by Blake Crouch
Lucy batted her eyelashes. “Pain is a beautiful thing, Donaldson. It’s intensity. It makes you feel alive. So SUCK IT UP, YOU FUCKING CRYBABY! I don’t have any meds. I haven’t hit my morphine in seven hours. How do you think I got out of my room? Now wheel me to the fucking car!”
Donaldson jerked his handcuffed wrist back and shoved it between the seat and Lucy’s back. Then he pulled out the gun and took careful aim at her left foot.
“Tell me how beautiful this is, little girl.”
He fired.
Three of her toes disappeared with a BANG! and a small cloud of blood.
“Fuck!!!! Goddamn! You fucking fuck!”
Lucy bellowed at the top of voice, the echo bouncing back off the hospital and rushing out into the forest.
What was left of her foot shook like an aspen leaf.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Lucy took a deep, trembling breath.
“Pain is good,” she said in a steady, level voice. “Pain is good. I still don’t have any meds, D. You want to shoot off my other foot?”
“Had to make sure,” Donaldson said. “No offense.”
He tucked the gun behind the curve of her back and pushed her toward the Honda. “How the hell are we supposed to get inside?” he asked.
“Lift me.”
“Fuck you. Undo the goddamn cuffs.”
In the distance—sirens. Drawing closer.
“I don’t have the keys handy.”
“What?”
“We have to stay chained together. It’s the only way.”
Donaldson swore. “Open the damn door. You climb in first.”
“I can’t walk, you bastard! My legs are broken!”
Donaldson swore again. The sirens were loud now, a train of flashing blue and red lights tearing down the driveway to Blessed Crucifixion Hospital. “Unlock it, then tug it open,” he said. “I’ll lift you inside.”
Lucy fumbled with the keys, shoved the biggest one into the lock, and turned it. She pulled open the door and the interior lights cut on.
“Stick the keys in the ignition, then I’ll shove you over into the passenger side.”
“I need help”
Donaldson jammed the gun behind her back. Then, using his good hand, he hooked her under her armpit and heaved.
Lucy grabbed the steering wheel, hoisting herself up into the driver seat, landing on her chest. She twisted around, jamming the key into the ignition.
Donaldson wrapped his fingers around her thigh, then lifted and shoved.
Once her weight was off the wheelchair, it began to roll away—taking the gun with it.
“Goddamn it.”
Donaldson reached around, trying for the gun.
Lucy grabbed his bad arm.
“Give peace a chance,” she said, and jammed a needle into his swollen flesh alongside the many other holes.
Donaldson howled, his mouth opening so wide his gums began to bleed again.
“Sorry, no drugs in this one,” Lucy said, and then she pulled it out and stabbed him again.
His agony filled the car.
“This was my morphine IV. That’s for the ride down the stairs.”
She stabbed him once more. “And that’s for my foot. Now get us the fuck out of here.”
Donaldson plopped his bulky ass into the driver seat, the chassis bouncing on its shocks. He reached over, batting away the needle Lucy brandished, and locked his big hand around her slender throat.
As he squeezed, a squad car pulled into the lot, tires squealing, siren blaring.
“We…can have…our fun…later…” Lucy croaked, her eyes bugging out.
His entire body shaking, Donaldson released her.
Slammed the door.
Turned the key in the ignition.
Backed slowly out of the parking space.
He drove carefully past the squad car, obeying the rules of the road until they reached the end of the quarter-mile drive that T-boned the highway.
When the light flashed a protected green arrow, Donaldson hung a wide left through the intersection and accelerated into the night.
Soon they were doing sixty down the dark, country road.
Donaldson saw the flashing lights in the distance, approaching fast.
“Stay cool,” he said.
A line of squad cars blazed past—red and blues in full war paint.
“Nice driving,” Lucy said, clearing her throat.
Donaldson mumbled a thanks.
They drove in silence for several minutes, until Donaldson said, “Shit.”
“What is it?”
“Goddamn nurse left the tank on empty. The reserve light is on.”
He flicked the gauge with a thumbnail. It bounced and dropped even lower.
“I’m sure there’s a gas station around here.”
“Even if there is, how we gonna work that little miracle? Pull forty bucks out of my ass? Goddamn it, I should’ve taken the bitch’s purse. Pain is fucking with my ability to think ahead.”
More road. More silence, broken only by Lucy’s and Donaldson’s occasional groans.
“How’s the foot?” Donaldson asked. No sarcasm in his question.
“You worried I’ll bleed to death?”
“Yes.”
“Awww, you’re sweet. After all I’ve gone through, this little thing won’t kill me.”
Donaldson barked a laugh.
Another brief silence ensued.
“So what’s the count, D?”
“Count?”
“What’s your number?”
“Oh.” He smiled. “That’s kind of a personal question.”
“Get over yourself.”
Donaldson glanced at her, and then back at the double yellow lines glowing under the headlights.
“Hundred and thirty.”
“Bull. Shit.”
“I been doing this a long time, little girl. Long enough to know we gotta ditch this car, pronto.”
“Every cop in the county is at the hospital right now. We got a few minutes.”
“The staties will be looking for us.”
“We’re on a goddamn deserted highway in the middle of nowhere, Donaldson. You see any staties?”
“You’re a little bit reckless, aren’t you?”
The night raced by at 55 mph.
Sagebrush, pinion, hills, darkness.
Winding road and blinking stars.
“Let me ask you something, D. Serious.”
“What?”
“You ever meet another one of us?”
Donaldson nodded, his double chin jiggling. “Yeah.”
“I met two once,” she said. “But that was years ago. You’re the first I’ve come across in a long time. Or at least, got to really talk to. There was this one guy I crossed paths with a couple years back. He picked me up outside of Death Valley. I suspected he was one of us, but I was jonesing pretty bad so I cut the conversation short. All the bullshit aside, I’m glad I met you. I mean that. It’s a lonely road out here.”
“You think getting all friendly with me is gonna stop me from killing you?”
Lucy turned her head, looking out the window at the dark trees rushing past. “No, but…lying in bed these last few days, I started thinking. It’s rare in this life to meet another person like yourself.” She glanced back at Donaldson. “You know what I’m saying?”
“Want me to go wake up the preacher, reserve the wedding chapel?”
For thirty seconds, the car was dead quiet.
No sound but the pavement humming under the tires.
Then Lucy released a quiet sob.
Donaldson glanced over, saw Lucy’s shoulders slumped and shaking.
“I’ve never met anyone like you in my entire life, Donaldson. I wanted to kill you. Shit. Most of me still does. You fucked up my legs so bad, no one’s ever going to want to pick me up again. But don’t you ever wish you had someone?”
“Someone? You mean like a wife?”
“No. I mea
n like…”
“Like? Spit it out already.”
“Someone to hunt with.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
Donaldson glanced over at Lucy. He took his hand off the wheel, touched her cheek.
“Holy shit. You’re really crying.”
Lucy shrugged off his hand. “Ever since I woke up in the hospital bed, these five words have been rattling around in my head, and I can’t make them go away.”
“If this is some kind of trick, I’m going to pull this car over, drag your crippled ass into the woods, grab the biggest stick I can find…”
Donaldson checked the review mirror, noticed a set of headlights half a mile back.
“Don’t you want to know what those five words are?”
“What?”
“The five words I’ve been thinking about.”
Donaldson sighed. “Fine. Sure.”
“Kill together or die alone.”
The road stretched on, black and empty.
The gas gauge dipped below the E.
“When I was a kid, my mom left,” Donaldson said. “Dad wasn’t so good at raising me. Tried to buy me pets to keep me out of trouble. But I’ve had these particular…ah…tastes…since I was young. None of my pets lasted too long. But there was one pet I didn’t kill on my own. When I was seven, my father bought me a pair of hermit crabs.”
“What were their names?” Lucy asked, sniffling.
“Names? Fuck if I remember. Doesn’t matter. Point I want to make is, one day, I wake up to look at the crabs, and one is pulling off the other one’s legs. And eating them. Fucking eating them. Turns out hermit crabs are cannibals. Put two of them in the same tank, they’ll kill and devour each other.”
The headlights in the rearview mirror were closing in.
“So you’re telling me we’re destined to kill each other, D?”
“A hermit crab is a hermit crab. Can’t be nothing else.”
Road and silence.
Silence and road.
Donaldson came to a dark intersection, a stop sign in the middle of nowhere.
He took a left turn, got a ways up the road, and then watched the car behind them do the same.
“There’s someone following us,” Lucy said.
“Maybe. Or…could just be someone driving home late.”
Donaldson checked the gauge again—the red needle sunk far below the E.
“I want to show you something, D.”
“What?”
It happened so fast, the blade catching a shimmer of the tailing headlights, and then it was pressed against Donaldson’s throat.
“You feel that?” Lucy asked.
“I do. Nice and sharp.”
“With the flick of a wrist, I could run this blade across your throat, feel your blood pour over my hand. Maybe you’d wreck the car. Maybe you wouldn’t. I don’t care. We’d both die. But I would win. Do you understand that? I would end you. Do you agree with that?”
“Last time we were in this situation, I slammed on the brakes and bounced you off my dashboard. I could do that again. You aren’t wearing a seatbelt.”
“Neither are you.”
“What if I asked you to buckle me in?”
“How about instead you roll down my window?”
“Your window?”
“Did I stutter?”
“Only one good hand. Gotta stop steering to reach the button.”
Lucy eased her left hand over and grasped the wheel.
“I got it,” she said. “This is what they call a leap of faith.”
“Car behind us is getting closer.”
Lucy lowered her voice. “Donaldson, do you believe there are defining moments in our lives? When a choice can be the beginning of something, or the end?”
“I guess.”
“Roll my fucking window down.”
Donaldson brought his hand across his lap and pressed the button, lowering the passenger side window. The night air rushed in at them, clawing under Donaldson’s facial bandage and making it flap.
“Now what?” he asked.
Lucy leaned up and kissed his bandage, then pulled back and threw the scalpel out the window.
It made the briefest spark where it struck the pavement.
Donaldson hit the button again, and the window ascended back to the top of the door.
Lucy held the wheel steady.
“You know what?” he said. “I remember the names of those crabs.”
“What?” she asked.
“George and Ringo. Ringo ate George, the little bastard.”
“I never liked singing drummers.”
“It all worked out in the end. I poured gas on him, set him on fire.”
The engine stuttered, cylinders misfiring, and then caught again.
“You think that car behind us is a cop, D?”
“No. He’d have punched on his lights already. Called for backup. Like I said, could just be some fella on his way home.”
“You really believe that?”
“No,” Donaldson said.
“So what do you want to do?”
The car chugged once more, and then died.
Without the noise of the engine, they could hear the sound of the tires rolling over tiny rocks, the wind rushing against the windshield.
“Got any weapons on you?” Donaldson asked.
Lucy stared at him, hesitating.
“What?” he asked. “After your whole ‘kill together, die alone’ speech, you still don’t want to tell me?”
“All I’ve got left is a pair of scissors. I had the chance to take a Glock, but I didn’t.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Lucy. This isn’t the time.”
The car continued to coast.
Donaldson glanced at the speedometer.
Fifty miles per hour.
Forty-five.
Forty.
The car behind them closed the gap.
“I’m not fucking with you, D. I didn’t take the gun, because I didn’t want to accidentally kill you and spare you all the pain I had in store. I’m sorry. Frisk me now if you don’t believe me.”
Donaldson grunted something noncommittal.
The headlights were riding their back bumper now.
“There!” Lucy said. “There’s a dirt driveway.”
She pointed out her window, and Donaldson squinted to see through the darkness.
“Is that a barn?” she asked.
“Can’t tell. But it’s better than being out in the open.”
Donaldson nudged the Honda onto the shoulder and made a quick right. The tires sank into dirt, then caught, carrying them fifty yards down the road toward the building, gradually slowing until all momentum ceased.
The car that had been following them crept past and then stopped twenty yards ahead. It was a black sedan. Its taillights burned for a minute more, and then went dark.
“What would someone who isn’t in law enforcement want with us?” Lucy asked.
“Why don’t you hop out and ask?”
“What are they waiting for?”
“I don’t know.”
Whoever was in the black sedan stayed put.
“You have any weapons, D?”
“I figured the gun would be enough.”
“So what do we do? Can you sneak up on him, maybe?”
Donaldson shook his head, flipping on the interior light. “Check out my legs.”
Lucy looked down. The bandages had sloughed off in bloody strips.
Wait. Those weren’t bandages.