The Devil's Grip: The Curse of Stone Falls Page 4

  She was alone.

  Textile Avenue

  “It stinks in here!” Tracy said.

  “What did you expect? It’s an abandoned factory. Duh!” Her boyfriend for eight months said with a quick shrug. Brad wasn’t a high school dropout, but he wasn’t a college student either. He didn’t know what he was, an ex-jock trying to find his mark in a fast-changing world. He had his looks going for him, green eyes, curly blondish hair too long for a job interview, a strong jaw line, and broad shoulders. His outfit was not as radical as Tracy’s, but he still liked the jeans-black combat boots-black leather jacket combo.

  Their flashlight beams swept through a large room with tall windows. The moon shone on sewing tables, large spools of thread, and over-turned chairs under a thick layer of dust. Even in January, the night wasn’t particularly cold.

  “That’s just nuts. Some people worked here, and now it’s all left out,” Tracy said.

  “Yup.”

  A small section of the roof was caved in near the corner of the room.

  “I hope this place isn’t gonna come down on us,” she added, her flashlight directed at rusty metal beams and corrugated metal roofing hanging from the ceiling. Her black boots crunched broken glass littering the floor.

  They entered a smaller storage room with racks of dusty coats.

  “Watch the floor, it’s all rotted up,” Brad said, shining his light on the wooden flooring.

  “Do you need a broom?” She asked looking at one against the wall.

  “I’ll be fine, thanks.”

  “Would be fine to clean your hole of a room!” Tracy taunted.

  “My room might be a mess, but you don’t mind hanging out there when my folks are gone!”

  “Whatev–”

  A noise resonated at a distance.

  “What was that?” Tracy asked.

  “The hell should I know.”

  They both stayed quiet for a moment. The deserted building was utterly quiet.

  Tracy could feel her chest hardly rising and falling to the rhythm of her shallow respirations. She looked at her boyfriend with a quick upward nod.

  He shrugged, “I dunno. Maybe it’s the spirit of the dead workers haunting the factory.” He shone the flashlight on his face.

  “You’re an idiot!” she said with an amused smile.

  They entered another room with concrete flooring and an old generator beneath the moonlight. Piping ran in and out of the walls toward small compressed gas tanks. Short stairs without guardrails traveled onto a small loading dock with a closed metal rolling door.

  They sat in the middle of the steps. Brad opened a backpack and pulled out two cans of beer. “I say. We cheer to celebrate the memory of the poor bastards who worked here.”

  “Amen to that!”

  “And to the ghosts haunting this place!” he added with a guttural laugh.

  “Dude, you’re not funny,” she hit him on the arm with the back of her hand.

  They cheered, drank a few gulps, and kissed.

  “But,” he paused for an instant, “this evening wouldn’t be any good without our little friend over here…” Brad pulled a rolled-up cigarette.

  “Nice. Hi there…” she petted the joint.

  A nearby cracking sound.

  “What was that?” Tracy stood and looked around her.

  “Who cares? I dunno, it’s Casper for what I care. Stop being so jumpy. It’s a flipping old factory. What do you expect? If you’re scared, we can bail.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  “Then stop wetting your pants!”

  “You can be a real jerk sometimes. I’m not wetting my pants.”

  “Then act like it. It’s just a noise, could be a rat, who knows.”

  “A rat?”

  He rolled his eyes, “No, course not, it’s a cute li’l squirrel. How about that? It went to get some nuts for his li’l wifey and baby squirrel.” He caressed her thigh over black jeans. “Nah, you feeling better now?” He kissed her and sipped his beer. His hand touched her stomach. He moved back to take a better look at her. “It’s going to get toasty in here real quick–”

  “You got that right!” A loud voice came from behind them. Three hooded boys with baggy pants passed the door walking toward them.

  Brad swung his flashlight in their direction. They hardly looked old enough to be seniors in high school.

  “Oh, come on, talk about a crummy evening,” Brad muttered.

  “What are you two doing at our mill?”

  “Your mill? Says who?” Brad asked standing up.

  “Says me,” the boy in the middle of the small group said. A silver chain hung from the top of his jeans. “But, hey, that’s cool. We don’t mind guests, especially when there’s a beautiful girl. We like to get cozy.”

  His two friends stopped a few feet away from them. The middle one with the chain, the leader Brad assumed, walked closer.

  “Wait a minute, I know you,” the leader said looking at Tracy. “I’ve seen you by the school. Yeah, your younger sister is a senior.” He paused for an instant and turned to Brad. “Why don’t you take a hike so we can spend some quality time with your girl?”

  Brad pulled out a switch-blade knife and flipped it open. “Why don’t you and your little buddies get out of here before things get out of hand?”

  The other two boys stepped back.

  Tracy gasped.

  “Wow, we don’t have to get so excited. Relax, we want to be friendly, that’s all, bro.” His shoulders rose up and down as he spoke.

  “Sure, why don’t you and your girlfriends turn around and get out of here before I spill your guts on the concrete. How about that?” Brad kept the knife low, pointed toward the leader’s stomach.

  “You know, it ain’t the first time somebody showed me a blade.”

  “Yeah, but it might be the first time you get one in your guts.”

  “I’m shaking now. Wait,” he said pretending to sniff around, “isn’t that weed that I’m smelling?”

  “Maybe,” Tracy said.

  The leader looked back at his friends for an instant, “Look, boys, she can talk!”

  They both snarled.

  “See, friend, you have your pocket knife, I have my piece.” The leader took a small pistol out of his pocket. “You might poke a hole in my stomach, but I’m gonna drill one through your brain. Then we’re gonna take care of the prom queen. How about that?”

  Fear spread through Tracy’s eyes.

  A powerful light coming from the outside crossed through the room.

  “What the hell?” The leader said out loud.

  A quiet engine went by. A car stopped. A door opened, then closed. Another one opened.

  Without a sound, all of them gazed at a small window between the rolling gate and an ajar metal door. A dog barked nearby, and another strong light jerked on the wet pavement outside.

  “Cops!” The leader yelled. He pointed an aggressive index finger toward Brad, “You watch your back, buddy. I’ll be there one of these days.” He turned around and bolted toward the opposite door.

  “I say we do the same! Let’s go over there!” They both ran back into the large sewing room.

  “Who’s in there?” the officer shouted from outside. “Stone Falls Police with K9! STOP or you will be bit!”

  The dusty work stations flew by with old lamps and broken chairs. Tracy was running away from the police, out of breath, and blindly following her boyfriend through the dark rooms. She was not having the rush she thought she would have. Those three guys, what could have happened? That cop, the barking dog echoing in the abandoned factory, what was she doing in there?

  “This way,” Brad said in a muffled command. He took her hand and pushed open an emergency door. They landed on a large loading dock.

  They stopped for an instant and listened. Far away, a slow freight train was passing by in a distant rumbling. In incontrollable barks of excitement, the police dog was doing his search through t
he abandoned factory. Who knew if he would go for the three thugs or for them? Brad didn’t know, but he knew they couldn’t stay there. “Let’s get out of here,” he told Tracy only loud enough for her to hear.

  They ran down a few steps. They turned around the corner of the building and faced a police cruiser with spotlights shining on them.

  Downtown

  “GET ON THE GROUND!” An officer ordered through the cruiser’s speaker.

  They both froze.

  “GET ON THE GROUND!!” The voice repeated in a pressing command.

  They did, lying face down on the cold and wet concrete.

  The officer stepped out of his car, gun in hand, and stayed behind the opened door. He picked up his radio and said something inaudible.

  What he said didn’t really matter to Tracy. He was arresting his crooks for the evening. He was meeting his quota. He was happy. His boss would probably pat him on the back and give him a raise in another dozen arrests.

  She had become the official shame of the family. Before it was in the air, hardly palpable, now, it was on the table. There wouldn’t be any more doubts about that one. Jessica was the sweet angel; she was the rebellious thug.

  What happened next was routine for the police, but it was a first for her, a hard knee on her back, the stupid dog barking next to her ear, cuffs slashing through her wrists.

  Brad and Tracy didn’t speak on the way to the station. What was there to say anyway? How’s your evening going? Talk about a romantic outing, huh? First, a great date in a dirty mill, then a close encounter of the rape kind, then, the grand finale, the arrest for trespassing. Wait. She wasn’t even there yet, she wasn’t even close. The big ta-da would come with the phone call to her family, or what was left of it.

  Jessica was out of the release equation to bail her out. Dad was on his xth business trip (that’s what happens to tire salesmen, two weeks on the road, few days at home, and repeat the cycle). Mother was the only one left, like she did not have enough work in the hospital (compliments of being a nurse in an ICU).

  Thinking of Jessica, the sister meant only one thing: church. And to top it off, that hole came with a collection of bored-out-of-their-narrow-minded well-wishing worshippers. That would give them something to gossip about for the next six months. Nah, let’s give it a year. She was already uncomfortable in there. She was, or at least she felt she was, labelled as the weird sister, the strange one who only came out at night like a stupid bat, or an owl, or whatever night-flying thing that was smart enough not to smack themselves on a window.

  The call home was the most painful part of the evening. Any parent knows that a call in the middle of the night is worse than getting one from the IRS.

  She did. Her sleepy mother picked up. Tracy said the very worst possible thing to say. There was no beating around the bush about it: “Mom, I’m in jail.” It only took five seconds flat before she started crying. That was right after the awkward silence which brought another low point to the night, like it was even possible.

  Her private quarters were bare, a narrow metal bench and a stainless steel toilet bolted to a white-brick wall. The local police officers were not known for their decorating skills. She sat in the small six-by-eight holding cell by herself for a few hours. Once in a while, a uniform walked by without paying attention to her. She was another piece of meat in the slammer on a Friday evening.

  She didn’t sleep. Not for lack of fatigue, not even because the bedding was uncomfortable, but because of her plain and simple current situation, obviously. She didn’t know what would happen to her. How long would she even stay in here? She was booked for trespassing and evading an officer. Trespassing and running away from the police! Really? Trespassing where? In an old abandoned mill that nobody cares about. The owner had probably put a bullet through his brain after his business had shut down anyway. So why did they care? And running away from a cop? It would have worked if only they had known that his little buddy was waiting on the other side of the building. Sneaky bastards.

  The long-term effect of her arrest was worse than her current discomfort, the shame in school, in church, and her mom would go on a field trip with that one. Tracy had just signed up for a lifetime contract of guilt trips and comparisons to Jessica. If only you could be like your sister… Tracy knew; she had heard that one a million times already.

  What would happen to her when she’d try to find a job? Time in the joint did not look so good on a résumé for extracurricular activities. So… tell us about yourself? How did you like jail? When do you plan to go back?

  Tracy buried her head in her hands.

  The cell door opened. “You can get out,” an older officer said.

  She walked out of her cage in the early morning hours Saturday. It was only Saturday morning, but she felt that Friday was a month ago. She was dirty from lying on the ground. Her black pants and jacket were stained. Her flat hair was ruffled from sleeping on the bench, and she had beer-tinted morning breath. What a nice spectacle for Mommy waiting in the lobby.

  “Your father had to call Chief Burns at his home. They were in high school together. He told the captain on duty what happened, and he decided to let you loose. This is the first and last time this happens. Do you understand me?”

  Tracy nodded.

  “If I ever get a phone call like this again, I will let you rot in there,” her mother, a carbon copy of Jessica with darker blond hair and tired blue eyes, said.

  “What about Brad?”

  Her mother glared at her without answering.

  The drive back home was punctuated with one statement, which was probably worse than staying in jail. “From now on, you will meet better people than that Brad of yours. When your sister goes to church, you will go with her. If she goes to help out with the Cubbies, you go to help out. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes…”

  “Yes who?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  She parked the car in the driveway and stepped out without another word.

  Tracy left her seat. The weight of the world–or at least the neighborhood–was on her shoulders. She had been arrested by the police and let loose by a family friend. How much worse could it get? She could have stayed in jail.

  She didn’t know where she was going. She was drifting while little sister was a role model. With her luck, by twenty-one, Jessica would be feeding the starving children in Africa. She would retire in a monastery in Tibet, or what would be left of it once the Chinese government finished taking over.

  Mother disappeared into her bedroom upstairs.

  Jessica was sitting at the small kitchen counter in front of a bowl of cereal.

  Tracy glanced at her without a word. Her eyes swept the room in a slow and reassuring motion. Every little object had a past, whether it was a picture frame, a small trinket, a souvenir from a trip, or a dream catcher hanging on a wall. Even the television was full of memories in itself, with the movie nights or even when she had gone to purchase it with her father. The after-arrest world had not changed that much after all.

  Tracy looked back at her younger sister. “That could have been worse.”

  “Go tell that to Mom,” Jessica said with a muffled voice.

  “I’ll pass on it.” She sat at the counter beside her.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know, Brad for example, going to hang out in an abandoned building, drinking, smoking, all of it.”

  “I appreciate your concern, sister, but I’m not going to change my life because some cop tried to arrest me.”

  “He did arrest you.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m here, happy and free.”

  “I worry about you.”

  “You worry about everybody.”

  Jessica didn’t comment.

  “Do me a favor, let me be. I’ll be fine.”

  House Call

  The ambulance was idling in a dull complaint. Every few seconds the windshield
wipers went away from their nest and flew back to their original position to clean the fine morning mist.

  Alex and Ben were quiet. There was nothing to talk about, no interesting calls, no memorable outing (even on Ben’s side), no company policy to complain about, not even the Super Bowl still a few days away.

  They crawled down Alder Street in the older part of town. Today, thanks to a city council conscious effort, Main Street and its immediate surroundings still maintain their 1950’s glory. The city beautification policies had brought in well-needed extra funding during the winter with the skiers on the way to the resorts, and during the summer with the campers inclined to stay in town for a day after roughing it in the woods.

  A medium-set construction worker was holding a stop sign to control an alternating traffic pattern. Behind him, a plethora of graders and road-work equipment were repaving the narrow street in a rumble of bulldozer tracks, and jack-hammers.

  First in front of a short line of waiting vehicles, the ambulance pulled beside him. Alex rolled down his window. “How long before you guys are done repaving?”

  “Give it a few days. By Friday, tops, we’ll be done,” The early-twenties workers said. “You guys have been busy?”

  Alex rested his elbow on the window seal. “Not really, you know, the everyday routine, this town is usually pretty slow.”

  “That’s the way we like it!” The young man chuckled, his brown eyes with a tad of green lit up. He looked more like a runway model with a narrow nose, fine eyebrows, and short light brown hair, than a man constantly exposed to the weather.

  “I’m Alex, by the way. This is Ben.”

  “I’m Todd.”

  Alex shook his hand. Ben quickly waved a couple of fingers from the driver seat.

  “I’ll set you guys free,” the young man said. He picked up his radio and called the flagman on the other side of the site.

  “I appreciate it. Stay warm!”

  “You guys be safe out there!”

  “Will do!”