Painted Red Read online

  Hayley could be dead. And be honest with yourself Xavier, Aisley’s better off in there. What do you know about being a father?

  I let out a long sigh and push my hair from my face. I don’t know much, but leaving them is wrong. I slush back towards the hotel with an aching hole in my gut.

  That devil on my left shoulder may be right.

  Smoke And Mirrors: March, 2013

  I walk through the forest to the fort’s gates. A soldier appears from thin air with an AR15 pointed at my chest. I hold my hands up in surrender—he doesn’t lower his rifle.

  “State your business,” he says in a young voice. He looks small. I could probably take him, but most of the fight in me disappeared after two months of running. With no end to Hayley and Aisley’s stay at the fort, desperation is beginning to consume me.

  “I’m here looking for shelter,” I say. I’m here for the girl sounded ridiculous in my head let alone saying it out loud.

  “How old are you?” the soldier says.

  “Twenty-two,” I say. What does that have to do with anything?

  He holds his hand up to this ear and nods his head. He raises his rifle to eye level. I raise my hands higher hoping it’ll lower his weapon. “You’re lying.”

  “About finding shelter?”

  “That’s not the reason you’re here,” he says. “You’re here about Hayley Henderson.”

  “Sir, please—”

  “Get out of here! She’s in our walls now, and you’re causing a problem.”

  “So she’s alive?”

  “She’s under the fort’s care and protection,” the soldier says. “There is no need for you here. Leave.”

  “I’m good with guns, and I know a thing or two about cars—”

  “Sir, we have it under control,” he says. “I will fire if you don’t leave now. You’re attracting those animals out there to our walls. I will not hesitate to shoot if you continue to stand your ground. Leave.”

  “Please, I’m begging you.” My foot takes a step forward.

  He takes aim and fires.

  Earl

  The bullet misses and hits a tree behind me. I let out the breath I held when I heard the gun fire. My balance is thrown off, but I manage to stay on my feet.

  “The second one is a kill shot,” the soldier says.

  I nod my head once and let my hands fall to my sides. The forest is quiet. It feels like the whole world’s watching this moment. I turn back once more to see the barrels of rifles pointed at me from all the soldiers at the fort’s entrance. There’s no way I’ll be getting in there.

  The snow makes a soft swish with each step I take towards the hotel. I want to be happy that Hayley is alive, but I can’t. No, I won’t. If this is what two months of having cannibals breathing down your neck feels like, what will a year out here bring? Or two for that matter? This world that we live in— the one I thought was such a beautiful and delicate thing—is breaking and crumbling. It’s clear to me now that not even family exists.

  If I had the guts, I wouldn’t think twice about implanting a bullet in my brain.

  I feel my chest constrict. My knees buckle, and I collapse into the snow. “God dammit, Hayley,” I say. My voice echoes through the trees. “I did this for you. You would’ve died! Why can’t they see that?”

  Shouting comes from somewhere in the forest. I grab the sides of my head and rock forward and backward on my knees. I’d do anything to get this pain in my chest to subside. The shouting gets louder. I can hear branches breaking and slushy footsteps making their way towards me.

  I don’t care if I’m found by them anymore. What could they do that’s worse than losing the only two people you have left? I pull my head up from my hands and push myself up until I’m standing.

  “Look what we found!”

  “Oh man, Earl is gonna be stoked.”

  I clench my fists and glare at them all. These monsters are the reason Hayley, Aisley, and I were separated. I reach behind me and tighten my grip on my knife handle.

  “What are you planning on doing with that?” I hear the familiar click of a shotgun cocking.

  “I was gonna slit homeboy’s throat over there,” I say. “But I guess you caught me.”

  He shoves me down to my knees and rips my knife from my belt loop. “You’re lucky Earl wants you alive otherwise I’d rip your throat out with my teeth,” he says into my ear.

  “You don’t have the guts.” I laugh and feel the anger flood through me again. If there’s anything that’s going to give me purpose until I can figure a way to get Hayley and Aisley back, anger is it.

  “What the hell are you laughing at?” one of them says. “We’re the ones with the guns? And what do you have?”

  I look up at the one who spoke and smirk. “Nothing,” I say. “I’ve got nothing.” I laugh and fold my hands behind my head. “Are you taking me to your master or what?”

  “I think this guy has lost it,” the third one says. “Can’t we just kill him now?”

  “No, we can’t,” the other one behind me says. “Earl wants him alive.”

  I feel a rush of pain and then sink into a world of darkness.

  * * *

  The smell of burnt flesh fills my nostrils. I think for a second it may be me, but I don’t feel any pain. My arms are tied to a hook in the ceiling above my head. My toes barely graze the floor. Across from me are rows of bodies. Some are skinned completely with bloodied ropes tightened around their tendons and bones.

  “Help me,” I hear.

  My eyes meet a girl with dark hair and pale skin. She looks up at me, her lips chapped and covered in a thin layer of dried blood, and whimpers. I can see Hayley in this girl, but I know it’s not her.

  “Where are they?”

  She shakes her head. Tears roll down her cheeks mixing with the dried blood on her face. “They’re going to kill us,” she says. “Please. I don’t want to die.”

  I don’t say anything. I’m not going to give her any false hope like I did for Hayley and Aisley. She’s probably right—the likelihood of us dying is high. “How long have I been out?”

  “Hours, days,” she says. “Who knows? I don’t keep track anymore.”

  “Did they bring in a guy named Earl?”

  She goes rigid. “He’s coming here? No, no, no, no, no,” she says. She pulls on her restraints like a dog tied to a tree. “I’ve gotta get out of here!”

  “Calm down,” I say. “Calm down!”

  She attempts to pull down her restraints for a couple more seconds. Her body convulses as she starts to sob. I can only imagine what they’ve done to her. For a moment, I’m glad they only stabbed Hayley.

  “What’s going on in here?” a voice says from the other side of the bodies. The girl whimpers and bites down on her bottom lip.

  A man in a brown jacket walks into the room. He’s pot-bellied and has hundreds of gray hairs littering his beard. “Been looking for you.”

  “Can’t say the same,” I say. “Earl, I take it.”

  “In the flesh.” He bows.

  “Hm,” I say looking him over. “I thought you’d be taller.”

  “You killed my friends in the woods out there,” he says standing in front of me. “But I can understand why. We did fuck up your chick pretty bad.”

  I grind my teeth until my head throbs.

  “But it’s all good brother,” he says walking backwards towards the girl hanging across from me. She flinches when he touches the skin on her neck. “We still got some game to eat.”

  “Please, please, please,” she whispers. Her body trembles under his fingers. “I’ll do anything. Please don’t kill me.”

  “Shh,” he says reaching behind his back. “I like you, honey. I’ll make it quick.”

  He plunges a knife into the back of her neck. Her eyes bulge and find me from across the room. I watch the life drain from them, her skin turns an off-white color and then, her body goes limp. He pulls the knife from her neck and lets he
r head flop onto her chest. Blood drips down the blade onto his hands while he draws his index finger through it.

  “You know, I would’ve never pegged myself to have a life like this,” he says holding out his finger. “Six months ago, I was an insurance agent selling life insurance policies to people who I didn’t care about. And now—well now, I have power.” He licks his finger clean and smiles.

  “Why don’t you just kill me?” I say. “I know that’s what you wanna do. Suck my bones dry, hang my skin as a warning to people who kill your kind—”

  “You know, when my men brought that girl here to you—what was her name,” he says tapping his chin with his finger. “Something with an H? Ah, yes, Hayley. I was surprised at how easily you overtook my men. Such conviction too. Someone like you wouldn’t go hungry if you were like us.”

  I laugh.

  “What is it?” he says. “You never thought about it? You never thought about the power you have when you take someone’s life? Dying is easy, but killing takes commitment.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Join us,” he says. “You’ll never go hungry. The woods are our playground. And with all the authorities gone, we are kings here.”

  “You’re out of your fucking mind.”

  “It’s the only way you’re going to see your family again,” he says cutting into the girl’s skin. He slices off a long strip and tears into it with his teeth. I’m sick. I’m so sick. “Otherwise we’ll just eat them when we raid the fort tonight. And we’ll draw it out nice and slow for your girls.”

  He steps within reaching distance of me. His teeth are stained a deep red when he smiles. The stench of curdled blood floats into my face. He leans in closer and whispers in my ear, “Before I kill them though, those girls will be mine for the night.”

  Something inside of me snaps. It’s not anger. Not rage. It’s like a completely different person finally had the chance to be set loose.

  My legs plant themselves into his chest sending him backwards into the sea of bodies. I pull my lower half up until my feet are flat against the ceiling. I tug on the ropes tying my hands three times and eventually it breaks. I land on my back on the concrete floor in a mess of blood knocking the wind out of me. Earl lunges at me.

  “You took them from me,” I say slamming my knee into his groin. “I lost everything because of you!”

  “Plea—”

  I squeeze my hands around his throat until they burn. The yelling dies down around me and everything zooms into his eyes. I hear the drawn-out scraping, scraping of my lungs when I exhale. I feel his breaths struggle to make it past my grip. I see death creep into his pupils.

  “You killed them!” My voice is beyond recognition. A shooting pain sends me flying forward into the wall. I swing my arms and connect with the soft spot of someone’s side. I snap up and pin Earl to the ground again. He makes a couple attempts at swings until I drive my fist into the bridge of his nose.

  I pound down until his face feels like Jello on my nerves. A gurgling sound snaps me out of my rage. All of the gang member’s faces are blank. Most of them stare at me, some others at the bloody mush of Earl’s face.

  “You killed Earl,” one of them says.

  I twitch at his voice. He collapses to the ground in a heap. A trail of blood pools out beneath him. My hand is outstretched towards him, fingertips trembling. It takes everyone a second to realize I threw Earl’s knife that quickly.

  The rage creeps back into my brain, and I fall into it. I need to do this. I need to make them suffer.

  * * *

  I scrub at the blood stains in my flannel shirt. My breathing comes out in wheezing gasps.

  You killed them all? You killed them all with your bare hands?

  Hayley’s voice speaks to me from somewhere between my ears. I scrub harder to get the blood off from my cuff.

  Xavier, they were monsters, but they didn’t deserve that.

  That one is Cassie. They’re mad at me for killing those murderers? They both don’t understand. I’ve got nothing. I’ve got no one to protect. Both of the people I let hold my heart are gone. The only person left to protect is me, and I’m fine with what I’ve done.

  You realize Xavier—this makes you a murderer.

  Murderer.

  You’re just as bad as them.

  “I’m not!” My fist collides with the glass of the mirror above the sink shattering it. The pain pushes their voices away. My blood drips into the sink among the soap and water.

  I look down at the cuts in my knuckles and feel nothing. No pain, no anger, no loss. Just a hollow pounding echo in my chest, and my soul crumbling to pieces.

  The water rushes my cuts allowing the blood to flush out and down the drain. I tear a towel off the hook from the door and rip a strand from it.

  “I’m not a murderer,” I say tying the strip around my freshly made wounds. I look into the cracked mirror at my broken reflection. “I’m a survivor.”

  Survivor

  “Xavier,” a voice says.

  I turn and see Cassie in the Henderson’s house in front of their fireplace.

  “Come on, you’re gonna miss the eggnog,” she says. “Mom always makes it from scratch. Grandma Henderson’s family recipe.”

  “Which will be passed down to you honey whenever you get a place of your own,” Mrs. Henderson says. She carries a large glass platter into the living room with four separate cups filled to the brim with a milky off-white liquid. “I added another shot of whiskey in it this year.”

  “Mom, you know Xavier is a lightweight,” Cassie says winking at me.

  “Nice, Cass,” I say taking a seat next to her on the couch.

  My heart races in my chest. I know this night. It’s Thanksgiving. This is the night I proposed to Cassie. She looked perfect in the amber light from the fire. Her blonde hair was starting to fade now that the winter was settling in. I always loved her brown hair, but she insisted that blonde was her best color. We never discussed it further; I could never disagree with her anyway.

  She looks over her shoulder at me and smiles. I feel myself melt into the world I’m in. I need this. I need this happiness. She looks back to her parents and talks about grad school.

  “Cassie,” I say. My knee drops to the ground.

  This is my favorite part.

  I try and open the ring box, but my hands are so damn sweaty and jittery that I drop it into my cup of eggnog.

  “Xavier,” she says. “What are you doing on the floor?”

  I can’t help but laugh at myself. Way to go, Xavier.

  “Well,” I say. “My plan did not go like this in my head.” I reach into my mug and pull out the eggnog-soaked box. “Cassie, I know I’m clumsy, but would you accept me if I ask you to marry me with an eggnog-soaked ring?”

  She covers her mouth and laughs. I chuckle with her hoping that she’s only laughing because of the eggnog that drips off the box onto the carpet. “Of course I will, Xavier,” she says throwing her hands around my neck. “Smooth delivery, Don Juan.”

  “You know me,” I say. “I try my best.”

  Mrs. Henderson comes in from the kitchen while I slip the golden band onto Cassie’s finger. Tears well in the corners of her eyes, and she covers mouth with both hands. “Oh honey,” she says, her hands waving Mr. Henderson into the living room.

  Cassie plants her lips onto mine, and I wrap my arms around her back. She pulls back and cradles the side of my face. “You sure you’re ready for this,” she says.

  “I couldn’t think of a reason why I wouldn’t be,” I say.

  “Good, ‘cause I’ve got some serious issues withnot marrying you,” she says.

  “I’ll clean up this mess and get you a fresh cup of eggnog, Xavier,” Mrs. Henderson says. “I am so happy for you two.”

  She runs off into the kitchen past Mr. Henderson. He folds his arms across his chest and leans against the entryway. The slightest twitch in the corner of his mouth assures me that he’s
happy, and I feel the heaviest weight lifted from my chest.

  A knock at the door makes both of us turn. Mrs. Henderson rushes to the door from the kitchen. When it swings open, Hayley falls into the foyer. A pool of blood spreads outward from her body.

  Cassie screams and when I turn back to her, there’s only blood. Blood everywhere.

  Mrs. Henderson grips my shoulder and collapses to her knees. The teeth marks in her throat gush blood onto her winter cardigan painting the snowy scene stitched into the fabric a deep red.

  “What have you done?” Mr. Henderson’s voice says from the doorway. His eyes glare at me like a wolf. “What have you done!” He lunges for me, and I hear a gun shot.

  Mr. Henderson crumbles into a lifeless pile in the living room. I look down at the blood-soaked carpet and watch it seep into my jeans.

  There’s so much of it on my hands that I think they’ll always be an off-shade of red.

  * * *

  I wake up in a cold sweat. I wipe the wetness into my hair and let out a long breath of air. The moon hides on the other side of the hotel now. I don’t remember falling asleep, but now I hate that I did. My memory of the night I proposed to Cassie is forever changed. My clothes are soaked. For some reason, I feel the need to shower. Maybe the water will wash out the sins I’ve let myself commit.

  I head to the bathroom in the dark and double check the bolt on the door. Locked. I turn on the water and let it reach a luke warm temperature. I only have a little time until the hot water is gone completely in this place. I strip my clothes off and climb into the constant stream.

  If I’m going to survive this, I’ve got to keep the anger fueling me. I’ve got to keep my heart beating. But in order to do that, I can’t dwell on things I’ve done. I’ll always be selfish when it comes to Hayley and Aisley. I’ll always consider the fort as heaven and believe I’m in purgatory. But in order for me to move forward and see them again, I have to have a purpose.