How to be Wild

[Knightofsloth707]

She needed to go, now. To put as much distance between her and him as possible. Every second she was here, was a second she wasn't getting farther away, escaping his reach.

"No, you need to go," he said, his voice rising. "Pack your things, take the truck, and go."

He knew what he needed to say next, but the words caught in his throat. He forced them out.

"And never come back."

 

[WretchRoad]

Her fingers twitched, wanting to reach for him, to ask if it was all a cruel game, or a joke, because this Daniel was not the one who danced with her to old love songs in the livingroom, he couldn't possibly be the one who's affectionate touches stirred her heart all week long.

The urge came and went. Her fingers curled into fists.

She was eighteen years old, standing on the highway, terrified.

She was wiping tears from her eyes, watching Denise run out into the pasture toward the lifeless heaps in the grass.

She was right there, finally able to recognize that what she felt was love, unable to say it.

No more words came for fear of choking on them. Ash turned stiffly, and marched in the door, each step feeling like lead, like that day she first walked toward the truck.

She didn't question why he wanted her to take it, why he wanted her gone immediately. That would require words she just didn't have.

Every bit of strength went into holding back tears as she gathered her few belongings from Daniel's room, trying not to look at the bed they shared the night before. Trying not to think about how he took the one thing she was afraid of giving away — herself. And in return, all she had was the aching memory and the lingering smell of him on the shirt she was still wearing.

She tore it off, throwing it across the room.

Ash didn't have a driver's license and barely any money to her name, but that didn't matter. She needed to leave, to get away from that place as quickly as possible. She moved as though she could outrun the twisting pain in her chest, the feeling of being split in two.

She didn't look at him when she passed him by on the way to the truck, her backpack stuffed and slung over one shoulder. Her eyes glazed over, she watched the middle distance as she started the engine and forced it into gear. Hitting the gas, the truck lurched out of the garage and through the overgrown grass before peeling out and onto the dirt path. Away from him.

 

[Knightofsloth707]

Daniel held it together while Ash started up the truck, his face an impassive mask. She drove it down the long corridor of oaks, around the bend, and out of sight.

Then he was bent double, tears streaming down his face. He clutched his chest, his breath coming in heaving bursts. His insides felt like they were filled with broken glass.

Roland issued a confused whimper, his gaze switching between Daniel and the place where the truck had disappeared from sight.

Daniel tried to control his breathing through the pain. He stood upright, wiping his face on his shirt. With bleary eyes he walked inside.

He walked about the house, purposeless, wandering from room to room. He stumbled into the kitchen, his eyes fixing on the dishes still set on the table, adorned with their cold breakfast.

He was filled with a sudden rage. He grabbed the plate off the table, hurling it against the wall where it exploded, food and shards of ceramic flying in every direction.

An inarticulate growl issued from his throat as he launched a chair against the cabinets next, the sharp clattering echoing throughout the house.

Breathing hard, he stalked into the great room. The sight of the record player, where they had first danced together, shifted his unstable mood once again.

He sank into a chair, a hand draped over his eyes.

He had sent away the only woman he had ever loved, and broken her heart while he was at it. The look on her face as she'd marched away was burned into the back of his eyelids.

He stumbled to the liquor cabinet, pouring himself a tall glass of whiskey. The burning liquid joined the roiling knot in his gut.

He poured another.

 

[WretchRoad]

The trees whipped by as she barrelled down the old road, the ancient truck quaking over every bump and crack. She pressed down on the gas, wrenched the gear shift into third, then fourth. A thick cloud of dust followed in her wake.

The tears started as soon as he was out of the rearview and didn’t stop. They ran down her cheeks in fine rivulets, dripping off her chin and staining her shirt. Through bleary eyes she could barely make out the path ahead, not until a bright red sign flashed by.

The sound of a horn rose and fell.

She slammed on the brakes, the front of the truck coming to a halt as the back swung wide, fishtailing in a wide arc that burned rubber against the hot pavement.

Fists pounded the steering wheel. She screamed.

-

The pharmacy was a sterile, stark white so bright it hurt her eyes. It felt like a dreamspace after ten days on the old property, long enough she nearly forgot that places like that existed. Or maybe that was the dream and this was reality, hauling her back down to the world where she was alone, where she had nothing.

Ash wiped her eyes on her sleeve before she approached the counter. “I need plan B,” she said — the first cracked words that came from her lips since before Daniel told her to leave and never come back.

“How long has it been?” the elderly clerk asked, eyeing Ash over his glasses.

 

[Knightofsloth707]

His father sat in the chair across from him, an amused sneer on his face. Daniel raised his glass to his lips, taking a long pull of whiskey.

"Look at you. Sitting at my table. Drinking my whiskey. Did you really think you'd turn out any differently than me, boy?" Father said mockingly.

"I'm not like you," Daniel spat out. "I had the strength to do what you never could. She's gone. Safe."

His father leaned forward, his lips curled into a hideous grin. "Do you think you would have been safe from me if you'd left? That I wouldn't have hunted you to the ends of the earth?"

Daniel could only stare into his teeth.

"As soon as the moon comes out you'll change. You'll catch her scent and bolt into the night after her. As long as you live you'll never be free of me, and they'll never be free of you." His father sat back, looking triumphant.

He was right. As long as I'm alive they'll never be safe.

He knew what he had to do. He drained the last of his glass and stood up unsteadily. Shards of broken plate crunched beneath his shoes as he returned to the kitchen. He hauled Roland's food bag out into the great room and slit it open.

When he returned to the room carrying two large bowls of water Roland was there, standing at the edge of the room and looking at him curiously.

"This is the best I can do, buddy," Daniel said, sniffling back his tears. "The food should last you a while, and you know where the lake is for water."

He knelt and wrapped his arms around Roland, squeezing him tight one last time. He stood and ruffled the fur on Roland's head, propped the front door open, and headed upstairs.

Daniel went down the hallway in a haze, stopping outside the door to his parent's room. He fished a key from his pocket and unlocked the door for the first time in years.

The darkness of the room was broken up by the white dust covers thrown over the furniture. The large four-poster bed loomed at the far end of the room, draped in gauze curtains.

Daniel stepped inside, running his fingers over the hastily-plastered scratch marks in the wall. The wooden floor had been scrubbed, afterwards, but he imagined he could see where the bloodstains had been, the wood ever so slightly darker there - as if tainted in a way that could never be fully expunged.

His eyes surveyed the room, his gaze settling on the corner of the room where the wallpaper had been torn away to remove the buckshot and pieces of brain that had been propelled into the wall.

Mounted above the bed was the old double-barrelled breech loading shotgun - the same one mama had used to blow father to kingdom come.

Fitting. Like father, like son.

Reverently, he lowered the shotgun off the wall, the dark steel cold in his hands. He popped open the breech, draping the gun over his arm like a sport shooter.

The box of old shells was still in the drawer of the nightstand, and he took two, carefully loading them into the gun before snapping closed the breech.

He was standing in the same spot he'd been in where father had bitten him, and turned him into a monster.

 

[WretchRoad]

A black Honda SUV kicked up dirt along the byway as it passed under a billboard declaring “REPENT.” Rental documents sat on the passenger seat beside a man in a Caswell County sheriff’s jacket. His balding, chestnut hair was cut to a perfect curve around overlarge ears that blushed deep red.

“I’m tell’n ya, there’s nothing else down here. You sure she hasn’t moved on?”

A voice, low and resonant, came over the phone speaker. “You hear’n yourself, Wade? ‘Course I’m sure. No one’s seen her leave. And they would see her - all scrawled up and full of a dozen or more holes.”

“I’ve checked damn near, excuse me, reverend, near every property in this dang county. No one’s seen her, ‘cept that good samaritan. Wait…”

The vehicle slowed as it approached the dirt road leading off under an archway of old oaks, darkening into a hollow tunnel as the sun burned the horizon deep orange.

“There’s something just by where he said she got out, I’ll call you back.”

Wade ended the call and pulled on down the path.

-

Ash sat on the tailgate of the truck outside a Shell truck stop advertising hot food and paid showers. A square package sat open beside her, the extensive fine-printed instructions unfolded and laid out on her lap, lit up by the streetlight above.

“I’m gonna need some water or something…” she muttered to herself as she fidgeted with the package in one hand. She hopped off the tailgate, shoving the pills and instructions into her back pocket.

-

The SUV pulled along the property. Seeing the door open, Wade put the car in park and stepped out, eyeing up the old antebellum house. From there, his gaze dropped down to the fresh skid marks in the dirt leading to an empty garage.

“Might be no one’s home…” he mused, then climbed up the steps to peer inside. “Hello?” he called. “I’m with the Sheriff’s department. Anyone home?”

-

“Miss, are you gonna buy something?” the clerk called over to Ash, who was comparing prices on the lowest shelf in the fridge before finally settling on two cans of iced tea, figuring it was healthier than cola.

“Sure am,” she replied dryly, setting the cans next to the register , and, after a thought, tossed a pack of M&Ms along with them. “For dinner,” she added, then proceeded to count out quarters and crumpled dollar bills from her pocket.

The clerk sighed.

“Charity?” someone asked from behind the shelf of engine lubricants.

“None of that here,” the clerk quipped back. But Ash, she’d gone pale at the moon above. She tossed the rest of her change onto the counter and grabbed her things before making a beeline for the door.

“Charity Jones, as I live and breathe,” A rough hand landed on her shoulder. “I never thought I’d get to see you again. You know, Prudence talks about you all the time. Misses you”

It felt like the knife that had been stuck in her chest all day had suddenly and violently twisted. She turned around to face Wade Jr. — all dressed up in Caswell sheriff’s office browns. “Nice jacket, Junior,” she spat, “Did your daddy buy it for you?”

“He did, in fact,” Junior flashed a wide grin. “Bought a couple plane tickets for your daddy's friends, too.”

Ash didn’t need any more time to think, she flung a can at Junior’s face and dropped the rest, making a dash for the door.

 

[Knightofsloth707]

Daniel sat on the edge of the bed, looking absentmindedly at the deer his grandfather had painstakingly carved into the wooden stock. Despite its age, the shotgun was in good condition - the wood lacquered, and the metal clean and polished.

Daniel didn't know why that would matter, but he was glad of it. There would be something undignified about killing himself with a filthy gun. He placed the stock on the floor and lifted his chin onto the end of the barrel.

He took one deep breath and began reaching down for the trigger when he heard the unmistakable sound of tires on gravel.

She's come back.

He sprang to his feet, the shotgun forgotten in his hand as he marched downstairs. He hadn't quite decided what he would say to her by the time he reached the foyer. The silhouette stood outside the frame of his front door, its copper badge glinting in the sunlight.

Daniel paused midstep, then stowed the shotgun upright against a table before approaching the stranger.

The silhouette stepped back onto the porch, keeping several feet between them as Daniel exited the house.

Daniel looked over the balding officer, his crisp uniform a stark contrast to the whiskey and sweat-stained shirt that Daniel wore. Daniel stared at him, bleary-eyed, and said nothing.

The sheriff mounted his hands on his belt. "This your residence sir?"

The wheels, slowed by whiskey, turned in Daniel's head. Something about the man's accent was off.

"You ain't from around here, are you?" Daniel said, amplifying his own accent in contrast with the stranger.

The sheriff gave him a toothy smile - barely concealed violence in his eyes. He ignored Daniel's question.

"We're looking for a criminal. A girl. Late 20's. Tattooed. You seen anyone like that around here?"

It fell into place. Ash. Her father. The sheriff. Daniel's heart rate jumped, adrenaline flowing through his veins. He shifted his feet, trying to retain an outwardly calm appearance. He couldn't let him know that she had been here only hours ago.

"No," Daniel said slowly. "Can't say I have."

The sheriff took a step towards him. "Mind if I take a look around?"

Daniel looked at the man's badge. "Now, I've lived here a long time. Last I heard we ain't in Caswell County. See, Louisiana don't have counties. This here is St. James parish. I believe you're a bit out of your jurisdiction, officer," he said with deliberate insolence.

Daniel knew immediately that there would be violence. He could see it in the way the sheriff unhooked his thumbs from his belt, the way his hands flexed, and in the redness seeping into his face.

Daniel made a dash for the door, reaching inside for the shotgun. The sheriff grabbed him by the collar, pulling him backwards. They went tumbling to the porch.

Daniel elbowed the officer in the nose and stood just in time to receive a billy club to the nose. Daniel crumpled forward, holding his face. The officer tackled him onto the rotting floorboards, rolled him over, and held him down with a knee in his back while he slipped on the cuffs.

The sheriff hauled Daniel into a sitting position by his wrists, leaning him against a wine-wrapped column.

"Alright you son of a bitch," the sheriff said, his face inches from Daniel's. "Where is the girl?"

Blood ran down Daniels face and he gave the officer a crimson grin.

"Have it your way. I'll search this whole goddamn property if I have to."

Daniel looked at the twilight sky and laughed through blood-stained teeth. "You're running out of time, officer."

 

[WretchRoad]

“Fuck!” Junior’s grin disappeared in a swath of blood washing down from his forehead. “Little bitch,’ he rasped, and gave chase, bursting out the door right after her.

“You two!” he shouted at two men smoking behind a shiny silver Subaru, “That’s her!”

Ash broke into a sprint, slamming into the door of the truck, yanking it open and flinging herself inside.

The three men piled into the car. Headlights flared up, momentarily blinding her as she tried the engine, failing to turn over. “Fuck you Daniel. Fuck you…” she cursed under her breath as the truck wheezed with each turn of the key.

Headlights drew closer, then swerved in front of the truck, blocking her in.

The engine finally staggered to life, she threw the truck in reverse and hit the gas, pitching up over the curb and into oncoming traffic. A car screeched out of her way, wailing on the horn as she gunned it forward.

-

Wade ignored the threat, he’d heard all sorts before.

His phone rang.

“Wade? They found her, chasing her down in an old beater of a truck right…”

“Chasing her? You mean a car chase? Listen, Jed, we gotta involve the —”

“What did I say, Wade? This is family, we deal with our own. You can handle one girl, can’t ya, Wade?”

-

She didn’t want to go back, it was the last place she wanted to be. Not after what Daniel did to her, said to her. Was she just a novelty to him? No time to consider that. The part of her that wanted him to suffer was overridden by the part that knew he wouldn’t deserve what was coming, if they managed to track her to him.

At the same time — she considered she was leading them right to his doorstep.

“Fuck it,” she gritted through her teeth, and kicked down the gas pedal as the truck rattled around her in protest.

“Just get me there. Come on you stupid fucker, you can make it.”

Headlights blared bright in her rearview when she sped past “REPENT!”

The truck clanked and sputtered, a high whine pealing from the engine. She stomped on the gas, but she was slowing down. Wade Junior’s bloody face grinned all white teeth from the car’s passenger side window.

Ash struck the brakes, coming to a screeching halt at the edge of the brush. Abandoning her pack, she flew out of the truck and into the tangle of branches and moss.

Three voices shouted behind her, snapping and crashing through the woods. But she knew the paths, the way to the house.

Her breaths came hard, aching in her chest by the time she found the lake. She didn’t slow down. She skipped over rocks and low bushes, racing through the tall grass toward the house, unsure what to say, unsure if she’d be able to say anything at all.

That’s when she saw him, crumpled against the column, blood smeared over half his face.

She stopped dead in her tracks when she noticed the sheriff behind him.

 

[Knightofsloth707]

Daniel turned his head to follow the gaze of the sheriff. There was Ash, not 20 yards away, breathing hard in the fading light.

No, god no.

"Ash, get out of here! Run!" He shouted.

The sheriff started after her. Daniel threw his body into his legs, making him stumble for a moment. The sheriff planted a boot in Daniel's stomach. He let out a wheezing sputter and curled, involuntarily, into the fetal position.

Daniel's vision was spinning, his ears filled with the sound of rushing blood. He could hear shouting, yelling. Men's voices, and her unmistakable timbre. The one that had moaned his name as they made love.

He had to get up, to help her before it was too late, but when he tried to stand his legs failed him. He couldn't do more than lay on his side as blood pooled around his face.

 

[WretchRoad]

There was a momentary catharsis that image gave her. Him, bound and bloody.

But at his behest to run she wasn't sure what to think anymore, especially when he tried to stop Wade.

Gasping for air, her legs aching, running was a distant wish. She still tried to break for the thick woods again, just to see the three men appear from the path.

Wade just shook his head when he saw his son, paying his injury no further mind. The other two, a lanky red head around Asher's age and a barrel-chested older man, crept in slow, making a wide arc around her.

Her heart sank. It was the end. There was no where left to run. She lasted ten years with more freedom than she could have hoped for if she'd never left, but it was over. There were no more moves to make without earning more bruises for herself or Daniel.

Ash shrank by inches, her hands hanging at her sides. "Fine. You win," she wheezed. "Took you long enough."

Sheriff Wade came around behind her, giving her arms a sharp tug back before putting her wrists in cuffs. "Get it out of your system now, Charity. We'll see how much more you have to say to the judge."

"Like what?" she asked. "You mean, how my dad stole all that money and y'all are fucking fools to believe him?"

Her vision went blank as Wade's stiff hand caught her across the cheek, throwing her head to the side.