Читать книгу Alice Isn’t Dead - Joseph Fink, Joseph Fink - Страница 11

Keisha backed away, holding the heavy flashlight in front of her as a club. The man smelled like a compost pile that is almost soil.

“Where do you think you’re going? I mean, where would you even go that I couldn’t follow? Don’t you know who I work for?” He indicated the Thistle on his pit-stained shirt. He was sweating thick mildew.

“There are people all over this parking lot,” she said. This was self-evidently not true. It was a Target parking lot, but it was also late, and in the middle of nowhere. There were a few cars, yes, some people, but she didn’t expect help from the world, and generally the world met her expectations.

He coughed up laughter, continuing to hobble toward her. “People?” he said. “People!” He shook his head and grabbed her arm. She didn’t know how he got that close, but he was there, and he took her arm like a dance partner, gentle but insistent, and then with a tremendous strength, well beyond what even his large frame would seem capable of, he twirled her up against the truck. His skin writhed, like there were insects crawling back and forth under it. The smell was overpowering. His tongue was swollen and covered in a white film.

It was over. His arm was on her throat and he was pushing enough to let her know he could do it, but not enough to cut off air. She drew shallow, frightened breaths against the weight of him. She kicked for the crotch, of course, but it was like he felt nothing. And then she flailed at him with the flashlight. His body dented with the blows, whatever was under his loose skin sinking with the force, but he didn’t stop smiling. Didn’t even grunt. Pushed a little harder on her throat. The flashlight dropped and rolled away.

“I could take a bite of you right now and it would be over. I could devour you. And then what would become of Alice?”

Alice’s name in the monster’s mouth made Keisha slump, made her give up. If he knew about Alice, then he knew about everything, and then what was left? She had been searching for her wife for a long and terrible year. All those miles upon her, and now a monster. She adjusted to accepting her own death. As she did, a feeling sparked. It wasn’t a feeling she recognized, but it spread like her anxiety, tingling at her skin, zipping up her spine, and exploding in her brain.

Fuck the Thistle Man, the feeling said.

She kicked and screamed with all the energy she had left. Perhaps she would go down, but it would not be quietly. Other people in the parking lot were finally turning, finally seeing. Even if she couldn’t beat him, she could get them to look. A family, a father and two kids, and the kids were pointing, and the father was on his phone. He was talking urgently and gesturing toward her. She fought until the Thistle Man’s arm on her throat lowered her into a quiet darkness she had apparently always carried somewhere in her mind, and then there was a siren, and the arm was off her throat, and the world returned to her, and a police car pulled up.

The police officer got out. A white man. No partner. Big. Not big as in muscular or big as in fat, just big.

She stumbled a few paces away from the Thistle Man, out of his reach. The policeman sauntered over. He was a man used to the world waiting for him. He must have seen the Thistle Man attacking her, but he didn’t seem worried about that. He examined Keisha with heavy-lidded eyes.

“What seems to be the problem here?” he said.

She did her best to tell him. The noises, the stopping, the Thistle Man, the air, the lack of air, the struggle. He frowned. Made no notes. He turned to the Thistle Man, who hadn’t moved, hadn’t interrupted, had leaned with crossed arms on her truck.

“That true?” the policeman asked him.

The Thistle Man giggled, a high, childish sound.

“Doesn’t sound like it’s true,” said the policeman.

She didn’t know what to do. On one side, the police. On the other side, a literal monster. The policeman nodded to the Thistle Man. “If he has to come talk to you,” he said, “then you’ve been asking the wrong questions.” He lumbered back to his squad car, opened the door. “My advice,” he said to Keisha, “is to stop asking the wrong questions.” He tipped his hat at the Thistle Man. “You have a nice night now.”

The Thistle Man did a lazy wave in return, as the policeman folded his towering frame into the car.

“I will, Officer,” the Thistle Man said. “You know I will.”

The police car drove away, but the Thistle Man made no move toward her.

“You see now. You see how it stands. Go home.” He made a face of concern, worry even. “You can still go home.”

He turned and stalked away into the night. To the lit edges of the parking lot, and into the sparse landscaping, and the vacant grassland beyond. Keisha stood frozen until she found it in herself to get back in her truck and drive away. No one in the lot talked to her or checked to see if she was alright. They looked at her and then looked away.

Police cars followed her for a few days after. No siren, no lights, but staying close on her tail. She had well and truly gotten their attention now.

But the Thistle Man was wrong. She couldn’t go home. Because home wasn’t a place. Home was a person. And she hadn’t found that person yet. After five days the police stopped following her. They had let her off with a warning. It was a warning she was going to ignore.