Solitary: A Novel (33 page)

"It's hard to know which you value more, Chris Buckley." The way the last name comes out sounds like someone picking food from his teeth. "Your mother's life or your own. We'll take both; it's fine with me."

I close and open my eyes, but it doesn't do any good. I still can't see anything. The ache in my head is like a mutating alien throbbing to get out.

"You stop trying to play Boy Scout, Chris. Stop trying to be a detective. Stop asking questions and snooping around. And stop everything-and I mean everything-with your little girlfriend." Something presses against my ear, and I realize it's the man's lips. "Stop all of this or I will kill you, Chris. The same way I killed your uncle. You got it?"

I nod and say "yes" or think I say "yes," because sometime shortly after this I black out again.

I'm fifteen and riding in a convertible with my friends and my tunes surrounding me.

Sophomore year is over and life is ahead of me and nothing really matters. It doesn't matter that things at home are crumbling or that my father's filling me with stories about heaven and hell or that I'm starting to do things I shouldn't be doing or that I have this sinking feeling every now and then that things are suddenly going to get bad.

But on this night they can't and won't because the music's much too loud to let it.

I can block it out with the volume.

The glowing skyline of Chicago in the distance speaks of opportunity.

The bass throbbing against my gut speaks of the wild adult world I want to join.

Yet the shadows still seem to follow even in the dead of night.

For some reason I'm thinking of this summer night when I wake up shivering in the darkness.

My head aches.

My hands feel numb. I find they're still tied behind me, yet they don't feel as tight as they were before. I wrangle around my legs and find that they're free. One of them stomps against the wall-a wall that's particularly soft.

Feels like dirt.

It not only feels like dirt, but smells like it too. If dirt has a smell.

I feel a sense of deja vu.

I keep blinking and realize there's still something covering my eyes, something wrapped all around my head.

I pull, tug, try to bend and slip out of whatever's holding my arms behind my back.

Breathe in and relax and figure this out, Chris.

So I do that.

I calm down as much as I can. My heart doesn't exactly cooperate, but at least my mind starts to function.

I slide backward as far as I can, my fingers reaching out like a piano player jamming a tune. Leaning against the wall, I manage to guide myself up so I'm finally standing. Then I keep feeling the wall behind me, a dirt wall in a hole that I must be in.

A hole that seems very familiar.

Something hard and cold brushes against my knuckle and I touch it, realizing it's a rock. A rock with a sharp edge.

In a matter of a few minutes, I've worn out whatever bind is keeping my hands behind my back.

It's easy. Too easy, in fact. As if whoever tied me up deliberately made sure I could unfasten the rope. With my hands free, I tear off the cloth from my eyes.

It's still almost pitch black in here, but as I look upward I suddenly recognize this place.

And I wish that I had kept the bandana on.

The cabin.

It's the same square hole, with the faintest of light coming from the opening above me.

I was always going to come back and check it out, see where the dark opening led to.

A cold breeze seems to whisper at me in response.

I stare in its direction.

Something's there.

It's a crazy thought, and I know that I need to get out of here. But my arms are just starting to get some feeling in them, and my head is only slightly out of its foggy hole.

Get out of here now, Chris.

I massage the dirt walls to find that ladder again. I soon lock on to a railing and start to pull myself up.

That's when I hear the voice.

"Chrisssssssssssss."

I'm so freaked out that I grab onto the railing above me in the wrong way and then I find I'm not grabbing anything.

My fall back to the ground knocks the wind out of me.

I cough and stand and search for the railings again.

"I see you, Chrisssssssssss."

The voice is low and soft and sick and evil.

And it sounds like it's five feet away.

My skin is crawling with bumps and my mind is tearing off in fear and I'm reaching and climbing and slipping and holding and in what seems like an hour I make my way up and out of that hole.

I scramble away from its opening like some tiny animal escaping the jaws of death. I knock over a chair and find myself tumbling again, my body landing on the dull edge of something that scrapes my side.

It's dark outside, but I can see the windows and slight gray opposed to the black of the hole.

I see the door and open it and scramble outside into the woods, sucking in air and gasping and probably looking like someone possessed.

All I know is that I need to get back to my house.

It's downhill.

I know I shouldn't be sprinting through the woods because I might trip and fall onto something really, really sharp, but it's better than whatever is behind me in that cabin.

Underneath that cabin in that ungodly hole.

I'm back home before I know it, and I'm in my living room for several minutes breathing in and out before I notice the blood on my shirt.

"Mom?" I call out several times.

But she's not here. Fortunately.

I don't have to explain something I can't.

Sooner or later it's going to hit me how much trouble I'm in.

I'm listening to The Smiths and wondering if life can get any worse.

I don't want to find out.

I know what I have to do.

I make mental notes of the situation.

There's Mom. Trying to work her away around the sadness she's been left in.

There's Dad. Somewhere else far, far away with whatever God he believes he knows.

There's Jocelyn. This beautiful girl, inside and out, who somehow finds herself in all this trouble.

There's Gus and his friends who want to pound my face into the ground.

There's Newt, who somehow knows all the town's secrets though it's forgotten about him.

There's Billy Bob, who just escaped from the Ku Klux Klan to knock me out and tie me up and threaten me in the middle of a cabin in the woods.

I could go on but I don't want to.

All I want to do is rescue Jocelyn. But I've been trying, and things have gone from bad to worse.

"And I'm feeling very sick and ill today," the singer tells me.

Yeah. Me, too.

I know I've got to stop. With everything.

I don't want anything to happen to Jocelyn. Or Mom. Or me.

Whoever is watching is doing a good job.

And it could be anybody. Jocelyn's step-uncle or a teacher at school or that weird pastor or the weird, red-headed vagrant in town with his dog or my Aunt Alice.

I don't trust anybody anymore.

I know what I have to do. But I'm not going to like doing it.

Take this out when you need it, Chris.

I hear my father's voice as if he's whispering from the other room.

It takes me a minute to find it. It's in the same bag I tossed it into before leaving Illinois. A part of me wonders why I kept it to begin with.

You might be surprised what you'll find inside.

Maybe a teeny, tiny part of me believed Dad when he gave it to me. I wouldn't admit it to him or anybody else, but I can admit it to myself

I hold the Bible in my hand.

Maybe it can help somebody else, even if it can't help me.

I know what I need to do.

I place the Bible on my desk, then turn up the music. I want to run away and bury myself in something somewhere far, far away from here.

"What's this?" Jocelyn looks at me with curious and worried eyes as she holds the Bible.

"It's a gift. A `farewell gift'?"

It's shortly before history class, and I asked to talk with her briefly. She asked in a whisper if everything was okay, and I lied. I don't want her to know about yesterday. I don't want her to know about anything regarding me.

"What do you mean, `farewell gift?"'

"You know," I say.

"Chris-"

I look around to see if anybody is spying on us. But how would I know? It could be anybody.

"I can't."

"You can't what?" Jocelyn asks, angry now.

"I can't be around you anymore."

"We already agreed to that. We said-"

"No," I interrupt. "I mean-anything. I can't."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"You're lying to me."

"Nothing happened."

"Chris, talk to me."

"No. They're watching."

"I know," she says through clenched teeth. "I've said that to you.

"But I just-I can't do anything."

"What happened? I know something happened."

I shake my head, making sure that the spies who lurk know that I'm making it very clear.

No means no.

Even if it also means breaking my heart.

"What's this for?" Jocelyn asks.

"My father gave it to me. I thought maybe it could help you."

"Because you can't?"

"Don't-"

"I can get a Bible anywhere. Where am I supposed to find another you?"

"Please don't be angry."

"Angry? I'm not angry. I'm-I'm completely baffled. I'm disappointed."

I can't tell you any more because I don't want you hurt like my mother or like me.

I want to tell her but I can't.

She can't know.

"Chris?"

"I'm sorry," is all I can say.

And I am.

I'm sorry that I can't do more or say more.

That doesn't mean I've given up trying to help her.

It just means she can't know about it.

I love this girl, and I know I will do anything to help her.

Anything.

Even if it means momentarily hurting her.

Nobody knows. Nobody's got a clue. That's the toughest part, at least to me. I want at least a handful of people to have an idea. To have some kind of knowledge.

About me.

Jocelyn started to, and that's the worst part of this.

That the very one person, the single soul that I was opening up to, now has to be the person I walk past in these hallways. The person who glances with resentment. The person who becomes a stranger like the rest of them. Like the rest of the nameless, faceless, careless fools I'm stuck around.

The rest of the week blurs by as November turns to December. Twice Jocelyn gives me letters, but I reject them. I feel like a parent grabbing a child's arm and hurting him to avoid his running into the path of an oncoming car.

I don't want to hurt Jocelyn, but I don't know what else to do.

If Stuart and Lucy and Harold all disappeared around Christmas, I only have a few weeks to find out what's going on. To try to make some sense of it and then to tell somebody who can do something about it.

I keep thinking of Sheriff Wells, of the card he gave me with his cell number on it.

Anything funny happens-anything-you call me, okay?