She does not want to be alone.
Alone, the nightmares come unbidden. The men put their dirty hands on her naked body; crush her beneath their weight. She smells their sweat, a stench she will remember for the rest of her life, feels the piercing pain in her groin as they roughly enter her—no romance, no desire—just rape, taking what they want, what they have no right to take, delighting in her objection, relishing the violation over and over again, stealing a little piece of her every time. Then their smiles as they step back to appraise her, crooked yellow teeth gleaming, eyes like polished stones, studying her, taking in every bead of sweat, every hair, every part of her bare battered body. In their hands they hold dirty blades as they turn away like magicians waiting to spring a surprise on the audience. Though she has transcended pain of the physical kind, she wishes for death, for sleep, for escape. Most of all, she yearns for the chance to turn back time, to contest Daniel’s decision to shun the highway in favor of a merry jaunt through the backwoods. But she’d been outvoted, and a little drunk, a little high, and so had kept her mouth shut as they headed off down the narrow path marked by a signpost that told them they were three miles from a town called Elkwood.
* * * This is where the nightmare began in real life, and in the realm of turbulent sleep, it does not deviate from the script, though sometimes the scenes are rearranged at the hands of a deranged editor.
The four of them, toting backpacks, a colorful bunch: Daniel in a gray Old Navy T-shirt, knee- length jean shorts with frayed hems and sandals; Stu in an appropriately loud lemon T-shirt and red and green floral-patterned Bermuda shorts, his shades hanging around his neck, a NY Mets cap pulled backwards on his head; Katy, more conservative in a khaki “skort” and a lime green polo shirt marred by slight sweat stains beneath the armpits, her dark hair tied back in a ponytail, one thick lock of it following the curve of her cheek; and Claire, wearing denim shorts and a white cutoff shirt that displays her toned stomach and the belly-button piercing she’d had done before they left Columbus. She remembers that ring most of all— a silver circlet running through a small fake diamond—because it was the first thing the men ripped from her body.
Her mind skips to this scene:
She is still dressed, but tied to the stake. She screams against the oil-stained gag as the man she will later attack with the wooden spur laughs through his teeth and pulls the ring from her navel, then holds it up to show her. There is a little speck of her skin still attached. And as he brings it close, she recalls the courage it took to get it done, and the complete absence of that same courage every time she thought of having to show it to her mother.
Then back to the carefree wanderers: Daniel and Stu walking ahead on the shaded road, trading memories of the last drunken night in Sandestin and chuckling while the canopies of oak leaves allowed golden pools of sun to warm their backs, Katy and Claire following, Katy strangely quiet. Bug spray doesn’t dissuade the clouds of mosquitos that hang around them like stars around the moon.
Are you worried? Claire asks her friend when the guys are far enough ahead of them.
About what?
I don’t know. You’re not saying much.
Katy shrugs, smiles just a little. Just thinking. About us.
You and me? Or…
Yeah, Katy replies. Or.
He seems to be all right, Claire tells her, with a nod in Stu’s direction. You don’t think so?
Another shrug. Seems to be is exactly the point. He hasn’t said a thing. Not a damn thing.
Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe it’s his way of letting you know it’s over and done with, water under the bridge.
Katy looks at her then. If you cheated on Danny, you think you’d take him being quiet as forgiveness?
In the dream, before Claire gets a chance to answer, a disembodied hand appears before Katy, dirt under its nails, grime covering the skin, as it drives a rusted metal spike upward, penetrating the soft skin underneath her friend’s chin. Blood spurts, Katy’s eyes widen in horror, but she keeps talking, keeps trying to explain why she did what she did, why she betrayed her boyfriend with someone she had no feelings for, but the words keep getting harder and harder to get out as the spike appears inside her mouth, still traveling upward, puncturing her tongue and driving it toward the roof of her mouth. And now Katy is speaking as if she has never learned the right way to do it, as if she’s been deaf since birth and will never be sure if the words are produced the right way. I… hink… I wanhed… to… hurt him… buh I hon’t knowww why… Then, as the spike continues its passage through her skull, Katy’s eyes roll and bulge, begin to leak blood.
Claire screams.
Ahead of her, in the middle of the road, Daniel and Stu turn, but the movement is not theirs. They are tied to stakes driven deep into the crumbling asphalt, their hands bound behind them, and when they turn, it is at the behest of the wind, as if they are little more than extravagant weathervanes. They are both naked. The skin has been removed from Daniel’s face; Stu’s head is gone, severed at the neck. And yet, somehow they continue to speak, permitted by the skewed logic of dreams to say what they once said in life.
We should have just driven, Stu says. Why the fuck would anyone want to walk in this heat?
You’re missing the point, man, Daniel tells him. Everybody drives everywhere. Unless you’re willing to spend a fortune on some goddamn guided trail in the Rockies, your options are limited. We got where we needed to go, had our fun, now it’s time to get back to nature, see things as people used to see them. It could be our last summer together, so why not draw it out a little?
You’re a fruit, you know that?
Maybe, but you’ll thank me later. We’re going to see things no tourist ever sees.
Claire looks away. The light fades. She is no longer on the road, but back in the woodshed that smells of waste matter, of blood and decay and sweat and oil. There is a window in the wall to her left that she does not recall ever seeing. Through the dirty glass Daniel stands there, once more dressed, his face returned to him but wearing a somber expression as he looks in her direction.
And, I’m losing him, she thinks, as she thought earlier that day. Things are changing. We both feel it. I’m losing him.
She opens her mouth to call out to him, to plead with him to save her, to save them both, but her words are obliterated by the filthy probing fingers that have found their way inside, forcing her to look away from the window and into the face of her nightmare.
Here she wakes, the smell of blood and dirt clinging to her, and she thrashes against it, against the arms that appear to hold her down, to tell her that everything will be okay, that she’s safe now.
But she isn’t, and she knows it. The killers may be gone, but they have planted something inside her with their fingers, their tongues, and their cocks. She feels it all the time now and its getting worse, drawing nourishment from her, waiting until she relaxes, believes those who are telling her there is nothing left to fear before it claws its way out of her to prove them wrong.
* * * “Claire?”
“Yes.”
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Hospital.”
“That’s right. You know why?”
She nodded, slowly, but still refused to turn her myopic gaze on the man sitting in a chair to the left of the bed. With him came an air of importance, authority. Police, she suspected.
