The Good Kill

by Kurt Brindley

  Without even a hello, Killian said in a flat, transactional manner, “I was wondering if you could do a rush job for me.” He turned and looked out through the plate glass window, through the faded and worn away words of Gunther’s Garage painted across the outside of it.

  RJ’s eyes followed his to the lone car parked in the customer lot. Seeing Killian’s treasured 1971 Dodge Demon 440 parked out there immediately sent her back to all the hours she had spent in Killian’s barn as she worked on her homework while he worked on the car.

  “I was thinking maybe you could give it a good going over,” he continued. “I don’t know, maybe at least give it a tune up and an oil change. Whatever it takes to make sure she’s running at top performance.”

  RJ couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You want me to work on your car?” she asked incredulously. “Your Demon? A car you would barely let anyone look at when we were younger let alone work on?”

  “A lot has changed since then,” Killian said impatiently. “I no longer have the experience or the time to work on it. I’ve got other things going on right now that I need to focus on.”

  As far as the expertise went, RJ knew Killian was being modest. When Killian’s father gave him the 440 for his fifteenth birthday, it was nothing more than a rust bucket with an engine that wouldn’t start. And even if it could have started, it wouldn’t have gotten very far on the flat, shredded tires wasted away by years of neglect. But, according to his father’s terms, if Killian wanted a car to drive by the time he turned sixteen, he would have to earn the money himself that it would take for him to get it running; and to get it running meant at a minimum he would have to remove the car’s engine, take it apart, and then completely rebuild it.

  Young Killian was certainly up to the challenge. He earned the money he would need to restore the 440 while learning everything there was to know about American muscle cars and how to make them run by working part time in RJ’s father’s garage. By the time he turned sixteen, he had not only rebuilt the engine and the transmission and the rear-end, he also had the body completely restored and repainted with a factory correct B-2 Glacier Blue paint with white stripes along the sides – this he didn’t do himself; he took it to a renowned muscle car body shop in Hanover recommended by RJ’s father – and gave the car a set of Mickey Thompson ET street tires with fifteen-inch Center Line Auto Drag wheels, and he had the seats reupholstered to match the original B-5 Medium Blue leather interior.

  Unfortunately, RJ never had a chance to ride in the car once it had been restored and Killian had earned his driver’s license. About the time Killian was completing his work on it, was about the same time her father began raping her.

  RJ chased the dark thought from her mind and focused on the man standing before her. Yes, Killian certainly had the skill to do whatever work was required to get the car to its peak performance. What RJ didn’t understand was why he didn’t have the time to do the work himself. But, seeing how impatient with her he already seemed to be, she decided not to ask.

  Instead, she gave her head a nod toward the garage. “Well, I’m right in the middle of servicing that old Chevelle,” she said, trying hard to sound as professional as she could. “I maybe can start working on the Demon, say… the day after tomorrow?”

  Her response didn’t please Killian. His eyes narrowed and a threatening scowl crossed his face. He clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned white. Was he going to hit her? RJ couldn’t believe this sudden violent transformation of his. Even during the dark hours after his suicide attempt, when he became angry with her and adamant that she needed to leave him alone, she never feared him as she feared him now. She took a cautious step back from the counter.

  “Are… are you okay, Killian?” she asked hesitantly as she discreetly searched around her for a weapon.

  It took a moment for Killian to answer, but after he got his breathing back under control and his body began to relax again, he said that he was fine, that for her to begin working on the 440 the day after tomorrow was fine, and that he’d pay whatever it took for her to complete the job as quickly as possible.

  RJ was relieved that the dark cloud had passed from Killian just as quickly as it had overcome him. After settling the terms, there was an awkward, momentary silence until RJ thought to say, “So, seeing how you’ll be leaving your car here, how about I give you a ride home?”

  Killian didn’t take any time thinking over the offer. “No thanks. I’d rather walk. You know, take the old shortcut. It’s been a while.” Without another word, he departed.

  The old shortcut, RJ said softly to herself as the ringing of the bell above the door faded away to an echoing silence. It was the shortcut she and her old mare Eve, an overo-patterned gray-and-white Paint Horse, used to take to Killian’s house nearly every day after school, a shortcut that was part road – a quarter-mile or so south on the road she lived on, part field – about ten-acres worth of the land once belonging to an ornery farmer who liked to threaten trespassers with a shotgun round or two of rock salt to their trespassing asses, and part forest – Killian’s forest. It had been a long time for her, too, she thought as she headed reluctantly back to the old Chevy.

  Three days later, just as RJ was finishing tuning up Killian’s Demon, which, surprisingly to her, took quite a bit of work – she replaced the engine and cabin air filters, changed the oil, and topped off all coolant levels; after visually inspecting the engine’s fuel-system components, she found that she had to replace not just the fuel filter, but the fuel pump as well after determining it was close to its end of life; she also had to clear the fuel injectors of significant deposits and grime build-up; she replaced the spark plugs and put the new ones through a performance test; she had to replace the condenser and mount new points, and then adjust for proper mechanical gap; she adjusted the ignition timing and set the idle speed from 750 to 900 RPMs (she liked a faster idle on her muscle cars than most); and finally, she cleaned out and adjusted the carburetor. After completing all that work, she had just remounted the tires after inspecting the brakes and was finishing up by doing a thorough inspection of its underside with a retractable inspection mirror when she made an odd discovery.

  Behind the engine, stuck to the firewall just above the transmission where it would have been impossible to see without having had the car up on the lift and the benefit of an extended mirror, was a small black magnetic case. At first she thought it was a case for a spare key; but when she removed it from the firewall and gave it a shake, whatever was inside seemed too small and light to be a car key. But whatever it was, she thought to herself as she rolled out from under the car to get a better look at the case, it must have been pretty important for someone to hide it in such a difficult spot to find.

  RJ closed the news app and placed the phone back into her shirt pocket. Frustrated by the slow movement of time, she reached over and grabbed the case setting at the end of the kitchen island. She studied it, turning it this way and that, wanting to open it to find out what was inside. But she didn’t open it. Instead, she brought it to her ear and shook it gently, just as she had done countless other times since first discovering it yesterday evening. She still had no idea what was inside. Whatever it was, though, she was happy for it since it now gave her an excuse to visit Killian. She once again looked up at the clock above the sink. It was now three minutes past seven. Still too early. She would give him until nine. That was the longest she would wait.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  On the drive over to Killian’s place, RJ refused to allow her mind to replay the scene, a gray, snow-covered morning scene exactly like the one she presently found herself in, of her slowly making her way down the gravel drive right before she had found Killian hanging from the rafter in the barn. It was hard to keep the tragic scene cleared from her mind, though; just as it had been hard every other time she had visited; just as it would more than likely continue to be hard long into the future. After clearing the forest, when the driv
e took a soft dogleg to the left as it began to descend a small hill, she could see that Killian’s pickup truck was parked in the drive next to the farmhouse. Beyond the farmhouse, she could see the gray, weathered barn with its barndoor opened wide. The side of the barn looked to her like an old man’s face and its open door a mouth screaming for help. Seeing no lights on in the farmhouse, she elected to continue on to the barn, trying, as she did, to keep the negative thoughts from her mind conjured up by the open door.

  Outside the barn, RJ powered down the truck and sat there for a moment, trying to convince herself that everything was okay, that the barndoor was open only because Killian was inside passionately working on whatever it was he was always working on. She cursed her heart for beating so hard and her stomach for feeling the ill of misfortune. She took in a deep breath and then let it out before exiting the truck. At the last second she remembered the magnetic case, her excuse for being there. She grabbed it off the seat and shoved it into the front pocket of her jeans as she rushed toward the barn, forcing herself not to run, praying that her fears were unjustified and that the visit would unfold just as she had been imagining it would since she had first discovered the case.

  Even with the barndoor wide open, the weak light from the gloomy, overcast morning did a poor job of illuminating the inside of the barn. Still, RJ could tell right away upon entering it that Killian wasn’t there. All there was within the aged, expansive structure to greet her was the quiet one finds of an abandoned cathedral, and the sweet, musty smells of bygone animals and the ancient rot of their feed and dung.

  The relief of not finding Killian hanging from the end of a rope like she had on that unhappy Christmas morning nearly two months ago was so overwhelming, tears welled up in her eyes. However, as she walked deeper into the barn, her feeling of joy was superseded almost immediately by the feeling, first, of confusion, then, of shock, and then finally, of a deep, disturbing sense of dread. Hanging above her from the same rafter from which Killian had hung himself were six crosses, six large, black, roughly-formed crosses made of iron. Seeing them nailed like they were along the length of the thick, oaken beam, unsettled her, frightened her even; yet, still she became transfixed by their ominous presence and found it hard to resist the urge to prostrate herself before them – not out of a sense of reverence, but out of one of fear.

  Is this what Killian had been working on so passionately these past months, she wondered. If so, why? Was it a religious awakening or conversion that drove him to making them? No, she didn’t think so. It had to have been something else that possessed him to make them – something dark and primal, visceral. For what she felt from these black foreboding cross-shaped symbols lined up above her was not a sense of love, or sacrifice, or forgiveness of sins which the cross of the New Testament was supposed to evoke in its believers, but instead she felt from them a strong sense of wrath and retribution, an Old Testament eye for an eye sense of wrath and retribution – the wrath of a violent and final reckoning for one’s past transgressions. Suddenly she felt cold, very cold.

  Finding it almost impossible to release herself from the hold the disturbing crosses had on her, RJ had to will her feet into action. Slowly, she backed herself out of the barn, never once taking her eyes off the black iron emblems of a faith she had abandoned long ago. Upon reaching the doorway, right where the light in the barn shined the brightest, the crosses’ haunting spell over her was finally broken. Right away she noticed the tire marks dug deep into the barn’s dirt floor. She knelt to look closer at them. They were fresh. She spun around on her heels and saw that they continued out into the gravel drive. They were from a car backing up fast, she realized. She then saw that the tracks tore their way through the brown, snow-covered grass in front of the barn and then fishtailed their way around the corner. Without hesitation, she stood up and followed them, once again forcing herself not to run.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Killian forced his burning, sleep-craved eyes open and propped himself up on an elbow to look out through the blur of exhaustion. Was that RJ standing in the open hatch at the far end of the bunker?

  “RJ?” he called out hoarsely, his throat dry and uncooperative. Uncertain as to which plane of consciousness he was currently within, he sat up and vigorously knuckled at his eyes to clear the crust of sleep from them. When he looked toward the hatch again, there was no one there.

  Had he been dreaming? he asked himself skeptically. Had what he just seen only been a ghost conjured up from the depths of his unconsciousness by an overextended, worn out psyche? He slid down to the end of the bed and set his still-booted feet on the floor, taking comfort in its firmness, the surety of its being. He must have been dreaming, he concluded, because if he hadn’t been he could not imagine why she would have even been there in the first place. Or how she could have even been there. Outside of the construction crew, only he, his father, and Diego were ever aware of the bunker’s existence.

  But when the naked woman stirred next to him, reminding him just how serious the nightmare of his reality was, he knew he couldn’t take the chance that it was just a dream. He jumped out of bed. “RJ, wait,” he shouted out as he ran up the bunker toward the hatch.

  When he popped out of the root cellar, he skirted around the Cuda with both its doors still flung open and looked back up over the retaining wall. RJ had just cleared the hump of the bank and was running toward the front of the barn. He hollered out again. “RJ, wait god damn it, will you.”

  But she didn’t wait, she kept running.

  Killian wasn’t able to catch up to her until right before she got to her truck. He grabbed her by the shoulders from behind and pulled her to a stop. “Jesus Christ, RJ,” he said breathing heavily, “what the hell are you running away for?”

  “I’m sorry, Killian,” RJ said as she shrugged his hands off her shoulders and turned toward him. She was also breathing heavily. She then smiled awkwardly and spoke too quickly. “I… I didn’t mean to barge in on you like that. I had no idea that room was even down there. Or that you’d be with…” She dropped her eyes. “I’m so embarrassed.” She turned and opened the door to her truck.

  Killian grabbed her by the arm before she could climb up into the cab. “God damn it, RJ, will you please just wait a minute.”

  “Killian let me go,” she demanded as she struggled to free her arm. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Listen to me, RJ. Whatever you saw down there, it’s not what you think.”

  RJ freed herself from his grip. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Killian. Really.” She made another attempt to climb up into the cab.

  Killian grabbed her by the waist and carried her away from the truck. “RJ, please listen to me, will you. It really isn’t what you think.” He set her down and stood between her and the truck’s open door. “That woman you saw down there, she’s...” He had to avert his eyes from hers before he could continue. “I’m in trouble, RJ. Serious trouble.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Toni was sitting on the end of the bed with a blanket wrapped tight around her when Killian and RJ returned to the bunker. She looked as if she were in shock.

  “Jesus, Killian,” RJ said angrily as she rushed to the catatonic woman, “what the hell did you do to her?” She sat down next to Toni and placed an arm around her shivering shoulders.

  At RJ’s touch, Toni’s eyes came into focus and she looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. She then began to panic and struggled to free herself from RJ’s arm, falling off the bed in the process. She got to her knees and crawled desperately into the small cubby of a bathroom in the next section down from the sleeping quarters.

  RJ grabbed the blanket from the floor and brought it over to Toni, who was now balled up next to the toilet like a frightened animal, crying and rocking herself back and forth. RJ approached her slowly, telling her in soft tones that all she wanted to do was to put the blanket around her. As RJ spread the blanket open to wrap it around T
oni, she saw that it was covered in blood. She shook it free from her hands as if it were infested with poisonous spiders and stepped back from it. But when she saw that her actions had further frightened Toni, she gathered herself the best she could, smiled at her reassuringly, and went to the bed and removed its cover. She returned with it to Toni and knelt next to her.

  “Here you go, sweetie,” she said softly as she covered Toni with the blanket. “Let’s get you warmed up.”

  As Toni reached to grab the ends of the blanket to pull it tight around her, RJ noticed the tiny scars that ran along the insides of her arms. She looked over her shoulder at Killian. He was sitting on the floor next to the hatch, his face hidden in his hands.

  The moment was surreal to RJ. How was it possible that she could be down in a bunker underneath an old barn, a barn she had spent much of her childhood in with Killian’s mother tending to her horses, a barn she had spent much of her teenage years in with Killian tending to her burgeoning love for him, a barn beneath which she was now tending to a frightened, naked woman covered in only god knows whose blood, all while Killian, the strongest, surest person she had ever known, sat on the floor crying helplessly?

  “Killian,” RJ called out.

  The broken warrior didn’t answer.

  Toni tried to get up, mumbling something that RJ couldn’t quite make out. Something about a Mr. Savage.