by L. T. Vargus
Whatever his intent had been, that wasn’t important. What mattered now was getting the jump on him when he wasn’t expecting it. It was the opportunity she’d been looking for when she’d still been chained to the chair. Of course, it would have been nice if the advantage wasn’t being shot and wounded so badly you were mistaken for dead, but hey. Sometimes you had to take what you could get.
She half-smiled but was sure it came off as more of a grimace.
OK, then. She had to move. Now. She didn’t know how long she’d have before Stump came back to finish the job, and she had to finish him while she was still breathing.
She squirmed free of the tarp, slithering like some primordial creature. She had no clue how she was going to do this, confront Stump like this, defeat him. But she would. There was no choice. Shaking, she dragged her bloodied body from the back of the truck.
She was a sorry-looking savior, she was sure of that. Hell, if she was being honest with herself, there was a pretty good chance that this plan would fail. That she would hobble into the house, and Stump would kill her. For keeps this time.
Strangely, the fatalism that had frozen her blood earlier didn’t bother her so much now.
She was half-dead anyway. What did she have to lose?
Leaning too heavily on her left side sent her stumbling forward. Reaching with her good arm, she steadied herself against the side of the truck, then caught a glimpse of herself in the side mirror. She looked like Carrie White, after her shower in pig’s blood.
It wasn’t just her one eye, but her whole face that was covered in it. In the night, the blood shone black on her skin. Like oil or the thick, black mud from the bottom of a lake. The blackness made the whites of her eyes glow with a manic intensity.
Her hair was matted to her head, damp ropes of clotting blood. She thought she could see a place where a flap of her scalp hung open, skull exposed, possibly fractured, and her hand reached for it. She stopped herself. Looked away. Nothing to be done now. No good would come from poking at it. Best to leave it.
She focused again on her eyes, huge and glittering in the mirror.
I look like death, she thought to herself.
No.
I am death.
She thought of Kali the destroyer, with her open mouth and lolling tongue. Eyes red with rage. Around her neck, a garland of men’s heads. In one story, she took vengeance on a band of thieves by decapitating them and drinking their blood.
And yet despite appearances, Kali was not the embodiment of evil. She was considered the kindest of the Hindu goddesses. The mother of the universe. A great protector.
Very slowly, Darger let her tongue loll out of her mouth.
Death was coming for Leonard Stump. Maybe.
Chapter 61
A bang coaxes Emily to the surface of consciousness. A slammed door she thinks, though she isn’t certain. The head box makes it almost impossible to tell.
She is alone again. In the quiet. In the dark.
After a while, she closes her eyes. Drifts a little. Sinks away from the surface. Not sleeping so much as floating out into those black seas which are thankfully placid for the moment.
There are other noises, but they’re far away — scrapes, a slamming door, a distant thump. She no longer notices. Not all the way. She follows the momentum of the dream currents, lets them pull her further and further out to sea.
It’s not until the lock rattles outside her box that she perks up.
The clicking clicks. The clacking clacks.
There’s a sense of intense suction from her neck down, which she realizes must be the whooshing air of the outer lid opening.
The chill of the air swishes against her, little eddies of it snaking against her body, ringlets that writhe and flutter on her skin.
He’s there. Above her. She swears she can feel his shadow creeping over her body.
Cold hands grip her by the shoulders, coax her into a seated position.
The wooden frame surrounding her skull is heavy, disorienting, awkward now that she’s upright. It tilts her to its whim, tries its best to tip her over. She lurches forward and to the left, bashing into the wall of the box. And when she lifts herself, she overcorrects, careening back to the right, but the box butts up against something solid there and the swaying stops.
It’s him. She knows it is. The box leans up against him even now. She can feel the warmth pulsing off his body so close to hers.
Great pressure mashes at her shoulders. His forearms press the muscles along her neck, sharp arm bones biting at her flesh. His elbows twitch and fidget as he works at the contraption attached to her head, the effort nudging her skull this way and that, bending her neck around like she’s a pliable doll.
At last, the head box snaps and peels open, those carpeted walls pulling apart, the black space about her head rushing outward like a universe expanding.
And shards of light spill into the black nothing. Strange shafts of illumination blossoming upward from the box’s mouth. Another puddle of gray spreads over the carpet, over her face.
The box lifts at last, its weight releasing from her neck and spine. The carpeted walls slide upward out of frame.
A tingle prickles on her scalp. Slides lower to flush excitement into her cheeks, neck, and shoulders. The pangs of giddiness shoot up and down her arms and legs.
And it’s too bright. Blinding. Everywhere. She closes her eyes, but the sting cuts right through her eyelids.
Cool air swirls around her cheeks and brow. Air that is alive. Fresh. Pleasant.
Her heart beats joy all through her, a wild vibration surging through her body.
He offers the bed pan again, placing it at her feet and turning away. Her chains jangle as she moves to it. Uses it.
When she’s done she trades the pan for another mason jar of water. Her fingers brushing his as the glass changes hands.
She drinks. That sweet water rushing down the drain at the back of her mouth. Spiraling into her. The moisture soothes her mouth yet again, wets all the dry places. Revitalizes them. It’s the end of a long drought for her lips and throat.
He faces her now, though he doesn’t look at her, shoulders angled slightly away. Likewise, she doesn’t direct her gaze at him, not straight on. She watches him out of the corner of her eye.
He seems more distant than ever before. His cheeks sallow. His eyes vacant. Looking through everything around him. Piercing empty space.
There’s something gaunt about him now. Morose. His complexion almost gray.
She expected him to be jubilant as he worked his way toward this climax, but if he is, there are no signs of it for the moment. Only those grave lines of his lips and brow.
At last their eyes meet, fastening to each other and holding on for a long moment. She thinks he won’t say a word, not anything, but he does speak after a moment.
“It’s almost over now. But you know that, don’t you?”
She considers this. Nods.
He moves near again. Leans the top half of his body into the box. Begins to unlock her chains.
She sees the gun now. A piece of steel resting on the floor just next to him. So close, in a way. Just close enough to be maddening in its distance.
The chains go slack, her wrists finally free to fall to her sides, slack entirely.
His torso retracts from the box. He gathers the gun and stands. He points it at her, ticking the barrel up as he speaks.
“Up.”
She hesitates for a moment, then obeys.
Her legs wobble under her on the way up, but he holds out a hand to help her step out of the box.
She plants one foot on the lip and hops down on the other side. Her knees buckle and then catch, taking a moment to right her as though she’s spent the last month on a boat and finds the stillness of walking on dry land foreign.
She can’t ignore it. Her legs are mostly dead. A little cramped from being cooped up in the box, sure, but exhausted beyond that. Drained. Not a g
ood setup in a situation where fight or flight are the only ways to survive.
He gestures with the gun, a rotation of the wrist that indicates he wants her to step in front of him, facing the doorway.
Now he presses the gun into the small of her back, the cold of the metal bleeding through her t-shirt to chill her flesh. Goose bumps ripple out from that spot, crawl over most of her back, swelling to a peak and then slowly releasing.
The gun pushes harder, the muzzle jabbing the muscles along her spine. It urges her forward, and she obeys, glides across the room.
The frame of the doorway swallows her, oversees her transition into the hallway.
And his footsteps sound uneven behind her. Little shuffles and half steps that emit an offbeat pitter-patter, struggling to match the rhythm and length of her shorter stride.
The hall stretches out before her. Long and narrow. At the far end, she sees the carpet give way to that tile floor of the foyer where they fought. Earlier? Yesterday? She’s not sure how long she was locked in the boxes.
Bars of the first morning light slant through the window to reflect off the tiles. Elongated shafts of glare that change shape if she squints and releases her eyelids.
And she remembers the tactile impressions of her near escape, can still feel the cool of the tile on her bare feet, the smooth metal of the doorknob twisting in her fingers, that sense of release when the door popped out of the jamb, peeled a quarter of the way open at her touch.
The outside world had been right there, inches away, ready to take her away.
But then he’d tackled her. Throttled her. Wrestled her to the ground and confined her. Locked her away. Strapped a box on her head.
She licks her lips. Considers the notion of running, sprinting toward that point of exit, but no. She’s too weak now, too worn down to beat him in a footrace.
If she has any hope of surviving this, she’ll need to find another way. She’ll need to wait and watch. To pounce only when the time is just right.
Still, she scans that tile floor, hoping for no good reason that she might find her piece of metal there — the desk leg turned melee weapon that she’d lost in the scuffle. Her eyes dance back and forth and find nothing more than the ceramic grid seamed with grout lines, but just as she’s about to give up, she spots it.
The little flat foot of the thing sticks out from under the closet door, though most of it is tucked into the shadows. Hidden. Forgotten.
Her lips curl at the sight of it, not quite reaching an actual smile but something close. Funny. It does her no good, but she’s somehow glad it’s still there, somehow glad to see it.
“Turn left here,” Stump says, prodding the gun in her back twice for emphasis.
His voice shakes her up, rips her away from that daydream space at the end of the hall.
She blinks. Turns to face the open doorway coming up on the left.
It’s the bathroom.
From her angle, she sees the lights glowing over the vanity, a little wedge of the seafoam wall, glossy paint. Most of the room remains blocked from her view.
But she knows what waits beyond.
When she reaches the doorway, she finds what she expected.
A girl waits inside, eyes wide like a frightened animal’s, eyelids fluttering in fast motion. She is positioned on hands and knees in the clawfooted bathtub, handcuffs adorning her wrists and chains fastening her ankles.
This is her. This is the other girl.
Emily’s heart accelerates.
She studies the girl. Locks eyes with her.
Black eyeshadow smears down from her eyelids. Dark trails that roll over her cheekbones and cascade down to the jaw, showing where the tears must have trailed.
Emily freezes. Stops in the doorway.
She can’t help but think it: The room seems pleasant enough — the antique vanity with the ornate woodwork and black marble countertop, the linoleum floor that looks like black and white tile, the aforementioned seafoam walls and clawfoot tub.
Stump jabs the gun into her spine again, and she steps onto the linoleum.
She doesn’t look back, but she can hear the excitement in his voice — that enthusiasm she’d anticipated arriving at last. He whispers from just behind her right ear.
“It’s what I said, isn’t it? It’s just how I told you it would be.”
Chapter 62
Her left leg dragged a little as she shuffled along the side of the truck. Clumsy, but functional. Her left arm on the other hand… it dangled like a limp noodle at her side. Idle and useless. Not so much as a finger twitch on that dumb hand. For a moment she wondered if it might be permanent, but then remembered it didn’t matter. She wasn’t permanent.
OK. A plan.
Think.
She peered under the tarp for something to use as a weapon. The heaviest item in the back was a shovel. Darger considered her good-for-nothing left arm and decided the shovel was too long and too heavy for one-handed swinging. She wished for a pickaxe, or even a regular axe, but no such tool was found in the bed of the truck.
She slid around to the cab and climbed inside.
On a hunch, Darger flipped open the sun visor, and out spilled the keys.
Well, well. What an arrogant bastard.
There was a temptation to take the truck now, make a run for help, but she knew that if she left, the girls would die. For all she knew, they were already dead. But she’d be damned if she abandoned them to Stump now.
No. She needed to go after him.
She wondered… if Stump was ballsy enough to leave the keys in the truck, might he also leave a weapon of some sort?
The glove box popped open with a thunk. Inside, she found a pair of sunglasses, napkins from a fast food joint, a small flashlight, and a screwdriver. No gun.
Damn.
She removed the screwdriver, gripped it with her fingers.
Not exactly the kind of firepower she’d been imagining, but it was the most promising thing she’d found yet.
As she lowered herself back to the ground, finished with the search, her gaze fell on the cigarette lighter. Too bad she couldn’t use that somehow, couldn’t burn him like he did the bodies.
Something fluttered in the back of her mind. An idea she couldn’t wrangle. Her mind felt goopy. Slow and thick.
It struck her that her normal cognitive processes were all fucked up.
Darger could almost hear Loshak’s response to that epiphany. You mean a bullet to the head does brain damage? Imagine that.
But Stump had left her will intact, so she pressed on. Her body was damaged, perhaps beyond repair, but he couldn’t touch what was inside.
OK, Darger. What about the cigarette lighter?
Surely she didn’t think that was an appropriate weapon?
The answer came then in a slow drip, like the words were made of thick syrup.
Not a weapon…
A contingency plan.
She left the truck, dragged herself down the drive a ways, and then moved off toward the wild brush.
Darger stared at the cluster of trees and bushes, trying to decide which one held the prize. The sky to the east was just beginning to lighten, but the tall pines surrounding the yard kept everything in shadow for now.
Was it one of the low creeping junipers or the taller pinyons?
She couldn’t remember.
She should have taken more care in hiding Nicole’s purse. She’d never find it now.
Darger limped to the first clump of greenery and kicked out her right foot, feeling for it in the darkness under the branches.
Nothing.
She moved onto the next and came up empty again.
But beneath the feathery foliage of one of the trees, her toe connected with something oblong and not altogether organic.
She had to take care as she stooped to pick up the handbag. It threw off her center of balance, which was already shaky at best.
But that didn’t matter. She’d found it. She could
go ahead with her plan.
She almost smiled again and imagined what a horror she must look with the blood drying on her face. She could feel the drips and smears starting to crust over.
Darger unzipped the bag, checked that the lighter was still inside, and started back to the truck.
It was only a hundred yards to the shed, but the gas can was heavy, and she struggled with the weight of it. If she could just take a break to set her load down and rest her aching forearm. The muscles felt on the verge of cramping, but she didn’t have time to stop.
When she finally reached the shed, she practically dropped the can to the ground. Luckily the grass behind the house was longer and muffled the metallic clang. Darger shook her arm out, rotating the elbow joint in an effort to loosen the muscles.
The door of the shed still stood open a crack, from when she’d peeked inside before. Had there been anything useful? She hadn’t really been looking since she had the stun gun. Maybe she’d find that pickaxe she’d been hankering for.
She pushed inside and squinted at the now familiar but disappointing array of standard lawn equipment. Leaned against one wall was another shovel, a garden hoe, and a long pole with a hooked saw on the end that she was pretty sure was for trimming tree limbs. Again, too cumbersome for her on this night.
Abandoning the shed, she got back to the real reason she’d hauled her ass back here. She took a minute to consider the best way to do the job.
When she’d first remembered the cigarettes, her idea had been to use one or two as an almost timed fuse — time for her slow ass to get away before the big whoomp. But somewhere on her long, slow trek to the shed, she had a moment of clarity in which she recalled learning that the cherry of a cigarette will not ignite gasoline. She was frustrated now. It had seemed like such a good plan.
She frowned down at the jerry can. Glanced back at the house.
When the solution finally hit her, it was so simple she almost let out a groan.
She reached for the gas. It was show time.
Darger swung the can, dousing the side of the shed, letting gas spatter onto the woodpile below. The liquid sloshed and splashed, and it wasn’t until then that Darger realized her right ear was ringing. She couldn’t hear anything out of her left ear. Another heartening sign.