THE DOLL: Part 10

           I ditched the car at the airport and picked up a rental a work contact had checked out for me. We weren’t on the road very long when Crawford called. I pulled over to a rest area that was also a lookout point. The sign said it looked over a lake below, so I sent Kai out to look at it.

          “We’ll keep this short,” I said. “You’re probably trying to track me from the cell phone towers. There’s probably a GPS in the Mercedes.”

          “Clever,” he said. “I will find you. I will find you both.”

          “You might just find me.”

          “Why are you keeping him? If you want a Doll, I have hundreds you can have.”

          “I don’t want a Doll. And I am not keeping him.”

          “Meaning?”

         “If what you told Moore is true, then he will only have three more days to live.”

         “What do you want? More money?”

         “This isn’t about money anymore, Mr. Crawford. Actually, I don’t think it ever was.”

         “He isn’t yours,” he said. His voice was raised. I pictured him pounding a table with his fist. “You’d have him die to keep him from me?”

         “Actually, Mr. Crawford....” I said. There were many things I’d thought to say, all of them nothing more than a swipe at him. I looked over at Kai, his figure just a silhouette in the late afternoon sun. He was leaning over the railing, staring downwards attentively.

         “Yes, I would,” I said. “Good bye, Mr. Crawford.”

         I switched the phone off in the middle of his protest, pocketed it and walked out to stand next to Kai. He’d been gazing at a lake that had formed below. The platform where we stood formed a slight cliff overhang.

         I wound my arm around his shoulder and we stood there and watched the lake and the horizon until the sky became a palette of yellow and orange.



         It was past ten P.M. when we arrived at my cousin’s hunting cabin. The paint job on the rental was shot from the unlit, off road excursion. It was nestled in a thick patch of woods, next to a lake that had been the delineation of state and private property.

         I breathed a long sigh of relief when the electricity switched on. The cabin was dusty from months of disuse, but the furniture had been kept clean by the white linen thrown over them. Kai sat primly on a rocking chair in the corner and watched as I pulled the linen off and made a pile of it.

         I made a fire in the small stone fireplace. He came over and sat in front, his knees drawn up to his chest and watched the flame.

         “The water will take a couple of hours to heat,” I said. I dimmed the lights and sat down next to him. There wasn’t a requisite fireside fur rug. The hardwood floor was a bit hard on the ass.

         “You might cease to function in a few days,” I said.

         He said nothing. I took out the photo of Kana from my pants pocket. It was the only thing I had snatched from the floor of the bedroom before I made my exit via the fire escape. I would have forgotten about it if it weren’t for the unforgiving floor crushing it in the seat of my pants.

         “What do you feel?” I asked, unfolding the photo and giving it to him. He didn’t take it immediately.

         “I don’t know,” he spoke the expected answer. He took the photo from me then and looked at it.

         For a while, neither of us spoke. The fire crackled and our shadows flickered behind us. He leaned into me until his head was resting against my arm.

         “Mama,” he said softly.

         The bottom of my stomach dropped out.

         “That was what he called her,” he said.

         “Who?”

         “My first Papa,” he said. “Long, long time ago.”

         “Tell me about him.”

         He held up the creased photo and regarded it for a moment. “I had a silver music box with this picture in it. He would wind it for me when he came to my room and open it so I could look at the picture. He said that was Mama. I mustn’t forget Mama.”

         He lowered his arm and let the photo tumble from his fingers.

         “Sometimes I forget Mama. Sometimes I forget Papa.”
        
         “Sometimes you remember,” I said and stroked his hair.

         “Sometimes,” he said.

         I glanced over and there were rivulets of tears streaming down his face, yet there was no discernable change in his expression. His eyes still stared straight ahead although tears kept falling from them.

         “You don’t have to hurt anymore,” I said.

         He blinked and looked over at me. I took his face in my hands.

         “I have to ask you for your forgiveness,” I said. “You don’t have to give it. I can only hope you will.”

         I kissed him on the mouth.

         “I am as selfish and guilty as those who wanted you to live. I am allowing you to die for the same reason.”

         He smiled. More tears streamed down.

         “I am happy,” he said. “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

         “Please forgive me.”

         He nodded, the smile on his face remained. I held him to me, pressing the side of his face against my chest so he couldn’t see mine.

         “Forgive me.”




         The day was just breaking when my cell rang. It was horrendously loud and echoed in the empty cabin, but Kai remained asleep, even as I untangled his arm and leg from me. The fire was dying with the smallest flame still eating away at an ashen log. I crawled out of the blanket I shared with Kai and toward the phone I had left charging in an outlet in the wall.

         “It’s me,” Pete said even before I acknowledged him. “You have to get the fuck out of there.”

         “English this time?”

         I started to gather my discarded clothing that had been randomly tossed about the room and dressed. It was more because of the bitter cold than modesty.

         “A very big bounty was posted on you and your fucking cousin called it in. The shit probably knew you were running and offered his place for you to hide out.”

         “Thanksgiving this year’ll be a little awkward.”

         “They’re on their way, if not already there. Get the hell out.”

         “Thanks.”

         I woke Kai up and told him to dress. I looked out of the window and saw nothing unusual. The rental was still parked where I’d left it. There were no plumes of dust coming from the sole dirt track that led to the cabin. But then, that would mean we would need to be on the road to make our exit. There would be nowhere to go, if we met on the road.

         “Shit,” I said and slipped on the shoulder holster. I didn’t put on my jacket.

         I started the car and let the engine warm up. I called for Kai and he appeared moments later. He asked no questions and slipped into the passenger side of the car. I had only turned the car around when I heard it, the sounds of tires crunching the rocks and branches as they made their way down the dirt path. They were driving slowly and the only thing I could see through the trees was the exhaust that wafted through.

         I gestured for Kai to get out of the car. I seized him by the wrist and we ran into the woods behind the cabin. I had only been to the cabin twice, but I was two times more familiar with the terrain than Crawford’s flunkies. Not that it was a great advantage. The sun had not risen completely and the untrodden path with tall grass and vines and fallen branches slowed our movement considerably. I pulled him along, only a step behind me.

         Don’t stop or you will lose him like Orpheus lost Eurydice.

         I would have smiled at the ridiculous analogy, if I weren’t so annoyed with the thorns and branches that scratched and ripped at my shirt and jeans. I regretted not wearing my jacket.

         “Are you ok?” I asked him. I cast a glance back quickly, but I couldn’t see him well.

         “Yes,” he said. His voice reflected neither stress nor concern. Indifferent. As if we were on a brisk walk.

         “There is RV parking straight ahead. Not far,” I said to him, and as I said it, I realized that the lot would be empty. It was off season and there would be no campers. The highway was a quarter of a mile from the lot. Traffic would be scarce for the area and location, but that was all we had.

         At that moment I made a mental decision to make a visit to Cousin Thomas a priority if I ever got out of this situation alive.

          There were the sounds of people shouting from the cabin we had left behind. I could not tell if they had followed. More daylight had broken through the clusters of trees above. I couldn’t tell how long we had been wading through the vegetation, but we could finally see the dirt clearing up ahead.

         “How are you doing?” I asked and glanced back. I could see his face now. There were small cuts on his cheeks and his shirt had small tears. He blinked and nodded.

         “Are you tired?”

         He shook his head.

         “Good boy,” I said. We emerged and stepped out of the foliage. The ground was solid and flat again.

         “We have a ways to go,” I said to him and wiped the streaks of blood from his cheeks with my thumbs. “Are you up to it?”

         He tilted his head and looked at my arms. I rubbed at the cuts and grinned. “I’m fine.”

         “Why are we running from Papa?” he suddenly asked.

         “Papa?”

         “He is there,” he said and gestured toward the direction where we had come from.

         Crawford.
 

          In the brief moment of silence, broken only by the gentle caws of a crow in the distance, I heard them coming; the sound of the rumbling engines in the distance coming down the road that led to the lot, sounds of branches snapping and foliage rustling where we had been. We could disappear into the woods again but that would only delay the inevitable and perhaps give time for Crawford’s men to collect their resources.

         “I can’t let you go back to Papa,” I said to him. “Do you understand why?”

         He said nothing for a moment and then he smiled.

         “Yes.”

         I clicked off the safety on the Beretta and pressed it against his midsection. My vision blurred for a moment and I blinked until it cleared. I wound my left arm around him and held him to me. He looped his arm around my waist, so tight that I knew the gun barrel was pressing against his rib cage, hurting him.

         “Forgive me,” I said and pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession.

         The heat of his blood wet my chest and his arms loosened. I held him against me until his arms fell to his sides and I was carrying his weight. I sank down to my knees with his body still pressing against me. I held him until three Mercedes drove up and surrounded me. Several men spilled out of it, their guns and shotguns drawn. Crawford emerged from the backseat of one of the cars. For a long time, no one said anything or moved. Then the men who had waded through the woods appeared behind me. I didn’t have to look to know they were armed as well.

         Crawford walked up and stopped a few feet away. His eyes were rimmed in red. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or if he was trying not to cry.

         “He didn’t have to die,” he said.

         “He died in his mother’s womb.”

         He walked up closer and when he was within an arm’s reach from me, he pulled a Ruger out of his pocket. He pressed it against my forehead.

         “Is it worth it? To lose everything to this thing?”

         “You and I both did, the moment we met him.”

         His hands shook and I saw the pad of his finger move back slightly. Then he pulled the pistol back. There were tears now, flowing down one side of his face. The long silence was tangible. I waited for the impact of the bullet to rip through my head. The wait was worse than imagining the nothingness that would follow.

         “Then you will live and suffer like me,” he said and dropped the arm that held the gun. His voice was strained, almost growling as he spoke.

         He turned and strode back to the car. He said something to the man with the shotgun that stood by the Mercedes he later ducked into. The man handed his shotgun to the driver and came toward me. His thin lips were pulled tight in a grimace when he stopped a step away.

         “Let’s make this easy, pal,” he said and pulled Kai’s body from my arms. The body hung limply, arms spread, head tilted back at an odd angle. Splatters of blood had already stained the man’s white dress shirt, thick drips dotting the path from me to the Mercedes where Crawford had disappeared.

         The wetness against my shirt had cooled. I was only vaguely aware of the cold, even though I was shivering. Then I was alone--left with the coppery scent of fresh blood that was strong in the crisp morning air.

         And that scent was my only memory of the Doll.

ALTERNATE ENDING

Writer's Note: Thank you for reading! This piece had been something that lingered with me for almost 10 years before I finally finished it.  The first 6 chapters were written in span of 1 year when I wrote for exercises, more than anything, back in 1999.  It was put aside and occasionally looked at and a few paragraphs added over years until it finished about a year ago.  So, the beginning might have some unpolished feel to it. 

This chapter was suppose to be the original ending.  Lynch who had spared the Doll whom he had regarded as human by giving him a respectful death.  And that the death was given out of love and respect.  However, my friends and beta-readers who had read this were very unhappy with it.  More of, it left them feeling empty although they understood why I wrote the ending that way. 

AND SO .... I did write alternate ending .  As well as another chapter after that, that brought to light what became of Lynch and Kai.  It also opened up new ideas for me to write other similar DOLL stories (in the way that objects we glorify or idealize may antagonize the very part of ourselves we are trying to appease).  I promise there will be more H in those!! 

Thanks again!! 

~K. Neko

All content copyright © 2011 TogaQ/Kichiku Neko unless otherwise noted.