You would think that it raining like it was, it would’ve cooled me down, but it did not. It made moving down the trail on foot miserable and with the dark clouds blotting out the sun, the lightning of the storm illuminated the surrounding trees in such a way that the old wiry croon witch’s eyes, Retta, followed me through every open space. I saw her and expected her to reach out and snag at my collar, breathe down my neck, plunge those knotty fingers into my eyes so I’d be more blind than she was without her glasses. Thunder sounded like the pitch of the black Chevy, and I constantly looked over my shoulder, waiting to see John driving down the trail, hoping to run me down. A shiver tickled up my spine like I was a human-shaped tuning fork. I moved like a spirit, wishing for rest.
Beth’s screams sounded closer, if hoarser. The trees thinned, and I began to see evidence of John’s hobbies. I passed by an Oldsmobile, rusted completely through with mildewy seats and glassless windows. A model of Ford I couldn’t decipher sat between two birches with a bush springing out from its engine block. John collected old cars, but it didn’t seem like he did much with them. Then it struck me. These were the cars of those that came before; a chill pushed through me, and I felt more like a ghost than ever before. Would the Fiesta end up among them? I imagined each old vehicle I passed with its occupants still sitting inside, faceless, nameless, forgotten to time. My previous hypothesis that this had been going on for decades felt surreal coming to life. Who were these people? Couples like me and Beth? Whole families? Why? Why did they do it? I could pick at the reasons like scabs.
I stepped around a minivan, just off the shoulder of the trail, leaning against a rare oak tree. Before moving on, I peered into its rear passenger window and saw a stuffed bunny lying beside a Gameboy Color on the bench seat. I swallowed. These sick fucks. They’d been luring people out here and killing them.
This was some kind of awful.
Finally, the trees thinned to a point that I stood in a circular clearing alongside rows of dilapidated vehicles— some half covered in gray tarps and others with rippled sheet metal propped against them. Near the center of the clearing there stood an old building— wrapped in similar metal— that might be large enough to house a semi-truck; it stood at an angle like it could collapse at any moment. I kept expecting to see the dead, but I never did. I knew what happened to them; Retta would dress them up, preserve them, add them to her doll collection. That could be me. It could be Beth.
I held the knife out in front of me as I rounded the corner of each old car like I expected Retta to jump out and grab me. Beth let out another scream— it was close. My heartbeat accelerated as I began jogging as best I could through the rain. “Help! Somebody help!” Her voice wore out at the ends of words, rattled like she had dry wool stuffed down her throat.
“Beth?” I said.
“Help!”
I moved around the back end of a Pinto but before I had a moment to say a thing, my voice caught. Seeing her that way will stick with me forever; the image of her muddy black bare feet kicking to pull herself to a standing position, the way her hair hung around her downturned face, or the way blood ran from her wrists down her forearms. In the center of the clearing, just at the open entrance of the building, was a large wooden post nearly fifteen feet tall. Protruding from the top of the post was a metal arm with a hook on the end. Dangling from the hook was a thick rope that tethered Beth’s cuffed wrists to the post; she’d been given plenty of slack for standing, but the back of her shirt ran off her shoulders in strips like streamers; there was blood. I blinked. He’d tied her to the post and repeatedly beat her while she dangled from her cuffs like a Christmas ornament.
I took a few steps forward, shaking, crying. “B-beth? Are you alright, honey?”
I don’t think she heard me— she seemed delirious— so I moved to her, slipping in the mud till I reached out with my hand to touch her on the shoulder. The smell of blood was strong around her. She flinched and pulled her face around to look at me. Beth looked miserable. As I shifted her shirt around, the deep tissue damage beneath exposed itself. She’d been sliced all down her back; the skin protruded in places, swollen, open. “Greg? Greggy?” she asked.
Putting my arm around her waist, I hoisted her so as to relieve the stress on her wrists. “A-are you alright?”
“I thought I was going to die.” Her foggy eyes met mine as I tried swiping her hair back. “I really really thought I was going to die here. I’m so happy to see you.” Beth’s words came hard. “How long’s it been?” Touching my palm to her forehead, it felt like she had a fever. Exhausted, she lowered her face, eyes unfocused.
I tried shifting the rope overhead so that it would slip off the hook, but this proved to only dig the cuffs into her wrists; each shift forced a groan or hiss out of her. I held her up with one hand and began running the edge of the knife against the rope. “We’re going to get out of here, honey— I promise you we’re getting out of here and everything’s going to be just fine.” I believed it. I really did. Escape wasn’t that far away. We’d run. We’d never look back. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” said Beth. “We’re going to be okay.” Her words came slow, far away— as though she tried to calm me. She even nodded along and followed it with a shh sound. Beth was delirious.
The rain came down. I tried cutting the rope as quickly as I could, but my hand kept slipping in the rain and I didn’t want to drop Beth, because that would apply more pressure to her wrists.
Then came the screaming voice of Patsy Cline; I ran my tongue against the inside of my teeth. “Fuck,” I said. I continued sliding the knife against the rope. The sound of the black Chevy’s engine roared through the trees to meet us in the clearing; I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth, pressing the blade as hard as I could. We had it. It was within reach. So close. Yet so far away.
I heard the sound of the Chevy’s door open; Patsy Cline belted out from the interior speakers, singing “Crazy”. Just beneath the crooning, there was the audible repetitive beep to let you know the door was open and needed to be closed. I didn’t hear his feet hit the ground over the rain, but I knew he was there; he certainly knew I was. My eyes sprung open; the rope was still intact. I wanted to fall down, cry, scream.
“Hey,” said Beth, still dangling, still looking at her mud caked feet, “We’re going to be okay. Okay? I know we’re going to be fine. We’ll be safe.” Her tired body swung as I let her go and turned to face John. She hissed through her teeth, but continued on, totally feverish, “Greg, I know we’re going to be okay, because you’re here now. I’m so glad you’re here— I thought I was going to die, but now I know I won’t.”
John stood in front of his truck, perhaps thirty feet away, arms stiff by his sides; a long leather belt dangled from his left fist. He may have been crying, but through the rain it was impossible to tell— did he even care for Retta? Was it possible that I was giving him more credit than he deserved? “She’s dead,” he said through a quivering voice— I was surprised— I didn’t know that monsters could cry.
“Yeah,” I said. My own voice scared me. I didn’t know what to do. I was lost. Game over. It all came to this.
“You did it.” John pointed a fat finger at me. Who else would’ve done it? The fucking tooth fairy?
I remained silent, shifting around to stand between him and Beth. I brandished the knife.
His voice sounded tired. As tired as I felt. “What are you going to do with that?”
“I’ll kill you,” I said. “I swear, I’ll kill you if you come any closer.”
John’s huge chest heaved in a massive breath; he was totally soaked through but turned his face to the open sky. He closed his eyes.
“Hey!” I screamed, “I’m serious goddammit! If you try anything, I won’t be afraid to use this.”
Everything went still. Somewhere through the dense foliage I think I heard the call of a loon— perhaps it was sitting out on the lake of the Happy Place B & B— cut short by a growl of thunder. John didn’t flinch. He didn’t move. I didn’t move. The sky spilled open jagged white, blinding, followed by another belt of thunder. Still, he remained. It felt weird. It felt totally fantastic in the worst sense of the word. More than anything else, it felt like I was falling. Maybe I’d been wrong all along. I kept telling myself that the horrors we faced there at the Happy Place were the furthest thing from reality, but maybe there had been only that and nothing else. It was infinite.
I wagered a step forward in the cold rain, the knife handle wedged between my fingers, pointed directly at him. “Hey!” I said, “Are you listening to me? Don’t ignore me!” No answer. I felt my heart drop. John didn’t look human. He was a monster. An unmoving, unfeeling monster, standing in front of me.
A groan escaped Beth and I hastened a look over my shoulder at her. Nothing was different. She still remained— beaten bloody, but alive. When I looked back to John, his eyes met me. I nearly fell over. Those piercing eyes— the eyes of a mad man— could kill me, I was certain.
His expression was set in stone, and if I were to guess, there seemed to be injury there. I’d hurt him. Retta was dead and I’d done it. “Why is it always so hard for you?” Asked John.
I was totally baffled at this question. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I had to keep myself from shouting the words out in rage. “Why is it so hard? You’re the one that did this. This is all your fault. This isn’t hard for you! It’s hard for us!”
John took the belt in his left hand and held it out in front of him, stroking it out straight with his right hand before letting it fall against his jeans. He did this on repeat. “You could have opened yourself. You could’ve let us know you. No one ever wants that. No one ever wants to open themselves up to the possibility of showing their most inner selves, their vulnerabilities, their truest essence. Retta did. She opened herself to me. And I did the same for her. But you people always fight it. And now Retta is dead.” John held up the belt and threw it at me; I flinched. The belt landed a few feet from my shoes.
Bewildered, I took a few steps to lift the belt.
“Use it,” said John.
“What?”
“You heard me. Use the belt.”
My stomach churned. “No.”
John’s eyes— goddamn those eyes that burn and freeze. “Do it.”
“I won’t.”
John shifted around, removing something from the back of his pants. “You will use it.” He lifted a six-shooter pistol, pointing it directly at me. “You will.” His confidence made me weak in the knees.
“No. I. Won’t.”
The gun fired, a flash of light exploded from his hand. I jumped. I thought for a moment that I’d been killed. Surely, the blood should pool from my chest, and I should fall to my knees. That’s it. I should be dead. No, he’d angled the six-shooter over his head. “Do it.” He swiveled the gun so that I could see the hole of the barrel.
The leather belt in my hand felt heavy, thick, coarse. I ran my fingers over it. Across its surface there stood small bronze studs. “Please stop this.”
“Do it!” He screamed.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
With the knife in my left hand, the belt in my right, I turned to look at Beth there, dangling like fruit from the post. The tears came. I didn’t want them to. I didn’t want to do it. I swear, I didn’t. I moved to her and touched her head. She was so far out of it that I wasn’t even sure if she’d feel it. God— I crimped my right hand around the belt, put it over my shoulder, and brought it down across her back. She barely moved in response.
“Harder!” said John. “Harder or I kill you both right now!” Fuck him.
“I-I can’t!” I could and I did. I brought the belt down harder. Me. I did that.
The belt met the exposed skin on her back, sending a shiver through her body and a yelp from her mouth.
“Again,” said John.
I did it again. And again. And again. I did it again until I’d fallen in the mud alongside Beth, my warm breath catching on the cool air. I held the belt across my knees, sitting in the mud, crying.
John’s footsteps sounded like they were underwater as he approached us, the wet shlep of his boots were a thousand leagues away. I felt the cold metal of the gun barrel push through my hair into my scalp. My shoulders were shaking— I couldn’t believe it; I couldn’t even look at him. This was it. I was going to die. Beth was going to die. I’d come so far, fought so hard, but this was what it amounted to.
I looked at Beth, but she was so fevered and broken— I hoped she could understand me in whatever place she was. “I’m sorry. I love you. I-I’m so sorry.”
As subtly as I could, my hand crept to my pocket. There was the canister of mace I’d recovered from Retta’s corpse. I tried hiding my activity with a sob.
“This is it,” said John, calmly. It was like he’d done it a million times before. “It will be faster than you deserve.”
I moved as quickly as I could, slapping the gun away from my head and spraying the canister at him— I hoped it would work well enough in the rain. He screamed, putting up a forearm to his brow. The stream shot out and fizzled. Just enough. He hacked and swung the gun around, firing it off in haphazard directions— I dove to the ground in response, hearing the whiz of bullets strike the metal sides of old vehicles.
I was in disbelief! The six-shooter fired one last time then clicked empty.
My triumph was short lived. Time ceased to exist. Everything ceased to exist. There was only infinite black space and Beth. That last bullet proved lethal. Her head jerked once— her back arched. Then she hung there from the post, heavy and motionless. Dead.
I swallowed. The world came back.
John wiped at his face. It seemed I’d only gotten him a little across his forehead. His eyes, red, bulged with murderous rage. Not totally understanding, he pointed the empty gun at me and fired it. It clicked.
I rose to my feet and stumbled through the mud, holding the knife over my head. I brought it down just as he through up a forearm. He dropped the six-shooter. I pulled the knife over my head once again.
“Hey! Wait a second!” said John. I know what he wanted to say. Something akin to, ‘Hey! Wait a second, this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. This is all wrong!’ But I didn’t wait for it. I brought the blade into his chest; it met with a thunk like I’d driven it into wood. I looked in those eyes— those eyes that could burn or freeze— they were dying! Dying! I was spitting with rage.
It took a full second with me holding the knife in his sternum before he said anything else. When he did, it came with a gargle. “You got me.” No anger. No resentment. No surprise. A statement merely explaining a fact. Just, “You got me.”
I pushed down with all of my might on the handle, ripping through cartilage that held bone. Once the edge of the blade met intestines, it moved like heat through butter.
I let go. John, barely hanging on to life, removed the knife and dropped it beside him; a small bit of bulging tissue escaped his wound and he clasped one of his fat hands over it, fumbling, slipping.
He faceplanted in the mud.
Patsy Cline sang in the rain and echoed.
I grabbed the knife and cut Beth down. She slammed into the ground, and I shook her shoulders near violently, not believing. Please come back, I wanted to say. Please don’t be dead, I thought. Please. Please. Please. John’s words came back to me. ‘I’ll tell you something, young man, you’ve gone straight to the pleases faster than most.’
And it was true.
I did.
I begged for her life.
And waited.
And cried some more.
Someone was listening.
Her eyelids fluttered but remained closed; in a panic, I put my forefinger under her nose— there was a rush of breath from her nostrils, weak but alive. I yanked her up and began fighting with her dead weight, dragging her through the mud. I slung open the passenger door of John’s Chevy, sliding her onto the bench seat. Her head slumped over onto the center console. I rounded the front of the Chevy, taking one last look at John to make sure he’d not gotten back up. It felt like he would. It felt like him and Retta both would haunt me for the rest of my life.
I pulled myself into the cab of the truck and slammed the door before turning the music off. It was dead quiet except for the hum of the engine. I pushed Beth so that she sat upright against the interior of the passenger side door. We took the trail leading back to the Happy Place B & B slower than I wanted. Each dip in the road caught water and threatened to slide us into a tree. I pushed my head over the steering wheel, hoping that would make it easier to see through the downpour.
Tires met grass and the Chevy slid along it. We hit the gravel lot, then asphalt, then I slammed on the gas— the engine screamed.
With one hand on the wheel, I ripped open the center console, looking for a phone. Bingo. There was mine and Beth’s. I lifted mine. It was cracked from where I’d dropped it; only a black screen met me. I pulled up Beth’s and dialed 9-1-1. As the phone rang, I looked in the rearview mirror, catching sight of the sign hanging in front of that house. And then it was gone. I took a right.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency.”
“Yes, I’m driving down Finemilk Drive in Ellsworth. My wife is badly injured. Please help me. Please.”
Being in the hospital was like no other visit I’ve ever had; the police were full of questions and approached me with a level of scrutiny that I did not care fore. Repeatedly, they asked me the same questions over and over. Who were the people that ran the bed & breakfast? What were we doing so far from home? It felt overwhelming. Especially when I couldn’t sleep.
Posted outside of my door during the night was an officer; she was nice and chatty, but overall nosy. She’d let me visit Beth’s room at night. My wife laid in her bed with all manner of tubes coming from her— I’m surprised she made it at all. The bullet had passed directly through a lung.
The officer would let me linger in Beth’s room till the tears came, then she’d shuffle me out, telling me not to make too much noise. She was nice enough; sometimes we’d sit in my hospital room and play cards across that table they normally put food on.
“Why are they having you watch me?” I asked the officer.
“This is going to be the most high-profile case to come out of this area if the media gets ahold of it. They’re hoping to investigate before that happens. We’re talking about forty or fifty dead bodies.”
“Forty?” I was flabbergasted— I’d only counted fourteen in the room behind the door marked PRIVATE. My mind went to the building in the forest, the one large enough to store a semi-truck— could there have been more bodies there?
“That’s right.” Then the officer acted as though she remembered she should not have told anyone that. “But, you know, it could be any number, really.”
“When are they going to let us go?”
She looked at me solemnly. “I don’t know.”
“Are they both dead?”
“Yes.” The officer knew who I was talking about.
I’d ask that a lot. I wanted to be sure both John and Retta were gone, because I dreamt of them often. I’d be lying in my hospital bed and through the muddied state that dreams take you in, I’d awaken to threaten some orderly that had come in to simply change my sheets.
Sleeping was hard, but when it happened, it was hell.
Among the questions I had on my mind, the one that stood chief among them was when Beth would wake up. Some of the doctors gave me an understanding smile that said it would be weeks while others believed she might not make it. She was comatose; she wasn’t out of the woods yet. What a funny saying, ‘out of the woods’. Well, not funny, but you know what I mean. Beth wasn’t out of those woods. I’d escaped them, but some part of her was still there, glued to the spot.
But maybe I speak too much about how scarred she is from the ordeal to ignore the things I brought with me. Night terrors. Insomnia due to said night terrors. Jumping at loud noises. I guess there’s a piece of me stuck in that place too.
They removed nearly sixty corpses from that place; some of the bones dated back to the nineties. Several cold cases were closed, so I’m glad for the families.
But I still had mine to think of.
Beth wasn’t moving. She wasn’t in a vegetative state, but I felt that she was gone. Her body was there, but her spirit felt freed from it. I don’t know if that’s the best way to put it, but I’m trying.
Once I’d been discharged, I started going to the hospital every evening to visit her. The nurses would see me coming at the HELP desk and smile, but there was a subtle look behind the kindness that said, “She isn’t gonna’ wake up, chief.”
Then she woke up.
The doctor called me; I rushed to the hospital. She wasn’t totally cognizant, but I was bursting with excitement. I showed up with chocolates and flowers and when I flew through the door to her hospital room, the doctor spun on their heel to let me get to her.
She smiled.
I smiled.
I reached out and touched her hand, saying, “I know I’m going to be okay, because you’re here now.”
It felt like she knew what I meant.
With time, she recuperated. Faster than expected. The doctors said she had a ‘fighting spirit’. I knew she did.
Her recovery, even once she’d come home, was arduous at times. She would get frustrated with herself, with her exercises, and even me— if I entered a room too quickly. Beth grew weary of things moving too quickly, of the dark— I bought a nightlight— of people walking in front of our house down the sidewalk. Funnily enough, the people outside made me feel safer, but I shared her fear of the dark.
When we’d lie together in bed I would stare at the black ceiling and I would see the faces of those two codgers, full of rage, of hate. They wanted me dead. They wanted to know why I wasn’t the one in the ground. With a record of sixty, how could they lose to someone like me?
Killing a person— no matter how much they deserved it— has the fucked up side effect of seeing them sometimes where they aren’t.
I was in a Lowes Foods and followed this old guy around for the better part of fifteen minutes; everything from the way he carried himself to his haircut looked the spitting image of John. He eventually spun around, basket in hand, and asked, “Excuse me, can I help you?”
I ran from the store and sat in the car, trying to figure out a way that I could call Beth and tell her that I’d be late because I needed to go to the Aldi instead.
Beth took up cycling; it’s really something the way that almost dying will make you savor life. The group of girls she cycles with are all big on keto and getting biker highs. Honestly, I took up weightlifting. In the beginning it was fear; I never wanted anyone to man-handle me the way that John had. As time went on, I became a regular at the gym and lots of the guys started giving me tips on building my core. It’s helped a lot and I hardly recognize the man in the mirror these days.
Every afternoon me and Beth cuddle on the couch and watch Netflix. Often times we’ll fall asleep like that. I cherish that.
Sex is better than it’s ever been. I never thought we’d get there, but time heals. Sometimes, when we’re lying in bed afterward, we trace our fingertips across one another’s scars. The amount of comfort we’ve found is startling, but welcome. I think it’s brought us closer.
We’ve settled into being a pair of boring suburbanites. No kids— we’ve thought of adopting. No pets. And the trauma from Happy Place is far behind us. It feels like things are getting better all the time.
I’ve gotten into the habit of waking early to cook some breakfast for the two of us. Eggs, strips of bacon, sometimes toast. I’ll sip on my coffee and the smell of food will eventually rustle Beth from her slumber. She’ll come down the hall in nothing but a t-shirt and underwear, hair standing on end.
We’ll nibble on breakfast, scrolling through social media on the couch.
“Did you check the mail yesterday?” asked Beth, a bit of bacon wedged between her teeth.
I had not.
I slipped into a pair stretchy pants and went to the front door, greeting the cool morning air with little more than an undershirt. The driveway was cold under my bare feet as I scampered to the mailbox down the driveway. I rubbed my hands together before opening the flap. A fat square box wedged inside greeted me. I fought with it for a moment, tearing the corners.
Upon returning inside, Beth caught sight of the box and I move over to set it on the cushion between us.
“What did you get?” I asked her.
“I didn’t get anything.”
I moved the box around in my hands, looking for any writing; there wasn’t any. I sat the box down again. “It’s not mine.”
“Are you fucking with me?” She smiled. “Did you get me a present or something?”
“No. I don’t know what this is.”
“Well, it’s probably a mistake,” she said, confidently.
“There aren’t any shipping directions. Whoever put this in our box did so personally.”
“Uh,” she started.
I took a finger and pressed into the tape running the length of a side. It popped in and I tore the flaps out.
I sat there in confusion for a moment, but red-hot terror crept up my body soon enough.
“What is it?” asked Beth.
I lifted the small, child-sized clown from inside the box and held it up to show her.
“It’s probably a prank!” hushed Beth.
I wished it were. I really do.