Page 4 of When the Night Comes Knocking

Two

there was a girl

Thomas fights against waking as the car dips and rattles, until a large jolt finally wrenches his eyes open. Endless potholes litter what appears to be a narrow access road winding through the woods. He yawns as he sits up, watching as the road opens up to a large dirt parking lot blanketed with red leaves. There are no lined parking spaces, so Jane pulls up next to a white sedan with a Fulton County license plate.

The only other car in the lot is an old brown Chevy parked at an angle ten or so yards in front of them. Thomas eyes the Confederate flag sticker stuck to the pickup’s bumper before looking up and meeting the hard stare of the man on the passenger side. His beady eyes are like bullets tracing over the skin of Jane’s car as he takes a large swig from a can of PBR.

“Let’s make it quick,” says Thomas, tossing off his seat belt. “I can practically hear the banjos playing.”

Jane silently nods, and they both step out of the car. The building before them is squat and brick with a faded, hand-painted sign overhead that reads “Blackwell’s Country Store.” Naked white oak trees sprawl out behind and to the sides of the plot of land, curling and crooked like a skeletal cage.

As they walk toward the store’s entrance, Thomas can feel the attention of the two men at the truck. The one on the passenger side looks caught somewhere in his mid-thirties, wearing an oil-stained work shirt and a backward baseball cap.

The stranger’s eyes trail over Jane briefly before he offers her a thin-lipped smile. “Hi there,” he greets her with a strong twang.

His sister gives the man a small, polite nod, though she wraps her arms across her stomach, something she always does when she’s nervous.

On the other side of the truck, the driver is dressed in a similar oil-stained, disheveled fashion, though he appears several years older than the passenger. This man looks largely unimpressed as he slides a propane tank into the truck bed and takes in Thomas’s own appearance—the Athens University crewneck, the fitted jeans, the clean-shaven face.

“How y’all doing?” the stranger on the passenger side says, his eyes fixated on Jane.

“Don’t answer,” Thomas says to his sister, quickening his pace.

Jane tries to match him. “Do you hear banjos yet?” she whispers while entering through the open door of the store, where a few sad paper turkeys have been taped to the glass.

Thomas glances back and sees the two men still watching them, eyeing him and Jane up like they’re some kind of foreign specimen. “Fucking creeps,” he mutters.

Clinical overhead lights glare down on them, only made worse by the dull white linoleum floors. At least ten aisles stretch out evenly down the store, long and labeled with dangling signs. The setting sun offers little natural light from the glass front doors and the small slivers of windows that rest in even intervals below the ceiling. Some are cracked open, letting in the crisp November air that rustles through the surrounding forest, though it does nothing to make the place feel more inviting.

“Excuse me,” Thomas says, catching the attention of the cashier. “Where’s your restroom?”

“Back right corner,” she says, gesturing in the general direction. “We close in five minutes,” she adds in a monotone voice.

He nods and pulls out his wallet. “Here. Go grab the marshmallows,” he tells Jane while handing her a five-dollar bill with a smeared phone number written on it. He leaves her scanning over the aisle signs as he maneuvers to the back of the store.

He finds a narrow hallway with several closed steel doors, including one labeled “Roof Access.” Across from it is a single, unisex restroom. As he steps inside, he feels for a light switch, and a bulb above the sink flickers for a few seconds before staying on with a low hum.

The room is square, mostly cinder block, and cold like an icebox, with a small window left open. It leaves an unsettling, clammy feel against his skin, and he goes to piss quickly.

Cassie calls him again while he is washing his hands with watered-down soap. It’s the simplicity of the most mundane routines that he finds himself missing most often; now if he’s too careless, the water soaks the tip of his arm cast and the wet plaster makes his skin go pruney.

He bangs the silver button on the hand dryer and holds his cast beneath the weak air. “You got any red to wrap it with?” his father asked the orthopedic surgeon after the first operation, flashing his trademark damn-glad-to-meet-ya smile. “My boy’s the starting pitcher for the Hounds. Red will bring us some good luck.”

Thomas wipes the excess water on his hands across his jeans, then swipes to answer the phone. “What, Cas?”

“Have you hit the store yet? Are y’all almost here?” His older sister’s voice is a burst of energy down the phone line, shaking him back to the present. “The cabin is on Slaughter Road, if you thought this place couldn’t get any more charming. Tell me y’all are almost here.”

In the background, their mother’s Southern drawl shouts something about the thermostat. She does, in fact, sound half a bottle deep into the chardonnay.

“We’re at the store now,” says Thomas as the light bulb flickers again. “If there’s anything else you need, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

“I’m just ready for the spotlight to be off me,” Cassie says. “How does Jane seem?”

Thomas sighs, carefully pulling his arm back from the hand dryer and assessing it in its sling for the umpteenth time. “Just bypass the bullshit and ask what you really want, Cas.”

She scoffs, and he can imagine the bright defensive flash in her eyes; growing up, she always had an effective knack for putting Thomas in his place. He even had a five-year-old Jane convinced that their older sister was a witch who could place hexes on anyone who got on her nerves.

“Are you being nice to her?” Cassie asks now. “Because when I called earlier, y’all sounded like somebody had died.” He hears her wince. “Sorry. Bad choice of words.”