The Ascent of PJ Marshall

by Brian J. Anderson

  “PJ, please. What are you going to do?”

  PJ leaned against the door frame, watching for movement inside.

  “We’re going to sit down and talk about our feelings. Figure out why we’re so self-destructive. Why we always hurt the people who love us the most. Shit like that.”

  “God, you’re—why are you doing this? I’m trying to help you. Think about your dad. He sure as hell wouldn’t want you doing something stupid. You—”

  “How dare you. You didn’t know him. You don’t know what he’d want.”

  PJ’s tone forced Anna to backtrack.

  “Look, you have every right to feel whatever you’re feeling, but you—at some point you have to rein it in. And yeah, you’re right, I don’t know what your dad would want you to do, but…think of the consequences.”

  PJ turned to watch a car pass on the road. He shook his head.

  “Why did you help me? Why did you lead me right to him? So you could hold my hand while the grownups take care of everything? You can kiss my ass too.”

  Anna gasped.

  “We didn’t know—”

  “Save it,” PJ said, turning back to the cabin door, his gaze drawn to the swarm of insects over Hackett’s lifeless body. “Look, I understand the consequences here. It’ll be worth it.”

  Anna’s laughter dripped with contempt.

  “Oh god, are you really that—you think you’re the only one who’s lost someone? Grow up, PJ.”

  PJ slid the knife aside with his foot and stepped back from the door.

  “Thanks for all your help.”

  Anna sputtered and began to cry again. Her soft, helpless sobbing forced a lump into PJ’s throat, and he swallowed, raising his foot.

  “PJ…don’t do this. Please…don’t do this.”

  He kicked in the screen door, buckling it through the frame and sending pieces of its splintered frame into the cabin. It twisted off its hinges and toppled to the floor with a slap, stirring dust into the air and briefly scattering the hovering cloud of insects. A frantic yell from Anna.

  “PJ! Don’t! Who’s going to check the ice?”

  PJ stood in the doorway, his arms and back throbbing. He stared at the droning swarm above, gripped by the composure of its flow around the fixture. Untamed, but ordered.

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  He hung up and put the phone in his pocket and went inside. Hackett was still out.

  In the bathroom, Eddie was moaning and rolling his head over the seat, trying to jerk his hands free. PJ grabbed him by the hair and knocked him out against the back of the seat. He flushed a bowl of vomit and returned to the chair next to Hackett. Nudging him with his foot, PJ checked Hackett’s breathing with the back of his hand. His phone vibrated and he ignored it.

  He sat, watching. Waiting.

  chapter twenty-two

  Hackett

  He came to with a start, cringing and squinting against the light. Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes to ease the massive throb in his head, Hackett’s cold fingers tingled as he worked them open and closed. He touched the welt on his temple and jerked his hands away, his body stiff with agony. Rocking his head over the arm of the couch as he caught his breath, he watched the countless bugs that now clouded the light fixture sweep and dive in chaotic orbit. Twisting his hands and feet against the layers of tape binding them, he gasped in the heavy cabin air—a vile mixture of vomit and death.

  With sudden urgency, he turned his head and met the cold, silent gaze of a man in the chair across the table. The brim of the camouflage cap threw a shadow over his face, concealing all but his chin—scratched and bloody under a week or two of unshaven growth. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing forearms wrapped in surgical gauze that was soaked through with blood. His left arm was immobilized across his body with shreds of stained flannel. Eddie’s hunting knife was at his side, speared into the arm of the chair. Unmoved by Hackett’s return to coherence, the man sat in calm deliberation, slowly turning a film canister in his fingers, rattling its contents.

  With a groan, Hackett swung his feet aside and let them fall to the floor with a thump, his eyes locked on the man’s shadowed face. He slid his hands to the cushion and pushed himself up as he visually swept the room.

  “He’s fine,” the man said, his tone sullen.

  Hackett shifted on the couch, straddling the gap in the cushions with his thighs. He made slow, furtive attempts to work the tape loose around his wrists and ankles, but it was too tight. Its edges bit deeper into his skin the more he pressed and he conceded, dropping his hands to his lap. He stared across the table, waiting for the shadow over the man’s face to lift, his head throbbing in rhythm with the beat in his chest. Clearing his throat, Hackett tried his voice.

  “Where’d you get that hat?”

  The man’s head turned almost imperceptibly as the rattle of the canister went silent. He rose and put it in his shirt pocket, an expression of rage escaping under the cap’s brim. Hackett reared back as the man approached, his hands shaking as he searched the gap in the cushions for the gun, unable to find it in time.

  The man slapped Hackett hard across the temple, knocking him onto his side on the couch, breathless and writhing in pain. Hackett’s ears filled with a muffled ring as he rolled and pressed his face into the cushion, screaming. With his skull threatening to crack, Hackett turned his head to breathe, picking up the muted clink of empty bottles as the man jostled the table on his way back across the room. Hackett rolled against the back of the couch and sat up, gasping as the man reclaimed his spot in the chair—restoring the shadow over his face. He shifted his arm in the sling.

  “Ask me another stupid question, Hackett.”

  Hackett tipped his head back and closed his eyes, listening. The buzz and click of insects above, the song of crickets. The rattle of the man’s container. He inhaled deeply through his nose, and the rumbling echo in his head drowned them all out.

  “What’d you do to him?” Hackett asked as he sat forward, shaky and lightheaded. He drew a steadying breath, sliding his hands between his legs.

  “I said he’s fine.”

  “Who are you?”

  The man paused in his persistent turning of the canister and pushed the cap back on his head, dissolving the shadow over his face. He set his forearm gingerly on the armrest and was once again rolling the container.

  “Ring any bells?”

  Hackett studied the man’s battered, blood encrusted face, feigning discomfort as he pressed his palms together and wedged his hands between the cushions.

  “I—I don’t know.”

  With a shake of his head, the man turned away. Hackett ran his hands between the cushions, striking cool metal as the man turned back.

  “Figures,” the man said, lifting his gaze to the cloud of insects with a sigh. “Prophetic, isn’t it?”

  Hackett glanced at the light as he poked his finger into the gun muzzle. The man tapped the knife, causing it to shudder and settle into a gentle sway. As the man watched, transfixed by his own distraction, Hackett tipped the gun up between the cushions and against his crotch. He covered it with his hands as the man looked up.

  “Why am I here, Hackett?”

  “You’re…”

  Hackett trailed off and turned to the doorway, only just noticing the mangled screen door lying on the floor.

  “You’re here to kill me.”

  The man’s expression was blank, unreadable.

  “Do you know why?”

  “Because Ward…told you to.”

  The man dragged his gauze covered forearm over his eyes with a groan. Hackett flipped the gun up onto the cushion and pushed it under his thigh just as the man’s arm fell back to his lap. He returned Hackett’s tired gaze.

  “You really pissed him off.”

  From Hackett, a sheepish nod.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  The man smiled.

  “Oh, but I want to. I’ve been
thinking about—”

  “Okay, look,” Hackett said, leaning forward as he broke in. “I have files that he’ll—”

  The man was on his feet. As Hackett spoke, he released the safety on the gun.

  “—pay a fortune to get back. I was going to give ‘em to the cops, but we could…I don’t know, come up with something else. Another plan.”

  The man took a beer from the cooler and—gripping it by the neck—swung it hard against Hackett’s temple. Howling in agony, Hackett fell to his side on the couch, clutching his head, tears of pain sliding down his face.

  “Don’t interrupt me, Hackett!”

  With the bottle clamped between his thighs, the man opened it and drank, watching Hackett’s hysterics. He turned and went back to the chair.

  His face drawn with rage, Hackett breathed through the pain and sat up. Taking the gun from under his leg, he closed his hands around the textured handle, his finger quivering on the trigger as the man put the bottle on the armrest and eased into the chair with a tortured grunt. Taking hold of the bottle, the man looked up as Hackett aimed, his stunned gaze alternating between Hackett’s pained expression and the gun muzzle trained on his chest.

  “You son of a bitch.”

  As Hackett kicked his feet against the tape, the man dropped his beer over the armrest with a ringing thump onto the floor, glaring. He closed his hand around the handle of the knife, nodding to Hackett’s feet.

  “Want some help with that?”

  Hackett raised the gun, aiming for the man’s face. His voice came as a shrill scream.

  “Shut the fuck up you piece of shit! Throw it on the floor!”

  The man’s response was low and defiant.

  “No.”

  The corners of the man’s mouth lifted into a tired grin and he sat in silence, rocking the knife on its tip as Hackett worked himself into a sweat in his struggle with the tape. His eyes became glassy as the standoff dragged out, and Hackett let out a weak, hesitant laugh.

  “Not your day, is it? Looks like everyone’s gettin’ a piece of you.”

  The man chuckled.

  “You should see the other guy,” he said. “But I guess one of us is going to. Real soon.”

  Hackett kicked the tape from his feet and stood, advancing to the edge of the table, chewing the tape off his wrists. He thrust the gun forward.

  “I said drop it!”

  The man’s expression fell and a tear broke free and cleared a line down his cheek, eating through layers of blood and grime. He jerked the knife loose.

  “Or what?” he asked, rising from the chair, grimacing with pain. Hackett adjusted his grip on the gun.

  “Don’t push me, asshole! Who are you? Who did this to you?”

  A brief smile lit on the man’s face, and he lowered the knife to his side.

  “Everyone.”

  The drone of a passing car slowly rose and filled the cabin. Hackett glanced aside as it cleared the end of the drive and then refocused his aim on the man’s chest.

  “What the fuck’s that mean?”

  “You…and Ward. Bighorn. The guy you killed. The guy I killed. This is who I am now.”

  They stared at one another, silent and wide-eyed with anticipation. More tears broke down the man’s face as his smile returned, desperate and reconciled all at once.

  “But it’s okay. I’m getting the hang of it.” He approached the table, motioning with the knife for emphasis as he spoke. “We both are. But you and me…we’re done playing God.”

  Hackett’s hands began to shake.

  “Fuck you. You weren’t there. You don’t—it wasn’t like that. I thought he was going to kill me.”

  “Yeah, I heard. And then you left him in the shed to die. In self-defense.”

  “Fuck you! I don’t have to—” Hackett’s throat caught and he was unable to finish. He shrugged his shoulder, mopping sweat from his neck with his shirt. He swallowed. “He had a flashlight. I thought it was a gun. I just wanted him to—he messed everything up. This is all his goddamn fault.”

  A hard, sinister laugh.

  “Bullshit. You brought this. Be a man and—”

  “Shut up!”

  Hackett thrust the gun forward, his voice shaking. The man was unmoved.

  “Think you can do it again?” the man asked, stepping to the near end of the table. Hackett countered around the opposite side, lowering his aim to the man’s chest.

  “If I have to.”

  The man nodded.

  “Me too.”

  Hackett patted himself down as they circled the table, weapons drawn, their pace quickening.

  “Where’s my phone?”

  Stopping short, the man lowered the knife.

  “You coward. You can’t just take your fuckin’ ball and go home now.”

  “Shut up and give me the phone! It’s over.”

  The man stood pat under the flickering swarm, his nose hissing with his slow, deliberate breathing.

  “Not much fun when it’s your ass on the line, is it?”

  “Fuck you! I started this. I decide how it ends.” Hackett motioned to the knife with the gun. “I’m not gonna tell you again. Put it down.”

  The man shook his head.

  “Ward’s right. We’d all be better off without you.” He raised the knife. “This is how it ends.”

  He rushed Hackett in silence, his face drawn in anger, the knife cocked at his ear. His boots fell heavily on the carpet, rattling the windows. Hackett pulled the trigger, filling the cabin with a deafening blast.

  The man’s shoulder jerked back as blood sprayed from its back side. Thrown off his stride, he stumbled over the table leg and crumpled to the floor in a mad rage, still clutching the knife in his outstretched hand. Hackett ground his heel into the man’s fingers and pried it free, coughing as acrid powder fumes diffused into the already foul cabin air, the world reduced to a muffled ring. He stumbled backwards over the screen door on his way to the porch.

  “You and Ward can go fuck yourselves.”

  Heaving the knife into the woods, Hackett returned to the man’s side, finding him in a weak struggle to sit up against the couch. He pressed the gun into his side and searched his pockets. In quiet resignation, the man stared at the fresh patch of blood growing on his shirt, breathing in a labored wheeze, his arm limp at his side. Hackett rose to his feet, holding the gun to the top of the man’s head.

  “Where is it?”

  The man looked up.

  “Fuck off.”

  Hackett roared.

  “Where is it!?”

  With veins bulging on his forehead, the man straightened his back, pressing his head into the muzzle.

  “Do it!” He shifted against the couch, his pained expression growing suddenly calm. “Or trust me. You’ll regret it.”

  Hackett’s finger tensed on the trigger as they stared at each other in mutual, venomous contempt, both men shaking and exhausted. Although the man’s face was battered and nondescript, his eyes triggered a flash of recognition and Hackett eased the gun away and sat on the edge of the table, searching his memory.

  “Tell me who you are,” he said, now leveling the gun at the man’s forehead. “And I’ll do it.”

  The man closed his eyes, breaking free a pair of tears that plowed through the grime on his face.

  “PJ.”

  Hackett’s eyes widened and he lowered the gun. The man was silent.

  Hackett rose to unsteady feet and shuffled around the couch, watching the man’s eyes—now open and boring into him—as he turned away and entered the back hall.

  “PJ…PJ…”

  He tucked the gun into the back of his pants and paused in the bathroom doorway, steadying himself against the frame.

  PJ.

  Hackett cocked his head to the faint rattle of the film canister and then shook it off. With a check of Eddie’s pulse and pockets, he tore the tape from his wrists, gagging on the smell of vomit and urine. He flushed, leaving him slu
mped on the bowl as he went to the window.

  Pushing the bloody, shredded pane up the last few inches, he looked outside, inhaling the subtle diffusion of fresh air through the screen, gripping the sill. The trees glowed in ghostly backlight from the rising moon, and Hackett searched in vain for the clearing and the raccoon’s grave, his attention occasionally drawn to glimpses of direct moonlight as the canopy rustled to a light breeze. All at once, Hackett’s jaw drew slack. With a grunt, he turned and ran from the bathroom, returning to where the man was still propped in agony against the couch. He sat on the edge of the table, studying his battered face.

  “You’re in that picture.”

  The man sputtered as he lifted himself onto the couch, the film canister once again clutched in his hand, its lid removed.

  “He was…my dad.”

  Hackett drew back.

  “Shit. I’m—”

  “Hackett,” PJ said, motioning around Hackett’s side. “The phone.”

  Hackett turned. His hand shaking, he slid and toppled empty bottles aside as he reached for the phone, concealed in a maze of glass at the center of the table. He picked it up. It was connected with ‘Steve Porter’.

  Shit.

  Hackett cleared his throat.

  “This is Hackett.”

  “Mr. Hackett. Detective Porter, Vilas County Sheriff’s department. Is everyone all right there?”

  Hackett gave PJ’s injuries a cursory glance.

  “Shit. No. We need an ambulance.”

  Hackett gave Porter directions to the cabin as PJ looked on in grave silence, his body vaguely trembling. The patch of blood had expanded across the front of his shirt in a dark, wet mass that glistened in the fluttering light. Hackett caught PJ’s harsh, steely gaze as Porter relayed the information to a third party and noticed that despite his injuries, PJ’s eyes were clear and focused. At peace.

  “Now, do I understand correctly Mister Hackett, that you’re responsible for the death of PJ’s father, Butch?”

  Hackett took the pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

  “Yeah. I am.”

  “And you have a friend of yours there as well?”

  “Yeah. But…he’s not involved. I…we won’t give you any trouble.”