Jackal, page 27
“Chris!” I yell. “Help!” He was right behind us, following us. He has to be close.
“He thinks he knows this place better than he does, Liz.”
“Chris!” I scream. Doug is right. He’s lost. No. We are lost on Chris’s map, and have found ourselves on Doug’s.
“I can’t believe the trouble you both caused. Almost had everything tied up. Nice and neat. It was already a miracle of negligence that Oswald hadn’t caught my father. I was making sure he, and the department, would never catch me.”
A man and his shadow live in the trees.
When they walk in time, both are pleased.
If one calls your name, or the other tempts you off the path,
You must ignore both, or face their wrath.
The truth behind the riddle. A man and his shadow. His partner. First it was Doug and his father. Now it’s Doug and his wife, Kirsten. The shadow. No wonder she’s been cooking so much. She’s been feeding Caroline. My damning clue for Chris now has a crazy explanation. Kirsten was at Mel’s the first day. She must have taken the crayons and then planted them to make both Mel and me crazy with doubt.
“Why?” I ask.
Kirsten echoes her husband. “What makes you think your suffering matters more than anyone else’s?” I flash back to our conversation and I remember she was willing to do anything to make their house a home. Doug accused me of being jealous of Mel because he was so familiar with his wife’s envy.
“Why these girls?”
Caroline clutches me close.
“Dad showed me what you are. If you knew your place, none of this would have had to happen,” Doug says. I don’t need him to clarify the “you.” Doug prides himself on being a self-made man. I wonder about his logic of “our place.”
“What are you doing, Doug?”
“Protecting my home. This town was built by good, hardworking people like me. My family. We deserve what we have here. You will not replace us.” I thought Doug realized the role he played in a system that kept the girls quiet. He did. He wants to make sure it stays that way. “You were my first hunt.” That snaps me out of my thoughts.
“What?”
“Dad taught me not to go after the adults because people make them martyrs. They say their names. It’s easier to complicate the blame when a child goes missing.”
It takes every ounce of self-control to keep myself still. I need to get Caroline and Mel out of here. He hasn’t answered the question he brought up. He’s waiting for me.
“Why did you help me?”
“I didn’t want to at first, but curiosity got the best of me.” He smiles. No. That’s not it. He’s showing me his teeth.
The gray line.
“I’d never met a Black doctor before. Didn’t even know it was possible. Your mother gave me hope. If she could do it, so could I.”
The realizations come in waves. The child my mother lost in the ER. She didn’t know his age. He got antibiotics too young and they stained that gray line across his teeth. She talked about how he watched her and said he’d be a healer. Doug’s dreams were thwarted. He didn’t get into medical school. He couldn’t afford it. He had to make his own way through. Struggled to be an assistant to a man he could work circles around. My mother had a beautiful home and was trying to open her own clinic. The bags of popcorn and flyers were to keep her scared and small. The deer wasn’t just to terrify me, it was a warning for my mother as well. It didn’t matter what we achieved or how we did it. We had something and Doug didn’t.
It was never supposed to be Keisha; it was always supposed to be me.
Before I can ask, Doug guesses my next question. “When Dad took Keisha he told me never to kill out of jealousy. Only necessity.”
“Why did she need to die?”
“I needed to learn a lesson.”
Doug and his father played God. They decided who lived in this town, what it needed, and who got to succeed.
“And Caroline?” I ask.
Doug’s expression shifts to annoyance. “Another mistake that turned into an opportunity.”
If someone this methodical makes “mistakes,” it means that there’s a major disagreement in whatever relationship exists between these killers. Caroline went missing on the eighteenth, not the solstice. The look he gave Kirsten. Her rage against Mel…He didn’t want to take Caroline. Kirsten did.
“Kirsten!” If I can get her to disobey him again…Maybe…“What did the Parkers do? Why did you take Caroline?”
Kirsten considers me, then she hands her husband her knife.
“Liz,” Doug responds for her. “You don’t get to know everything.” He advances on us. “I have a promise to keep.”
I speak to Caroline. “Run.” I push her away from me. She won’t budge. “Run, Caroline!”
“I want my mommy,” she whispers. Her little face scrunches in pain. Her mother is bleeding out and I’m telling her to leave.
I wipe away her tears and mine. “I’m gonna help her. You need to run, Care-bear.”
“I’ll get lost.” She shakes.
A voice croaks out. “R-r-r-ruunnn!” It’s Mel. Caroline takes off. In the space between her fleeing, I see Kirsten start to go after her. Mel grabs her ankles. Kirsten falls face-first onto the ground with a satisfying thud. I expect to see Doug running after her too. I dig in and get to my feet. Instantly, my shoulders are turned and I’m slammed onto my back. I can’t breathe. I feel pressure on my neck. Doug is choking me. I scrunch up my shoulders and gasp.
In.
The exhale won’t come because the pressure is back. I know this. I remember this. I almost died like this months ago in a dark apartment far away from home in New York City. Another man I trusted wrapped his hands around my neck because I dared to have what he didn’t. I didn’t fight then. Now I do. I promised Caroline I would find her. I promised the mothers and Kylie I’d solve this. I promised my mother I would come home. I promised to save Mel.
I need to live.
I thrash as hard as I can. One of Doug’s hands slips. A harsh breath out, followed by a quick one in.
Doug has a knife. If he only wanted to kill me, he’d use that. He’s strangling me because he likes this. He wants this. He’s using my body, another Black body, for his sick pleasure. The anger I’ve kept at bay for years starts to possess me. It overrides my fear and gives me clarity. He’s gonna wish he stabbed me. Doug has a weak spot in my reach. His eyes. I let go of his arms and go for his face. I try to dig my thumbs in where it’s soft. Too late. Kirsten grabs my hands.
“She’s strong!” she says.
“Not for long,” Doug replies.
It takes a long time to strangle someone. Or it feels that way when you’re losing breath. I don’t have a floor lamp to smash over his head, to cut his head open so the world knows what he did to me. The shame of keeping quiet has burned in me ever since. I struggle in vain. I let my anger out too late. As it fades, shame, more than fear, starts to fill me. With all I’ve learned, even with Mel’s and Caroline’s lives on the line, I’m still weak.
The dark is coming. A permanent one. I fight against dying light.
Snap!
I smell earth. Mud? No. Foul water. Dark and wet. A trace of decay. Brackish. Rotten. I know the flood never reached this high in the mountains. But here it is, the smell from town. The smell that’s been following me. Death.
Home.
There’s a shadow lurking beyond my gaze. Since the night in the woods in high school, like an old friend, it’s been waiting to take my arm again. I fight, but my body isn’t working.
Snap!
A branch breaks. The earth under me rumbles. It’s the galloping rhythm from my dreams. This is it. Before everything dims, I look beyond Doug and see the night sky. I finally have my stars. Clear and dark. The dome of the world. The lights in Farrah’s eyes.
I can’t breathe anymore. The rumbling gets closer. I don’t know if I should welcome it or fear it. I’m getting too tired to fight. My limbs shudder and fail. Once I relax my muscles, Doug will break my neck and then…that’s it. I try to stay awake. My lungs struggle to resume their function. My breath is trapped, hiccupping in my chest.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see darkness coming like a wave. The shadow in the woods, the one I’ve always feared. The dark fold in my memory. The great beast Farrah, Kylie, and I imagined is death itself. The thing that’s lived just beyond my reach for so long comes into focus. My muscles give out and blackness crashes over us all.
LUCY
June 1920
Beginnings and endings always have the same feeling. Just different outcomes. Meeting people, you can always tell who is going to change your life. Something in you and in them aligns. Then you’re both locked.
Lucy was ten when Grandma Abigail first told her the story of her family. When Lucy never stopped asking questions, it was time to send her to her grandmother’s house on Sundays to help and to learn. The story of their family wasn’t written down. Instead, it lived in the long tales Grandma Abigail told about people Lucy would never meet in this life.
Passing through the mountains, her family traveled north to settle here in Pennsylvania. Lucy’s great-grandmother made her living as a wet nurse. Their family slowly carved out a place for themselves on this mountain and in this town. It all got wiped away in the flood.
“Do you remember the flood?” Lucy asked as she folded. She was helping with the laundry. This was the chore she was best at. Wrangling wide sheets and linens made her feel powerful.
Grandma Abigail sighed. “I wish I could forget it. I was a little older than you are now. We couldn’t afford to live in town, so the waters missed us. Put most of it out of my mind, but the smell. I’ll never forget the smell.”
The sadness in her grandmother’s face inspired a new curiosity in Lucy. “And your momma?”
“Momma said the water came the day the rain stopped. There had been storms all week. The dam broke.”
“The rain caused it to break?”
“No. That was the rich folks.” Grandma Abigail’s face scrunched in judgment. “They tried to say it was an Act of God, but ask anyone here. We know the truth.” Grandma Abigail described the lake houses built along the dam. Palaces of comfort and relaxation. Somewhere to leave your cares. When it came to worrying over the dam, the wealthy and privileged saw no need. This place wasn’t their home. “Between God and the Devil, death visited Johnstown in the middle of the day. Destroyed everything. They found bodies for years afterward, hundreds of miles away. The people who built those cabins caused this, and they didn’t take a lick of blame. But it weighed on their spirits. They gave money to put the place back together. Everyone did. The help that came here gave Momma hope.” Grandma Abigail gave Lucy more to fold. “After the flood, folks from all over came. Didn’t matter what you looked like or where you were from. You rolled your sleeves up and helped. Momma said, for a moment, she saw what this country was supposed to be. You got out as much as you put in. Every man could build his own life and one for his family. Things were like that for a moment and a moment only.” Grandma Abigail lost track of the chores. She started folding the same shirts twice. “People with means lifted themselves out of here. And folks got scared—no. They were always scared.” Back on task, Grandma Abigail checked Lucy’s folding and ushered the girl into the house to help with dinner.
A few more Sundays passed. Lucy moved from asking questions about her family to asking questions about the town.
“How long has it been here?” Lucy asked.
“Since men found it,” Grandma Abigail answered.
“How long will it be here?” Lucy asked.
“Until they lose it,” Grandma Abigail answered.
“What about the woods?” Lucy asked.
“Been here long before us and will remain long after,” Grandma Abigail answered.
“What came first, the man or the shadow?” Lucy asked.
Grandma Abigail stopped in her tracks. “Why you asking about that for?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy lied. “Just heard some girls talking about it. Saying if you look in the trees—”
“You stay outta those woods or—!” She didn’t need to finish the thought. When Lucy and Grandma Abigail lived, there were no men like Doug and his father in the trees. The story was the memory of a warning. Stay out of the woods. That was the end of the conversation.
Though Lucy was a child, she knew grown-up anger, even Grandma Abigail’s, came from fear. Because Lucy was still young, she thought it wise to see for herself.
Lucy didn’t have to look in the forest long for a shadow that did not obey the sun.
What Grandma Abigail’s mother didn’t tell her about the flood was that its waters cut the people in Johnstown off from the rest of the world. The living ran to get help; the rest were left alone through the night. In the dark, fear reigned. Accounts varied. Some wrote them down. Others took that night to their graves. In the dark, when the earth was a raw wound, when the dead outnumbered the living, when a town cracked open…
I woke up.
“Hello?” Lucy said to me. Back then, I didn’t fully understand my connection to people. I knew that when they were afraid, I was strong. That’s why the flood roused me. All that fear pushed me into painful consciousness. I’d been a thing in the woods, reflecting nightmares for a long time. Yes, the flood made me, but I was always here. Like a story. Or a god.
“Hello?” Lucy said again.
Weak, it took everything I had, but I echoed her. “Hello?”
Shocked to hear her voice double, her eyes widened in fear and curiosity. That made me feel solid. Not like a shadow.
“I’m Lucy,” she said.
“Lucy,” I repeated. She laughed. Delighted. Her delight exhausted me. It spread me thin. I changed her name in my echo. “Lucy,” I said again, using the wind this time. That scared her. When she shook I saw a flash of one of her deep fears.
A dog.
Before I could stop myself, I did what I’d always done. Before I had consciousness and thoughts of my own, when someone saw me, their gaze became a pathway. I walked into them and took the shape they feared most.
She screamed. I felt weight in my claws.
She ran. I chased. With each step, I gained heft. I could move leaves on the forest floor.
I let out a growl. Her fear grew me great big teeth. A massive mouth.
I expanded in size. In her eyes, I was a true beast in the woods. She ran out of the trees. I saw her running for her home. I thought of how there were more people there. All of their fears. I could be endless. The moment I left the trees, I vanished. Disappearing is a pain I don’t wish on anything with consciousness. Simply, it is being and suddenly not being. When I finally managed to appear again, I was a formless shadow. I had to wait until someone came so I could take the shape of their fears.
They did. And they’d run. Or throw things at me. I got good at using people’s fears. I learned how to get enough weight to break sticks and carry my voice on the wind. Once someone saw me and I them, I’d blossom into a nightmare.
Weeks later Lucy returned to the woods. She’d grown brave.
Snap!
And smart. No matter how I entered her vision or her hearing, she turned. She ignored me. A few weeks and this child bested me. It was my time to talk instead of parrot.
“Why?” I asked. Words flowed so freely in my mind. Speaking without fear to power me was torture.
“You gave me bad dreams and I wanna sleep,” she said. “Momma said I need to face my fears. Daddy said to ignore ’em. People who come in here and look at you all come running out. So I’m doing the opposite.” She crossed her arms.
Defeated. I sat in the corner of her vision and didn’t move. That was our relationship for the next few hours until the sun set.
“Why do you need to scare us?” she asked.
“It’s what I’m meant to do in the woods.”
“What are you outside of them?”
My silence carried my answer. I didn’t know. I dreamed of life outside the trees, but I’d never seen it for myself.
When a few stars peeked through the sky, Lucy told me how to use them as a map. Long after she was gone, I would look up at them and imagine all the places they would guide me when I figured out how to leave the forest.
“You were in my dreams, shadow. You don’t remember that?”
“No.” That was the truth. I hadn’t yet figured out how to stay in someone’s head. That understanding would come.
Lucy looked at me. I became the hound from her nightmares, but she wasn’t afraid anymore. In the little space between her curiosity and her fear, she looked at me long enough that I fell into her eyes. A piece of me crept in under the lid and around her tiny wet orbs. A part of me stayed there, just out of her sight. She left town carrying a part of me. This piece watched the world with her. Deeper than her horrors, I learned her beliefs.
When she died many years later, the piece of me returned. It was full of her stories. Driven away by the shadows she saw in the woods, she left Johnstown. She went west. She had a family. She always slept by the fire, to stay in the light. From my shadow, madness grew in her for years until one day, to escape the dark she saw in the corner of her eye, she lit her house on fire to bring her stars to the earth.
She said this before she left me in the woods that night: “Grandma Abigail said not to give you attention because it goes against God to speak to a demon. Are you a demon?”
