Chapter 10: The Day From Hell

As we came closer to our exit, the door opened. The sun was blinding as the setting light hit our darkness-transfused eyes. My eyesight was still adjusting but I could make out two figures walking in. A bigger man came in first with a smaller man holding something to the bigger man’s back. After a few seconds, my eyes were getting use to the light. I realized the bigger man was Don. I still couldn’t tell whom the smaller man in silhouette was but I had a few guesses. Then, as if a ghost from the past come back to haunt me, an all too familiar voice spoke, breaking the silence. “Good to see you again, Nick. Did you miss me?” Right then my worst fears had been personified in a single voice. It was unmistakable and it confirmed what I had wished had not happened. Robert had survived. I stood there speechless, as did Rose. Rob waited for a response but didn’t get one. “An old acquaintance comes back from the dead and you don’t have enough balls to say hello?” I had to say something to suppress my dismay. “I have so many questions right now but all I can think about is how much I hate you.”
“Wow, strong words to a man who can take even more from you than what you’ve already lost.”
Rose looked at me with a question on her face, not knowing what had happened or why she was kidnapped. I tried to keep the subject away from Michael’s death. “What happened to you while you were on the run?”
“Well, you already know most of it from what Don, here, has already told you. What this TRATOR didn’t know was that his little stunt on the train gave me a concussion. I spent the next 4 days in mental confusion not knowing what had happened! Dickey found me wondering around out in the desert and brought me back to his house. After I had remembered what Don had done, I brought Dickey out to the train tracks under the guise of wanting to find a bag of drugs I had on me. After he told me which way town was, I killed him, one slice to the throat. WHAM!” He scared all of us, including Don, as he yelled and hit a piece of metal behind him. “You killed or dealer?” Don asked in dismay. “Yeah, I did. It’s pretty amazing how easy it is to cut someone open with a rusty shard of shrapnel.” He said as the rusted piece of aluminum siding he was holding against Don’s back, came up round his throat from behind. Rob whispered into Don’s ear, “I should kill you right now.” I hid Rose’s face in my chest, not wanting her to see anyone die. Don replied, “If you kill me, you lose phase four. And you don’t want to lose that one.” Robert put his hand down and shoved Don towards us. “I said I should, not that I will.” Wanting more information about these “phases” Don mentioned, I asked the obvious question, “What phases? What are you talking about?” I looked at Don for an explanation but he shook his head no. Rob answered, “Go ahead Don. You’ve given enough away so far. You might as well keep going.”
Don got mad. “I haven’t told him a DAMN thing!”
“Yeah, well how can I be so sure, huh? While I was gone, you have told him where we went, what we did, and where we go to disappear! How the HELL do I know you haven’t already told them about…”
Just then, there was a big crash towards the back of the big room. Spaz, who had been knocked out until now, was waking up and had knocked over some paint cans as he was getting up. “Finally, someone I can trust.” Rob said as he walked over to Spaz. Spaz was wobbling in the knees; still dizzy from the punishment I put him through. He could barely walk straight and his speech was obscure. He rubbed his head while trying to catch his balance as Robert asked him some questions. “You have any problems?” He asked sarcastically. Spaz dusted himself off. “Nothing I couldn’t handle until this joker showed up.” He said pointing at me. “She put up a pretty good fight but a few shocks with the tazer you gave me did the trick.” I looked at her and realized that she had burn marks on her arms, neck, and upper chest, a lot more than just a few. That would explain why she was overly tired. Robert asked, “Did you get board and complacent while you were waiting for me or do you just suck at fighting?”
“Nah, how could I get board? I was having to much fun tazing her in the chair, watching her squirm!” I wanted to kill him this time. He not only kidnapped my best friend’s sister and made him kill himself to save her, but he was also torturing her without us knowing. I hugged rose a little tighter and whispered in her ear, “I’m so sorry, Rose.” She was tearing up already and hugged me back.
“Bet you wish you had killed him now, don’t you Nick?” Rob said to me.
I looked at him right in the eye, with animosity written on my face. “Before this is done, I will personally give you hell.”
“Have at it! I welcome hell with open arms.” He was being brash, one of his many character flaws. “I’ve been there and have stolen a sip from the devil’s cup… It kind of tastes like strawberry vodka.”
“Your insane!” Rose yelled, after mustering up the energy to bellow.
“I may be, but insanity and brilliance are a gradient, fading into one another. I just have found a happy medium between the two.”
I was mad enough as it was. I didn’t need to hear this guy rant about sanity. So I turned and began to walk Rose out to the car. “We’re leaving now. Don, try and pull him back from the edge.” Don stepped in front of us, blocking our path. “Sorry man, if I don’t, he’ll kill me.” Don said, sullenly. I was taken back. “What…” Robert stopped us with words. “Uh uh uh! No one laves until I have conformation of Michael’s death.”
Rose let go of me and spun around. “WHAT?!?”
I got pissed and started marching towards Robert. “Conformation!?! YOU WANT CONFORMATION?!?” I took off my blood-stained shirt and threw it in his face. “HOW’S THAT FOR CONFORMATION?!? I watched my BEST FRIEND DIE RIGHT in front of me! I could FEEL his life leave his hand! NOW YOU tell me this was YOUR IDEA?!? With everything you’ve put me through, I have EVERY RIGHT in the WORLD to END YOU RIGHT NOW!!!” He took the shirt off of his face as I screamed at him. The blood was still wet, leaving some on his face from the stains. He simply handed me my shirt back and said calmly, “Now you can go.” As I snatched the bloody shirt from his hand and stormed back towards Rose, who was now bawling and on her knees in a tear-soaked muddy puddle, Rob continued. “Oh and Nick…” I stopped and looked back at him. “… This is just the beginning.” I turned back around, helped Rose up, and we walked out to my car.
I helped Rose into the car and then got in on my side. I threw my shirt into the back seat and buckled my seat belt. With everything that was going through my mind, I didn’t know whether to drive until I calmed down or go back in there and kill every last one of them. I gripped the steering wheel as hard as I could. My knuckles were as white as Rose’s face. Her tears had soaked into her shirt, leaving it wet with grief and fear. I looked at her and all my rage and animosity bled away with each drop of anguish and heartache from her weary eyes. My heart melted as I watched, helplessly, her palpable agony. Every memory, every event, every mental picture of Michael were mortal lacerations to the soul, slowly killing what was left of my reasoning. I had to go before I did something I would regret later.
I started the car and drove off the lot. The 10 minute drive back to Rose’s house was the longest drive I had ever taken. We passed the old mall that Mike and I met Don at, the park where we grew up playing, the place where we had our 8th grade graduation, and even the preschool Mike and I first met. Every place had memory. Every memory killed me a little bit more inside. As we drove up to her house, I was overwhelmed with sorrow and grief. I parked in their driveway and broke down crying. Rose leaned over and hugged me as I rested my head against my folded arms on the steering wheel. The tears rolled down my face, off my nose, and into my lap. No one and nothing could fix what had happened. I cried there for hours. Rose had shut off the car so not to waste gas. I didn’t care. My friend was dead and I even watched him die. My life would no longer be the same.
Finally, I caught my composure and Rose asked if I would be all right. “Do you think you will be ok to go home like this? If not, I’m sure mom will let you sleep on the couch until morning.”
“I think I’ll be ok.” I said whipping my eyes. “I just need to drive so I can clear my head.”
“Ok, just be careful.”
“I will.” I said. She got out of the car, thanking me for today, and watched as I backed out from the driveway. As I got to the curb, a loud horn blared and I slammed on the brakes. I had almost backed right into a white 4x4 truck. I watched, in horror, as it blazed by my back bumper. I threw it into park and just sat there, not sure what to do next. I couldn’t talk, or even think. My mind was in shock, not able to process any thing. The moment was flowing through me like air through a vent. Rose came running up to my window as I rolled it down. “You should stay the night. You will feel better in the morning.” She said, as she reached in and shut off my car. I agreed and got out.
We went inside and her mom ran up and hugged her with watering eyes. Her face was a mix of thankfulness and misery. She had lost one child but at least her other was still safe. After about 20 minutes of her mom crying and a reunion of mixed emotions, Rose explained why I was there. Her mom, always eager to help, ran and got me a blanket and a pillow to use. Rose gave me a clean shirt from Michaels closet. “I’m sorry, this is all I have. I thought you would want a clean shirt to sleep in.” I took the shirt, reminiscing about the last time He had wore it. That was the day we went to Sedona. I looked at her, trying to hold back my tears, then I put it on. It was a little tight but it would work. I thanked her and hugged her again. She helped me pull out the fold-away-bed from the couch. Then I set it up and crawled into bed without even changing.
There was no dinner that night. Who could eat after a day like this? An even better question was, who could even sleep after a day like this? I laid there wide awake, thinking about what was to become of me. What was going to become of Rose? My mind was going a million miles a minute with no end in sight. Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming down the hall. As I looked, I saw Rose standing there in her Eeyore pajamas, which I thought to be eerily appropriate for the mood. “Nick? You asleep?” she whispered.
“No. I can’t seem to get that far.” I said quietly.
“Can I come out here with you?”
“Sure, if it’ll help you sleep.”
She came over and crawled into bed with me. Like a little sister who had a bad dream, she needed to be with someone familiar. With in minutes she was asleep. I laid there with my arm around her, comforting her as she slept. A few more moments passed then I followed suit.
Today was a day from Hell. No one came away unscathed except for the one man who caused all of this. I wanted to kill him and display his head on a pike at school but wisdom and supernatural self-control, of which I do not know where it had come, kept me from doing so. Questions still plagued my mind. What did Robert mean by “this is just the beginning”? What was the thing Robert was going to mention before Spaz had gotten up? And how much more of this could I possibly take?