by Ezra Blake
Jake shrugs.
“Relationships tend to untangle themselves once you’re both clean. Maybe God’s still shitting on you, but now you’ve got an umbrella, y’know what I mean?”
“He’s clean.”
“Not anymore. He’ll need painkillers after this.”
Jake stares out the window.
“I’m just saying, if you really care about this kid, stop trying to figure out the stuff with his dick, ‘cause you won’t ever understand it. Work on staying clean. The rest will sort itself out.”
Barbed wire and roses anchor Ash to the black, gnarled corpse of a cypress tree. Dozens of arrows shudder in time with his heartbeat, contract with his muscles, rise and fall with his heaving chest.
The shadow drops its polished bow in favor of an ornate hunting knife, inlaid with turquoise and mother of pearl. Its inky palm finds Ash’s heart; its fingers glide across a glimmering sheen of sweat as they spread.
“Let me, let me,” Ash pants, ecstatic. The Stygian presence is so close that it presses against the arrows when Ash leans forward—and he does, a slow rock from his heels to the balls of his feet, back and forth. Ash thrusts, and is thrust, into a dampened pain. His fists tighten at his sides.
“You’re alive,” Elliot says, breathless. “Thank god. Your heart stopped for a second.”
“My heart…?” He blinks fluorescent sparkles out of his eyes. Something is different about his crotch, but he can’t tell exactly what. He tries to sit up.
Elliot slams him back onto the table. “Rest for a minute.”
“Did—did it work?”
“What do you think?”
Something white and pink passes in front of his face. It takes him a moment to focus—then he releases a sigh that’s been trapped in his chest, choking him, for a decade. Elliot is holding his severed penis.
“If you don’t want it back, I’m happy to hang on to it.” He’s doing something noisy with tools and meat, maybe cleaning, but Ash is too nauseous to look. “Your boyfriend nearly passed out when he saw you, so Vic took him to get food. They should be back any minute. You know you barely bled when I cut your cock off?”
“Boyfriend…?”
“Yeah, the scruffy tweaker.” He laughs. “Anyway, do you have some kind of clotting disorder, or what? Because I’ve never read about it.”
A phantom noose constricts around his neck, preventing speech. He’s back at camp, divorced from himself. He’s entwined with Jake, tracing beads of technicolor sweat across his chest.
“What, too shy to talk about it?” Elliot leans into his field of vision, scowling. He lifts one of Ash’s eyelids and squints at his pupil. “You still look high as fuck,” he says. “Your heart stopped for a second, you know. Thought for sure we’d lost you.”
Ash closes his eyes and slides back into the comfortable haze.
“Ash.” Elliot aggressively pats his face. “What is it? Peripheral artery disease? Thrombophilia?”
“I don’t know,” Ash mumbles.
“Bullshit. That’s not normal. It isn’t even abnormal. It doesn’t happen.”
He rides the current. Snippets of thought and prayer drift by. Dear God, I know I ask you this all the time but please forgive me first, please let me repent…
And then it hits him: perfect, certain, cruel.
“I’m in hell,” he says. “I’m already dead.”
Elliot’s smile is criminal. “Don’t think so. I’m here, and this isn’t hell for me.”
Chapter 17
Thunder claps.
Chris is sticky, and for a moment he’s not sure where he is. He fumbles in the blackness for his leg, and only after it’s buckled firmly to his stump does he catch sight of the glowing digital clock: 3:15 a.m. Another nightmare. He sighs and lies back, listening to the rain.
But there is no rain. There’s no thunder. The night is dry and still.
Bang!
He rolls toward the window and slaps a hand over his mouth, restraining a shriek.
Joy is pressed against the glass, holding one finger to her tight lips. Her other hand is wrapped around the handle of her massive garden shears.
He scrambles out of bed and tugs on the sweaty pajama pants he must have stripped off during the night. What are you doing? He mouths.
She motions for him to come outside. Chris shakes his head no, but she’s frantic. Something is wrong. You, she points at him, out, motions to the garden.
Ivan is fast asleep at his side, hands folded over his chest. He glances back to Joy. This is stupid—Ivan will kill him if the wakes—but he doesn’t have time for a pros-and-cons spreadsheet.
He winces at every quiet thump of his rubber foot against the tile; he grits his teeth when the front door groans open. It’s just like sneaking out of his father’s house to hide in the forest and drink cheap vodka alone, except he was a frail kid, and his footsteps were quieter then.
She’s waiting for him. Her eyes gleam like a panther’s in the moonlight. She tosses the shears in a flower bed and grabs his wrist. If they were an intimidation tactic, it worked.
“Hold up—” he trips over his lame foot, wavers “—what’s going on?”
She shakes her head and tugs his arm halfway out of its socket. “No time. C’mon.”
He takes a few reluctant steps, squinting at the ground, lest he miss a stair in the dark and snap his neck in half. Joy is wearing velcro sandals and one sock.
In the driveway, the Mini Cooper is already running, blasting her back with its fiery headlights, illuminating streamers of dust and ringing her hair with gold. She pulls him toward the passenger door, but he digs his heels into the gravel and yanks his arm from her grip. “Where are we going?”
“We don’t have time, Chris. I’ll explain on the way.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s happening.”
She cranes her neck toward the house and, satisfied that the lights are still out, steps closer to Chris. “I told you I’d do some research,” she whispers, as though anyone could hear them over the cicadas anyway. “Well, I read about the Butcher.”
Christopher’s tongue freezes in his throat.
“No, it’s okay!” She raises her hands. “It’s okay. I know what’s happening. I know you didn’t do it.”
“Joy—”
“It was him, right?”
He takes an involuntary step back. Sharp gravel digs into his bare foot. It’s an unsettling sensation, the pattern of pain and numbness Ivan left across his sole.
“I always had this gut feeling about him. I thought it was tax fraud or something like that, but everything fits, looking back at it—he framed you, right? He killed you. I saw that photo from the fire.” She tugs him a few more paces down the driveway before he stops again. “Jesus—get in the fucking car! I’m trying to help you!”
“It’s not like that,” he says. “He’s not—”
“I know, I know. He’s changed, right? He’s sweet now, and you like that.”
Chris shakes his head. No. No, he doesn’t.
“But that’s just how he keeps you trapped. It’s a cycle. The only way to break it is to stop engaging, and you can’t do that here. Let me drive you to the train station.”
She pulls him a few steps closer to the car. He lets it happen.
“I’ll get you a ticket to Sanremo,” she says, her speech growing more pressured with every word. “My friends Verne and Angela can meet you on the other end and take you over the border into France, and you can stay with them while you get back on your feet. Once you’re on the train, he won’t be able to find you. But we have to leave now.”
Chris is frozen. Too much, too fast.
“Joy, I can’t.”
“You have to. Just get in the car, we’ll talk more on the way there.”
“You’re not listening. I can’t.”
“Chris!” She catches herself, lowers her voice to a harsh whisper. “Chris, either you come with me now, or you wait arou
nd for him to kill you. And he will kill you. That’s a promise,” she says. “I’ve seen this shit before.”
Christopher closes his eyes.
Every weekend morning, when Chris wakes to the smell of freshly ground coffee, that promise seems a little more distant. Ivan asks him what he needs, what he wants, and the uncertainty feels heavier and more final than death. This is his chance to cast off the weight.
He can work with his hands and eat grilled cheese. He can live off the grid, alone, or he can stay here and pray for the worst. He opens his eyes.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” he says, “but I can’t accept it.”
Her face hardens. “I didn’t want to do this, but if you don’t get in the car right now, I’m calling the cops.”
“What?”
“I loved someone like him.” She reaches for her pocket and pulls out a smartphone. “He won’t stop until he’s completely destroyed you.”
“Joy, listen—”
“No, you listen. He is toxic, and I’m going to separate you one way or the other. Last chance.” She dials the first two numbers, holding the phone so he can see it. “Get in the car.”
He smacks the phone out of her hand. It lands in the gravel a few feet away, the battery flying out on impact. Her jaw goes slack—a sickening flash of betrayal through her face, and then he has her in a headlock and is dragging her to the ground.
“Ivan!” He screams. “Ivan, help!”
She struggles toward the phone, making a terrible gurgling sound in the back of her throat. He lets up for just a second because he doesn’t want to choke her, and she darts out of his grip. Before she can reach it, he smashes the battery under his shoe.
“Joy, leave,” he says. “I’m begging you. Get out.”
“I’m not leaving without you.”
“He’s coming.” His voice cracks.
“We can still make it, Chris.”
The front door slams open, and Ivan sprints toward them, lean and terrible in his sneakers and silk pajamas. Joy darts toward the flower bed and snatches the garden shears, brandishing them in front of her. “Stay back,” she shouts, but Ivan is still bounding down the hill. She backs toward the driveway and turns the shears toward Chris. “I’m getting in my car! Fuck off or I cut him!”
Ivan barrels into her, knocking her to the ground, and wrestles the weapon from her grip. He puts a foot on her chest and holds the blades to her throat. It happens so fast that Chris is still cringing away from the shears.
He lowers his hands. Ivan is watching him, flushed cold and unwavering. His chest rises and falls.
Chris says, “Let her go. Please.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“She’s going to drive off and never come back, and she won’t breathe a word of this. Right, Joy?”
Joy nods, stricken.
“Was she trying to kidnap you?” Ivan asks.
“She misunderstood the situation.”
He glances to the ruined phone. “She was going to call the police.”
“She can’t now,” he pleads. “Let her go and we can leave tonight. Even if they come to the house, we won’t be here.”
But this is not the civil, judicious Ivan who brews espresso every weekend morning. This is Ivan the Executioner: swift, calculating, thrumming with righteous fury. His grip tightens.
“Please,” he whispers. “I’m begging you. I love you. Please don’t.”
He snips her throat.
The sheers aren’t sharp anymore. Her shredded trachea spills from the gushing wound; her face pales; her eyes bulge. Chris collapses to his knees and struggles to piece her neck back together, only managing to drench himself in hot, sticky blood. Ivan drops the shears and spins on his heel. It doesn’t matter where he’s going. He’s holding her through this.
“S’okay,” she rasps. The next words are mouthed, but he’s watching. She says:
“I understand.”
And she smiles, laugh lines and bloody, fucked up teeth. Then she’s gone.
Chris crumples into her chest, shaking like a seizure patient. A few minutes later, Ivan shows up with a tarp and drags him away with hands hooked under his armpits. Chris clings to her so hard that he bruises her still-warm flesh—but he’s weak, he’s empty, and it’s pointless.
“You can grieve,” Ivan says, unrolling the tarp, “but we need to take care of this first.”
“We?” His hands tremble. “I didn’t kill her. I had no part in this.”
Ivan hums and lifts Joy’s ankles onto the tarp.
“I was going to stay. She was pushing me and I said no, Ivan, I could have run but I didn’t. I stopped her from calling the cops, and you didn’t even care enough to hear me out? I defended you and you were too heartless to—”
“Don’t disrespect me,” Ivan says. “I’ll chalk it up to grief this time, but do not speak to me that way again.”
“I’ll speak to you however I damn well please.”
Ivan gives him a piercing stare, hoists the rest of Joy’s body onto the tarp, and begins rolling her up like an old carpet. It’s slow going with only one set of hands, but Chris isn’t going to help.
“I can’t write people off the way you can,” Chris says. “She’s the only person I’ve talked to in months who wasn’t trying to fuck with my head, and I don’t understand how you—hey.”
He tosses Joy over his shoulder and starts toward the shed.
“Ivan, I’m talking to you.”
“I need you to put everything bloody in a garbage bag, including the gravel and our clothing, and douse the area with bleach.”
“I’m not going to help!”
Ivan keeps walking.
“Fucking look at me when I’m speaking to you!”
He spins around. There’s no trace of triumph or rage or anything else in his face.
“I’m,” Chris stutters. “I can’t—”
The world tips on a dutch angle. Christopher’s ears are ringing and a rippled membrane of unreality hangs between him and his surroundings, dispersing his thoughts like an oil slick disperses light. He says, “I can’t—I can’t”
Ivan takes a step forward; the tiny muscles in his face soften. It’s his best impression of affection, of pity, two emotions which he always expresses hand-in-hand and which are rarely, if ever, true. “Darling,” he says. “This isn’t a punishment.”
“I c-can’t, I didn’t, I—”
“You’re right. You did nothing wrong.” Ivan takes a slow, light step toward him, like a boy trying to catch a frog for later dissection. “You made the right decision. I’m not angry. I’m proud of you.”
For a moment, the veil dissolves and Ivan is solid in front of him, sentient, and Christopher’s mouth tastes like honey. Then the tarp falls away from her head.
He leaps back. Clots of brown blood slide down her face, over her white, glassy eyes, and land with a splat in the dirt. “No,” he breathes. “No, it’s—it’s not about that. It’s not about us.”
An unfathomable expression crosses Ivan’s face. “Then why, darling?”
“Because she was innocent,” Chris says, his voice contorted in anguish. “Because you murdered an innocent person.”
The house is empty, but he’s not going to wait around for Ivan with blood in his hair, so he runs a bath. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the back of the door: pale, shivering, red and brown. Don’t look. Get in.
He rinses off, drains the water, and rinses again until it runs clear. He doesn’t realize until the third wash that he forgot to take his leg off, but he can’t care. It was bloody anyway. He tosses it onto the bath mat. Lying on his back in the hot water, staring at the spackled ceiling, a terrible thought drifts through him.
He could drown himself.
All he needs to do is roll over and stay still. It’s clearly how the universe intends for him to die.
It’s the worst thing he could do to Ivan—shattering his little sunk-cost fa
llacy. He’s holding out. Chris is sure of it. He’s placating himself with the knowledge that, even if he never gets whatever the hell he wants from Chris, his execution will be gratifying. And Chris could take that away from him.
He imagines the look on Ivan’s face when he finds the body floating face-down in the pinkish water. Shock. Rage. Maybe even sorrow.
He’d probably fuck Christopher's corpse, mutilate him; he’d eat him, undoubtedly, but it would be a hollow victory. He likes to think it would ruin the rest of Ivan’s fucking life, but maybe he’s giving himself too much credit. It would ruin his vacation, at least, and that would be worth dying for.
But he’s too tired, too empty, and he deserves whatever happens next.
He grabs the sides of the tub and levers himself out of the warm, comfortable fantasy; he towels off and blasts his prosthetic with the hair dryer. He stops when it’s just damp, before he warps the silicon. Good enough. He leaves the leg and dryer on the floor and crawls to bed.
Something metallic whirs away in the basement. He buries his head in the pillow, trying to block out the sound, but can’t rid himself of the image: Ivan cutting through her flesh with a bandsaw. Ivan, bloody and severe. Ivan will have a lot to clean.
Sleep is elusive, but he lies still for a few hours and lets his mind drift where it wants. He’s good at ignoring what’s happening in there. Plenty of practice.
The stand-alone air conditioner hasn’t worked since July. Their trailer is moist and fetid like her whiskey breath, smelling of mildew and old socks. His father cleans it on the nights he’s not too tired to move. Chris cleans it when his mother is asleep.
Tonight, none of them are sleeping. He peers out from the crack of their only closet, perpetually mapping his route to their only door, never brave enough to run for it.
“I’m not saying it’s gotta be like before.” His father’s wiry frame is silhouetted in the blue light of the television. “Nobody’s saying that. Only part time, Emily. Part time. You know they’re short, you know they’ll take you back. I can’t—” his voice cracks. He sounds so broken. “I can’t do it by myself. It’s not just us anymore.”