Rustin Parr had always admired Henry David Thoreau. The great 19th century naturalist/hermit seemed to have the right idea regarding Humanity. It was best viewed from a distance and objectively appraised without the messy subjectivity of emotional entanglements.
People had always considered Parr an "eccentric", an "oddball", even back when Rustin's aunt and uncle were still alive and caring for him in their little house in Burkittsville, Maryland. Parr's uncle, a tall, cold man with a mean streak as wide as the Maryland woods, was nonetheless a hardworking, pragmatic man who'd taught the young Parr everything he'd need to know about solitary survival. He was a carpenter and passed on to his nephew those skills so necessary to survive in the woods.
Parr's parents had died while he was still very young, so when his aunt passed on, the uncle moved to Baltimore, leaving Rustin all alone in the world. As he sat on Death Row, he realized that that was probably all he wanted all along. Even now, at Death's iron door, Parr was still getting what he wanted. It was an ineluctable fact of life that suited him well- It was always much easier to be left alone than it is to combat loneliness. Parr never remembered feeling lonely in his 48 years.
Of course, all things being equal, he'd rather be at his three-story home in the woods. He'd built the thing from the foundation up over a period of five years, although he'd never considered the possibility of raising a family. A family? More likely that a crocodile be found in the White House than children in the home of Rustin Parr!
Then the woman had changed all that.
Germany had just invaded Poland, further escalating the conflict that would quickly become World War II. December, 1939 was the first time she'd shown her form to him. It would be the beginning of his last mile to the gallows.
Parr had been smoking his pipe, his only vice, while walking through the woods of Burkittsville in Frederick County. Parr's keen eye had immediately spotted the woman, since no one else had ever visited him and none of the indigenous wildlife moved like that. He would run after her, calling out, but the woman was as elusive as smoke on the water.
He never saw her face, but he fancied that, under her dark cloak, she must have been possessed of a beautiful face. Afraid of her? Far from it! He was fascinated by her, partly because she was so maddeningly inaccessible. Seemingly without trying, the mysterious woman simply eluded him.
Then, he began hearing her voice in his head. Parr had always been considered a queer sort by the residents of Burkittsville, but the hermit had never heard a voice in his head that didn't belong to him. This was different. It was an ugly, gnarled voice, an alien presence. It didn't belong there. It resided in his brain like a ghostly cancer.
Rustin Parr had made an exception to the Thoreau Rule- He had gotten emotionally involved with this woman and now she was commanding him to do unspeakable things. By November, Parr was no longer sure if she was even a woman. He'd never seen her in the thick woods of Burkittsville ever again, but her voice lived on like a horrible legacy. At first, it was almost amusing, the things that she would ask him to do, like sleeping in the cellar when he had five comfortable bedrooms above him in which to sleep. But the voice would not stop.
Then, in November of 1940, she commanded him to take the children, two at a time. Parr walked down to the general store in which he would surrender himself in six months and bought some candy.
The first two children disappeared. Then two more, then two more. More.
Little Kyle Brody reminded Parr of himself when he was growing up. No. The boy reminded Parr of what he might've become had his parents not died in that hurricane in 1902, when he was nine. Rustin fancied the boy resembled him in the face but he had none of the sullenness that molded Parr's very features. The Brody boy was handsome, bright-eyed… things that Parr never had a chance to become.
He would be the one to stand in the corner and bear witness to what Parr did in the cellar of his house. He would be the sole survivor. He would be the only one to cry for Parr when he was convicted and again when he was sentenced to death. He was the only human for which Parr had ever cried, as he did the day he released the boy to thirty years of madness.
If Parr were an emotional man, he would've cried over the woman, too. Her name was Elly, so she said, but Parr had never told the authorities. It was their secret, she'd said, and Parr would take that to his grave in a few moments.
Damn, Elly, what the hell did you have to go and do that for?
Emily was the first. The Hollands girl was blonde and beautiful but that is not why Parr had abducted her. Elly had said, quoting Jesus, of all people, but in a mocking voice. "Bring the children unto me. Take the first two you see." She'd never told him to spare the Brody boy, but this was Parr's only act of defiance.
During the actual acts, Parr never felt anything. But in retrospect, he had to live in the hell to which Elly had consigned him but Parr was as powerless to resist her as a tricycle in a tornado.
I just wanted to see your face. I just wanted to talk to you like normal folks. I just wanted to see if I could love.
But Elly, that bitch, was not interested in love. She consumed men as casually as others breathed air and Parr knew all the time that she was never interested in what he had to offer as a man, or even as a human being. He was an automaton, the physical extension of her sick will. He meant nothing to her.
The hell of it was, no one believed him when he told the police and the press six days ago about the voice. In the physical, secular world, whoever gets caught gets punished. You cannot punish a person who cannot be caught. Justice and the law depended entirely on opportunity, as with crime.
Parr looked down at the trapdoor that was about to be opened beneath his feet and felt his stomach growl. He had taken no last meal. His heart was as empty as his stomach. Parr felt emptied of spirit, of everything. The execution was merely a formality.
They will pay. Oh, how they will pay for what they did to me.
Parr kept his distance (exactly four miles from the nearest road, in fact) but he'd never felt any rancor toward the townspeople, and certainly not toward the children. How could he ever make them believe that? Elly's agenda was not his own. He was no multiple murderer. Yet, here he stood on the gallows. Elly had already discarded and had forgotten about him, and was even now scouting for a new body to do her will. Who would it be, this time? Somebody he knew?
The Brody boy. There was something else about him that had caught Parr's heart like a fishing hook. It was the way that the boy had seemed to look through him, edgy, jittery, but penetrating. Of course, the lad had every reason to be on the edge, considering what Elly/Parr had forced him to witness. But the boy looked at Parr during the murders and mutilations as if he was… judging him, as if saying, I know that you wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for her.
Parr never gave a damn about what other people thought about him but on that day he did and he spared the Brody boy. Perhaps the child would go insane, as he would (he would die in an institution thirty years later before reaching 40). But Kyle was the only shot he had for vindication.
People always thought that Kyle cried in the courtroom during the conviction and sentencing out of relief, out of joy at seeing justice served, but Kyle and Rustin knew differently. The boy cried because Parr was innocent, because he knew the cost of letting him go, because he knew that Parr knew he would hang whether he spared him or not. Kyle understood with the clarity of insanity why Parr had cried as he hugged him and told him to leave.
Lord only knew what the cost would be to Parr if he disobeyed yet, somehow, he'd found it in him to do so. But she'd never spoken to him again until May 25th, when she told him to go to town and surrender. I'm finally finished. They were three of the most famous words spoken in Burkittsville history.
The trapdoor creaked. Is it time? No. They hadn't read the charges to him, yet, nor asked him if he had any last words.
Parr. My dear Rustin Parr.
Elly? Why did you do this to me?
Pardon me? Who's "Ellie", Mr. Parr?
Elly???
There are some things, dear boy, that are larger than everyone in the world. Revenge is one of them.
Why the children? They were completely innocent.
Parr cried for the last time, now.
It had to be them. Don't you see, Rustin? The children are the ultimate price because they are so innocent.
Any last words to say on your behalf, Mr. Parr?
I loved you… Lord knows why… but I loved you…
The snap that was heard on the gallows was not Parr's neck, but his heart.
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