Seeds of Fear

leaned down and laid his hand on her hair like a benediction. 'I didn't mean it.'

He told his mama and daddy that so often, it was a litany he repeated silently in his mind sometimes for days on end. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. I won't do it again. I didn't mean it.

Dory spluttered through her torn mouth, 'You hith me, you prickth. You hurth me bad!' She was crying now, loudly, and spitting rusty sputum on the floor.

'Shut up,' Shaw said. 'Come on, Bastine, let's look through the rest of the rooms while Dory takes care of herself. Stay put,' she said to the girl.

Bastine followed docilely behind, the light moving just ahead of Shaw's feet, now and then coming up to outline a doorway, a cabinet with a hanging door, a sink with rust stains, a bedspring sitting alone in the center of a bedroom. Dust filled his nostrils and made his throat feel raw. He kept jumping at the screech of rats that clawed and raced across the floor. Far off, he heard bits and pieces of what Shaw said to him during the tour.

'. saw you through that window at night.. there's the door to the back… the stove's still here. the flue in the fireplace is probably full of bird nests… got to kill off the past… get rid of it for good. if you murder her, then maybe.. I thought you needed that gift… that release…'

Was she… could she be talking about murder? Crossing the line. Killing the Lot Lizard. She couldn't possibly mean it.

'I can't do it,' Bastine murmured. 'I don't want to do that.' They stood close together at the window of the bedroom. The flashlight glinted from the black pane, a spear of yellow radiance.

'But you must.'

'No,' he said. 'I can't go that far.'

Shaw moved closer to him. 'Then I'll do it,' she said. 'For you. I want to. I've always dreamed of taking revenge on your behalf, Bastine.'

'Should we?' he asked. 'Can we? But I can't, I said that. It wouldn't be right.' He followed her to the open living room. He moved the light around looking for Dory. She was gone.

'She's hiding,' he said. 'She's scared too.'

'Like you were. Like I was for you.'

'We ought to let her go. We have to leave here. Now.'

'I can find her. I know all the secret hiding places.'

Bastine knew them too, but they never saved him. Nothing ever, by God, saved him. He was as shriveled inside as he had been as a kid in this house. Why had he thought he'd be excited and could enjoy some nutty sexual escapade of this magnitude? It was a terrible mistake, maybe the worst one he'd ever made. Shaw was stimulating that dead part of him and making it walk. But she could not make it kill; she could not make it free, either.

While standing, considering his options, he had not noticed Shaw's disappearance. He moved through the house, trembling uncontrollably, calling for her. 'Shaw? Please come out. Don't leave me here alone like this.'

He searched for them. The cubbyhole under the sink was empty. The closets smelled of mildew and old coats soaked with body odor. He left the house, skirted the porch, looked in the mud holes beneath it. It looked as if dogs had wallowed there.

'Shaw? Dory? Let's go now. I don't want to stay any longer. I hate it here!'

He heard the rasp of crickets and throaty bullfrogs that leaped and slapped standing water. He heard a breeze ruffle through the silver moss. 'Oh shit,' he mumbled. 'Y'all come on back here.'

He circled the house and headed down the worn path to the outhouse. The door was missing. He glanced inside, but couldn't bring himself to go near the hole in the boards or to gaze into the old pit there. He pushed aside brambles and searched behind the outhouse. He was coming around again to the back porch to check an old refrigerator lying on its back when he heard a gunshot shatter the still night. He halted. Let a whimper escape his lips. He'd forgotten about Shaw's gun. He expected to see her any moment come dragging the body of Dory from the woods. He waited, holding his breath. Dew soaked into his shirt and chilled him. He tried calling again, but couldn't speak above a whisper. A fearful idea took possession of his fevered brain. What if it wasn't Shaw? What if Dory possessed the gun?

What if Dory now stalked him and he was to be her next victim? He was the one who hit her, wasn't he? She might think he sent Shaw after her.

He must hide. He had done something dreadfully wrong this time. He was involved in a death dance.

He dropped the flashlight in his terror and scrambled up the back steps. The middle step gave way and sent him sprawling onto his knees. His pants tore, his knee bled. He went up the next step on hands and knees, splinters lodging painfully, pulled himself up with the help of the rail, and lunged toward the back door. The hinges gave and the door fell inward as he turned the doorknob. The crash made him scream, his legs wobble. He stumbled over the door and looked wildly around, the darkness impenetrable. Where? Had to find a hideyhole. Where?

He got down on the floor and tried to squeeze into the space under the sink, his favorite childhood cubbyhole, and found he was too large to fit. He had to hold back hysterical laughter welling up at the sight he must make with his ass sticking high in the air and his head lodged next to the drainpipe. He wasn't little anymore. He couldn't fit, he had so few places left for hiding.

He backed out, could now see gray shapes in the black. The doorway. He could find a closet. Or lie down in the old claw-foot tub. He'd seen it was a place where someone had defecated, but that didn't matter. He'd lie in shit if he must. Would the girl look in there? No, no, no, she'd never find him there.

He came to his feet and felt his way through the door to the living room, kicked trash out of his way, gaze skittering to the windows, and the front door that stood open to the night. He felt along the wall, the wallpaper peeling, the grit of old dried glue beneath his fingertips. He found the hallway and crept toward the bathroom.

His father hauled the tub from a junkyard and they filled it with water heated on the stove when they bathed, then he had the job of carrying out the dirty water bucketful by bucketful. His father made the bath by sealing off one end of the hall and installing a door. It was a stupid thing to do, but now it might afford Bastine sanctuary. It must.

He turned his back, slid into the tub, lowered himself the way he might have had it been full of warm water. He felt the hard crusts of someone's feces under his hips and grimaced. He slid farther down, knees up and to the side, hands crossed on his chest. The cold porcelain cooled his skin through his clothes and then seeped into his muscles. He bit down on his tongue until he drew blood to keep from whispering that he didn't mean it, he didn't mean it, wasn't anyone, goddamnit, listening to him?

He stared across the rolled white rim of the tub at the door. He willed it to stay closed.

He heard the creaking boards of the front steps first. His heart trip-hammered him half to death. He shut his eyes so tight, tears were squeezed from the edges. His fingers clutched at one another, nails tearing at the skin of his knuckles.

If he were on the road, the cities flying past, the miles rolling behind him, he'd be safe. If he hadn't been dispatched to Tallulah where Shaw waited for him, he would never be here after all these years. If he weren't so goddamned fucked-up, he'd never have left the truck stop.

Oh God, oh God, let it be Shaw, he prayed. Let her find me and take me away from here, please God. She is by far the cruelest of the two of us. Punish her.

The doorknob slowly rotated. Bastine's eyes stretched wide open. His breath caught in his throat where he swallowed it.

I didn't mean it.

The door opened without a sound, swinging back by increments.

Don't hurt me. I don't like being hurt. Daddy, please.

He could see her now in the doorway, but who was she? Mama? Shaw? Dory? He tried to find his voice, failed.

Her dark shape came toward him, arms hanging at her sides.

I'm hiding, she can't see me, no one can see me.

His legs twitched, his fingers tightened, his teeth closed harder on his tongue until they touched and blood filled his mouth. He must breathe. He must cry out for mercy as he had always been forced to do.

The right arm of the shape came up and he saw something in it. The barrel of the gun pointed at his chest. His vision narrowed into a tunnel that drew him into the cylinder. It was death he faced, that one true monster he had always feared and managed to outrun. He gagged on his own blood, jerked forward, hands coming up to stop the inevitable.