Wednesday - Chapter 7

Returning home from another hard day, George Carmichael debates a way out of his arrangement with Grady Perlson. (TW: intensely implied DV)

New to The Road Cain Walks? See the Table of Contents to start the first chapter.

George pulled into his garage Wednesday night exhausted, wrung out like a mop used to scrub every inch of Starks Prison. Hours hunched over the police scanner left his back sore. Behind his right eye, a headache blossomed. Slouching into the kitchen, he wanted nothing more than to go upstairs and sleep until Wolgiss considered his debt paid. Instead, he found Nicole at the kitchen table.

Wicked men deserved no rest.

One of Nicole’s hands held her silk robe closed under her neck, the other with a teacup near her mouth. Fear kept her eyes wide, her whisper a breath through the steam. “They found another one. A woman from out of town.”

George could have assured her they were the safest people in Pine Haven, but then he’d have to explain why. He wasn’t ready for that conversation. With a frown, he nodded. “Who told you?”

“I heard people at the grocery store talking. One had lunch over at the Road King and saw the sheriff putting up police tape behind the old gas station.”

Setting her cup down, Nicole covered her face with both hands. George sat beside her and kissed her forehead. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You’re never here anymore.”

“You know where I keep the gun.”

Despite her nod, George doubted Nicole could point the .357 at any living thing and pull the trigger. When she met his gaze, he worried she’d see right through him to the truth, remembering her trip to the prison basement and the dark god who healed her.

Nicole reclaimed her tea and stood, heading toward the den. George went upstairs to shower.

Under the near-scalding water, George wished he hadn’t listened. He might have bought another day before learning what it meant to obey voices in another man’s head. But he was curious what they’d find at the Pump and Save so borrowed Becky’s scanner, shutting his office door so he could hear it all.

His jaw set against the scream building inside his chest.

George thought it would be an even trade: the life of a stranger for his wife’s. He hadn’t paid attention to the fine print.

Into the spraying water, he whispered, “Everything I ask.”

Waiting for Joe Richards’s turn to die, he’d ignored the bodies stacking behind him.

Pressure grew until George had to release it in a series of stifled moans. He watched the blurred door through the frosted glass. If Nicole came to see what was wrong, he’d tell her everything. He’d beg her to understand his choices were right because he made them out of love for her.

Hank Barbour had been shocked when George brought Nicole to the basement block. Jim Stucker wore a smile as if listening for the punchline. They followed him to that single occupied cell, asking questions George ignored.

Grady had waited at the cell door with those black, empty eyes. Stepping into his reach, George offered him his wife. As the inmate’s massive hands reached through the bars, light spilled from cracks in his fingers. Nicole’s skin drank the glow when he touched her, his eyes shutting as hers fluttered aware.

Hank and Jim were chosen as witnesses. A different word teased the back of George’s throat as he got out of the shower and dried, demanding his voice as he dressed in a pair of loose shorts and a white t-shirt.

“Disciples.”

The three witnesses to that miracle became disciples of something they didn’t understand, but each played their assigned part. Wiping a hand across the fogged mirror, George stared into the clear streak at his reflection. How had he been so stupid? He’d joined a cult—founded the damn thing.

George found Nicole half-asleep on the living room couch, watching a show where strangers in a house proved the worst aspects of humanity. On tonight’s episode, two girls verged on war after finding out they were sleeping with the same guy. Slumping into his leather armchair, George picked a spot below the screen and stared, hoping Nicole was too tired to notice anything wrong.

What would happen if he went to Sheriff Arkin and narrowed his list of suspects to two? Wolgiss wouldn’t shrug and let it go. At the least, he’d take back his gift and return Nicole to her inner darkness. But if he allowed Hank and Jim to keep at it, he was just as guilty.

Forgetting he wasn’t alone, George let his head fall.

Nicole muted the television as the shouting girls were about to start swinging. “What’s wrong, babe?”

“It’s just been a long day.”

George rubbed his temples, hoping she’d leave him alone. Instead, Nicole got up and stood behind him to massage his shoulders. It made him feel better but wasn’t what he needed.

With a final squeeze, Nicole said, “Whatever it’s about can’t be worth the stress.”

Leaning back, George took one of her hands and kissed its palm. “If you only knew.”

Nicole returned to the couch and finished her show, then handed George the remote as she kissed him goodnight. When her feet thumped up the stairs, he turned off the television.

In the blank screen, George made his decision. It was one thing to trade a man’s life to have Nicole back, but the body count was already at five with no indication of ending soon. He considered what it meant to walk away, to watch her wasting again like a lost spirit. He’d rather see her dead.

The thought lingered. Without Nicole, Wolgiss had nothing to keep George walking his hard, twisting road. It might save the next five lives, including Joe’s. He imagined getting the pistol from his study and pointing it at her—pulling the trigger to end her life.

After checking the front door’s lock, George did the same for the one in the kitchen. He poured a glass of tap water and drank it, one hand on the counter and his eyes fixed on the large wooden block of knives beside the sink. Touching their handles, he drew one with a long, thin blade, squeezing the handle in his white-knuckled fist.

Though Nicole wouldn’t know what a creak from the stairs meant, George took his time to avoid making a sound. At the closed bedroom, he turned the knob and cracked the door to peek inside. Despite the dark, her shape was easy to find. The bedsheets gathered at her waist, the rhythmic rise of each breath proving she was asleep.

The mile to the prison felt shorter than the ten feet to the bed. Standing over Nicole, George waited for some force to move his hand—a temporary insanity to drive down the knife—but found his thoughts the clearest they’d been since his son died.

Where should he stab her? If the chest or neck, he’d need to roll her over, which risked waking her. Her head was a better option, but how could he damage the face he loved more with every line carved by their years together? His best bet was her back, aiming for her heart with a hope it wouldn’t take more than one try.

George lowered to his knees and positioned the knife below Nicole’s shoulder blade. He drew a slow breath and touched the blade’s tip to her skin, blood beading around the metal. As she stirred with a light moan, he jerked the knife away, afraid he’d impale her if she rolled over.

The instinct to protect her made it clear he could never hurt her, the realization a relief. If something inside Grady had the power to heal Nicole, the rest might also be true. Wolgiss came from the future to find some magic rock, a stone that kept time on a predetermined road. If George was meant to kill his wife, it wouldn’t have felt impossible.

A sharp throb from George’s knees got him back to his feet with a loud arthritic pop that froze him. Eyes fixed on Nicole, he waited until her light snores filled the room before creeping back out to the hallway, easing the door shut behind him.

Downstairs, George washed the speck of drying blood from the knife’s tip and slipped it back into the wooden block. Empty, his hand trembled, the hard shiver racing up his arms to fold him over the countertop. The idea of what he’d almost done sat heavy. Closing his eyes, George pictured it. The plunging knife and blood seeping out on the sheets. The question in Nicole’s face as she woke, disoriented and dying.

A mass closed his throat, either building a scream or the urge to vomit. Fighting both, George buried his head under his arms to weep in silence.

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