It was just a flower. A familiar flower with an outdated name. But as I stared at it, my skin grew clammy and I felt my chest restricting. My breath coming in and out in wheezing gasps. I ran.
When I was 7, my parents were killed on a camping trip. I was with them, and I survived. I was missing for two days until I was found, wandering, beaten and bloody and mute. I was clutching a small bouquet of wilted wildflowers. I had no memory of that time. Until now.
My parents’ bodies had been found first, sliced up and near the camper, a fire still smoking in the circle of stones. There was little hope that I would be found alive. No one was ever caught or even accused of this crime. No evidence, no motive. Just two sets of large footprints that lead into the woods and faded at the tree line. Much of this I didn’t learn till later, when I was old enough to both hear and seek out more details. Even then, I wasn’t told everything. I know that now.
I grew up first in the foster system, then at the home of a nice older couple. I don’t have any real foster parent horror stories, though I know they exist for others. I had an easy time of it really, except for the not speaking for a year, and the nightmares. The couple were actually patient and kind, and the worst things they did were to make me do my homework, eat my vegetables, and go to my room when I acted up, which was infrequent. I grew up, went to community college, and landed a small-town bank job. Still single at 28, but with a nice boyfriend that I had just started to date. That’s where I was until last week, when everything changed.
It was innocent really. July 4. We had gone to the fair and gotten just a little bit drunk. We had wandered off to the nearby field like teenagers and were laying side by side in the high grass, when I looked to my right and saw it. An Indian paintbrush. That’s when I ran. But I couldn’t outrun the flood.
Memories washed over me, bringing me to my knees. I saw the men. I saw them smiling, talking to my parents. Then the knives came out. All the blood. I screamed until I was hoarse. I beat at them with my small fists. But I was carried into the woods and away. There were two of them, and I was small, and seven, and pretty. That’s what the one man kept telling me. That I was so pretty. He was so heavy on top of me, but he gave me a bouquet of Indian paint brush, and daisies, and buttercups. He told me to close my eyes, look away, and think about Summer.
I lay there, an Indian paintbrush growing off to the side of me. I stared at it and disappeared, my mind breaking like glass. I wandered away while they were drunk and asleep, still clutching my bouquet. And a nice old man found me and took me to the hospital and away again. I was in shock but recovered in time. All of these things I had locked away. I closed my eyes and saw the face above me, the man so heavy on my small body. I knew this man. I had seen him so many times, talked with him, smiled, in the years since.
I gagged and threw up and gagged and threw up – carnival fries and cotton candy and sno-cone. I lay on my bed while the phone rang and rang, while someone later knocked on the door and reluctantly went away. I finally answered the door when a policewoman came by to do a wellness check. I said I was fine, just taken sick. I closed the door, waiting for her retreating steps, and then sat where I stood, crying until I was a husk. When I was cried out, I made a plan. This man I knew, the Sheriff of my small town, he didn’t know that I now remembered. He needed to pay.
He liked to drink, we all knew that. Maybe he had a small shred of guilt that he was trying to drown. Maybe he was just the usual alcoholic asshole cop. I didn’t care. His drinking gave me the advantage I needed. Every Wednesday, Josie’s bar had a two for one special on drafts. He rode home with a friend, then collapsed on his couch. I was waiting for him. Its not like a small-town sheriff thinks he needs to lock his doors. Or his gun cabinet. Or his knives for that matter. By the time he came to, he was hog tied and gagged. I tied the knots nice and tight.
I waited for him to come fully awake and see me, his eyes going wide with first puzzlement, then understanding. I painstakingly dragged and rolled him to the top of his cellar steps, then rolled him down into the darkness. His muffled screams were a balm to my ache. But not enough. I flicked the switch and the one bulb came on, displaying his cuts and bruises, broken bones. I felt absolutely no sympathy. He had taken something from me and while I couldn’t get it back, I could take something from him too. I laid an Indian paintbrush beside him.
Before I got started, I told him to close his eyes, look away, and think about Summer.