Psycho Save Us (56 page)

“Take us to a
hospital or let us go,” Kaley said.

“Please,” her
sister added.

Spencer checked
his driver’s side mirror, flipped on his left blinker, and merged left.  “If I
took you anywhere an’ left you there, you’d just tattle on me.  Sooner or
later, you’d tattle.”

“I give you my
word,” Kaley said.  “We
won’t
.”

“Only people in
fairy tales keep their word, an’ even they spill their beans to the reader,”
Spencer said.  He glanced at them in the rearview.  “Do you believe we’re in a
story right now?  Do you believe somebody’s puttin’ these words in my mouth
right now?  Or in yers?”

Neither one of
them seemed to know how to answer that.  “No,” Kaley finally said.

Spencer nodded,
and swerved around a Mazda to merge right.  He checked the skies for any sign
of choppers, saw none.  “Lotta times, rape victims blame themselves.  You two
gonna do that?”  The big sister shook her head, the little sister made no
reply.  He nodded.  “ ’Course ya will.  It’s only a matter o’ time.  Lemme save
ya years o’ therapy.  You are
not
what they say you are.  Savvy?”  This
time, there was no reply from either sister.  “See, they’re gonna tell ya that
there’s something wrong with ya, that certain traumatic experiences are what
changed ya, messed ya up, made it so that ya can’t trust anybody.  Then they’re
gonna lie to ya, tell ya that it’s all just perspective, probably recommend a
few trust exercises an’ shit, an’ without a doubt there’ll be some expensive
prescription drugs.  An’ it’s all just to cover up one very simple fact.”  He
tapped the side of his head.  “You’re fucked in the head.”

The girls said
nothing.

Spencer laughed,
and merged left.  “It’s all right.  Nothin’ to be afraid of.  I’m there with
ya.  Only, I had the fortune o’ being born this way.  I’m okay with it all. 
Never really had to struggle with it myself.  You two?”  He chuckled.  “You
only knew the world one way.  Trust an’ neighborly love were the daily order. 
But it was a curtain, an’ now the curtain’s been pulled back.  You’re about to
see the world with new eyes.  You’re gonna see how falsely they move, how hard
they struggle not to let others see through the façade.”  He added, “That means
a false or superficial face.”

Kaley said,
“Does all this mean you’re gonna let us go?”

Spencer pulled
to a complete stop at a stop sign, waved another car to go on, and then turned
right.  “What all this means,” he sighed, “is that you’re in for a world o’
hurt.  So much hurt, you can’t even
believe
it right now.  You thought
what you went through in that basement was tough? 
Sheeeeeyyyyyyiiiiit
,”
he laughed.  “Being imprisoned, tortured an’ raped is easy.  It’s like gettin’
married an’ havin’ kids, anybody can do it, it’s no great accomplishment.  It’s
what ya do after the kids leave.  Can ya survive empty nest syndrome?  Hm?  Is
there anything left after all the anguish o’ rasing kids an’ being raped?  If
not, if you’re only reason for livin’ was just to
be done with it
, then
that’s pretty fuckin’ sad, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know,”
Kaley said.  “I just wanna go home.”

Spencer
scoffed.  “To where?  To Jovita Dupré?  Eh?  That sounds like loads o’ fun.”

“You don’t know
anything about us!”

“I know
everything about you,” he said, losing all humor and looking into her eyes through
the rearview.  “I know all about you because I know all about me.  Savvy?  I
sized you an’ yer sister up at that store.  I sized up Dmitry the minute I saw
his sorry ass.  I knew what he was.  I knew what the Bluff was.  I knew the
police were after me this whole night.”

“You
didn’t know
shit
about
shit
until I contacted—”

“I been two
steps ahead this whole fuckin’ night.  I knew what was waitin’ for me inside
that house before I knew what was waitin’ on me inside that house.  Savvy?  I
won this fight before I woke up this mornin’.”  Spencer held her gaze for a few
seconds more, then finally looked back at the road.  He’d drifted onto the
shoulder, and now corrected.  Spencer listened to Jefferson Airplane wrap up
their song, then chuckled.  “You’re right about one thing, though.  Ya did help
me out with Tidov.  That’s quite a gift ya got there.  Ya didn’t know ya even
had it until tonight?”

Kaley did
answer.

But Shannon
did.  “Neither of us knew.  It just…happened.”

“Hush, Shan.”

“That’s
somethin’ else,” Spencer said.  “One in a trillion.  Some real awesome shit.”

Shannon asked,
“Was that…hell?”

“I said
hush
,
Shannon,” her big sister said.  “Don’t talk.  Especially not to him.”

“Listen to yer
big sister.  Ya really shouldn’t talk to strange men.  An’ nobody’s stranger
than me.  Ha!”  He glanced in the rearview, saw that this got a smile from her,
and part of him warmed, if only for a second.  Spencer dismissed it.  It was
probably echoes of their Connection, that’s all.  “I tell ya what, though. 
I’ve seen a lotta shit in my time, but that one took the cake.  I dunno if it
was hell, but if it wasn’t, then it was hell’s red-headed stepchild.”

Kaley
swallowed.  “It couldn’t be hell,” she said.  “It…it came after that police
officer that saved us.  Probably killed him.”

Spencer smiled. 
“Still sore about leavin’ him behind, huh?”  He snorted.  “Well, just because
it took a good guy down with it doesn’t mean it wasn’t hell.”

“God
wouldn’t let that happen—”

“Yeah, probably
right.  Probably wouldn’t let little girls get kidnapped an’ raped, either. 
What the hell was I thinkin’?”  Neither one of them said anything for a while. 
“Either one o’ you ever heard o’ Epicurus?  He was a Greek philosopher.  He
said that if God is unable to prevent evil, then he’s not all-powerful.  If
he’s not
willing
to prevent evil, then he’s not good.  If he’s both
willing
and
able, then where does evil come from?  And, if he’s both
un
willing
and
un
able, then why call him God at all?”  Spencer laughed.  “Fucker’s
an absentee landlord.  You’ll see.  You’ve got lifetime o’ prayers that I’m
sure you’re gonna send his way.  That Aunt Tabby o’ yers, she’ll tell ya one of
two things: if yer prayers are answered, then it’ll be ‘God be praised.’  If
yer prayers aren’t answered, it’ll be, ‘It’s God’s will, we can’t question it,
Thy will be done.’  It’ll beg the question, ‘Then why do we pray in the first
fuckin’ place?’  The truth will elude you till yer dyin’ day, an’ the hard
reality is that we just saw hell, an’ it doesn’t care if you’ve been naughty or
nice.  If it gets its teeth in you, you’re ass is grass.  If God’s an absentee
landlord, then hell’s his pitbull that he left pent up in the apartment with
nothin’ to eat.  It’s got no master anymore, an’ boy is it
hungry
!”  He
cackled, and turned right.

“Maybe he’s not
absentee,” said a small voice from the back.  Shannon had lifted her head. 
“Maybe he sent you.  Maybe
you’re
the pitbull.  You’re…you’re the
Portia.  The spider that eats other spiders.”

Kaley looked at
her sister.

Spencer smirked,
and spat out another mouthful of blood.  His stomach growled again.  “I like
people who wear their thinkin’ caps.  So then, you think I’m like Genghis
Khan?”

“Who?”

“Genghis Khan. 
A warlord.  He said, ‘I am the punishment of God.  If you had not created great
sins, God would not have sent punishment like me upon you.’  If Genghis Khan
was right about himself, then he surely killed lots o’ folks who didn’t deserve
it on his way to the folks that did.  An’ that police officer tonight…well, I
guess that just goes to show that yer God believes that ya can’t make an omelet
without breakin’ a few eggs.  My kinda son of a bitch!” he laughed, and finally
pulled onto the interstate.

I-75 was a major
north-south interstate that would take him all the way to the Great Lakes of
Michigan if stayed on it long enough.  He checked the fuel gauge.  He had
plenty of gas to last him.  But eventually he would need medical care, there
was no way around that.  And so would the wee girl if infection was to be
prevented.

Spencer toyed
with the idea of taking them to the hospital the way that a tongue will toy
with the empty socket of a missing tooth; for no other reason than to toy with
it.  “Ya think Jovita’s really gonna being missing you two?” he asked.  He
spotted a chopper with its searchlight, and pulled off the next exit and turned
left onto a familiar road.  “Ya think she’s worried herself sick over you
guys?”  No answer from either one of the girls.  “I’ll take that as an ‘I’m not
sure.’  Makes ya wonder, doesn’t it?  If Mommy don’t care, then who will?”

“What do you
mean?” said Kaley.  Her tone suggested she was quite through with this game,
and her eyes were smoldering.

But Spencer
wasn’t.  “Well, you’re both damaged goods now.  That’s for sure an’ for
certain.  O’ course, you both were damaged goods long before ya met Dmitry an’
his family.”

“Why?”

“Because you
were born in the Bluff,” he said.  “Ass end o’ Nowhere Important.  You’ve lived
there yer whole lives.  You were just a pair o’ niggers from the Bluff.  Now,
one o’ you’s a
raped
nigger.  But they’ll always say that.  People that
ya meet at school or at future places of employment.  If they ever find out about
yer past, where you’re from, the fact that you were kidnapped an’ raped,” he
laughed mirthlessly, “they’ll cast judgment.  Part of ’em will always think ya
had it comin’, that you’re genetically predisposed to be victims.  They’ll
pigeonhole ya, see ya as weak, not worth granting promotions or respect to.”

“You don’t know
anything,” Kaley said.

“I know the
world’s filled with people, an’ that ya can’t trust one single one of ’em.  I
thought you would’ve learned that by now, too.”  He glanced at her in the
rearview, saw the enmity in her unblinking eyes, and smiled inwardly. 
That’s
it
. 
That’s what I like to see
.  “Nobody’s gonna care about your sob
story,” he went on, turning right to get farther away from the police chopper. 
“You’re both alone now.  Even with that gift o’ yers, it’s nothin’ but lonely
nights from now on.  Ya can’t trust any man, we can know that almost to a
certainty.  Even the ones that help you, you’ll fear them, too.  Just like ya
fear me.”

“We’re not
afraid of you,” Kaley said.

“I am,” her
sister put in.

“The little
sister is smarter than the big sister,” Spencer mused.

Kaley gripped
Shannon’s hand tight.  She looked out her window, saw the liquor stores of
Houston Street.  This was familiar territory.  It wasn’t all too far from
Beltway Street, their home.  She held out a secret hope that they would survive
this night, after all.

Back in that
patch of woods, Kaley had panicked.  She was too weak to carry Shan herself,
and she didn’t want to go back to the house where it seemed hell had taken up
residence.  She just wanted to get away, far away with her sister, and Spencer
had been her only means for that.  But it had been a snap decision, and she
realized now it might’ve been smarter to wait for the police.

She looked at
the driver’s seat, at the back of the monster’s head.  “My sister needs a
hospital.”

“So you’ve
said,” Spencer remarked.

“Kaley?” 
Shannon squeezed her hand.  “Kaley, is he gonna kill us?”

“No, Shan.”

“An’ how do
you
know that?” the monster posed.

She looked at his
eyes reflected in the rearview mirror.  “Because, even though you’re a fucked
up piece of shit—”

“Ka
ley
,”
warned Shannon.

“—you don’t have
a thing for kids.  You have a thing for…something else.”

His eyes
smiled.  Kaley could still feel a slight Connection, a ghost of what was there
before, and she felt the glaciers moving again.  Cold happiness spilled over
her, as well as moist intrigue.  There was sour greed, and bitter humiliation. 
There were slippery slopes of morals, and burning rope bridges that crossed a
chasm of logic.  These things only made sense with the charm, and Kaley knew
that she would forever have a vocabulary about emotions that no others would
comprehend.  No one, that is, outside of Shannon, once she became old enough to
articulate.  And even then, words wouldn’t do justice.

“You’re right,”
Spencer said.  “Ya nailed it.  But what about you?  What’re you into?”

“I’m not into
anything,” Kaley said, feeling Shannon squeeze harder.

“Damn right
you’re not.  Not anymore.  It all stops.  Right now, it all stops.  Every dream
ya ever had about bein’ a mother or a writer or a teacher or an astronaut,
that’s all gone.  Ya don’t even know it yet, but you’ve already given up. 
Jovita, Ricky, an’ the rest o’ the world doesn’t know it yet, either, but
they’ve
given up on ya too.”

“You like to
hear yourself talk,” she said.  It wasn’t a question.