Southern Ouroboros

by Matt Kilby

  She didn’t worry about making noise, her footfalls muffled by recently mown grass. At the porch stairs, she waited until her breaths were even and quiet before creeping up. Close to the railing, she crawled across the side of the porch to the sliding glass door. She peered into a dining room and kitchen, the nervous seconds before her eyes adjusted full of dread Robert stared back. The rooms were empty without any place for a man that big to hide, so she tested the door, sliding it easy. At the threshold, where her last chance at choice would linger behind, she made hers by stepping inside and closing the door.

  One creak would see her dead, so she waited after every step to be sure the house didn’t betray her. By some miracle of carpentry, she passed through the room without a sound and found another door leading into a hallway, open a crack that had to be intentional. At the other end, a television mumbled low conversations punctuated by gunfire. She moved faster on the carpeted floor, on her toes in case she needed to run. At the end was a living room, a large armchair in the center with its back to her. She didn’t trust the deep snores coming from the other side. Still in the hall, she looked around the room—the front door to the left but in clear view of the chair where Robert sat. A staircase led to the upper floor with an umbrella stand beside it, the axe handle leaning inside. She considered her knife and thought the longer weapon would make up for the difference in their sizes. She just had to worry about putting enough swing behind it. And getting there. Even with his line of sight, she might manage that before he saw her, but that might was measured in fractions of a second. She stuck the knife into her waistband, hoping it wouldn’t stab her when she moved. Another breath cleared her mind and then she ran, hands open and ready.

  Now that it mattered, her feet felt squelched in mud, dragging across the carpet. She didn’t dare look to the chair when she passed but heard a shift of weight in its leather timed with Robert’s surprised grunt. She prayed the wooden handle found him when she brought it out of the stand with as hard a swing as she could manage. The other end, stained dark with what she accepted as some poor girl’s blood, connected with his temple and took his legs from under him. He crumpled, the chair tipping on its side under his weight, but he wouldn’t stay down. She might have given him a headache and a wobble in his steps, but he was far from dead. Going toe to toe with a man that size wouldn’t end well, so she bolted for the front door. She turned the knob, but Robert was up before she got it wide. She felt his approach across the floor, terrified she would trip over her feet on the way out but somehow made it and thought to jerk the door shut behind her. When his hand stopped it, she knew he was too close and she needed to be far away and fast. The worst of her fears were fulfilled before the bottom of the stairs. He did this long enough to get good. Added to his desperation, his size didn’t mean anything.

  He was on the porch before she was off and closed the distance before the driveway. Reaching out, he took a handful of her hair, jerking to bring her toward him. He slung her to the tire-packed dirt, the impact ripping the weapon from her hand. She knew better than to search for it, but Robert wasn’t the only desperate one. The tip rose from the weeds at the driveway. She meant to crawl, but he had her first, hands on her waist to flip her on her back. His head swelled where she hit him, his left eye half-open, but he didn’t show any pain. Instead, he dropped to sit on her legs, unbuttoning his pants with one hand as he wrapped the other around her throat. She couldn’t budge it with both hands. It would all end under the moon, in the air she thought she would never breathe again. She didn’t breathe much as he shifted to work on her pants next, but as his hand fumbled, something sharp pricked her leg.

  One of her hands left his and dove into her pants before his other could. She found the knife’s handle and didn’t care how much of her own skin shredded along its way out. She aimed the blade into his neck. He yelped, and his next breath gurgled with flowing blood but didn’t deter him from his purpose. Without covering his wound, he tore at her pants with an intense gleam in his one visible eye, so she stabbed again in the same place. When that didn’t work, she aimed for his eyes. Still, it took forever before the hand at her neck loosened and he rolled off. She lay a moment, covered in his blood and panting at the sky before she decided to make sure he was dead. Turning her head, she stared into his face and found nothing but a slackened peace she wished she could take back from him. When enough time passed, she pulled up to sit and wiped the blood from her face and arms. His blood. It would be hell to explain, but she couldn’t wait for the chance.

  In a daze, she stood and looked down the gravel and then up the field, trying to decide which way to walk. She thought to go back the way she came the night she ran there so climbed the wooden fence and walked through the field towards the woods. Halfway there, headlights approached, but she didn’t look back or bother moving faster. They had a deal, and if Ben didn’t honor it, he would catch her anyway. He did his part enough to get good too.

  As she walked, she heard his car door open and the sob when he found what she did. She listened for what came next, betting he would drive to the highway to meet her. His grief made it obvious she wouldn’t get away, but at least with Ben she had a chance at dying quick. When the grass rustled behind her, she stopped walking and turned to look at him.

  Tears flowed steady down his cheeks, faster than he could wipe them away. Compared to his brother, he looked like a boy, though one that aimed a handgun at her.

  “I did what you told me to,” she said, exhausted.

  “I was wrong,” he shook his head so many times she wondered if he would stop. When he did, he raised the pistol into her face. “He was my brother, and you butchered him.”

  “Tough shit,” she said. “I saw what he did to those other girls when he tried to do the same to me. What he did to you. You should have killed him a long time ago.”

  “No.”

  “Of course not,” she said. “You’re the family coward, right? What do you think’s going to happen now that you’re alone? I bet you don’t last a year before you’ve got that gun in your mouth, so why not go ahead? The world will be grateful.”

  “The world?” he echoed, the gun’s barrel drifting to her chest. “You’re wrong. It needs me more than you or any of the girls who wandered across my path. While you’re ashes with them, this world will thank me for everything I’ll do.”

  “So now that I did the heavy work, you’re strong?” she asked.

  “No,” he shook his head. “I’m free.”

  He pulled the trigger, but a short cough came instead of a bang, a dart stabbing her chest over her heart. She yanked it away, numb as green liquid beaded from the tip. Her knees gave before her consciousness, giving her time to wonder if she would ever wake again.

  III. A Kind of suicide

  1

  It was a matter of time before they came again. The same ambitious deputy would open the heavy gray door and tell Vick to stand in his tough-guy voice. Turn around. Hands through the bars. Handcuffs would snap around his wrists, and the poor, jaded jackass would take him for interrogation. It happened twice, Sheriff Morrell absent both times. Vick hadn’t decided what that meant. He hoped he left for a couple hours or the night and Judge Morgan took advantage of the deputy in charge. It was an option, but not the only one. The sheriff might be hiding until the whole shameful ordeal ended.

  Every time they brought him into that room and sat a cup of tepid water in front of him, they were waiting for his story to crumble. They only needed a sliver of contradiction to pick wide enough to pour threats into. A confession would go easier. If he told them where she was, they would let him sleep. He didn’t bother telling them he did this exact thing a few times himself to some kid not smart enough to wait out the time they could legally hold him. It would encourage them, as if he hid something and knew to hide it deep. Instead, he stared at the wall as he recounted his time with Suzanne before she disappeared. When the questions started, he kept to his three-word script. I don’t kno
w.

  They gave him a cell mate, another trick they used back home before his dad found Curtis Markham dead in a deer stand. They called it “flooding the tank” and would send Curtis in around the time the booze soured his stomach, giving him long enough to be annoying before he turned sick. At its best, the other guy got riled up enough to put hands on him before Curtis unloaded the night on his shirt. Of course, Vick or Pete waited nearby to rescue him before things got violent, but stewing in someone’s vomit usually got a person talking at the promise of clean clothes. When the Creek Hollow deputies shoved their drunk into the cell, Vick became nostalgic. He never thought about what happened to Curtis but now regretted the way he treated him. Instead of getting agitated when the man burst into spontaneous song, he struck up a conversation until the drunk passed out, head dropping heavy as he pissed his pants. At least it was better than smelling puke until they realized he was unbreakable.

  When the deputy showed up again, he wore a smug expression that fell at Vick’s patient smile.

  “Get up,” he grumbled, taking the cuffs from his belt. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

  “You’re wasting time.”

  Vick did what he was told, though it didn’t matter. It was a waste of time to the investigation, not the deputy. He did what Judge Morgan asked so was investing in a promotion or whatever else he was promised. It would fall short of a bribe but be as lucrative. The judge couldn’t have much sway this far from home, so it had to be important.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” the deputy barked.

  “That’s what I’ve been doing,” Vick said as the cuffs snapped shut, “but you keep asking those stupid questions.”

  The deputy jerked his hands, bringing his head into the bars hard enough to send a flash across his eyes. Vick gritted his teeth, telling himself this was for Suzanne. He swayed through the cell door, knees trying to give though he forced them straight. Led toward the lobby, he braced himself for the next part.

  “Whatever he offered,” he mumbled as the deputy opened the door, “I hope you got it in writing.”

  To his credit, the deputy didn’t respond except to squeeze his wrist as he pushed him through. That left the work to Vick, but he played his part with a step away to ram his own left eye into the door frame. The flash was red this time and warm, following the trickle of blood down his cheek—a job well done. It was written all over the shocked stares as he stumbled past other deputies. Judge Morgan waited inside the last room, his composure traded for colder anger when he saw Vick.

  “What did you do?”

  “He did it to himself,” the deputy pushed Vick into the empty chair at the table.

  “You think that matters? You think he doesn’t know what he’s doing?”

  Vick smiled. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”

  “His word against mine,” the deputy shrugged. “His in cuffs and mine with a badge.”

  “Want me to tell him?” Vick asked the judge.

  “Mr. Hafferty, unless you’re about to tell where Suzanne is, I suggest you shut up.”

  With a sharper smile, Vick rolled his head to see the deputy. “You’re forgetting I’m only a suspect. ‘His word against mine’ might have held up if I’m guilty of anything, but as it stands, I’m walking out of here tomorrow and heading for the nearest attorney I can find. You better believe every inch of swelling in this eye will give you less chance of putting that badge on again.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” the deputy shook his head. “Right, Your Honor?”

  “Your Honor,” Vick echoed. “What did you dangle in his greedy little eyes?”

  The judge kept his cold stare on Vick until he spoke. “Where is Suzanne?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Vick met his eyes. “She could be home now, and you saw this as your chance to settle things. Torture me for how I treated her. If so, just tell me. I’ll stick my chin out and give you a free shot, because I deserve it. But I promise that was all the hurt I’ll ever give her. If she is missing, I want to find her, but I can’t do that in here.”

  “How would you out there?” the judge asked. “Say I tell this deputy to let you go. What then? Are you going to walk through the woods until you stumble over her? Call her phone and hope she answers? In an unfamiliar town, where is the first place you’ll look?”

  Vick didn’t answer. There was no good way to explain a magic stone that somehow saved Pine Haven. He didn’t have any evidence it could find Suzanne other than a feeling. The last thing he needed was for a man who already thought he killed his daughter to question his sanity, so he shook his head and stuck to the three words he said enough times to call them his catchphrase.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course not,” Judge Morgan said. “So I’ll tell you. People back home are wondering how a massacre like ours could have been so coordinated. We’ve looked at everyone. The Barbours. Jim Stucker. Warden Carmichael and his guards. There’s one missing piece, overlooked in the confusion of the day. Either the sheriff’s department was incompetent or someone there was involved.”

  “What?” Vick squinted but couldn’t convince himself it was a surprise. In his quieter moments, he drifted back to that day more times than he wanted. Among the chaos and trauma, there was one place he was safe. One person who packed her bags and left before it started. One deputy unaccounted for when the ash settled.

  “Trust me,” the judge continued, “I felt the same way at first, but then it started making sense. All those pieces moving, dumping bodies around town. The chances of three rednecks managing that without getting caught, even with the prison supporting them, is near impossible. Now, I don’t believe Arkin or his deputies were stupid, so that leaves the other option. Someone served as a distraction, making sure the rest of you were where they wanted you.”

  “And you think that was me?” Vick asked, his mind somewhere else. Back in her house—back in her bed. He thought a drunken mistake cost Pete his life, but what if Shelley had taken advantage of him? He pictured her in the shack the next morning: grief in her eyes and shock on her face. If she faked that, she was a hell of an actress.

  “I didn’t want to,” Judge Morgan shook his head. “I knew you were a bad guy from the start, at least where Suzanne was concerned, but I never thought you were evil. That’s what it takes to plan the mass murder of people who look to you for protection. It turns my stomach, but your name never occurred to me until Maribeth called to tell me you’d brought Suzanne here and she’d disappeared. I remembered something that happened when we thought we only needed to lock our doors against Jim Stucker. She had a date with another deputy, one of your friends, and you set him up to die.”

  Vick sprang from the chair before he thought better of it. The deputy grabbed him fast and drove him down into the seat.

  “No, son,” the judge smiled. “That’s when you hit him. He got agitated, started thrashing. Slung himself right out of the chair. Now it’ll be his word against ours.”

  Voice even, he pressed his foot to Vick’s chest, tipping the chair back to spill him on the floor. His head hit hard, a fog settling over his eyes. At first, he couldn’t move, thinking himself paralyzed until pins and needles pricked his fingers and toes. The sensation traveled into his arms and legs, and Vick pulled them to his chest. It was his only focus, making brain damage his next guess. Before he had time to consider the implications, footsteps vibrated the floor and Sheriff Morrell barged into the room.

  “What is this?” he looked at Vick and then his deputy. “Why isn’t he in his cell?”

  “Interrogation,” the deputy said.

  The sheriff glared. “On whose authority?”

  The deputy glanced at Judge Morgan. The sheriff drew his lips so tight the next words had trouble getting through.

  “Right,” he glared at the judge. “I’m done watching you flex. I’m cutting him loose before you kill him or have one of my boys do it for you. I don’t know how it works i
n Pine Haven, but that’s not how we do things in Creek Hollow.”

  “Maybe you should come show us,” Judge Morgan said. “Our sheriff has tendered his resignation, and some of us recognize a ripe opportunity to change things.”

  So that was what dangled at the end of the stick. Without influence here, he promised some back in Starks County. Vick didn’t doubt he could deliver. Nevermind he lived outside the town limits, barely in the county, and heard about the massacre second hand. People trusted him, and if he showed up with some Louisiana deputy who’d never set foot in their town, they would vote for him because their longest-serving judge said to. By his squint, Morrell wasn’t interested. For the first time since he met him, Vick liked the guy.

  “So if I let you beat on this innocent man a little longer, you’ll give me a chance at the job? What about Gary?” he nodded at the deputy. “He get to be co-sheriff or do we have to run against each other?”

  “He’s not innocent,” the judge shook his head.

  “Even if he isn’t,” Morrell went to Vick’s crumpled body, “he is free. I see you near him in my jurisdiction, you’ll take his place in that cell.”

  Judge Morgan’s face darkened, but he didn’t say another word as the sheriff pulled Vick to his feet and kept his hand on him for support. When he found his balance, he couldn’t get his feet off the ground, dragging them with each attempted step. Morrell walked with him down the hall to the lobby.