Factory Town Page 11

  The branches and brambles tore my skin, and I tried desperately to keep up with the boy, but the woods were thick, and I kept stumbling and falling, and finally I gave up and sat down on a rock, and never before had the night been so dark and the wind so cold and the trees so menacing.

  And then I heard the sound of leaves crunching. My eyes gazed toward where I heard the noise, but all was darkness. I held my breath, fearful of an animal or something worse. For the next several minutes all was quiet. But then I heard the sound again. I groaned, and it was the groan of terror.

  I heard a voice, that of an old woman. My precious, my precious.

  I rose to my feet, swung around, eyes wild, and whispered: Who’s there?

  No answer. Silence. The wind stopped blowing. Everything was still.

  And then, after several minutes of agony, the voice again: Where’d you bury ’em? You can tell me. I have secrets, too.

  Come out! Show your face!

  More rustling, more darkness. I took a step forward and removed my sword from the hilt. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I needed to make it home through the forest. I know you’re there, I said.

  The frozen moon broke through the mist, and then she was directly in front of me, her hair white and wild, her skin pale. She grinned a terrible grin and said, I’ve been waiting for you, precious, and showed me a gunny sack, and inside there were children, children she’d taken from beds and playgrounds, and I panicked, started swinging my sword wildly, and I got a piece of her shoulder, staggering her backwards, and then I was running, running through the forest with Ms. Marcell, the hunchback, on my heels.

  I ran forever with my cape whipping in the cold, mean wind, and the evil woman kept after me, telling me about the quilt she’d made out of children’s skin, and I’d heard stories, so many terrible stories, and then I was in a familiar neighborhood all filled with one-story brick ranches, and she was gone, and I walked slowly down the street, and I heard the distant sound of a train horn, muted and blurry. My heart was pounding, my body trembling. I wanted to stop, wanted to sleep, but it was too late for that, so I continued through a frozen dirt field and along a little gully until I saw a darkened farmhouse surrounded by a collapsed picket fence, and this is where the party had been.

  I walked up the porch steps, tightening the cape around my neck. The front door was open a crack, and I pushed it open and stepped inside. The lights were all turned off, and everything was dark. I walked slowly through the living room, the hardwood floor creaking beneath my feet. I had almost made it to the stairs when a light flashed on. A woman sat on the couch, eyes bloodshot, hair wild. It was Nicole, the woman who’d been beaten so badly by her husband. Her lipstick and mascara were smeared across her face grotesquely. There was a nearly empty bottle of red wine, shot dead, bleeding on the floor. She spoke, her voice harsh. Where have you been, little boy?

  I didn’t say a word, just stood there staring at her.

  I said, where have you been?

  Walking, I said.

  She smiled but it was the saddest smile I’d ever seen. Walking. That’s fine. And with that cape, always with that cape. You gonna save the world?

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  Sure you are. The Annihilator. But you gotta save yourself first, don’t you know it?

  I nodded my head. Yes, ma’am.

  She laughed. Smart boy, she said. And then she motioned me toward her, and I edged over slowly, cautiously, glancing toward the front door, afraid that he would soon crash into the living room, and then there would be hell to pay.

  She grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward her face. I could smell the gin and cigarettes on her breath. That fellow, she said, he’s a mean one, ain’t he? Does some awful things to the both of us.

  Yes, ma’am.

  He gets jealous. Sometimes he drinks too much. It ain’t his fault, Russell. Nothing is nobody’s fault.

  I didn’t say anything, just shook my head.

  I guess I shouldn’t have married him, knowing what I know now. But he used to be a nice boy, just like you. He used to bring me a white rose every Friday night. A single white rose. Yes, Russell. He was the first boy that ever loved me.

  And then her eyes got all crazy-like, and she started biting down on her lower lip until blood was spurting out, and that made me scared. I could feel hot tears filling up my eyes. I backed away from her and made my way to the staircase, barely breathing at all.

  Where you going, boy? Where you going? Please. Don’t leave me like this. I’m begging you. You don’t know what he’s bound to do. He’s a monster. A shot to the head or a knife to the throat is too humane for the bastard. Come back, Russell. Please…

  But I never turned back.

  And now upstairs, I walked down the long hallway lined with photographs of smiling faces and happiness, a grotesque misrepresentation of the past. I could still hear Nicole’s voice echoing across the hallway—don’t leave me like this—and then I came to a familiar room, the sign on the door reading, The Annihilator Waits Here. I took a deep breath, my throat constricted from anxiety. I opened the door and stepped inside.

  Everything was the same, the way it had always been. Posters of superheroes on the walls. Toys and action figures scattered across the floor. I closed my eyes and listened to the pounding of my own heart. I took off my cape and my mask, dropped my sword to the floor, and removed my clothes. I turned out the light and got into bed and pulled the covers over my body. I stared at the ceiling, and I thought about terrible things, always terrible things.

  * * *

  Hours passed and then that man Cory Packer stood in the doorway of my room, the naked light bulb swinging behind him, his shadow lengthening and shortening and lengthening again on the hardwood floor. I was awake, heart beating rapidly, sweat covering my brow, but I pretended like I was asleep because I knew he’d been drinking; he’d always been drinking. He took a few steps into my room and I squeezed my eyes tight, tried to travel to another world. I could hear him muttering under his breath, talking about his goddamn worthless wife and his goddamn worthless son and his goddamn worthless job, and then he stopped talking and I could hear him breathing, the slow labored breathing of a drunk.

  Get out of bed, you little piece of shit, he said, and I squeezed my eyes tighter. But he wouldn’t let it go—he was a relentless drunk—and I could hear the floor creaking beneath the shifting of his feet. Then he stood over me, and I felt the tears welling in my eyes, always the coward. Always the coward! he said, as he pulled me to my feet.

  He looked at me, and there was madness in his eyes. He said: Listen to me, Russell, listen to me good! You think you’re better than me? Well, do you? Fuck you, little boy. You ain’t shit. You look at me like I’m some goddamn monster. I see it in your eyes. Like I’m a goddamn monster. But it ain’t my fault. I was wired that way. Genetics. My old man, he was the same way. And his old man before. It’s a history of rage, a history of hate. And you ain’t no different. No, sir. I’ll make a prophecy, and forgive me if I ain’t the religious kind. And the prophecy is this: you’ll do bad. You hear me? You’ll do bad! Worse than me even! But it all ain’t bad, boy. You’ll own this place some day. Own the abandoned buildings and abandoned storefronts, own the decaying houses and the decaying neighborhoods, own the hateful men and the despondent women, own the wind and the trash and the dirt.

  I nodded my head, I don’t know why, and then the old man let me have it, and it was just for kicks for him. He pinned me down on the floor and took to hitting me, backhands and forehands, and my nose and ears filled with blood, and I closed my eyes and imagined that I was far, far away…

  …and then he was done with me, and he staggered out of my room leaving me bloody and battered and begging for mercy, but he forgot his prized cowboy hat, left it lying on the floor.

  * * *

  I ate breakfast with the woman—Cheerios for me, only water for her—and neither of us spoke, but she eyed me funny; she knew what had
happened the night before, but she was too scared to do anything about it.

  That man still sleeping? I finally asked, and she seemed shocked by the question.

  Why, yes, she said. He works very hard. At the factory. It’s a thankless job, Russell.

  And that was that. I ate my Cheerios, and the woman drank her water, and for a long time neither one of us talked. When she did speak, her voice sounded different, and it scared me.

  She said: Sometimes I sit on that front porch for hours at a time, staring down that long road, waiting for a car or a truck or a motorcycle to appear to take me away, but when one does come, I don’t move a muscle, I just sit there and watch as it pulls away, the taillights becoming smaller and smaller and finally being swallowed into the night. And I keep a flask of bourbon beneath the wicker chair, just a nip now and then to dull my senses, to warm my frigid skin. And when I see Corey’s shadow, when I hear Corey’s footsteps, when I sense Corey’s presence—those are the moments when I drink more than a nip; those are the moments when I tilt the flask a little steeper…

  CHAPTER 17

  Later, I sat outside the house, hiding behind a rusted and abandoned mail truck. Crows and bats flew overhead. The sun was beginning to rise over the plains, and the sky was a bloody mess. The ground was still covered with snow, filthy most of it. Piano music played from a distant house, sad and haunting. I blew on my hands, trying to keep them warm. The bandage on my head had come loose, and blood was falling to the snow like a dripping faucet.

  And then way off in the distance the factory whistle blew, and moments later the front door opened, and Cory Packer stood on the porch wearing a flannel shirt and blue jeans and those cowboy boots and cowboy hat. He gazed off into the distance and squinted in the early light. In his right hand he clutched a metal lunch bucket; in his left hand a thermos.

  He walked slowly through the neighborhood, with his head down, kicking at the sidewalk angrily, spitting from time to time. Singing a song, under his breath, an angry tune:

  We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig in our mine the whole day through

  To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig is what we really like to do

  It ain’t no trick to get rich quick

  If you dig dig dig with a shovel or a pick

  In a mine! In a mine! In a mine! In a mine!

  Where a million diamonds shine!

  And after a while, other workers joined him for the march, appearing from inside brick houses and wood shacks and from behind trees. They all wore blue jumpsuits and yellow hardhats, and none of them spoke to each other or even made eye contact. Many of the workers were badly maimed or deformed: missing legs and arms, scarred faces and necks. It was a strange sight to be sure, a group of fifty at least, limping and staggering through the neighborhoods and toward the factory with its strange goings-on.

  Once they approached the town center, once they could see the steam billowing sinisterly from the smokestacks, Cory Packer began singing again, and the rest of the workers joined him for the chorus:

  Heigh-ho, heigh-ho

  It’s off to work we go

  We keep on singing all day long

  Heigh-ho

  The factory towered over the town, eight stories at least, smokestacks even taller, gray brick walls covered with steel catwalks and darkened windows, many of them shattered. And surrounding the property, barbed wire fencing, half-buried in rubble and drifts of snow.

  The men marched onward, heads down, knees high, and I watched from a distance, curious about this place and these people. What were they making in there? What did they make for ghosts?

  From behind the gates, a man appeared with tomato-red hair and a lime-green suit, and he stared at his watch, arm raised delaying entrance, and the workers waited patiently, still singing their song, but quieter now, and then the man lowered his hand and the whistle blew, and the door opened, and the workers marched in, a sea of blue and yellow.

  I remained across the street, waiting, suddenly anxious, maybe even frightened. There were problems, of course, so many problems, but answers often make things worse, truth often destroys. I buried my hands in my pockets and crossed the street, the wind blowing cold and mean.

  I got into line behind the last of the workers, but when it was finally my turn to enter, the man with the green suit simply shook his head. This is a private building, he said. No trespassers.

  There’s somebody I need to see.

  I’m sorry. No trespassers.

  Then perhaps you could tell me. What goes on in there? What are they producing? It’s not like any factory I’ve ever seen.

  You don’t belong here. I demand you leave or I will call the sheriff. He doesn’t like outsiders, hear? And neither do I.

  I was about to argue some more when something caught my eye, a furtive movement fifty or so yards down the fence. Mumbling a farewell, I wandered along the perimeter, the barbed wire tearing my clothes and cutting my arms. The factory whistle blew again.

  My legs weren’t working well, but eventually I arrived to the area along the fence where I had seen the movement. Pulling herself through a snowdrift, her leg stumps dragging uselessly behind, shivering badly, body bloody and emaciated, brown eyes sunken and resigned. Charlie’s mother. She wore the same white nightgown, and her skin was pale and beginning to slough off her face. Our eyes met, and she blinked a few times, nothing more. Mrs. Gardner? I said. What are you doing here? Are you lost? Did somebody leave you here? She shook her head and tried speaking, but I heard only deathly wheezing. I leaned in closer. I can’t hear you, I said. What are you saying?

  She tried again, this time with enormous effort. Escaping…this…town.

  And then she closed her eyes. Without thinking, I scooped up the old woman in my arms and started walking. It’s gonna be okay, I whispered to her. We’ve gotta get you cleaned up. We’ve gotta get you some food and water. Hang in there, you hear me?

  The sky was gray and dark, ominous as hell. I held the dying woman in my arms and walked through the town, searching for aid, searching for food.

  People passed me on the streets, but nobody looked up, nobody made eye contact, despite my pleading, despite my shouting. Finally, I got the attention of a young man wearing a Himalayan hat. He had a kind face, although psychotic eyes. Please, sir, I said. I need your help. This woman will die if she doesn’t eat or drink soon. Can you help? But he pushed right past me, and as he did so, he stabbed me in the side with some sort of a shiv. I coughed in pain, but continued moving.

  Mrs. Gardner was breathing, but barely, her dying eyes focused on mine. I stroked her head, her belly, and she moaned softly.

  I approached a woman with wild red hair, wearing a tattered fur coat. I said: Please help me, ma’am, I don’t know who to turn to. This woman, Mrs. Gardner, she hasn’t eaten in some time. She’ll starve to death. Please help. The woman looked at me and then at Mrs. Gardner. Suddenly her face took on an expression of complete and absolute terror. She got right into my face and started screaming hysterically and belligerently. She pounded her head with her hand and bit her lip until it was bleeding. As for me, I got the hell away from the woman, and I knew time was running out for Charlie’s mother, for Alana, for me.

  The sky was gray and the snow was dirty. All around me was desolation and corrosion. I started running, and the old woman stared at me with those sad eyes, but not for much longer. I held her hand and it felt like a too-ripe peach. Her hair was all but gone now, and I could feel her ribs pressing against her skin.

  I came to a set of cement stairs, going down, down, down, always down. I was curious, so I gripped Mrs. Gardner tighter and descended. The stairs were steep and seemed to go on forever. I thought I heard footsteps behind me, but every time I looked back, the stairs were empty. Up above lightning flashed, no thunder.

  Finally I came to the bottom of the gray stairway. There was a cement square, maybe ten by ten feet. On the square, six inches or so of water. All sorts of junk floated in the water: an empty c
an of beans, a hypodermic needle, a necktie, a rusted knife, a rosary. And, most interestingly, four or five cutthroat trout, swimming below the surface, their silver stomachs dragging against the cement.

  I knew what I had to do. Gently, I placed Mrs. Gardner on one of the lower steps. She curled into the fetus position, her breath slow and labored. I stepped into the water, which came up to my ankles. I kept my eye on one of the trout, the one that appeared the most lethargic. I waited until it swam up to my foot and then reached down to grab it. Despite its lethargy, it managed to dart away. I took a few more steps in, took a few deep breaths, and snatched at it again. I was quicker this time and managed to grab a hold of it for a moment before it slipped out of my hands and fell back into the water, swimming away spastically.

  This went on for a long time, numerous attempts and numerous failures, until finally I caught him. He was a decent-sized fella, maybe eight inches in length. He flipped wildly, and I squeezed him tightly until his skin began to burst. Then I brought him over to the stairs and slammed him against the cement until he was still.

  I grabbed the rusted knife from the water. I held the trout around the middle with its underbelly facing me. Methodically, I inserted the knife into the anus and removed the gill cavity and entrails. Then I grabbed his head and snapped it back before finally yanking off the skin.