A large crow swooped over Dale’s shoulder, its talons nearly touching his ear. Instinctively, his head sunk between his shoulders and his arm shot up to wave it away. The bird circled and dove in for a landing at the edge of the clearing. Its head jerked, turning its eyes in his direction.
“Shit,” was all Dale could say as he gazed back at it, amazed.
Something moved in the corn.
It entered the clearing behind him.
Dale turned and the sun reflected off something metal, temporarily blinding him. A knife blade was then thrust deep into his left eye socket, forever robbing him of his sight. He opened his mouth to scream, but his attacker filled the orifice with corn leaves, muffling the cry. The blade was pulled free of his skull, and Dale fell backward onto the dead fire, a cloud of white ash blooming. His attacker fell upon him, and the knife invaded his chest cavity ... again ... and again ... and again.
The crow cocked its head. Its mouth hung open as if shocked, its eyes watching blood gush from Dale’s ravaged form, following the flow as it mixed with the embers and ash to create a dark sludge.
The corn swayed, and the wind that moved through the stalks made a sound like a crowd cheering.
Thirteen
Sean slid down a steep slope; his butt clearing the mantle of dead leaves, leaving a path of dark, rich soil. Below, a dead tree sank into the groundcover at the base of the ravine. Sean’s sneaker punched into its rotting bark, halted his descent. He crawled between bare, moss-covered branches and joined the others in the dimness.
Skip rubbed at his face and hair, tried to rid himself of hitchhikers. “We’d be swimmin’ now if we followed the fuckin’ path.”
“We’d also be stuck with more assholes like you,” Mick said with surprising strength.
Skip glared at him, bits of the leaf bed still stuck to his sideburns. “This ain’t Revenge of the Nerds, fuckhead. Let’s see you act tough without Fields around.”
“What is your deal?” Mick wanted to know. “Why do you hassle me so much?”
“Cause you’re a fuckin’ band queer.”
“First of all, I’m not queer, and second, weren’t you in band?”
Sean chuckled and he saw Skip’s face soften a bit, looking for a moment like the Josh Williamson he remembered, but it was only for a moment.
“I quit in the eighth grade,” Skip pointed out, then his sneer resurfaced. “And I played drums.”
Sean chuckled louder in spite of himself. “Oh, what? – like there’s no queer drummers?”
“Could you guys possibly make more noise?” Danny asked in a strained whisper.
Hot cornfields had yielded to the shade of this forest canopy, and their goal grew nearer with each step, but they had not been able to relax. They were not alone in this wilderness. There were voices, muffled by distance and foliage, but real ... and closing in.
Sean’s heart swam a four-hundred-meter race. As he crouched in the shadows of rotting branches, he fantasized they were Marines, caught behind enemy lines, surrounded by Russians, and trying to get home to the hot nurses they’d left behind. The plot brought a smile to his lips.
He’d given the military serious thought. When he saw Top Gun at the Woodfield, Sean wanted to fly jets and dogfight with Russians. Had he been of age back then, he would have eagerly signed his John Hancock on the recruiter’s dotted line. Then came news from Beirut, a Marine barracks destroyed by terrorists’ bombs, and the armed forces lost much of their allure. But now, in the safety of these Indiana woods, far from Kadhafi and Red Square, it was still fun to pretend.
From the South, a female voice, answered by a rumble of deep male laughter. They were close. Too close.
A stream of sweat flowed into Sean’s eye and he wiped it away before it had a chance to burn. “Should we, you know, sneak up on ’em? We could take their shit and –”
“We’d have to backtrack to do it.” Danny checked his compass, then pointed to the opposite wall of the ravine. No gentle slope there. It was a solid wall of limestone. “This ravine is running North-South. If we sprint down it, we should hit the quarry first and avoid ’em all together.”
Sean nodded, glanced back at Mick and Skip. “Can you guys keep up?”
“Don’t worry about me.” A Marlboro jutted from Skip’s mouth and he reached into his pocket for something to light it.
“Are you brain-dead?” Sean plucked the cigarette from between Skip’s lips. “They’ll smell it and know we’re here, and besides that, we’re up to our ankles in dry leaves.”
Skip’s eyes jerked open, surprised by the action, then narrowed to frustrated slits. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, I could’ve stayed home with my goddam mom!”
Danny climbed out from beneath the dead wood and into the open ravine. He looked around, then motioned for the group to follow as he began to jog – his muscular body bent, his hands pulling his pack tight against his back.
Sean mimicked him, hearing the rustle of leaves and the clatter of loose rock beneath his feet as he moved. When it rains, this gully must be like a river, water flowing right into the pit of the quarry. The echo of the thought had barely faded from his brain when he saw the object of their quest.
At the end of the V-shaped ravine, olive drapes of foliage parted, revealed a hundred yards of flat, pale stone surrounding the excavation. Over the edge of limestone cliffs, Sean glimpsed the lake. It sparkled like emeralds in the sunlight, so calm and peaceful; Sean could not help but feel it was something untouched, something he and his friends would be the first to discover.
Danny slid down loose rock and dirt at the end of the clove. He staggered a moment, then stood bolt upright on the limestone, his fists thrusting skyward.
The rocks gave way beneath Sean’s feet as well. He jumped, landed in a sustaining crouch, then leapt up to look around.
Stone faded to tall grass at the foot of the woods. Huge rock monoliths dotted the whole area, as if the pit had belched them out onto its lips. They were covered in spray paint – names, slogans, obscenities; the only sign human beings had ever been there. However, these writings were old, weathered. It appeared that Sean and Danny were totally alone.
They’d won.
“Yeah, baby!” Danny bellowed, his voice echoing across the chasm of the quarry.
“Number one!” Sean shouted, his heart beating a victory drum behind his ribs. After whispering for so long, it felt good to shout, to win. He gave Danny a high five.
Mick and Skip made their way out of the gully. Mick ran over to Sean and Danny, his hand held high for a triumphant slap. Skip looked happy, for once.
“I can’t believe we actually did it,” he said with a malice-free grin.
“You think people will complain that the guys running the game won?” Mick wanted to know.
“Fuck no,” Danny balked. “When you’re the best, who can argue?”
Sean ran for the limestone cliffs. “I don’t know about you guys, but I need a swim.”
Along the way, he dropped his backpack, yanked off his shirt and removed his shoes. Sean looked over the stone ledge, prepared to dive into the refreshing waters below, but his eyes found two figures asleep on the rocks that lined the lake. “Shit.”
When Danny pulled off his own shirt, he saw what Sean had seen. His victory smile faded, as if he’d just scored the winning touchdown only to have it erased by an asinine penalty. “You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.”
By the time they reached the ledge, Mick and Skip were both in shorts. Mick looked at Sean and Danny, at the sleeping figures below, then back again. His mouth hung open in amazed disappointment. “Who the hell ...?”
Sean shook his head. They were too far off to recognize, but one of them was definitely female. A black bikini showed off the curves of her figure.
“We should do a cannonball right next to ’em,” Skip suggested.
Danny nodded. “Yeah.”
Fourteen
Deidra and Paul won the Wide Game.
&
nbsp; When they left the Hunton’s barn, they felt as if they’d wasted too much time, but, as they surveyed the vacant quarry, the reality slowly sank in. They’d done it. They were the first. Paul cheered, then he set up his camera, grabbed Deidra around the waist, and they danced a victory jig.
Next, they’d gone for a swim. The water was cool, but far too deep for Deidra’s liking; she hated not being able to touch bottom. And it wasn’t long before Danny, Sean, and the others arrived to find them sunning themselves like sea lions on the rocks.
“What’s shakin’?” Paul called up to them, a broad smile on his face.
They won over a thousand dollars, and, upon their return to Deidra’s house, she made good on her promise to shower with him. She loved sharing new experiences with Paul ... teaching him things. By the time they turned off the water, an hour had passed and she had barely been able to walk – but that had more to do with the hike than the sex.
On Monday, they went back to Harmony High.
When Deidra entered a portfolio in the Scholastic Arts competition, her paintings earned her a truckload of golden keys and medals. She applied to schools Paul showed interest in, and received a full scholarship – the University of Southern California’s school of Commercial Design.
They didn’t elope after prom. Instead, they spent the night in a Dollar Inn off of I-74 and the following day at King’s Island amusement park in Ohio. At the top of a mock Eiffel Tower, overlooking the entire park, Paul got down on one knee and gave her a diamond engagement ring.
Deidra said yes, of course.
They graduated in May of 1988. The next month, much to the dismay of Paul’s mother, they rented a U-Haul carrier, attached it to Deidra’s Beetle, and drove out to California. Along the way, they stopped in Las Vegas. Deidra Perkins became Deidra Rice in the Graceland Wedding Chapel, an Elvis impersonator singing “Can’t Help Falling In Love” as Paul kissed his bride.
They both attended college at USC. Of course, Paul enrolled in the film program, and Deidra cashed in her scholarship, studying commercial art and design. In her spare time, she did some conceptual work for the Blade Runner-inspired epic her husband filmed his senior year. The movie was so good, in fact, that George Lucas asked Paul to direct second unit on a third Indiana Jones movie.
After that, Paul received directorial job offers non-stop. He finally signed on to helm a sweeping Civil War drama. His work was brilliant, earning a two-million-dollar paycheck and eleven Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture and another for Paul as Best Director.
On that cool March evening, Steven Spielberg opened the envelope and named Paul Rice as the winner. He stood, dumbfounded, then hugged Deidra. His hands were shaking as badly as they had the night they’d made love for the first time. He walked up to the podium and accepted the golden statue into those shaking hands. At the microphone, having not prepared a speech, he became flustered before finding his wife in the audience and smiling down at her.
“This is for you, honey,” Paul told the world. “You’re my inspiration.”
The cameras were on Deidra as she mouthed, “I love you.” She stood there, her hair up, held in place by a jeweled clip, a diamond necklace around her neck. Rivers of joyful tears flowed over her cheeks, and her Vera Wang gown was the color of ...
Blood.
Deidra was covered in blood.
She tried to find its source, ran her hands up her body until her fingers disappeared into a gash in her throat. Horrified, she jerked her hands away, getting them caught in her necklace ... a necklace that was no longer diamonds but a small golden charm. The crowd of movie stars seated around her melted away and stalks of corn grew to fill the void. She looked back to the podium where Paul had been standing.
A huge crow sat perched on the microphone, staring back at her.
“Mondamin is here,” the crow told her in Paul’s voice.
Deidra awoke to find herself stretched out in a pile of sweet-smelling straw, the dim interior of the Hunton’s barn all around her. Her hands were on her throat, but there was no slit to be found there, only smooth, tight, youthful skin and the thin metal of the charm Paul had given her. She slid her hands up to her lips, wiped away a drop of drool that had formed in the corner of her mouth, then slid her fingers over her nose to her eyes and rubbed them.
They hadn’t won the Wide Game, at least not yet. Prom and graduation were still months off, and marriage and Oscars loomed even further over the horizon.
When she said she dreamed of Paul more than anyone but herself, it was no exaggeration, but Deidra had never had a dream nose-dive into nightmare like that before.
I shouldn’t have read his script before going to sleep.
Deidra scanned the barn for her Starbuck. He leaned against the doorframe, the Sony camcorder on his shoulder, his body made silhouette by the bright light from outside. She got to her feet – her brain sloshed within her skull, still trying to surface from the pool of unconsciousness – and walked over to him, placed her hand on his shoulder.
Paul jumped at her touch, jerked his face away from the eyepiece of his camera, horror flaring in his eyes like flashbulbs igniting.
“Boo.” Deidra’s voice was husky, still awakening.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“Your script gave me nightmares.”
He smiled. “There’s no greater compliment for a horror writer than that.”
Deidra was about to ask him what he’d been taping, but the words died in her throat when she saw the birds. Crows. Dozens of them. They covered the large John Deere farm tractor at the edge of the cornfield in a black, fluttering dust jacket.
When she spoke, her voice was shaky, dream images still clawing at her mind. “Hitchcock eat your fucking heart out.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”
“I’ve hung around you too long.”
He smiled, bent down to kiss her forehead. “No, not long enough.”
Deidra exhaled and shook her head, her heart fluttering in her chest. How did he do it? With a glance, Paul could make her feel beautiful. With a word, he could make any moment special. She pressed her forehead against his neck and cheek, felt his beard play reveille, and hugged him tightly. “God, I love you.”
Paul took his eyes away from the camera again. “What?”
He looks drained, she thought, then wondered: What did he dream? “I said I got a bad case of lovin’ you.”
“I think it’s contagious.” Paul put the camera on the ground; he picked her up, spun her in the open doorway of the barn.
“Put me down,” she squealed as the world moved around her. “Put me down before I hurl all over you!”
Laughing, he spun her over to the pile of straw and fell backward into its embrace. Deidra landed on his chest, her head still riding the merry-go-round. Paul smiled up at her, a hole in the roof creating a golden spotlight on his face. He looked renewed; his eyes sparkled, and he reached up to pick errant bits of straw from her hair, flicking them into the surrounding pile.
She ran her thumb along his bottom lip, wanting to press her own lips against it. Slowly, he reached up, laid his hand on her clothed breast; his soft, playful touch turned seductive, and she did kiss him. The wind must have died, killing the clanging chains in the rafters. The only sounds were their frenzied respiration, the wet noise of their lips and tongues, and the rapid thud of Deidra’s own heart deep within the canals of her ears. With the sun heating them, and the straw billowing against their bodies, it was as if Paul had pressed “pause” on his camcorder and halted time.
She felt him tug at the elastic of her pants and lifted her hips. Her pink sweats and panties slid away in a burst of straw. He kissed her shin, then slid his lips along the inside of her thigh. I’m so glad I shaved my legs this morning, she thought, then: He’s never done this for anyone. The realization made her tingle and she tugged at his hair, urged his mouth to the sensitive bulb of flesh that waited for him. He lay the
re a moment, studying the folds of moist anatomy, then finally touched it with his tongue. As he experimented on her, she could feel his nervous excitement and this added to her own pleasure. Before she became lost in ecstasy, she managed words: “You don’t have another Trojan, do you?”
He paused, lifted his head. “Two more.”
“Two.” She giggled. “You’re ambitious.”
Paul flushed. “Never let it be said I’m not prepared.”
“I don’t think anything can prepare you for this,” she teased.
They lay in the straw, its fragrance filling their nostrils as they became one. Deidra told herself she had never felt more comfortable than within Paul’s arms, that every thrust drove him deeper and deeper into her heart, and with her climax came a kind of twinge – a realization that the moment was waning and would never come again. Her relationships all became pelvic sooner or later, then became nothing at all. She began to tremble and she held Paul tightly against her to quell her painful, empty ache.
He wiped a line of tears from her cheek. “What’s wrong?”
“I love you.”
“Okay ...” he pressed, waiting for more.
“This is too wonderful,” she told him. “I’m afraid things will change.”
“They will.” Paul stroked her hair. It was now wet with her perspiration. “They’ll get better.”
She managed to force a smile to her lips. No matter how desperately she wanted to believe him, there was still a part of her filled with doubt. Paul loved the “new and improved” Deidra, but he’d never met the previous model. She’d given him hints of it, told him bits and pieces of her life before Harmony, and he’d seen bursts of her anger – like tornadoes, they were short, destructive, and impossible to predict. But he’d never met her inner demons at full strength.
Deidra was not an alcoholic. An alcoholic needed liquor to get through their everyday life. She only drank at parties, but once she got started, she didn’t stop until she was drunk. At thirteen, drunk at a friend’s birthday party, she lost her virginity to a stranger in a closet. At fourteen, she’d been involved with a drugged-out boyfriend two years her senior, a boyfriend who’d threatened to kill himself, and her, if she ever left him. Then, the summer before her freshman year, she’d become so intoxicated she nearly died of alcohol poisoning.