TWENTY-TWO
2017
For a moment I think I might pass out, or worse. But the explosion behind my eyelids clears and I can see again. My forehead hurts where I hit it on the floor, and when I reach up with a groan, my fingers come away smudged with red. I roll over, biting back my howl of pain. My ankle is on fire. The splintered stair gouged three deep scratches along my calf, and blood is gushing out in alarming spurts. But worse is the pain that lances up my leg when I try to flex the ankle joint. I have to bite down on my lower lip, hard, to keep from crying out.
I sit up and look around. The windows are gray but empty. That shadow, if I didn’t hallucinate it at all, is nowhere to be seen.
Clumsily, hissing with pain, I take off my sneaker and my sock, which I tie on as a brace to the best of my ability.
I really gotta call for help. I gotta call Luc. Later, we can rehash who did what to whom and why, but right now I’m more than ready to get the hell out of here.
I feel around my pockets for my phone, only to come up empty-handed. In a rush of panic, I look around to see it facedown on the floor by the staircase. And it turns out that those two or three feet of distance are a much bigger challenge when you can barely move without your ankle sending jolts of pain through each and every nerve in your body. I crawl over and pick up my phone. Before I even turn it over, I know it’s bad: Microscopic glass shards pepper my hands like diamond dust.
The screen is finished. It must have hit the edge of a stair as it tumbled out of my pocket because there’s one giant crack down the middle from which a myriad of smaller cracks radiate like a tiny supernova. When I try to tap on the screen, more shards come off, stabbing the pad of my fingertip. Something still flickers behind all the destruction, some sign of life, but it’s nothing I can use to call anybody.
Fuck.
I put my phone in my hoodie pocket and drag myself toward the door. Holding on to the door handle, I manage to get myself upright, but any attempt to put weight on my injured foot causes another burst of stars in my eyes. Only after several attempts do I manage to figure out an angle that causes marginally endurable pain. Looks like if I’m going to get out of here, it’ll be by hopping.
Once I’m out on the porch, I look around, but Luc is nowhere to be seen, and neither is whatever that strange shadow might have been. Those four stairs down prove an insurmountable obstacle, and I have to descend on my backside, forgetting all dignity. I finally find my footing, holding on to a tree trunk. I only made it a few steps from the porch and already I’m soaking in sweat. The cut on my forehead stings and burns.
“Luc,” I call out for the last time. There’s no strength behind my voice, as if I already know deep down that he’s not coming. “Goddammit, Luc.”
A rustling sound makes me spin around and nearly lose my already tenuous balance. The place, which must be beautifully verdant in summer, looks desolate and uninviting with the trees bare and the ground covered with a thick brown layer of last year’s decaying leaves. At the same time, no leaves means I should be able to see clearly for a longer distance. But right now, as my gaze darts desperately back and forth, all the dark tree trunks blur together into a menacing mass of chiaroscuro. The sun has hidden behind some low-hanging clouds, and a cold, damp breeze rattles the branches.
I spot the shadow again because it moves. The man—and now I’m sure it’s a man—blended in perfectly with the surroundings, and I didn’t see him until he darted from one tree to another. My heart kicks up a frenzy, and I feel my shredded ankle throb in rhythm under the makeshift brace.
I recognize him, the mud-colored coat three sizes too big, the knit hat pulled low down on his forehead. It’s Tony Bergmann.
What is Tony Bergmann doing here?
“Tony,” I call out, forcing my voice to sound as calm and normal as possible. Even though there’s nothing remotely normal about this situation. “Hey, Tony. I fell down. I need some help. Do you think you could go and get help?”
The figure freezes. Then, after a couple of torturous seconds tick by, he takes a small step forward and stops again. He’s still pretty far off but close enough so that I can see his face.
“Tony,” I repeat. I still don’t truly believe deep down that he might try to hurt me. “I fell down. I’m hurt. I need someone to call—”
I don’t have time to finish. “It’s you again,” he snarls.
“Yes, Tony, it’s me. We talked just the other day, remember?”
“I remember you.” There’s a look on his face that I decidedly don’t like. He doesn’t look like he remembers me. His expression is vacant, and his eyes glint evilly under the brim of the greasy hat. “Why did you come back here?”
“I just—” To be fair, there’s no good answer to that. “I didn’t know this was your… territory. I’m sorry. I hadn’t meant to trespass.” I sound insane, and I know it, but this is a situation that calls for exactly that. “I’ll be leaving.”
“Go away.”
“I’m going away,” I say, holding out my arms. “I promise. But I’m injured, and I—”
He doesn’t let me finish. He charges straight at me with no warning, with the same dead look on his face.
I spin around and try to run, but the best I can do is limp. The pain that races up my leg with every step is unimaginable, so it must be sheer adrenaline that propels me forward. I make for the path, knowing already that it’s pointless, that he’ll catch up with me in seconds. I can already hear him behind me, growing closer and closer, so I go for one last desperate gambit. Just as he’s about to tackle me, I turn off the path into the woods.
I have time to glimpse Tony, his outstretched arms grasping at thin air. He loses his balance and lands on his knees, yelling something unintelligible.
I hobble between the trees, my sneakers sinking into the damp, decomposing leaves. When I glance over my shoulder, he’s getting back up. His eyes look absolutely wild, and when for a split second my gaze meets his, I realize at once that he doesn’t see me. His glare is brimming with delirium and hate, too much hate to be directed at just me. Whoever he thinks he’s looking at—he clearly wants to cause them harm.
My heart hammers away like it’s trying to break free from my rib cage. My breath catches, billowing in front of me in puffs of steam. Sweat beads my skin and pours into my eyes as I stumble forward—I don’t know or care where I’m going or how, all I need to do is outrun him, lose him somehow.
“You bitch!” I hear him howl. “You fucking bitch!” On that last word, his voice turns into a scared, plaintive whine, its high pitch slicing across my eardrums.
I’m destabilized for a crucial millisecond. My bad foot collides with something, a root or rock or who knows. Pain lances me to the core, and I lose my balance and go flying.
And this time, when my head hits the ground, darkness finally engulfs me.
TWENTY-THREE
1979
To Laura’s shock and surprise, she wakes up in her own bed.
In her dreams, she kept running through the woods as her strength ebbed away, knowing that her life depended on running as fast as she could and also that she couldn’t keep it up forever. And just as she was about to collapse with exhaustion, her limbs drained of the last of their energy, she would surface from her deep sleep just long enough to start guessing foggily that it had all been a dream before being pulled back under by the tug of fatigue she couldn’t fight.
When she finally does wake up, she lies there without moving for a few more minutes, mentally taking stock of her surroundings, sorting reality from fevered nightmare—which turns out to be not nearly as easy as it sounds. Her mother’s house, her room: all real. Her arms and legs seem intact. She wiggles her toes and flexes her fingers, everything is in place. The painful tugging on her scabbed skin is a painful reminder, and dread creeps into her chest.
She sits up on the bed on an inhale and looks around. Her cramped room is exactly as she left it. With sunlight pouring through the vertical blinds yellowed with age and cigarette smoke. The world didn’t come to an end. Police aren’t knocking down the door to arrest her for murdering Tony Bergmann. Maybe she got lucky. Maybe she dreamed that part.
She grabs a T-shirt, her oversized band T-shirt that she pulls over her head to wear like a dress. Her legs protrude from under its hem, and it strikes her how skinny and pale and frail they look. Laura O’Malley always thought of herself as such a badass, but right now she feels like a child.
