96. Finality

My bride waits in the glowing circle, waiting for me to rescue her and reclaim her as my own.

Everything up to this moment has been manageable. It hasn’t all made sense, but I’ve been able to get through it. My mother’s nightmares and the sound of the wind at night and the strange tracks on the deck. The secrets and guilt that Jocelyn has carried. Her past, her present. The town secrets and the darkness and the strange premonitions.

All of this has seemed manageable.

Maybe I’ve just deluded myself and convinced myself of a lie.

But now, standing at the edge of the woods, seeing Jocelyn, I know that it’s all changed.

Nothing is manageable.

I spot her a mile away.

She is a vision in white. The fires that surround her make her glow.

They also make the figures in red stand out like blood on a dove.

Everything changes—I change.

I don’t feel my feet running toward the circle of stones. I don’t feel my heart thumping and my breath stopping and my pulse racing as I sprint across the field.

I don’t hear my voice screaming out her name.

I no longer care about anything.

There’s no fear holding me back.

There’s no shadow causing me to slow down.

I reach Jocelyn and feel her and know.

She’s gone.

She knew this would happen all along, but I gave her the worst thing one could have in this sick and twisted world.

I gave her hope.

I don’t hear my voice screaming out because the wind swallows it whole.

I don’t feel the tears streaming down my cheeks.

I no longer have any idea where the gun is. I dropped it in my terror and rage.

I’m at the base of a large stone rock holding her cold, lifeless body. All around her are dry chunks of wood, all lined up as if they’re part of bonfire.

Jocelyn is here, tied to this big boulder, wearing a white dress like a bride.

Her throat and wrists slashed.

Slashed some time ago.

I want to throw up, but I can’t.

I want to slash my own throat and wrists, but I can’t manage to even look out of my blurry, messy eyes.

I shake. And convulse.

I’m screaming.

A hand touches me. Somewhere.

I would like to think I still held my gun, but I don’t. I’d like to think I’d break out fighting and beat the whole lot of them, but I’m weak and worthless.

I crumble to the ground right beneath where Jocelyn’s body is tied.

“Chris,” a voice says.

I feel snot and tears and sweat all clumping on my face.

I’m shivering like a pathetic dog.

“Chris, look at me.”

The voice is familiar.

I look up and see the figure hidden in white. Behind him stand figures in red, all holding burning torches. Figures I ignored as I rushed to Jocelyn. Twenty or thirty in all, maybe more.

“Listen to my words carefully, boy. Listen and remember.”

I can’t stop shaking.

Something in me is gone. Something in me—a very vital part of living and breathing—has simply disappeared.

“Listen right here. We don’t need you. You leave, and we’ll forget you. Do you understand? We’ll let you go because we don’t need you. This has nothing to do with you, Chris Buckley. Never has.”

I hear something that sounds like a wounded, dying animal.

Sobs. Gasping, ghastly sobs.

They come from me.

“We can do this to your mother, Chris. To your father. We can do this to anybody who means anything to you. But not to you. You will be forced to live through it. Hell is not dying, Chris. It’s knowing. It’s knowing and living.”

I sink to the ground and put my head down and want to die.

A hand grabs my hair and forces my head up.

“You’ll live and you’ll know, Chris. And you won’t tell another single soul. Do you understand?”

I nod.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes,” says the voice of some wrecked person. Is it my voice?

The hand lets me go, and I collapse into a pile of mush.

“Leave and never discuss this again.”

I stand.

I shake.

“Now,” the voice orders.

Jocelyn is there, right in front of me, that sweet angelic face. Beauty like I’ve never known. A soul larger than life, a soul just trying to make it by.

A soul that loved me.

I let you down.

I let you go.

I let you die.

“Now!”

I glance at Jocelyn one last time then start to walk away.

As I near the edge of the trees I start to turn, but I can’t.

I hear the crackling of an inferno behind me.

I see the glare of the smoldering blaze move along the sides of the trees.

I want to turn around, but I can’t.

I don’t see what’s happening. I already know.

The smell of black, hellish smoke reaches my nose, and I double over and throw up what little there is in my stomach.

Then I turn around and see the bonfire.

The flames reach the heavens, as if daring them to do something about it.