Читать книгу All the Little Pieces - Jilliane Hoffman - Страница 12

The girl stood there, her palms pressed flat against the window. Strands of long, dark hair were stuck to her face and neck; a blue leopard-print bra was visible through her dirty, wet T-shirt. Costume dragonfly earrings dangled from her ears. She stared at Faith with deep-set brown eyes that were streaked with heavy black eyeliner that had run down her cheeks. She put her face up to the window, her cracked lips touching the glass. ‘Help me!’ she said in a raspy voice. Katy Perry crooned on the radio.

Faith jumped back in her seat, smashing her hip into the center console. She looked around the car, but all the windows were fogged. She had no idea what else or who else was out there.

The girl turned to look behind her. Strands of her wet hair whipped against the window. Then she looked back at Faith and slapped the glass again. Her palms were filthy. ‘Hurry! Damn it! You have to let me in!’

She wasn’t screaming. She wasn’t yelling, either. She was talking excitedly, but in a hushed, croaky voice. Faith moved off the center console where she was perched, and wiped the whole window with her sleeve to get a better look at what was outside. The girl’s face was inches from her own; she could see the diamond stuck in the middle of her bottom lip, the tiny hoop in her nose. Two more silver hoops pierced an eyebrow. A line of blue star tattoos ran up the inside of her wrist, all the way to the elbow. On her neck was a tattoo of a pink heart wrapped in chains. ‘I … I … can’t,’ Faith stammered, shaking her head.

The girl made a squealing sound. ‘He’s coming!’

A man dressed completely in black suddenly appeared beside her, like a vampire who materializes out of a thick fog. He had shoulder-length dark waves that clung to a chiseled, bony face carpeted in gruff that was well past a shadow and not quite a full-on beard. He was slender and tall – much taller than the girl. His long fingers found her tiny shoulder, swallowing it whole, and he pulled her to him. She stumbled back, almost falling, but he caught her before she could. Then he spun her around and bear-hugged her. Her feet dangled in the air behind her when he lifted her up. Faith saw that she was barefooted; her feet, too, were filthy. The man dipped her and kissed her hard on the lips. Then he looked over at Faith and grinned.

It was surreal, as if she were watching a staging of a contemporary take on the iconic V-J day Life cover, where the soldier greets the nurse upon returning home from war. She rubbed her eyes. It felt like she was still dreaming.

The rain had stopped; the moon had finally emerged from behind the cloud cover – at least part of it. It was bright yellow, framed by threatening clouds – the kind of moon that called for a witch to fly by. In the distance, flashes of lightning quietly exploded, like bombs being dropped on far-off cities. Her eyes caught on a red-shirted figure running between the trees of an abandoned lot across the street.

Patches of moonlight lit the chunky remains of a building’s old foundation and crumbling walls, decades neglected and overgrown with shrubs and slash pines. The roof was long gone. Behind the ruins was a densely wooded lot, beyond that was likely cane fields. Chain-link fencing had once tried to contain the property, but that had long since rusted and collapsed in spots. A man wearing dark jeans, a red shirt and a white baseball cap burst out of the slash pines, emerging on the far side of the building.

Using her hands, Faith furiously rubbed the fog off the windshield behind the steering wheel. The man’s red shirt was open, revealing a round potbelly stuck on an otherwise thin frame. When he saw the girl and the man in black, he stopped short, as if there were a line in the woods that he wasn’t allowed to cross. He bent over, hands on his hips, obviously trying to catch his breath, while he eyed the two of them.

‘No!’ yelled the girl.

Faith turned back to her. The man in black had his arm around her shoulders and was walking her across the street to the abandoned lot, to where the red-shirted man was waiting. She was holding on to him and it looked like she was limping. He had his face buried in her ear.

The potbellied guy – who looked like he had walked right off the set of Deliverance – ventured out into the street. Faith could see now the bushy patches of hair stuck on his cheeks. Not quite a beard and not a mustache. He was agitated, pacing like an anxious dog trapped behind one of those invisible electronic fences that zap you if you step outside the perimeter. He took off the baseball cap and ran a hand over his bald head. She saw that one side of his face was red and raw-looking.

The man in black brought the girl over to him. She began to wave her arms and clung tighter to the first man. Then the three exchanged words Faith couldn’t hear and red-shirt shoved her back at the man in black before angrily walking off. The girl swayed on her feet, as if she might go down, but the man in black caught her and stroked her head. ‘We got us a Looky-Look!’ shouted the red-shirt, turning to point to where Faith was. He spat at the ground. ‘Come on out and play with us, Looky-Look! Don’t be shy!’ Then he started across the street. The invisible fence was down.

Faith reached with a violently shaking hand for the jumble of key chains that hung from the ignition.

The man in black stepped in front of red-shirt and pushed him with enough force that he stumbled backwards and fell in the street. ‘I told you I got it!’ he yelled. ‘Back off! Don’t fuck it up any more than it is.’

Red-shirt scrambled to his feet and, taking the girl by the arm, led her toward the wooded lot he had emerged from. Faith couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the girl wasn’t waving her arms any more. She turned and cast one last look in Faith’s direction. She smiled weakly and nodded. Then the two of them were gone.

It had all happened in a matter of minutes, maybe less. But exactly what had happened? Faith could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears. She turned to check on Maggie, then thought of the man in black and whipped her head back so fast her neck cracked.

He was standing right outside the driver’s side window.

She jumped onto the console, smashing her hip again.

He tapped on the glass with a long fingernail. It made a screechy sound.

Faith tried to scream, but fear had completely closed her throat. The only sound she managed was a gurgle. She tried to force the gearshift. It wouldn’t budge. The car wasn’t on.

His hand went to the door handle. She could hear the click of the metal as he tried to open it.

She couldn’t get her fingers around the key, her hand was shaking so hard. Her foot, too. On the brake, off the brake. On, off. Flopping about like a fish out of water. With one hand she tried to hold her knee down.

The man cupped a hand around his eyes and put his face to the window. She saw he had dark brown eyes and long lashes. In his other hand he held a flashlight. He beamed it straight in her eyes, blinding her. Then he moved it down over her body and across the front seat. When he aimed it into the back, his face lit up, like a child who has spotted what he wants under the Christmas tree. He tapped on the glass with the flashlight and pointed.

Faith turned the ignition and the car started. She floored the gas and the engine screamed, but the car didn’t move.

The man stepped back into the street, raised a finger to his lips and smiled. It wasn’t the full-on freaky grin he wore with the girl. This was a smug, toothless, dark smile that made her skin crawl.

She threw the car out of park into drive. The tires spun with a screech and the Explorer lurched forward. She couldn’t see anything – the windshield was fogging again from her breathing so hard. She wiped it with her bare hand, but not in time. The truck smashed into a garbage can.

The plastic can careened along the sidewalk, belching whatever contents it still had left all over the road. She tore off down a street, praying that the road wouldn’t be a dead end, or a cul de sac, leading her right back around to where she’d just been. The garbage can lid tore off the top, scraping against the asphalt underneath her car, stuck on something. She made another quick turn. Then another.

The cane army excitedly welcomed her back into the maze, the rustling stalks whispering their false promises of refuge, swallowing her whole as the wind kicked up and the stalks closed ranks on the road behind her.