by Blake Crouch
“A villager in Ca Lu said it to me, before I removed his intestines with a bayonet.”
“Was he talking about himself?” Donaldson asked. “Or you?”
“You tell me. Did you feel alive when you killed your father, Donaldson?”
Donaldson nodded.
“And when you killed the owner of the Pinto?” Mr. K continued.
“Goddamn piece of crap car. I wish I could kill that guy again.”
“How about someone else in his place?”
Donaldson squinted at Mr. K. “What do you mean?”
Another half smile. “The man in my trunk. If I gave you the chance to kill him, would you?”
“What’d he do?”
“What did the Pinto owner do?” Mr. K countered.
“Nothing. But I wanted his car.”
“So you killed him for his car?”
“Yeah.”
“Couldn’t you have just pointed the gun and told him to give you his keys?”
“He would’ve called the cops.”
“You could’ve knocked him out. Or tied him up.”
“I guess.”
“But you didn’t.”
Donaldson folded his chubby arms across his chest. “No. I didn’t.”
“This man in the trunk. I promised him it would take a long time for him to die. Do you think you could do something like that? Draw out a man’s agony for a long time?”
Donaldson wasn’t sure what Mr. K’s angle was. “Sure.”
“Is that something you’d like to do?”
Donaldson shrugged. “I dunno. Never tried it before.”
“You know what the alternative is, don’t you?”
“You kill me.”
Mr. K nodded.
Donaldson made his decision in a nanosecond. “How do you want me to do it?”
“You can use your imagination. I have plenty of tools you can choose from.”
Donaldson stared off into the miles and miles of endless marshland. Thought about this strange request. Found himself becoming aroused.
“I’ll kill him,” he said. “And I’ll make it hurt.”
Mr. K checked his rearview mirror, eased his foot off the gas, and then drove onto the shoulder. He put on his emergency lights, then ordered Donaldson out of the car.
Donaldson didn’t even attempt to run away. He walked around to the rear of the car without being told and waited, butterflies amassing in his stomach.
The man in the trunk was awake, completely naked, his wrists and ankles tied with rope. He was older, late forties maybe, and he squinted in the powerful sun. In his mouth was a gag made out of a rubber ball.
He looks positively out of his mind with terror.
Donaldson licked his lips again.
“I prefer clothesline,” Mr. K said. “You can buy it everywhere, so it’s untraceable. And it won’t hold a fingerprint. Get him out of the car. Hurry, before another car comes by.”
Donaldson muscled the man out. It wasn’t easy. The guy squirmed and fought, and he was pretty heavy and tough to lift. Donaldson quickly gave up trying. Instead, he dragged him nude across the asphalt as the man moaned around his gag.
That’s gotta hurt, Donaldson thought. But that’s nothing compared to what I’m gonna do.
Mr. K took a tool case and a gas can out of the trunk, then closed it. He instructed Donaldson to pull the man into the marsh. It was wet, moss clinging to Donaldson’s shoes, muck seeping through. High reeds seemed to reach out and tug at the bound man, making it even harder to pull him.
After fifty yards, Donaldson was exhausted.
After a hundred yards, Donaldson was seriously pissed off. He hated being in the sun again, hated the throbbing in his nose and muscles, and hated this heavy son of a bitch for squirming so much and for being so goddamn heavy.
“That’s far enough,” Mr. K said. He set down the tool chest and opened it up.
Donaldson stared inside at the contents like a kid ogling presents under a Christmas tree.
“Can you give me my ball gag back?” Mr. K held out a rag. “It’s my last one.”
Donaldson unbuckled the gag from the man’s mouth, disgusted by the spit dripping from it. He handed it to Mr. K and then kicked the naked man in the stomach for making such a mess.
The man screamed. The first of many to come.
“I’ll pay!” he cried. “I’ll pay!”
“What should I use first?” Donaldson asked Mr. K.
“Try the ball-peen hammer. Breaking before cutting or burning always seems to work better.”
The next two hours blurred by for Donaldson, his entire world reduced to hurting this unknown, screaming, naked man in this deserted marsh. Even Mr. K seemed to vanish to Donaldson, though he took pictures during the proceedings, and occasionally interrupted to offer advice or encouragement:
Don’t cut there too deep. He’ll bleed to death.
Try the pliers.
Tell him what you’re going to do next. It makes it worse.
That part’s particularly sensitive. Use the blowtorch.
He’s not looking at you. Make him look at you, or cut off his eyelids.
He’s passed out again. Use the ammonia rag to wake him up.
There’s still a patch of skin there.
Now would be a good time for the salt and vinegar. Rub it in good.
It doesn’t make you gay. Enjoy yourself. He’s at your mercy.
How does it taste? Different than that other part you tried?
Try feeding his eyelids to him.
Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. He had a heart attack. It happens sometimes. You did well.
Donaldson sat nude next to the dead thing. The portly killer was covered with blood and bits of tissue, and he couldn’t think of any time in his twenty-something years of life that he’d ever been happier.
Mr. K finished wiping off the cheese grater with a rag and some bleach, and placed it back into his tool kit. Then he told Donaldson to douse the corpse with gasoline.
“Fire will take care of any evidence you’ve left behind. But wait until I’m gone. I don’t want you attracting any attention.”
Donaldson emptied the can and stared up at Mr. K, who stood silhouetted against the setting sun. He looked enormous.
Donaldson offered him the empty can, said, “Take me with you.”
“You’re naked and covered in blood, Donaldson. You’d ruin the interior of my car.”
“I thought you stole the car.”
“Stealing cars is for stupid children. The police have radios. It’s too easy to get caught. If you manage to get out of here, remember that. You’d be wise to remember everything I’ve said to you.”
“You’re not going to kill me?”
“Why should I? Even if you remembered my license plate number, which I don’t think you have, I just shot two rolls of you torturing a man to death. I have nothing to fear from you.”
Mr. K picked up his toolbox and turned to walk away.
“Can I get my gun back?” Donaldson asked.
Mr. K dropped the box, took out the .38, and wiped it off with the rag. He emptied the bullets onto the ground and tossed Donaldson the weapon, then reached into his breast pocket and tossed something else at him.
Wet wipes, from a fast food chicken place.
“I’d recommend getting some of that blood off before you try hitchhiking again.”
Donaldson nodded, picking a morsel of something out of his front teeth. “Next time I won’t get so much on me.”
“There’ll be a next time?”
“Yeah. Oh yeah.”
Mr. K stared at him for a moment, then lifted his toolkit. “Goodbye, Donaldson. I wish you luck on your future exploits.”
“You, too.”
Mr. K smiled. Not a hint of a smile. Or a half-smile. But a full one, like he was genuinely happy.
“And you be careful hitching,” Mr. K said. “Never know who’s going to pick you up.”
&nb
sp; The One That Stayed
Gary, Indiana, 1983
“Don’t leave,” Alex Kork said, tugging on her brother’s shoulder.
The cramped bedroom was warm, and the August heat brought a funky smell. The only light came from the bedside lamp, which was shadeless, its thirty-watt bulb making the siblings look jaundiced.
The battered, thrift-store suitcase on the bed was half-filled with meager possessions, all belonging to Charles.
A pair of jeans with a hole in the knee.
A striped necktie, ten years old and twice as wide as the fashion of the day.
Black leather dress shoes, another Good Will purchase, half a size too small.
A lonely, bent toothbrush.
Tube socks, gray from repeated washings.
Half a box of salt.
Rubber gloves.
Duct tape.
A straight razor.
A soldering iron.
A cheese grater.
Needle nose pliers.
Alex eyed the pliers and felt herself shiver, remembering the first time she and Charles had used them.
Uncertain times. Good times.
Charles smiled. His hair was a bit longer than the current trends, and the faint mustache on his teenaged upper lip reminded her of Father.
“There’s a whole wide world out there, Alex. I wanna see it. Don’t you?”
Alex did. More than anything. But she wasn’t ready yet. Charles was comfortable with himself. Unlike Father, whose every waking moment was wracked by worry and guilt, Charles owned his identity. Proudly. Unabashedly.
“I’m scared,” Alex said.
“Of what? We’re the ones people need to be scared of.”
Alex didn’t want to tell him the truth. That the thing that scared her most was herself. Of what she was capable of. This shit-hole town was like a cage. Small. Defined. Everyone knew everyone else. Easy to get into trouble, so Alex and Charles had to restrain themselves.
There would be no such restraint Out There.
It was an exciting thought. A sexy one. To be able to unleash their appetites on complete strangers. People who wouldn’t be missed. Who wouldn’t leave trails for the cops back to their front door.
“You want to be a mole your whole life, Alex?” Charles said. “Like Father? Or do you want to be a lion?”
They called Father a “mole” because he hid from people. Constantly caught in worry and doubt. Always self-loathing. Burying his shame and his nose in the dirt. Yes, he killed. But he spent so much time planning, and then later hating himself. He was a slave to his own urges. They owned him, when Charles insisted it should be the other way around.
In contrast, lions killed their prey out in the open, stalking and slaughtering with pride and freedom. They occupied the top of the food chain, and knew it.
“I want to be a lion, Charles. But I’m not ready yet.”
Charles stared at her, hard.
After a few seconds of silence, he nodded. “When you’re ready, look me up.”
Alex felt an urge to throw her arms around him, to kiss him, to beg him not to go. But instead she reached into the suitcase and grabbed the pliers. The tool gave her strength.
“Remember how Mother screamed when you used those on her?” Charles said.
Alex nodded. Her breath quickened, and her throat went dry. She brought the tips to her nose, but only smelled the faint traces of rubbing alcohol used to clean them. Unable to stop herself, she touched the tip of her tongue to the metal.
Cool and tangy.
“Keep ‘em,” he said.
Now Alex did hug him. So tight he grunted.
“Easy, Sis. You’re gonna break a goddamn rib.”
Alex eased off, but kept holding her brother’s hands.
“What if you get caught?” Alex said. She knew she was talking like Father, but the fear was real.
Charles smiled. “The cops will never catch me. Like that kiddie book. I’m the Gingerbread Man.”
He winked at her, then closed his suitcase and walked out of the room.
Alex fought down her sadness, but she couldn’t control her anger.
Storming through their ramshackle house, weaving through the stacks of garbage piled everywhere, she reached Father’s bedroom and threw open the door.
Father was sitting on his bed, naked, the sheets under him dotted with blood. He had a pin cushion in one hand. In the other, he held a needle, which he was sticking into his pale, flabby inner thigh.
“He’s gone,” Alex said.
Father stared at her, his eyes glassy, tears glistening in his stubble.
“I’m a sinner, Alex,” he said, voice quavering.
“Yes you are. You’re a very bad man, and you should be punished.”
Without being told, he assumed the position, getting on his knees, making a temple of his hands in some obscene parody of prayer. His back was a patchwork of old scars and new scabs.
Alex went to the cabinet, looked at all the implements, and chose a leather riding crop.
“I’m a murderer, Lord,” Father moaned. “Help me atone for my sins.”
Alex didn’t believe in God. Though part of her still feared Father, and the things he’d done to her and others, he was weak.
Their kind shouldn’t be weak. They shouldn’t be afraid or ashamed.
Their kind should rule.
But what, exactly, was their kind?
Alex had once heard a term in a movie that fit, that neatly described what she and Charles and Father were.
Serial killers.
Charles had embraced it. Father shunned it.
Alex wasn’t sure which way she’d go. But she was sure of one thing.
Hurting others was the best high in the world.
Father trembled.
Alex raised the riding crop.
The first slap of leather across flesh was exciting.
The fiftieth slap…ecstasy.
A Night at the Dinner Table
North Carolina Outer Banks, 1984
Christmas Eve.
Luther Kite watches as his mother, Maxine, carries the last casserole dish of candied yams up the staircase to the third floor cupola of the ancient house. The long table is candlelit, moonlit. Through the west wall of windows, a thin moon lacquers the sound into glossy black. Through the east wall of windows, the Atlantic gleams beyond the tangle of live oaks and yaupon. The tourists gone, the island silently twinkling, the evening is cold and glorious and more star-ridden than any night in the last three years.
Maxine sets the yams down on the tablecloth beside a platter of steaming crab cakes. Then she takes a seat at the end of the table, opposite her husband, and releases a contented sigh. “Mrs. Claus” is spelled out in rhinestones across the front of her bright red sweater.
Dressed up as Santa Claus, Rufus Kite occupies the head of the table.
At Rufus’s right sits Luther, who also wears a Santa hat, but isn’t happy about it.
“Beautiful,” Rufus says, addressing his wife, “I think I speak for everyone when I say this looks absolutely scrumptious.”
It’s a dream, Luther thinks.
But it can’t be.
Because it’s real.
Luther stares down the length of the table and sees…
Katie.
My sister.
His father called it the miracle.
Luther still remembers the flutter in his stomach when Rufus brought her home.
“We found her, son! We found her!”
Seven years older. Seven years lost.
But healthy.
And now…safe.
Fifteen and safe and finally home.
“I’d like to propose a toast,” Rufus says, raising a wineglass filled with sweet tea. “To my little girl. What it feels like to have you home again…” His eyes shimmer with tears. “…I am…at a loss to express.”
Tears are running down Katie’s cheeks, too.