by John Etzil
I’d heard enough. I shot him three times in the back.
I leaned over to the front seat and whacked Fatty in the forehead with my pistol butt, just to make sure he stayed out cold. Then I hopped out of the SUV, dragged Skinny Guy from the front seat, tossed him in the second row and slammed the door closed. I took out the sanitizer-soaked towels from my Ziploc bag and cleaned the blood off the seat, then stuck the towels back in the Ziploc bag and in my pocket. I hopped in the front seat and took the back roads to Eminence.
I started to relax, feeling good about how the events of the night had played out. Even with the help of HFS, I couldn’t have planned this any better. I’d tossed and turned for hours trying to figure out a way to get these two morons alone so that I could rid the earth of them, and all it had taken was a little finger probe from my new best friend Frances.
I vowed to always look back at her, smile and wink every time she grabbed my ass. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I promised the good Lord that I’d make additional trips to the men’s room, just so Frances had something to look forward to and could keep her skills sharp, even if I didn’t have to take a leak. Or I could just drink more beer, which would require more trips to the men’s room. I liked that idea better.
My iPhone vibrated in my pocket, breaking me out of my fantasy. It scared the bejesus out of me, and I jumped so high that my head hit the ceiling. I pulled it out of my pocket, totally disregarding the no-texting-while-driving law. That sealed it, now I was definitely going to hell.
I looked at the screen and saw that it was from Debbie. I pulled over to the side of the road and read her text.
Debbie: You okay?
Me: Sure, you? Of course I am
Debbie: Yeah. Exciting, huh?
Me: Yeah. You have no idea…
Debbie: Sorry about last night.
Me: That’s okay, me too. Even though I didn’t do anything wrong…
Debbie: Love to see you tonight. Can I come over?
Me: I don’t know, what did you have in mind? Blowjob?
Debbie: Making me beg, aren’t you? Okay, fine, maybe I deserve it. I want you naked on the bearskin with Barry White and some merlot. Then I’m going to ravish you all night. Pretty please?
Me: Hmm…thinking… thinking. Well, alright, I guess so. Hot damn freakin YEAH!
Debbie: I’ll text you when I leave.
Me: Roger. Can’t wait!
God that felt good. It’s amazing how good, and bad, a relationship can be for your mood. I was on cloud nine. Now I just had to get rid of Curly and Moe and I’d be back in good graces with my honey. I pulled the SUV out onto the road and raced towards Eminence.
It took me about half an hour to reach my property, then another twenty-five minutes on the tractor trail before reaching the well. I swung the big SUV wide, then backed up to the well. No use lugging these guys further than I had to. I turned off the vehicle, opened the door, and stepped out onto the grass. It felt good to get out of the SUV. Skinny Boy had shit his pants, so I had to drive the whole way with the freakin’ windows open and it was cold.
I kept myself busy by calculating the wind-chill factor at the different speeds that I was driving. As an FYI, at forty miles per hour it was fifteen degrees.
I took out my phone and turned the flashlight on. I found the well right away, and my heart stopped.
The stone that covered it was off center, and it didn’t line up with the indent in the surrounding soil that decades of gravity had created. I knew that I lined it up perfectly when I replaced it.
Holy shit.
That meant that Ostrich Boy had lived through the toss into the well, the bullets that I’d wasted on him, and the two big rocks that I’d thrown down after him. And climbed out! This was bad.
I moved the light around to look for tracks, but didn’t see any. He could be anywhere, even right behind me. I turned and searched the nearby shrubs with my flashlight, but I didn’t see him.
I had to work fast. I bent down and slid the stone all the way off. I dragged Skinny Guy from the backseat and, unable to control my anger, I smacked him in the face. Then I tossed him down the well. I opened the driver’s-side door and undid Fatty’s seat belt, then dragged him over to the well. Skinny was right, he weighed a freaking ton. I hoped he’d fit down the well and not get stuck halfway down. That could be awkward.
He started moving, and with Ostrich Boy running in the wild there was no time for pleasantries. I took out my Glock and shot him in the chest two times, then rolled him into the well before he had a chance to bleed all over the place. I know it was selfish of me, but I was so tired of cleaning up blood. I kicked the two empty shells in after him, the pleasant echo of brass tinkling off the rocks music to my ears.
I opened the Ziploc bag and tossed it in the well. Then I pushed the stone back over it. I’d have to come back here soon with my backhoe to fill the well up with dirt. Maybe I’d locate Ostrich Boy by then and I could reacquaint him with his buddies.
That brought up an interesting quandary. Would he have been able to make it through the night? He had to be injured from the fall in the well, and I knew he was soaked to the bone. The temps last night had hit a low of twenty-two degrees, so unless he’d managed to build a fire, he would have frozen.
If he had lived through the night, would he even have been able to find his way out of here? That was no easy task. We were in the middle of a gazillion-acre forest, and I could have been wrong, but I couldn’t picture Ostrich Boy as being that backwoods savvy.
Then it hit me. I smacked my forehead and groaned. Holy crap, I should have believed my eyes when I’d thought I’d seen him ball up when I’d tossed him down the well. He had been conscious, and that was how he’d made it out of the well! I chastised myself for underestimating him. I would not make that mistake again.
I had to get rid of the SUV, so on the way down the tractor trail I stopped at one of my large barns and retrieved my motorbike. I threw it into the back of the SUV and climbed in the driver’s seat.
My tractor trail intersected my driveway right where it met the East Road. It wasn’t really a road; it was nothing more than a single-lane dirt path through the forest. Instead of making a right turn and heading down to Summit, I made a left and continued deeper into the woods. About halfway down to West Kill Road, I made a right onto an access trail. Access trails are paths that are cleared through the forest so that the lumber harvesters can haul out their goods. They don’t even qualify as dirt roads, since they’re lined with old pine needles and littered with tree stumps.
I went to the end of the trail and made my own trail deeper into the woods—no easy feat in the dark. After I’d gone as far as possible, I opened every window, the sunroof, all the doors, and even the hood. I killed the engine for the last time and removed my motorbike from the rear of the vehicle. I wiped the interior down with some of the sanitized paper towels I’d saved from my Ziploc bag. I punctured all four tires with my Swiss Army knife and ripped out some engine wires for good measure.
This section of state land had been logged recently, and wasn’t scheduled to be logged again for another seventeen years, so the odds of someone finding the vehicle were slim to none. With all doors and windows opened, I estimated that nature would wipe clean the interior in a few weeks, and any traces of my DNA that I might have missed with my wipe-down would be gone forever.
I took one last look at the hulking machine. It looked so out-of-place, every opening opened and sitting in the dark forest. The interior lights were still on, and the door chimes still tried to tell its moron driver that the doors were open.
I climbed on my motorbike, started her up, and made my way back to East Road. I was relieved to be rid of the open door chimes that would probably go on for days. I felt a sudden sense of pity for all the animals that had to put up with that. I vowed to myself that next time I’d remember to bring a wrench to disconnect the battery.
I took the less traveled roads back to Summ
it to avoid being seen. Except for the unknown about Sam’s existence, I was happy with the way that things had worked out. The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that Sam was dead, lying frozen somewhere in the deep woods.
When I got to my truck, I saw that Debbie’s car was gone. I wondered if she’d spotted mine. That could lead to some awkward questions. Hopefully she was so excited to get to my place that she hadn’t noticed it.
I threw the motorbike in the back of my pickup and took off for Eminence.
I texted Debbie, while driving, and she replied that she was almost there and there was no way I was getting out of pleasing her all night, so I’d better bring my A game.
I smiled to myself.
29
When Sam woke up, his fire was almost out and it was already dark out. He’d slept a little longer than he’d planned, but at least his clothes were dry and he was warm except for his feet. As cool and hip as his two-thousand-dollar pair of boots made him feel, they didn’t do shit to keep his feet warm.
His plan to retrace his way back to the well and then down the trail might have to be put on hold. The moonlight provided some light, and the light layer of snow made it a little easier to see, but he had mixed feelings about trying to travel in the dark. What if he got lost?
He stood up and stretched his arms over his head, pleasantly surprised that he wasn’t sore from sleeping on the ground. He studied the surrounding landscape. It was vital that he be sure about which direction to go before he moved from his base. He knew from his Boy Scout days that starting off in the wrong direction in the middle of the forest would be a disaster, and silently thanked his scoutmaster for driving into him the importance of visually marking landmarks as he traveled through the woods.
He recognized the closer landmarks, but had a moment of doubt because everything looked different at night. He mulled over his options for a few minutes and decided that he would get the hell out of here. He took a deep breath and started walking. This was it.
Within a few minutes, he spotted the next landmark and continued acquiring and following landmarks until he came upon the clearing around the well. A sense of relief swept over him. He was home free now, and he felt like singing when he picked up the tractor trail that had brought him here. He followed the trail.
He’d had plenty to think about in the hours he’d walked down the trail, and for the first time in his adult life, he started to second-guess his life choices. Nearly dying in a well and seeing Sally and their daughter Barbara without him had struck a nerve. Perhaps he was getting soft in his old age. Maybe this life wasn’t for him anymore.
He had millions stashed away in a safe deposit box. Why not give up the life and settle down? Everyone knew that you couldn’t just leave the life, but he could go off grid, change his name, relocate somewhere in rural America or even Mexico. Nobody would ever find him, and he could live a peaceful life, not looking over his shoulder every second for someone to put a bullet in him.
Sure, Sally and Barbara would have to give up their friends, but most of them were phonies anyway. Would they go for it? They’d talk in few days. Right now, he needed to kill the bastard who’d tossed him in the well, grab his buddies, and get the hell out of this shit hole.
There were plenty of divots and rocks on the trail to navigate around, and his progress was slower than he’d thought it’d be. His feet were cold, but the rest of him was warm because of the workout. He’d developed a nice steady rhythm to his slow pace, stepping fast enough to stay warm but not so fast that he started sweating or risked losing his footing on the trail’s imperfections.
He rounded a bend in the trail and there it was. A house. It looked like some kind of A-frame log cabin and had a winding driveway that led to a two-car garage. He followed the trail down to where it intersected the front of the driveway. The person who’d dumped him in the well must live here. Nobody would dump a body down someone else’s well. Right?
He felt his adrenaline pick up and he envisioned emptying his Derringer into the back of the guy’s head. He’d teach that bastard.
He crouched down next to an evergreen and looked around for signs of life. There were faint tire tracks that led up the driveway to the garage, but no car. Maybe it was in the garage? There were no lights on in the house, and he didn’t hear anything. He stood up and walked along the tree line towards the house.
After a few steps he picked up a sound, barely audible, but getting louder. It was a car approaching. He ducked back into the woods and turned towards the road, where he spotted approaching headlights. Hopefully it would pass right by the driveway, but this place was so out-of-the-way, he couldn’t imagine them passing by. He reached into his pocket and felt the Derringer. Thank God for that.
He watched the car as it approached the driveway entrance and saw the reflective glow of the brake lights when the car slowed. Fuck. It turned into the driveway.
He crouched by an evergreen and watched as the car approached. It moved slow, overly cautious on the slick gravel. Right before it reached his position he jumped out in front of it, pistol aimed at the driver’s head. “Stop! Fuckin’ stop!”
The car braked to a halt, and he held the gun on the driver as he opened the passenger door and slid in.
His surprise was evident in the tone of his voice. “Holy shit, it’s you?”
30
He waved the gun towards the house. “Drive, bitch.”
She took her foot off the brake and pulled up the driveway. “Please don’t shoot me.” Her voice quivered like a scared little girl.
“Shut the fuck up. You only talk when I ask you something. Understand me?” She nodded.
He pointed to the house. “You live here?”
“No. Just visiting.” She pulled the BMW in front of the garage door and killed the engine.
“Who lives here?”
“Jack Lamburt.”
“What’s he do?”
“Sheriff.”
“Describe him to me.”
“Tall, fair skin, short hair, athletic.”
Sam grinned and his pulse quickened when she described the guy from that wench waitress’s house. Sheriff, eh? No wonder the douchebag didn’t know how to get rid of a body. Didn’t have the balls to shoot someone in cold blood. Well, he did.
“Get out.” He exited the BMW and followed her up the front steps, the little Derringer pressed against her lower back. They reached the front door and she went to punch in the keypad code to unlock the door. Sam grabbed her elbow. “Wait. Anybody home?”
“No.”
“Any alarms in the house?”
“No.”
“Okay, open the door slow, and no funny stuff or I shoot. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now nice and slow.” He held the gun tight against her. “We’re gonna have a little party while we wait for your sheriff friend, and I like my women without any bullet holes, so don’t make me shoot you.”
Debbie punched in the code and pushed open the front door. She stepped inside and turned on the light.
Sam looked around. “Nice pad.” He raised his hand and smacked Debbie across the face, knocking her to the hardwood floor.
The big dog tore across the room and leapt at Sam’s throat. His jaws closed on the meaty flesh, and the two of them fell backwards into the door frame and slid down to the floor with a thud.
The dog held his grip on Sam’s throat, not so tight as to kill him, just tight enough to keep him pinned on the floor against the wall. Cold fear spread through him and the pain of the dog’s teeth in his neck froze him in place.
Sam fumbled around for the little Derringer he’d dropped, found it, and fired both of its rounds. The dog yelped, released Sam’s throat, and limped out the front door, whimpers of pain coming from him.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, that dog’s a fuckin’ beast.” Sammy moved on his knees and slammed the front door closed. “He almost took my head off.” He felt his neck for blood.<
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He walked over to Debbie and smacked her in the face again. “Why didn’t you warn me?” His whole body was shaking from anger, his face beet-red. “That dog could’ve killed me,” he screamed at her.
Debbie sat there on the floor, her hands covering her face, crying. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Sam grabbed a handful of her hair, pulled her over to the bearskin rug, and threw her down. He stood over her and smiled, and he heard her smartphone vibrate in her pocket.
“Gimme that.” He held his hand out.
Debbie reached into her pocket, took out her phone, and gave it to him with a shaky hand. Sammy read the text and laughed.
“Hot stud? Who the fuck is ‘hot stud’?”
Between sobs, Debbie managed to squeak out a reply. “Jack.”
“Oh. Nice, he says he’ll be here in half an hour.” He smiled as he gave her the news. He looked down at the phone, thumbed out a text, and hit send. “Perfect timing, now take off your clothes. I’m going to show you what a hot stud is.”
31
Debbie looked up at him, crossed her arms over her chest, and offered feigned resistance. “No.” After the conversation at the bar and seeing his actions tonight, she had him pegged for what he was. An insecure little man. Napoleon complex to a T. And she knew just how to play him.
“You bitch.” He reared back and slapped her in the face again. She fell backwards onto the rug, and he leaned over and tore her shirt off in one violent motion. He gawked at her near nakedness like a wide-eyed teen witnessing his first porn. He took off his belt and tied it around Debbie’s wrists, then raised them over her head and attached the other end of the belt to a leg of the couch.
She closed her eyes and thought of being tied up and taken by Jack, a vision that, no matter where she was or what she was doing, always aroused her. She felt her nipples tighten. Good, that’ll get his attention.
He reached down with both hands, slid them under her bra, and lifted it up and over her breasts, letting it rest around her neck. He exhaled with a hoot. “Woo-hoo! Holy shit, look at those tits. And those fuckin’ nipples! Halle-fuckin’-lujah.” He rubbed his palms together like a little kid on Christmas morning who was about to tear open his first present.