“Mother fucker,” Richard screamed, using the arrow like a switch now—whap whap whap—scourging Jacob as he rolled away from the tree and crumbled to the ground, screaming, his four remaining arrows sliding from the quiver on his back, his welt-covered forearms shielding his bleeding face. Richard swung and swung, hammering lashes across Jacob’s back, the pain in his left arm long since forgotten, the scream pouring from his mouth sounding more and more like laughter. Criss-crossed lines of blood seeped through the cloth of Jacob’s shirt.
At some point Richard threw aside the arrow and kicked Jacob—he drove his foot into the bastard’s balls and into his stomach, and when Jacob’s arms fell away from his face, Richard stomped his nose into a bloody lump.
Panting, Richard stared down at the dazed and bloody mess at his feet.
“God,” Jacob said. “Stuh-stuh…” His bloody fingers twitched atop the grass. The yawning gash on his cheek and forehead glistened. He coughed, rolled onto his side. Pawed feebly at the sheathed knife hanging from his belt.
Falling to his knees, Richard slapped away Jacob’s hand and removed the knife from its leather sheath. Rolling the dazed and bloodied man onto his back, he pressed the serrated blade to Jacob’s throat.
“Kill you,” he said once more. The pain in his left arm returned, intensifying with each galloping beat of his heart. Black spots pulsed before his eyes, also in time to his heartbeat, just like the blood pumping from the wound in his arm.
“Guh,” Jacob said, bringing a hand to his face and probing the gaping wound in his cheek, pressing it shut.
Richard’s hand shook. He drew it back, slowly, and the blade opened a small, shallow furrow in the flesh of Jacob’s throat. Beads of blood formed. Jacob’s pulse thrummed beneath taut, blood-slick flesh. He grunted.
Richard returned the knife to its starting position and pressed harder. Thought for a moment, and then altered his grip on the knife, brought it up, his fist tight on the hilt, the blade pointing downward. One swift plunge, and it would be over. Jacob opened his eyes, blinked away blood. Coughed once.
Richard’s hand quivered, his stomach seemed to collapse upon itself, and he leaned forward, gagging, a small line of bile flowing from his mouth and onto the ground. He heaved once more, and this time the bile contained a few small chunks of what he could only assume was all that was left of the last food he’d eaten.
He placed the knife on the ground between his knees and inspected the wound on his arm. It was clean—two simple holes like the wounds of Christ in some painting. Blood welled in each of the holes but it did not flow.
He slid Jacob’s gun from its holster.
Drawing back the hammer with his thumb, he pressed the barrel of the gun to Jacob’s temple.
“Guh,” Jacob said again, drawing himself into a ball and trying to push away the barrel with trembling fingers. A bloody snot bubble swelled from his right nostril and burst. Richard closed his eyes, opened them. Gently pulled the trigger and, using his thumb, guided the hammer to its original position. If they hadn’t already heard the screaming lunatic laughter of his assault upon their brother, they’d hear this. If he pulled the trigger, the others would hear him, and any chance he had of getting away would be lost.
He could smother Jacob or slit his throat.
Richard stared at the shallow cut he’d opened across Jacob’s throat, at the throbbing pulse beneath the dirt and the blood. Jacob coughed once more, and that was all Richard needed—he stood, looking around, sliding the gun into his pocket and trying to decide upon a path. He’d hurt the bastard, hurt him badly. He was dying, and it would take a long time. He didn’t deserve the mercy of a quick kill.
He walked, eyes forward, his left arm curled to his stomach, the gun hanging like an unfulfilled promise from his right hand. The tress flowed past him and over him, unchanging.
Less than ten minutes after leaving Jacob to his fate, Richard came across the shack. It sat in a clearing like something organic and ancient, its tin roof peppered with orange rust blossoms and covered in patches of thick green moss—a squat, oblong building covered on all sides by doors. Simple pre-fab bedroom doors; heavy wooden doors; rust-streaked metal doors stenciled numbers beneath wire-mesh inlaid windows. Door after door after door.
He stepped up to the building and tried one of the doors. It would not open, and this close he could tell that it had been bolted to the side of the building. A stench hung in the air, something heavy and sour—the reek of sun-baked roadkill.
He moved down the line, trying door after door, rounding the corner, until he came upon a wooden outhouse door. It was set a little deeper into the building than the other doors, and he slid his fingers beneath the black metal loop, placed his thumb upon the latch. He leaned close, peered into the crescent-shaped hole that had been cut into the wooden slats, and the smell punched him in the face. He recoiled.
There was something dead inside the shack, and dead was dangerous. He stepped back, looked around for something, for anything, and that’s when he heard it. Someone inside the shack coughed. He listened. The seconds ticked by, and when the cough came once more, terror and hope surged through Richard’s core. He wrenched open the door.
Framed in the light cast through the open door, Kimberly lay naked and bloody, roped and chained to a thin soiled mattress that sat atop the metal frame of a small folding cot.
“God,” he said, stepping into the dim confines of the shack, into the reek of death and human waste. There were flies, so many little buzzing wings that it sounded as if he were in a beehive.
Kimberly’s blackened eyes were closed. Her nose was crooked. Her lips were swollen, split, and bloodied. Her hands were cuffed above her head, the cuffs bound with twine to the wire mesh upon which the mattress lay. Also bound to the cot frame, a rope encircled her waist. Her legs were spread wide and bent at the knees. Her toes touched the ground. Twine bound her ankles to the legs of the cot.
His eyes adjusting to the gloom, Richard looked around: to the left of the cot, two dead bodies hung writhing from chains, buzzing with flies, their stiff fingers silently working, their cloudy and shriveled eyes rolling slowly in their sockets. They were naked, their flesh sallow, jaundiced, their feet and ankles bloated and bruised and leaking dark fluids onto ground.
To the right of the cot, a deep bloodstained sink hung from the wall, which was lined with warped shelves bearing paint cans, tools, and other assorted garage items. A pencil-thin line of water ran from the faucet.
There was another door directly across from the door leading into the shack. It was shut but did not appear to be locked. A filthy orange hunting jacket hung from a hook on the door. The wall to the right of the door was covered with warped and tattered pornographic images.
He stepped to the cot and sank to his knees.
“Kim,” he said, stroked her face. Her swollen eyelids fluttered. She licked her lips and turned her head toward the sound of his voice.
“Rich,” she said. “Oh, God, Rich.”
“Shh,” he said, allowing his eyes to move from her face and across her naked body. There were bite marks on her breasts and stomach, livid with infection. The work of the living, not the dead, they were shallow and arranged in a way that suggested intent and intelligence—one around each nipple, and several stamped in an uneven line down her stomach, toward her crotch, which buzzed with flies.
“He hurt me,” she said. “B... bastard. I gave up...”
“I’m going to get you out of here, Kim,” he said, tugging at the rope binding her waist to the cot. He slid his fingers along its length, followed it beneath the cot, and found the knot. It gave with little effort. He slid the rope away from her stomach and threw it to the ground.
“Oh my God, oh my God, are you really there?” She asked, coughing once more, spraying blood. “God, are you there?” Her hands hooked into claws. The flesh around her wrists was raw.
“I’m here, Kim,” he said, leaning close, his left hand on her right sho
ulder, his right hand atop her head, stroking her hair.
“God,” she said, turning her head and trying to look at him.
“No, no,” he said, gently pushing her head to the cot. “I’m going to find something to cut these chains.” He stood up.
“Don’t go,” she said, panic infusing her listless voice. “Don’t you fucking leave me.”
“I’m not leaving, Kim,” he said, walking to the closed door and removing the hunter’s jacket from the hook. It was old and rotting and filthy, but it would do. He draped it across Kimberly, covering her from breasts to thighs.
“What is that?”
“Just a jacket,” he said. “To keep you warm.”
“I hurt,” she said. “He hurt me.”
“I know, honey,” he said, and the words hurt him. He’d covered her to give her a sense of comfort, yes, but that wasn’t the only reason. Guilt and lousy feeling washed over him. He didn’t want to look between her legs again.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking over his shoulder, through the open door and into the forest beyond. “I got away. I killed one of them.”
“You did?” She asked, her body tensing.
“I think so.”
“Good,” she said, relaxing. “That’s good. They deserve to die. All of them. Where’s Brock? Have you seen her?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s still alive.”
“Is she?”
“Yeah.” She sucked in air, quivered, her arms breaking out in goosebumps. “The one who did this to me said so. Said they were keeping her.”
“Oh, God,” Richard said.
One of the dead bodies grunted, and Richard jumped, his heart pounding. Never mind Jacob and whether or not he was dead—there were others, and they could arrive at any moment.
Just get the fuck out of here, he thought. Get help. Come back. But get out now.
Kimberly coughed again. He fingers quivered above her head.
She’s just gonna slow you down. Get you killed.
“They killed Guy, didn’t they?” Her chest heaved beneath the jacket, and tears squeezed between her swollen eyelids.
“Hey,” he said, trying to sound as soothing as possible and succeeding only in sounding terrified. “Just calm down, okay? I’m going to find a saw, or something.”
“Urr,” the other corpses said, watching him.
“Okay,” she said, and he stepped away from the cot and toward the closed door. “Rich? What the hell is happening?”
“I don’t know,” Richard said, seizing the doorknob, turning it, pushing open the door, and revealing a smaller room. Three of its walls were lined with shelves. The ground was strewn with junk—boxes, an old lamp, a bicycle without wheels. Very little light reached the small room. Richard looked up, stared in disbelief at the light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
“Oh,” he said, reaching up and pulling the small chain that hung from the porcelain socket. The bulb flared to life and dim light filled the room. Kicking aside the bike frame, he stepped to one of the cluttered shelves and pushed things around. Spark plugs and screwdrivers and nails pattered the ground between his feet.
“Rich,” Kimberly said.
“I’m here,” he said, pushing a stack of warped paperbacks to the ground. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Grunting, she struggled, rattled her chains. Richard moved on to the next shelf. Behind him, the cot creaked.
“Goddammit, Kimberly,” he said. “Just stop, okay? I’m right here. I’m looking for a fucking saw. Dammit.”
He ransacked one shelf and moved on to the next. Lightbulbs shattered at his feet. Rusty nails and screws showered the ground. He sliced open his thumb on a razor blade.
There was no saw.
He could shoot Kimberly’s chains, but he neither wanted to attract the attention of the others or waste valuable ammunition. He had six shells, and he wanted to make them count.
“Dammit,” he said, turning around.
Jacob knelt on one knee beside Kimberly, who writhed. He’d tossed aside the old jacket. His left hand covered her mouth. His right hand clutched the knife that Richard had left behind. It was buried to the hilt in the soft flesh of her stomach. He drew it downward, toward the thick tuft of hair between her legs.
“No,” Richard said, pulling the gun from his pocket.
Jacob looked up a second before the first of three bullets tore into his chest and throat. Spurting blood, he collapsed onto Kimberly’s gaping stomach. The dead bodies hanging from the ceiling kicked their feet, rocked and spun and dripped.
Richard dropped the gun and rushed to Kimberly’s side, nearly tripping on Jacob’s feet. He pulled Jacob away, dropped him into a gurgling heap.
“No,” he said, kneeling beside Kimberly. Blood welled around the dark fissure in her stomach. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell. The smell of Kimberly’s insides filled the air, mingled with the stale mildew reek of the shack and the stink of the bound dead bodies spinning in place at the ends of their chains.
“It’s cold,” Kimberly said through clenched teeth. “It’s getting cold.”
“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” he said loudly in an attempt to drown out the voice in his head, the one that told him that this was too bad, sure, but at least he had a chance of getting away now.
“You fucking Tatum?” Kimberly said.
Mouth open, Richard stared at her, certain that he was hearing things. She wouldn’t be. No, not now.
“Tatum?” she gasped, her head lolling, her rolling eyes mere slivers of light and dark beneath swollen eyelids. He allowed them to find him.
He stared at her, blinking, unable to answer, and it was answer enough.
“Asshole,” she said, convulsing. Dark fluid arced from her mouth and her final breath rattled into silence. Her back arched, relaxed. Gas escaped her body and the flies gathered between her legs took flight. And that was it.
Shaking, he stared at her until Jacob pawed at his ankles, startling him. He yelped, hopping away. Jacob sat up, head lolling, eyes wide and vacant. He kicked Jacob in the face.
Jacob’s corpse tried to crawl to its hands and knees. Richard kicked it again, looked around. A hammer lay on the floor in the corner beneath one of the hanging corpses. Its head was sheathed in rust, but a hammer was a hammer.
It was heavy in his hands. The handle was filthy but solid.
He picked up the orange jacket and kicked Jacob’s struggling corpse onto its back, draped the jacket across Jacob’s head. Kneeling beside the living corpse, he swung the hammer until the dead man’s skull became lumpy beneath the jacket and the loud orange cloth was chilled with red blood.
The cot creaked. Kimberly’s fingers worked the air. Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. Her head moved from side to side. Her swollen eyelids quivered but did not part. Her dead gaze did not find him.
He peeled the jacket from Jacob’s ruined head and draped it across Kimberly’s face.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
When it was finished, he stepped outside and, his hands on his knees, vomited. He took a few steps away from the shack when he remembered the gun. When he stepped into the stinking building, the dead bodies hanging from the ceiling jerked and swayed and followed his passage with listless eyes. He picked up the gun.
Three bullets.
Ten minutes later, he looked back. There was no sign of the shack. The clouds had burned away. The sun’s position in the sky told him that it was going on two o’clock. The shadows told him that he was moving west.
He moved downhill, in the direction in which he was certain he would find the highway, but after nearly two hours of moving he accepted the fact that he was lost. He backtracked for a while, veering south, and within thirty minutes he came to accept the very real possibility that he’d gotten himself completely turned around.
He came across a steep drop, one far too steep for him to attempt alone with no gear and no h
elp. A sloped jumble of rocks, tree trunks, and fallen branches large enough to crush a car, with no way to tell what was solid and what was delicately balanced.
He worked his way along the edge, hoping the ground would level out and the shack would come into view again, or something, anything at all aside from this edgeless, featureless hilly country. The clouds were gone and so were the shadows. The sun was headed down. No way to keep track of time now. He walked as long as he could but if he walked in the dark, he would fall in the dark. He settled against a redwood towering from a particularly steep incline. His back to the ground, the tree beneath his feet, he lay watching, the gun held to his chest, as the last of the light bled away.
He swatted bugs and saw shapes that weren’t there. He may have cried. He tried to keep his eyes open, but in the end he was like any tired living thing. He fell asleep.
Twenty-One
It was a little after three in the morning. The overhead fluorescents were off, and inside, Misty’s was lit just by the glow of the signs above the beer coolers and the green electric face of the 7-UP clock hanging upon the wall at the back of the deli. The hands stopped working at 4:17 a long time ago, but the bulb had worked fine a long time and wasn’t going to quit now just on account of the end of the world.
Misty could hear one of the things moving around outside, its dead feet whispering across the wooden boards of the porch that ran along the front of the store. She wondered who it was, who it had been, and her heart did something fast and funny behind her pendulous old breasts. She stared at the door, expecting at any moment for it to rattle in its frame and swing inward. The bell would jingle and sway, and the dead would spill in with outstretched arms and blood-smeared lips.
Crate was asleep in her bed. After another long day spent sitting on the porch and guarding the store, he’d come inside with Bilbo Baggins at his heel, locked the door, and informed her that he was going to sleep and that she had better not wake him unless the dead bastards were in the store and stepping on the Rice Krispies. Not long after, Charles had staggered from the back and thrown himself grunting onto the chair across from Stacy, who sat fingering the crystal that hung from her neck. Neither of them seemed to have noticed one another. Stacy’s gaze had been on the television, and Charles—palms pressed to his temples, clutching fingers splayed—looked like a man trying to hold something broken together.
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