Page 4 of Sin of Love
3
Late afternoon.Blinding sun. Heat waves rippling along the asphalt surface of a rest stop parking lot. A toddler screams as his mother drags him toward the bathrooms. Flies buzz around metal barrel trashcans.
I park in a rare spot of shade under a stubborn oak and recline my seat. Before closing my eyes, I set an alarm on my burner phone for an hour from now.
Surprisingly, I fall right to sleep and don’t dream.
I wake to crickets—the alarm and real ones in the bushes outside my cracked windows. It’s quiet, a few RVs and a couple sedans in the lot. Heat lingers like an aftertaste in my flushed face and parched mouth. I have to pee badly.
Serrated pocketknife open in the palm of my hand, I walk to the restrooms. Take care of business. Splash cold water on my face. Return to my car. Eat a granola bar and a warm banana—chase them with tepid water.
Feeling peaceful and unburdened, I buckle my seatbelt. Start the car. Exit the rest stop, merge back onto the small highway heading east. The elevation increases fast, pressing against my eardrums and releasing as I swallow. Dirt and sparse foliage thickens to forest, the trees tall and old, unearthly sentinels in the glow of my headlights.
My memories of the area are old but vivid, seared into my psyche. This very road has felt the touch of my bare feet and Nate’s. We’d walked in the cold and darkness until we found a gas station, where we washed our hands and faces, and where I made a 911 call…
When I approach the gas station, I barely recognize it, the run-down building long since demolished and replaced by the expected gas + minimart + diner combo. The brightly-lit pumps are all taken, the diner’s parking lot crowded. People—families—linger outside.
Hunger is a dull throb in my stomach, the granola bar and banana being the sum total of what I’ve eaten today. Craving something salty and bottle of cold water, and knowing this is the last stop, I pull into the station and grab the last parking spot outside the minimart. Five minutes later I’m back on the road, but after a few attempts, I find I can’t stomach the potato chips I bought. I guzzle water instead.
I suppose not being able to eat is a good thing. An indicator I’m still sane and at least somewhat aware of the moral consequences of what I plan to do.
Murderers likely have no problem eating before committing their crime.
So that’s something.
* * *
I almost miss the turn.
Ten years means a decade of forest growth between the road and the house, which was set about a hundred yards back from the street. Plus, I wasn’t exactly familiar with the lay of the land.
I only saw the property on the rare occasions we were driven somewhere at the request of a VIP. And usually those VIPs were the extra-twisted fuckers, and the ride home was spent in a haze of painkillers.
And, of course, I lit the house on fire. Nate and I were still at the gas station, hiding in back next to an out-of-use ice cooler, when the fire engines raced by. I have no idea if they saved it—if there’s anything left.
A small, metallic sheen at the edge of my headlight—that’s what makes me slam on the breaks, sends a chill of déjà vu down my spine, and causes me to reverse on the empty road in a squeal of tires.
I see it then—the hidden driveway, its geometry as familiar as Nate’s eyes. The vine-covered wooden arch makes the entrance look like a portal to another world. Somewhere up there, hidden by a tangle of tree branches and vines, is an old plaque like the ones you see at the entrances of farms. It was barely visible then and completely obscured now.
Nate and I sometimes played a game where we guessed what the sign said.
Estate of Despair.
Farm of Fornication.
All Who Enter Here Are Lost.
I finally see what caught my attention. The glint of metal where it shouldn’t be. Something delicate and silver hangs amidst the vines overhead. It takes a few seconds for me to realize what it is.
A wind chime.
“What was the most beloved gift you ever received?”
I have to think about it, but he’s patient. Sated, with sleepy eyes and a soft smile.
“For my tenth birthday, my stepdad took me to the scrap yard and told me to find a handful of trinkets smaller than my palm. When we got home, he drilled holes in the little pieces of metal and glass and whatnot. We strung them up with fishing line, ten little strands with all these pieces stacked one on top of the other, and attached them to a pretty branch. He hung it outside my window.”
“What on earth for?”
