The Road to Burden: Chapter 4

TRIGGER WARNING: SA

Snapping out of it, I grab Krista’s arm and spin her toward me as Jack Nicholson walks into his interview at the Overlook. “We have to get out of here. Now.”

“Lex, wait, look. Look! It’s gone.”

And by god, she’s right — I glance up, and the shadow has disappeared.

“What the hell?”

“Maybe… maybe we imagined it.”

“Then how the fuck is The Shining playing, Krista?”

“I… I don’t know,” she says in a small voice, shaking her head. “Something automatic? Maybe some kids broke in here and figured out the projector and now it’s playing on loop, or at a certain time every day.”

“I don’t know. Let’s just go.”

***

The moon — waxing gibbous, I think — lights up the main road on our way back to camp, casting us in that strange blue hue. We pass a large brick structure: the Burden Township Library.

Krista looks at the sign, the large letters chipped and weather-worn against the brick, tugging on the sleeves of her sweater. She stops. I stop. That’s how it works, I think. I mirror Krista’s movements.

I would follow my sister into the ninth circle of hell. The thought warms me — a welcome sensation, since the temperature has dipped to about 55. Maybe lower.

“Lex, what if,” she says slowly, and I know at once I’m in for it — another crazy idea. Stay firm this time, Lex.

“What if we stop here to sleep? It’s cold, and it’ll take an hour to get back. Maybe more.”

I check my watch. 10:32. Fuck, it’s late.

“Krista, absolutely not. We just saw a creepy ass shadow in the movie theater. It was waving at us. Waving!”

“I think we made that up,” she says quietly. “We’re tired, and we’re seeing stuff.”

“Then how did we both see it?”

“Twin connection. Mutual trauma.”

Mutual trauma, I think, and then I’m back in Kitten’s Delight, and it’s the morning after I’ve eaten, my belly still feeling swollen from the lavish meal Ray gave me the night before. No, he didn’t give it to me.

He taunted me with it. Dangled it in front of me like raw meat, and I’m the wolf, the wild animal that couldn’t stop itself, the wild animal that doesn’t obey law or understand ethics or know what it means to hurt people — people you love. The wild animal eats and eats and eats until there’s nothing left for anything or anyone else.

Ray looks down on me as I lay with the fluffy white cats that morning. I forget their names — something with an F, they both have F names. F like food.

“You smell like dinner,” he says, a vicious smile creeping across his face. “That’s why they’re next to you.”

The reminder makes my insides flip.

“You know,” he says. “Krista’s really hungry this morning. It’s been at least a day since she’s eaten — maybe two.”

I look up, tears filling my eyes. I have to see the monster’s face, watch his visage twist into something so ugly I can taste my stomach acid. The ugliness emerges right about here, when he’s negotiating — offering another deal I can’t resist.

“I plan to feed her tonight, but there’s a way you could give her breakfast.”

I stare into those colorless eyes, fearing the worst, and then I glance down, and I see his sex protruding through his khaki pants.

He slowly unzips.

“Do you consent, Lex?”

I finally look away, submitting to the monster, and nod. I don’t stop nodding, even when he’s inside of me, groaning his disgusting sounds in my ear.

I nod and nod and nod until he’s gone, his fluid leaking from me, with nothing to clean it up but my own clothes. The stench is raw and putrid and powerful, like a basket of rotting fruit, and I imagine flies buzzing and swarming all over his scrotum — his balls went bad, probably a long time ago. Flies crawling on top and below, a layer of flies so thick you can’t see the bright red skin underneath, and thank god for that, who wants to see that?

A hand on my arm. Krista’s shaking me. “Lex.”

I come to and look at Krista, her face filled with concern, her eyes large and watery, shoulders hunched — her posture should be better, she’s only 17 — and I see that she can’t go on.

Whatever happened with the shadow in the theater, it wiped Krista out. She really is exhausted — for more reasons than one.

And so am I. My exhaustion can’t be calculated; it’s beyond the blisters on my feet, beyond the sleepless nights in Kitten’s Delight.

We’re stopping here to rest.