by David Haynes
Bile rose in his throat, bitter and burning. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He found he could no longer look her in the eye. Not even for a second. He was ashamed of himself. Ashamed and repulsed. He heard her footsteps approach. He expected her to rain blows on him, punch him, kick him. He deserved it all.
Instead she crouched beside him, picking up the knife. He lifted his head, meeting her eyes. Would she try and kill him?
She turned the knife, pushing the handle toward him.
“You need to keep cutting,” she said. “We’ll die if you don’t.”
He looked into her eyes. Had he expected her to stop him? Had part of him wanted her to? The answer was yes to both questions. And yet he knew if she tried to do either, he wouldn’t have let her. To stop meant death and he wouldn’t allow that.
He took the knife from her shaking hands.
“You didn’t...” she began.
“Kill him?” Jonesy was shocked at the intimation. He pushed it aside. Neither of them were thinking straight right now and he knew she would never consider the thought under normal circumstances.
“He was dead when we arrived.” He swallowed hard as his stomach tried to climb up and out of his throat again. “There was no other way, Lisa. I didn’t know what to do. We’d be dead by now if it weren’t...”
She reached out for him. “We don’t need ever to talk about this. We survive, we make it through to spring and then we never allow this to happen again.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. It felt dry and lifeless but it was the best either of them had.
Lisa stood up slowly, using his shoulders as leverage to push herself upright. They were both weak and getting weaker by the day but there was enough meat here to keep them alive. Maybe they’d get lucky and something would wander right through the camp where it could be shot with minimal effort. Maybe.
“I’m going to look outside,” she said and walked to the door.
Jonesy stared at the blade for a moment and then at the body. He turned toward it and sliced. In the background he heard Lisa dry-retching on the porch as the wind tried to smash the cabin and them to pieces.
They would make it. They would survive.
26
He was back in New Mexico, sitting in Melladay’s backyard smoking pot, a half-drunk bottle of beer in his hand. The afternoon sun was warm on his skin and above all else was the aroma of grilled steak. He could feel saliva pooling in his mouth.
Melladay and his gang of merry men, selling pot to high school kids, extorting the Asian supermarkets and trying their very best to look like the real deal. Sad.
The guys in East Texas had been a little better. They knew how to control, or at least they thought they did. That was until the bandidos caught up with them. He hadn’t hung around to see the discussion about who should be doing what and where. There wasn’t likely to be much talking.
Guys like Melladay were in every town across America. Sometimes there were a few of them, sometimes there was only one, but sure as sure, there was always a Melladay. It wasn’t hard to sniff them out, you just needed to know where to be and what to say. Simple. Low-life scumbags with ideas above their station. The guys who didn’t really have what it took to make it, the ones that wound up with a bullet in the face, a knife in the guts, found half-cremated beneath the turnpike. Not like him. He knew how to survive. He was like a cockroach.
He tumbled out of the steak-dream, falling all the way to some festering hole in the middle of nowhere. It was warm. He was lying down and there was a smell like burning wood. Someone had taken a dump in his mouth.
A fire burned in front of him. A real fire too. Not one of those pretend ones that burned a little too red and flickered every three seconds on the dot. Where the fuck was he? It wasn’t New Mexico or Texas, that was for sure. And why was it so goddamn dark anyway?
His head felt funny. The kind of funny it did when you got yourself a dose of the flu – fuzzy and heavy. He smelled sweaty and sour with a large hint of stale piss. He’d hit rock bottom this time.
Alaska. That was where he was. His brain was catching up, but slowly. Slowly, slowly, slowly and then bang! He screamed as burning pain surged through his entire body, making him convulse and retch. He howled as the agony grew in intensity. I’m dying, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth.
Everywhere hurt, every part of his body wailed with misery at the unending torture. It was impossible to target the source of the agony. It was universal.
“Olin! Olin, you have to lie still!”
Whose voice was that? He opened his eyes. A woman was crouching above him, a woman he didn’t recognize.
“Olin, take these.” She pushed two pills at him. He opened his mouth, she pushed them in then poured water into his mouth. He just stared at her.
“Who...” But he couldn’t finish because pain exploded in his arm. It sprinted up his left arm, from his hand all the way to his skull. He screamed again, not caring if he sounded like a little girl. He just wanted it to stop.
“What...happened?” he hissed through gritted teeth.
She didn’t answer. She was trying not to look at him, doing anything to look elsewhere in the room.
He brought his right arm around and grabbed her wrist. “I said, what happened?” He was in no mood to ask a third time. He was in no mood to do anything except scream, yell and bite a hole in his motherfucking lip.
She looked at his hand and finally looked him in the eye.
“You need to rest, Olin. You need to stay calm and rest.”
He squeezed harder, seeing the discomfort in her face. It gave him a thrill, albeit it a brief one. A wave of agony rippled down his arm, forcing him to remove his hand and squeeze the blanket. The pain was as intense as ever but his mind recognized it now, knew what to do with it. She stood up as soon as he released her.
“Please,” he whined. “Please, what happened to me? Am I dead?” The thought hadn’t really occurred to him until he asked but it made a kind of weird sense now. He was in hell. Probably where he belonged. What was she? An Angel of Death maybe.
She closed her eyes. “You don’t remember, do you?”
“Remember what?” he snapped. “Tell me what’s happening here!”
She looked him in the eye for a few seconds before dropping her gaze a few inches. He followed her eyes. His shoulders and chest were exposed but his left arm was at his side, beneath a dirty-looking blanket.
He looked up at her again. What was she staring at? He grimaced as yet more bolts of electricity flashed up his arm. His left hand felt numb but he could still make a fist with it. He wiggled his fingers and nearly passed out. He wouldn’t do that again in a hurry. Maybe his arm, or even his hand was broken. That wasn’t so bad. He’d had worse.
So why was she looking at him as if someone had died? It didn’t make sense. A growing sense of panic was creeping through his mind. Something was going on here, something he couldn’t quite get a handle on. Something askew, something nightmarish. That was it. It was all a bad dream and any moment now a giant bug would stroll through the door singing showtunes and twirling a striped umbrella. Then he’d wake up, sunburned and sore, cursing Melladay’s bad dope.
He waited. They both waited, but the showtune bug didn’t make an appearance and the pain was real, all too real to be part of a dream. It was also too sharp to be a break. He’d had several and they were bad, real bad, but they didn’t hurt like this. This was different.
He wriggled until he was able to free his left hand. He knew for certain that the hand was the epicenter of pain. He eased it out from under the blanket. It was a mess. As he reached the elbow his arm took on a purple hue, purple and black. Bruised. He could barely stand to look at it. Broken wasn’t enough for what had happened here. Smashed. Shattered.
He looked at the woman. She had her hands to her mouth, a look of fear and confusion daubed across her skinny face.
There was a bandage wrapped around his wrist. Two s
plints protruded from the end, a crude attempt at keeping his forearm straight. There wasn’t enough bandage though and his mulberry-colored skin showed through.
He lifted the rest of his arm free and held it aloft. The bandage on the end, the part covering his fingers, was shaped like a bowling ball. He held it toward her.
“What did you do?” he asked.
Her reply was concise – a shake of her head.
He peeled the tape from the end of the bandage and began to unwind it. He needed to see what had happened to his hand. If this woman was responsible, she was going to have a lot of explaining to do. Angel of Death or not, she needed a lesson in first aid.
As he worked down the ball of bandages, several lengths fell away. They were discolored. He shouldn’t be surprised. He was clearly in redneck country. He was lucky they hadn’t done something to him when he was passed out. How long had he been out, he wondered?
Pain flared intermittently as the bandages fell away. And as they fell away, he knew something was wrong. Something was appallingly wrong but he had to see it. He must see.
The last bandage fell to the floor with a slap. It was loaded with a creamy antiseptic. The smell took him back to an episode in his childhood he couldn’t quite recall – only the smell remained. He stared at the stump for a long time. He turned it to see better. It was blackened with a crust, like a small cut of peppered steak off the deli at Tully’s.
“Olin...I’m...” she stuttered.
“Where is it?” He lifted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Where’s my hand?” He was surprised at how calm his voice sounded. He didn’t exactly feel serene.
“Gone,” she replied. “It...it was diseased...you would have died if we hadn’t...”
“Gone?” He raised his eyebrows. “I can see that. I wondered where it was?” His mind was clearing. The pain was actually helping to direct his thoughts a little more. He couldn’t recall anything beyond the last few minutes yet but he could feel it changing. He felt sure it would all come back soon enough.
She shook her head again.
“Did you take it?” he asked, still calm.
She blinked rapidly. “Olin, we had to.”
“We?” There was no sign of anyone else in the cabin. It crossed his mind that this woman might actually be his wife or girlfriend. He dismissed the idea. He liked his women younger. They were easier to control.
“Jonesy and me.” She took a step forward. “You really don’t remember?”
I wouldn’t be asking if I could remember you stupid bitch, he thought. He wanted her to come closer though and shouting at her wasn’t likely to get what he wanted. Yet.
He raised both hands to his face to rub his eyes. Although he knew one was missing, his brain was still trying to tell him it was there. As the stump jarred against his face, a fresh detonation fired through his body. He cried out.
That brought her closer. She was wary of him for some reason but her guard dropped when she saw the expression on his face. She confused anguish with anger. That was good for him.
She crouched beside him, taking his free hand in hers. “I can’t give you anything else yet,” she said. “For the pain.”
He didn’t want anything for the pain, he just wanted answers and she hadn’t given him any yet. But she would. She was in an awkward position, off balance. He tugged her hand and trapped it at the side of his body. She was almost lying on top of him, their eyes only a few inches apart. She looked terrified. Good.
“I want you to start answering my questions,” he said, spittle flying from his mouth and landing on her face. She tried to pull back, she was strong and he would have struggled if she’d been standing. It was a good thing she had no leverage.
“And my first question is simple enough. Who the fuck is this Olin? My name is Stone.”
Things were starting to come back, drifting through the gray fog of pain like a horde of hungry ghosts.
27
Jonesy heard Lad clicking across the boards toward the door. He opened his eyes to see the dog slide though the gap and wander outside. At some point he must have fallen asleep, but it was a sporadic rest mingled with pain that made proper sleep impossible.
He stared at the corrugated ceiling, saw gray pinprick holes where moss hadn’t grown over yet. Lisa would be worried. No, not just worried, she would be out of her mind. They should have walkie-talkies or something. Maybe a satellite phone, something that kept them in touch, kept them safe. It was pointless now. They were leaving as soon as they could. As soon as the ice broke on the Tanana, they were gone. Everything they owned could stay in the cabin, he didn’t want any of it, except Lad.
He didn’t care if he never saw snow again. He wanted to go somewhere where there was a beach, a blue sky and the ocean. Nobody died of starvation at the beach.
Lad trotted back inside, nuzzling Jonesy’s face and whining. He wanted to be out of here as much as Jonesy did.
“Give me ten,” he said, “need to see if I can move first.” He rolled slowly onto his side. He felt stiff, but he’d slept on a cold wooden floor all night so that was to be expected. Then he rolled all the way onto his belly. The pain was intense but after a few seconds it dulled, allowing him to open his eyes again.
He was staring into the open doorway of the bedroom. The room where he had spent last winter with Lisa. He looked away but found only the corner where he had butchered the old man…where he had sliced him up into neat little bite-sized strips. The pain of the thought was almost as bad as the pain in his back.
When spring finally came, Jonesy had taken what remained of him outside. There had been almost nothing by that stage, mostly bones, but Jonesy had gathered his clothes, dug a hole in the muddy snow and buried him. He knew the hole hadn’t been deep enough. If any predators came calling they would dig him up, but the thaw only went so deep into the earth and he was so weak he could barely lift the shovel, let alone plunge it into the ground.
He’d pushed a Y-shaped stick into the earth to signify where he was buried and dropped to his knees in the slush. He’d wept. The intention, formed only in his mind and never conferred to Lisa, had been to come back and bury him properly. To ask around in Big Six, talk to Wilkes and find out who he was and do the right thing. But he had never wanted to come back here. He never wanted to think about this place again. Or what they’d done.
He pushed himself onto all fours and took a moment for the pain to escalate. It didn’t, there was just a constant pain now. It was manageable but once he climbed on the sled and started bumping along the trail, it would worsen. Pins and needles still fizzed through his thigh and part of his foot was still numb. It was hard to see through the pain but there was improvement.
The cabin was just as they had left it; no sign that anyone else had been here. Yet this had to be where Olin and Lauren had holed up. Had they too sought refuge in the bedroom?
He pulled himself upright and limped into the back room. Warning signs flashed and flickered all over his leg. It felt like a thousand insects were crawling around under his skin.
The room was smaller than he’d remembered but just as grim. The bed in the corner, a collection of bundled-up blankets and a rickety old nightstand. He remembered how desperate, how angry, he’d felt trying to find food here, trying to find matches to light a fire. And then just when he thought he’d found salvation, the burning end of the match had fallen, fizzing and feeble, dying on the toe of his boot. It smelled different to how he remembered. It was worse somehow and that was hard to imagine. There was a sweet astringent odor. Not in the rest of the cabin, only in here.
The bed was piled high with blankets. He was sure there hadn’t been as many as that before. There had barely been enough for them both as they shivered and groaned through the endless nights. Had Olin and Lauren left them? That would make sense since they probably weren’t thinking about luggage when they left – when she left him.
They might need blankets when they threw Olin and Lauren out into the
last of the winter, when he was finally fit to travel. He limped forward with gritted teeth. Lad whistled behind him. The dog was eager to leave, that was all.
He pulled the top blanket away and staggered backward, colliding with the nightstand. Was he dreaming? Bones. Bones with tattered rags of flesh kept warm under the blankets. They were spread out on the bloody bed like a macabre buffet. A festering cloud filled the tiny room. Jonesy swallowed back the saliva gathering in his mouth, a precursor to vomit.
He used the stand as leverage and stepped toward the bed again. He’d butchered several caribous over the last year, a fox and a dozen ptarmigan. The bones belonged to none of those animals. He looked at them spread out like that. He’d been mistaken. It wasn’t that the bed was bloody – blood didn’t dry that shade of bright red. The bones were lying on a red cover. A bright red jacket.
He reached over, breathing through his mouth, and grabbed the zipper. It came toward him but he wished he’d left it where it was. Beneath the coat were more bones. More bones and a head with thin brown hair growing over a blackened skull.
He grunted and dropped it by his feet. The head rolled across the bed and fell beside the jacket. There was a loud booming in his ears. It was louder than the wind outside, deafening. He felt numb.
Bulbous and lifeless eyes stared up at him. They looked the same as the eyes that had looked at him last winter, gazed at him, as he cut the flesh away. Why? they asked. Why are you doing this to me?
He knew it wasn’t the same man. How could it be? But the maelstrom his mind had become was trapped in a loop. He couldn’t look away. His brain couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.
He stepped back. “No.” His voice no more than a whisper.
The wind hissed a reply through the gaps in the corrugated roof. Yesssss, it whispered back.
Lad was restless. Jonesy could just hear the dog above his own heartbeat. It sounded like he was hopping from one foot to the other. Jonesy wanted to touch him, to sink his hands into the dog’s thick fur, just to bring him back to reality, back from this nightmare he’d fallen into. The dog was happy enough to stand toe-to-toe with a grizzly but he wouldn’t step across the threshold. He wouldn’t come into the room.