“I know what I told them,” said Alma, and was immediately embarrassed by her abruptness. “But I was eight years old. Remember? I had a bad dream, and that’s all there is to it. You have no clue what this whole ordeal did to my family. It ruined us.” She looked back and forth between Stephen and Rachel as if admonishing them for daring to bring this subject up. “I haven’t talked to my father for more than a few minutes in almost a decade. My mother…” she faltered and cleared her throat. “My mother killed herself.”
“I know,” said Rachel. “I’m sorry.”
“And the worst part is, every year around this time I get a call from someone that wants to dig up the past. I get letters all the time from people with all sorts of insane theories. They say that the government was involved, or that some corporation with a facility near there was doing tests on some Greek boat they bought,” she laughed at the absurdity of the next theory. “For fuck’s sake, I even had one guy say that sightings of Bigfoot skyrocketed right before the people in the town disappeared. He accused me of trying to hide the fact that the government kidnapped everyone in the town to turn them into Sasquatch super soldiers.”
Rachel chuckled and then gave Stephen an apologetic glance.
“It’s nuts,” said Alma and couldn’t help but smile.
Steve looked pensive. “I’ve never heard anything about a Greek boat. What was that one about?”
Alma shook her head and laughed in exasperation. “You don’t get it. That’s the point, it was bullshit. All of it is just bullshit. Just like the 9-11 conspiracies, and the faked moon landings, and the magic bullet that killed Kennedy. People turn things into conspiracies because they have some deep-seated notion that the world is more mystical than it really is. The people of Widowsfield disappeared because they were involved in a drug ring that went bad. That’s it. And my brother was kidnapped in the middle of the night, from his bedroom, and not by some creatures in the fog.” She was frantic now, and had trouble keeping herself from crying. She got up and got ready to leave. “Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I’m sorry. Good luck and everything, but I’m going to go. Okay? I’m sorry.”
Stephen got up, but Rachel was faster and motioned for him to sit back down. “It’s okay, Alma. Don’t be sorry. I understand.”
“I just,” Alma tried to explain herself. “I just left that part of my life behind me, and I’ve been trying to move on ever since. I just wish I could. Every damn year it all starts up again.”
“I can imagine,” said Rachel as she walked to the front of the restaurant with Alma. “I’m so sorry to have dragged you into this. We never meant to hurt you.”
“I know,” said Alma. “I don’t blame you. I’m not mad or anything, I just want to put that part of my life to death.” She meant to say, ‘to bed,’ and was surprised by her violent wording.
Rachel didn’t pick up on the Freudian slip. “I get that, but if you ever want to talk about it, or anything, please don’t hesitate to call. Here, take my card.”
Alma took the business card, if only to be polite.
“That’s the one. The cell phone number on there is my personal phone too.” She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “They don’t even buy us our own cell phones, if you can believe it. We have to supply our own.”
“I hope the whole website thing works out for you,” said Alma. “You guys seem like nice people. Sorry I’m being so weird about this.”
“No, don’t worry about it.” Rachel waved off Alma’s apology.
“Who knows, maybe one of these days I’ll be ready to talk about it. Maybe that’d be good for me, but I’m just not ready for it now.” Alma lingered because she felt guilty.
“I understand,” said Rachel. “But if you ever do, you know, want to talk, you’ve got my card. I’m a good listener.”
Alma got to the exit and looked back at the two. Rachel still stood in the middle of the restaurant, and had a look of concern that reminded Alma of a mother watching her child go away to college. Stephen seemed frustrated, but not angry, and continued to eat his fried pork. They were a good looking couple, and seemed kind. If circumstances were different, Alma might’ve enjoyed getting to know them. However, the fact that they wanted to dissect Alma’s past made them seem parasitic and dangerous. She waved goodbye, feeling a unique mix of regret and disdain at leaving them behind.
She sighed and started to walk through the parking lot, but then jogged, eager to get as far from them as possible. She fumbled with her purse to find the keys to her Subaru Outback. Emotions swirled, sorrow battled with anger, calm fought frenzy, and she wasn’t sure if she was about to cry, scream, or laugh. “What the fuck,” she muttered to herself as she pushed through the things in her purse in search of her keys. She stuck Rachel’s business card in a pocket on the inside of her purse as she continued to rifle through the contents.
It was a chilly night, just past dusk, and the moon cast a brilliant blue light over everything. Bats squeaked as they zipped through the night sky, spots of black shooting through blue. Alma found the teddy bear key chain that her ex-boyfriend had bought her and pulled the keys out. The ring caught on one of her white plastic wrapped tampons, which fell to the ground beside her car. She cursed again and picked it up. When she knelt down she saw the shadow of a man cast by moonlight against the side of her car.
“Alma,” said her father in a frantic, hushed whisper.
She yelped in shock and stood to face him. She pressed her back to the car and held her mouth with the hand that her keys were in.
He was ragged. His clothes were a tattered mess and his hair was greasy, with strands of grey and black sticking up in various directions. His eyes were wide and darted back and forth above dark circles. He hadn’t shaved in weeks and his stubble was almost completely white. “Alma, baby. Baby girl. Alma, what did they want?” His words flit past his lips too fast for him to properly say them, causing the syllables to mix together between quick breaths. He had sores on his lips and cheeks, as if he’d been scratching at himself until he’d bled. “Did they want you to go with them? You can’t. You know that, right? You can’t go there. You’ve got to let that die. You’ve got to let it die.”
“Let me go!” She pulled her arm away from his grasping hands like a disgusted royal squirming to escape a leper.
“Don’t fuck me like this, babe.” He scowled.
“I said back off.” She palmed her keys so that they poked out between her fingers as she made a fist.
“You’re never going to save him.” He backed away, just as Alma had asked. Then he glowered as if he’d forgotten hatred for years, only now remembering it. He surged forward and grabbed the back of her head with one hand as he pressed the other against her mouth. All at once, she was a child again, caught in the grip of a sadistic father, tasting the grime of his palm as he kept her silent. He pressed himself against her tall frame, and still towered over her, just as he did so many years ago. She clenched her eyes shut and a hundred terrible moments were suddenly fresh in her mind. It was impossible to breathe, to scream, to do anything but cry as he growled at her.
“You better keep your whore mouth shut.”
It was easy to retreat into her mind and let the assault end. If she closed her eyes and sang a song to herself, the end would come eventually — it always had before. The little girl she’d been for years was always with her, waiting to help comfort her through moments like this. Just sing a song, Alma, and the pain will stop. Hum and focus on something nice.
No more songs.
She thrust her fist into his abdomen, the keys like knives between her fingers. He gasped and staggered back as he gripped his wound. He checked his hand for blood, but there was none. Her punch hadn’t cut him, but seemed to have hurt him enough that he thought it had.