by Gen Griffin
“No. Hell no.” Cal shook his head viciously. “Just no.”
“You would do that for me?” Ian stared up at Addison, his face red and tear-streaked.
“No,” Cal repeated.
“It may be our best option,” Addison held his hand up to silence Cal. “Think about it, Cal. You're not exactly going to come out of this real great either. I can't imagine that you and David will be charged with anything more than underage consumption of alcohol, but it's still going to be a scandal because of who you are.”
“I don't care,” Cal said flatly. “I'd rather cause a scandal than watch you take the blame for everything.”
“I don't want to go to jail,” Ian whimpered.
David stared silently down at the crushed girl with her teal nails and bloody pink t-shirt. “We could get rid of her.”
“What?”
“We could get rid of her,” David repeated.
“You mean hide her body?”
“Bury her in the swamp,” David confirmed, the details still working themselves out in his own head. “Use my Dad's wrecker to tow Ian's truck out of here. We can clean it up at the shop.”
“Clean it up?” Addison's turquoise eyes sharpened thoughtfully. He pursed his lips. “You mean wash off all the blood and gore?”
“At the very least,” David confirmed. “My Dad's not in jail right now. He's pretty good at body work when he's sober. Maybe we can fix the truck up without having to report the wreck.”
“The truck is totaled,” Cal pointed out.
“Not legally,” David replied. He rubbed his own neck with the back of one hand.
“I can help with the body work,” Addison put in. “Not like I have a job right now anyways.”
“What about my Mom?” Ian asked. “She'll know I screwed something up when I don't bring my truck home.”
“Won't be the first time,” Cal commented bluntly.
“Hey-.” Ian frowned at Cal.
“He's right,” David said. “Won't be the first time. Tell her you were out playing in the woods and you wrecked. She ain't going to want to report teenage stupidity to her insurance. Tell her that me and Dad are going to fix it under the table. She'll go for that.”
“Your Dad really going to go along with all this?” Addison asked David.
“Of course he is,” David smiled bitterly. “My father may be a mean son-of-a-bitch but he does what I tell him to. I know where he buried all his skeletons.”
“Speaking of skeletons, y'all really you want to go through with this?” Addison swallowed unhappily and cast a sideways glance at the wrecked truck. “You do realize that if we fuck up, we'll be in a hell of a lot more trouble then we would be if we called the cops right now?”
“We're in a hell of a lot of trouble regardless,” Cal stated. “We killed a girl.”
“Accidentally.”
“Drunk.”
“Drunk,” Addison acknowledged with an unhappy nod. “I'm still buzzing. Doesn't seem like I should be. Every time something bad happens in a movie or something, everyone sobers right up. My head is still spinning. As usual.”
“You never sober up fast,” David reminded him calmly. “Maybe you should lay off the drinking.”
“You think?” Addison shot David a frustrated glare.
David nearly smiled. He needed Addison thinking on his feet. Pissing him off was usually the most effective way to get him there.
Addison blinked, clearly startled by the expression on David's face. He swallowed a visible lump in his throat and nodded. “We've got to get rid of the girl. Before we do anything else, we've got to get rid of the girl.”
“I agree,” David said with a nod. He looked down at Ian. His little cousin was on his knees. His own blood had run down his chin and stained his thick jacket. His jeans were torn and his arms were scraped. “Get up. It's going to be a long night. If you don't want to spend the next 20 years of your life in jail then you need to pull yourself together.”
“I can. I will.” Ian took a deep breath. The expression in his eyes was horrified but hopeful as he looked over at David. “Thank you, David. I knew you'd think of a way to save me. I can always count on you to save me.”
“Don't thank me,” David said with a shake of his head. “Please, don't thank me.”
Chapter 6
Addison was the only one who had the stomach to pick the dead girl up. He knelt down beside her in the dirt and gently slid his arms under her broken body. Blood dripped down from her wounds as he lifted her up, cradling her against his muscular chest as he carried her to the bed of David's truck. Cal had stretched a battered, torn tarp out against the metal.
“Feels wrong to treat her like trash,” Addy said as he set her down in the center of the tarp.
“We'd never get the blood out of the interior of your Jeep.” David climbed the side of his truck and hopped into the bed. He grabbed one end of the tarp and flipped it into itself. “We can bleach the truck.”
“We should crush the truck.”
“Yeah. True.” David frowned and then nodded. “Good idea. Crush the truck.”
“You're going have your own truck crushed?” Cal asked with surprise in his eyes.
David shrugged at him. “Beauton Toyota didn't offer Pappy shit for the little truck when he went to trade it in last week. They didn't want it because of that big ass dent on the right side of the bed. He told me I could have it if I'd agree to stop staying at Dad's and move back in with y'all.”
“He's bribing you,” Cal commented.
“He didn't know he didn't have to,” David said mildly. “I was already planning on moving back in. The novelty of living with Dad wore off real quick.”
“Pappy didn't think you would make it a month,” Cal said.
“Which is exactly why tomorrow is day 32. I was planning on packing all my shit back up and coming home Sunday.”
“Why Sunday?”
“Because y'all would all be at church and I wouldn't have to listen to Pappy saying 'I told you so' as I toted all my crap back up all those damned stairs.”
David gestured for Addison to grab the other end of the tarp. Together, they rolled the dead girl into the blue plastic until she was completely concealed.
“That looks like a dead body,” Cal muttered.
“Not once I put her in the toolbox.” David opened the battered diamond plate toolbox on the Ford. He began handing items down to Cal. “Put all my shit in Addy's Jeep.”
It only took a few minutes to transfer David's collection of tools, spare parts and tow straps from the toolbox of his own truck into the back of Addy's.
“Ian is falling apart,” Cal said as he walked back to David's truck with his arms empty.
“He's in Addy's Jeep, ain't he?”
“He's curled up in ball in my backseat. He's crying again.” Addison jumped up into the bed of the truck beside David. “Do you really think its a good idea for us to bury this girl?”
“No. I think its a wretched idea.” David put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “But she's already dead and there ain't nothing in this world that I can do to save her. I can save Ian.”
“Unless he falls apart.”
“He'll pull it together.” David sounded more confident than he felt as he grabbed one end of the tarp. “Help me lift her in.”
Addison picked up the side of the tarp where the girl's feet were. He made a counting gesture with the fingers on his right hand. When he reached three, they lifted the dead girl up and into the toolbox of the truck. Her body crumpled neatly into the full-size metal container.
“She's tiny,” Addison muttered. “We'd have never got Gracie into the toolbox.”
“Gracie's not a small girl.” Cal looked nauseous again. “Y'all stop. I can't do this if y'all make me think of Gracie when I look at-.” He pointed down at the toolbox. “I know this girl has got to be around the same age as Gracie. She probably goes to the middle school. If Gracie were here, she'd probably know her
name. I'm thanking God that Gracie isn't here right now because I couldn't do this if I were looking into Gracie's eyes and thinking that someone is probably waiting on this girl to come home. I can't do this if I have to look at this girl and wonder if her boyfriend, her brother or her parents are going to be waiting on her.”
Cal turned away from them, blinking back unshed tears.
“Maybe we just shouldn't talk,” Addison suggested. He slammed the lid of David's toolbox down harder than necessary. His normally healthily tanned skin had a distinctive gray tone that couldn't entirely be accounted for by the cold, cloudy day.
“Good idea,” David agreed. He and Addison climbed down from the bed of the truck together. Addison's gaze traveled from the toolbox of the Ford to the crumpled Dodge, still laying on its roof in the trail.
“We have a game plan?” He asked.
“Tentatively,” David admitted. He bit the inside of his cheek. “We can get back to my place through the trails. Never have to touch pavement. I'm pretty sure Dad has the wrecker at the house. It was there this morning when I left for school. He's too lazy to get off his ass and go down to the shop, so I'm praying it'll still be there.”
“Use the wrecker to bring Ian's truck back to the house,” Addison filled in the blanks.
“Exactly.” David nodded.
“What are we going to do about the blood?” Cal asked.
“What blood?”
“The blood on the trail.” Cal gestured to the area next to the rolled truck. The place in the dirt where the girl had been crushed. “We can't leave all this blood on the trail. What if someone comes through here and sees the blood and the truck while we're gone?”
David paused mid-step. “I hadn't thought about that,” he admitted.
The three of them stood in silence and stared at the bloody mess.
“I don't know,” David admitted.
“Ian and I are going to have to stay here while y'all go for the wrecker,” Addison said.
“I don't like that idea.” David shook his head.
“Its not a matter of you thinking its a good idea or not,” Addy replied. “Ian and I can stay here with the Dodge. If someone comes along, we'll tell them that Ian wrecked his truck and you're on your way back with the wrecker to pick up the truck. Its the only story that will make sense. I just hope we get lucky and I don't have to try to tell it.”
“What about the blood?”
“I'll get rid of the blood,” Addy promised.
“How?” Cal asked, sounded reluctantly curious.
“Just trust me.”
“Don't you think I always do?” Cal thumped the bed of the truck. “Let's get this waking nightmare rolling.”
Chapter 7
The wrecker was sitting behind Ricky Breedlove's battered single-wide trailer, exactly where David remembered seeing it that morning. He drove his black Ford through the field behind the house and parked it with the hood less than 6 inches from the cracked vinyl siding.
David climbed out of the cab of his truck and slammed the door. He and Cal hadn't spoken two words to one another on their way here, but that was okay. David and Cal had been best friends since they they were eight. They didn't need to talk in order to understand one another. Cal was the only person David had ever truly trusted.
David yanked the driver's side door open on the wrecker and brushed his fingers against the ignition. A screwdriver was hanging out of the little slot where the key was supposed to go. He supposed he should be glad that his father was too unprofessional to bother repairing the broken ignition. The lack of keys made the wrecker much easier to borrow.
He crossed his fingers as he twisted the screwdriver. He hoped it hadn't been more than a couple of days since the last time the wrecker had run. The ancient diesel engine got finicky about cranking after it had been on vacation for a few weeks. The motor coughed for moment and then whined.
“Come on honey. Don't let me down now.” He pressed his boot down on the accelerator, sending as much fuel to the engine as possible.
The wrecker's engine coughed again and then fired with a belch of ugly black smoke. David smiled and patted the cracked steering wheel fondly.
“Tell me she's got fuel in her tanks.” Cal leaned against the side of the wrecker. His thick eyebrows were furrowed low over his dark eyes. His normally straight shoulders were slouched and he looked absolutely exhausted.
David read the gauge. “Three-quarters of a tank. I don't think he's driven it since the last time I used it.”
“Must not realize you filled her up,” Cal replied.
David let out a short, harsh laugh. “Probably not. You getting in or are you planning on standing here all night?”
“I'm thinking...” Cal trailed off and then shook his head. “Give me the keys to the Ford.”
“My keys?”
Cal didn't bother clarifying. He just held out his hand expectantly.
“Cal.”
“Give me the damn keys, David.”
“What are you going to do?” David countered.
“Look, its almost 4 o'clock now. It'll be dark in less than two hours. It's going to take you that long just to get Ian's truck sunny-side up and out of the woods.”
“I know.”
“Ian is a fucked up mess,” Cal said. “You'll be lucky if he doesn't have a complete and total nervous breakdown before you get his truck back to the shop.”
“I know how to make him hold it together.”
“Good luck with that.” Cal shook his head and kept his hand extended. “You're not superman, Breedlove. We're running out of daylight. Give me your damn keys already.”
“I want to know what you're planning to do.” David pulled his keys out of his pocket. He ran his fingers over the worn smooth metal. His key ring was simple. One key to his truck. One key to Cal's Chevy. They key to his Dad's trailer. The keys to Cal's parents house. The key to the gate on the 1000 acre hunting lease Cal's Pappy owned.
“No, you don't.” Cal kept his hand open. His eyes shone with exhaustion and annoyance. David knew the look well enough. He dropped the keys into Cal's palm.
“Be careful,” David told him.
Cal laughed as he shook his head. “What good would that do?”
David considered their situation for a moment and then shrugged. “Don't do anything I wouldn't do?”
“Dude, I'm fixing to do something I'm pretty sure neither one of us ever thought we'd do.” Cal rubbed his hands together, rolling David's keys in between his palms. “If you get back here with Addy and the Dodge before I get back, go ahead and take Ian home. Don't wait on me. Just get him out of here.”
“I can do that.”
“If you still ain't heard from me after you drop Ian off, go by the school with Addy and pick up my truck.”
“How long are you going to be gone?” David asked.
“Depends on where Pappy parked the backhoe and whether or not he left the keys behind.”
David hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Fair enough,” he replied.
“Stay safe,” Cal told him as he walked back to the Ford. He climbed into the driver's seat and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the siding on the house-trailer.
“I'm not the one taking the risks,” David muttered as he put the wrecker into reverse and headed back into the trails.
Chapter 8
“Okay, time for you to pull yourself together.” Addison yanked open the back passenger's side door of his Jeep and stared down at Ian. “Seriously. Cool it.”
Ian's eyes were nearly swollen shut from crying. He'd covered the back seat in snot and barf. The Jeep smelled like a dive bar bathroom after midnight.
“I-I-I c-c-can't help it,” he blubbered, making no attempt to stop the deep, gasping sobs that were leaving him struggling to breathe.
“You're going to have to help it,” Addy said flatly. “Unless you'd rather we all go to jail for murder.”
“B-b-but I thought David was-.”
/>
“David is doing everything in his power to save your ass. We all are. But you've got to pull yourself together and meet us halfway. I need your help.”
“M-my help?” Ian's sobs slowed slightly. He couldn't cry and speak at the same time.
“Your help,” Addison confirmed. “David and Cal went to get the wrecker but I don't want to sit here any longer than we have to. I don't know what that girl was doing walking alone on management land, but there's always a chance someone knew where she went and will come looking for her.”
“Shit,” Ian cursed. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I need you to help me pull your truck back onto its wheels. I've already hooked the chains back up. All you have to do is watch the Dodge for me. Make sure its coming back over the way I need it to.”
“I-I-I can do that.” Ian took a deep breath and nodded uncertainly. “I just. I just don't want to see her again.”
“You won't. She's gone.”
“Gone?” Ian asked, looking suddenly and unexpectedly relieved.
“David's handling it.”
Ian managed a small smile. “David always takes care of everything. He'll make this okay. He'll make it right.”
Addison started to open his mouth to tell Ian that there was absolutely nothing David Breedlove would ever be able to do that could fix the accidental death of a young girl, but then he stopped himself. Ian looked calmer than he had all afternoon. The younger boy's eyes held the utter and absolute faith of a small child whose parent had never once failed to chase away the monsters before tucking him into bed.
Ian had always hero-worshiped David, even though the two of them were only a year apart in age. Who was Addison to take the comfort of absolute trust away from Ian in the time when he probably needed it the most?