by mike Evans
Schmidt didn’t give him the opportunity to speak. “Damn it, Billy, who takes care of your ass when we go out, huh? I do, that’s right. You ever hungry when I take you out? You ever have to sit outside when it’s cold? Fuck no. Why? Because I keep that heat on high in my truck just for you.”
Ramsey motioned with his head for the two to head out. “Take Moon something to eat, he’s probably starving. If I was him, I wouldn’t be out there eating some stranger’s food. Probably eat someone’s fucking liver or something, thinking it was a steak.”
Billy looked at him awkwardly and Ramsey said, “Don’t worry about shit that doesn’t pertain to you. You get Schmidt in and out, make sure he doesn’t forget to give me a call.”
“It isn’t like I’ve left the room, Ramsey. Christ, I'm not a fucking idiot. We will be just fine.”
***
Schmidt and Billy took the drive out there slowly, making sure not to attract any police or bystanders’ attention. The back roads, which led to the small entrances to the woods, were not heavily used—mostly because there wasn’t any reason why anyone needed to go to the back of an area that was sectioned off and not legal to hike on anyways.
Billy looked around and said, “You got lights on that there four-wheeler, now, don’t ya?”
“Nope, you aren’t scared of the dark are you, Billy? Christ, I didn’t think anything scared you.”
“It doesn’t, but if I got the option to know where I'm going, then I like to know. It isn’t like there’s any chance in hell you and Moon will be able to get me out of there if I fall and get hurt.”
Schmidt lied, “You aren’t going to fall and get hurt. I don’t have lights on it, they are out of order, but we do have flashlights. If you want to drive, then I’ll shine the Maglite; it’ll be a cakewalk. Besides, we didn’t see shit out there today. We just need to make sure that he needs nothing, give him some food and water, and we are out of there. Besides, for as much as you work with me, there’s a good chance that you’ll have to know how to get out here. We are going to make some serious money out here, and once we get going, we don’t need anything slowing us down. You just make sure that if you don’t want to catch shit with Ramsey that you don’t tell any of the other guys how to get here. They don’t need to worry about it until they need to come out here, then,” Schmidt said.
“Ramsey wouldn’t give me jobs to do and protection if he didn’t think that I knew how to keep my mouth shut. I don’t think that you understand any of that. Though he does say you can’t keep quiet, so I don’t know where you get off busting my balls. Come to think of it, I might be offended,” said Billy.
Schmidt smiled nervously as he pulled to a stop. There wasn’t the slightest hint about any sunlight still being out. The darkness of the woods was unpolluted by the light from the city, making them appreciate the light from the truck. They left the cab doors open while they got the four-wheeler undone and rolled off the trailer. Schmidt checked everything once over, making sure they had plenty of gas for the drive there and back, deciding to top it off and then bungee cord the extra gas can to the rear.
“You realize we aren’t going for thirty hours, right?” Billy asked.
“Better to need and have, then to not, don’t you think?”
Billy shrugged, climbing up onto the four-wheeler. It dipped a little as the springs tried to handle his weight. “You want to drive, Schmidt, since you know where you are going?”
“As much as I enjoy the idea of you pressed up against me for that long of a ride, I'm going to pass. I’ll point which way to go. I just hope that we can figure out where the fuck it is; it looks a lot different from when it was daylight out.”
“Funny how darkness will do that, Schmidt.”
“All right, smart ass, I think we need to go that way. You take it slow; last thing I want to do is get bounced off and lost in the middle of fucking nowhere. This creeps me out about ten different ways. I say next time, they just have him bring the shit he needs to stay out here a few days. He isn’t a baby, he can handle staying out here on his own. I think I got a good mind to tell Ramsey about some of these ideas. Shit, he might give me some kind of promotion.”
Billy said, “I'm gonna go just a bit faster, can you keep pointing which way to go?”
Schmidt nodded yes and asked, “Why do you want to go faster? I thought you were all worried about getting hurt?”
“Because I'm hoping if I go fast enough that I'm not going to be able to hear that bullshit coming out of your mouth. I think you can tell Ramsey just about anything you think he wants to hear. I think most the time he’s got shit figured out exactly how he’d like to get it done. Don’t let my opinion keep you from suggesting shit, but I don’t think he cares what anyone thinks. He puts plenty of time into figuring this shit out. Hell, I would have never decided to do a cook spot in the North Woods; that seems like it's about the worst spot in the world.”
“Yeah, you just drive, I’ll keep pointing. If he doesn’t want to know the genius coursing through my veins, then leave it that way.”
“Ha, you got something going through your veins, but I think it smells more like shit than anything,” Billy laughed as he taunted.
***
A half an hour later, the two had gotten lost twice and stuck in a muddy creek once. Billy was losing his patience, but he knew that calling Ramsey would do little good for the two, considering they couldn’t tell him where they were.
Schmidt got up, climbing to the top of a hill and looking around. He saw a fire burning in the distance and did a fist pump for Moon, having heat and a signal all in one. “Fucking smart as a damn boy scout, yeah Moon.”
Schmidt ran back down the hill, tripping, falling on his ass, flipping over, and cursing as he tried to right himself only to fall again two more times, eventually hitting his head on a downed tree. He could feel a trickle of blood coming from his head and cursed his balance and his luck.
Billy just sat there, looking on in awe and shaking his head in disappointment. “Now, why is it that I am only good for collecting and protecting?”
Schmidt pushed up off the ground wobbling for a moment. He got a handkerchief out of his coat and pressed it up to his forehead. “Wife’s going to love this. ‘Why’d you get hurt honey, what happened to you? Where the fuck were you? Why in the fuck are you out fucking around, you idiot?’ To which I would answer, ‘you like money? You like eating? You want to continue doing both of those things? Then every once in awhile, I need to probably come home looking like this, but in the long run we gonna be better off because of it’,” he ranted.
By the time that Schmidt got back up to the four-wheeler, Billy said, “What in the fuck are you talking about? Were you just talking to me, or did you hit your head too hard? You want me to put you out of your misery? I don’t think too many people will miss you. I got an extra bullet right here.”
“No, asshole, I don’t want you to put me out of my misery—not today anyways. Give me another fifty or sixty years, and then we can talk about it.”
“Noted. Before you fell on your face, did you find it?”
“We are just a hill over. Come on, we’ll be there in a couple minutes. If he hadn’t started that fire, we would have had to drive around all fucking night like a couple idiots.”
Billy motioned for him to get on and the two of them drove around the hill towards the one they needed. When they made it, Billy examined the hill and shook his head no. “See ya when you get back. I ain’t climbing that damn hill. Take this shit with you up there.”
“What if I tell Ramsey that you didn’t go up there with me? He’s gonna be pissed that you didn’t listen to him like you were supposed to, Lang.”
Billy got off the four-wheeler and looked down at Schmidt; he had at least a good foot and a half on him. He poked him hard in the chest—hard enough for Schmidt to take two steps back. “You planning on being a fucking narc are you? Maybe you want to not have such a reliable bodyguard to do your collecti
ng when we go out selling. Hell, maybe you want to have James be your backup man.”
“You know, you got a real shit attitude, Billy. You know that, don’t you? I mean, it isn’t a real big surprise or anything, is it?”
“No, no, it isn’t but I'm not going to go all the way up that hill because you’re scared of the fucking dark. Make sure you check in with Ramsey when you get up there. He wanted you to call. Best be you. Besides I don’t know if that phone is even going to work all the way down here. Be best if you tried it, you know, once you get to the top of that hill.”
Schmidt shrugged, turning and beginning to climb the steep hill. He treated it with much more respect after taking his first header. The thought in the back of his head was enough to give him evil images of what would have happened if he had impaled himself on a fucking stick or branch sticking out of the ground. The visual he had of trying to push himself from the ground with a stick two feet through his back turned his stomach. “God forbid you don’t want to go with me. Well, I didn’t want to fucking come out here either.”
The only thing that made Schmidt smile as he made his way up the long, steep hill, was the fact that he’d left the giant of a man by himself and in the dark, which was not the way that he liked it. He hollered once he got halfway up the hill. “Thanks for letting me take this here flashlight, Billy.”
Billy patted his overalls immediately and when Schmidt flashed the light down on him, all he saw was Billy giving him the finger as he climbed back onto the four-wheeler. Schmidt grunted and clawed at the ground until he finally made it up. He realized by the time he arrived that yes, this was the correct hill, but if Billy had driven another thirty yards around the side that would have been a much, much easier path to climb. He wanted to scream down a curse to the ogre, but the last thing he was going to do was piss him off. He had done overnight shift with Moon before and didn’t care to hear the horror stories which were his war stories.
When he made it to the top finally, he collapsed to the ground. He was sweaty and cool at the same time. He thought for a second how maybe he was sick, only to realize as his chest was going up and down that maybe it wasn’t sickness—a glance at his stomach suggested that there was the slightest chance he was just out of shape.
He lifted his legs as far as he could and brought them down quickly, helping to propel him off the ground. He knew that if they were going to have to come up here on a regular basis, they were either going to have to risk breaking their necks going up the hills, or they were going to need to get in shape. He thought that the idea of the broken neck sounded better than exercising on a regular basis. He liked working the streets just fine anyways. If they gave him the product, Ramsey knew that he could sell it, no matter the quantity given to him. Schmidt wasn’t overly excited that they’d be cutting the town off dry.
For one, it was going to leave many people pissed with him. He was also going to have to commute to a much bigger city on a daily basis, and the idea of having to walk around somewhere where the police presence wasn’t going to be on their side was not overly appealing to him.
Schmidt patted his chest, pulling a pack of smokes out. He cupped his hands around his smoke, trying to block the wind and get one lit. In between puffs on his smoke, he started to smell something and thought that Moon must have ignored the idea of waiting for them to bring food. He hollered to him, “Hey, you crazy fuck, you that hungry that you gotta eat some serial killer’s fucking food? Man, wait till I tell the guys. You don’t have anything warm do you…? Moon? Oh, come on, don’t fuck with me, my hands are fucking lethal weapons man.”
Schmidt did a few front snap kicks while walking, tripping and falling on his face. He felt something squish beneath his hands when he tried to get up. His hands felt buried in it, and when he sniffed, he could smell shit; this wasn’t a smell he’d smelt before. He wiped his hands on the leaves next to it and the smell was so atrocious that he began to gag. He got up, taking the flashlight and running a few steps away from the where he’d fallen. He looked down at his hands, seeing blood on them. Schmidt ran the flashlight over his hands, trying to figure out where he’d cut himself. When there was no cut found, he walked the light back across the grass, looking for the culprit. He chalked it up to maybe the old man being out hunting before they had come in and murdered him.
He saw a pile of intestines and ran the light back and forth, looking for the fur, but found none. He wiped his hands on the ground, trying to get them as clean as possible. Schmidt pulled out the phone punching in the number from memory. He shone the light back and forth as he walked deeper into the camp, putting the phone in the crook of his neck and holding it with his shoulder. He pulled out a pistol as well and walked hand-in-hand with that and the flashlight, pointing where he was walking. He kept yelling for Moon to no avail. “Moon? Moon! Say something you stupid fuck. You hiding, or dying? I don’t care but you say something damn it!”
The phone answered and Ramsey said, “That you, Schmidt? You find Moon? Is he still alive and kicking?”
“Uh, well, hello to you to, Ramsey. I don’t know where the fuck he is. This place is fucking creeping me out something fierce. Billy and me got up to where it is and I volunteered to come up and check on Moon while he looks after the four-wheeler. Well, when I got up here, I tripped, I don’t even know how, I was just walking and then bam I fell on my fucking ass. God damn sticks and shit everywhere, it's fucked up. I fell again up top and there’s guts everywhere.”
Ramsey was swirling his finger in a two-finger pour of whiskey, shaking his head and hoping at some point, given there was one, Schmidt would either get to it, or two, he’d shut the fuck up. “Guts, huh? Sounds like the old man was out hunting. Kind of amazing how there are ‘sticks and shit,’ as you so eloquently call it, in the woods. Who’d of ever thought you’d find that? I appreciate you calling, but what the fuck do you mean you don’t know where he is?”
“I’ve been calling his name; I don’t know where he is. How clear do I need to make it for you?”
“Did you check the cabin, by chance, boy wonder?”
“No, I figured he’d be outside tending to this fire he’s got going in the distance.”
“Imagine that, he’s sitting inside. It’s fucking cold out, and he isn’t outside. What a dumbass Moon is. Is that what you are saying, or are you picking up on the level of sarcasm that I'm laying down for you?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s a big ten four on picking that up. It is nice to be appreciated in life, let me tell you. I’ll go check inside, thanks for the tip.”
“Make it quick. I gotta take a pretty decent shit right now, and you are making me wait, and it’s getting all kinds of uncomfortable.”
Schmidt walked into the cabin, knocking slowly. “Hey, Moon… Moon, you in here? I got some food and shit for ya. Moon, I’m not kidding, quit fucking around, would ya?” Schmidt stood there for a minute longer keeping his gun next to his side but his finger ready for the trigger. “He ain't answering, Ramsey, what the hell should we do?”
“Seems like you need to walk around the woods longer.”
“Until what?”
“Until you fucking find him, you fucktard. Jesus it's amazing you weren’t given away; you must’ve shown promise at birth.”
“I’m adopted asshole.”
“Well one set of parents made a good choice at least,” Ramsey said.
“I’m offended.”
“Just go find Moon, would you? I don’t have all night to piss around.”
“Yeah, because I want to be out here all night. If that fatass Billy would have come up the hill, we would have been just fine. I don’t understand what the hell is going on out here. There’s no way in hell he went out walking for shits and giggles. I think there’s something wrong with him. You might want to send out some more people, like, soon.”
“Well, I could, but I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon. You see, we have more important things to do. I'm sure he’s just taking
a monster shit. He’s ex-military, he probably found a nice tree to lean against and is having the time of his life.”
“I’m going to put the phone in my pocket for a minute and go check the perimeter of this place. The hill we found that guy on wasn’t all that big, if I remember. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
“Well, if you need real help, then you need to yell down to Billy. That is the entire point of why he went with you. If you're that worried, yell down to him.”
“Okay, will do, but don’t you tell him I told you about any of this. I got a weird feeling that he’ll kill me without a second thought.”
“Weren’t you like, going to put your phone in your pocket so I don’t have to talk to you for a few minutes?”
“I love you too, boss. Thanks for all the relieving thoughts on how I'm going to be just fine. I appreciate it, more than you could ever know,” Schmidt replied.
He heard the phone drop on the table and stuck it in his pocket. Schmidt started walking the perimeter in front of the house. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t want to go back behind the house, but for some reason, he felt that it was a hell of a lot more creepy back there. “Moon? Moon, come out, you stupid fuck. Get your ass out here. I don’t like being out here anymore than you do, damn it. Unlike you, I don’t have to be out here the whole damn night, so the sooner I get moving outta here, the better.”