Бентли Литтл - The Disappearance

Reyn swung his lug wrench without pause, without thinking, an instinctive reaction accompanied by a terrible wail of pain and loss and rage and hate. The steel tool slammed into the back of the Homesteader’s head. With the force of such an impact, Gary would have expected the contents of the man’s skull to splatter outward. Instead, brain and blood overflowed like the yolk from a cracked egg, and the Homesteader fell onto his side, dead. His legs were still lying atop Stacy’s back, and Reyn, continuing to make that terrible sound, kicked them off her. He bent down, touched his fingers to her throat, pressed his ear against her cheek, but as much as he might hope and wish that she remained alive, she was dead, and he put his arms over her and hugged her awkwardly, sobbing.

The same thing might have happened to Joan, the same thing could be happening this very second, and without saying anything to Reyn, trusting that his friend would do what needed to be done despite his grief, Gary took off, keeping to the side of the dirt trail but following it forward. He held the flashlight in one hand, the tire iron in the other, prepared to encounter another Homesteader at any second and ready to attack first if he did.

He met no one on the way, and with the beam of his flashlight trained on the ground directly in front of him so as to illuminate pitfalls, he did not see the ranch house until he was almost upon it.

It was the sound of voices that alerted him, a chorus of chanting louder than his footfalls on the dirt that caused him to stop and look up. The canyon had broadened, and off to his right, past scattered trees, against a cliff so tall and dark that he could not see where in the night sky it ended, sat the ranch Reyn had told them about. There were three or four buildings, although they were little more than vague black smudges in the gloom. The middle one, however, had lights in its windows, dim, flickering lights generated by candle or lantern rather than electricity, and he assumed it was from here that the voices originated.

Still shining his flashlight on the ground so he would not trip over holes or rocks or roots, still holding tightly to his tire iron in case he should meet anyone on the way, Gary walked slowly forward toward the ranch, eventually finding a footpath that led between trees and over a dry creek bed to the buildings. As he drew closer, he could see the white cross that Reyn had described, gray in the darkness and taller than a man, painted on the rock wall directly above the ranch house.

No guards or sentries had been posted outside, as he’d feared, and Gary shut off his flashlight and hid for a moment behind the thin trunk of a polelike pine, trying to determine the safest approach. Through the curtainless window straight across from him, he could see a large space—what had probably been a living room once upon a time—and a group of silhouetted figures standing there holding hands. There were at least ten people in this prayer circle, he estimated, plus who knew how many in the building’s other rooms. Somewhere inside was Joan, he was sure, but at the moment he could think of no way to find her, let alone rescue her.

He was about to try sneaking around to the back of the house when, from down the trail behind him, from the way he had come, an explosion ripped through the night. He started, nearly dropping the flashlight, and turned, looking toward the source of the sound. He saw fire through the trees, bright, thin flames a half mile back that caused orange light to dance up the face of the opposite cliffside.

Reyn , he thought.

And smiled.

Joan vomited.

It was her best and only defense.

The door had closed behind Father—she could hear it, if not see it—and there was suddenly more light in the room. He had brought his own candle or lantern. She expected him to come around and confront her, but he did not, and in the silence of the room she heard the rustling of clothes, the sound of pants falling to the floor. She knew what he was doing, and her stomach knotted up with dread. Moments later, he presented himself. He was naked and aroused, and she was sickened by the sight of his body. He was old and decrepit, and his sagging chest and scarred, wrinkled skin revolted her.

How old was he? She’d tried to calculate his age while at the Home and determined that he had to be at least in his late eighties or early nineties, although when she’d told this to Mark and Rebekah, they’d both said with complete confidence that he was over two hundred years old. She’d considered that idea ridiculous at the time, more brainwashing propaganda, but the thought chilled her now. She would believe anything at this point, and her eyes focused on a scar near his right shoulder that looked like it might have come from an arrow.

He moved in front of her.

“You will bear me sons, Ruth. God has willed it.”

That was when she vomited.

The idea came to her spontaneously. In a quicksilver thought process focused solely on self-preservation, she recalled how germophobic Father had always seemed to her with his endless cleansing rituals and his insistence that others carry out his wishes, and simultaneously she remembered how as a child she’d been so squeamish that she could make herself throw up just by thinking of gross and disgusting things. Her brain put the two together, and as he approached her, she thought of excrement floating in milk.

And puked.

She turned her head to the side so she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit, but the spew only went so far and some of it flowed back into the indentation where she lay on the mattress. She felt a disgusting warm wetness against her cheek, smelled a horrible putrid stench and promptly threw up again.

Father stepped back, horrified, his erection gone, and though she could tell from the expression on his face that he wanted more than anything else to hit her and beat her and hurt her, to punish her, he could not. He was too repulsed, too afraid of contamination, and he gave her a wide berth as he walked back around the head of the bed and began putting his clothes back on. Joan could hear him gagging, trying not to throw up, which explained why he wasn’t lecturing her and railing against her, and several seconds later, he was out of the room, taking his light with him and slamming the door.

She flipped her head away from the part of the mattress on which she’d thrown up, and while that lessened the smell somewhat, or at least the immediacy of it, she could still feel the cooling puke on her shoulder and side, and the sour taste still filled her mouth. It was all she could do not to vomit again, though she doubted there was much left in her stomach to regurgitate.

She was safe for the moment, but she knew that Father would probably send someone else in here to clean her up, and then she would get it even worse. The self-preservation instinct never thought ahead or contemplated consequences, and she realized now that her actions could very well have hurt her in the long run.

Now that she considered it, though…

If they untied her in order to change the bedsheet and wipe her off, she might be able to get in a few licks, might be able to bite or kick or hit or even get away. She quickly thought about her options. She might have a chance here, and she needed to prepare herself to take it.

Unless Father didn’t send someone to clean her up, and punished her by making her suffer and lie in the puddle of her own drying vomit.

Or decided to kill her.

To hell with the consequences. She was glad she’d done what she had, and even if she ended up being beaten, raped or killed, she took great satisfaction in knowing that she had pierced Father’s implacable, arrogant armor. Just remembering the look of horror on his face, the sound of him gagging as he quickly put on his clothes, gave her a feeling of victory.