by Jack Kilborn
Lucy let out a short pant of air. After a moment, she nodded. “Hermit crabs can’t change who they are.”
“No,” Donaldson said. “They can’t.”
He raised the pitchfork and staggered toward her.
Lucy stood up.
“You goddamn lying little bitch,” Donaldson said, thrusting the fork at her.
Lucy jumped back, wincing as her legs took the weight. Then she ran awkwardly toward the tools.
Donaldson got to her just as Lucy was pulling a scythe from the wall. She tugged it off the nail and swung it hard and fast. Donaldson ducked and the sickle blade slammed into the wall, its tip embedding a quarter inch into the wood. Lucy yanked it out as Donaldson came at her with the pitchfork, sidestepping as the prongs missed her by inches.
She raised the scythe and swiped again, catching Donaldson in the bad arm. When the tip went in, she twisted the handle, dropping the fat man to his knees with a whimper.
Lucy pulled the scythe out and cocked it back.
“We could’ve been amazing together,” she said.
“Yeah.” Donaldson grimaced. “But killing you is going to be even more amazing.”
She swung the scythe at his neck but Donaldson raised his weapon and caught the blade between the prongs. Rising, he jabbed the pitchfork toward the ceiling and sent Lucy’s scythe flying across the room, where it clattered against a dormant tractor.
Donaldson backed her up, cornering Lucy against the wall of tools.
“Okay, D. You got me.” Lucy raised her hands. “Is this really what you want?”
Donaldson put his weight into the thrust, stabbing her through the fronts of both thighs.
Lucy fell to the floor, screaming for Luther, and she continued to scream as Donaldson plunged the sharp, filthy tines into her legs, over and over and over.
By the time he’d worked his way up to her pelvis, she was just screaming incoherently.
By the time he started on her arms, all the fight had gone out of her.
Panting, Donaldson set the pitchfork on the ground and leaned on the handle. He used his good arm to mop some sweat from his brow.
“You still alive there, little girl? Or have I reached one hundred and thirty-one?”
Lucy moaned softly.
A pool of blood spreading out beneath her.
Footsteps at the opening of the barn’s sliding door drew Donaldson’s attention. Luther stood in the threshold. He was holding something that the shadows kept hidden.
“That mace hurts like a bitch, don’t it?” Donaldson said. “I straightened Lucy out for you, but if you want to come give her a few pokes, by all means, help yourself.”
Luther walked into the barn, and as he reached the lantern’s field of illumination, he stopped.
Donaldson saw what he held. He said, “Oh shit.”
“Drop the pitchfork,” Luther said. His face was swollen, his eyes red as strawberries. The gun in his hand was a semi-auto.
“You mean drop this, or you shoot me? Don’t be an asshole, Luther. I’d rather have you shoot me than-”
The first shot blew out Donaldson’s right knee, toppling him over.
Luther strolled over while Donaldson howled.
“Still rather have me shoot you, Fat Man?”
He aimed and fired. Donaldson’s left knee exploded.
A feeble, breathy sound caught Luther’s attention. He turned and saw a smile on Lucy’s face.
She was laughing.
“Knees are supposed to hurt the most,” Luther said. “Tell me if that’s true.”
Two more shots, and Lucy’s laughter became sobbing.
Luther went to the wall and chose a tool to play with.
After twenty minutes of exhausting his imagination with that one, he went on to get another.
On Luther’s third tool, Donaldson went into cardiac arrest.
Happily, Luther kept a portable defibrillator in his car, and it only took three shocks to get the fat man’s ticker back on track.
Then he started in again.
Dawn approached.
Soon there wasn’t much Luther could do, even trying really hard, to illicit more screams from the duo.
Donaldson tried to say something but it came out too soft for Lucy to understand.
They lay side-by-side on the floor of the barn. There were bits of them everywhere.
Lucy could barely speak.
“What…D?”
“Is…he…gone?”
“I think so.”
The barn was quiet. Somewhere, across the field, a rooster was arguing with the sun.
“Why aren’t we dead yet?” Lucy asked.
“Because your friend is very…very…” Donaldson coughed up a chunk of something. “Good.”
“I can’t feel anything anymore,” Lucy said.
“Me neither.”
“I believe I can fix that.” Luther had returned.
He held a red plastic container.
“I’ve read that in most witch burnings, the victim died quickly from smoke inhalation,” Luther said. “Or from breathing in the fire itself. So I’m going to try my best to keep the flames on just the lower parts of your bodies.”
Luther poured gas on them. Donaldson turned his head, caught Lucy’s eyes.
“You know what, little girl? I never should have picked your ass up.”
“Hitchhiking can be dangerous, D,” Lucy said.
They reached for each other and held hands as they burned.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-31cd00-f9b8-8c45-1f8d-c289-986e-43ecce
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 14.06.2011
Created using: Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software
Document authors :
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/