers coiled round the door handle.

"I know you've been drinking," she says. "I can smell it."

Then she gets out of the car, and walks swiftly, with purpose, up the path and into her house.

3

Lenise Jameson can't sleep. The temperature seems wildly out of control and she flips between blankets on, blankets off, blankets on, blankets off until she finally gives up and tosses them aside and lies there in the center of the bed curled up like a whorl on a fingertip. She can't get the image of him out of her head, hurt, those sweet, soulful eyes pleading for help.

When he was a puppy she'd started out so strict, determined he would not become one of those weak dogs, the ones that suffer separation anxiety the moment they lose sight of their master. Such neediness was pathetic. Any animal she owned would be independent and resilient so on the very first day she brought him home she made him sleep in another part of the house. But she hadn't been prepared for the heart-wrenching peal of his lonesome and bewildered cries, night after night, as if he was lost and afraid of the dark. On the third night Lenise gave in. She let him into her room then onto her bed, where he became a permanent, warm, heart-beating lump curled up in the arch of her back.  

And now look at what had happened. All because of that drunken Tresemme-haired bitch from across the road, Baby may never come home.

Downstairs she hears the key clatter in the lock and the front door open and close. She looks at the bedside clock, 3.30am. She gets up and goes to the kitchen. Cody is there, elbows on the bench, finger-scooping out brown goop from a jar of Nutella.

"Don't start," he says, without turning around.

"I wasn't going too."

He looks up.

"What then?"

She begins to cry. He looks shocked because he has never seen her cry before, especially not like this, with the rolling, breath-robbing sobs and complete lack of restraint.

"Baby was in an accident."

"You're joking."

She shakes her head and can't get the words out.

"What happened?" he says.

"Over the road, the neighbor. She hit him with her car, he's at the vet. I don't think he's going to make it."

Cody stands there, arms by his side, looking useless.

"He'll be okay."

"He won't."

She wipes her nose and pauses.

"Cody, there's something else."

"What?"

"I noticed money missing again."

He stares at her, then turns to walk up the stairs and she knows she has lost him.

"I already told you I'm looking for a job," he says.

"I'm just asking because I'm going to need it for the vet."

"Make the neighbor pay. It's her responsibility."

"I wouldn't take a penny from that woman," she spits.

"You're always on my back. It's not easy out there."

"We've all had to adjust. Cody, please, don't walk away when I'm trying to talk to you, it isn't polite."

"I'm not three, Mother," he says.

He shuts his bedroom door, leaving Lenise to stand alone in the hallway. She doesn't go in because once the door is shut, that's it, their unspoken rule is in force – if he's in his room she will not disturb him. After all, he's a young man, 24 years old, and needs his privacy. But tonight Lenise wants to heave the door open and force him speak to her, make him understand their already bad financial situation is made worse by him. She is doing all that is humanely possible to support them but he needs to realize she isn't invincible and, by the way, doesn't he know she's given him the best years, the very best years of her life, so perhaps he could show a little more gratitude. Sometimes he is so much like his father she can't actually bear to look at him but she forces herself to anyway, because he is her son and that's what you do for people you love. All she wants is for him not to take, no,
steal
from her. That isn't too much to ask after all she has done for him.

But Lenise says none of those things. Instead she pulls her robe tight and goes back to bed.

*

The next day she feels no better and wishes she could stay in her room but someone has to pay the bills. She looks in the mirror and clenches her teeth as she pulls the comb through the rough and unruly hair she has cursed everyday of her life. At a bar once some wanna-be rapper type told her she looked like the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, only with ginger hair. She had laughed and Tupac had looked surprised because he hadn't meant it as a compliment. But Lenise had been called far worse. Her former husband had frequently referred to her as "pig" or "dog" so at least Aileen Wuornos was the right kind of species. And Wuornos was a woman of course, a strong, dangerous woman, who didn't take bullshit from anyone.

"You better watch out then, P Diddly," Lenise had said, inching close to his gold-hooped ear lobe. "Because I may have more in common with Ms. Wuornos than just looks."

Then she had clicked off a round with her finger and thumb, and just for a moment, the guy's eyes opened a touch too wide.

"Crazy bitch," he had said, walking off.

Lenise couldn't care less if she never looked in another mirror again and wouldn't even bother with make-up if it wasn't for the job, but in America it was expected you look "your best" or "professional" and for a woman that meant mascara and lipstick. She leans into her reflection and applies a layer of amber nights and thinks about how her teeth are in dire need of attention but that with her bank balance a trip to the dentist was not going to happen anytime soon.

Once she's done with the make-up, Lenise slips on her Brook River Real Estate blazer and, as always, experiences a tiny burst of pride. Yes, she had to tell a few white lies to get the job, mainly about holding similar roles back in South Africa, but that's what a person had to do in order to get ahead in life. It was called being resourceful. Not that the job had been an out and out success, and truth be told, some days it truly felt like she was getting nowhere – it had already been two years and she was hardly raking it in – nevertheless, it was a vast improvement on handing out fries to slobs at Cheetoes Burritos and she was certain her luck would turn any day now. It was only a matter of time before a prime listing or referral would come her way.

She walks past Cody's bedroom. He isn't up yet and she fights the urge to slam her fist into the door, at the fact she is sure he is at it again, even though he'd promised her a million times he would stop, but the money didn't grow legs and walk out of the house, did it? Lenise will have to deal with that later. Right now, there were more important things to think about, like Baby, alone and frightened in some steel cage. 

The vet still hasn't called but the open home is at 10am and she has to leave so she puts her cell in her pocket, shoves the Brook River sign in the back of the station wagon and heads to Fitchburg.

When Lenise arrives at the four bedroom colonial she's annoyed to see no one has cut the grass. The empty house was another mortgagee sale and had been in a general state of disrepair since the bank kicked the owner out nine months ago. She forces the sign into the hard earth, and goes inside to open a few windows to air the place out and prays someone will show. She needs this sale because last week she had to withdraw money from her credit card for groceries.

Lenise is considering a quick cigarette round the back when a blue SUV pulls up. Mike and Missy are from Texas and seem particularly interested.

"Great natural light. Lots of storage," says Lenise.

"Where y'all from?" asks Missy, noting the accent.

"Jo'Burg."

"Come again?"

"South Africa."

"No kidding."

Lenise hears a loud male voice downstairs she recognizes instantly. Bert Radley. A sanctimonious shyster who would sell his own mother if he thought there was a buck in it. The breathtaking audacity of it – to bring a client to view a house during
her
open home.