Dead of Winter

by Gerri Brightwell

  And Bree? The thought of her makes him breathe too fast, makes his face sweat beneath the mask. He’s so damn scared he’s going to save himself, when the whole idea was to find her and get her away from these guys? Isn’t getting caught what he wanted? Isn’t this a lead to where she might be? He forces himself to lie still, letting the cab rock him, tilting him forward a little as it brakes, pushing him back against the seat as it turns off the highway and onto a lumpy side road.

  One thing’s clear: they’re out in the wilderburbs where houses and cabins are half-hidden in the trees, and where you can fire off a gun as many times as you want and no one’s going to pay it any mind.

  30

  THE CAB COMES to rest badly parked, its nose up against what must be a snow bank and the whole thing canted at a careless angle. The door slides open and Fisher’s hauled out. He stumbles and falls face down in the snow. “Fucker,” spits Mr Egg Face, then something hard and narrow sends a new pain bursting through Fisher’s cheek. He hears, “Don’t worry, sir, I’ve got him” in that tight voice, then he’s dragged to his feet and across the snow, and the whole way he can taste blood.

  Already his hands are stinging, bare in that splintering cold and the tape sticky against his skin. The snow beneath his boots is firm from being trodden down. Through the mask the light dims slightly. The snow sounds hollow. He stumbles on a step and pitches forward because he can’t catch himself, staggers against a doorframe. Warm air. On it, the smells of bacon grease and cheap coffee. Despite himself, saliva pools in his mouth. A hand yanks him forward and he’s on a wooden floor, boots thudding across it with other boots, and he’s shoved this way, then forward, then to the right where the light through the mask brightens again. The air’s too hot, he’s gasping like the damn mask is suffocating him, and maybe it is because more than anything right now he needs the coolness of fresh air filling his lungs. He manages, “Can you—”

  A blow to his belly. He bends over and gags. The acid stench of the contents of his own stomach fills the mask but he hasn’t thrown up, not quite, and he swallows, swallows. Hands drag him up and push him onto a hard chair with his arms angled around its back. Now’s he tied well and good with rope this time, so tight his skin prickles. He’s sitting tipped to one side, he knows that, but he can’t right himself, not now when his guts are burning and his breath’s shredded, and his whole self is clenched against another blow.

  Footsteps, the creaking of floorboards, then muted voices. People in another room. One voice lifts above the others and Fisher catches, “ . . . stupid bastards! . . . around town—huhn? Can’t you think for yourselves? It isn’t just your own asses you’ve . . .” Other voices wash in, then that same insistent voice is back: “. . . fuck it up with this one. Get it? I handle it. You fucking blew it with the last before we . . .” Then the sounds are muted, like someone’s pushed a door shut, and there are only the closed-in noises of Fisher’s own body. He wonders, am I alone? He lifts his head then forces himself to straighten up against the pull of the bruised muscles in his belly. All he can make out through the pinholes of light coming through the mask is the white rectangle of a window.

  It’s so still in here that when he coughs the sound of it hangs on the air. He shifts his feet, too, coughs again and listens. How odd it is to hear a room instead of seeing it, but he’s sure: this is a bigger room than he thought. Sounds shimmer away rather than being eaten up by the air. He moves his hands, testing the knots, but there’s no getting loose this time.

  A woman’s voice close to his ear hisses, “Try that again and you’ll be sorry.” The inside of his stomach falls away. She must have leaned in right beside him because her breath brushes his cheek. “Thought you were on your own, didn’t ya? Well, you ain’t.” She stretches that ain’t all about: a Southern accent, but the voice itself is raw and it’s no surprise when he catches the smell of her now, the stale cigarettes and the warm stink of sweat.

  “I don’t know what this is all about,” he says, and he feels like he’s betrayed Bree already.

  Her hand catches him on the side of the head where the broom-handle landed just a few hours ago and the pain of it splits across his scalp again. He can’t help it; he cries out and she comes around in front of him, blocking what little light he could see. “Big mistake to get mixed up in all this, huhn? You’re not so tough. No, you’re not tough at all,” and she gives him a shove, except he’s large enough that it only jerks his head back.

  From the other room comes the tail end of a voice, then the hollow clattering of boots on floorboards, so many of them his heart seizes. The woman’s still beside him and she calls out, “This one shouldn’t give us much of a problem, Commander, he’s scared shitless already, even of little ol’ me,” and she laughs.

  A man tells her, “Shut it.”

  They’ve arranged themselves around him. From his left, a whisper of cloth on cloth, from somewhere off to his right, a sniff then a stifled cough.

  The blow to Fisher’s jaw comes out of nowhere. It snaps his head and sends him flying backward, the chair coming down on his arms tied behind its back, all his weight on them, then his head thudding against the floor. Lights flash across the darkness inside his skull and his breath comes out all wrong. All he can think about is his weight pressing the chair onto his upper arms so hard he wants to cry out. Someone’s standing over him and he moans. Without thinking he pulls up his legs to protect his soft belly, but he’s not quick enough. A boot presses down on his middle, not quite painfully, not yet at least, but he can’t breathe, the air’s been knocked out of him, and he’s like a fresh-caught fish left gasping on the floor.

  “Now,” says a man—the Commander, Fisher thinks, the guy who told the woman to shut up, “you cooperate, you go back to your sorry-ass life. You don’t cooperate, you can kiss that life good-bye and go into the Great Beyond crying for your mama. We’re gonna make it easy, just two choices, see?” The boot pushes harder against his gut. The toe touches his ribs and the heel scrapes his hip bone. “See?” the man says again, and only now does Fisher understand he’s supposed to answer.

  He tries to nod, he gulps at the air, and finally he manages a soft, “Yeah, I see. I’ll help you. Just let my daughter—”

  The heel rams into his gut and Fisher yelps. Then the boot lifts away and the voice turns almost gentle. “Tell us where Brian Armstrong’s hiding out. Just that, and you can go.”

  “Brian . . .” and his voice snags as his thoughts catch up. They want Brian. They think he’s alive, then, and they’re pissed as hell at him. What’s Bree told them? Did she make up some story about Brian taking off because that’s what they wanted to hear? He tries to breathe against the pain in his belly, says, “Canada.”

  That boot presses down harder, half on his belly, half on his chest, and he tenses himself against it too late. The Commander must be leaning his weight on it, because the pressure grows horribly. “Don’t . . . fuck . . . around . . . with . . . us.”

  “True,” and Fisher almost sobs. “Let—let my daughter go. I—I’ll tell you everything.”

  There’s one beat of silence before the Commander answers, and Fisher understands: this guy’s been caught off guard. Maybe Bree’s not here. Maybe they’re not even looking for her. Fuck, what if Grisby didn’t mention Bree? And now he has himself, like the fucking dope he is? If they don’t have her, this is all for nothing. They might kill him and it won’t help her one bit. The thought of it lodges in his throat.

  The Commander says, “Ah yes, your daughter,” but his voice has slowed. “She’s been asking for Daddy, poor thing, she wants to go home. We don’t want to hurt her. But we will—understand? You’ll hear her screaming when we set that pretty hair of hers on fire, or break the bones in her hands. Is that what you want?”

  It’s all fake: the menace curled into his voice, the idea that they’ve got Bree. The Commander’s making it up. Bree’s hair’s not pret
ty, not since she had it cut short.

  “Tell us where he is, or she’s going to hurt real bad.”

  “Canada.”

  “Bullshit. Brian hates fucking Canada.”

  The mask pulled down over Fisher’s face is stifling, his belly and chest half-crushed by the Commander’s boot, and that boot presses down harder now and the pain of it sears through his ribs, his guts. He bellows until it lightens up, then he cries out, “Fuck, he’s dead. Shot dead.”

  “Dead? Are you saying you killed him?”

  “No,” and it comes out as a sob.

  “Think of your daughter, you fucker. You want us to hurt her like we’re hurting you?”

  “She called. My daughter. She was scared. Brian was going crazy.”

  “When?”

  “Evening.”

  “You’re full of shit.” The boot presses harder against his ribs.

  Fisher half sobs, says, “It’s true.”

  “What she say?”

  “To come get her. Brian was going ape-shit. That’s all.”

  “And you went over there?”

  “Too late. Wasn’t there. Brian . . . he was dead.”

  “Been thinking of what to tell us, have you? Bedtime stories to put us to sleep?” His heel jabs down and Fisher cries out. The Commander’s yelling, his voice wound up in a fury. “This is a load of shit! Just shit!”

  “It’s true,” and Fisher’s words stretch into a moan.

  The Commander stamps down against his ribs, and again, and he yells, “What did she tell you? Huhn? What she say?” Like he’s forgotten that she’s supposed to be here, like that doesn’t matter any more.

  Fisher can’t roll over, can’t protect himself. The wool of the mask clings to his face. He shakes his head as though he can free himself of it, because he can’t help thinking, if only he could breathe cool fresh air and see these guys, the pain wouldn’t be so bad, he could bear it. He opens his mouth but the damp wool sticks to his chin. Another kick, this one so hard he retches, and the woman cries out, “Oh c’mon, not in here. Not on my new rug.”

  The Commander hollers, “Shut the fuck up, Darlene.”

  “Christ Almighty,” she says. Footsteps, then she’s leaning over Fisher. “Know what I got here?” Something sharp pushes against his upper thigh. “Oh you felt that, huhn? Well, listen up: this knife’s gonna cut off your balls if you don’t tell me the truth. Got that? Not fast and less painful like, but slow. Can you imagine how it’s gonna feel? It’ll sting first, going through the skin, then it’ll start slicing into all those nerves in there, and blood’s gonna be oozing down your legs, all sticky. Feel that point?” She pushes it into the soft skin of his thigh. “That hurt?”

  He nods.

  “Good.” She must have a cigarette in her hand because there’s the crackle of burning paper and tobacco, then the air’s full of smoke. “Now tell me where that fucker Armstrong’s hiding out.”

  “Dumped him. In the river. Down from the power plant.”

  “You still telling me he’s dead?” The point of the knife presses hard against his jeans and longjohns.

  “Shot through the head.”

  “How much he pay you to say that, huhn? Because, we know it ain’t true. Now,” and the knife slices into his skin in one fierce burst. There’s a rush of warmth as blood seeps out around the blade. “Why don’t you tell us what really happened? And what that little girl of yours saw?”

  It’s not the pain that makes him go cold. It’s the futility of what he’s done: setting himself out like bait when these nut-jobs haven’t got Bree. Was she trying to run away from what had happened with Brian? Or was she so scared of these militia buddies of his that she ran from them, not knowing they weren’t looking for her?

  Militia buddies. Ex-buddies, he thinks. Whatever Brian did, he pissed them off big-time.

  Fisher’s shivering and his teeth are juddering against each other. He swallows, feels Darlene’s breath on his face. The blade shifts in his flesh and pain gapes through his thigh. He says, “I—I went over. Searched the house. Brian . . . was dead. Wrapped him up. Dumped him in . . . the river.”

  “Oh hon, you weren’t on your own. C’mon now. You need to stick to the truth or you’re gonna be real sorry.” She lets her accent stretch that real so long that Fisher flinches. “Oh yeah,” she says, “being afraid’s good, because you’ve got every reason to be afraid. See, we talked to your friend. He said Brian took off in a hurry to Denver. And then you tell us he’s in Canada. And now here you are saying he’s dead.”

  From somewhere close by comes the shuffling of feet. A cough. Darlene says, “If you don’t wanna watch, you can make yourselves useful and put on more coffee.” The knife wobbles a little in the wound, and through the wool of the mask Fisher gulps in a lungful of air. Darlene leans close, one hand on his hip. “Where did he want a ride to?”

  Fisher shakes his head. Fucking Grisby, he thinks. What exactly did he tell them? That Brian called for a ride? For fuck’s sake. But then, maybe he was trying to leave Bree out of it. Doing what he thought Fisher would do too, and keep her safe.

  Only, he’s fucked that up well and good.

  “Need a little something to jog your memory, hon?”

  The knife’s a cruel pressure in his flesh. Then it shifts a little, slicing through nerves and he’s almost choking. He calls out, “I told you—he’s dead! Go look. Just south of the Larsson Bridge. I wrapped him in a tarp,” and his voice breaks, “I did—I dumped him. Please.”

  The knife turns and his whole self becomes lost in that pain. He hears, “Tell me again. What did your little girl say when she called?”

  He wants to keep the words down. He doesn’t want to let what he suspects about what Bree did come loose, not here. The knife grinds farther into his flesh and his own mouth betrays him, it shouts, “He was going ape-shit. That’s what she said. She was scared!” He sucks in a breath. “Your guys took my phone. Listen to the fucking messages.”

  In an instant the knife’s gone and in its place there’s the angry warmth of damaged flesh. Cigarette smoke hangs on the air and someone’s stepping around him. He gets the feeling that there’s some discussion going on above his head, carried out entirely in looks and gestures. Footsteps cross the floor: two or three people, by the sound of it, and then there’s the oomph of a door nearly closing.

  This time Fisher doesn’t make the mistake of believing he’s alone. He lies perfectly still with his whole self held in around the raw throbbing of his thigh, and the bone-aching pressure of his weight on the chair bearing down on his upper arms. He waits, and he listens. From somewhere not far away come voices blurred by walls. If he were to guess how long he lay there and waited, he couldn’t say. Five minutes. Fifteen. An eternity.

  When the footsteps clatter back into the room, someone’s saying, “Don’t be an asshole. Keep it on, maybe he’ll call.”

  The light breaks up. These guys must be blocking a window. The Commander says, “OK, you two, take him out.”

  A lazy voice asks, “Want me to help?” Fisher knows that voice, he’s sure of it.

  “No, go find the girl.”

  Fisher’s skin fizzles in fear. He calls out, “She’s just a kid.”

  A laugh. The lazy voice again, saying, “Want to tell me where Brian’s headed?”

  “He’s dead. I told you.” There’s desperation curled into his voice.

  “Then she’s dead too.”

  Now the Commander butts in. He must have turned away because his voice’s muted. He says, “You two go take care of him. Do it properly this time.”

  31

  EVEN WITH THE ski mask over his face Fisher can tell the sky has ripened to a sunset orange. The air’s harsh against his skin, and beneath his boots the hardpack of snow groans and creaks like the surface of an alien planet. The wound in h
is thigh smarts like a live thing, like a promise of what’s to come. He thinks, I’m gonna die, out here, today. He thinks, I know they haven’t got Bree, I know they haven’t, but part of him won’t believe it. That voice saying, Then she’s dead too. Only she’s not. She’s not. The Commander said, Go find the girl because they don’t have her, they never had her. They think she’s still got that pretty hair that came halfway down her back. But last night she took off and today, like an idiot, he drove around in his cab, hoping these guys would find him, thinking he was saving her.

  He doesn’t care that he stumbles along. Soon he’s going to be dead. Fear unbalances him. Any moment now they’re going to tell him to stop—by a tree perhaps—and shoot him in the head. Like Brian. His head with an extra hole in it and his brains and blood leaking out the back. But these guys didn’t shoot Brian. They’re looking for him.

  The light dims. The ground’s more uneven here and he lurches. He wants to cry. How sad to die like this when he had so much life ahead of him. When Bree will never know he tried to help her. He thinks, is Grisby out here somewhere? A hole in his head?

  One of the guys grabs Fisher’s arm and forces him to a halt. Close by, a squeak of hinges, the flapping of a door hefted open too fast against its frame. He’s pushed forward. From beneath his boots comes the hollow thud of a wooden floor, and all about him hangs a closed-in stillness. This is it, he thinks, and his whole self tenses, his neck, his spine, the bulge of his belly, his thick thighs. Just don’t piss yourself, he thinks, not that, not in front of these guys. Mr Egg Face’s tight voice says, “Take off his parka.”

  The second guy—Fisher’s sure it’s the other kidnapper, the guy who drove the truck—says, “No way. Did you bring the tape to tie him up again? Huhn? Besides, it don’t stick well in this cold.”