| |
A job well done. One less thing to worry about.
Weiss dusted his hands off against his cheap, thin jeans, and pushed hard against his cane to stretch his aching back. It’d been a long time since he’d sweat so much, but he was nothing if not industrious. He couldn’t do the things he’d once been able to, but when push came to shove, he could still muster through just about anything once.
He looked at the wheelbarrow he’d used and decided to leave it. Pushing it back to the house sounded way too hard.
With heat rising in his cheeks, he welcomed the cool breeze and drizzle.
This place had fallen into such disarray. He looked around at everything. The crumpled stage. The broken pens. The falling barn. The old sign had faded long ago, such that his old eyes couldn’t even read it anymore. This had been his pride and joy. The one thing he’d built with his family. And now it looked like a ghost town. An abandoned, broken down memory from his past that he could never recover.
Pushing the nostalgia and sorrow away, he decided to take the long way back, not following the path, but instead choosing to take off through the woods. To the place. The place where his son always liked to hang out.
On the way, he tried to remember Al. Not the one that had last left him. The one before that. Before the war. Whatever husk of a human that had come back hadn’t been his son, though he still loved him all the same. Would have done anything for him. Did the unthinkable for him.
When he came upon the stump, he couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face. All the times his son came here in the afternoons. It took a long time before Weiss even realized this was the place. Al never knew. Sometimes, right after Al slammed his way out the door, Weiss would follow to watch his son’s ritual.
Those had been truly dark days.
When was the last time he’d even seen Al? He couldn’t remember. It all felt hazy. So much of life did now.
In his periphery, a shadow moved against the tree line at the edge of the clearing, stopping and bellowing that horrifying screech. Weiss absolutely hated it, but it always seemed to be here, protecting this place in particular. He’d seen it other places, but mostly here. Waiting for anyone who stumbled upon this precious stump.
Weiss looked at his watch. Oh right. He didn’t have one. The battery had run out and Millie hadn’t gotten it fixed for him yet. Where was she anyway? She should have been home hours ago.
Turning back towards the house, he hobbled through the woods, only a little scared of running into the demon of his past. None of that this time though. Just the sounds of the insects trying to make a life between the bouts of rain and wind. He might have called it peaceful if he was even remotely able to find peace anymore. He’d been down too many evil paths for that, though. All he could do now was protect his family, make sure no one found out his secrets, and live until he died.
Wouldn’t be much longer. He’d kept the secrets for so many years that the ones ahead seemed inconsequentially short.
After a few minutes, he emerged next to his house. He looked up at its perfectly symmetrical construction. The pillars and the awnings and the shutters were all worn to the point of disintegration, but he hardly saw that. He could still see it as the house he grew up in, gleaming white and well-kept. His dad had always insisted on perfection. And if Weiss failed to deliver, the punishment was often harsh. It hardly mattered anymore, though. That pain had happened a lifetime ago; his father couldn’t hurt him anymore.
Across the lake, the moon glimmered and reflected off something. Movement. The redhead and the little girl, hand-in-hand, slowly creeping up the path back to the cabin. The van, he finally noticed, was gone. Panic rose in his chest.
What had they done?
Where had they gone?
Who did they tell?
What did they know?
He could feel the blood pumping in his ears—had the redhead stumbled upon his secret?
Christ. Couldn’t this night just end?
Fear overwhelmed him at the possibilities. Would there be cops soon? God, he hoped not. He didn’t want to have to deal with that. Flashes of memories bubbled their way to the top of his mind. The shed. The girl he’d already taken care of this night. Millie. Al.
He was so tired. He didn’t know how much longer he could live like this. Living in fear of being discovered. Living in mourning of the life he once had. His brain had betrayed him, filling his head with lies and confusion at every turn. Millie never came home on time. Never helped him navigate his life anymore. And Al. Al had abandoned him long ago.
Maybe this was it. The final straw. The day it all caught up with him. He’d always wondered what he’d do when that day came. Would he go quietly, resigned to the fate that he knew would always come, or would he fight?
Fight, of course. That had always been the answer.
Die in defense of his secrets. Of his family.
