by Bryan Smith
Pete was in the cage now.
He looked up at the woman.
She rocked faster, pressing her face between her knees.
The gate slammed shut behind him. He heard the click of the lock.
He closed his eyes, felt the rough dirt against his cheek.
Gil said, “We’ll be back to check on you later, boy. Don’t have too much fun while we’re gone, ya hear?”
Carl cackled and then they were gone.
Pete thought of Megan.
Run, he thought.
Please.
Run and don’t look back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The look on the man’s face when she came out and pointed the rifle’s barrel straight between his eyes was strangely satisfying. She’d spent so much of the day as a victim, running and fearing for her life. The deadly encounter with the hunter and the Kincher boy was an anomaly, a quick and dirty minitriumph in the midst of a greater struggle, over almost as soon as it had begun. Now she was the hunter, the terrorizer, and dammit, it felt good. It also felt primitive and uncivilized, this reveling in the shock and terror playing across the face of a human being, and maybe later, if she survived, she’d look back and feel bad about this.
But right now?
Fuck, yeah.
Jessica and the man in the rocking chair stared at each other. His jaw hung slack. His eyes were wide with dumb disbelief, the dull orbs reflecting incomprehension as well as abject fear. A corncob pipe dangled from one corner of his mouth. He had a thick beard and a mop of bushy dark hair. His clothes looked homemade. His appearance might have made her laugh, had the circumstances been a tad less dire.
Christ, he looks motherfucking Amish!
“You’re not fucking Amish, are you?”
The man’s expression shifted subtly. He was still afraid, still wary, but a bit of the blind terror drained away. He removed the corncob pipe from his mouth and held it delicately between a thumb and forefinger. “No, ma’am. Ain’t no Amish in these parts.”
Jessica breathed a relieved sigh.“Good. I didn’t want to have to shoot some peace-loving Amish dude. Not sure I could live with that.”
The man’s gaze shifted from her eyes to the rifle and back again.“Yes, ma’am. I can see how that’d be the case.”
Jessica scowled. “Don’t be a smart-ass. I’m still aiming a loaded weapon at your face, and you better believe I won’t hesitate to put a big fucking hole between your eyes if you do anything to make me jumpy.”
The man flinched. It was a small thing, barely noticeable. But she was glad to see it. Couldn’t let him get too comfortable, or allow herself to be lulled into thinking she was safe. She wasn’t safe. And this guy was still the enemy.
He swallowed a lump in his throat and sat very still as he looked her in the eye again.“Yes, ma’am.”
Jessica shot quick glances to her left and right. They were still alone here, so far as she could tell. Still, it wouldn’t do to tarry long here. She moved up onto the porch, careful to keep out of leaping distance from the man’s rocking chair. She walked backward toward the far end of the porch, listening to the loud creak of the wooden planks beneath her feet. She stopped at a window and peered inside. She saw a sparsely furnished room she guessed accounted for maybe half the little cabin’s living space. There was a sofa, a table, and some chairs. A thick, black-covered book with red-tinted pages sat in the center of the table. A Bible, most likely.
The room was unoccupied.
Jessica breathed another relieved sigh and moved a few steps closer to the man, though she still kept a prudent distance. She looked out at the clearing, scanned the entire visible perimeter, and saw that her initial guess had been correct. They were alone. But probably not for long.
She made her face go hard when she looked at the man again. “I’m not here to fuck around. I’m gonna ask you a couple quick questions and I want immediate, no-bullshit answers. Got it?”
The man nodded, didn’t say anything.
“What’s your name?”
“Ben.”
“Anyone else here, Ben?”
“Not just now. Wife’s gone into town. Errands. Reckon she’ll be gone a few hours.”
Jessica nodded. “Good. That’s real good to hear, Ben. I really don’t want to kill more innocent people than absolutely necessary. And if you cooperate, I won’t even have to kill you.”
Did his jaw tremble slightly at the statement?
She thought so.
And here was that strange, primal satisfaction again. Maybe she was a monster at heart. Like Hoke.
No.
Not like Hoke.
Never like Hoke. That animal. That fucking animal.
Jessica tightened her grip on the rifle.
Ben’s voice sounded strained as he said,“I…I certainly don’t want to die.”
“And I certainly don’t want to have to kill you.” Her voice sounded strange to her ears. Strained, in a different way, with tight, razor-wire tension. “But I will, Hoke. I fucking will, if you piss me off.”
Ben frowned.“Hoke?”
Fuck.
For a moment,she trembled on the edge of a meltdown. In that moment, surrender was possible. Defeat seemed inevitable. She’d been able to put aside thoughts of the rape for much of her desperate flight. But in that moment it all came back. In vivid, Sensurround memory. Hoke’s musk, that unwashed-man smell. The feel of his skin against her own as he thrust against her. The sweat beading on his brow. The way his mouth twisted, his handsome face becoming ugly.
She gave her head a hard shake and glared at Ben. “Never mind. I want the keys to that truck, Ben. Right now.”
Ben’s shoulders sagged. “I’ll give you the keys, ma’am, but they won’t do you no good.”
“Bullshit.”
Ben held up his hands, palms turned upward. “God’s honest truth. Truck don’t run.”
The words were a sharp knife slammed through the center of Jessica’s heart. She bit her lip to hold back a whimper. She fought hard to keep herself together. It wasn’t time to give up yet. He could be bluffing. “We’ll just have to see about that, Ben. Where are those keys?”
He nodded at the cabin’s closed front door. “Inside, hangin’ on a hook in the kitchen.”
Jessica moved back a step, made a gesture with the rifle. “Stand up. We’re going inside. I’ll follow with the rifle at your back. Any sudden moves, and I’ll put a round through your spine. Leave you paralyzed on the fucking floor. And you better believe I can do it. My daddy’s a hard-core military man. Taught me everything he knew about shooting, and that’s a lot.”
This was mostly bluster based on half truths. Her father had given her a gun, had even taught her the basics of shooting. He hadn’t, however, taught her any Special Forces stunt-shooting shit. But she figured what she’d said sounded badass enough to pull the wool over this simple hick’s eyes.
Ben got shakily to his feet, looking even more frightened now than he had in those first moments. “I ain’t no kind of threat to you, ma’am. I promise.”
Jessica made the gesture with the rifle again. “Get moving. Keep your hands where I can see them when we’re inside.”
Ben nodded and wiped moisture from his mouth with the back of a shaking hand. He opened the cabin’s front door and stepped inside. Jessica followed him into the cabin, keeping the rifle’s barrel aimed at the small of his back. She kicked the door shut behind her. She’d at least want the warning of the creaky door opening should someone else show up unannounced. Ben walked past the table and past the weathered-looking sofa, keeping his hands up as he headed toward a closed door in the room’s far-right corner.
“That the kitchen through there, Ben?”
He paused at the door, nodded.“Yes, ma’am.”
“Go slow.”
Another nod.“Yes’m.”
He reached for the knob, turned it slowly, and pushed the door open. Then he raised his hands again and stepped through into the
kitchen.
Jessica paused outside the door and watched him walk into the middle of the room, which looked to be about half the size of the sitting room. She saw a wood-burning stove and another table. Some cabinets and another door that led outside.
“Stop right there.”
Ben stopped, kept his hands held up.
Jessica stepped into the kitchen. She’d just moved past the door when she sensed the quick movement to her right. Someone had hidden behind the door as Ben opened it. She began to turn, but something heavy struck a glancing blow off the crown of her skull and sent her tumbling to the floor. Her vision blurred and pain lanced up her shoulder as her side crashed against the wooden planks. She rolled onto her back in a panic, fighting to clear her head even as someone snatched the rifle from her hands. She squeezed her eyes shut, hard, and when she opened them again, she saw two men standing above her. Ben, and a younger man who might have been his brother or cousin, the similarity was so striking.
Ben was holding the rifle.
The other man held a heavy black cooking pot.
They weren’t looking at her.
Probably thought she was down for the count.
Idiots.
Ben propped the rifle over his shoulder. “Took your goddamn time ‘bout comin’ to the rescue.”
The other man shrugged. “Hell, Ben. Didn’t know there was trouble till I heard the lady jawin’ in the sittin’ room.” He glanced at Jessica. She kept her eyes at half-mast, feigning semiconsciousness.“She’s an outsider.”
Ben laughed. “And here it is, the holiday feast comin’ up. It’s our lucky day.”
Feast?
What were these redneck assholes babbling about?
Hell, did it matter?
She brought her knees up to her chest and then shot her legs out, striking at the other man, who stood closest to her. Her feet smashed against one of his knees, eliciting a high yelp of surprised pain. The man dropped the pot and fell back through the open doorway. Jessica stayed in motion, sweeping Ben’s legs out from under him before he could get the rifle aimed at her. The rifle flew from his hands, struck the floor with a clatter. Jessica kept moving. A hot shot of adrenaline hit her veins with a cocainelike kick as she just kept on moving, sweeping up the rifle as she surged to her feet.
The man in the sitting room was starting to stand up.
Jessica aimed and fired.
The round took him in the temple. Blood and brains splashed the sitting-room table.
Almost calm now, Jessica stared down at Ben. He was shaking. He held his hands up, palms up. Beseeching her.
She sneered.“You lied.”
She reversed her grip on the rifle and knelt to smash the stock against his face. She heard a crackle of cartilage as his nose gave way. The crunch of his teeth as the rifle came down again. His mouth filled with blood. The rifle came down yet again.
Again.
Again.
Jessica stood up after he’d stopped breathing. She looked at the man in the sitting room. She looked at Ben. And she shook her head.“How many of you fuckers am I gonna have to kill today?”
She found the key ring on the hook Ben had described.
He hadn’t lied about everything.
She took a quick look around, thought for a flashing instant about searching the place.
No.
No time to fuck around.
She went out to the truck.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Abby wasn’t the sort to let her conscience bother her too awful much most times. Her first concern in all things was always herself. There were times when it was necessary to appear selfless, especially when it came to family matters, and so she was frequently forced to perform and behave in ways that went against her secret beliefs and desires. In earlier years, this hadn’t been much of a problem. She’d been so certain her life would unfold in a particular manner. Get knocked up soon after hitting her childbearing years. Have a baby. Get knocked up again. Repeat until she was too old and fat to do it anymore. Until, she thought with the usual pang, she’d become a new incarnation of her mother, a matriarch, head of the Maynard clan and heir to a legacy of truly storied proportions.
Abby grimaced.
Yeah. Queen Shit of Shit City.
It seemed so shabby a thing to have coveted now, but once upon a time she’d actually looked forward to assuming her mother’s role in the community. The Maynard name still meant something, even so many years after the arrest and subsequent electric-chair death of Evan Maynard, whose Prohibition-era trafficking of illegal hooch had netted the family a sizable fortune. Much of that money was still around, hidden in secret caches all over Hopkins Bend and the surrounding area. Including Dandridge, where no one went anymore. The location of some of those caches went to the grave with Evan, who’d personally executed seven men he’d suspected were federal-government informants.
Abby, however, knew the location of at least one of the caches. She thought of the money she’d seen and experienced the usual little shiver of greed mixed with a sense of creeping dread. She’d counted it once. More than fifty thousand dollars in tightly curled wads of very old currency. She’d discovered the jug by accident two or three summers back, happening across the sealed Mason jar while poking around in the cellar’s darkest corners during one of Ma’s absences. It’d been so tempting to take the money and run from Hopkins Bend. But fear and doubt kept her from acting on the impulse. The money was so old. And it was a bright, shiny new world out there. Things were done differently out there now. Those ancient bills would draw attention, maybe cause her all manner of unexpected difficulty.
So she’d stayed put.
And now here she was, taking a stroll through the woods in an effort to clear her head of mental clutter so she could think straight. To consider whether she was truly ready to betray her family in the most profound way possible. But the question of whether she could do this wasn’t what was nagging at her conscience.
No. Hell, no.
Instead, she felt bad about having lied to the dinner. She’d told it she would help it escape. And maybe she would. But maybe not. She’d conveyed a certainty she didn’t feel. She hadn’t made a final decision about what to do. But it didn’t need to know that yet.
Michelle, she thought.
Her name is Michelle Runyon.
A woman. A human being with a God-given name.
Not a thing.
So strange to think that way. Abby had participated in every holiday feast for as long as she could remember. She’d always done her part, without hesitation and without squeamishness. And why not? It was just the way things were in Hopkins Bend. The way they’d always been. Growing up immersed in the traditions,you learned to think of the outsiders as nonhuman. As disposable. And, yes, as things. It wasn’t too hard to pinpoint exactly when her thinking in this regard had begun to change. She guessed it had started last summer, with that boy, one of the Maynards’ three contributions to that year’s feast. The others had been his parents. The deaths of the adults failed to move her. But the boy was different. The Maynards had never taken one so young. He had only been twelve. She knew this because the boy’s mother had screamed the words over and over in the last moments before Carol Maynard slit her throat: He’s only twelve! He’s only twelve!
But Ma was unmoved.
She slit the boy’s belly open with a large carving knife as he bucked in his chains and unleashed the high, shrill scream that haunted Abby’s nightmares for months.
So, yes.
It had probably started then.
Abby shivered and shunted the uncomfortable memories aside as her thoughts returned to the matter of Michelle Runyon. It wasn’t hard to figure why she was entertaining thoughts of escaping Hopkins Bend with the woman. She was beautiful and fiercely intelligent. She projected an amazing strength, even gagged and chained to the rafter. Had this quality been absent, Abby might well have resigned herself to nothing more than deriving some small pleasure
from molesting the woman. She’d always gotten a kick out of that. Doing things to them when they were powerless to stop her. She’d reveled in the way the warm human flesh trembled beneath her touch. But with Michelle it was different. She wanted something more. A special kind of intimacy. A wrong kind, by the local standards. And so now she wondered what Michelle thought of her.
Abby snorted.
She kicked a rock and sent it skidding into a bush.
You know what she thinks.
And she guessed that was true enough. She didn’t doubt that Michelle saw her as a monster. After all, she’d experienced the brunt of Abby’s always-boiling inner rage on more than one occasion. She could only hope her long, soul-baring recitation of the facts of her life could begin to turn the woman’s opinion of her around. She remembered how some of the hardness had drained from Michelle’s face as she’d listened to her story. And maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she felt she’d detected a glint of something like pity in her eyes toward the end. She didn’t doubt the woman now felt at least some sympathy for Abby, knowing the things she’d endured in her life. What she didn’t know was whether that sympathy would translate into a true willingness to help her transition into a new kind of life somewhere else. Michelle had pledged to do this. But it could be the woman was lying. Someone in her position might say anything, promise anything, to get out of that position.
She’d been walking for a while, long enough for the sun to have begun its long descent toward the horizon. She glanced up through the trees. It was still bright out. Would still be bright for another hour or two. She stopped and turned around, standing still for a moment. She looked at the trees around her. Scanned the undergrowth. It would all look the same to an outsider, an unchanging landscape of typical Southern wilderness. But Abby knew these woods intimately. She could tell her approximate location and distance from home with nothing more than a glance at a familiar grouping of trees. Right now she reckoned she’d come almost a mile from the main Maynard cabin. As she stood there, she heard a distant crack of a rifle. It did not concern her. The hunters in this area were skilled and careful. She considered heading in the direction of the gunshot to see who was doing the shooting. It had to be one of the Crawford men, coming from that way. Could even be Mitch Crawford. She’d fucked Mitch a time or two. Maybe he’d be up for some action now. That could be just what she needed. A good, aggressive outdoor fuck. It would clear her mind, maybe be the thing to give her the courage to run or get these crazy ideas out of her head once and for all.