Escape From Norriswood

CHAPTER SIX

Tara felt the heat rise up off the sidewalk of the cul-de-sac, greet her forearms, hands. She kept thinking she heard feet trampling through the woods behind them, sticks cracking, a murmur of muted men's voices. So Tara kept lunging forward beside Rosalyn.

They slipped out of the cul-de-sac, and onto a suburban street that slanted steeply downward. Houses lined the road on either side, cutouts of one another, just painted differently. Lime green, turquoise, mustard yellow -- contemporary colours.

The lights in the houses were on, blue screens flickering through the wide, living room windows. Tara felt Rosalyn reach over and take her hand, and then Rosalyn was jogging, dragging Tara down the sidewalk.

At the bottom of the road, a kid's playground stood, monkey bars bending over backwards, a slight breeze catching one of the swings and teetering it forward. Tara walked beneath the glare of a streetlight, and then the light above her instantly went out.

"Holy fuck," Rosalyn said.

Tara felt like running, felt like asking Rosalyn if she sensed whatever was looming over them, too, and then she saw the street sign placed at the corner of the road.

"Sculley Lane," Tara said. "Sculley Lane." She turned toward Rosalyn. "Isn't there a Scull-"

"In Norriswood," Rosalyn said. "Yeah. There is."

Tara stood there, her back to the main road. A car crept up from behind them, and for a second Rosalyn was caught in the headlights, her face waxed and paper-thin. The sound of the old car on the potholed road echoed back to them, as it took off up the road.

"There's no fucking way we're in Norriswood," Tara said.

Rosalyn's knees gave out, and she sat down suddenly on the side of the road.

"Hey," Tara said. "It's in our heads. We've been driving for three days, and god knows how long we were in the woods. We haven't eaten, haven't slept."

A groan came up from Rosalyn's squat body.

"I have some money," Tara said. "Let's just some takeout place, get a burger or something. Maybe we can even find a place to stay tonight."

"But we can't go back to the car now anyway," Rosalyn said. She stood up then. "You're right. Maybe something just bit me in those woods." She turned right, and began to walk on the side of the road.

*

Rosalyn wished she had a phone. After walking for a couple kilometers on the main road of God-only-knows-where with Tara, the two came to a small bar. The outside was overgrown with weeds, the grass looked like it had gone un-mowed, un-trimmed all summer. A mini-van with a yellow, glowing taxicab sign on the roof was parked outside, in the gravel driveway.

"Place is closed, girls. You just missed last call."

He had his window rolled down, and when he spoke to Roslayn and Tara, he flicked his engine on, and the headlights beamed through the dust. "I can give you two a ride back into town, if you want."

Rosalyn heard the puttering of the van's engine; saw the dust waft upwards off the ground. She glanced at Tara. "Sure," she said.

Rosalyn sat in the backseat with Tara to her left. Surely there had been a phone inside the bar, she thought. But she had just missed it.

"Where you two want to go?" the driver said. He brought his head back toward them. "I'm free all night, I can go anywhere."

Rosalyn eyed the toll accumulate on the red digits on the dash. Watched the red digital numbers climb, climb, climb.

"Is there a place to get a burger at this hour?" Tara said.

The driver said there was. Then, "You're not from around here, hey girls?"

Rosalyn smacked her tongue against the inside of her mouth, felt it stick and slide into the saliva.

"Just here for the night," Rosalyn said. "We were here once as kids, thought we'd come back to check it out."

"Oh, how'd you end up back out here then?"

"Cousins," Tara said. "Our cousins live out here." Rosalyn felt her gaze and turned to look at her. The taxi rode down some country roads, the farms flickering by through the back window. Their fields ran backwards forever, still, and shadowed.

The taxi waded onwards, and then took a series of turns, one left, up a hill, then down to the right, then quickly left again. Houses propped up now on the side of the road, porch lights lighting up their front yards, driveways. Rosalyn could see yellow circles in the grass where pools or trampolines had sat all summer. She swallowed, wondered if her own parents had taken the swimming pool down from the backyard. Rosalyn missing now, gone off somewhere, there'd be nobody home to use it.

The taxi reached the end of the road, and took another right, this one onto a main road. Lights blaring onto the road from store signs, fast food places, and a few moments later she saw it. Out the window, a building that stretched out, and ran upwards about two stories, all layered brick. The parking lot out front with basketball nets that were missing their nets, empty rings hanging up there. On the building, in black block letters, Parkdale Senior High was written.

She blinked. It couldn't be. But then the taxi had passed it, and Rosalyn looked at Tara but Tara was looking out her own window.

The cab continued down the road, and Rosalyn watched the buildings pass by, and slowly it began to all wind back to her. Murray's, The small fish and chips place she'd gone to as a child, the picnic tables outside the place empty and bare now in the evening. Frantics', the bar and pool place all the rough kids had claimed that first year after high school.

Rosalyn felt something swim and swim around inside her. How had she not known? How had she mistaken it when her and Tara first burst out of the woods? Or had she felt it then, too?

The cab pulled up in front of Barney's. The place all windows, lights from the dining room on, and the whole room visible to them now, outside.

"That's 16 dollars," the cab driver said. He reached his hand back, and then began to turn around himself, but Tara already had a fistful of cash in his palm.

"Keep the change," she said.

Outside, when the cab driver peeled away, Rosalyn turned to face Tara, but couldn't utter anything.

The parking lot was empty around them. A wind blew, and a plastic grocery bag scurried along the asphalt, scraping itself into Rosalyn's world.

"This cannot be Norriswood," Tara said.

Rosalyn just watched the plastic bag wrap itself around a light pole. The smell of Barney's wafted out, those peppered onion rings she'd had as a child, those jumbo dogs with the homemade buns and fresh relish.

From the end of the parking lot, a pair of headlights turned, flickered towards them.