Dying to be Free

by Sutherland, Michael

  Ralf unzipped the bag starting at the top.

  Jimmy shoved his head through the opening, his face blue. Slimy goo bubbled around the gag stuffed in his mouth.

  And as crickets chirped away in the undergrowth, the smell of pine needles gave a nice Christmas feel to the scene.

  Opening the bag was like opening a present.

  Judge cocked a shotgun and shoved it in the side of Jimmy's face.

  "Keep still or you'll die too soon," he said.

  Suffocating or not Jimmy's eyes snapped wide and stayed wide.

  Ralf pulled the zipper on the body bag all the way down.

  The thin guy in a long coat walked out from the shadows with a little black bag in his hand.

  "Untie the legs," he said, "but leave the cuffs on."

  "Hey, Vet, make sure this one really can't scream this time, won't yah?" Ralf the mustache said.

  The thin vet cringed as he crouched by the side of Jimmy.

  "Watch what you're saying, Ralf!"

  The old vet reached into his little black bag and pulled out a horse syringe with a mighty long needle on it and rammed it into the side of Jimmy's neck.

  The vet didn't take his time bashing his fist down on the plunger driving the muscle relaxant in to Jimmy's larynx.

  "That should keep him quiet for a little while," the vet said, " long enough until he doesn't get the chance to speak again."

  Jimmy's cheeks bulged and vomit hosed out his nose.

  "Will someone take the gag off its face before it chokes to death," another guy at the back said.

  That other guy was a priest, an old priest, thin and willowy, with a shiny head like a skull crammed into a pink plastic bag.

  Gagging and convulsing Jimmy's eyes looked like they were about to explode.

  "Jesus, Christ!" the vet complained.

  He was having a hard time getting his fingers around the buckle at the back of Jimmy's gag.

  "It won't keep damn well still," he said.

  So the old vet bashed his knuckleduster into Jimmy's face.

  "Keep (wham) fucking still."

  Jimmy flew back.

  "And a bad vet always blames his botched up put down jobs," the judge said.

  When the gag gave way a fountain of blood and bile spewed out of Jimmy's mouth.

  He leaned over gasping for air.

  He would have yelled to but his neck was numb; his vocal cords in chemical castration mode.

  "Okay, get it on its feet," the old lady said. She being Mary Rose Cotter, married to the old judge, and hating every minute of it.

  "Think of the prestige, Honey," her mother had said.

  "Think of the money," her father had said.

  So she had married the judge to keep them happy. And now that they were long gone dead, she had to live out her life in purgatory.

  Ralf the mustache hammered the bale hook through the back of Jimmy's right shoulder and dragged him out of the trunk by the clavicle.

  Mary Rose shone a light on Jimmy's face.

  "Would you look at that mug shot?" she said.

  "Better than the real one," the judge said.

  "That was a while back," the priest said.

  "Never did manage to pin a murder on the evil fuck," the judge said.

  "I think they look better when you see pain in their faces, real pain," the vet said. "If only we could do the same with those pesky animal welfare guys, now that I would love."

  Everyone mumbled in agreement.

  "Pain always looks better," the priest said crossing himself.

  He wasn't even Catholic.

  The crones stood around reminiscing under the pines, nodding as they had themselves a barby of burgers and hotdogs, a few drinks, and tokes of the best Moroccan grass that money could buy.

  The old judge giggled after a deep drag of the good stuff remembering how he'd just had the junkie pusher selling this shit thrown in the slammer this a. of m. It didn't worry him though. There was always plenty more idiot goofball pushers to get the stuff from.

  Buy it then shove 'em inside for life.

  God, it just felt so good whamming his gavel on the bench when he thought back on it.

  "Guilty!" he cried out.

  Everyone looked at him.

  "Just enjoying the moment," the judge grinned.

  The sweet smell of hash drifted through the air, mingling with that Christmas tree smell.

  Yeah, there's nothing like nature to take you Far from the Madding Crowd.

  But there wouldn't be too much grass though, not until later when they could all sit back and really relax.

  Jimmy watched them all.

  He wanted to scream only his neck wouldn't let him. And he wanted to yell out in pain too, but couldn't do that either for the same reason.

  And it wasn't until the axes and knives, the shotguns and tazers, the crossbows and cleavers started glinting in the firelight that he realized what was really wrong with this picture.

  Mary Rose walked up to him.

  She smelled of fake Chanel No. 5.

  "Hear you killed my granddaughter," she said almost as if it were a whimsy. "Five years ago now, and you got away with it. But what goes around comes right back at yah."

  She shook her head and walked away.

  "In God we trust," the priest said (defrocked and dumped for fiddling with things in more ways than one). "At least that used to be my P.R. for my congregations. And then I used to look at their pain, their tears and hurt when some evil mother like you killed their daughter, their son, mother or father, and I thought to myself, what the fuck was I doing telling them that shit for?"

  He leaned into Jimmy's face then brought a bony knee up hard into his crotch.

  (crunch)

  "One for the road, sonny," he said.

  "You stabbed her, and then you raped her," the old judge said chewing down the last of a hotdog. "And someone else got the blame for it you slimy shit. Just like that, you got away with it."

  Jimmy's eyes widened.

  "It's going to be fun hauling your entrails out into the open though," the judge said, "before you have a chance to die."

  He held up the gutting knife.

  "And there's nothing I like better than fresh meat," he said licking the mustard off his lip. "Yum."

  "Hey, what are we gonna do about his balls?" Ralf said swinging his bale hook through the air.

  "How about boiling 'em in the bag," the priest said.

  They all laughed at that.

  "Stick a pan under there and fry 'em while they're still hanging out to dry," Mary Rose said.

  "Then cut them off nice and slow," the vet said.

  Jimmy's went all squirmy.

  His mouth gawped like a little fish out the pond, except nothing came out but a croak, and not much of a croak at that.

  The barby flame doused and after everything had cooled down enough it was put back into one car or another, four-wheel drives, trucks, anything with wheels on it.

  Mary Rose pulled on her deerstalker and plaid jacket.

  The judge donned a pair of funny looking spectacles, the kind that looked like little squat binoculars.

  Infrared.

  "Maybe we should break one of its legs before we let it go," the vet said closing his little black bag.

  "Nah, I say we should break 'em after," Ralf said thudding the tip of the bale hook into an oak and ripping a scar down the bark. "I mean like really slug into 'em, every goddamn mother fuckin bone in its body."

  "Then burn it alive," the vet said.

  "Bury it alive and then dance on the fucker's grave," the priest said.

  Mary Rose walked up to Jimmy and waved a funny looking thing at him, like a microphone attached to a little box.

  It clicked, and clicked more the closer she waved it.

  "It's hot," she said looking at the dial before walking back to join the others.

  #

  I'll kill the fucker.

  I'll kill him for this.
<
br />   Jimmy couldn't talk, but he could run, and he could think.

  He'd had a head start and he was fast, faster than they old crones could follow.

  And he wondered how long his not being able to talk would last, if it were forever.

  It doesn't affect my hands though.

  Except his hands were cuffed behind his back.

  He staggered and slipped and slammed his knees into the mulch and pine needles.

  And every time he tried to stand up it was like his face was hitting the mud more times than he could get back on his feet.

  And so damn dark too.

  He heard them behind him, getting closer. He pushed himself onto his feet again and ran full belt into a tree.

  Old blood had dried on his face.

  New blood poured from his mashed nose.

  Pain was bad enough.

  Not being able to scream when you felt it was worse.

  #

  Mary Rose peered down at her Geiger counter.

  They could all hear it click.

  "He's been along here all right," she said. "Dial's going off the scale. Must have been strong stuff he was given. I've never had readings this high before. He's bleeding radioactive blood maybe, or he's pissed itself."

  "You don't say," the vet said.

  He stopped for a second and looked through the sight of his crossbow.

  Puhjing!

  "Did yah hit it?" the old judge said sounding disappointed. "So soon?"

  The old vet walked up to the tree.

  "Nah," he said.

  "So what were you shooting at?" Mary Rose asked.

  "Looks like red squirrel burger again," the vet said plucking the arrow out of the tree.

  A squirrel wriggled its last on tungsten tip of the arrow.

  The vet grabbed it by the tail, slithered it off the arrow then flung it through the air.

  "Red squirrels are an endangered species around here," the judge said.

  Ralf licked his mustache, grabbed the squirrel out of the air and stuffed it into his gunnysack.

  "That's why they taste so good," Ralf said.

  "Not much meat on 'em," the judge said.

  "Squirrel on a stick," the old lady laughed. "It's almost better than blue-finned tuna."

  #

  Jimmy slithered down the side of the hill, his heels gouging tracks through the leaf mould.

  Wrists still cuffed behind his back he felt as if as if his arms were about to be ripped off.

  He crashed into a laurel bush near the bottom and his mouth filled with dirt.

  A bug crawled over his face.

  He rolled over on his side, steadied his breathing.

  It's no good like this.

  He pulled his knees close to his chest, brought his arms down low. He looped his feet through the cuffs and brought his arms to the front.

  It was something.

  He stood up, tried to get his bearings and looked up.

  No moon all stars.

  He took a step and fell flat on his face.

  He reached down and felt at his ankle.

  "I'll be damned," he said. "It's a snare."

  He wrapped the wire around his fist, gave it a hard tug, and ripped it out of the ground.

  "Looks like it went down here," the old lady said waving around the Geiger counter.

  "No kidding," Ralf said looking at the disturbed earth.

  The old lady turned to the others.

  "So what do we do now?" she asked.

  "Can't let him go," the judge said taking the infrared goggles from his eyes. "He knows too much."

  "Did anyone bring grenades?" the vet asked lighting a cigarette. "They're test things to use on a badgers' set any day. That's how I always used to fix the problem of bovine TB."

  "Why did you come along anyway?" the judge asked.

  "Because I like hunting," the vet said, "like you do. Like we all do. And I've paid for it."

  "Where's the priest?" Mary Rose asked.

  Everyone looked around.

  "He was here a minute ago," Ralf said.

  "Maybe he's gone for a leak," the vet said, "like a scared pig in the slaughterhouse."

  "He would have told us," Ralf said.

  "Should have told us," the judge said. "Now we'll have to wait."

  #

  "Ever hear about the Pyramid?" Jimmy asked.

  Of course the old coot couldn't answer with the wire so tight around his neck.

  "You buy the guilty; maybe even you buy innocent guys too. Gives a bigger kick, I guess, them being innocent, vulnerable, weak. But you're not innocent, are you?"

  The priest's eyes bugged out.

  "Know," Jimmy said, "when I was a kid, school took us to church. And there stood the priest. And we all thought, humbled kids as we were, here's a nice guy; here's a guy who cares. But he didn't have a beatific look on his face as he stood there in his vestments when he looking down on us.

  "You see," he went on, "we, all of us kids, had been told that we had to donate something to the church – money.

  "But I was a skinny kid, always hungry, and my parents had no money either. But still I had to give to this damn church.

  "And as all of us kids walked up those sacred steps that day, in awe of that building. And that man of God pointed his finger at us and said – "Drop the money from your hand into the plate from at least one foot up. Do not place the money in the plate. Drop it in." Five years old and we were told not to touch the collection plate, because if we did then we might be tempted to steal the money that was already there.

  "The thought had never entered our heads. But that priest put the idea that we were thieves into our heads. We were already guilty in the eyes of God, according to him, that is.

  "I couldn't even afford to bury my own mother, you know that. So I stole the money. And that's what they caught me for. They caught me and then they buried me in jail for it."

  There was a faint hiss of static coming from Jimmy now.

  "How many of those young guys have you killed so far?" he asked pulling the snare tighter around the minister's neck.

  "I'll cut your head off right now, believe me," he said. "And I won't feel guilty about it either, because I know that you've killed a lot of poor kids, hunted them down for fun. Now tell me about it or you're dead."

  "Judge, started it," the priest squeaked.

  "Now there's no surprise," Jimmy said. "So, kids out on the streets, kids with no future, junked up kids looking for help. Is that how it works?"

  "Judge calls them a scourge."

  "Really," Jimmy said. "So what he can't stick inside and label criminals for the rest of their lives, just for the want of surviving, he deals with in his own way. And you and all the others entice them here and hunt them down for fun."

  Jimmy pulled the snare around the priest's neck to choking point.

  "The bodies?" he asked. "Some are buried on the hill?"

  "Ralf," the priest said. "He boxes them up, takes them out on his boat and drops them over the side."

  "And…"

  "No one misses them."

  "The old lady? She's his wife, isn't she?" Jimmy said.

  The minister nodded.

  "She thinks I killed their granddaughter doesn't she?" Jimmy said.

  "Yes."

  "The judge was abusing her," Jimmy said, "you know that? But no one believed her. Who would believe her against her own grandfather, the good old law abiding judge. He even fooled his wife, the good old Mary Rose, and got her involved too. Judge stopped her talking. The whole thing was a set up. And the old vet knew just how to do it, didn't he? And it was either me or Tommy that were to be blamed.

  "I got away," Jimmy said. "But he got caught. No wonder he's so pissed at me. Then after a while they let him go. They did a deal and got him in on the act. The old judge hated what he saw as sponging waifs and strays.

  "But the law couldn't do much about them. They just went back out onto the streets and kept doing it all
over again.

  "No, the judge had a better solution, a final solution. And he wasn't the only one who saw those kids in that way.

  "That's how you all got involved. Like minded people full of hate who were just like him.

  "All those kids, priest, all those sponging single mothers and their bad kids falling foul of the law just for trying to survive. And then there you all were with your own little agendas. You found a way to rid the world of the scum and how to have fun at the same time."

  "He said you killed her," the priest said, "murdered his granddaughter."

  "Convinced his wife Mary Rose too, and all the others," Jimmy said. "But did it stop you from going on your little hunts?

  "Every single one of you is a killer, priest, a mass murderer."

  "After the first one," the priest said. "I didn't know what to do."

  "I understand," Jimmy said.

  "You do?"

  "Yes."

  "What are you going to do with me now?"

  "I'm no angel, priest, but I've never killed anyone in my life either. You do you believe that, don't you?"

  The minister nodded.

  "I was going to marry the judge's granddaughter," Jimmy said. "She told me all about him, the abuse. We were both going to run away after that last job. But it turned out to be an ambush, a set up. His granddaughter was dangerous to him. And the judge had a reputation to keep. He needed her dead to stop her talking.

  "Then there came the meeting of like minds. The old vet had been struck off for conduct unbecoming of a compassionate animal doctor, transporting crippled livestock, even pets, animals he should have put down, for a market in sick freaks who like to torture anything left alive. Dog fighting? Cock fighting? Badger bating? Chicken feed, if you'll pardon the pun. He sold them to rich folks looking for some fun in the line of animal cruelty.

  "So the vet got caught and struck off. He got pissed about it. Pissed enough to do the thing the judge asked him to do, to murder the judge's troublesome granddaughter before she could talk.

  "And you know what, priest?"

  "What?"

  "Never once did I ever consider that things would ever get so bad that I would take someone else's life," Jimmy said, "even in self defense, and yet…"

  "Yet?" the priest asked hopefully.

  "And yet… I've had a change of heart," Jimmy said.

  "I would never have done it," the priest said. "But once it happened the first time, we had to keep going. Everyone knew what would happen if anyone found out. We couldn't even speak to each other about it without the risk of dropping ourselves in the shit. You forgive me, don't you, son? You understand where I'm coming from?"