Soultaker

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The clock on the digital cable box showed the time as 2:59. Jake felt a rush of anxiety. He needed to be at his mother’s house by three thirty. Rockville was a small town. A drive from one end of town to the other would take perhaps fifteen minutes. The Zone was a mere ten-minute drive from Washington Heights. Under normal circumstances, he would be able to hop in his car and get there with plenty of time to spare.

These were not normal circumstances.

He was in bed with Stu’s sister. In the guest bedroom in Stu’s house. They hadn’t made love. Not yet. Still fully clothed, they held each other in the middle of the bed, limbs entwined in the intimate manner of lovers. Jake moaned with every slight shift of her body, enjoying the way her thigh pushed against his erection. Every so often, she cupped the crotch of his jeans and gave him a gentle squeeze.

No. Definitely not normal circumstances.

Kristen breathed softly in his ear. “I don’t know why we’re fighting this.”

Jake, who hadn’t been laid once in the four months since breaking up with his latest ex, could think of at least one reason to fight it. This was not the normal course of adult relationships, with the exception of the one-night stand variety, but this didn’t feel like something so meaningless. He expected females to maintain a safe emotional distance, a gentle aloofness, at the outset. There should be dates. Dinners and movies. A natural progression toward that initial sexual encounter. He should not be on the brink of that within hours of meeting someone he liked so much. Not at this point in his life.

Fuck.

So this is how it happens, he thought.

How you know you’re getting old.

You turn into a fucking prude.

The cable-box clock now read 3:04.

“I don’t want to fight it. I truly don’t,” he said. He cupped her cheek with a palm, and she smiled broadly, making a noise of pleasure and turning her head into the caress. His heart fluttered. “But fuck, I don’t have a choice.”

Kristen frowned. “I want this.” She put a hand to the back of his neck and drew him to within kissing distance. Her soft lips met his, and the slow kiss that ensued was nearly enough to melt what remained of his resistance. “This is fate, Jake. One of those meant-to-be things.”

Yeah. Okay. She had a tendency to make sweeping pronouncements, a willingness to be swept along by sheer emotion. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, if tempered by a healthy dose of realism. They had known each other five hours and already she had them cast as the leading roles in some great, epic romance. Jake liked her. An understatement. But he was a more a look-before-you-leap type. He hadn’t always been that way, but age and bitter experience had a way of changing things. Sometimes he mourned his loss of youthful optimism more than anything else.

The digital cable box taunted him: 3:07.

Kristen pinched the tab of his zipper between thumb and forefinger, tugged gently at it. “You want this as much as I do.”

“Yeah. You’re right. But I still have to go.”

With much regret, Jake began the process of disengaging himself from Kristen, who sighed heavily. He sat up and looked down at her. “I’m sorry. But I can’t think straight right now. I have to get over to my mother’s house in about twenty minutes. If I lay here any longer with you, I’d never get over there.”

Kristen glanced at the cable box and gasped. “Oh, shit!” Something in her wide-eyed expression made him want to climb atop her. “I’m so sorry! I had no idea it was so late.”

Be strong.

He forced a smile. “Time flies when you’re…” He fumbled for the right words. He’d been about to say “in love,” but that was ridiculous at this stage. Wasn’t it? Saying those words to someone as intense as Kristen would be a mistake. He coughed and finished lamely: “…having fun.”

There was a knowing quality in her expression. Of course. She knew precisely what he’d been about to say-and wouldn’t be forgetting it anytime soon. Damn.

“Fun. That’s one word for it.” Her eyes widened again. Jake felt drawn into them. They burned with a kind of rare and magnificent spark, an ineffable quality he’d only glimpsed once or twice in his life.

I am fucking done for, he thought.

He knew then he was completely at her mercy.

He wondered if she knew it yet.

She said, “Hey, I could go with you.”

Jake thought about it. He wouldn’t mind the company.

Going to his mother’s house wouldn’t be any more pleasant than his last visit. Shit. “No. I’d love to have you along, but I’m afraid your being there would make my mother behave so badly I’d puke.”

Kristen’s brow furrowed. “Is she really so bad, Jake? You make her sound like Cruella De Vil’s illegitimate white-trash sister. Oh. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have said ‘white trash.’ I’m sorry.”

Jake snorted. “Don’t be. The term ‘white trash’ was invented for families like the McAllisters. Let’s put it this way. After my dad died and my mom remarried, she didn’t have to change her last name.”

“You’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding.”

“I wish.”

“Damn.”

“Yep. Hubby number two was my dad’s second cousin. Or third. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell with the McAllisters. It sounds sick, but that’s only because it is. Listen, I’ve really got to be going. I’ll swing by with Trey later. Maybe we could all do something together.”

She smiled. “Sure. I’d like to meet him.”

They kissed good-bye and Jake hurried out of the house. Then he hopped in his car and headed toward the Zone. The old neighborhood was livelier at this time of day, with groups of school-aged kids loitering on corners and playing in pickup baseball and basketball games. It was a bright, sunny day, and the Zone looked as wholesome as any other slice of suburbia. He was glad things had changed for the better here, and he again felt embarrassment that his family’s home remained such a blight on the landscape.

He parked at the curb and walked to the front door, taking note of the red Camaro parked in the driveway. Trey’s car, he guessed. It looked to be an early ’80s model, the kind he’d coveted when he was Trey’s age. He again felt the passage of time like a weight pressing against him. To Trey, the Camaro was likely just an affordable junker, maybe even a little embarrassing.

Jolene stood framed in the open front door, watching him as if she’d been expecting him. She’d changed clothes since that morning, losing the tank top and denim cutoffs in favor of low-rider jeans and a cropped purple T-shirt that showed off her flat midriff and accentuated her bust. Jake’s stomach curdled as he noted a navel piercing framed by a tattoo of the sun.

He looked her in the eye, nodded, but didn’t smile. “Mom.”

His mother smirked. “Ain’t you the friendly one.”

Jake counted slowly to ten, then managed a tight smile and said, “I can play nice if you can. Look, I’m here to see Trey. To help. So let’s be civil.”

Jolene’s smirk gave way to a cold glare. “For Trey’s sake, I’ll be sweeter than sugar, but just between you and me, you can shove your superior attitude right up your tight ass. Treat me with respect in my house, boy.”

She turned and stalked away from him, the screen door flapping shut behind her. Jake felt some of his old anger coming back. His mind treated him to an array of images from his past, beatings and other cruel punishments. Blood roared in his ears. He wanted to scream.

He counted to ten again and entered the house.

Jolene was pouring herself a glass of Wild Turkey, diluting it with a minimal splash of Coke from an almost empty two-liter bottle. She nodded at an empty glass on the table. “Want some firewater, son?”

Jake clenched his fists. His fingernails pierced his flesh. Jolene had introduced Jake to the wonderful world of alcohol on the occasion of his tenth birthday. Things were different on Planet McAllister. Here ten-year-olds were considered old enough to indulge in adult vices. Jake was given a carton of Kools and a six-pack of Bud when he reached that age. Five years later it was Mikey’s turn. Poor Mikey never had a chance at a real life. He was a good kid. Kindhearted. Maybe too sensitive. The poor bastard dived headfirst into the world’s biggest bottle of whiskey and never resurfaced.

Jake made himself relax. “Thanks, but no.” He looked around the dirty kitchen. “Where’s Trey?”

Jolene knocked back her drink and slammed the empty glass down. “Trey! Get out here, boy, your brother’s here!”

Trey ambled into the kitchen a moment later, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans and his gaze cast downward. Trey was a handsome golden boy with dark blue eyes and tousled, longish blond hair that made him look like a displaced California surfer dude.

But something was very wrong here.

Trey displayed none of the abundant confidence described by both his mother and Stu Walker. He seemed fidgety, uncomfortable in his own skin.

Jake was dismayed to see that his mother’s concerns were justified. He’d been so certain her worries about Trey were unfounded. He seemed dazed or drugged, and Jake immediately wondered whether the new girlfriend had gotten him hooked on something. Couldn’t be meth, the preferred poison of white trash youth. The kid didn’t have that jittery, tweaker thing going on, thank God. But maybe it was heroin. Did they have that out here in the sticks? He had no clue, and so he tried to rein in that line of thinking. Jumping to conclusions was a bad idea. He needed to get Trey out of here, take him somewhere where he’d feel able to talk more freely.

“Hey man, why don’t we go get a pizza or something. My treat. We’ve got some major catching up to do.”

Trey shrugged, but didn’t lift his gaze from the floor. “Sure. Whatever.”

“Boy, can’t you at least look your brother in the eye?” Jake cringed. His mother’s voice was like nails on a chalkboard when she was this hammered. “He came a long ways just to see you, boy, takin’ time out of his busy schedule. You owe him some respect.”

The rebuke seemed to have some effect. Trey lifted his head, forced his mouth to form an expression that vaguely resembled a smile, and finally looked Jake in the eye. The effort clearly required a great force of will. “Sorry, Jake. I’m just-”

Then the kid’s eyes widened and his face contorted with terror.

Jake frowned.

What the-

Something crashed against the sliding glass door behind him, making the door rattle in its frame. Jolene was shrieking as Jake spun around and gaped at the site of a blood-soaked naked fat man pressed against the glass. The sheer strangeness of what he was seeing kept Jake from processing the horrific tableau for a long, elastic moment. Time seemed to slow down, to grind down to an almost complete stop. Then things clicked back into place, the mental gears started meshing smoothly again, and he realized the man at the door was his stepfather.

Jolene dashed to the door, flung it open, and drove the heel of a palm into the center of Hal’s chest, causing the man to stumble backward several steps before landing on his back in the tall grass beyond the patio.

“What the fuck are you doing out here, you goddamn son of a bitch!” Jolene’s voice achieved a level of shrillness that surpassed even the worst screaming fits Jake remembered from his childhood. “Get off your motherfuckin’ ass and get back in the goddamn shed before I cut your nuts off!”

Jake followed his mother into the backyard. Maintaining a cautious distance from her, he moved in a slow semicircle to his left. His stomach twisted when he was able to get a better view of Hal. Jolene kicked at him, driving a foot into his flabby belly again and again. Hal managed to shift his weight and flop onto his side. He cast an anguished gaze up at Jake, and Jake was astonished to find himself feeling actual pity for his stepfather. A series of revelations snapped into place in rapid succession. Primary among them was the brutally evident fact that his mother was insane. Most of the man’s fingers were gone. He saw knobs of ugly, cauterized scar tissue just below the knuckles. His genitals were a bloody mess. One of his ears was gone. His whole body was covered with scabbed-over wounds, places where he’d been sliced with a knife or other sharp instrument.

Jake felt dizzy, sick with fear and revulsion, but he couldn’t allow himself to be overcome. He wanted to run screaming in the opposite direction, anywhere away from there, but he made himself cling to an unfortunate reality-he was the only person here remotely capable of handling this thing the right way.

He moved closer to Jolene, who was still kicking her husband. Jake stepped over Hal’s much-abused body, seized his mother from behind by the elbows, and twisted his head toward the house. “Trey! Call 911!”

Trey stood in the open doorway, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging slack.

Jolene flailed against him, trying to twist out of his tight grip. “Let go of me, you fuckin’ asshole! He had it comin’! Let me go or I’ll fuckin’ kill you!”

“Trey, your mom needs help.” Jake glanced at Hal. “And so does your dad. Call 911 now!”

Trey blinked. He nodded and retreated into the kitchen. Within moments, Jake dimly heard his brother’s voice as he talked to the 911 operator.

Jolene threw her head back and released a wail that chilled Jake’s blood.

On the ground, Hal cried.

Jake held his breath and prayed for the ground to remain solid beneath his feet for just a little while longer.