Page 56 of The Battery
“Mom?” I asked as I craned my head forward. My voice sounded younger in my ears. Like I was a kid again. Scared. In the dark.
She turned as best as she could to look at me. The light had already dimmed in her eyes. “Baby boy.” She tried to reach out and touch me but couldn’t move her arms. “Be good. Be a good boy, baby. Momma loves you.”
“Mom,” I said, then sobbed.
“Be good, Leo.Promise me.Be good…”
“I promise.”
Her body gave out and she sagged forward.
It took me five minutes to get the rear sliding door open enough to climb out of. Part of Archie barred the way.
I left the minivan that Mom thought looked Tiffany Blue. That Dad secretly loved. That Archie and I fought over for the back seat.
The climb up was steep and I was too numb to realize I had kicked my shoes off when we got into the car an hour ago. I don’t know how long it took to reach the top of the hill but when I did, the blizzard was in full effect.
Directionless. Shoeless. No jacket, hat, or gloves. My breath fogged the air as I peered through the biting, stinging cold.
Then I remembered we passed a house not too far back. Just after Dad first lost control and regained it. I got my bearings, anchored by the guardrail where we went over, and set off into the wind.
It felt like twenty-four hours of walking. My feet had gone completely numb and the rest of my body was on the way. After twenty minutes or twenty years, I arrived at a cabin set ahundred feet back from the road. Smoke rose from the chimney. A buttery-yellow porch light was on and a floodlight flared to life, activated by my movement.
Someone was at the front door before I reached it, a silhouette of a man clearly holding a shotgun.
Up the three steps. Onto the porch.
The screen door swung wildly open as an elderly woman shoved her husband aside and ran to me.
“For heaven’s sake, Joel, I said call 911!” she cried. Joel, her husband, had said something I didn’t hear. Probably telling her to stay back. “He’s just a kid!” she yelled in response.
I had fallen to my knees and sweet little Iris Daniels tried to help me up.
“No, no, hun,yougo call,” Joel said as he pulled his wife up and pushed her inside. “This boy is big. Let me get him.”
I was inside and covered in enough blankets to stitch a slipcover for a hot air balloon. They had their wood stove blasting out heat.
The cops arrived and by then I had the wherewithal to speak.
“Georgios. May. Archidamus,” I told the cop. Dad. Mom. Archie. I had told the story of what happened and he asked for everyone’s names. I don’t remember saying much, but it was enough for them to go looking.
“Okay, son,” the cop said. “Is there anyone we can call for you?”
I nodded. “My uncle.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Cody
Cleansing, golden sunshinepoured through the living room windows to bathe us in light. I sat frozen in the moment, willing that sun to thaw me from the petrification of Leo’s story. Half a dozen things ran through my mind on what I could say or do but none of them seemed good enough. I was completely ill-equipped for this level of intimate confession.
Did you go back to the car?
Did you have to identify bodies afterward?
When you said Archie was all around you, did you really mean…?
Do you still talk to Iris and Joel?
