Dec. 5, 2011

My journal entry for this day noted that I was up early.

5:55 a.m. Dec. 5 —

‘Fire stoked. It’s snowing outside. Could murder a cup of Joe but don’t feel like rummaging about Stacy’s cabin.

She is an interesting creature. Can’t say I have ever met anyone quite like her. She’s in her late 40s, Carrie reckons, but gives off the youthful electricity of a beautiful and enchanting woman in her 20s. Sucks to be me. Stuck here in the afterlife, or the bardo or whatever the hell this plain we’re on could or should be called,  and I’m with two unbelievable women. Sucks to be me big time. LOL

Feeling confident that we weren’t followed, if they even gave a shit considering all this madness. After meeting Stacy I am also confident that the kids may be ‘here’ and maybe many others ‘made it.’ Or didn’t make it.

Looks like it snowed a fair bit last night, so our tracks should be well covered. A good thing. Couldn’t sleep worth a fart. Kept waking up. Whatever this plain is — whatever all this means — it is what it is and I continue to boggle at how ‘easy’ it has been. I closed my eyes to listen to a distant train whistle and when I opened them, mankind had disappeared. When I opened my eyes, flags clattered to the ground; A train whistle ended and a trumpet let out a brassy cry as it slapped into cement.

When I opened my eyes, clothes fluttered without a sound,

Flumping and dropping things, cars crashing, pins dropping; eye-blink silent chaos.

No screams. No shouts. No warning. A train whistle and a sonic boom.

Then nothing.

Just us. Us and the rest of the abandoned world.

And now we come upon a new reality — a new adventure.

Despite the insanity, I am really good with all this.’

Shortly after I wrote that, seated next to a warming fire, Stacy shuffled into the kitchen yawning, her abundant curly brown locks askew from tossing and turning.

“Morning,” I said softly. “Couldn’t sleep?”

She yawned “not so much” and asked if I wanted some coffee.

Rumpled and askew, she still glowed like an angel sitting on a streetlight.

I rose to join her in the kitchen, offering an emphatic affirmative on the java.

“Carrie still sleeping?”

I nodded. “Don’t think she slept all that well, either. She’s a tosser and a turner and she was a-tossin’ and a-turnin’. I know because I hardly slept, either. If I had known it was snowing so much I might have relaxed a bit more.”

Stacy yawned again and cracked the fridge open. “Hungry?”

I said I was and as she pulled eggs and other breakfast items out, I offered to cook.

She waved me off with a smile. “I’ve got lots of food. That’s for sure. There was no shortage in the markets in Leavenworth. Man, that was really a bizarre thing, wasn’t it?”

I asked if she was referring to experiencing an abandoned town.

“I guess so, yes. I mean, no one was there. No one,” she said with singing incredulity.

“Where were you when it happened?” she asked.

I told her about the Remembrance Day ceremony and she listened sharply focused, nodding and shaking her head in equal measures.

While pouring second cups of coffee she began to tell me how she came upon the disappearance.

Rather than be in the midst of a throng of humanity, she was alone at home in her cabin, or more accurately, out back in her shop, finishing a pottery order for the “Bukowski Family.”

“I was home the entire day. In the evening I checked my emails and was a little perplexed about not getting any from my girls. I usually get about 20 or so emails a day and there was only one in my in-box. That made me wonder, you know, but I assumed it had something to do with my provider. So, no biggie, right? I hung out at home, like I normally do, and puttered about. Went to bed early and didn’t even watch any television.

“The next morning I had to go to town to get a few things and drove to town. Once I got to Highway 2, I saw several cars and trucks off the road and still didn’t really think anything could be up. Then I got to the 97 junction and… I just about shit. It was like a war scene. A tanker was on its side and grey smoke was puffing out of it; there were cars crashed into one another, on their sides in the ditch, and smashed into a traffic light. I got out and checked some of the cars and noticed that there was no blood, or any real signs of human misery. But clothes… just piles of clothes.

“And no one was around. I couldn’t fathom how there could not be police and firefighters at the scene. I believe that will serve as the eeriest and plain freakiest thing I have ever experienced. I dialed 9-1-1 on my cell and got an answering machine. Can you believe it? An answering machine with an emergency call! That was when I started to feel scared.”

Stacy told me about her drive into Leavenworth, around accident scenes, past settings that defied logic and how she melted down into a hysterical wreck in a grocery store parking lot.

“I must have sat there in my truck for an hour or maybe more. I kept expecting to see cars pass by or people walk through the parking lots with bags of groceries in their hands. But there was nothing… no sounds, no movement. When a crow landed on the back of a truck not far away, I snapped out of it and started to walk around — first into the grocery store.

“I actually grabbed the things I needed,” she laughed. “How bizarre is that?”

A creak captured our attentions. Carrie emerged from the guest room and smiled a good morning. Her always-pleasant demeanor in the mornings still knocked me for a loop. Always positive… always ready to experience the greatest day life will offer.

I was an outright pessimist when I met her — a journalist tainted from continually observing human nature at its most deceptive and cunning and, ultimately, ruinous.

Carrie snatched that poison from me when I was able to escape the dead end alleys of life and blend my cockeyed life with her sweet order. She noted, always with a smile, that there was a Cranbrook Rob and an Invermere Rob. I agreed with her and instead called it a Jekyll and Hyde thing. She gave me the strength and encouragement to pull the chute on a dead-end career and go off in search of life’s greater adventures, together with her.

Dollar coin-sized snowflakes were bombing down again.  The sun was still two hours away from blazing its light on Stacy’s property. The three of us sat down and gabbed for hours, drinking coffee, eventually cooking a breakfast and then settling down for more gabbing after.

Outside, snow continued to pile up — giving us added measures of security with each inch. The curl of smoke from the chimney would not be enough to alert someone(s) of our existence in this forest shelter. We melted into the day together, being, breathing, being.

Eleven miles away, in an old hotel now reeking of death, polluted by the death machines sleeping within, Jesperson prepared for his visit from Stacy.

His urges were deeply buried. There wasn’t even a vague quiver in the part of his black brain – that drove him to murder and terrify – to harm Stacy. He saw her like his mother; an angel who nourishes.

In rooms down the hall, Mike and Grim slept behind thin veils of consciousness, their own murderous instincts intact and ready to rock.

It was early afternoon when Mike emerged from his room. He pounded on Grim’s door and walked to the common area.

Jesperson was nowhere to be seen.

Outside, the skies were heavy with snow. Mike’s lip curled at his renewed dislike of snow. Yesterday sucked, he thought to himself. Fucking Canadians.

Wonder when that bitch is showing up?

Jesperson clomped upstairs, brushing wet snow from his shoulders. Mike met him at the top of the stairs and the two men exchanged brief ‘go for it’ glances but Jesperson stepped past him and headed to his room.

“Finally up?” He jabbed.

Mike didn’t reply. He was wondering where Jesperson had gone.

“When is that bitch coming?” He foolishly demanded.

Jesperson tossed his coat on the bed in his room and wiped his hands dry on the bed spread.

He heard Mike yell, “Grim, ya lazy fuck, get your ass up.”

He hoped he didn’t try to open the door because he hadn’t locked it after he woke Grim up and slashed his throat half an hour earlier. Soon after he awoke, he harkened back to Mike’s words and decided he’d plan a pre-emptive strike.

Jesperson stepped back into the common area and once again met Mike at the top of the stairs.

‘Polite bastard, really,’ he thought to himself. He would have killed Mike, too, but he was smart enough to lock his door.

“Where’s your buddy?” He asked.

Mike snarled he wasn’t getting up but it didn’t matter. “Better off without him,” he said.

Jesperson smiled. Yes, it was.

It was 3 p.m. when we clambered into the Expedition that we’d borrowed from some bad people and carved deep tracks through fresh snow down Stacy’s driveway.  We turned right at the highway and rolled through a winter wonderland to Highway 2 and in a minute we were upon the junction carnage she’d described and a few minutes later, we pulled into a grocery store parking lot.

I visualized Stacy weeping and suffering and felt a stab of pain for her.

Stacy had cleaned spills and took care to freeze meat in the grocery store, the day after she discovered an empty Leavenworth. She simply made the town her own and wisely took steps to ensure survival.

For weeks she kept to herself and visited town only when she needed, always hoping to come across someone else. She felt no need to roam or to search. For a reason that wouldn’t become apparent for many months to come, she remained in her small, isolated mountain community, waiting for someone to come to her. Her heart wanted to go to her daughters – to be with them, but her mind was bombarded with Kenneth’s words – all making such eerie sense now.

And one day, she came upon Jesperson and Woodfield.

Her immediate take of the two rough and tumble gentlemen was to be extremely careful, so she snuck up on them with her rifle pointed and made sure they understood whose town it was they’d come to.

After that, they seemed perfectly fine, except for Woodfield. He was cold and creepy, she thought. Jesperson reminded her of a buddy from college.

She’d visited with the two men, who had made their way to Leavenworth from Seattle, and learned of the madness in the city. Jesperson warned her to keep away from the cities and he shocked her with tales of sick behaviour and how there seemed to be no women anywhere.

“You’re the only woman we’ve come across,” he told her. His words settled into her mind like a coin being dropped in deep water. They jerked and darted down, coming to an uneasy rest on a nerve she decided should be kept vigilant and alert toward these men, as well. Again, Kenneth’s words – his lengthy sermons and rants, came home to roost.

We toured through the grocery store and Stacy checked things like a nervous farmer going over his crops after a storm.

She walked into the back, armed with bread and sandwich meats and shouted that she was going to make her friends some sandwiches.

Carrie and I shrugged and lingered by the front of the store. Neither of us said anything at the time but we were leery about Stacy’s ‘friends.’

The last two times we met ‘new men’ things went south in a major way.

Stacy reappeared with a sack full of sandwiches.  “Okay, let’s go check in on ‘em.”

The snow was half way up to our knees. “The things we have taken for granted, eh? Like snow clearing,” I said as we pushed across the parking lot. “Makes you think sometimes.”

We trudged to the vehicle and stowed the groceries. And as easy as punch and cheese, Stacy withdrew a snazzy-looking hunting rifle from a buckskin casing, tucked it into her shoulder and snapped a sharp upward aim, as if she was going to fire a round at the slab of rock looming over Leavenworth, darkened by winter cloud and utterly sterilized by the rich snows that had fallen.

“Glad you’re on our side,” Carrie laughed, mimicking her crisp, military posture.

We were only a few blocks from the hotel and Stacy suggested we walk to help aid in hiding our tracks upon leaving.

Carrie shot me a nervous look.

“Do you want to stay here, babe?” I asked.

She smiled and shook her head. “Nah, I’m okay.” Her voice gave away her fear.

Stacy said she believed the men were trustworthy but, slotting a shell into her rifle for effect, said we should be prepared for anything.

“I should go in first by myself and check things out and soften the situation. I can tell them you are with me and they shouldn’t get freaked out. Okay?” Stacy offered.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, withdrawing the Glock I had in my jacket pocket and checked its load.

I kept the Glock on me everywhere I went now. And a rifle and shotgun were also at hand’s reach. Carrie had a Glock bulging out of her jacket pocket.

“I think we’re ready,” I said and we set out, crunching through the snow toward downtown Leavenworth.

Bulbs and tufts of snow hung from eaves and signs and the only sound besides our footfalls was the caws of distant crows, rattling off the ornate Bavarian décor of the downtown buildings.

We came to a central park with a totem pole and Stacy pointed across the street at the hotel.

“They were in there,” she said, scanning the building for signs of activity.

“Come in behind me in a couple of minutes,” she said, starting across the street.

Stacy startled Mike when she appeared at the top of the stairs, her face momentarily obscured by her sweater hood. The black barrel of her rifle glistened with freshly melted snow.

“Who are you?” Stacy asked sharply.

“Mike,” Mike surrendered. He then smiled broadly. “And who are you?”

Stacy didn’t answer the strange man seated in the armchair. She was looking at the large dark stain on the floor near the man and the wall. She felt a surge of relief that she didn’t trust as easily as she once did. She paid for it once before; never again.

In that regard she was a hypocrite as she truly believed that all men should be trusted. She always taught her girls that first impressions deserved a second chance. She felt a bad vibe from the Woodfield man. But Jesperson, who now emerged into the common room with a smile and a happy “hello,” seemed sweet enough.

Jesperson came toward Stacy from the left and Mike was seated to her right, a dozen feet away. He kept looking down the hall toward Grim’s room, unsure of what he wanted him to do at that time. If Grim charged out, he might get shot. Then again, maybe this woman would wilt and shit her pants and flee if he did come out.

He looked back at Stacy, then at Jesperson, who was unarmed.

“Hello, how are you doing?” He asked, noting with a pout that she held a gun instead of a sack of sandwiches. Surprise, surprise, I actually hoped she’d bring nourishment, he marveled.

“Who is this?” Stacy asked.

I heard all this go down as I slowly stepped up the stairs, hoping not to cause a creak or crack. I stopped at the mid-turn on the stairs and felt the secure weight of the Glock in my cold hand. Carrie waited at the bottom of the stairs, watching the front door.

“This is Mike,” Jesperson said. “He arrived a couple of days ago. From Spokane, right?”

Mike nodded and tried to smile. “Yes, Spokane. It’s quite the freak scene. Really horrible.”

Stacy had been fully informed of our experience in Seattle and we told her we thought we might have been followed. She didn’t let on that she knew this and tried to remember if those stains had been on the floor before. She was sure they hadn’t been.

Jesperson asked her if she’d like some coffee and seizing a shot at normalcy, she said she would.

“I have to admit, Keith, I am a bit nervous about this man. Would you hand me your weapon?” She asked, pointing with her rifle barrel at Mike’s pistol, which was laying on the coffee table a couple of feet out of his reach.

Jesperson was feeling the same vibe about Mike as Stacy. He’d been feeling it from the get-go; hence his dispatching of his weasely sidekick last night. He walked back toward his room to fetch Stacy some coffee. He was genuinely pleased to see her again.

She kept her eyes on Mike, who shifted slightly toward the coffee table.

“Would you slide that over here, please?” Stacy requested again. “Thanks.”

With a lazy grunt, Mike leaned over and slid the gun toward her feet.

I decided to keep out of sight until Jesperson returned with the coffee.

Stacy knelt down and pocketed Mike’s gun and unzipped her sweater.  Mike felt a sweet sting rip through his chest. “I let a sweet thing like this take me. Fuck me politely,” he writhed within.

Despite his predicament, Mike felt a supreme confidence that he would take control of this situation and they would head back to Spokane, where he would return to his second fiddle rung and hang around waiting for the reckoning; he was positive that a reckoning was coming. Screw what the rest of ‘em thought.

I heard Jesperson’s voice, kind and deep and felt a warm droplet of hope splatter down my hemispheres and trickle down my spine. Maybe this guy is okay!

“Here you go Stacy. Why don’t you sit down and relax. We’re not going to hurt you, gal.” Jesperson had his revolver tucked into the waistband of the sweat pants he was wearing. He had to squeeze his gut in to tighten them enough so they would hold the weight of the gun. His voice was friendly and it poked at Stacy’s funny-bone.

He handed Stacy the coffee cup. “Been snowing a fair bit, huh?”

I turned the corner and carefully stretched my legs up four or five steps and stopped. Gaining my balance again, I took a breath and then shot up the final stairs until I had a full view of Jesperson. My Glock was pointed at his chest.

Already rattled from his ongoing deception with Mike, Jesperson’s nerves slipped and he dropped the cup of coffee. It bounced off the thin, worn rug and sent a rooster-tail spray of coffee at Stacy’s feet.

Mike’s first thought was that I was a cop. Old habits.

The warm trickle of hope that I felt immediately turned into terror — spine-chilling horror. Jesperson’s eyes appeared to be glowing (a result of the light coming in from the nearby windows and the fact he was wearing glasses) and his size startled me. His eyes fired rockets into mine and they exploded deep inside my brain. If I was the Battleship Hood and he was the Bismarck, his salvo landed in my munitions storage igniting a hellacious inferno.

And he knew it. He could smell my fear. What kept him frozen was his respect for Stacy and his desire to keep his deception rolling. At that moment he knew he could not do anything harmful to this woman. She scared him and thrilled him enormously.

“Step back and sit down in that chair,” I quavered, taking a step toward Jesperson. The uneven tremolo of my voice gave away my fear, which was turning that former warm droplet of hope into a Slurpee.

Thankfully, he sat down with a thump into a chair.

What I didn’t know was that Jesperson was tired.

He was done with all the crazy shit.

He just wanted to chill, like he had been doing.

Whatever this Mike dude was up to, he didn’t care. He didn’t trust him. Why should he, after all? This new guy, whatever.  Don’t care. As long as he calms down and fucks off eventually, that’s good, too.

Mike showed up guns-a-blazing. He was just another crazy psycho. Interestingly, Jesperson didn’t see himself as such a creature. He truly believed he was a kind and loving soul. He grabbed his gun because he didn’t trust Mike.

None of it mattered to me. I was scared witless and couldn’t take my eyes off Mike, who stared at me with a knowing, empty glare. I wanted to shoot him in the face. But I just didn’t have the moxy.

We exchanged looks of recognition and he smiled at me and nodded. “Rob? It was Rob, right?”

Jesperson asked me if I’d like a cup of coffee.

My head was a knot in a rope being used in a tug-of-war.

I looked at the big man and couldn’t help myself. “Yeah, coffee would be fine,” I croaked weakly.

Jesperson backed away toward his room, his hands fanned out in front of him in a ‘don’t panic’ fashion.

Stacy kept an eye on Mike. “So what’s going on in Spokane?” She asked nonchalantly. “Rob says it’s quite the mess.”

Mike looked at me and smiled.

“Well, it is a mess. We pulled him and his lady out of a bad situation. Didn’t we?”

I said that was true. “Yes, they saved us from some bad sorts,” I said. Stacy knew that. We’d told her the entire bizarre story.

Jesperson returned with another mug of coffee and invited me to sit down.

“Please, Stacy. Enough of this waving guns about. Please sit down and let’s just talk.”

I was starting to get worried about Carrie. She was alone downstairs and I was sure Mike hadn’t come alone.

I yelled down the stairs for her to come up. There was no reply. Ice molecules shot through my veins.

“There are more?” Jesperson grinned. “Wasn’t expecting so much company Stacy. Best go make some more coffee, eh?” He had left his gun in his room and now wanted to go get it again.

I told him it was just Carrie and she appeared at the top of the stairs. Relief made my knees buckle slightly and I leaned against the wall.

Jesperson smiled. Old habits.

“Everything all right?” She asked.

“Would you like some coffee?” Jesperson asked with a large, friendly smile. His gaze swarmed over Carrie like a cloud of black flies.

“I don’t drink coffee, thanks,” she replied, feeling the coolness and weight of the Glock in her coat pocket.

She turned and greeted Mike.

“Hello again.”

Mike responded in kind.

“How have you been?”

I snapped. “Okay, enough of the stupid shit. What’s the story? We left town on a rather shitty note, I realize that. But we also heard some pretty wild stuff about your pal Larry. Something about him enjoying snacks of the female variety.”

Jesperson raised an eyebrow and took interest in the conversation. “How you mean?” he asked, sounding concerned. This worked on Stacy as she felt the intended point of his ruse.

Carrie wasn’t so sure about the giant man. He spooked her. She said later that her first reaction to his appearance was “along the lines of meeting the devil.”

Mike chuckled and, looking at Jesperson, said, “He let it be known that he’s a savage bastard to keep the meth-heads in line. Not saying he didn’t do some stuff. I met him in jail, after all.”

Carrie cut him off. “We left that town scared out of our minds. Those men made it sound like I was going to be fucking Sunday dinner.”

I chimed in an exclamation point; “yeah.”

Mike was feeling like he’d had enough of this shit and announced that he was going to wake his buddy up and they were going to “hit the road.”

Carrie, her voice louder and angrier, pressed forward. “Why did you follow us?”

Mike shouted, “Grim, let’s get rolling!”

“Why are you here, of all places, if you weren’t following them? Seems a pretty wild coincidence,” Stacy said.

“Grim! Grim you lazy bugger, get out here would ya?”

Now it was Jesperson’s turn to feel cornered. There was a mess in Grim’s room and he feared Stacy would find it. Then he chilled out. He could blame it on Mike – no problem. He took a loud slurp of coffee.

Mike asked if he could check on his friend. Stacy looked at me and I nodded ‘okay.’

I followed Mike down the short hallway to the door of Grim’s room and he swung it open.

A thick red pool of blood filled the top half of the bed and a thin streak of blood whisked up the wall behind it. I gagged and stepped back. Mike stared at the puddle of blood and turned to look at Jesperson, who caught his gaze and without expression was able to convey back that Mike was next.

“What the fuck?” I shouted. “That’s a lot of fucking blood!”

Stacy and Carrie rushed forward and I stopped them. “It’s just a lot of blood. Or a strangely dumped bucket of red paint or catsup. No one is in the room.”

Mike suddenly looked small and weak.

Staring daggers into Jesperson, he said he would leave and promised he’d keep on moving away.

He was now officially scared shitless of Jesperson. That evil son of a bitch slit his throat in the night. That could have been me, he stammered within.

Stacy said she didn’t have a problem with Mike leaving but I was nervous about the idea. He’d come this far and he won’t leave without Carrie. He won’t be able to return to Spokane, at any rate and I didn’t feel like keeping his company down the road.

“You came after me for your sick friend,” Carrie snapped. I looked at her, impressed with her ferocity. “You’re just going to toddle along now are you?” She made walking motions with her fingers.

A blunt bang made us all dance in our skin. Mike rose up on his tiptoes and spun sideways into the room.

“It’s okay!” Jesperson shouted. Stacy had her gun leveled at his gut, six feet away from her. A thin wisp of blue smoke wriggled out of the barrel of the pistol he held in his hand.

My eyes were probably cartoon-like in their width. Carrie’s mouth was agape and she stared forward, shaking her head slightly.

“Why did you do that?” Stacy screamed.

Jesperson, his voice soft and reassuring said, “I had to. That was the only thing we could do. When he showed up here, with two of his pals, he was looking for you,” he said, jutting his chin toward Carrie. “Those were not good men. They killed my friend.”

I continued to look at Mike who lay in an awkward heap on his side. Jesperson’s shot hit him just above his Adam’s apple and another massive pool of blood was being added to the mess in the room. He didn’t suffer, I thought. The bullet must have disconnected his spine from his brain and killed him instantly.

“Bizarre,” I whispered. “How totally fucking bizarre.” My right shoulder slipped against the door jam and I nearly stumbled into the room.

Stacy had tears in her eyes and Carrie wasn’t far behind. Neither was I, for that matter.

Stacy continued to glare at Jesperson. “There was no need for that!” She shouted.

Jesperson said he disagreed. It was like he was speaking to a board of directors about a bylaw decision, he was so matter-of-fact and direct.

“When they arrived here they killed my friend.” He pointed at the bloodstain that Stacy had noticed. “They shot him where he sat.  I shot one of them back and got the drop on them and we eventually agreed to terms and put our guns down.  But there was no way they could be trusted.”

I looked at the large puddle of blood on the bed and shouted across the common room, “And this? The agreement went a-kilter then, did it?”

Stacy urged him to answer me.

“Yeah. I admit that, too. And I was getting around to killing him, too,” Jesperson admitted with a cool, soothing tone in his voice. “It was me or them. Us or them.”

I had to agree with him but still struggled with the sight of that huge pool of blood and Pink Floyd echoed in the back of my rapidly splintering mind.

“Fucking savage,” I whispered and shut the door, leaving Mike’s fresh corpse to soul tugging and rigor mortis.

“It’s just… so… so… insane,” Stacy shouted. “Put your gun down!” Her rifle was still pointed at Jesperson, who quickly flicked his gun onto a nearby chair.

“Look, I’m sorry but that had to happen,” Jesperson pleaded. “That man wanted you, and you,” he said, looking at Carrie and then Stacy. He looked at me as I came closer, my face chalk white. “I had to,” he said again, softly. He looked down at his belly, ashamed.

“This is so fucked up I can’t speak,” I said. “But I think I believe you. Not sure about what you did to buddy in that room, though.. Don’t think I want to know. But I believe you when you say he wasn’t going to just hop in his car and drive away. I believed those guys back in Spokane when they told us about buddy boy and his dietary needs. Rather see that meat lump get smoked than have to worry about him coming back at us.”

Carrie looked at me with wet eyes and shook her head. She didn’t agree with me.

“He didn’t have to be shot,” she said with a quivering voice. “We could have tied him up… or…”

Jesperson interjected: “and what then? Keep him prisoner? What happens if he gets loose? Do we tie him up and take off? What then? He starves to death? Freezes to death? That had to happen.”

Stacy snarled that it didn’t and ordered Jesperson to “sit the hell down.”

I marveled at her strength. Of all us, she was the calmest one — by far.

“Look Keith… I don’t care what you say. No one deserves… that. But what’s done is done. We’re leaving here. Carrie, it’s okay,” she said, looking into Carrie’s tear-filled eyes. “Can you run back to get the truck sweetie?”

Carrie looked at me with imploring eyes. “I’ll go get it,” I said.

As I headed down the stairs I heard Jesperson say, ”I’m sorry Stacy. There was no other choice.”

I agreed with him again as I bounded out onto the snowy street.

When I returned with the vehicle, Jesperson was still trying to convince Stacy that his actions were the best for everyone.

While Stacy listened to Jesperson plead his case, I gave the hotel a quick tour, looking for weapons and… other bodies, I admit. It was like a scene from a horror movie. I kept expecting the corpses of slain teenagers to flump in front of me as I toured the building.

I found another gun in Mike’s room and, with Jesperson’s tucked in my waist, I felt confident that we weren’t making it easy for the big man to come after us.

He sat on the edge of a couch and appeared a most lonely man. His large shoulders were hunched forward and he once again pleaded his case with Stacy. When he was looking at her his eyes were soft and loving. But when he looked my way, his eyes held a black gaze that screamed ‘I am going to kill you, too.’

A slight itch came over me to shoot him, as he did Mike. Just… BANG. There. How do you like them apples? But I didn’t think Stacy, or Carrie, would consider that a good thing to do, so the itch was scratched quickly by my still-racing mind. By this time, madness and total mayhem should have been driven into my expectations, but each time we came upon some tense or harrowing situation, I still felt as though I did the day of the disappearance — slightly thrilled, entirely puzzled and spectacularly worried.

Carrie touched my arm, pulling me from the trance I’d entered. I was staring at Jesperson, like he was a silent television screen that held an image of interest.

Stacy placed her rifle against the wall and crossed the room to him. She placed a hand on his shoulder and said she was sorry. “We’re going to go now, Keith. Take care, okay. Watch out for yourself.”

Jesperson looked up and with a large puddle of tears mottling his eyes asked, “can’t I come with you?” His heart ached like never before. Getting arrested, tried and sent to prison was a chicken dinner compared to the feeling that he had disappointed this woman who captivated his sickened soul.

Stacy leaned into him and gave him a hug. His large arms wrapped around her waist and he sobbed. I felt the Glock in my hand and waited… but he released her and with a sob said he would miss her. He looked at me and the black terror was gone from his eyes. He looked defeated … a man who knew that loneliness was going to gnaw at him until it chewed through the centre of his soul and drag him to the hell he deserved to be trapped within.

Stacy stepped back and Jesperson’s hands clasped his face, shaking, and with a violent swipe he wiped the wetness away and looked at me again. The black terror was back. When he looked at Carrie, I felt the Glock in my hand again and the urge to kill him came stampeding back.

Sensing the sudden swing in emotional highs, Stacy patted Jesperson on the shoulder and said, “I’ll check in with you, okay? In a day or two.”

The unveiling of hope injected emotional strength to him, as well as the wildly growing urge to terribly kill me. He said, “Oh it’s okay. Thanks, though. I have to get out of this place now.  Guess I will head on down the highway somewhere.”

She smiled at him and his eyes burrowed into her gaze with all the desperate mustard he could slather into them.

Jesperson then shot me another look, as Stacy retreated down the stairs with Carrie.

All I could think of to say was “k bye” and I shrugged. I felt sorry for the guy, in a small way. I also kept an eye on him as I left the room and sidled down the stairs.

The girls were already in the Expedition; Stacy was in the driver’s seat and Carrie sat next to her. I jumped into the back and kept my eyes on the hotel as we raced away, winding through a snow-stuffed Leavenworth, left in a looping limbo, home to a psychopathic killer and his broken heart.

Jesperson was right, I thought as we drove away. He was right to shoot Mike and he was right to kill his pals. Nothing good would have come from letting them live. They were evil. They wanted to enact evil deeds. It really was them or us.

“Do you think he will follow us?” Carrie asked.

“He might,” I said. “Who knows?”

Stacy, carefully steering around a snow-covered semi-trailer that was jack-knifed on a small bridge, said she had an idea.

“Why don’t we go see if we can find my friend?”

Carrie looked back at me and said, “But we have to go to Vancouver. I have to see if my son is okay.”

I didn’t want to say it. Stacy was quiet, waiting for something else to be said.

We drove on in silence for a minute or two and I couldn’t take it anymore. “We called him… how many times? And why wouldn’t he have called you? Sweetheart, I don’t think it’s wise to just traipse into a place like Vancouver. Look at what Spokane was like and think about what Seattle is like, as far as what Keith said to Stacy. And baby, what are the odds?

“How smart is it to go on the road?” I asked Stacy. “We’ve pretty much just come across one twisted situation after another, besides you, of course.”

Stacy said we could take back roads to northern California and avoid large towns.

“Kenneth could really shed some light on all this,” she said, as much to herself as to us. “He really could. And it wouldn’t take that long to get there.”

Carrie repeated what I had said. “What are the odds? What chance is there he’d be there? Probably none, right?”

I said she was right.

“It’s just… well, he told me this would happen,” Stacy said. “He’ll be there. I just know it.”

We drove out of Leavenworth and back to Stacy’s in silence, absorbing the still surreal sights along the way and playing over in our minds the events of that equally surreal morning.

It was 5:55 p.m. when we returned to Stacy’s cabin.

 

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