Escape To Anywhere Else - Robert Rippberger

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sorry Ivey, but I must know,” the priest slid the gate to the side, “from whom have you been getting these ideas?”

      “No one,” I assured him, somewhat perplexed that he would think such a thing.

      It was true I was a voracious reader, always loved to disappear into books, but the thoughts really did come to me on my own during the many hours of restlessness counting ants, watching clouds pass, and don’t forget the lemonade.

      “It’s just something I’ve been lying awake wondering.”

      He frowned, skeptical, trying to cut through me with his eyes. I didn’t waver, made a point not to.

      “You’re an interesting girl. I only hope that brain of yours doesn’t go to your head.”

      He chuckled and then slid the screen back in place. I stood up from the bench and stepped out. Louie moved by me, took a seat, and closed the door. Glancing around, I made sure no one was looking and then placed my ear against the wall, wondering why Louie went in at all.

      I heard him fidgeting in his seat.

      “How can I help you, my child?” The priest asked.

      There was a pregnant pause.

      “Is something bothering you?” he asked again.

      Louie replied in a whisper, incomprehensible to both the priest and me.

      “What was that? You’ll have to speak up.”

      “I...” he murmured. “I...I just can’t. I just can’t anymore.”

      The confessional’s hinges squealed, I jumped to the side, and Louie ran from the booth.

      chapter six

      “B, seven. B, seven,” the priest announced as everyone searched the game boards for the number.

      It was marked, and all eyes returned forward in anticipation of the next bingo ball. The priest huddled over the lottery wheel with microphone in hand as a subsequent marble rolled out and was called to the dismay of Mrs. Tyler and the clan of hags. Beside me, Mom’s hand flew over the numbers on all six of her cards, blotching out spaces sporadically. Dad and her were always racing, so when she finished, she would slap her dauber on the table, cock her head to the side without even looking at him directly, and squawk, “Done.” Dad would then tell her to shut it, claiming he hadn’t been racing in the first place.

      I eyed them squabbling like four-year-olds and then gazed at my bingo card and marked the number called. I was doing poorly, but Louie was doing much worse. Not a single one of his numbers was inked. He leaned back in his chair as his eyes roamed the walls.

      “What?” he muttered a short while later, only then realizing I was staring.

      Another number was called. I inked it and then glanced to Louie’s card. His mind was still astray, so I marked the space for him. The two of us were sitting shoulder to shoulder, but there was ten feet of dead air between us. His face was pallid, starch white. I stood to get him a glass of water, wondering the whole time what was going through his head. What was bothering him? Before I got to my feet, Mom had my bingo card and was browsing over it for numbers I might have missed. I returned to my seat with the cup and placed it in front of Louie. He half-smiled.

      “We’ll talk later.”

      And that was all I needed to hear.

      Seconds later I was rattled out of my seat.

      “Bingo! Bingo!” Mom shrieked, flailing her arms and jumping up and down. “I won! Bingo. I won!” she cried.

      Dad threw his cards to the floor, cursing. She had won with my game board. But of course, when I pointed it out later, she adamantly denied it.

      chapter seven

      After driving for just under two hours, we neared home. We had gorged ourselves on Mom’s cookies and were feeling fat and sleepy. Dad had been nodding off but refused to give up the wheel. Louie and I kept him awake by having a talent show on the hood of the tractor. We drove past an apple tree and grabbed a handful, juggling like circus clowns until a few dropped beneath the tires and turned to applesauce. Nevertheless, the show went on. Louie impersonated Mrs. Tyler and squeezed my cheeks. I attacked him with a saliva-drenched napkin. We were rolling around laughing while Dad stared at us like we were alien children. I reminded him that we were spawned from his own contaminated gene pool—an idea that amused him very much.

      Louie was back in better spirits. In hushed voices, over the roar of the tractor, we talked about what would happen if we told the outside world what went on in our home. A family thinking things were fine but unconsciously feeding on itself. Louie was yelling for mercy. He was looking to the priest to be his outlet, although I wasn’t so sure. We decided we’d talk through it more when we had privacy. Looking back on it now, I can almost hear his anxious voice uttering the familiar words—“Next time.”

      As Louie and I joked around at the front of the tractor, Mom had her back turned, legs dangling over the roadway. Annoyed by the antics, she was trying her hardest to ignore us, but ever so often her hands would clench around her rosary beads as if ready to turn and strike. She did a good job suppressing the urge. Little did we know her chance would come soon enough.

      Our tractor parked in front of the house. Dad gave in and passed out over the steering wheel, nearly gouging out his eye on the shifter.

      “I feel weird,” Louie remarked as I climbed from the tractor and took a jarring step.

      The cornfield pulsed in and out of focus. It was subtle at first but grew more and more intense, shaky and tumultuous.

      “Me too,” my lips moved but the breath didn’t come.

      I leaned against the tractor’s rear wheel. My knees quivered and I bent back, gazing toward the harvest moon. Its glow flaring in all directions and then melting from the heavens like wet paint on a canvas.

      Behind me, Louie descended the stepladder. He hopped weakly from the last level. His body rose up, but his skate shoes anchored. He fell forward, face contorted and arms flailing, landing with a sour thud. I stumbled over to him. He wasn’t moving. I tried feverishly to wake him, but confused and disoriented I couldn’t do more than gasp and scream.

      In my peripheral there was movement by the front porch. Through the fog a shape took watch from the shadows. A glow of life was breathed into a cigarette as Mom stood waiting. In her other hand she picked up a rusted paraffin lamp and lit it. The concave glass spilled yellow onto the patio, illuminated the bottom branches of the trees and her savage eyes. The flare of her pupils shot through the night as if from the bow of a demonic archer. Skirting and dodging any way I could, I tried to hoist Louie away with me, but he was too heavy. I grabbed his hands. We’ll be safe in the cornfield. Get to the corn, I thought. Go!

      In a gasp, my vision went for the second time. The night sky spun around me at an accelerating speed. I dropped Louie, fell to the ground, and clung to it. I snapped my eyes closed, hoping to open them and be someplace else, anywhere else, any place but here.

      “Help.”

      The call came from the other side of the tractor. It was Dad, caked in dirt, trying to lift himself on crumbling arms. I cast an accusing glance toward the house as Mom flicked her cigarette into the yard and started back toward us. I had no idea what was happening but knew I needed to run. To the corn. There you’ll be safe.

      I dropped to Louie’s side and tried again to wake him with a slap to the face. I pried at his eyelids, but they clapped shut again. He was out. No back-in-twenty-minutes sign, just an empty window into a dark void. Is he dead? I feared. What if he’s dead?!

      Looking to the tractor, I saw Dad was missing. There was a rustling to my side. A stalk of corn fell as a familiar boot stepped and then disappeared. I couldn’t believe it. Once again he was leaving us for the wolves. Or rather, the wolf. I spun back

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