PANIC

Chapter Thirty-Six - ROOK

The drive to the village where my life with Jon made my dark childhood look like a bright Easter morning sunrise is long, filled with dread, and scary as fuck. I have all that time to just replay all the terrible things that happened inside that house.

Wayne, Illinois is not the kind of place where horrors happen. Wayne is the type of place where little girls join the Pony Club, boys get Porsches for their eighteenth birthdays, and parents stay together because there’s too much money at stake to split up. At least that’s how it is now. But a hundred years ago it was just another farm town known for breeding draft horses.

Our property butts up against a pretty forest preserve and I pull into a parking lot about half a mile from the house. The park is deserted this time of year unless there’s a classroom of little kids on a field trip, and today there isn’t. So no one notices when I ride the bike into the woods, weaving my way between trees, until I get far enough away from the lot to hide it behind a thicket of shrubbery. This way I can walk up to the house from the back and make sure no one’s waiting for me. It also gives me a nice hidden getaway route and all that fucking running with Ford is gonna pay off big if I have to make a break for it.

The house Jon and I lived in is at least a hundred years old and when it comes into view through the heavily wooded trees, I get the same creepy feeling I did that first day we came to look at it after his uncle died.

Picture the house in Night of the Living Dead. Not that pussy remake where the house is some beautiful, sprawling Victorian-ish thing. But the original Night of the Living Dead, the black and white one from the Sixties that has that two-story farmhouse sitting off in the distance in a large field, white siding, half-ass porch, and those tall, skinny windows that just scream horror movie.

That’s my house in Wayne, Illinois.

The first time Jon and I came to look at it I refused to get out of the car. I was so creeped out he didn’t even push the issue, simply left me there in the passenger seat while he went inside and looked around. He only stayed about fifteen minutes and when he came back all he said was, I’ll clean it up and remodel the kitchen. I just stared at him. Because it was so out of character for him to give a shit about what I thought that I couldn’t even process it. I have no idea what he saw that day but I can take a good guess. Because his uncle was psycho. Psycho as in I keep my quadruple amputee mother under the bed on wheels, X-Files style.

I’m not exaggerating. Uncle Pete was caught with body parts in his basement and died while on trial.

I almost forget to breathe as little by little the house comes into view. It looks small on the outside but inside it’s one of those old places with huge rooms. It’s dumpy because the outside never got any attention. The siding is still a dingy grayish white, the tall hedges that line the far side of the property are all overgrown and bushy, the unattached garage roof is slightly sagging, and the yard grass is knee-high. But if you include the third-floor attic and the basement, it’s almost three thousand square feet of dump.

I never once set foot upstairs. Not even the second floor. It was off limits to me and even though it was kinda cramped only living in that little bit of space, I had absolutely no problem with that. I gladly made do.

Money did not make a shit of difference in my life once I got with Jon. When I was out on the streets, hungry, cold, and desperate, I thought for sure money was the answer. That’s the whole reason I went home with Jon in the first place. He had it all. He was cute, he had the job, the college degree, the Lincoln Park condo, the car, the clothes. He had everything I thought I wanted.

Just like Ronin, right? Ronin had all that too. And he wonders why it took me so long to get on board with him. It was a fool me twice kinda thing.

And seriously, if you were me back then and you suddenly had an established, nice-looking guy interested in taking care of you, you’d go for it too. What girl on the streets would say no to that? Who?

No one, that’s who. But I know better now.

Yeah, everything I did with Antoine and Spencer was for money, but it was my money. Not someone else’s. There’s a big, big difference. After I left Jon I wasn’t looking for the things money could buy, I was looking for the freedom to walk away any time I wanted.

That’s what money really gives you. Walking privileges.

I hesitate at the edge of the woods. I don’t see anyone but I stay hidden and stalk around the perimeter as best I can before setting foot out on what’s left of the lawn. Both of our cars are still there. He must’ve picked mine up from where I left it the day I ran. I peek in the window as I walk past and catch sight of the crystal glass hanging from the rear-view. I open the door impulsively and snatch it until the nylon string breaks, and then close the door gently.

It glitters in the sun and makes my stomach turn. Jon gave me this early in our relationship. I huck it out into the grass because it needs to be forgotten, just like all the rest of the stuff in this place. I continue on to Jon’s car and peek in his windows too. Mine’s an old Toyota Camry, but Jon drove a late-model Mustang. There’s nothing in there, not even a scrap of paper from a straw wrapper.

Jon is a neat freak.

I suppose he left his car here because it would be stupid to disappear in your own car. I don’t open his door, just continue walking up to the back stoop. No railing, just five concrete steps leading up to a door. I stop and lift up the roof of an empty birdfeeder off to the side and take out the spare key taped to the top. The back door doesn’t function. Nailed shut courtesy of Psycho Uncle Pete. Too close to the basement, I always figured. So I creep around to the front of the house and listen for signs that someone might be inside.

I wait a few minutes and then hop up the identical stoop in front, push the key in the lock, and twist the door knob.

It swings open with a creak and I hesitate for a second, but I’m more afraid of someone pulling into the driveway and catching me here than I am of crossing the threshold.

So I step inside, close the door, and remind myself it’s just a place. It’s not alive, it’s not evil, it’s just a place.

But it’s a place that has been tossed from ceiling to floor. The leather couch is standing on end, the lining underneath split open. Every cushion as well. Stuffing coats the floor and it looks like it snowed in here. The end table drawers are upside down on the coffee table, their meager contents—Jon never did tolerate a junk drawer—spilled out. All the pictures are strewn about, their canvases split open, like we were hiding secret documents under the paintings.

When I look to the right the kitchen is in the same state. I walk in there. Jon did live up to his promise. My kitchen has granite countertops, maple cabinets, travertine tiles on the floor, and stainless steel appliances. All of which are dented now with what looks to be booted footprints. The French doors of the fridge are open, as is the lower freezer drawer, the contents inside long past spoiled. All the cupboards are open and the remains of the dishes are scattered around on the floor, my boots crunching in the debris as I back out and wind my way through the strewn-about furniture, towards the first floor bedrooms.

I want to stop myself. I want to scream at myself, tell the inner Rook not to go there. Nothing good can come of it. Just turn back and get what you came for.

But I can’t.

I can’t leave here without looking at it one more time.

All the doors are open as I pass. Our bedroom is ransacked, the guest room is ransacked, the hall bathroom is ransacked, and the office is also ransacked.

But one door remains closed and this alone makes me want to cry. I walk slowly to the last door on the left at the end of the hallway and open it.

My baby’s room is not a mess. In fact, it’s almost neat and tidy—the bedding in the crib is in a heap, the mattress ripped down the side, but it’s all there. When I pull open a drawer all the tiny clothes are messed up, but they are all still there. Proof that whoever the searcher was, they must’ve either taken their time to look through things properly or they fixed everything after they were done.

I wonder what kind of thug does that?

The crib is white and the bedding is blue. All the bottles are lined up near the bottle warmer on the changing table. The Diaper Genie is still standing at attention in the corner, its askew top the only clue that it was searched by the thugs who trashed my house.

I suck in a breath as my eyes wash over the picture frame on the dresser.

It’s me. Eight months pregnant.

I’m wearing a fluffy peach dress, I’m barefoot, I’m huge, and I’m standing outside in front of the blooming purple lilac bush on the east side of the house.

I’m also smiling. Because even though my world would fall apart very soon after this picture was taken, I was happy that day. I was hopeful that Jon was changing, that this baby was a good idea after all, that he’d be better, happier, satisfied—if he just had a son.

I didn’t miscarry at six weeks like most girls. I carried that baby to term.

I went to all those check-ups, heard the heartbeat, saw the ultrasound, had a name picked out, had a room, a car seat, a crib, breast pump, baby swing, the cute bedding, the adorable onesies, the rocking chair by the window, and a baby bag packed and ready for the hospital—I had everything.

I slip the photo out of the frame real fast and stuff it inside my jacket. I didn’t want it when I left because I thought I could just forget it ever happened. Just put it behind me and move on.

But I can’t move on. I never had the chance to properly grieve because as soon as I came home from the hospital, Jon was even worse than ever. He blamed me. And I never had a chance to feel the sadness. I had to push it away so I could survive.

I don’t have time to feel anything right now either, but some day. Someday soon, I will look good and hard at that picture and figure it out. Let it all out and really say goodbye like I should’ve when it happened.

I take one last look at what I almost had and then I back out of the room and pull the door closed behind me.

Let that one room remain sweet and hidden away from the ugliness out here.

I walk briskly down the hallway, picking my way through the various pieces of broken things, and go through the kitchen to the back of the house. The basement is where I need to be. That’s where everything is. All the horror, all the tears, all the beatings, all the death, all the sickness, all the filth, all the bad, bad things that happened in this house took place in this basement.

When I get to the top of the stairs I stop and replay it all in my mind.

His hand on my shoulder.

The smack across the back of my head that turned into a push.

The fall.

The blood.

The hours it took for Jon to decide that I really did need to go to the hospital.

The look on the doctor’s face when he told me it was too late.

The screaming as they strapped me to a gurney and rolled me down the hallway so they could medically induce me into giving birth to a dead baby.

And then waking up in a hospital bed to the man who caused it all, handing me balloons.

Balloons.

And a card.

The anger and hate I felt that day washes over me again. But I let it flow like wind and then it dissipates. Because I came here for a reason and this memory lane shit needs to be over now.

I walk slowly down the steps and let the baby go so the other horrors can fill in the space. The basement is tossed too, and while it does make me a little sad to see all my things trashed upstairs, down here nothing belonged to me. Down here I was a piece of property. Down here I was his piece of property and I spent most of the months after the baby down here being punished for some reason or another.

Jon likes the kinky stuff. And I’m not talking the fun kinky stuff. I’m not talking about cute pink cheeks from an erotic spanking, or teasing a girl so she wants to come, but can’t. Or any of that play stuff.

I’m talking painful, ‘I never signed up for this, there is no word that will keep me safe, I don’t want this, it does not feel good, please, for fuck’s sake, stop’ kind of kinky stuff.

Ford likes the kinky stuff too, so he hints. And Ronin thinks he likes the kinky stuff.

But I’m doubting either of them have ever hog-tied a teenager and hung her up from the ceiling with a ball gag in her mouth and then proceeded to sexually torture her and called it fun.

I eye the ceiling hook as I step onto the cobblestones that line the basement floor and let out an uncontrollable shiver before taking my attention to the room around me. Most of the walls are made of some sort of gray rock. The floors are these old-ass bricks in some places, and crumbling concrete in others.

I head to the laundry room where the floor is crumbling concrete and try not to look at the shattered pieces of the St. Andrew’s cross as I pick my way past. This is a long room, but it’s pretty much bare of anything except the laundry stuff. Washer, drier, ironing board, folding table.

And one secret.

There is only single small basement window on the far side near the utility sink. The late afternoon light seeps in and blasts about six feet of air with illuminated floating dust particles. Across from that is the massive coal-powered furnace left over from when the house was first built. I used to hide behind it sometimes, but Jon always found me. He always found me.

I bend down and pick up the crowbar that’s mostly hidden underneath the washer, then insert it into the large drain grate in the crumbling floor. It lifts up so I set it aside and I lie down so I can peek in, straining to see if what I’m looking for is still there.

It is and the tips of my fingers just barely graze across the metal safe when a car door slams outside.

Fuck!

I get up and run to the little window which looks out to the front walkway.

Men’s voices.

And one of those voices belongs to Jon.