So Long, Not Goodnight

Chapter Ten

Ten years ago today, it was so dark out that the headlights of his mom's Suburu XT barely illuminated a few inches in front of him as he drove down a rural New Jersey scenic route back road on his way home from his friend Ray's D&D tournament. He was barely driving above fifteen miles per hour and the twisty road made him feel like he was in some Texas Chainsaw spoof where some asshole in a skin mask would pop out of the woods with an axe or a baseball bat and chase him for his life.

As he slowly rounded a curve in the road, a gleam of white shone in his headlights off in the forest close to the narrow shoulder. Gerard hit the brake so hard the tires squealed and smoked and stopped in what felt like barely a second. He flicked on his hazards which created a stop motion scene in the forest. The white sheet seemed to disappear and reappear. Gerard opened his driver side door and stepped onto the asphalt slowly looking from side to side, squinting his eyes in the darkness trying to make out what he just saw. "Hello?" He called out into the nothingness of the night.

He was met with silence. There it was again, that white band that seemed to be floating a few feet off the road in the wood. Gerard softly closed his car door and walked in front of his headlights towards the shoulder, causing the headlights to blink as he passed them. "Hello?" He called again and peeked around a few heavily trunked trees in the direction of the object. He cautiously stepped over thick roots as he entered the dark forest. It was so dark he could only make out the lights coming from passing planes and airtraffic atop the tree foliage, so he took out his lighter and flicked the small flamelight. He was getting closer to the drapery. He quickened his steps dodging roots and thorns until he made it to a small clearing, the size of an area rug. There were empty beer bottles, cigarette stubs, and rusty syringes strewn over the wet grass. The white sheet appeared to be a woman's nightgown that was caught on a few dead tree branches; it was almost entirely torn to shreds.

A desperate cry crescendoed close by and Gerard pulled his thumb off of the ignition of the lighter. He waited in the darkness and listened. The sound was coming from deeper in the wood. The cries were joined with a low chatter that were coming from other directions, still close by. Gerard felt around and made his way through the darkness by feeling around the vegetation that almost guided him to where he was looking to go. He looked over his shoulder and could barely make out his headlights. A high pitched scream came tearing through the air and Gerard paused and hid peeking around the trunk of a large oak tree. "Please!" Came the shrieking voice that was sobbing.

"Please," she hiccupped.

Laughter was the response. Gerard's eyes were adjusting to the dark and he could begin to make out three faces of what looked to be early twenties aged men and one young, eighteen she must have been, woman. She was being held at knife point against the trunk of another large tree; her arms were pinned back, knotted by a rope or a belt or something that was wrapping the tree. One of the men approached her fidgeting with his belt, unbuckling it and beginning to pull down his jeans and underwear exposing his ass. Gerard couldn't make out her features too clearly, but the wisps of moonlight seeping through the clouds highlighted tears streaming down her face in rivers. The now half naked man held the knife back up to her throat which also gleamed in the moonlight. "What the fuck did I just say?"

She responded with a whimper and he continued. "You say one more word and I swear to fucking God, I will slice you up so good, you'll be unrecognizable."

She whimpered again, more softly than the last time, and the man relaxed his grip on the knife a little. "That's better." He snickered and guided her legs open.

Gerard watched, feeling his insides churn and roil as the man leaned down and positioned himself in the apex of her legs and began pushing his body onto hers. He was grunting and moaning as she silently whimpered and the two other men around them softly whistled and jeered. Every moan that Gerard heard from this monster's mouth caused him to grip the tree he hid behind tighter and tighter. He felt so helpless watching and he wanted desperately to rush in and take her in his arms and comfort her and take her to hospital, but there were three men and he was just a boy. But he couldn't take it, hearing him pump into her and the others laughing and even though her voice sounded so small, hers was the loudest of all. "Fuck!" Gerard heard the one man cry out. "Oh, fuck, baby, I'm coming!"