Vanish (25 page)

In the distance she heard a siren.

She pressed her lips to his and breathed in four more breaths. She could taste liquor on his mouth. And the salt of her tears. Where were they? Where were they?

Rachel worked her way through two more sets of CPR, fighting back her tears. Trying not to sob.

The doorbell rang, and she sprinted down the hall to the foyer, flinging the door open. Two men in blue uniforms and a female police officer stood outside. Rachel ran back to the study, waving them in. “This way. He’s in here.…”

They rolled a stretcher into the room. A third paramedic brought a medical kit. They worked calmly. Quickly.

“I—he’s not breathing. I couldn’t get a pulse.” Rachel’s voice was quivering again.

They seemed to ignore her. Finally the police officer took her name. One of the medics asked her a myriad of questions about her father. How old was he? Was he taking any medication? Had he been acting odd lately? Had he complained of chest pains? Had he had any history of heart problems?

They tore open his shirt. They opened his mouth, flashing a penlight into his throat, then in both his eyes. They covered his mouth with an oxygen mask.

One of them unpacked the defibrillator and grabbed the paddles.

“Charging!”

Rachel’s eyes widened.

“Clear!”

The paramedic pressed the paddles to her father’s chest. His torso lurched up, back arching as the current coursed through him. His head rolled back and his eyes met hers.…

But they were empty. A vacant, mannequin expression spread across his face. Then he sank back onto the hard, wood floor. They squeezed air into his lungs, pressed a stethoscope to his chest.

The police officer was trying to keep Rachel’s attention off the paramedics. “I’ll give you a ride to the hospital. Is there someone else we should call?”

But Rachel was staring at her father’s limp body. He had been moving. Talking, eating just a half hour ago. Not more than thirty minutes.

“Miss?”

She looked back at the woman officer and nodded.

“My… my mother.”

“Do you know where she can be reached?”

Rachel’s mind was spinning. Reached? Yes. She nodded. Yes. She gave the officer the phone number.

“Clear!”

A second charge coursed through her father. Rachel winced. She had seen this in countless movies, but never live. Never this close. Never on her own father.

They transferred him to the gurney. One of the men was performing CPR even as they rolled him outside. They slid him into the ambulance, closed the door, and drove away.

Rachel sat in the back of the squad car as it snaked through traffic, following the ambulance. Sirens blared outside, yet the officer drove with one hand on the wheel. She seemed so calm, like they were just going for a drive in the country. “Your mother will be meeting you at the hospital,” she said. “I believe she’s on her way.”

The officer didn’t bother with small talk after that, and Rachel didn’t mind. She didn’t feel like talking. She didn’t feel like feeling either.

Please, God… don’t let him die. He’s not ready to die.

MITCH RAN TO THE maintenance shed. The doors were opened slightly and an orange glow poured out onto the gravel. The bundle of cables that snaked out from the shed had been sliced neatly through. He found himself staring at the light. There was something familiar about it. It seemed to draw him closer.

Howard walked up behind him. “See? Cut clean through.”

“Where’s that light coming from?” Mitch started to feel dizzy. The ground seemed to shift beneath him. Something drew him toward the shed. Beckoning him.

Howard leaned close. “You’ll have to see for yourself.”

Mitch hesitated. A warning sounded inside him, telling him to go no further. But still another silent voice—a gentle prodding—beckoned him closer. He pushed the doors open and peered inside.

This wasn’t the maintenance shed.

Mitch found himself standing once again in his mother’s bedroom. In the old house back in Illinois. It had the same dismal wallpaper, the same stale warmth and oppressive odor. The dull glow fell from a lamp on the nightstand next to the bed. But this time, there was someone else in the room. A skinny blond teenage boy sat on a wooden chair at the foot of the bed.

The boy was
him
.

A fetid stench hung in the room. Mitch could smell it still.

A body moved beneath the sheets. His mother. Mitch could hear her raspy breathing between soft moans. She was restless again. She was in pain.

“Look familiar?” Howard’s voice startled Mitch.

Mitch shook his head. “What… what’s happening?”

Howard shrugged. “Looks like a scene from your childhood.”

“You can… you can see this too?”

Howard gave a slight chuckle and nodded to the boy. “What are you, thirteen? Fourteen?”

Mitch turned and fixed his eyes on the old man. “Are
you
doing this?”

“Actually—” Howard rubbed his jaw—“you are.”

Mitch glanced around the room. His mind reeled. He steadied himself against the wall. What was happening to him? He turned back to Howard. “Do you know what’s going on?”

Howard nodded. “This is your mother. She’s dying.”

“Who
are
you?”

“How could God do this to her? you wondered.” Howard went on. “She was a saint, after all. Selfless and loving. And this was her reward.”

Mitch stared at the image.

The boy’s eyes seemed to hold an icy gaze. He spoke softly, but his voice was unwavering. “Nobody else cares that you’re suffering, Mom. No one but me.”

His mother writhed in pain, barely noticing him. She could not speak.

“She was in such pain,” Howard said.

Memories stirred inside Mitch. Dark memories, long since buried. They unfolded like black wings. He shook his head. “No! I… I don’t want to see any more.”

“You prayed for her, didn’t you?”

Tears stung Mitch’s eyes. “Stop it!”

“I can’t stop this, Mitch. This is your doing. Remember?”

“No.” Mitch shut his eyes tight. “I can’t watch her anymore.”

“You
must
. Or it will never go away.”

Mitch’s shoulders slumped. He couldn’t ignore the memories any longer. He couldn’t fight it. He had only ever asked God for one thing. And that was not for himself.…

After a moment he opened his eyes again. “I prayed for months when she got sick.”

“He didn’t answer you, did He?”

Mitch’s jaw clenched. He’d persisted. He’d begged. He’d even bartered, but still it was denied him. It was that silence, that…
rejection
more than anything that turned him away from the God of his father. “He never even heard me.”

“The doctors couldn’t do anything. Not even the morphine helped.”

“She was in so much pain.…”

“So what could you do? What could you do in the face of such pain?”

Mitch breathed through his teeth. His heart pounded. Tears dripped like salty rivers onto his open lips. “I was… I was just a kid.”

“You were only a boy. What could you do?”

Mitch watched as the boy got up, went to the bedroom door, and locked it. Then he drew close to the bedside and slid one of the pillows out from under his mother’s head. He clutched it tight to his chest, now weeping. Sobbing.

“So you took matters into your own hands.”

Eyes filled with tears, the boy placed the pillow gently on his mother’s face…

And pressed.

Mitch watched. Helpless. Unable to move. Through his tears he watched his mother struggle. Her thin arms flailed. Her chest heaved as she fought for breath. As weak as she was, as sick as she was, still she struggled to live. A hand, pallid and shriveled, reached up to the boy’s face. It slid up, up, and clutched his blond hair.

Tightly…

Tightly…

And then released.

It slid back down to touch his cheek, paused for a moment. Then it fell limp.

Mitch’s body shook as he fell to his knees. “Mom… ,” he whispered through choked sobs. “Please forgive me.…”

“
Mom
?” Howard spoke with mock surprise. “What good would
her
forgiveness do you?”

Mitch looked up. He couldn’t stand.

Howard bent down. “It was your father who couldn’t forgive you.”

Someone pounded on the bedroom door. A moment later it burst open, and Mitch’s father stood, beholding the scene in front of him. He blinked as if in disbelief. Mitch watched his expression turn from anger to horror to sorrow and then to uncontrollable rage. He cried out in such guttural, visceral agony. He picked the boy up by his neck and threw him across the room, out into the hall. Then he turned back to his dead wife, his arms held out, tears falling, and collapsed upon the bed and wept.

Howard just shook his head. “He didn’t speak to you for months.”

Mitch stared at the sight of his father’s grief. He hadn’t realized then how deep it was. How intense the pain had been. He nodded. “Things were never the same again. He never smiled. He never…”

“He never again told you he loved you.”

Mitch watched as the light faded, the room fell into shadows. The walls of the shed emerged, the tools, the generators. Mitch felt the cold cement floor beneath him. His breathing grew labored. Slowly, he shook his head. “I killed her.”

Howard drew in a breath. “Yet he never called the police. Never turned you in.”

“No.”

“And how could he? How would it look? A congressman’s son.” Howard sniffed. “The
scandal
.”

Mitch picked himself up, stumbling to his feet. He looked at Howard. “Why? Why am I seeing this?”

Howard shrugged. “We all have our demons, Mitch. The deeds that haunt us through our lives. We may try to hide them away in dark closets, far from prying eyes. Where we think no one else will ever find them. No one will ever see. We sometimes even forget they’re there. But they never stay hidden, do they? Those demons. They never go away.” He pointed to the darkened shed. “This was a significant episode in your childhood. You might call it a watershed moment. This single event shaped the rest of your life. It altered your journey. And ultimately led you here.”

Mitch narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”

Howard chuckled. “I’m just a farmer. I just harvest the crops.”

“Where are we? What is this place?”

Howard only smiled. Then he looked up. “The sun’s going down. I’m afraid there won’t be any lights tonight.”

Mitch blinked. His eyes widened. Behind Howard, across the field, a mist was rolling in from the forest.

HELEN SAT ALONE IN the kitchen, staring at the door. Just staring. Her mind felt like it was shutting down. Closing her off to reality. She felt oddly detached… and completely alone.

Devon and Conner were gone. Just disappeared. Mitch had gone as well, with Howard. She had watched them enter the darkened maintenance shed, leaving her alone again. And it was getting dark.

She glanced down at the rash on her arm. It had spread to her shoulder and now covered her hand. She could see it spreading, moving over her. Tingling. Burning. Chilling her skin.

A gust of wind moaned past the house.

A voice behind her jerked her up from her thoughts.

“They left you all alone again, didn’t they?”

Helen shuddered internally, but her body was too numb to respond. Her heart raced. She knew the voice. She turned slowly to see Kyle across the table from her.

He was practically unrecognizable. His face and head were completely covered by charred and peeling skin, his eye sockets swollen shut by red blisters. His ears and nose were blackened lumps. His mouth was merely an opening in the charred flesh.

“You’re all alone.”

Helen blinked. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she only stared at him.

“Go away. You’re not my son.”

Kyle laughed. Or at least that was the impression she got. His face had no way to show emotion, but his breath came in choppy beats and he tilted his head back slightly. “You pushed them all away. Everyone in your life. And now, here you are. Alone.”

Helen’s breathing quickened. She was growing tired of the accusations. “You know, whatever you have to say, I’m not interested. You don’t know me. I refuse to give you the reaction you’re looking for.”

“Oh, I know you better than you think. I know all about you.”

“You’re even not real. You’re just an illusion.”

“I’m as real as you are, Mother.”

Helen glared at him. “
Leave me alone
!” she hissed and turned away.

Kyle sat still, tilting his head as if examining her. As if his burned-out eye sockets could still see. After a moment, he spoke again. “Why did you make him leave?”

“What are you talking about?”

“My father.” Kyle leaned forward. “Why did you make him leave?”

“Your father?” Helen’s jaw tightened. She turned back to him. “I didn’t make him leave. He left me. He left
us
!”

Kyle shook his head. “You had a good thing. Such a good thing. Most people live their whole lives never having a relationship like that. And you threw it away.”

“I wasn’t ready for what he wanted! I didn’t ruin anything. I wasn’t ready and he wouldn’t wait!”

“And after he left, you pranced through a string of boyfriends who didn’t care a thing about you.”

“Stop it!”

“You used your body like a… like a credit card. You bought whatever you wanted with it.”

Helen’s eyes slowly lost their fury. “Please stop.…”

“You were nothing but a cheap…
whore
!” He spat the word through his teeth.

“You’re not Kyle,” Helen hissed. “You’re not my son!”

“And your parents?” Kyle sat back again. “Why didn’t you ever let me meet them? Did you ever even tell them about me?”

Helen closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at this apparition any longer. Yet she found she couldn’t run. Like in a dream—a nightmare—she felt paralyzed.

“You drove away anyone who ever loved you. And now here you are. Completely alone.”