Shine Your Light on Me Read online

  Aiden’s mother cocked the hammer on the shotgun. It was an old breakaway, single-shot, the barrel about four feet long, probably loaded with buckshot, and it’d blow the heart clean from his chest and plaster bits of it on the wall behind him.

  No way could she miss; no way could he talk his way out of it.

  It was hard to hear anything over the voices outside.

  He looked at the window over the sink and saw a few faces jostling to look into the room and catch a glimpse of the boy with the gift. They were stunned faces. He smiled at them, thinking that to go out in front of strangers would have never been his preferred route. He had dreamed of death sometimes. But it came whispering, not roaring.

  Aiden’s mother said, “You might think this is personal, but it’s not.”

  He turned back to her. “How’s that?”

  Someone rapped on the window, trying to get him or her to look their way. Someone yelled something. She looked at them, and he expected her face to wilt, her shoulders to sag, the gun to lower, yet she had little give in her. If anything, she gripped the stock tighter and her finger brushed the trigger.

  He said, “Murder is always personal, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not going to murder you,” she said, “I’m just going to blow your legs off.”

  “I’d prefer death.”

  “So would have my husband.”

  “I know,” he said. “I went out of my head. If I could take it back, I would.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “What reason do I have to lie? I loved her and he could see it, he already mentioned it. But she went to him, didn’t she? Don’t you think you’re pointing that gun at the wrong person?”

  “Shut your mouth.”

  “Do you still sleep in the same bed? Aria and my dad don’t. They did until Jack destroyed it.”

  “She’s as much to blame as he is.”

  “I don’t see it that way.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she said.

  “So, if you cripple me, you’ll feel better? I don’t think you will. Do you think I feel better? I don’t. If anything, every time I see him I remember their affair even more intensely. It only hurts me more. But none of that matters now. When your son lights up again, I think Jack will be there, and he’ll be as good as new, so why don’t you set the gun down. We need to deal with that crowd out there before they get it into their heads to come inside and carry Aiden away. Are you hearing me? I can help you protect him.”

  “You’re pretty defenseless. I don’t think you can help my son.”

  “I’ll call Pine. He’ll drive them off.”

  She nodded. Her face softened a tiny bit. He could tell she was in the midst of deciding which road to take. And he wouldn’t have been surprised if she let him walk away now only so that once Jack was able to walk again, he could settle the score himself. She said, “If you have Pine come here you could get the jump on me.”

  “How? You have a shotgun.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “When it was Jack you shouldn’t have trusted.” He chuckled. “I don’t feel bad for you, and maybe I should, but if you’re so dense as to defend him, you don’t deserve my empathy.”

  “You don’t know Jack. Or the history he had with her, do you? And you never will because I’m not going to tell you, and neither will Jack, and I’ll bet you money your father won’t speak a word of it. It’s something we’ll all take to our graves, and you will go to yours in ignorance.”

  He heard Pastor Clement outside, talking through a bullhorn, urging Aiden to come out and fulfill his destiny, the work God had placed on his shoulders. He waxed poetic of his gratefulness at having witnessed those miracles in hours past. The crowd with him sang hymns and some of them sounded angelic and some laughed and some wept, but he could hear the hope in all their voices.

  He said to Aiden’s mother, “They’re going to take him if we don’t send him out. I need to call Pine before it’s too late. You won’t be able to reload that shotgun fast enough to handle all those people. And they might hurt my daughter in their craziness, and they might hurt your son worse, tear him apart once they’re close enough to get a hand on him. Everybody wants what he has, Mrs. LeDoux. But he can’t give them what they want yet, I believe that. And I want to help him figure out how he did it, then I’ll be gone, me and Jessica. We’re going to move far from this place and all the old haunts and start a new life.”

  “Call Pine,” she said. “But after he gets rid of those people, he leaves.”

  “Fine.” He went to pull his cell from his pocket and realized he had been holding it the whole time and his sweat was coating it so he wiped it off on his shirt and looked at the blank screen. He touched the glass but the screen didn’t spring to life. He looked back up and said, “The battery’s dead.”

  Then a fist beat against the front door and he heard the wood crack, and to his right he heard the glass shatter over the kitchen window, and the faces that seemed so distant and detached, were fighting each other to get inside.

  • • •

  Jack was rolling toward the kitchen when he saw Janice barrel into the room with the shotgun. She brushed past him and he wanted to raise his voice to stop her—she’d always been good at listening to him—but she was in the kitchen before he could open his mouth.

  He’d expected the boom of the gun in the next instant. Janice had never been one to dillydally when it came to completing any task, and this one had been building for a long, long time.

  As much as he’d expected her to hate him for his infidelity, she had proven that she had a well of understanding and compassion few other people possessed. It had surprised him. And he knew other people thought her a fool for sticking around. But she was in it for the long haul, she understood people sometimes made horrible mistakes, and he would humbly give her everything he could to help her forget and to re-earn her trust.

  Yet knowing that she was going to take his vengeance from him almost made him do something he would have regretted. If he went into the kitchen and stopped her, she would see him for the little man he was, and he didn’t want that. He felt little enough as it was.

  Plus he didn’t want to harm a hair on Mitch’s head, not in this house, not with Jessica there, only separated by a wall or two. That kid had enough to deal with already, and his son as well. And now there was the crowd outside, which sounded loud enough to consist of the entire town. Probably five hundred people. He had no trouble admitting he was a coward when it came to those kinds of numbers. It was futile to believe any single man could influence or fight a mob of that size, and they were not spurred on by anger like most mobs, it was awe that drove them, and for that men would not only kill but gladly die.

  There were mothers out there with stricken children; fathers with sons afflicted by blindness or deafness or mentally challenged; aunts with cancer and uncles with bad hearts; grandparents who would brave the cold and the chance of hypothermia for the slightest chance to retain their memories of the times they’d had and these last few years forgotten.

  And most of all, it was the hope. It was something beyond any of them, a greater force that until this time had remained hidden, or at least had moved about them clandestinely, watching and waiting until Aiden had somehow let it channel through him.

  Jack listened to the Pastor’s voice booming through a bullhorn. The man was the maddest of them all and encouraging the others to shout: “Shine your light on me!”

  There would be no telling them no. Not that many people. And the numbers would only grow as word, like wind, spread the fire. His son would be little more than a caged animal, a spectacle; a science experiment that one day soon the government would whisk away and keep in a secret place so they could study him.

  Jack was troubled by that more than anything. There was no doubt they’d take his boy and they’d pick him to pieces, testing him, probing him, tormenting the kid. And Aiden, he’d always been such a happy go-lucky child until these
past few months. He had a good family and good friends. He didn’t have high hopes of some spectacular life, but not everybody needed them. He just wanted to find a job he enjoyed and make his way in the world and cherish those in his closest circle.

  But he was unable to communicate now, and how long would that last? How could he ever live a normal life? It just wasn’t possible anymore and Jack knew that, and he hoped for all he was worth that Aiden hadn’t put too much thought into it yet.

  Mitch was talking to Janice in the kitchen. Jack listened, gripping the wheels of his chair fiercely, until all the strength had washed out of him and he wanted to tell the dumb fuck that he needed to shut up or Janice would use that shotgun to rip his head open. The younger man had changed since that night in the forest with the clothesline and landscape spikes and the fat orange moon hanging low in the sky and witnessing a guilty man’s misery.

  Jack had never known unrequited love. He’d never understood how someone could get so hung up on another person that they were consumed by fantasies that went nowhere. It seemed an incredible waste of energy, dreaming like that, and then the claws of disappointment tearing your guts open, until you could manufacture new hopes and repeat the cycle again.

  Janice told Mitch she was going to cripple him. Jack didn’t hear Mitch’s reply, he spoke too quietly, but he thought she needed to think about Mitch’s little girl being there in the house. She’d come running and she’d see her father bleeding out on their kitchen floor, his face contorted by agony and washed by his tears, and the child would lose it.

  And what of Aiden? He would not be able to see his mother ever the same again. They were not especially close, but they had a quiet, solid bond, and Aiden loved her and she loved him. But her doing something so vicious might sever that bond, and he might think her a little crazy. Jack did. He hadn’t expected such actions from her. She was a hard-looking woman, built for heavy work like farming and bearing the sins of her family. But she’d destroy herself by destroying Mitch.

  He was about to roll in there and tell her to give him the gun when Mitch said he’d call Pine and have him drive the crowd away before they took Aiden and to prevent them from hurting Jessica in their moment of blind madness.

  Having Mitch and his girl there was almost too much. If Pine came, Jack would kill him in front of everyone. The only reason he hadn’t yet is the kid never came to the bar and he had been hiding somewhere since the incident. Rumor was Mitch was keeping him at his house to keep him out of trouble, but that was hard for Jack to buy because the two brothers were so different. At least he’d thought they were until tonight. He didn’t think Pine would have ever had reason to torment him if Mitch hadn’t pointed the young beast in Jack’s direction and given him a green light.

  He hated Mitch for that alone, but right now wasn’t the time to settle their score. Mitch was right, they needed to think of the two kids and how to best protect them from the mob, and Mitch was right that Pine, if anyone, could make them disperse. Yet with such great numbers even the lunatic would be outmatched, which was okay, if his death could serve as a distraction which would allow Jack and Janice and Aiden to escape.

  He heard something crash against the door behind him, and then glass broke in the kitchen and the voices grew louder, and in the kitchen he heard Janice fire the shotgun. The explosion was deafening yet he could clearly hear a man scream in pain and shock, and he heard Janice’s heavy tread backing toward the room, but looking behind him he saw that bodies were jamming the front door, stumbling over each other, stomping on each other, to get inside.

  The first few to make it were scrambling to their feet and looking around. When they spotted him, their smiles were those of insane men, zealots, and there was one woman among them, her shirt ripped open and exposing her black bra and the whiteness of her belly. She did not notice, was simply knocked down, and then trampled, by those pushing their way in from behind her.

  • • •

  Aiden had taken Jessica to his bedroom immediately. There was little time to plan anything, and he knew that the worst was yet to come. There was no way to estimate the number of frantic bodies on their front lawn; it seemed it was most of the town. He packed a backpack quickly with clothing and rolled his blanket around his pillow. Jessica still wore her coat and shoes and mittens and hat. He grabbed an ink pen and legal pad that was lying on his bed and wrote: “We have to get out of here and go somewhere safe for a while. Do you understand?”

  She read his message and then nodded and looked around, curious he thought where her father might be, and if he was coming with them or not. He couldn’t explain it to her and still keep her safe; there was too little time as is.

  The crowd, spurred on by Pastor Clement and his megaphone, were chanting that Aiden shine his light on them, and it was maddening to hear it, to hear the pleas and the longing and the hunger for something he had no idea how to give them.

  He’d always had snacks in his room. It was something he’d learned from his father, who not only had snacked frequently at the bar, but in his bedroom at night, and on the couch as he unwound, and even during his recovery from the crucifixion. He filled the top of the backpack with beef jerky, trail mix, and Chex Mix, then pulled one of the backpack straps over his shoulder. The girl was light in his arms. He carried her to the window. It was normally incredibly dark outside here, but he could see dozens of flashlights bobbing through the snow in the back yard and moving toward the back door and the little deck where his father read the paper every day before work to kill the time. None of them showed their lights on his bedroom window, focused instead on whatever they could see transpiring in the kitchen.

  He opened the window slowly and thought it would be impossible for him and Jessica to make it to the large tree by the corner of the house which they could use to hide behind until those approaching the deck made a move to get inside.

  It was insane, the noise people were making, and the slim chance of escape he had planned for him and the girl. He didn’t know how to care for a kid, and he had little money in his wallet, and he didn’t want to abandon his parents, or even Mitch, to the mob.

  Even given a chance to flee, the roads were slippery and others might be on their way to the house now. And where could they go that someone would not recognize him?

  He rubbed her head and was still trying to make a decision when he heard someone near the kitchen break the glass, and he heard what he thought to be Mitch firing his pistol at them. It echoed off the walls and shook the floor.

  We have to move now, he thought, picking her up and lifting her through the window and setting her outside on the ground. He climbed out after her and knelt down and scooped her up and ran for the wood line. The ground was a half foot buried, and his feet felt leaden, and his lungs burned, and there were tears freezing to his cheek, which he’d pressed hard to the side of Jessica’s head.

  He expected someone to yell something behind him, but then Mitch fired another round, and he crossed the edge of his father’s property and ducked into the woods.

  The forest was darker than what the open yard had been. It was a half mile to the road that ran perpendicular to Maple Grove Road. Jessica clung to him and he wanted to whisper they’d be okay. But more gunfire broke out back at the house and more people screamed, and Aiden wondered if he’d ever see his family again, and if Jessica would see her father. The chances were slim. The mob would tear the house apart looking for him. He hated them for the threat they exuded and force they’d used.

  The air around him felt charged with electricity and he could feel it deep in the pads of his fingers. He loosened his grip on the girl but refused to set her down as he walked around trees and sloshed through the snow and made his way toward Cranberry Lane. There was an apple orchard to pass through, and then the road would be there and it’d carry them back toward town and to the water tower.

  It was the best place to go. The only place really where no one might find them. After they destroyed his parent
s’ house, they’d go to his friends—he wished they wouldn’t, and he thought Emmy’s dad would hate him—but they would turn the town upside down starting at the places that made the most sense for him to hide.

  He had to leave town completely yet wasn’t sure what he could do about the kid.

  If her father was alive, he could get her back to him, even via Pine, if Pine was the only one he could reach.

  And what would he do with his life then?

  Once everyone knew what he’d done there would be no place to retreat, no safe haven in which to trust.

  He walked on, shielding the girl, afraid that any second now the light would come and it would bathe the forest, and lead the mad men and women to their prize.

  Aiden was more exhausted than he’d ever felt by the time he reached Cranberry Lane. It was a narrow dirt road, covered in snow and slush, slick with the tail of winter. Trees crowded either side and there was no shoulder. There weren’t any cars that he could see coming from either direction. He set the girl down for a minute to catch his breath. His shoes were already soaked through, his toes numb and aching. He wanted to cry for his parents—he knew he’d lost them to the violent flood of bodies that had invaded their home—but he didn’t want to let out all of his frustration and fear in front of Jessica. She had her own problems, and like him, she couldn’t voice them, only feel them, and for that moment, he was all she had in the world to keep her safe.

  CHAPTER 5

  Aiden trekked the three miles to the water tower, carrying the girl the whole time except for when he paused to rest roughly every mile. The cold had seeped so deeply into him that it’s effect was constant and had seemed to numb his mind as much as his body. There was that to be grateful for at least, unless of course such manifestations meant he was close to hypothermia. But he couldn’t worry about that at the moment. He needed to carry the girl up the icy ladder, ignoring, for long enough at least, the pain he felt growing in his heart and in his limbs.