Always a Time 2: Cameron’s Tale
By Kristie Kretsinger
She was a scrawny teenager when I met her, or rather when she introduced herself to me. I was in my early twenties and had forgotten how to speak. I’d all but given up that I would ever find something or someone that could make me feel something. The further into life I went, the less I saw. People no longer had faces or names. Places were just grey interpretations of something that once was but nothing with any emotion.
I traveled from place to place just working whatever odd job I could find that didn’t require me to actually talk to people. I’d make just enough money to move on before anyone tried to find out anything about me. There is nothing worse than people who try to help others just to appease their conscience and not because it’s the right thing to do.
I wanted to die, so I did stupid things to put myself in front of death. I’d walk across a street without looking, contemplated getting a fake gun and forcing a cop to shoot me.
Sometimes when I absolutely had to take a bus, I’d imagine an armed terrorist coming on to take hostages and pretending to be a hero trying to save people, but it backfires and they kill me. But I was too scared; all that got me was just a reputation for being the slow in the head guy who’s too dumb to look before crossing the road.
I was just too much of a coward to kill myself. There was nothing left for me in this world; I wanted death but couldn’t deal with not knowing what was to happen after I died. So I carried on, a shell of a human being. Taking scraps and change where I could across the country. I made my way to a small town in Northern Georgia. Luckily the town was so laid back nobody cared about real names or background checks. I found a general busboy/cook/anything-they-needed-done job at a café, where the owner was largely against paying the government any more than he had too. If you pay your employees cash, you don’t have to take taxes, if you don’t take taxes…well then you don’t have to report them.
I did my job, and I did it extremely well. A short time later I was cleaning a table in the main section, I turned to go back to the back, and she was standing there. It surprised and scared me a little. Normally people can’t sneak up on me, but she did. I doubt anything showed on my face, but she was like a ninja. She flashed me a smile and said ‘Hi’, then bounded off on what must have been clouds, her feet never touched the floor. I couldn’t catch my breath; I went back to the back and sat down. Her face was like that of a porcelain doll, so smooth and perfect. Big bright eyes that had a tale to tell, just not the one she was pretending to tell.
Suddenly I had a reason to live. I wanted to know her, to find out what it was she was hiding and who the real person was. My knees were weak, but I managed to stand and peek over the ticket counter into the dining room. She was fluttering about like nothing had happened, her auburn hair shining in the sunlight that was peering through the front window. It hit me later that nothing was boring and dull anymore. The beautiful colors of the world flooding my eyes like a dam that had just exploded. Only it no longer bothered me, I welcomed the new senses.
I wanted to follow her everywhere she went, but something stopped me. Whether it was just a gut feeling or the way she managed to sneak up on me the other day frightened me a little, I didn’t dare. So I did other things. I still couldn’t speak, that part was long gone, but I made sure her job was easier. Cleaned her tables faster and always moved her tickets to the top of my priority. One day I was taking the trash out and noticed a small flower blooming in the small patch of grass behind the building. It reminded me of her, one beautiful thing growing out of such ugliness.
I picked it and slipped it into her cubby in the small break room. I watched her when she saw it, waiting to see that spark of a real person. She didn’t show it, but she did keep the flower, I figured that was better than nothing. During a slow period, I was pretending to work on the grill but was watching her in the dining hall through the ticket window and she was wiping down tables but stopped. She turned straight around and made eye contact with me. I shifted my gaze back down to the grill; I could feel her still staring. She made her way back to me and stood watching.
“I’m Jenny,” she said.
I couldn’t help but laugh, I knew that wasn’t her name. I wanted to say something, to ask her what it really was, the words just wouldn’t come.
“Was something I said funny?”
I still couldn’t reply.
Then something odd happened. She sort of just let go and relaxed. No words, but I could feel her tension disappearing. I wondered if it was me. Was I somehow doing that to her without even trying? Whatever it was, for that brief time she let her guard down. That was the real her…beautiful and free.
“That was actually a nice break. I know you’re not going to say anything, but thanks.” I smiled, and she went back to the front of the café.
The next couple of weeks just flew by. They were the best times I had ever had up to that point. I’d never been happy before. I couldn’t believe how good it felt. That was why people search for happiness so hard. Who knew? The best part was even though I couldn’t speak I didn’t have to. She understood me with no words. Our connection was so strong that when she left for the night, I felt like I was going to die.
I know now, of course, this was all in my head. But at the time I was young and had never felt anything so intense before. It overwhelmed me. I had found out where she was staying by overhearing her and another customer. I had to find out if it was just me. Was I the only one of us feeling this way?
Why, I don’t know, but I chose the stormiest night to have a fit to see her. It was cold, and I was drenched the second I stepped out into the rain. But it didn’t deter me; she wasn’t far from where I was basically squatting. She had rented a loft above an old barn that wasn’t used anymore. Once I got there, I was quiet. I could hear her up top, and she was humming. I barely tapped the side of an overturned bucket that made the lightest noise imaginable. The humming stopped, and before I could blink, she was already down the stairs ready to attack with a shiny butterfly knife.
I couldn’t budge from seeing her move so fast. I thought I was the only other person that moved like that. She stepped closer, and I could tell she recognized me but didn’t speak. She closed the knife and slid it in her back pocket, smiled softly and climbed back up to the loft. I knew that was an ok to follow, but I was stupefied, I had rushed over there and my feet were planted. Eventually, I got them unstuck and climbed the stairs.
She was sitting on the bed counting some cash. I moved over to a chair opposite her. She unfolded a blanket and wrapped it around me. I hadn’t noticed until she got closer, but I was shivering. It wasn’t because I was cold; it was just the sheer proximity of her. We flirted during the day, but were never that close. She started to pull away, but I stopped her and looked up into her big eyes. Her face changed. It softened from her normal features, and she kissed me. It was long and gentle; I could not let her go at this point. I pulled her down into the chair with me and covered us both in the blanket. We stayed like that all night, cuddled together, the smell of her freshly shampooed hair encompassing my senses.
As far as intimacy goes, that is the furthest I’d ever been able to get with another person. Not for a lack of trying. I’d just never felt anything mentally or physically, so I never bothered to go further. It was all part of living a colorless existence, I supposed. If the world had ended that night, I would’ve died the happiest man alive. There was no way life could get better than that.
The world didn’t end though, and once the sun was up, we left for work. Being the sporadic nomad I was, I always had bugout bag stashed wherever I worked. I was doing my normal tasks as usual until mid-lunch rush, what happened etched into my memory to the most microscopic of detail. A Sheriffs car pulled up outside. Normally, I would’ve brushed it aside, but she immediately stiffened, dropped everything she was carrying on the table in front of her, and started moving toward the exit in the back. Before she was able to make it, there was another Sheriff coming up behind her.
The moment I had nightmares about for a month was when they were dragging her out of the café, she was able to glance back at me. We had one last connection, and she was gone. The days that followed are gone from my memory, what I did or who I ran into is a mystery. I remember waking up in her loft with the most awful pain from deep inside. Like a vital organ had been ripped out, and this made me angry. I picked up and threw every object I could get my hands on that wasn’t nailed down in the small space.
Once I flipped the bed, I found a small journal. It was in her handwriting, mostly about her abusive childhood, which hurt to read. If I was to find her, I would make sure she would never have that kind of pain again. But most importantly, she gave a location of said childhood. It may not be a sure lead, but it was the only one I had.
I got to the small town; it was no different from the last. I found a job in another café, one that was very popular, and I waited. The Sheriff’s office was across the street, but I couldn’t see inside, and if anyone worked there, they rarely came out. A week into my venture I saw one of the two that took her away come out and get in a car with dark tinted windows. I must’ve been staring a little too hard as one of the waitresses saw me and told me that the car belonged to the man that actually ran the town.
The Sheriff was basically just a glorified assistant to the Man in charge. A lot of dirty work done under the umbrella of the law. The car drove off with the two men inside. I knew I was close; I just needed more information. My luck continued to get better when the second man that took her came out of the office and over to the café. I made sure whatever it was he ordered would flow right through him, so he had to go to the bathroom before leaving. Once it hit and he ran to the bathroom in the back of the café, I followed him in, put the out of order sign on the door, and locked it behind me.
I’d never tortured anyone before. It was an enlightening experience. Making it even more difficult that I couldn’t speak, but he recognized me from the day they took her. So that made it easier. He told me about The Man. He said he wasn’t sure who the girl was, only that The Man wanted her. The last thing he was able to say before he passed out was an address where they dropped her off. I found some flammable cleaning solutions under the sink and emptied all the bottles, then set the manservant aflame.
I snuck back to the break area, grabbed my bag, and headed in the direction of the place the sub-manservant gave me. It was a long hike; I avoided the main road and went through the wooded part on the side, which made it even longer. I arrived at the edge of the property I was looking for. It was breathtaking, green everywhere, beautiful horses running wild and a house in the distance on what must’ve been the center of the property.
I kept to the outskirts until I had to cross it; I waited for nightfall and moved in closer to the main house. There was a barn close to the house where they kept the prized horses where I could see the main house better. For such a large house there wasn’t a lot of movement at first.
As the night wore on though, men would come and then go. Never there longer than an hour, it made me extremely uneasy. Not to mention with that kind of coming and going I was never going to be able to sneak around. This did not deter me from doing just that, I snuck around to the back and entered in through the servant’s entrance. I moved into the kitchen and listened, nothing. Then to the dining area and to a large room that must’ve been the living room area.
Still nothing. The house was freakily quiet, when there was so much activity less than an hour before.
The house was dark, but there was enough light shining in from the windows to make out a staircase. I moved towards it and heard an unmistakable sound of a shotgun being cocked. I turned around and was staring straight down the barrel of it and The Man had his finger on the trigger. I grabbed the barrel and started punching and kicking with as much strength that I could, he screamed “I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!” and pulled the trigger. It didn’t hit me, it hit an older woman who had come out of her room after hearing the struggle. The Man laughed a hard laugh and gave me the opportunity to get the upper hand. I pulled the shotgun away from him and popped him in the face with the butt of it.
I managed to make my way up the stairs, when he was behind me again. I shot him in the stomach, and he fell to the ground, I pulled the butterfly knife I found in the loft from my pocket and slit his throat. There were two other men in another room, and I dispatched of them easily as well. Then I stopped and listened again, I could hear light breathing from the other side of a door that looked more secure than the main entrance to the house was.
I put my ear to it and listened, I knew it was her. I could feel her warmth, and then it was gone. She had moved away. I put my whole body into it and busted down the door. She had huddled down on the floor, not sure who was coming through the door. When she saw it was me, she made sure I wasn’t hurt, wrapped her arms around me, and started to sob quietly. It didn’t take long for her to regain her composure, and we headed through the house.
She stopped at The Man’s body but didn’t say anything. When we got downstairs, we could hear small sounds of whimpering. The woman that got shot earlier was still alive and trying to crawl away. I handed Jenny the knife and she slit the woman’s throat without hesitation. The house fell in complete silence, and I had found what I came for. I could finally let out the breath that I had been holding since she was taken away from me.
We left that horrible place and never looked back. We were new and reinvigorated people ready to live in this world for the first time. With Jenny, I am never bored, and nothing has ever been colorless again.
The End…
