Darkheart

The Present: Sweet & Sour

A dead deer lay on the side of the road, its hind quarters twisted at such an angle the thing was nearly cut in two. Viscera spread indecorously on the dirt and partially on the pavement, where a stray dog had dragged it only to run off when a semi had likely torn by and ground the innards into a smear of pink across the asphalt. The head of the deer was fully intact, its eyes jet marbles reflecting the few clouds above, and its tongue lolling thick and swollen out of its split mouth. The remains let off a sour, putrid stench, as if the carcass had been sitting there for some time under the hot sun, and Heather's nausea was terribly exacerbated by the sight and smell of the thing. She'd been bent over on her knees at the edge of the nearest cornfield for at least fifteen minutes.

Kevin was beyond frustrated, not just for her, but for everything that had happened that morning. After Heather had revealed her pregnancy, they'd packed what few things they thought might come in handy, and then they'd gotten back into her car and headed out. They didn't know where they were going; they knew only that they wanted to get as far away from Port Killdeer as possible, and yet here they were, halfway down the two-lane road from Port Killdeer to Bad Axe, more stuck than they'd been back at his house. Random, stupid things had eaten into their time: a detour due to a water main break, a particularly long train of geese attempting to cross the way, a tractor broken down and blocking a lane-and-a-half--but these things they'd managed to work past only to blow a tire once they'd finally managed to reach open road. Kevin had spent half an hour jacking up the car in an attempt to put on the spare only to lose two of the lug nuts. Reception was spotty between towns, and though they'd attempted to make some phone calls, they'd been unable to hold a clear conversation with anyone.

So now here they were, just the two of them and the dead deer, and while one might have thought cars would be coming and going if even at long intervals, they'd seen absolutely no one the entire time they'd been stranded. Kevin paced the road, holding his phone toward the sky, looking for bars and growing more irate by the second. He was trying to maintain his composure if not for himself than for the sake of Heather, who was important to him, now, but he couldn't work past the sense of dread that consumed him.

He'd always been so sure that all of this was inevitable, had never hoped to believe it wasn't. And he'd made if not peace than submission to it. But the sudden imposition of a future, of companionship and appreciation and understanding, of a child . . .

The wild thoughts of tomorrow, the dare to hope which he'd been able to avoid in order to shield himself from despair, had infused him with a motivation he'd thought lost forever. But it was the rash desire, that impetuous belief that they could escape, that was the cruelest torment of all. He knew it, standing there on the road, throwing his phone against the pavement and watching it burst to bits--he knew that there was no escape, and that this last torture was its final mockery of him, its magnum opus. What a fool he'd been, to believe there was a way out of it all.

But Heather was over there, ill, and he couldn't let her down. Didn't he have to at least try to keep going? She needed protection. She was so small in the face of everything, as strong as she pretended to be, and he was all she had. Kevin crossed the grass and the several yards toward the fields, crouched down next to the woman, and found her weeping instead of vomiting. His heart hurt to see her this way, to think that he'd never noticed before these past couple of weeks how beautiful she was, how much she needed someone to tell her that.

He wrapped his arms around her, sat down and drew her onto his lap in a graceless effort. "We'll get out of here. I promise."

"We won't," she mumbled at length, her tears those of acquiescence rather than rebellion. "It didn't matter, you know? I never wanted anything except for it to stop. But now--"