The Rest Will Come

by Christina Bergling

  The seasons were turning against her though. The flirtation of fall tickled the trailing edges of the summer days. The night was starting to crawl both down into the dawn and up into the evening. Her hikes would soon not be an option, and that thought alone made Emma feel like she was suffocating, made her feel that crushing weight that compacted her into her couch all those months after Justin.

  Pushed toward something drastic, she leapt into “Penny.”

  ***

  “Penny, I have to say, no bullshit, this is the wildest date I have ever been on,” Carl said as he unloaded the tent from Emma’s trunk.

  “We just got here,” Penny smiled coyly. “Nothing wild has even happened.”

  “Still. I would never have thought a girl would go camping on a first date.”

  Penny chuckled and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I like camping. The guy I end up with has to love it too. So why not?”

  “It’s pretty trusting to take a stranger up in the woods and sleep in a tent together.”

  “Excuse me, we have separate tents. And you’re not a stranger; we’ve been talking for a while now.”

  “True. But we only met in person today.”

  “Are you trying to talk me out of this?”

  “No, not at all. I’m just saying you never know. I could be a serial killer or something.”

  “What makes you think you’re not the one who should be scared?”

  Penny stopped unpacking and grinned slyly. Carl laughed, shaking his head, and continued unloading the trunk. When his back was to her, Emma rolled her eyes.

  The sharp sun roasted down between the trees, warming the gravel and dirt of the campsite, making fall seem more distant than the calendar argued. The fake seasons of Colorado. The warmth of the daylight bred complacency that would be unnerved by winter waiting at the end of the sunset.

  Carl dropped the tent bags onto the dirt and separated the zipper for his bag. He extracted the reams of rolled canvas, the piles tumbling around his hands awkwardly. Penny knelt down beside him and unfolded her own.

  She stood and meandered around the bag, searching out a flat pad with a few rocks. She meticulously placed the tent base so that tall trees would obscure the rising sun and her feet would angle down the tiny decline. Carl tossed his haphazardly beside hers.

  “There’s a pretty big rock under there,” Penny said. “And you’re going to get baked in the morning.”

  You would, if you were going to be alive in the morning.

  Carl looked down at his tent. “I know girl,” he feigned confidently. “I’m laying it out here for a minute while I get the stakes and stuff out.”

  Penny concealed the laugh welling in her throat and planted the stakes at the four corners of her tent. From the corner of her eye, she watched Carl stand and drag his tent to one location, rub his chin briefly, then move to another.

  “So you love camping?” Carl said, settling on another unwise location choice.

  “I do,” Penny replied. “It’s quiet up here. None of the normal bullshit, you know?”

  “Yeah, I hear you. Did you camp a lot as a kid? What got you started?” Carl stood to press a spike down with the sole of his shoe and stumbled when the stake bent beneath his foot.

  “Yeah, I did camp a lot with my dad and my sisters.”

  Or my stepdad and my brother, she thought. Half lie, half truth.

  “That’s cool. I camped a lot too. Boy Scouts when I was young. Then, you know, just kegs of beers and four-wheelers. Lots of camping.”

  Oh yeah, and it shows.

  Penny erected her tent and attached the final ties around the tent poles. The crackle of packaging rustled in the quiet mountain air, and she looked over at Carl. He stood lazily beside the crumpled pile of his tent, tearing open a wrapper.

  “Snack break?” she laughed, restraining the eye roll behind her sunglasses.

  “Yeah, girl, I’m working hard over here.”

  “I see that. What is that?”

  “Peanut butter protein bar.”

  Penny felt a rumble in her own stomach at the distance between Carl’s established tent and a kindled fire on which to cook.

  “Do you have another?”

  “Oh no. This is my only one,” Carl said with pieces of protein bar rocking between his teeth. Then he took another hearty bite.

  Don’t kill him yet. Not yet.

  The sun began retreating from the sky, hiding rays behind the tall trees. Penny’s tent stood beside Carl’s among the trunks. He had dragged out and set up the two camping chairs. Penny sent him into the surrounding hills to gather firewood while she dug through the cooler to assemble dinner. She only hoped he would not prematurely stumble across the concealed hole Emma had dug days before.

  She heard his footsteps long before he tromped back into camp, dumping a load of wayward chunks of damp pine that would be hard to light, smoke like hell, then burn too fast.

  “Looks good,” Penny said. “Can you snag some kindling too?”

  “I got this, girl. I’m your fire expert right here.”

  “My dad actually showed me how to start fire with sticks when I was a kid,” Penny said, referring to Emma’s stepfather. “I mean, I thought he was totally full of shit, but he actually did it. It started smoking at first until the kindling caught. My sisters and I spent the rest of the trip trying to do it ourselves but never managed to.”

  “I can do that. Used to do it all the time in Scouts. I can start one with rocks too.”

  “You’ll have to show me.”

  “Oh,” Carl hesitated, “I’m probably too rusty at it. It’s been years.”

  ***

  The fire crackled loudly beside them, heat eating through the moisture in the wood, smoke billowing up into the night. It had only taken an hour, two trips for additional kindling, and a butane torch to accomplish, but Carl surely could have started it with a couple of rocks. By the time they had cooked their hot dogs through over the open flame, Penny’s stomach lining contracted and burned with hunger. She kept thinking of that protein bar dripping from Carl’s jowls, remembering she had to not kill him.

  Yet.

  Penny stood from her camping chair and moved around the fire to the cooler, bending down to fish another can out of the melting ice. Carl’s steps scraped the dirt after her. By the time she stood back up, he appeared directly beside her.

  Penny concealed the flinch at his proximity and gave him a wink. “Did you need another?” she asked innocently.

  Carl did not speak; he was looking at her mouth. Penny knew what was coming. He gripped the base of her hair and pulled her mouth to his, kissing her more aggressively than Emma preferred. Penny responded in kind, leading and reducing his advances until she pulled back.

  “Come on, girl,” Carl said into her hair. “You didn’t bring me all the way up here just to camp.”

  He wrapped himself around her, pressing his body against hers with his lips panting humidly against her neck. Penny’s skin crawled, retreating away from the sensation. He reached with one hand and took a firm handful of her jeans, so hard it rocked her body against him harder.

  Now.

  Penny placed her hands on his chest and gently pushed him back until he released his clutch.

  “You’re right, Carl,” she breathed, an octave lower into seduction. “I brought you here for a lot more.”

  The smirk infected Carl’s face in the twisted shadows of the campfire, spreading far into grotesque features. Penny returned the expression, both faces reflecting the hunter poised to pounce, both convinced the other was the prey.

  “Can’t believe you let me set up my own tent for no reason.”

  “Give me a minute. I need to go get something.”

  Carl released Penny, and she retreated out of the ring of light from the campfire into the shadows of the night. In the dark, the cold edge of the air reminded her this would be her last kill for a long winter. Carl stared after her for an instant, snagging another b
eer and dropping himself back in the camping chair, his movements inflated by an irritating confidence.

  Penny chuckled and took a second to appreciate the blissful anticipation at the precipice of her kill. She embraced the exhilaration humming on her nerves and accumulating under her skin, savoring the excitement that would be all too fleeting. She breathed in deeply to drink in the moment, the perfection of his ignorance, the thrill of her control.

  She moved around the car and fetched the hefty rock she had planted against the tree trunk. She had selected it after pre-digging the burial hole. It fit in her hand comfortably, wielding a decent weight, and had a sharp enough edge to do the damage she needed. When she first saw it, she thought it looked like a bludgeoning rock.

  Her palm cradling the rock, she moved up behind Carl, who was staring into the fire. She let her hand crawl up his shoulder and slide along his cheek. He dropped his head back and looked up at her with lazy lust in his eyes. She brought the rock crashing down into his forehead.

  Carl’s body jolted at the impact, arms and legs shooting out for an instant then flopping back down. His shoes scrabbled against the gravel, his hands groping at the arms of the camping chair. He let out the same wet grunt as all the men before him. Penny could hear the familiar confusion and anger in the primal noise. She stepped back to watch his body flounder in the pain.

  Carl tumbled forward into the dirt. He landed flat on his stomach, droplets of blood spilling from his forehead. He struggled to prop himself up on his kneels then collapsed to the ground again. Penny ambled slowly around the camping chairs toward him. When she stood over him, she pressed her foot into his shoulder and forced him to his back. She wanted to look down at his face when she finished bashing it in.

  A burst of breath exploded from Carl’s mouth as she rolled him over. His eyes roved unfocused behind her. his face already partially obscured by the blood pouring out from his wound. Penny placed a foot on either side of his waist and stood straddling him, firming her grip on the now bloody rock. Once more, she inhaled the crisp mountain night air to savor every step of her process. She even allowed her eyelids to drop for a fraction of a heartbeat.

  Carl popped up from the dirt and wrapped his hands hard around her thigh. Penny’s eyes snapped back open as he pitched her over off of him.

  Penny felt the heat of the fire as she careened toward the dirt. Her back landed against the stones lining the fire pit, and she scrambled desperately to get out of the reach of the burning heat. It took her a moment to reconcile the sensations of her fall. She clawed at the dirt until her fingertips found her rock. Then she sprang up and whirled around for Carl. There was only his small puddle of blood. Carl was gone.

  Emma’s heart stopped in her chest. The pretense of Penny abandoned her in the panic that raced over her skin.

  Shitshitshitshitshit! Where is he?

  Emma attempted to calm the fever flushing over her and listen for him. She only heard the wretched banging of her pulse in her ears and her ragged breathing. Her nerves felt like they were going to burst. She was done. She was caught. She was going to go to prison and be executed.

  Before she could even think, Emma was running. She took large leaps over the dark ground. Even if it was the wrong direction, she had to do something; she had to find him. He could not have gotten too far with a squirting head injury. Her pulse slamming through her veins, Emma tried to strangle her breath. The panicked heaving deafened her.

  Calm down. Just calm down. You can find him.

  Emma spilled out between the trees, moonlight pouring down on the dirt and wayward blades of the sparse plants. She froze in the silver light and closed her eyes. Then, on the edge of her hearing between her gulps of night air, Emma heard the rustle. She sprinted toward the sound before she saw him, all her wayward emotions channeling into a singular focus.

  I can still kill him. I have to still kill him.

  Emma’s pupils expanded away from the harsh flames of the fire. Her eyes dilated the moonlight and spread it thin over the landscape in front of her. She spotted Carl moving up the hill, attempting to circle back around the cars and get back to the road that brought them there. Back when he thought some girl from the internet brought him to the mountains to roll around in her tent.

  Once she spotted him, the rest of the world fell away. She leaned back into her heels and launched forward on runner’s legs. She felt every stride, every run, every race she had ever done culminating in this moment. The trees whipped past her, her footfalls crunching on the fallen pine needles.

  Carl did not see her coming. He was lost in his own injury and the throbbing fear in his escape. He ran sloppily and slow, cradling his swelling wound with one hand. Emma sprinted toward him without thought, pumping her arms desperately across her body. She reached him as he rounded the crest of the hill and turned against the drop on the other side.

  Emma dropped her rock at her feet and grabbed both his shoulders with her hands. Carl managed to wield his head around and give her another look of unadulterated shock as she shoved him hard away from his balance. He followed his shoulders to the ground, toppling hard into the scrubby grass. His arms and legs spiraled out against his fall as he rolled down the hill. His body came down on top of his neck, and a heavy, wet crack echoed through the night.

  The sound of Carl’s wayward limbs and full weight collapsing into the dirt punctuated the heavy silence that followed. Emma froze in the moment and released the pent up breath in her lungs, the faint outline of her air steaming against the stars. Her body throbbed with her raging adrenaline; it tingled and vibrated along the edge of her skin.

  She dragged in several deep breaths of the crisp air, allowing her heartbeat to descend out of her ears and back into her chest. She discovered, as she crunched over the grass and needles toward Carl, that she was grinning again. Where did he think he was going? He could not escape her; she was in control here. Her panic dissolved into a manic sort of relief.

  Carl lay in a heap on the ground, still breathing. His exhales struggled, restricted against the extreme angle of his neck. Emma stood over him for a moment, placing one hand against her chin and squinting down at his awkward shape in the dark.

  Kill him. Just kill him now. He almost got you caught. Go find your rock and end this before anything else goes wrong.

  Emma turned to start searching for the rock then hesitated.

  But then it’s over. Then he’s dead. Then I have to go back to pretending to be that depressed basic bitch again. I’m not ready to let him go yet. I’m not ready to hibernate.

  Emma looked back to Carl and crouched beside him. When she rolled him over, he was half-conscious, disoriented.

  This is a horrible idea, a part of her said, as she moved forward anyway.

  She took hold of his ankles and dragged him bumping and scraping back to the campfire.

  “What in the hell is this?” Carl screamed as he regained coherency, his voice cracking as he lay immobile in the dirt.

  Emma sat in the camping chair beside him. She crossed her legs in front of her, a beer can dangling from her fingertips. She had retrieved her bloody rock from the dark ground and placed it beside her, tapping her toe against it gently.

  “Penny, what the fuck?” he yelled again. “What is this?”

  Although Carl’s booming voice was enraged, Emma detected the fear quivering at the edges of the words. The sounds were strangled by the tension in his throat. No matter how manically he glared at her by the firelight, Emma saw the tremble in his breathing and the sweat pouring down from his hairline despite how cold the night had become.

  “Well,” Emma uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, “I’m pretty sure you broke your neck up there.”

  Something about Carl’s floundering emotions elicited a tranquility in Emma. He lay at her feet helpless while she bumped her toe against the rock she would use to murder him.

  “I can’t move. Penny. I can’t move! You need to get me to a hospital.”

&n
bsp; “No, I don’t think I’m going to do that.”

  “What? What do you mean you won’t do that? Take me to a hospital!”

  “That’s not going to happen, Carl.”

  “You broke my neck. You need to take me to a hospital. I need help, Penny.”

  “I broke your neck on purpose. I couldn’t have you getting away.”

  “What? What the hell does that mean?” Carl yelled.

  “I’m not done with you. I mean, the rock was supposed to finish you off. I’ve never had one run before. That was pretty exciting.”

  “What are you talking about? Penny, what the fuck is going on?”

  Carl was struggling to move. The tension in his neck and the veins in his forehead tensed and bulged with each attempt before he puffed in frustration against the dirt. Emma could practically taste the sweet panic wafting up from him; she could tap in time with his heartbeat against her rock.

  “I’m going to kill you tonight. That’s why I brought you up here.”

  It felt good to say, to let the words spring off her tongue, the way she wanted to share them with Ronnie and Gladys so many times. Even if Carl would be dead and buried before daybreak, in this brief, irrational moment, Emma was not alone in what she was. She was not suppressed and censored and trapped down in the pit of her stomach.

  “What? No! You can’t kill me.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  A wave of power surged through Emma at the words.

  Yes, I can. I can do whatever I want. I am in control here.

  She smiled.

  “But why? You don’t even know me. Why would you want to kill me? What did I ever do to you?”

  Emma looked down at him calmly and sipped her beer.

  “What the fuck?” Carl breathed. “What the fuck? What the fuck? This doesn’t make any sense, Penny. I never touched you! You can’t kill me. You have to get me to a hospital.”

  “No.” Emma continued tapping the rock and took another sip of her beer.