Lineage Page 4

  The night was sharp with the cold bite of brisk wind and the clarity of the fall sky. The three-quarters moon shone down on them as they hurried across the rough gravel drive, which sloped away from the house, splitting the wide fields like a brown river, and out onto the paved county road a quarter mile away. Dead leaves danced and skittered across the drive, and Lance looked nervously over at his father’s 1970 Chevy pickup, the smashed right headlight black like a pierced eye that stared blankly ahead. He wondered if his mother had done something, before she woke him, to disable the vehicle to try to slow his father if he woke and tried to follow them.

  Without any more thought about the strategy of their getaway, Lance did exactly as he had been told and went without pause to the driver’s-side door. He had never sat in the driver’s position, much less steered a vehicle. He opened the door and pulled himself into the seat. His mother placed the two suitcases behind him without a sound and leaned on the rear door until it latched. She then came to his side and reached across his slight form to place the keys in the ignition. After turning them only one click, she pulled the shift lever down so that the arrow on the dashboard pointed to the dark letter N.

  “It’s going to be hard steering, okay? Just keep it in the middle of the driveway and we’ll be fine.” She stared deeply into her son’s frightened eyes, and tears welled up in her own. He was scared now. After all this time living in a nightmare and putting up with her cowardice, now was when his courage finally crumbled. She knelt there for a moment and hated herself all the more, before smiling tightly and pushing the door shut.

  Lance turned his head over his shoulder and watched her walk to the back of the car. A moment later the vehicle started to move, slowly at first, and then quicker as it began to descend down the hill that led away from their house. Lance pulled the wheel back and forth as the car rolled, struggling to keep the nose of the vehicle in the middle of the driveway. Soon the car was traveling on its own volition, and he looked to the rear, expecting his mother to have fallen behind drastically. When the door was pulled open next to him, he started and the car swerved as it coasted.

  His mother was there, jogging lightly as she held on to the frame of the car. “Move over, baby.”

  Lance scooted over into the passenger seat as he tried to maintain a grip on the steering wheel. Molly jumped into the car and slammed the door shut.

  “I’ve got it honey,” she said as she grasped the wheel and pushed Lance’s hand off, nearly having to peel his fingers away. She twisted the key in the ignition, and Lance heard the small engine hum to life. His mother pulled the lever down one more notch, and the transmission grabbed gears and propelled them forward. Molly kept the engine at a near idle, and they rolled gradually up to the line where their own dirt drive turned into the compacted tar of the county road.

  Molly gunned the car and turned right onto the smooth surface, sending rocks and sand spraying behind them before the tires finally caught and held. As she accelerated down the highway, Lance heard another long breath escape the thin figure beside him. He looked over at her then, her face lit in the iridescent glow of the dashboard. Her eyes searched the rearview mirror every few seconds, as though she expected her husband to abruptly sit up from the back seat and grab her roughly by the throat. The image made Lance shiver, and he turned his attention back to the straight county road ahead of them, which was being eaten up by the tires of their small car.

  Molly glanced down at the speedometer and reluctantly pulled her foot off the gas, watching the needle fall back below seventy. She searched the mirror to her left, then up, then to the right, all the while looking for any sign of pursuit. When she was satisfied that they were alone on the dark road, she looked over to her son slouched in the seat next to her. She reached out and laid a soft hand on his shoulder. Lance looked over at her, his eyes glowing briefly like an animal’s in a headlight.

  “We’re gonna be okay now, baby. We’re going a long way away.” Lance nodded and then opened his mouth, about to say something, but shut it, as though the thought had made the muscles in his jaw spasm. Molly looked imploringly at her son and squeezed his shoulder again with what she hoped was warmth and confidence. “Go on, honey, what were you going to say?”

  Lance looked out the windshield for a moment before turning back to speak. “Why tonight?” he asked.

  Molly pursed her lips and looked at the rearview mirror before answering. “It was just time. Does that make sense?” she asked, and waited, with only the sound of the car’s tires thumping over the occasional patched crack on the road to break the silence. Lance finally nodded without looking at her. She dropped her hand from his shoulder, thinking that the answer had satisfied him, when he spoke again.

  “We could’ve done this a long time ago.”

  The words drove deep into her chest and then lay heavily in her stomach, waiting to give birth to an enormous litter of guilt. Tears began to form in her eyes, and in that moment she hated herself so deeply that she felt her own loathing was a living thing, something that breathed and moved. She feared it would tear free from the slight cage that bound it inside of her and slash its way out into the rest of the world.

  “I know, honey, I know” was all she could manage through the tears and the shame that swelled in her throat.

  Lance looked over at his mother and watched the emerald tracks of her tears race down her cheeks in the glow of the dash. Even though there was a blossoming in his stomach that swelled with relief at moving rapidly away from his father, he wanted to say so much more, to hurt her for waiting so long to save them. This is all it would have taken? A bit of planning and a stealthy escape? This was the giant hurdle that his mother had been unable to overcome for years on end while they both suffered at the hands of a man who harbored nothing but disdain and hatred for them? Lance’s face drew down in a scowl, and his breath began to heave as his mind searched for what to say to his mother next, to make her understand the folly of her waiting game, the utter wrongness of it all. He was about to unleash the fury of his anguish upon her when he noticed her eyes were bulging in their sockets, her mouth a dark tunnel as she stared into the rearview mirror. Lance spun in his seat to look out of the back window.

  A lone headlight had crested the hill behind them.

  Lance stared at the floating orb as it descended the rise and continued on like a spirit searching for revenge. He turned back around and sat in his seat, his heart thumping so solidly on the inside of his ribs that he could see his vision shake with each jarring beat. He’d found them. He was going to catch them. This was the end.

  Lance looked over at his mother and was relieved to see that her expression had changed. The look of terror that had filled her face when she spotted the headlight had now turned into a grimace of concentration as she pushed the accelerator, and the car dropped gradually down another rolling hill, which blocked out the headlight behind them like a small sun setting below a black horizon.

  “Mama.”

  “I know, honey, I know.” Molly’s eyes shot from the left to the right in search of an exit from the small highway. There were many dirt roads that led from the main thoroughfare, crisscrossing the local farmland. But as they neared each one, she dismissed it as an escape since there was really nowhere to hide in the open country that surrounded them. For a moment she considered turning down one of the dirt roads and simply dousing their lights, in the hope that Anthony would not look too closely as he shot by, but the thought was banished as the single sphere of light appeared once again, this time much closer.

  “We’re gonna have to outrun him,” she said hollowly. She saw Lance’s small head turn to look at her, but she had no time now to offer an encouraging smile or even eye contact. Her eyes were glued to the road in front of them as it stretched away into an ocean of darkness. How many miles until town? she thought as the glow behind them began to grow. Could they make it there before he caught them and ran them off the road?

  The yellow dividing l
ines passed by with increasing speed, there and gone in the night, counting off the seconds of their short-lived flight. Lance imagined what death would be like, not for the first time. Would Jesus be waiting there for him in the dark with his arm outstretched like at church? Would it hurt to pass from this life to whatever lay beyond here? He knew it would hurt to die, his father would make sure of that, but what would become of him? Would he float up, weightless, into the night air? Would there be gates made of gold like the priest sometimes spoke about? Would his mother be there? Would God let her in after all of her waiting?

  His thoughts were cut short as a sound began to invade his eardrums. It pushed itself closer and closer as it throbbed inside the car. Lance wondered crazily if it was a helicopter circling close overhead, like the ones he sometimes saw on COPS. The headlight behind them grew until it lit the back of his mother’s hair like a halo.

  As the headlight approached steadily from behind, Molly’s hands shook on the steering wheel, and she thought for a moment that she might lose control and careen off the narrow highway and into one of the nearby power poles. Maybe that would be better, she thought. It would be easy to glide over to the right and strike one of the solid poles. She glanced down and saw the needle prodding eighty miles per hour. That would be fast enough.

  Molly shook her head. She couldn’t do it. She may have hurt Lance in her own way by not doing something earlier, but she wouldn’t be the one responsible for robbing him of every possible experience he would have if they made it past this night. She wouldn’t take away getting his driver’s license, going to the prom, marrying a beautiful girl, having children of his own.

  A rough thudding filled her ears and vibrated her hands. She glanced into the rearview mirror and saw that the headlight was only a few car lengths behind them. Any moment the old Chevy would pull even with them and her husband’s narrow face would glare at them from the driver’s seat, promising pain and much more.

  The sound increased and the headlight swung out wide behind them, into the left lane. Lance leaned forward to look across his mother, terrified of what he was about to see, but helpless to resist.

  A long-haired man on a huge motorcycle drew even with them, and for a moment Lance could see every detail of the bike and rider. The man wore full leather chaps and a matching jacket. His eyes were trained forward, and dark locks that must have been a full two feet long trailed gracefully behind him like a black comet’s tail.

  The bike raced past them, because the biker was speeding well beyond the limit and Molly had released her pressure on the gas pedal. The biker signaled as he pulled into their lane, and then within half a mile signaled to the left and coasted off onto an unnamed dirt road, where his small taillight glowed in the night like a lone ember.

  While the bike made its pass and exit from their view, Lance and his mother remained silent, relief spreading throughout their tensioned bodies. A mile past the road where the bike had disappeared, Molly began to cry. She cried in earnest now, her shoulders shaking with the exertions of her fear and exultation. Lance looked over at her, his own small face pinched with emotion. They had made it. The town was only another five miles away. In less than ten minutes they would be on an interstate heading in a direction his father would never think to look. They would watch the sun come up together, watch it rise like a strange, new god from the earth in the east. There would be happiness in the daylight, which seemed like a possibility now, the edges of it beginning to creep into feeling like a fire blooming in the deepest winter. Lance decided then that he would apologize to his mother when the sun was up and a new life was dawning upon them. He would tell her he was sorry for accusing her, for making her cry, for thinking the things that he wanted to say to her earlier. For hating her just a little bit. Lance was about to ask his mother if she knew where they would go when he saw it.

  A shape began to take form on the road ahead of them, the headlights nudging the darkness away. It was oblong and dull. Recognition started to emerge like a form beneath dark waters when his mother flipped on the high beams and let out a shriek.

  An old Chevy pickup sat blocking both lanes of the deserted highway, and Lance’s father leaned easily against the front fender.

  Screeching rubber filled the night air as Molly pressed both feet down onto the brake until she thought she would snap it clean off. The Caravelle slid to the right but careened back to the center of the road as Molly wrenched the wheel around in a death grip. Lance’s fingers dug painfully into his own thighs, and an involuntary moan escaped his mouth.

  All the while, Anthony Metzger kept his relaxed stance against the truck. His arms were crossed over his chest, and a bored expression blanketed his thin face. Only when the car stuttered to a halt a mere fifteen yards from the perpendicular truck did he move. He reached casually through the open window of the Chevy and drew out a long black object. As he walked toward the car, his shadow beginning to grow and distort behind him, Lance recognized the shotgun he held in his left hand. It normally stood behind the porch door, and with a dawning horror, Lance realized it hadn’t been there when he and his mother had left the house.

  Molly gaped out of the driver’s window at her husband as he approached, her breath hitching in her chest as panic began to wind up inside her like an old distress siren. Anthony lifted the muzzle of the twelve-gauge just enough to tap on the window, and then dropped the gun’s gaping eye back out of sight.

  Slowly, as if in a dream, Molly rolled the window down, and a sheet of cold air assaulted them, though neither felt it. Anthony knelt down beside the car and stared into his wife’s face. His gaze was as cold as the night air around them, and his knife-like blue eyes pinned Molly to the seat. Unmoving, she looked back at him and began to mouth some half-whispered word that could have been please, but was lost before it truly formed. After what seemed like an eternity, Anthony looked over at his son. Lance just stared back, and realized he was no longer afraid to die. If this was the moment for him to leave this world, he was ready. At least the shotgun will be quick, he thought with a note of thankfulness.

  “How?” Molly’s voice finally made its way from her throat and into the open.

  Her husband broke eye contact with his son and turned his gaze back upon her disbelieving face. “I know shortcuts, darling, and I know you. Now turn around.”

  Without another word, he stood and walked back to his truck while Molly rolled up her window. Lance looked at his mother as she grasped the shifter and put the car into reverse. There was no emotion on her face; it was as if it had been wiped clean with some sort of solvent.

  As Molly turned the car around back the way they had fled, Lance remembered something he had once read in a book about death and dying that he had picked up on one of the few occasions he had been allowed to accompany his mother to the local bookstore. It had said something about the steps that a person took when dealing with death. First, there was denial, then anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. It seemed his mother had gone through all of these steps in the last several minutes since the Chevy had loomed into view before them. The acceptance he now saw on her face—because it wasn’t just blankness there—was the worst. She had given up, and even though he had made his own peace with death not five minutes before, he still felt the urge to remain alive deep within his chest.

  As the miles passed, neither of them spoke. Lance looked out of his window at the moonlight-dappled fields of cut crops. He tried to pretend that they were just out for a normal drive and that he didn’t see the one headlight that rode close behind them. He tried, and failed miserably. His imagination, which worked overtime in the best of situations, rocketed along at breakneck speed. It was like he was trapped in a locomotive running on jet fuel as it screamed down the tracks of his mind. Through every window he looked out he saw a landscape of suffering where he and his mother were being maimed and cut to pieces by his grinning father.

  The Caravelle’s decrease in speed and turn to the left brough
t him out of his morbid reverie, and his heart began pounding out of control once again. They were home. In a few seconds they would pull to a stop in front of the house, and then it would be time to finally pay for their little excursion. All Lance could hope was that his father would not release all his anger at once; he doubted he or his mother would survive if that happened.

  Molly pulled into the Caravelle’s regular parking spot near the garage and shut the car off. She sat in the seat for a moment before looking over at Lance. Her face remained impassive, but the words she spoke to him were urgent and clear.

  “When I tell you to, you run. Do you understand?” Her eyes stared into his, and he felt the weight of what she had asked settle over him like a lead shroud, but nonetheless he felt his head nod. The Chevrolet then pulled up even with them on Lance’s side, and his father stared down at them. “You run until you hit the river, and then go south; you’ll find a neighbor’s house along the way. Don’t stop for anything.”

  Without another glance or word, Molly pulled the handle on the driver’s-side door and stepped out into the cold darkness of the night. Lance pulled his notebook close to his chest, and then did the same. When he had shut his door, he felt the eyes of his father upon the back of his neck like two blunt fingers, pushing into the soft flesh and the bones below. When Lance turned, Anthony stood just a few steps behind him; he still cradled the shotgun in the crook of his arm, and his eyes seemed to shine in the light of the moon. Lance walked between the car and truck and turned toward the house some fifteen steps away, his mother falling in behind him and his father bringing up the rear.

  “One thing you gotta remember. No matter what, you always come home.” Lance didn’t know if his father was speaking to him or his mother, or perhaps just talking out loud. Lance’s heart pounded in his chest as he walked, and he feared he would pass out from the rush of adrenaline that was coursing through his veins. Time seemed to reach an incongruent level as each step he took was a year in falling, and each breath was faster than the last.