“Forgetting things,” Donny Ray repeats.
I close my eyes for a moment, then open them. “Like I don’t know where I’ve been for a while.”
He leans in closer.
Tears start as I shake my head. “I’m not afraid of you . . . I’m not . . . ,” I tell him, but it feels more like an attempt to convince myself.
“You have nothing but fear, Christopher. Fear has taken you over, and because you keep hiding from it, you keep losing things, and you’re going to continue losing them.”
“What in God’s name are you telling me?”
“What in God’s name are you hiding from?”
“I’m not hiding!”
“Fear is the most powerful emotion we can feel, right?”
I don’t answer.
“It’s wired into us. It’s primitive. It’s instinctual.” He rubs his wrist. “Do you have fear, Christopher?”
“Why does any of this—?”
“DO YOU HAVE FEAR, CHRISTOPHER!” His voice is sharp, no longer posing a question.
“We all do.”
“No.” Donny Ray sweeps a finger across his wrist, faster now. “I’m not talking about everyday fear. I’m talking about the primal kind. The kind of fear that scrapes at your bones. The kind that sends your mind screaming. Your fear is what brought us together. You know that.”
The hairs on my arms start to rise. I’m quaking.
“And your heart will break, Christopher.” His eyes are a blaze of blue boreal fury. His voice climbs in pitch, the tone getting smoother, the speech pattern transmuting into one I recognize.
“Who . . . Who the hell are you?”
“You’ll have to accept that loss,” he says in the voice of my son.
I examine his eyes, his face, still no more certain now about their familiarity than I was from day one.
“Who are you?” I ask again, barely able to get past the quiver in my throat.
“You know who I am,” Donny Ray says, returning to his normal voice.
“Why? Why are you taking my son away from me?”
“To break your walls.”
“I . . . I don’t understand . . .”
“It’s my job, Christopher. It’s what I do, and it’s what you need. This is how it’s done.”
“How what’s done?”
“How you make someone see what they refuse to. You take away the things they love most. You make it all disappear. That’s how we find the truth.”
“By stripping away everything in this world that matters to me?”
“By stripping away everything in this world that you believe in. Now we can start rebuilding. Just you and me, partner, brick by brick.”
“Get me out of here! Let me go!”
“Are you finally ready to make that choice?”
“What choice?” I say, but it comes out more as a plea.
“If I take you out of Loveland, are you ready to face what’s on the other side of these walls?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “Please! Take me out of here!”
81
I see feet moving, but in my disconnected fog it takes a few seconds to realize they’re my own.
Where am I?
It’s like I’m walking through a void. Everything around me is oppressively still and silent. Even the air has an unfamiliar, motionless quality.
Is this real?
As my vision clears, ahead of me I see the Loveland parking lot. The only car left is mine, a little boat floating on a sea of blacktop. I turn toward the building, and more sedentary absence looks back at me. Nobody in the surrounding area, nobody coming in or out through the main entrance. I raise my vision toward the upper floors and find more vacuity: every curtain pulled open, every window like a black hole punched into rust-stained concrete.
Not a human anywhere. Everyone . . . gone.
Disappeared.
“Now it’s just you and me.”
I look to my right. Donny Ray is beside me, and I realize we’ve just walked out of Loveland together. He keeps his gaze aimed ahead. Like he’s leading me someplace.
But where?
“Now we can get to work,” he says with a single, affirming nod. “It’s time, Christopher.”
“You’re not taking Devon from me!”
“It has to happen,” he says gently, reassuringly. “You know it does.”
“Why are you destroying my life?”
“I’m helping you see your life. The destruction you feel is a result, not a cause.”
“I won’t let you wreck my world!”
He stops walking. “Christopher, wake up. Can you wake up? The world as you once knew it has slipped away and lost its shape. But this is actually progress. It won’t be long now.”
“Long for what?”
“Your truth is waiting.”
The glass shatters.
The white light goes off.
82
I’m parked under the Evil Tree.
This goddamned tree, this bastard that keeps pulling me back. I look up at the hideous beast, hovering so tall and proud, so arrogant, shielding what little light there is, casting me deeper into darkness.
A strong wind picks up, and the Evil Tree vigorously rattles its branches, shaking pollen over me like black rain.
Anger boils. Hatred reaches fever pitch. Outrage turns viral. I squeeze the wheel, chew my bottom lip, and hear a snarl deep inside my chest.
“YOU’RE THE REASON FOR ALL THIS! YOU’VE RUINED MY LIFE! YOU HEAR ME? YOU’VE MOTHERFUCKING RUINED IT!”
Tears stream down my face, and I erupt into hysterical laughter, so instantaneous that it startles me; then just as unexpectedly, that laughter turns into heaving sobs. Several seconds later a new emotion emerges, so powerful that it sends my body into a racking tremor.
Unadulterated fear.
You’ve got to get out of here.
“I’ve got to get out of here.”
Go! Go!