The Tangled Woods (Dark Corners collection) by Emily Raboteau

Author:Emily Raboteau [Raboteau, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2018-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

The water park was as big as a cathedral. There, Reginald grew annoyed with his son, perceiving a weakness he felt in himself. Thurgood was too timid to try the treacherous-looking waterslides. The boy preferred the kiddie areas of the indoor water park. The safe wading area and wave pool. From a beach chair Reginald watched him splashing around in his little yellow swim trunks and goggles. Ladette was somewhere close. He felt her presence hovering like a weight, censuring him. Then he spied her near the ladies’ locker room in her batik-print sarong wrap. She was helping the story lady pick up wet white towels. The towels were strewn all over. People were pigs. Why was the old woman doing this kind of labor? Stooping like a field hand, picking cotton. She was seventy, at least. She should have been retired. Her hands were arthritic, and that was why Ladette was helping her. You don’t have to do that, he wanted to say. This is supposed to be fun. But Ladette was an anchor. The most important thing is kindness, she would say. She was calling to their son, their brown sugar baby, to teach him this lesson. “Come, Thurgood, we have to help our friend.” Thurgood padded over. His wet footprints slowly disappeared.

Reginald’s eyelids grew heavy. The temperature was controlled. He dozed in the beach chair at the shoreline of the wave pool. A siren sounded on a timer, signaling the uterine churning of the waves. It was humid and smelled of chlorine. There was nothing natural about it. They could not be farther from the wilderness. They were gerbils in a cage, taking turns running on the wheel. Surrounding him were the flawed, near-naked bodies of his countrymen, engaged in their childish pursuits. Cellulite. Hairy shoulders. Caesarian scars. Dumb slaves to their smartphones, they traded living in the moment for taking pictures of the moment. He felt sluggish and knew he needed sleep, but a feeling of unease kept him from going under. Something dark and swift moved in his peripheral vision. A familiar silhouette. Someone screamed the alarm from the top of a slide. “He has a gun!”

You have got to be kidding me, thought Reginald.

And then chaos. He heard the shots before he spied the shooter. He ducked, assailed first and foremost by sound. The acoustics were good. The gunfire sounded like amplified applause. The screams were operatic, expressed at every human register. In pairs and trios, the people scattered. To Reginald’s right, a man shielded himself and his child with a beach chair. His eyes were red rimmed, panicked. “Play dead,” the man said. Where was Ladette? She had Thurgood. Where were they? He frantically scanned the crowd stampeding for the exit. Shoving each other, pulling each other along. Carrying babies in swim diapers. Banging on the glass. The doors were jammed or locked. They were trapped.

The masked shooter wore black. He stood by the rack of life vests. He was methodical about his task.

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