SCENE FOUR
The cold bit through the slick vinyl of Mona's parka and crept through the layers of batting and her sweatshirt. She and Matt had tried walking for a while with their arms draped across one another, but the futile attempt at sharing body heat had been awkward; they tended to fall out of step and had staggered along the road like a pair of drunkards weaving home from a bar. Despite the freezing weather which numbed their noses and lips, both of them had worked up a sweat beneath their clothes as the grade had grown progressively steeper. The last thing they needed was for one of them to fall: the loose powder would sneak its way down into their clothes, melt against their warmer bodies, and plunge their internal temperature to the point that even the icy drifts would feel warm in comparison. So they shuffled forward, shoulder to shoulder instead, each one hunched over in an attempt to keep the wind from peppering their faces with flurries.
“H-humans should r-really consider hibernation.”
Mona's teeth chattered as she spoke, infusing her words with a slight vibrato. She tried to smile but her skin felt as if it had been pulled like plastic wrap against her skull; her flushed cheeks stung and the corners of her mouth felt as if they were about to crack open.
“Hang in there, baby. Someone's bound to come along sooner or later.”
Matt tried to make his tone sound light and cheerful, but a fear had gripped his insides with a hand colder than the frosted guard rails that lines the edge of the hill. He wasn't exactly scared of dying; he'd come to grips with his own mortality long ago and harbored no illusions about the frailty of life. But the thought of Mona lying in a snowbank with blue lips and ice encrusted eyelashes kept haunting his vision. In her, he'd found the perfect partner: she was beautiful in her own quirky way and always made him feel like a nervous schoolboy eagerly awaiting his first kiss. She was the only person, in fact, who he had ever truly cared about. Everyone else in the world was simply looking out for themselves; they would stab you in the back with a smile and then dance a jig on your grave if given half a chance. They were devious and self centered and could barely be considered human at all. But Mona . . . she was like an angel who'd been sent to help guide him along his chosen path. She touched him in ways he'd never realized he could be touched, both literally and figuratively. She was the one person who knew all of his secrets, every nook and cranny of his mind . . . and life without her would be unbearable. He'd been down that road before: it was full of brambles and briars that raked at the soul, traps and snares . . . but with his woman by his side, those obstacles bowed like servants to a greater power.
“How long do you think it's been, Matty?”
“Nine, ten miles maybe. You tried the cell lately?”
She nodded her head, causing the fur-lined hood of the parka to bounce with the movement.
“N-no signal. Not out here in Bumfuck . . . you sure do know how to plan a honeymoon, babe.”
He glanced at her to see if she were truly angry with him, but her eyes twinkled beneath the shadows of her hood like a pair of jewels.
“Only the best for my wife.”
They walked in silence for a while, listening to the rhythm of each other breathing and the shuffle of their footsteps. The snow seemed to muffle everything, to make it sound as if it wasn't quite real. It was all too easy to imagine that this was nothing more than a dream: that one of them would wake up to the drone of the heater and the lull of tires rolling over pavement. However, the wind would occasionally gust and the needles of pain it jabbed into exposed skin were enough to drive home the reality of the situation.
“I'm so tired, Matty. So tired . . . .” Mona's voice was barely a whisper. “I feel like I could just lay down right here and go to sleep.”
Fear clenched Matt's heart and he whipped his head toward his new wife. She'd begun stumbling, her heels kicking up these little eruptions of snow as her knees buckled. His own calves felt as if the muscles had turned into overcooked noodles and spasms formed hard little knots in his thighs.
“Don't you do it, Mona, you hear me? Don't you lay down on me, girl.”
“I don't regret anything, you know. I just want you to know that, Matt. In case . . . in case anything should . . .”
“Don't talk like that! You're gonna be okay. We're gonna be okay. We've been in tougher situations than this, right? Remember Rock Hill? Remember Townsend? Just hang in there, babe.”
Panic fluttered Matt's heart and blood surged through his veins, causing his temples to throb with a whooshing so loud that it drowned out nearly all other noises. Even his own voice sounded as if it were being heard by a fetus within the womb.
“I'll carry you, baby. Want me to carry you for a while? I'll do it.”
He saw Mona's trembling lips move, but her voice was as lost as if he were watching a silent film.
“Come on, piggy back, baby. I can do it, really I can.”
Tears shimmered in his eyes and he felt their warmth trickle down his cheeks. Mona shook her head and everything within Matt felt as hollow as the chocolate bunny he'd surprised her with last Easter. He couldn't let her give up, couldn't allow her to leave him . . . .
Through his veil of tears, it almost looked as Mona had begun to glow softly. As if Heaven were shining down through the darkness and calling his angel home. She tripped over her own feet and fell to her knees in the middle of the road.
As Matt rushed to her side, another sound encroached upon blood swishing through his head. This was a low rumble that sounded as if the earth were about to crack open. Perhaps Satan himself was rising from his subterranean lair: he would appear in plumes of sulfuric smoke and bathed in the flickering fires of Hell, ready to do battle with his timeless nemesis for the possession of this single soul. At the same time, the glow around Mona intensified, like God was readying himself for this struggle and calling upon a legion of angels to watch His back.
Scooping his wife into his arms, Matt closed his eyes and clenched his teeth so tightly that it felt as if they were only moments away from shattering like porcelain. They couldn't have her, either one. Jehovah, the Devil: he would fight them both, would pull ethereal arms from sockets to use as a clubs as he beat back the heavenly host and hordes of demonic warriors. He would stand over his dear, sweet Mona and unleash a fury that would make the Book of Revelation look like a lullaby.
The rumbling was now so loud that he could feel it vibrate within his chest and he opened eyes that were now as hard and cold as the chunks of sooty ice lining the road.
“They can't have you, baby.” he whispered. “You're mine . . . .”
The glow was now so bright that it almost seemed as if they inhabited an island of daylight amid a darkened sea. And was it just his imagination or could he hear the frenetic squeal of fiddles, like a muffled call to arms for the gathering armies? But would either side actually choose The Devil Went Down To Georgia as the armageddic equivalent to fife and drums? For Matt was sure that's what it was now: the Charlie Daniel's Band turning an epic struggle between Good and Evil into nothing more than a hoedown.
The volume of the music increased and a thin voice wavered through the hillbilly onslaught.
“You folks need a lift?”
The words came from a thin, mustached man who leaned out the passenger window of a battered truck. For a moment, Matt simply crouched there as he blinked his eyes. Part of him was certain that it was nothing more than a trick of his mind; that if he were to run up to the truck it would dissipate like a mirage in the desert.
“That your woman, buddy? Looks like she’s ‘bout to freeze her tits off. C’mon . . . get your asses in here. We’ll give ya a lift.”
Matt threw up his hand to indicate that he’d heard the man and whispered to Mona as they struggled up from the snow.
“We’re gonna be okay, sweetie. See? Didn’t I tell you?”
The cab of the truck was cramped and had the lingering stench of urine for some reason. The driver, whose name they’d learned was Earl, took up
most of the seat with his wide girth and the smaller one was wedged between him and Matt like mortar between bricks. Mona sat on her husband’s lap with her legs slightly off to the side and her head resting on his shoulder. Despite the warm air that had gusted over her face for the past ten minutes, she was just now beginning to regain feeling on the tip of her nose and earlobes.
“You folks are lucky we came along when we did. Highway patrol done closed down the road down near the bottom of the hill. You musta passed through just a short piece before, I reckon. Where you headin’ anyway?”
The one named Daryl seemed to do most of the talking with his brother only grunting a reply every now and then.
“Hunting cabin up near Slater’s Pass. Used to be my dad’s place back in the day.”
Earl glanced away from the road and studied the new passengers with a quick sweep of the eyes.
“Don’t look like no hunters to me.”
Mona giggled and hid her face in Matt’s hair as she shook her head. Patting his wife’s thigh, Matt grinned and a private joke seemed to pass between the two before he replied to the driver’s statement.
“You’d be surprised.”
“We’re on our honeymoon.” Mona finally chirped in. “Just got married the day before yesterday.”
“Hope your husband there fucks better ‘n he can drive.”
Earl’s words hung in the air for a moment and dissolved the smile from Matt’s face. His jaw clenched and Mona felt him stiffen beneath her as he took a slow breath through his nostrils.
“Now you wait just one minute, Mister, that’s my wife you’re talking . . . .”
Daryl slapped him on the back and laughed as easily as if they were old friends sharing a joke over beers.
“Earl’s just ribbin’ ya, mister. Don’t pay him no mind.”
For a moment, the four of them sat in silence and listened to Dolly Parton beg Jolene not to take her man. The radio crackled and popped as the music struggled to maintain its dominance over static. Within moments, the song faded and was replaced by the deep baritone of the DJ.
“Comin’ right up, we’ve got some Waylon Jennings on tap followed by a shot of Patsy Cline. But first, the news . . . .”
“How much farther did you say it was?”
“About eight, nine miles I reckon. ‘Course five of ‘em are off the hard road. Be in for bit of a bumpy ride before we get to the house.”
“You sure she won’t mind? Your mother, I mean?” Mona asked.
When they’d first gotten in the truck, Daryl had said that a whore had a better chance of keeping her virginity than they had of finding a tow this time of night. The nearest town was Chester and, apparently, the sidewalk was rolled up right around the same time the sun went down. So the offer had been made for Matt and Mona to spend the night at their place and then, providing the coming storm didn’t knock the lines down, they could call for help in the morning. The newlyweds had balked at first, arguing that they couldn’t impose upon their kindness any further, but the brothers had insisted, countering that the only other alternative was dropping the two off alongside the road where they’d be in no better shape than when they were first picked up.
“Oh, Mama won’t care. She just loves company. ‘Specially a pretty young thing like you.”
“ . . . unconfirmed reports that evidence was found at the dump site that may shed light on the identity of the murderer . .”
Mona shifted on Matt’s lap as if the cab of the truck had suddenly become too cramped and she glanced at her husband with eyes that seemed to be clouded with nervousness. He glanced at the two men and then gave her hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze.
“You fellas mind turning this crap off? Stuff like this tends to make my wife a little skittish.”
Earl glanced at the woman with the corners of his mouth turned up into something that was halfway between a smile and a sneer. His eyes sparkled in the light of the dashboard and his words seemed to spill out of his mouth in a mocking sing-song.
“Poor little girl scared of the big, bad wolf? That it, darlin’? Afraid it might hop outta these here trees and gobble you right up?”
“I . . . I’d just rather not hear about it, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Be over before ya know it. I ain’t missin’ out on Waylon.”
The rest of the trip passed in relative silence with only the soft strains of country music to combat the rumbling of the engine. True to Daryl’s word, they turned off the main road onto what was nothing more than a winding, dirt path buried beneath mounds of snow. The truck rattled and bounced through ruts so frequently that it almost felt as if the road was nothing more than a series of ruts and ridges; pine trees gradually overtook all other species and, after what seemed to be an eternity of jostling, the headlights finally revealed an old farmhouse in a clearing. The walls were gray with paint peeling from the faded boards and smoke curled from a chimney that jutted up from a tin roof pile high with snow. Only a single window had light spilling from it and, off to the side of the house, Matt could just make out the silhouette of some sort of shed.
“You folks wait here.” Earl ordered as he eased his bulk out of the truck. “Mama loves company, but she hates surprises. Won’t be more than a minute or two, I reckon.”
Daryl slid across the seat and followed his brother’s lead, winking at the couple just before he slammed the door shut.
“Y’all sit tight now. Don’t you go nowhere.”
The pair stomped the snow from their boots, opened a screen door so rusty that the creak of the hinges could be heard even from within the truck, and then disappeared into the house. Mona looked Matt in the eye as he curled his hair around her index finger.
“You sure about this, baby? I mean, we really should get that car off the road as soon as possible.”
Closing his eyes, Matt leaned in toward his wife’s touch like a cat enjoying the soft stroke of a hand.
“I don’t see that we have much choice, honey. You heard what he said. Even if we could find someone this time of night to come get the car, I don’t think they’d be able to. Not if the road’s been closed.”
“Still, I don’t like it. We shouldn’t be around . . . .”
“Look, we’ll make a couple minutes of small talk with the old lady, tell them how tired we are, and then go to sleep, okay? First thing in the morning, we’ll get the car and figure out what our next move is.”
Mona’s gaze dropped to the keys dangling from the ignition of the truck and she bit her bottom lip.
“Maybe . . . maybe we should just take this one. We’d probably be gone before they even know and . . . .”
“Mona, these people have been nothing but nice to us! Are you really suggesting we just steal their truck? After all they’ve done?”
“I don’t like it, Mattie. That’s all. I want it to be just you and me again. Like it’s always been, you know?”
“And it will be, sweetie. Soon. It’ll be morning before you know it. Besides . . . they’re already coming back. See?”
Daryl beckoned from the porch with his hand like a policeman directing traffic and Matt brushed his lips against his wife’s soft cheek.
“Come on, babe. I mean, it’s not like they’re the ones who killed that woman in the dumpster, right?”
The inside of the house was like a museum to dust. It covered everything from the rickety coffee table to the picture frames on the wall with a dull film and Mona fought the tickle in her nose as she perched on the threadbare couch. Besides looking as if it had been years since a thorough cleaning had been done, the place smelled old as well: there was a musty odor that seemed to permeate everything and was only overpowered by the scent of pine as logs crackled and popped within the fireplace. Like most homes with elderly occupants, the air was so warm and dry it almost felt as though every droplet of humidity had disappeared through the cracks of the bowed, hardwood floor.
Matt sat beside her and shifted positions every few seconds in an
attempt to find a way of sitting where the springs of the couch didn’t press into his butt and legs like some sort of medieval torture device. He glanced around the room , taking in everything from the deer head mounted on the wall to the yellowed curtains that hung like funeral shrouds over the windows. The panes were so old that the glass had a rippled texture when viewed in just the right light and a draft must have seeped around the edges, for the curtains rustled gently.
Earl and Daryl had excused themselves, saying that they wanted to change clothes and wash up, leaving the newlyweds alone with the old woman. She’d promptly disappeared into the kitchen and they could hear water boiling from the other room as a high pitched whistle gathered strength.
“I want to thank you again, Ms Gruber, for allowing my wife and I to stay the night. You don’t have to go to any trouble for us. We’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”
“No trouble at all, young man.” the woman called out amid the clinking of dishes. “I reckon the two of you woulda caught your death of cold on a night like this. Least we can do is take in a couple down on their luck.”
Feeling the need to add something to the conversation, Mona chimed in.
“You . . . you have a beautiful home, ‘mam.”
Shaking his head, Matt chuckled softly and squeezed his wife’s leg as he winked at her. Mona, in turn, punched him on the arm and then pushed him away as she arched her eyebrows. This only caused his grin to widen, but he immediately straightened as the old lady appeared in the doorway with a tray of teacups balanced in her hands.
“And please,” she insisted, “call me Mary.”
She shuffled across the room and placed the tray on the table in front of them. As she glanced at Mona, something flickered in her eyes. For a second, her face seemed to be nothing more than a paper-mache mask that hid something dark and twisted behind its pale wrinkles. Something that stared out through the eye holes with the cold, emotionless gaze of a primordial predator; but, as quickly as this image appeared, it faded with her smile.
Shut The Fuck Up And Die! Page 4