Cold Heart

by Chandler McGrew

The pain in her shoulder lashed up the back of her neck and melted into the fire at the back of her head. She nearly blacked out again. Warm blood oozed between her breasts, soaking her shirt. More pain rocked through her as El's boot slammed into her ribs.

  If I pass out, he'll kill me.

  She focused on his smudged glasses as she pulled herself up the bannister post, drawing power from her rage. But even standing she was stooped from agony and from the instinctive urge to cradle the wound in her shoulder. She was pleased to note that El wasn't standing quite upright either, although whether that was a symptom of his leg wound or the blow to his manhood she didn't know. Or care.

  He lashed out with his crippled right hand and caught her backhanded across the jaw, splattering more blood onto her cheeks, driving her out into the room.

  She needed to run.

  And now was the time.

  El was limping and oozing blood down around the ankle of his boot.

  But she could see that he had more strength in reserve and, even with his leg wound, she wouldn't get far. Besides, she had to give Dawn time to get away. The thought that the girl was now safe from El gave Micky solace.

  Dawn's one I haven't lost.

  El smashed her face again. She spun against the sales counter, gripping the bar top with both hands. El grabbed her hair, lifted her head, and slammed it onto the wood.

  Blinding white pain flared behind her eyes, and a sickening crunch sounded as her nose broke.

  “Fuck you,” she managed to lisp through bleeding lips.

  “Fuck you,” said El, stabbing the knife down into the counter and punching her hard in the side of the face.

  The blow drove her two feet farther down the counter. Her ribs throbbed and she knew that she was losing a lot of blood where the heavy magnum bullet had ripped God knew what kind of hole in her shoulder. The lightning agony from her broken nose melded with the gunshot wound and the cracked ribs and the wrenched muscles until she was one quivering mass of pain.

  He's going to kill me now.

  El tugged the big knife back out of the wood of the countertop.

  Now.

  But at least Dawn got away.

  Dawn crouched alongside the bottom step across from Stan. She scrunched up against the logs, her eyes on the plane that circled high overhead.

  Inside she heard El dragging Micky down the stairs.

  Dawn could hear the blows and the cursing. Hear something hitting the bar.

  And she knew that El had changed his mind.

  He's going to kill Micky.

  Just like he did Stan. Just like he had Clive and Rita.

  Just like he had Howard and her mother.

  Why does the plane keep circling?

  Why doesn't Rich come down and help?

  He should be doing something.

  Not her.

  She was only a sixteen-year-old girl.

  No one could expect her to do anything.

  She hadn't done anything to help Howard. She hadn't done anything to help Clive and Rita. Or Stan.

  She hadn't done anything when El murdered her mother.

  And it's my fault.

  I should have done something.

  Micky had told her to run. Told her to hide. Micky was an adult.

  When help came she would tell them what Micky had said.

  Had said.

  As though Micky was already dead.

  But she wasn't dead.

  Not yet.

  Micky isn't dead!

  Run!

  Hide!

  She glanced quickly around the clearing.

  She wasn't going to run out front where El could see her. Better to slip around the back of the store, and maybe head up toward Marty's and Stan's cabins. Way up the valley.

  El's muttering filtered through the front door. Low. Unintelligible. And once again it had that terrifying machine quality to it. It was the way he talked when he was about to kill. Micky's scream ripped through the clearing like rope scraping over a cliff. Dawn felt herself falling away with it.

  Micky had helped her when she didn't have to.

  Micky could have gone along with El until help came and Micky would probably have survived.

  Dawn glanced over her shoulder at the four-wheeler, deserted at the edge of the clearing; at the rifles still strapped tightly on the handlebars.

  El slumped against the counter, holding the knife inches from Micky's face. She had the strange sensation of being able to see both sides of the blade at one time. One view was the knife itself. Then there were the twin reflections in El's glasses.

  “I did it for you,” said El, pressing against her.

  She slid away from him, along the bar.

  “You did it for yourself, El,” she hissed.

  Anger flamed again in his cheeks and the knife slashed.

  She braced herself, waiting for the icy blow, the cold metal burn as the blade tore through her. But a low twang vibrated in her ears, and once again El struggled to pull the knife out of the countertop.

  Micky wanted to lash out, grab him by the hair, and smash his face in. But she had no strength left.

  He slithered along the counter until his body touched hers again.

  “I wanted it to be just us,” he said, running the razor edge of the knife ever so lightly around her throat. The shallow cut left a stinging warmth in its path, merging with all the other pains that cried for her attention.

  “Now, I'm going to kill you,” he said. “Just like the rest.”

  “Get it over with, you worthless fuck.”

  She snatched off his glasses, grinding them into the countertop. For just an instant she glimpsed something in his eyes that she had not expected to find there.

  Something human.

  Then she noticed that he was having trouble focusing.

  His glasses were prescription.

  He had to have them.

  She couldn't help herself. She laughed in his face.

  The mad killer.

  The man who had decimated an entire town.

  Myopic.

  A nearsighted Manson.

  Micky Ascherfeld, dead at the hands of a mass murderer with bifocals.

  She was only sorry that he wouldn't see her smile before she died.

  She spread her hands wider on the countertop to keep her balance. She wanted to face the bastard standing. El pushed himself off from the counter, preparing to strike.

  Micky's right hand slid across the glass that Dawn had used to cut her free.

  Dawn clawed at the bungee cords holding the rifles across the handlebars of the Honda. Her hands shook so badly she couldn't grip the hooks to free them. But she wasn't going to let El kill Micky.

  I can't.

  She glanced back toward the store and gasped as Damon splashed through the creek. He clawed his way up the slope and ran stumbling across the clearing.

  “Where's Micky?” he gasped. With one hand he held his side, with the other he helped unravel the tangled straps. The guns clattered to the ground. Damon scooped up Rita's shotgun.

  “In the store. With El. He's going to kill her.” Dawn reached for a rifle. But Damon grabbed her shoulder.

  “You stay here.” He spun and dashed toward the store.

  Dawn leaned against the four-wheeler, praying that Damon would make it in time. With all her heart she wanted to see El laid out dead. She wanted to spit in his face. But any second now she expected to hear Micky scream as El buried the knife in her.

  Dawn tried to catch her breath as she glanced back down toward the bridge.

  Micky slashed wildly with the shard and blood spurted from the gash on El's left bicep.

  The glass dug through her palms all the way to the bone. But she had to strike before El could. She slashed again, ignoring her own pain.

  I have to finish him.

  Her second cut was deeper than the first. The shard grated across the cartilage and tendon of El's arm.

  He screamed. It was a cry of
rage and pain and betrayal.

  He punched her and the pain blinded her for an instant. But his knife hand hung useless at his side.

  He backed away from her as she swung the glittering dagger again and again.

  She lurched toward him, hacking. Slashing. Swinging wildly to keep him off-balance, to stop him from reaching for the pistol.

  He squinted, limping away, trying to fend off her attack with his wounded gun hand without getting cut again. They were two bloodied fighting cocks, worn to the point of collapse, but still intent on the kill.

  El stumbled back against the rocker, fumbling the pistol out of its holster. He gritted his teeth as he pulled back the hammer with his thumb, aiming the gun at Micky's face. She stopped in mid-slash, the glass glistening crimson in the low-angled light through the windows.

  I'm dead.

  But all I need is the time to drive the shard into the bastard's heart.

  One misstep. One heartbeat. One eyeblink.

  One split second.

  El's lips drew back across his teeth and his myopic eyes narrowed. His finger tightened on the trigger. The door crashed open and El glanced over his shoulder.

  The fading light silhouetted Damon in the door. He stood silently on the porch, pointing Rita's shotgun at El.

  Micky swung the glass underhanded, ramming the shard deep into El's midsection. The hammer on his pistol fell on an empty cylinder as the jagged sliver sliced through his gut and then curved upward, piercing his left lung. The gun crashed to the floor. El clawed at the glass as blood gushed from the wound.

  He dropped to his knees, staring fixedly at Damon with a stunned, childlike expression.

  “It's over,” Micky gasped.

  “I didn't hurt her,” said El. “I wouldn't hurt her.”

  Damon fired through the open door. El was blasted back against the woodstove and Micky slipped in the ash and gore, fighting to stay on her feet. Horror shattered Damon's face. He rushed inside, dropping the shotgun against the windowsill, hurrying to catch Micky before she fell.

  Helping her into the rocker, he knelt in front of her. He ripped her shirt open, wadded the tail and held the cloth against the gunshot wound in her shoulder. She reached up and pressed her hand over it.

  “Hold that tight,” he said.

  He glanced at her bloody hands. “Jesus, Mick.”

  She thought he was going to throw up. Instead he tossed his jacket onto the floor and tore off his own shirt, wrapping it tightly around her other hand.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “Where I always am.” He sounded guilty. He hadn't been there when she needed him. “I heard shots. I headed down to the claim but Stan and Marty were gone. Howard was gone too. Then I went to Terry's place.” He gave Micky a look and she nodded.

  A board creaked on the porch out front and they both turned to see Dawn standing in the doorway, backlighted by the sun.

  “I'm okay, Dawn,” said Micky, as the girl slipped through the door.

  “I told you to wait,” said Damon.

  Dawn edged over beside Micky, across from Damon.

  “Aaron's dead too, Damon,” said Micky.

  Damon nodded, as though he expected as much.

  Micky bit her lip. The adrenaline drained away and the day settled on top of her with the weight of a mountainside.

  “After I found Aaron, I went to your cabin first to warn you,” she told Damon.

  He ever so gently touched her nose and white pain flared. “Broken.”

  “Duh!”

  “Sorry. Anything else I should be worrying about? I don't see any other holes. If not, I'm going to go flag down Rich. We need help.”

  “I'll be all right,” said Micky. Her heart, which had been pounding mercilessly all day, was at last beginning to slow.

  “Why did you run through the creek?” asked Dawn.

  “What?” said Damon, frowning.

  “Why did you wade across the creek?”

  Damon shrugged. “Something didn't look right on the bridge.”

  “El sat down there a long time,” said Dawn.

  “I thought he might have booby-trapped it,” said Micky. She had trouble holding her head up. “El stole dynamite from Marty and Stan.” The thought of Marty clutched at her heart. “Marty's hurt bad. We left him in El's cabin.”

  “I think El's place blew up,” said Damon.

  “Maybe Marty got out,” said Dawn.

  “Maybe,” whispered Micky, not believing it.

  “I'm going for help,” said Damon, starting toward the door.

  “He would have cut our eyes out,” muttered Dawn, turning her attention back to El's corpse.

  “What?” said Damon, turning in the door.

  “He cut their eyes out,” said Dawn, not looking up. “And then he cut them up.”

  “Don't talk about it, Dawn,” said Micky, trying to get the girl's mind on something else. Anything else. She didn't want Dawn spending the rest of her life focused on this day, the way she had been focused on her own horror for so long.

  “Their eyes?” said Damon. “He cut out their eyes?”

  “You found Terry?” asked Micky. She didn't want to say any more with Dawn right beside her.

  “Yeah,” said Damon, still staring at Dawn. “After that I came right here when I heard the shots over by the airstrip.”

  “And you didn't notice?” said Micky. She remembered Stan's horror. The look on his face when he recounted the gruesome discovery. How could Damon have found their bodies and not have noticed?

  “Someone set Aaron's house on fire,” said Micky.

  “El,” said Damon.

  “He didn't burn down anyone else's cabin.”

  “Maybe he didn't have time.”

  Did that make sense? El had seemed so confident until he got flustered over Rich arriving early.

  “Maybe he was never there,” she said.

  “How could he not have been there, Micky?”

  “Maybe El never went to Aaron's,” she said, feeling even weaker than she had before.

  “That's crazy, Micky.”

  “Is it?”

  Dawn had turned to watch them. Micky noticed the curious expression on the girl's face. The bright eyes. Dawn's lips parted slightly, her cheeks sagged. “You didn't want me to come inside with you,” she said, glancing from Damon to El's corpse.

  “Where were you all day, Damon?” asked Micky.

  “I told you. I was looking for the goddamn mine.”

  Micky nodded. “You went to see Aaron. Didn't you?”

  “Why would I go see Aaron?”

  “That's what I want to know. Why did you kill him, Damon?” She knew in her heart that it was true. El had never gone to Aaron's cabin. He had no need to. Aaron seldom came down into the lower valley anymore. El knew that he could kill everyone down below and then attend to the old man at his leisure. And Aaron had had his eyes. El would never have left the old man whole like that. “Why did you murder Aaron?”

  “That's crazy, Mick,” said Damon. But he sidled over and lifted the shotgun from its resting place. Micky's heart pounded like a drum. Her breath caught in her throat.

  “Aaron had both his eyes,” she hissed.

  “Maybe El was in a hurry.”

  Dawn edged away from Micky. Damon took two steps closer to the rocker.

  “You didn't get what you wanted from Aaron,” said Micky. “Did you?”

  “Don't be silly. You know I wouldn't hurt a fly.”

  “You shot El.”

  “He was going to kill you.”

  “No, he wasn't. He was already dying. Were you afraid he'd say something to give you away? My, God! I didn't hurt her. El said, I didn't hurt her. You told him not to hurt me!”

  “He would never hurt you! He was obsessed with you. I can't believe you never saw it.”

  The enormity of the horror was impossible to fathom. It was one thing to accept a psychopath like El going on a killing spree. It was ano
ther to comprehend Damon murdering someone. But she understood one thing immediately.

  “You made El do it,” she said. “Somehow you started this. Why, Damon? How?”

  Damon aimed the shotgun at her chest.

  “I never meant for this to happen, Mick. Not any of it.”

  “Don't point that gun at me, Damon.”

  The sadness in his face was more frightening than rage.

  “I never meant for it to happen,” he repeated. “The old bastard wouldn't tell me where the mine was.”

  She couldn't believe that it all came down to that. All the deaths. Not just in McRay. But every death in her past. Had they all been about money?

  The kid robbing her parents’ store.

  The pair of sociopaths rampaging through Houston with the stolen armored truck.

  Now this.

  But as she stared into Damon's eyes she knew that she was mistaken. This wasn't about money. Stan had been right. For Damon it was all about the finding. He had to know where the mine was. And he was so obsessed with his quest that he'd been willing to kill for it.

  “There is no mine,” she said, quietly. “It's a myth.”

  “There is! It's here. The son of a bitch wouldn't give it up! I don't know what happened. We were yelling at each other and the old bastard grabbed his rifle. Honest to God, I never meant to kill him, Mick. But he pointed the gun at me and I jerked it away and pointed it back at him. The next thing I knew the damn thing went off. Honest to God! That's how it happened.”

  “So you set Aaron's cabin on fire to cover up his murder. But then you got worried that someone investigating the fire would discover how Aaron died. So you started El on his killing spree.”

  Another realization struck her. “You knew all along,” she whispered. “You knew El was dangerous and you've always told me that he wasn't. You've been planning this for years!”

  “No!” he shouted. “I knew about the guns, sure. But El could have been controlled. I was controlling him. It was me that kept him from hurting anyone all this time.”

  “Aaron crawled out. I found him across the clearing.”

  “No way.”

  “He would have burned to death.”

  “I didn't mean to kill him,” he repeated. But the thought of burning Aaron alive seemed to touch something human in Damon. His eyes softened a little. The shotgun dropped a notch so that Micky wasn't staring directly down the long dark barrel.