by Bryan Smith
Justine brought the chain saw down to a low rev and then shut it off. Pete’s ears buzzed in the relative silence. He heard nothing at first. Then identifiable sounds seeped back in. The sex noises from the videotape. The rapid, panting breaths of the terrified Prestons. And Justine’s mad, mocking laughter.
Gil scowled at her.“How did you assholes get out?”
Justine laughed some more. “You can blame your brother, Gil. Horny bastard got all worked up watching me screw my man and decided he’d help himself to some pussy. Got sloppy and got himself killed in the process.”
A sudden wail of grief pealed out of Ma’s lungs. “No! Not my Johnny! He can’t be dead!”
Justine snickered.“Oh, but he is. My man here choked him to death.”
Ma’s head snapped toward Pete. Her eyes narrowed to murderous slits, and she rose from the recliner again. “You son of a bitch. I’ll kill you.”
Pete pointed the gun at her chest.“No. You won’t. And sit back down, or I’ll be the one doing the killing.”
Ma sneered. “Shit. You’re just gonna kill us anyways. May as well try and get at ya.”
“Take a run at him and he’ll shoot your knees out first. Then we’ll just hang out and listen to you scream and roll around on the floor for a while. How’s that sound, bitch?”
Ma looked at Justine. She was still sneering. “Neither of you pieces of shit got the balls for that kind of action. Don’t make me laugh, ya cunt.”
Justine just smiled. “Oh?” She looked at Pete and winked. “Shoot her, baby. Shoulder or kneecap, it’s your choice.”
Pete just stared at the wrinkled hag.“Um…what?”
Ma snorted.“What did I tell ya?”
She came at Pete.
His hands flipped up and he squeezed the trigger. The round clipped her in the shoulder and sent her spinning to the floor, where she landed screaming in a heap of crumpled beer cans.
“Ma!”
Gil heaved himself out of the recliner and Pete swung the gun back toward him. “Stay right there or I put one through your big belly.”
Gil stood frozen where he was, belly heaving as anxiety sent a flush of red into his mottled features. He looked at his mother, and his eyes became more expressive than usual. He looked scared and worried. He wanted to help her, but didn’t dare move. Ah, a son’s love. Such a beautiful thing. The callous turn of his thoughts surprised Pete. He wasn’t this kind of person. Or at least he’d never thought he was. But here he was, laughing inwardly at another person’s pain. What kind of person was he becoming? These people had wronged him in a big way. He was a victim exacting vengeance. He had every right to laugh as these monsters received their comeuppance.
Didn’t he?
He thought so, but a bit of lingering doubt still gnawed at him.
“Here’s what happens now.” Justine’s tone was in stark contrast to his inner voice. The mirth was gone. Her voice was flat, pitiless. “We’re going up into the kitchen. Gil, you’re walking ahead of me. Slowly. You do as I say every step of the way, or Pete puts some more bullets in your mother. Understand?”
Gil’s throat distended as he swallowed with great difficulty, but he at last managed a nod. “Okay. Please don’t hurt her no more.”
Ma continued to wail and roll about on the floor. She extended a hand toward her son. “Baby, don’t go. Don’t listen…oh, help me, Jesus…don’t listen…to her.”
Gil wiped a tear from his eye.“It’ll be okay, Ma.”
Pete moved a few steps back as the big man walked past her and headed toward the kitchen. He breathed heavily as he trudged up the steps. Justine followed him, glancing back at Pete long enough to say, “Keep an eye on her. I’ll call for you in a minute.”
Pete nodded.
Justine followed Gil up the stairs.
Pete looked at the wounded woman and felt the first small twinge of pity. Her face was twisted in anguish and pain. She kept clutching at her bloody shoulder and writhing amid the crumpled cans, moaning and sobbing the whole time. He’d never seen anything so pathetic. And he’d made it happen. He heard voices in the kitchen. Or beyond the kitchen. They seemed farther away than that. It was Justine giving orders and Gil protesting. But the actual meaning of the words eluded him as he continued to stare at the wounded, pitiful creature on the floor. Then he heard a scrape of wood across floor tiles. And after that a similar sound. Pete frowned.
What are they doing?
Then he remembered the tables he’d seen in the dining area. He moved a few feet to the left and then had a clear sight line through the kitchen to the dining space. The round dining table had been moved out of the way, and in its place was the rectangular metal table. Justine was giving Gil a wide berth as they argued, standing with her back against the kitchen counter while he stood near the metal table. She was right to be wary of him. He was several times her size and would overpower her easily if he got close enough to her. And the man looked agitated. His face had turned a bright shade of red again. Pete wished he’d paid attention to what they were saying moments ago.
Gil took a lumbering step in Justine’s direction. Pete saw her shoulders tense. Gil jabbed a thick forefinger at her. “I ain’t doin’ it! Matter of fact, I’m thinkin’ I’ll take that toy out of your hands and put you up there, bitch.”
Pete stepped close to Ma Preston and pointed the gun down at her head. He pitched his voice loud enough to divert Gil’s attention from Justine. “Do what she says, you redneck sack of shit, or I’ll put a bullet through your mother’s ugly fucking face.”
Gil looked at him. His eyes were thin slits. His jowls quivered and his belly heaved. His meaty fists clenched and unclenched. He looked as if he wanted to tear something apart. Then his expression shifted. His eyes opened wider and his scowl became a leering grin.“You ain’t gonna do shit, city boy. Same way you didn’t do shit when I shoved my hog up your tight little asshole.” He licked his lips and made a grunting sound. “Bet that was because you liked it. Ain’t that right, faggot? You loved it when ol’ Gil was puttin’ to ya. Reckon I’ll tear off another piece of that ass after I take my McCulloch back from this skanky whore.”
It took Pete a moment to realize his whole body was shaking. His teeth ground together as an ache flared behind his eyes. The gun felt loose in his sweaty palm and he curled his fingers tighter around it. He looked at Gil’s leering face a moment longer and felt something break inside him. A fury like nothing he’d ever felt gripped him as a roar tore out of his throat. He knelt and seized a handful of Ma Preston’s greasy hair. Then he hauled her screaming to her feet and pushed her ahead of him. The woman stumbled, and her creaky old knees banged against the carpeted floor. Pete again grabbed her hair and hauled her carelessly back to her feet. She howled in agony as he shoved her up the stairs to the kitchen. He kept one hand wound around the length of greasy hair as he steered her through the kitchen and past Justine into the dining space. He yanked her to a stop and put the gun to her temple some six feet away from Gil.
“I don’t want to hear any more bullshit from you, Gil. You’re a worthless fucking rapist, and you’ve got no right to run your inbred mouth at your betters. Do what Justine told you to do, right now, or your mother is dead. And before her body hits the floor I’ll put every last bullet in this gun through your belly. You think I don’t have it in me, Gil?”A vicious grin twisted his face and his eyes blazed. “Try me. Open your mouth one more time and find out.”
The leering quality seeped out of Gil’s expression. In its place was more of the gratifying fear Pete had glimpsed before. Only now it was a deeper, intensified fear. It was pure terror, and it was a beautiful thing to see. Pete’s heart felt as if it were going a million miles per hour. He had never been a violent man. Had only been in a handful of minor scuffles in his youth. Nothing serious. But now he felt ready to do violence. More than that. He wanted to do violence. He wanted to cause pain, and a lot of it. And he knew Gil could see that. It was evident in his expression,
which had become the hollow and haunted look of a doomed man.
Gil’s shoulders sagged.
The fight had gone out of him.
He turned away from them and climbed onto the metal table with weary resignation. Until that moment Pete had not known the reason for Gil’s defiance, but now he understood. The table creaked beneath his bulk, but it was sturdy and did not bend. The big man sprawled flat on his back and stared up at the dirty ceiling. Silent tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. Pete felt no pity. Instead, excitement built within him as Justine set the McCulloch on the floor and approached the table. She stretched his arms and legs to the corners and wrapped the hook-mounted leather straps around his ankles and arms, cinching them off in tight knots.
She retrieved the chain saw from the floor and approached the table.
Ma Preston wailed. “Don’t hurt my baby! Please…oh, please…”
Pete let go of her hair and slammed the butt of the revolver against the crown of her skull. She toppled and her knees loudly smacked the floor tiles. Justine glanced back at him, an implied question conveyed in the set of her eyes.
Pete said,“Hold on. Don’t do it yet.”
He walked over to the kitchen counter and set the gun down. He pulled a large carving knife from a wooden block and returned to where Ma sat sobbing on the floor. He pushed her face down to the floor and pinned her there with a knee to the small of her back. Then he wound a hand in her hair and pulled her head back.
Gil flailed uselessly against his bonds. “What are you doing to my mama?”
Pete’s laughter was harsh and ugly. “I’m scalping her, Gil.”
He put the sharp side of the blade against her forehead just below the hairline and began to saw. Blood erupted from the gash and spread in a red flood across the white floor. She thrashed beneath him, but was too weak to dislodge him. He was bigger and stronger than she was anyway, but the large amount of alcohol still flowing through her system probably wasn’t helping her any. Nor was the blood loss she’d already sustained from the wound to her shoulder. But she still had enough strength to thrash and cry. She was crying and Pete was laughing and Gil was screaming and Justine was giggling like a schoolgirl, and it was all wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. He sawed and sawed, working the blade back and forth across her forehead as he tugged at her hair with his other hand. The skin began to peel away in front, and he worked the blade up inside the widening gash, cutting and sawing as the blood continued to flow. The skin peeled away from the top of her head, and he severed the scalp with a few last vicious slashes of the knife. Then he stood and held the bloody, dripping scalp aloft. He felt like a primitive. Like a caveman. A barbarian on an ancient battlefield. He looked down and saw the bloody dome atop Ma’s head and laughed again.
He felt glorious.
Gil stopped screaming and started crying nonstop.
Pete walked over to the table and stared down at Gil’s shiny, blubbery face. “I’ve been thinking you need a makeover, Gil. Your whole look screams ‘repressed backwoods cracker.’ Well, I’m here to liberate you from that, motherfucker.” He pried the ball cap off the man’s head and tossed it aside. “We’ll start with the hair and move on from there to some anesthesia-free liposuction. How’s that sound, Gil?”
He pressed Ma Preston’s bloody scalp against the top of Gil’s head and worked to fit the dead flesh around the shape of his skull. He straightened the gray hair with his bloody fingers so that it brushed Gil’s shoulders. Then he stepped back and clapped his hands in mock approval. “There! Ever so much better. Wouldn’t you agree, Justine?”
Justine arched a brow.“And you called me a psycho.”
Pete picked up the chain saw. “You mind if I take care of this?”
Justine smiled and shook her head. “Be my guest. I’ll have some fun with Ma. She’s still with us, believe it or not.”
Pete glanced at the scalped woman. She was still on the floor and clearly not about to move, but she was alive. Her eyes were open and staring at him. There was nothing but hate in those eyes. Pete welcomed the hate. Reveled in it. There was nothing she or anyone could do to him now or ever again.
He looked at Justine and said, “Make it last as long as you can.”
Justine smiled again.“Of course.”
Pete started the chain saw and approached the table. Gil’s terrified gaze was glued to the spinning blade. He was saying something, his lips moving rapidly. Pete realized he didn’t need to hear it. It was a prayer for forgiveness and mercy. Well, maybe God would have some mercy for this piece of shit.
But he would not.
He lowered the blade and let it bite through the man’s overalls and then into his belly. Gil’s screams then were audible over the whine of the chain saw as he bucked on the table. All his struggles accomplished was to sink the blade deeper into his body. Blood and slimy bits of viscera spewed from the hole in Gil’s belly and sprayed Pete’s face and the surrounding walls. The blade chewed and chugged and spat flesh. Pete looked at the man’s face and saw features twisted with agony. But he remembered Justine’s story of her boyfriend’s murder and felt not an ounce of compassion. The dirty deed had probably been committed on this very table.
He pulled the chain-saw blade out of Gil’s belly and shifted his position to aim the whirring blade at the man’s crotch. He grinned.“Come on, Gil. You had to see this one coming.”
He sniffed the air and smelled something burning as the blade messily castrated Gil Preston. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Justine had something frying in a pan on the stove. He frowned and glanced down at Ma Preston. The frown became a smile. Justine had cut a big strip of flesh from her thigh. The woman was unconscious, but he could see she was still shallowly breathing. Justine used a spatula to flip something over in the pan. He caught a glimpse of tattooed flesh turning brown.
And he laughed again.
Cannibalism. Why not?
It made a twisted kind of perfect sense to eat the cannibals.
He shifted his attention back to Gil and resumed his act of butchery.
It went on for a long time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
They had been walking in silence through the dark woods for a while. Abby led the way. She knew the woods well and negotiated them with ease even in the scant moonlight filtering through the treetops. Michelle stumbled on several occasions and clutched at Abby’s arm to keep from falling, but mostly she kept her distance. Abby guessed it was because she’d spent so much time chained up. Who wouldn’t be reluctant to surrender newly regained independence after something like that?
Michelle stumbled yet another time and clutched at her shoulder again. This time she didn’t let go right away. “Fuck! Why you people would choose to live out in the fucking wild is a total mystery to me. I get enough exposure to nature watching fucking Animal Planet.”
Abby didn’t know what Animal Planet was, but didn’t say anything lest she come across as even more unworldly than she already seemed. She groped for the other woman’s clutching hand, found it, and laced fingers with her. “Here. Just hold on. Don’t want ya fallin’ and breakin’ your neck.”
Michelle tensed, but she didn’t try to pull away this time.“Yeah, that’d fucking suck after getting out of that dungeon. We almost there yet?”
Abby squeezed her hand. It was nice to be touching her again.“Almost.”
They continued in silence a while longer until Michelle said,“Abby?”
“Yes?”
Michelle looked at her. Her eyes twinkled in the moonlight as they moved through a break in the tree cover. She pursed her lips. They looked lush and inviting. Abby remembered how hot and sweet they’d felt on her mouth. She held her breath, hoping Michelle was about to kiss her again.
But she didn’t. “That stuff you told me about the holiday. The annual offerings to ward off the Garner Blight. Were your people really planning to…cook and…eat…me?”
Abby’s nose wrinkled. She didn’t want to tal
k about this. As far as she was concerned, it was part of her past now, something she was leaving behind forever. But she couldn’t just ignore Michelle’s question. She looked at her and said,“Yes.”
Michelle frowned and stopped in the patch of moonlight. “And this is something that happens every year?”
Abby stopped with her and turned toward her.“Every summer. Yes.”
“And you’ve participated? You’ve…eaten people? Outsiders?”
Abby looked away from her.“It’s the way of things here. We’re raised in it. I never knew no better. But now…”She looked at Michelle and her eyes were bright with tears. “Now I know it was wrong.”
Michelle’s expression was blank. “You’ve seen the light.”
Abby swallowed.“Yeah. Somethin’ like that. Thanks to you.”
Michelle stared at her for a long, silent interval. Then a small smile tilted the corners of her mouth. She squeezed Abby’s hand. “I know this is a brave thing you’re doing, Abby. I really do.” She leaned in quick and kissed Abby lightly on the mouth. “You’ve been waiting for that, haven’t you?”
Abby felt her face flush in the darkness.“Yes.”
Abby leaned in for another kiss, but Michelle let go of her hand and pulled away from her.“There’ll be time for that later, Abby. How far are we from the Colliers’?”
Abby put a lid on her frustration and took a quick look around to get her bearings. In a moment she smiled and looked at Michelle.“Hell, we’re practically there.”
She turned away from her and strode quickly out of the patch of moonlight into a deep darkness. Michelle let out a startled cry and hurried after her. Abby smiled at the sound of distress. That’s what you get for teasing me. Michelle caught up to her and clutched at her arm as they moved through a thicker grouping of trees. This time she didn’t let go until they moved out of the darkness to stand at the edge of the clearing where the Colliers’ cabin stood.
The Collier place was smaller by half than the main Maynard cabin and was several times more advanced in its decrepitude. The scrubby yard surrounding the cabin was littered with junk. There were tires and rusted pieces of old cars. The Plymouth Abby had told Michelle about was parked alongside the front porch. It looked intact. A small shack stood near the cabin. Once upon a time the shack had functioned as a primitive barn. There was a feeding trough near it, but any livestock once owned by the Colliers was long gone.