| Shelter, Chapter 12: Dreams and Nightmares The entire day had been like a dream, like a piece of heaven... The chocolate cake was still on the kitchen table with the three plates of crumbs and two discarded numeral 1 birthday candles remaining where they were. The dinner dishes were on the counter and in the sink and now it was dark outside. Nothing had been done or put away but nothing had to be done or put away. All was quiet except for the wind, the lightning and the thunder. A storm was coming. Billie and Sara and their Mom were sitting on the living room couch. There was wrapping paper on the floor and Billie, wearing an old nightgown with spaghetti straps as she sat with her back to her mother, allowing the woman to brush her curls, was admiring a picture she had bought for her as a present. The picture was quite simple really, though quite pretty, painted but not in so many colors, of a little girl up in a tree looking up at the sky. How did she know? She had just said, "When I saw this in the shop, Billie, I thought of you." No more than that. And Billie didn't ask. All she knew was that she liked it more than the new shoes, the new dress, the new nightgown her mother had bought for her. She knew why she was buying her that stuff, and it wasn't just because she needed it. The wind outside shook the power lines. It seemed to shake the very structure of the house. At the same time, the lightning flashed, lit up the windows from the outside, and the thunder was getting closer, rumbling. Little Sara moved closer to her mother. "Mom-my... " she said. "I know," her mother said. "You're scared. Let's put on the TV, see if there's any reports. That should ease your mind." "Scared of a little thunder and lightning?" Billie said. "Don't tease your sister," her mother said. "So she's afraid of a few things. I'm afraid of things, too, Billie." Their mother moved from one channel to another on the remote until she found something about the weather. "Oh... boy... that doesn't look good." The man on the TV spoke and showed radar and a map of towns and counties and the corner meeting of the three states. He spoke as he waved his arms: "... for the tri-state area there has been instituted a severe thunderstorm watch with a severe thunderstorm warning for Hague and Bloom and Garrett. Also a tornado watch for the entire viewing area until eleven-o'clock P M." And that was when the back door opened to the kitchen and the screen door opened and rattled and was pulled shut. "Mom," Billie asked her mother, "what was that?" "Hello, everyone," his voice called from the kitchen. "Am I too late for cake? Looking bad out there." Jack stepped out into the living room. Sara practically flew off the couch, ran and jumped into his arms. Linda, Billie's mother, stood up and went to him. She turned to Billie. "Look who's here," she said. "Look who's here to say 'Hi' and have some cake." "Happy birthday, Billie," Jack said. "You got a hug for me?" Billie stared at him, stared at her mother, stared at him, got up off the couch and walked a few feet, keeping her distance as a flash entered the room, its light breathless and pale upon her face. Don't act too... don't show him you're... don't make Mom think anything... "What's going on?" Billie asked. "Well, Billie," her mother said, "I didn't want to say anything about him coming tonight. I wasn't sure Jack would make it. But we've been getting together and working out our problems and figuring out what we need to do so he doesn't control my life and I don't rely on him and we have one another but have our own thing as – " "So... ?" Jack smiled at Billie and moved closer as another flash came through the window. She blinked. She backed away. The room itself seemed to be very small. There was no space. There was no air to breathe. "Billie, I've asked your mother to – " "No!" Billie cried as he moved closer. She stepped up on the couch backwards, hugging herself, hugging her belly, feeling the pain inside. "What's wrong, Billie?" her mother asked. "We thought you would be happy." "No... no... no... " Billie tried to breathe between gasps as tears fell down her cheeks, dripping upon the wooden floor as she pounded past them on bare feet, past her mother, past the man who had been molesting her for over two years. And as they gave chase, her mother, a woman without a clue just trying to make sense, and the man who hid out in the dark waiting to pounce... she dashed ahead of them. "Billie!" her mother called after her as the girl fled out the backdoor, allowing the screen door to catch and bang in the furious wind. The girl didn't even look back. She was across the porch and down the steps and aboard her bike before Linda could even begin to think. The mother put her hand to her brow and looked out at the moving trees. "Shit," she said. "She'll be back," Jack said. "She just needs time." "What? Are you kidding me, Jack? I'm going after her." The wrinkle in her brow, the expression of a caring mother's concern, it fed something in her as she spoke to Jack with disbelieving irritation. "I'll go after her," Jack told Linda. "After what I just witnessed," Linda said, "I don't know if you takin' out after Billie is such a good idea." "What do you mean by that? Are you saying Billie's afraid of me?" "Is she?" Linda asked him, her eyes wide. "What's she got to be afraid of, Jack? My Billie's never been afraid of nothing and now she's suddenly afraid of you. What is it?" "You're fucking crazy, bitch!" Jack yelled at her. "Now I'm going out to find her and bring her back here and settle this once and for all!" Jack pushed Linda, pushed her back into the refrigerator, and he swung open the screen door into the violent wind, slamming the wooden door shut behind him. "You little fucking bitch," Jack growled as he headed to his car. "You couldn't just sit still and go with it, could you? You had to pitch a fit, didn't you?" He got in the car and started it, still thinking out loud. "Well, tonight's the night, little darlin'," he said. "That's what you get for causing trouble. I find you, Billie, and we're movin' to the back seat and I'm poppin' that cherry, and I hope you put up a fight..." Billie steered unsteadily through the grass, across sidewalk and street and through the grass again as she pedaled furiously, not looking back, not looking ahead nor knowing where she was going. She didn't give a shit. A car could have come along at any point and that would have been it for Billie, that would have been the end, but she didn't care, because nothing made sense. One minute you were blowing out candles, thinking you had nothing to wish for because it had already come true... the next minute, there he is again, everything you hate... God, she could feel that sick feeling... his hands on her... touching her... To think of him being married to her mother, living in their house permanently on paper, after having thought he was gone for good the idea of it made her sick, made her want to puke... "No!" she cried, riding through the violent wind, a wind of which she was becoming more and more aware. It seemed to be coming from all directions, blowing one second, then tugging the next, and her curls that her mother had brushed for her just moments ago, they were once again untamed, all about her head and in her face. The spaghetti straps fell off her shoulders. And she couldn't protect Sara anymore. She just couldn't do it. She was done. It was over. The wind was catching hold of the bike and making it do crazy things and she fought it, but she couldn't stay aboard, and she ended up taking it down in a yard somewhere, continuing on foot, running through the grass on barefoot toward the street. That was when she saw the car. It came to a screeching halt right in Billie's path and she lost her breath. All about them the trees were bent over, leaves and branches were blowing away, garbage cans and anything else not nailed down was rattling in the street. And Jack got out of his car, walking around to where Billie stood motionless, reaching out his hand. The wind was tugging at their clothes, tugging at the arm of his shirt as he reached for her and she backed away. "Billie, you need to come with me," he said. "Never," she said, pulling away from him, but he went after her. He grabbed her, tried to drag her back to the car. She fought him, punched him, bit his arm. She screamed, but of course the approaching storm was too loud for anyone to be heard. He tried to get a better grip on her, tore her nightgown, ripped one of her spaghetti straps, opened the rear door on the car and tried to force her inside as he yanked it above her waist. That was when it happened. BOOM! And all the lights went out, every light in the neighborhood, every streetlight, every house light, total darkness except for the headlights on Jack's car, but it was enough of a distraction, enough for her to get loose and go around the car and run, and Jack was about to run after her when the siren went off... It was not just any siren. It was the town siren. It was the civil defense siren, the tornado warning siren... He didn't know what to do. His erection was quickly softening. It was time to save his own ass. Billie ran. The air about her seemed to be tugging at her nightgown, tugging at her lungs as the siren went up and down. She felt the grass under her feet and made out some goalposts and knew she had made it to the high school. She was tired, sick, ready to fall, but she was afraid he was still behind her giving chase. Her ears popped and she heard and felt a rumbling and the wind tugged at her more and more until she threw herself on the ground... She rolled over... and over... and over again... coming to rest on her back, looking up into the black. Something was there, she knew it. Something was after her. It was tearing at her nightgown, yanking it above her waist and trying to tear it off her body. It took the breath from her lungs, made it impossible for her to fight back. All she could do was lie still... All she could do was lie still, spread-eagle, looking up into the abyss, and grasp at the earth with her fingers, grasp for the little blades of grass, hoping somehow they would keep her on the ground. And as all about her whirled into chaos, she arched her back into the air... And with that she opened her mouth wide in a silent scream... "Take me..." (TO BE CONTINUED) |