Pray To Stay Dead

by Cole, Mason James

  “I’m not going to do that,” he said. “Make too much of a mess in there.” He shrugged. “And I’m not really all that comfortable with shooting a sleeping police officer, particularly a nice boy like Eric.”

  “I know, Crate, and I feel the same way. What if we—” She stopped, tensing as the distant sound of an engine reached them. The sound swelled, headlights illuminated the road, and a truck passed, breaking before it left their view, backing up, and turning into the parking lot.

  “Hm,” Crate said, stood up, cocked his rifle.

  “I think it’s Huff,” Misty said, squinting into the headlights, which were promptly extinguished.

  “Oh,” Crate said, letting his aim go limp.

  The truck stopped and Huffington Niebolt got out, all six foot six inches of him. Strong thick arms and skinny legs and a gut that stretched the fabric of his blood-stained sleeveless t-shirt. The yellow light gleamed on his bald head, and his beard hung in a single braid, rested on the bulge of his belly.

  “Hey, Huff,” Crate said.

  “Hello.” Huff looked tired and lost. He sniffed the air and shot a glance at the remains of the Willits family. “Everybody okay here?”

  “Not everybody,” Misty said. “But we are. Where’s Connor?” Three days ago, Huff’s youngest son had been with him when they stopped in for Cokes on the way south.

  Huff shook his head. He looked down at the bloodstained fabric of his shirt for just a hair of a second and then resolutely looked elsewhere.

  “Oh, God,” Misty said, walking to him, wrapping her arms around him. “Oh, Huff.” He was stiff. He didn’t return her embrace. She pulled away and looked up into his pock-marked face.

  “How many have you seen in town?” he asked, and his breath stank of whisky.

  “Just those three,” Misty said, stepping back and indicating the blackened heap. “The Willitses.”

  “Huh,” Huff said. “Three?”

  “Not sure where Connie is.”

  “Any of my boys come through here?”

  “Samson was here earlier. He met up with some kids from Fresno. Took them up to your place.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Safe. How’re you, Crate?”

  “Been better, been worse,” the old man said, shrugging. “I’m sorry about your boy.”

  “Me, too,” Huff said. “He didn’t really suffer, so I guess we should be grateful for the little things.”

  “We should,” Crate said. “It’s really bad out there?”

  “Worse than bad,” Huff said, knotting his brow. “It’s the end.”

  “You need anything, Huff?” Misty asked, attempting derail one of Huff’s end of the world spiels before it really got rolling. What was happening was worse than anything Huff could prattle on about; she didn’t care to hear him tack any of his insane ideas onto it. “Something to eat?”

  “Nah,” the big man said. “I got everything I need at home. I just saw you two sitting here and figured I’d check in.” He looked back at the road. “I can’t see why there would be many of them out this way, but if you feel safer, you’re both welcome up at our place, okay?”

  “Thanks, Huff,” Misty said. “I think we’re gonna stay here for now. Charlie is inside, drunk on his ass, and Eric Tasgal is asleep on the couch in the back.”

  “He’s bit,” Crate added.

  “Oh,” Huff said, drawing back his head. “That’s not good.”

  “No,” Misty said.

  They exchanged a few more words, and then Huff left. Misty and Crate sat down. Bilbo Baggins farted and whined.

  “That bite,” Misty said.

  “We really don’t know anything about it.”

  “The television says the bites get infected.”

  “I haven’t watched a lot of TV since this started, but I watched a little, and here’s what I heard: someone talking about UFOs and aliens, someone else blaming it on Tricky Dick and voodoo at the same damn time, and Pat Robertson saying that Jesus was getting back at us for of Roe vs. Wade. You’ll understand if I don’t put a lot of stock in what I hear on that television in there, honey,” he said, scratching his beard. “Now, infection? Bites do that. I could bite you right now, and if you didn’t take care of it, it would get infected.”

  “We’re talking about a bite from a dead man.”

  “I know,” he said, knotting his brow. “I know. But we have to wait.”

  “For?”

  “Wait to see how he is in a few hours.”

  “Wait for him to die,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Crate said, eyes wide. “Maybe so, yeah.”

  “We could try to get him some antibiotics.”

  “In town? In Beistle?” He looked at her until he was sure she would not answer. “No, we can’t.”

  No one said anything for a few minutes. The night air was cool. Not too cool but Misty shivered anyway. She drew close to Crate, resting her head on his bony shoulder and closing her eyes.

  “Hup,” Crate said, nudging her. She sat up and blinked at him.

  “I fell asleep?”

  “For a few minutes. Look.” He nodded toward the road. A dead body shuffled through the parking lot. Crate nudged Bilbo Baggins with his foot, but the dog was out cold.

  “Dumb dog,” Crate said, standing up and stepping from the deck and onto the gravel. He cocked his rifle.

  At first glance, she thought maybe Tasgal had died in his sleep. He was sprawled across her couch on his back, his left arm hanging to the floor, his mouth open. His gun lay on the floor, beneath his hand. He seemed even paler than before, but that could just have been a trick of the dim light cast from the standing lamp next to the couch. His wounded forearm rested on his chest. A quarter-sized circle of blood had seeped up through the fresh bandages. His bleeding had all but stopped.

  Misty took a step backward, into Crate, and then Tasgal snorted and changed positions. His eyes drifted open, fluttered, and for a second her heart turned to ice. Then he mumbled something, closed his eyes, and was asleep once more.

  “He got a fever?” Crate said.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Check him.”

  “I really don’t want to.”

  “Jesus, woman,” Crate said. He leaned his rifle against the wall and walked over to where Tasgal lay, blocking her view of him.

  “Nnn.”

  “Hey, Eric,” Crate said. “It’s just me, okay?”

  “Mm.”

  “Just checkin to see if you got a fever.”

  Misty waited, heart racing, waiting for Tasgal to take a bite out of Crate’s hand, wondering if she’d be able to use the rifle on both of them.

  “Okay, you’re good,” Crate said, picking up Tasgal’s gun. “Here’s your iron, cowboy.”

  He stepped away from the couch, picked up his rifle, and looked at Misty. She raised her eyebrows.

  “Mild fever,” Crate said, nudging past her. “We should keep an eye on it. Poor kid.”

  Misty stood there for a while, watching the steady rise and fall of Tasgal’s chest until Charlie spoke up behind her, making her jump.

  “What’s going on?” His words were slurred. She wondered how hard he’d hit the gin. She wondered how much was left, and how the hell she was going to get more, once the bottle was dry. “He okay?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked at Charlie. He leaned against the wall, eyelids heavy. “You’re messed up.”

  “You look worried.”

  She sighed. Tasgal stirred again. She held her breath, stared at his chest until she was certain that he was still alive. “Do you have any rope?”

  “Now, don’t let your head...”

  “I have an extension cord somewhere, I think.”

  “You ought to come to bed.”

  Charlie didn’t drink much, but when he did he got as horny as a teenager. He thought he did, anyway. His dick was about as useful as a banana slug.

  “You ought to go to bed, you useless turd,” she said,
and left. Behind the counter, she turned on the television and watched the end of Nixon’s address to the nation. The criminal bastard looked frightened, far more so than he had while getting publicly grilled over the Watergate fiasco. This pleased her.

  Outside, Crate’s stupid dog barked. The door opened and Crate came through and strode toward the back, noticed her behind the counter and skidded to a halt.

  “Oh. Four more coming. I think the party’s starting.”

  Twelve

  The men burst from within the small buildings at the end of the road, pointing their shotguns and screaming at them to get down, get the fuck down, right now, and Richard did the only thing that made any sense. He got down, and just like that his face met with a gritty boot. He hit the ground with blood erupting from his nose.

  One of them was on his back, knee pressed into his spine, prying his bloodied hands from his face, binding his wrists and ankles. He screamed and he tasted dirt and blood, but he did not fight. They had shotguns, and you did not fight shotguns.

  There were four of them, including the one they’d picked up in town, and they moved with awful speed and precision. To Richard’s left, Kimberly rolled and shrieked, her ankles and wrists also bound. Samson was on Colleen’s back, clutching her hair in his fists, breathing into her ear in a very ugly way, and the man who had broken Richard’s nose and bound his wrists had now planted his foot firmly in the middle of Richard’s back, pinning him to the ground.

  Also bound, Daniel screamed and struggled, rolled away from his own attacker, who pumped a foot into his stomach. Guy was big and it took two of them to slam him against the pickup truck—Daniel’s attacker joined in, ramming the stock of his shotgun into Guy’s stomach.

  “Guh,” Guy said, buckling forward. They slammed him against the truck once more. Richard closed his eyes and waited for it all to end, and when it didn’t he opened his eyes and watched as Colleen was dragged toward Guy. Samson and his friends sounded happy, and Richard screamed, and Kimberly screamed, and Daniel writhed in the dirt. The pressure on Richard’s back went away, and his attacker stepped away.

  Now all four of them clustered around Colleen and Guy, and a shotgun leaned against the truck. Guy screamed and Colleen screamed. A shotgun leaned against the truck, and Daniel sat up, his hands free and working the rope binding his ankles.

  A shotgun leaned against the truck, and Daniel crawled toward it.

  Guy saw the knife descending toward his genitals. He thought: Oh, God, please let me die right now, please let my heart stop. And: Please let the blade be sharp.

  God met him half way: his heart did not stop, but the knife separated his penis from his body as easily as a cruel child plucks the wings from a dragonfly. The pain was pretty much everything that ever was, all at once, and everywhere. Later, while lying in the dark and waiting to die and trying to navigate the minefield of his confused and fevered thoughts, he thought that the pain had been divine, if such a thing was possible.

  Something exploded. His ears rang. Wet chunks of something pattered his bare legs.

  They let go of him and he slid down the truck and onto his bare ass, blood jetting from the hole between his legs. Screaming, screaming—everyone was screaming—he raked his hands through the dirt, brought up handfuls, and pressed them into his wound. His pants and underwear were pooled between his thighs. He seized them and pressed them to his mud-packed wound. He was knocked to the ground, and the black spots throbbing at the corners of the world got bigger. Guy went away.

  He spent most of the night swimming in and out of consciousness, and when clarity came, it brought one simple and terrible realization, an unwelcome and searing thing that he turned over again and again, tried to make sense of: They’d cut off his dick. They’d cut off his dick.

  And: he’d slowed the bleeding. Somehow he had. He was still bleeding, he could feel it, but it was a stinging trickle. He could last a long time like this.

  He spoke occasionally to Daniel and Richard, who were nearby, but mostly he slept and quivered and cried out in pain, and when the birds sang and the world around him emerged in shades of darkest blue, he swam up from the haze of shock and delirium long enough to ask God to let him kill at least one of the bastards before they killed him.

  The idiot, the fucking idiot, he didn’t knot the rope tight enough. Now it slipped away and Daniel’s hands were free, and he had a chance, damn it, they all had a chance now, because the idiots were crowded around Colleen and Guy, they were watching her, and he could see her between their shifting bodies. He could see what they forced her to do. The ropes came away from his ankles with ease. Guy screamed threats and Colleen wept and Daniel crawled. His fingers touched polished wood, and the shotgun felt heavy in his hands.

  He roared like some animal and rose and pressed both barrels to the upper back of the one with the knife, the one who didn’t know how to tie a knot, the one who’d been stupid enough to set down his shotgun. He pulled the trigger.

  They were on him, screaming and cursing and kicking and punching. His head lolled, and the world went black, and at some point he realized that he was lying in the back of a pickup truck, bouncing and jostling and no doubt being driven to his death. He screamed around the rag packed into his mouth. It reeked of oil and gasoline. His tongue burned.

  Richard, similarly muffled and screaming, stared into his eyes. Guy lay next to Richard, quivering. The truck bounced and rocked, and eventually it came to a stop.

  They dragged Daniel from the back of the truck, took off his clothes and tied him to a tree. Two of them. Just two. The other was someplace else. The other was with Colleen and Kimberly. He’d never see either of them again.

  Samson and the other one pulled Guy from the truck first. He was as limp as a rag doll, a corpse before rigor mortis sets in. His wrists and ankles were bound, the bloodied wad of his pants and underwear clamped between his thighs. He still wore his shoes and socks. Richard came easier, helping himself along. Both were thrown onto the ground facing Daniel.

  “You’re so dead, man,” the other said, holding a knife to Daniel’s stomach. He looked a lot like Samson, only older and shorter. His nose was crooked, a bad break that had never been properly set. “I ought to open you up right here, you mother fucker. Watch your guts pop right out.”

  “Stop, Max,” Samson said, walking over to them and putting a hand on the other one’s shoulder. “I want to do it as badly as you do, but we gotta wait for Dad.”

  “With all the shit that’s happening, do we even know he’s gonna be back?” He pressed the tip on the blade into Daniel’s chest, etched a short line across his breastbone. Samson pulled him away, and Daniel allowed his head to hang forward. He closed his eyes.

  “We’re waiting.” Samson said again, and Daniel heard the threat in his voice. “Okay?”

  “Faggot,” Max whispered, punching Daniel in the stomach.

  “Hoo,” Daniel said. A thick rope of blood and spit spun to the ground.

  “Get in the truck,” Samson said. Daniel opened his eyes and lifted his head in time to see Max stomping away toward the truck. He stopped and kicked Richard in the lower back. Richard writhed, his face red, the veins standing out in his forehead.

  Daniel started making blubbering sounds under his breath.

  “What’s that shit,” Samson said. “You praying? You believe in God?”

  Daniel felt a warm slick of saliva fall out of his mouth and separate from him. He breathed twice. “No.”

  “No? Huh.” Samson seemed a little surprised. “You looked to me like maybe you did. Oh, well, I was just gonna let you know that he probably wasn’t gonna help you. Guess you know that already though, huh?”

  Samson walked away, got into the truck, backed out, and drove away, the truck rocking along the path, moving downhill and away from them.

  There the three of them sat in the falling dark for a long time, under the bats and breezes.

  “How tight are your ropes,” Richard asked at last. />
  “Tight,” Daniel said, wriggling in place, the bark of the tree grinding into the flesh of his back. He was bound across the chest, beneath the armpits. The rope was looped around, circled his arms at the elbows, looped around again and again, above and below his knees. His feet and hands tingled, sensation fading.

  “God,” Richard said, and gave himself over to panic. He thrashed and screamed through clenched teeth. After a while, he fell quiet.

  Guy grunted, his hands twitching behind his back. He fell silent, grew still. He said something, little more than a mumble. Something about Colleen, maybe. It was hard to tell.

  Colleen. And Kimberly. God.

  Daniel let panic take him, as well, screaming and crying and struggling against the ropes binding him to the tree. The cut in his chest burned, and his face felt like a toothache. The rope and the bark dug in, and yet somehow he eventually nodded off.

  “Gah,” someone said, and Daniel opened his eyes. Night had fallen. The forest floor was awash in moonlight and shadow.

  “Wuzzat?” Daniel said, and tried to move. His feet and hands were no longer tingling, they were simply dead. Something moved upon the ground before him.

  “Get,” Richard said, growling. “Get away.”

  Daniel blinked into the black and silver gloom, and the form before him suddenly made sense. The coyote tugged at the blood-stained bundle of denim and cotton pressed between Guy’s legs.

  “Go,” he tried to say, his voice ragged, like his throat. He coughed, and the coyote twitched, its plume of a tail dropping between its legs, its head low. It growled, tugged the cloth once more. An engine hummed, light played across the trees, and the coyote vanished.

  Daniel raised his head. The pickup truck crunched to a halt, pretty much in the same place as before, and the doors popped opened. The headlights blinked out and were replaced by the single bobbing beam of a flashlight. It drew close, its circle of light gliding over Richard’s body, pausing for a moment upon his glowering face before leaping over to Guy’s curled and still form, and then moving toward Daniel and filling his eyes.