The factory had been empty for as long as they could recall. It stood on crumbling ground just a few meters higher than the surrounding marsh. Rumor had it that in its heyday, the daily sewage had strewn moat-like into the tributary.
Now fall leaves coated the earthen causeway in a slick sheet offering a nose of acrid decay. They were careful to skirt the edges for fear of spiraling into the chilled shallows. The walkway extended from the city limits to the factory grounds surrounded on both sides by an abandoned and still flume. No more were the deep grooves of bygone carriage tracks as they marched silently down the crowned path.
Their hands occasionally brushed due to the forced proximity but they excused it in passing. The tension of their impeding malintent supplanted any desires for small talk. A nervous cough here and there peppered their walk. Occasionally the faded red plastic tank he held in his left hand brushed her thigh, expelling gasses from the air vent spastically. This marked the first time they had taken this trip together. The day of the incident she had been on night shift at the hospital, so she had arrived first. Now they replayed their separate haunted journeys over again.
She stops short and drops to one knee. Her eyes clinch shut. “I can’t…I just can’t go back inside.” The wind whips up off the flume and stirs her hair. Brian noticed it growing thinner and more tousled with each day. He takes a knee, setting the tank down, the weight crunching the dry field grass.
“Bea. We agreed that no matter how difficult this was, we would see it through. Think about how it will feel when it’s done. We owe it to her. Hell, we owe it to every kid in this godforsaken town. Once it’s done, we will go. Start a new life out west. We’ve already discussed this.” He pauses for a moment and upon receiving no reaction stands impatiently. Turning away from her, his eyes fall to his shoes. “I’m going. You can stay here if you like.”
Brian bends to clasp the tanks handle but her hand clamps down preventing the hoist. “Look in my eyes. Brian. Please.” He complies. “Look and tell me we’re doing the right thing. Nothing we do will bring her back. He’s headed to eternal damnation. This seems an unnecessary risk and pain. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You are wrong Bea. I won’t ever be able to live in this town and I won’t be able to leave until this is done. I remember you being stronger when we first met, your belly full of fire.” The gaze is broken as she nods a tearful consent. From the low marsh fog a heron takes flight and serenades them with its prehistoric croon.
She forces a smile, the upturned corners of her lips funneling and merging her tears. “Sarah always was mystified when she heard that sound. Said she proved the dinosaurs were still alive. In a way she wasn’t wrong…”
It is his turn to well up with sorrow, but he quells it and lifts the tank with sudden violence. “C’mon. It’s getting too close to sundown for my liking.” Bea pauses and rises after a moment, a shiver retching her body.
She had been with a patient when the ER front desk attendant rapped on the exam room door. Annoyed by the disturbance she apologized to the patient, who was suffering from an apparent innocuous rash, and answered the door.
“Can’t this wait? I’ve only had a few moments with him”
The attendant swallowed and delivered the lightly practiced lines as concise as she could. “The sheriff is on the line for you Bea. I don’t think this can wait, it has something to do with Sarah.” In a setting where chaos and muddled thinking could ruin a shift or a life, Bea answered monotone.
“Which line?”
The next few hours of her life she would never fully remember or comprehend. The sheriff was exceedingly demure and cryptic with his instructions. She repeatedly asked him what was the matter and how it related to Sarah. His response was that she needed to come down to the station immediately, but that it was only precautionary. Bea’s profession afforded her an ability to read people and she read through his orchestrated calm.
Her first instinct was to call Sarah’s cell. It went immediately to her voicemail. A sinking feeling started to emanate deep from her bowels and her ears began to burn a shade of cherry. She hung up and dialed Brian. He would still be in bed at this early hour; it was merely four in the morning. His cell rang the requisite number of times and she left a curt message instructing him to call her back.
After arranging someone to tend to the rash patient, she took off in her car still in scrubs. Bea found the station bustling for a small midwestern metropolis given the hour.
“Where’s the sheriff?” A paper pusher eyed her for a moment before flicking his head towards a large office in the rear of the building. Her steps slowed as she crossed the station floor.
He appeared calm, almost detached. “Mrs. Ellis. Sit down please. I called you down here because we need you to identify a body.” She didn’t flinch. “We think it could be Sarah. We found a car fitting her registered description abandoned with signs of a struggle near the old sugar refinery south of town. The body was later discovered on the main floor inside the building. We believe someone or multiple people took her there against her will and killed her. We’re going to need you to come with us to the scene and ID her; again we are not sure if this is your daughter until you confirm or deny. I am sorry for having to deliver this news to you either way.”
“Well it can’t be Sarah. She was in bed when I left for my shift and we keep a tight curfew. There’s no way. Someone, someone could have stolen her car. Should I file a report, I mean –”
“Mrs. Ellis, that won’t be necessary right now. If the ID is negative and you believe the car to have been stolen, we will deal with that then. Please, come with me now. The sooner we accomplish this, the better chance we have of catching who did it and we need to rule out Sarah’s name to move down our list.” He knew her current state would render her cooperative but only momentarily. Denial was a powerful perspective and when channeled correctly could embolden a suspect or witness to supremely horrid ends, or in this case, tasks. He dared not lessen its intensity with tedious details such as the VIN being a direct match with the Ellis’ registration or that her ID had been found on her person.
He rose and gestured for Bea to do the same. She complied and discovered her legs unusually wobbly under her. Balancing on her chairs arm, she took a few deep breaths and composed herself. She had a few little tricks for dealing with car crash victims in the ER and she ran through them. Stare at a distant object – his criminal justice degree. Ok, now read a few lines. Shift your weight in your shoes. Last deep breath, but catch it on the way out. Empty the mind of emotion or sympathy.
“Please Mrs. Ellis, we really need to go. I’ll meet you out front in my squad car. Get in the back please.”
The ride was held in silence. Only the creaking of tired shocks as the car meandered down the uneven earthen causeway. The sheriff elected to skip stopping at the car, as it would only render Bea hysterical. His men had cordoned off the front door with yellow tape and planted white flood lamps about the ground floor, their beams angled down at the concrete.
“Bea, please follow me.” She hesitated. “M’am you’re a nurse right?” She nodded meekly. “Well you know how this works then. You do it slow and the pain drags on. You do it quick and the patient never knew what happened. Same thing here. C’mon. There ya go.”
The funeral took place several days after. Brian had eventually woken and headed to the crime scene. He found his wife on the ground, unable to stand and his daughter slain on the dirty concrete floor. Her head was bloodied in a roundabout fashion, lending her brow a Christ like appearance. The police established there was only one perpetrator and they had used a pipe wrench to take her life.
Life for the Ellis’ went on. They gave statements, made arrangements, and grieved. Eventually they deduced that Sarah had snuck out past curfew in her car and somehow was lured to the outskirts of town by someone she knew and trusted. Confirming their suspicion, an older man was arrested weeks later. He promptly confessed to having been involved with Sarah for several months and that he killed her out of suspected infidelity.
The seasons changed and their daily lives became more bearable. They still wept spontaneously when they absentmindedly laid out an extra dinner place setting or awoke from a pleasant dream which featured her. The older man was convicted, sentenced to death and executed several years after the incident. Armed with a slight sense of vindication, they continued to progress towards a normal life, albeit one featuring weekly therapy and a steady stream of antidepressants. One morning, Bea refused to rise for her shift.
“I think we should burn it down.” She waited for a response - anything would have been comforting.
“What are you saying?”
“You know what I am saying. We’ll burn it down and move west near my sister. They’ll never trace it back to us and even if they do, do you even care? We’d get some lenience after what we’ve been through. The place is a death trap waiting to happen again. Besides, I’ve been having too many dreams about it lately…. I know you have too. I feel it when you jerk around in your sleep.”
The notion was preposterous to Brian at first, but as they lingered in bed it grew on him. They talked about how they’d buy a plot of land in the Dakotas, as it was cheap, and build a log cabin themselves. Being so close to her sister would help them ease back into a normal social life and get them out of their hermit like existence. She would take a job at the regional hospital and maybe, maybe one day they’d feel good enough to start a family again. These notions became interlaced with the act. It would force them to flee to start this new life and in doing so make their future. A phoenix rising from smoldering ashes.
The rest of the walk is measured. The sun cuts long shadows of the refinery stacks, imposing them on the glassy water. They hesitate on the threshold of the entrance and it is Bea that leads them inside. Gone is the tape and caged fluorescent lamps; they go about their business by natural light streaming from the high placed windows. Brian douses the gas liberally as Bea strolls the floor impatiently, her wanderlust ready to ignite simultaneously with the fire. Leaving a trail to light, Brian pauses before striking the match.
“Any last words?” he addresses no one in particular.
“Yea,” Bea answers. “To hear the awful words ‘earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ as they fall upon our bruised and broken hearts like the clods that fall upon the casket below; that seems like appalling failure. But God’s triumph is always in resurrection. Book of Revelation. Burn it Brian, burn the motherfucker.”
The match is cast. They sprint away hand in hand up the causeway. The inferno accelerates behind them, propelling them onward.
