by Jay Nichols
* * *
But why do I want to win? Shouldn’t I be more concerned about getting out of here alive? What’s the point of stooping to his level? I don’t play games. I don’t compete. Never have.
[But this game you will play.]
I thought I told you to go away, traitor.
[I’ll be here when you need me.]
That won’t be necessary. I’ve got this under control. Finally.
Mike lingered at the foot of the hallway. Behind him, the door to the piano room stood wide open. Russell looked through the wires of the taught, stretched compound bow to the old baby grand Steinway beyond. Even now, with a sharp projectile aimed at his face, he yearned to run his fingers over that yellow and black scale.
He deserves to die just for the egregious way he treated Debbie’s piano. Hector calls it a pie-ann-uh, but that’s because he’s a hick. Then again, so is the kid who stained those ivory keys. But what was that hick doing when I peeked in on him, oh, I don’t know how many hours ago? He was playing the damn thing. Well, playing isn’t the right word. Making noise is more like it. But he was trying to make music. He was trying to cop my style, too. The long glissandos, the fast bass runs: he wishes he were me.
Russell pointed at the instrument. "Why’d you do it?"
"Do what?" Mike said, his skeletal form guarding the entrance to the hall.
"You know what I’m talking about. Why did you break in? Was it the pie or the piano? Or was it both?"
Mike lowered his head but kept his eyes fixed on his opponent.
"You don’t know anything about me."
"I know that you broke into this house when nobody was home, ate a pie, then played Debbie’s piano with your messy hands."
"I didn’t break in. I came in."
"So Hector’s mom left the door unlocked?"
"What are you talking about?"
"After she left, she left the door unlocked."
A smile crept over O’Brien’s face. Deep inside Russell’s body, the familiar terror avalanche squeezed his organs, suffocating him slowly in an anaconda’s hug.
Mike darted his eyes back and forth, then locked them in on Russell’s. "She never left," he said, his voice dipping to a tittered whisper. "I killed her." His stained, purple hand rose to his mouth to suppress an errant giggle.
"You’re a terrible liar," Russell said. He struggled to keep his legs rigid. When he realized he was about to lose control of them, he sat on end table. His voice shook when he spoke, but he didn’t care. "You couldn’t kill a housefly."
"Oh, you don’t think so? I’ve killed lots of things. I’m a hunter now. I’ve changed. I’m better and stronger than you’ll ever be, so you can just suck it!"
"Debbie’s out with Hector. How much you wanna bet? They probably went to get ice cream or something."
"You don’t really believe that, do you? You see, that’s why I called you a liar earlier. You ignore reality and only tell yourself what you want to hear. Do you know how late it is? Why would Hector’s mom be out with Hector this late at night?"
"She’s out looking for you because you killed Lola!"
"You killed Lola!" O’Brien shouted. "You chopped her head off then tossed her collar in the woods. Remember? You’re the killer—and so am I! But at least I had to kill Hector’s mom. She was screaming and would’ve ruined my plans if she didn’t stop. I only did what I had to."
"You’re too weak to kill," Russell said. He was grasping at straws, delaying the inevitable, foolhardily reasoning that the longer he kept Mike engaged in conversation, the better his chances were of getting through the night alive.
"I’m a man. What are you?"
Russell spat across the room. The white globule came nowhere close to hitting Mike.
"You know what I am. Don’t ever ask me that again."
"You look so mad, Rusty. All I did was ask a simple question, and you couldn’t answer it. What’s the matter? Am I confusing you?"
"You couldn’t confuse anyone. You’re not a man, and you’re not a killer. You’re a scared little kid on a power trip. You have rabies. Those are dog bites up and down your legs and feet, and in case you’ve been living in a hole the past three weeks—and judging by how filthy you are, it’s a distinct possibility—you should probably be aware that there’s a rabies scare going on. At least one person has died so far, and she got off lucky. Do you know what rabies does to your brain, Mike? It makes it swell up like a water balloon, but the skull doesn’t expand to accommodate it. In the end, there’s so much pressure built up inside your head, you begin seeing and hearing things that aren’t there. And while that’s happening, you’re in the most excruciating agony known to man. Then you die. Rabies is always fatal. You’re going to die tonight, Mike."
Mike laughed. "I’m not going to die—ever—and I don’t have rabies. Only that raccoon and Lola had it. Jesus, Rusty, what you don’t know…"
Russell scooted off the table and stepped forward. "What?! What don’t I know? I know way more than you’ll ever know! You don’t know shit!"
"That temper, Rusty. It’s frustrating, isn’t it—me having something over you?"
"You don’t have shit over me. You’re not clever and you’re not smart. You can’t outfox me, because I’m always one step ahead of you."
"No, you’re not. You couldn’t tell me how I got you to come here. That proves I’m smarter than you."
Russell ignored him. "And you’re jealous. Of how I am. You see my talents and the apparent ease in which I stumble through life, and you’re envious. But what you never see—what you never get to be envious of, or would ever wish to be envious of—is the downside to it all: the loneliness, the depression, the isolation. You’re never there to witness the despair that comes from knowing my sole lot in life is to be a human jukebox for others to tinker with. ‘Play this song, Rusty. No, play that one.’ People know who I am. I catch them glancing at me out of the corners of their eyes—at school, on the street, everywhere. To them, I’m a freak like you—something to stare at, to talk about when I’m not around—the only difference being that people actually expect things out of me. You see, you don’t have any expectations to live up to. People never ask you, ‘Hey, Mike. Do that crabwalk again.’ or ‘Hey, O’Brien, how about a verse of When Johnny Comes Marching Home?’ You don’t realize how easy you’ve got it."
"I already told you I’m not jealous."
"But you are. You wish you were me. You wish you had mastery over something as meaningless, and as powerful, as the piano. I heard you playing from the front yard. You were copping my style. The glissandos, the trills—I know exactly what you were doing. Tell me, Mike: Where do you go in your head when you play?"
With faraway eyes, Mike said, "Pretty places."
"So do I," Russell said, walking across the carpet. "Don’t you get it? Don’t you see? When you’ve got that, what’s the point in trying to be better than anybody else? So few people have that ability—that ability to transcend reality and enter a world where time ceases and only beauty exists. You can’t find that in the so-called ‘real world’ where people are constantly climbing over each other to prove who’s ‘better’ and ‘stronger.’ I reject that reality. I hate the ‘real world.’ Give me the world of creation any day, because I’ll take it. I’ll sink my teeth into its flesh and suck on its eternal juices forever. There’s a sustenance there that you can’t find in this world of form and time."
Russell was less than three feet from O’Brien now. The rank odors emanating off of Mike’s body made Russell’s eyes water, but he abstained from making a face. He looked down the short, dark hallway. All four doors were closed, except the one closest to him, the one that contained the instrument. That one was open and had a small electric sun blazing inside a glass dome. The light it cast upon the Pre-War Steinway made her brown curves seem almost human, almost feminine. How Russell yearned to reach out and dance his fingers across her eighty-eight teeth and bask in her rich, full tone. If giv
en the chance, he’d even look past the purple stains, for they only marred the outer surface. The true magic and beauty lay within.
"Can I play it?" Russell asked.
O’Brien turned to look at the piano.
Grab it! Russell’s mind screamed. Rip it from his hands before he turns back around!
Before he could find the nerve, Mike was facing him again.
I blew it! I had my chance and I fuckin’ blew it!!!!
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Mike asked, raising the bow.
"I just wanted to play it one last time before you killed me."
"Too bad. Now back up." He prodded the tip of the arrow into Russell’s chest. "I don’t like you standing so close to me."
Russell retreated to the center of the room. "You’re cruel."
Mike rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I know. I’m the meanest person in the whole wide world."
"Why are you acting like this? What’s the point?"
"STOP TALKING TO ME!!!!"
[Jab him, Rusty. Sting him!]
"What else am I supposed to do? Sit here and take your shit?"
"Say ‘poop.’ It’s called poop, not shit."
"You’re such a kid, Mike."
"I’M A MAN!!!!"
"Men don’t say ‘poop.’ They say ‘shit.’"
"SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!!!"
"Why are you yelling?"
"Because you’re making me yell!"
"I’m not making you do anything. You’re the one with the weapon. Not me."
"You’re hurting me. Words can hurt too, you know."
Russell stepped closer. "Not as much as arrows. Why are you doing this?"
O’Brien pulled on the draw, "Stay back. I’ll shoot you."
"Won’t that ruin your plan?"
"I’ll shoot you so you’ll live"
"Why do you want to kill me?"
"Because I have to."
"Says who?"
"No one. I just know."
Russell raised his hands. "Fine, then. Shoot me now. I want to die. Relieve me from your craziness."
"I’M NOT CRAZY!"
"Well, you’re sure acting like a crazy person."
"I hate you so much. You’re a meanie!"
"What’s next? Poopy-head?"
"POOPY-HEAD!"
Russell laughed, which caused Mike’s ire to rise even more.
"What’s so funny?! Why are you laughing at me?"
"Because you’re confused. You want so desperately to be a man, but you’ve got the mind and vocabulary of a second grader."
"I am a man."
"So I hear."
“Why don’t you take anything serious? You should be crying."
"Do you want me to cry?"
"Yes."
"Why should I cry when you’re already crying?"
"I’m not crying."
"Check your eyes."
O’Brien eased the tension on the bow and swiped his eyes with the back of his hand. When he saw the wet, greasy smears on his knuckles, he jerked his head up, quickly put Russell in his sights, and pulled fully on the bow string.
"How’d you do it?" he asked, sniffling.
"Do what?"
"Make me cry."
"If I can do it through music, why not through words?"
"It’s not supposed to work that way."
"Why? Because it’s illogical?"
"Yes."
Russell folded his arms across his chest. "When you’ve been dipping your soul into the waters of creativity for as long as I have, Mike, casting aside logic becomes second nature. Logic is the artist’s worst enemy. There’s no logical reason to why I’ve dedicated the majority of my life to making organized noise for myself and others to enjoy. Logic tells me it’s a waste of time. Logic tells me to study for the SAT’s, so I can get a high score, get accepted into a good college, graduate, land a dull, pointless job, marry a dull, ambitionless wife, make a shitload of money, raise a couple of characterless children, then die of old age. That’s what logic wants of me. Do you know what logic does to you? It makes you take the tried and true route in life. There are no surprises down the logical path—there’s no inspiration, either. All of those sheep you see at school, and all of those sheep you see walking the streets—they’re the products of logic. None of them are great, and none of them will ever be great. They’re like cows: they follow the herd, they see in black and white, and they dream colorless dreams."
"I’m logical. Are you calling me a cow?"
Russell shook his head. The kid wasn’t getting it at all. "Sure, Mike. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m calling you a cow."
"I’m a man."
"I KNOW," Russell yelled.
"I thought men were supposed to be logical?"
"Logic is for losers. Men and women both."
"How can you say that? Logic is what makes us human."
"No, Mike. Logic, pragmatism, all left brain thought: those are things that make us slaves."
"I don’t believe you."
"Fine," Russell said hopelessly. "I don’t care."
"Why don’t you care?"
God help me. I’m talking to a six-year-old.
"Because, Mike, if you don’t get it now—if you can’t understand at seventeen—you’re never going to get it."
"But I want to get it. I want to think like you do."
Russell snorted. "Too bad. You’ve already joined the herd. There was a time, though—back when you walked around on your hands and feet and sang to dogs—when you could have been great. But you blew it. You chose to grow up, whatever that means."
"No. I’m still a kid."
Russell stared at him. Plastered over Mike’s greasy face was the old, goofy smile, the one that was endearing (not sarcastic and caustic like the new one), and, for a brief moment, Mike was Mike again: innocent, puppy-like, and only slightly deranged.
"I thought you were a man," Russell said. "Isn’t that what you’ve told me a million times tonight?" He puffed his chest out and mimicked, "‘I’m a man!’"
Mike’s face sank. "Why are you making fun of me again?"
"Why are you trying to trick me? I told you earlier that you looked the same—that you were the same—but I guess I was wrong. You are different. You have changed. You’re a man, like you said. I should probably apologize. I’m sorry, Mike. I’m so sorry for ever doubting your manliness."
"No," Mike pleaded, "I’m not a man. I’m like you. I’m a musician. You heard me playing the pie-ann-uh. I’m good; I have talent. I just need more practice. Then I’ll be great!"
"Sorry, Mike. Greatness passed you by. You could have reached out and grabbed it, but you didn’t even notice it fluttering past your arms. It happens to a lot of people when they reach a certain age."
"I can still be good. Right? There’s goodness out there, too."
"Nope—only greatness and shittiness. You only get one or the other."
"Why?" O’Brien whined.
"Why what?"
"Why’s life so unfair?"
"I don’t know. Why?"
Mike flustered. "It’s not a joke. It’s a question."
Russell sat on the splintered coffee table and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I wouldn’t even know how to explain it to you in a way you’d understand. Figure it out yourself."
"No. Tell me," Mike begged.
"Nope. Won’t do it."
"Why not?" O’Brien complained.
"Because you’re acting like a dipshit."
"How?"
It pained him to admit it, but if Russell wanted to regain control, he had to say it. "By treating me the same way I treated you. By answering my questions with questions, by trying to put me on the defensive."
"Am I?"
"Yes. You are."
"You don’t know everything, Rusty."
"I know when my chain is being yanked."
"I’m so much more cleverer and smarter than you are. My plan is working so well
. I got you here, and when Hector gets back, you’re going to get an arrow right through the heart like that lady who screamed at me. Or maybe I’ll shoot you in the forehead like the girl."
Russell shot to his feet. "What girl?"
"Your girlfriend. The one you and Hector shared."
"You didn’t…"
Mike smiled. "I did. Right through the forehead."
"You’re a liar."
"They’re in the bedroom. Go see for yourself."
"Liar!"
"Do you want me to go get them?"
"There’s no need to because you’re lying. I see right through you, O’Brien."
"You don’t see shit. You’re blind to everything. You don’t even see what I’ve become. But you will later."
"I see too much. But I’ll tell you what I won’t see. I won’t see any dead bodies. You’re bluffing. You’re just trying to piss me off."
"Go to the bedroom," Mike said, motioning to the hallway. "Second door to your right."
"Michelle’s at home, and Debbie’s out with Hector."
"Ahhh, Michelle—that’s her name. I always forget. Who cares, though. Just another dead bitch."
"You think you’re riling me up, but you’re not. All you’re doing is wasting your time."
"Well," Mike said. "I guess it’s my time to waste."
"You’re right. These are the last moments of your life. Might as well enjoy them. Because when Hector gets back, he’s going to kill you."
"Same old Rusty: talkin’ in circles, getting nowhere. You’ve got a pussy’s outlook on life. You know that? Always counting on somebody else to do your dirty work for you. First, it was Pete. Now, it’s Hector. Don’t look all shocked. I saw what you and Pete were doing that day when ya’ll were watchin’ me and my friends play in our play-field. Ya’ll were both trying to kill me—with this bow! I saw you whisperin’ in Pete’s ear, telling him secrets about me. You tried to kill me first, but like everything else you do, you chickened out at the last second. You’re just one big scaredy cat."
"I should have let him do it. Look at what you’ve become."
"I’ve become a man."
“You’ve become a monster. And you only got to turn into one because of my mercy."
"Pete would have missed anyway. He was never man enough to work this thing. This is a man’s tool."
"It was his. You stole it from his garage after he died. And you’re wrong. He would’ve hit you right between the eyes. You would have died instantly."
Mike’s demeanor changed then. His face took on the expression of someone who has just made a life-altering decision. The shift chilled Russell to the core.
What’s going on? What’s he about to do?
"You wanted to kill me?" O’Brien asked, gazing past Russell, at Huey’s butt. "Why?"
Russell was flummoxed, struck down, at a loss for words, because the question was that good. He didn’t know then, and he didn’t know now. There had just been an odd feeling in the air at the time, a staticky feeling of potentiality and alignment that hadn’t been there when he’d scoped out the field an hour earlier. He and Pete should have become killers that day, but they didn’t. Now Pete was dead and Russell was left to answer the unstable lunatic standing before him.
"You went crazy. I…I saw you running through the grass like a crazy person and knew that you had to die—that you were supposed to die."
"What did I ever do to you?!" Mike said, his face flushing, his arms trembling under the strain of the draw.
"You became wild. You weren’t human anymore. Hell, I don’t know what I was thinking. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time."
"Now do you see why I have to kill you?"
Russell pleaded, "But I didn’t kill you. I let you live. You can do the same to me."
"I won’t."
"Why?"
"Because of what you are. You’re my enemy."
"Why am I your enemy? Because I didn’t kill you? Because I took mercy?"
"No, because you couldn’t cope with what I’d become, what all normal people eventually become. You saw a man running through that field, and you’re so scared of change, you’d rather kill what you can’t accept than see it for its true nature."
"And what is your true nature, Mike? You’re in limbo. You’re neither man nor child. You’re a freak."
"You’re the freak, Rusty. You’re the one who can’t see things the way they really are. You only see things how you want to see them. That fantasy world you were talking about earlier, the one where logic doesn’t exist—it’s just a made up place. There’s only one world. Make believe is for pussies who can’t face reality."
"I know more about reality than you’ve ever dreamed of. I know how to shape it; I know how to escape it."
"How? By playing your pie-ann-uh?"
"That’s part of it."
"What’s the other part?"
Russell dodged the question and began a new tack. "You would have sucked anyway. Your fingers are too short."
Mike recoiled as if taking a punch to the face. "What are you talking about?"
"The piano." Russell pointed at it. "You would have sucked. Probably worse than Hector."
"Shut up and answer my question."
"What question?"
"How do you change reality?"
"Do you really want to know, Mike?"
"Yes."
Russell dove deep into O’Brien’s eyes and said, "I change it every day by being who I am at all costs, by refusing to compromise my integrity for anyone—my parents, my teachers, my friends. Even you."
"That ain’t nothin’."
"No, Mike, that’s everything. I’m the thorn in your paw and the itch you can’t reach. I don’t go away and I don’t change. I know exactly who I am, and the Rusty you see now is pretty much the same Rusty that existed ten years ago. I’ve matured physically, but not emotionally or intellectually—because there was no need to. The person you’re threatening to kill doesn’t kowtow to anybody. Trends are meaningless to me. So are the absurd rules that society tells me to abide by. I’m probably the last real individual left on this planet. You can’t defeat me, because you wouldn’t even know where to start. You could try to kill me, I suppose, but I’ve got a plan for that as well. You see, I always have an ace up my sleeve, and I always get the last laugh. Nothing can stop me. Not you or Pete’s goddamn bow."
At once, O’Brien’s body turned to stone while simultaneously his eyes broke their bonds with his enemy’s. All of a sudden, Russell seemed as radiant as the sun. When Mike could no longer stand looking in his foe’s direction, he turned away and lowered the bow, not because his arms ached, but because the thought of Russell seeing his arms quake instilled an uneasiness in his head, as if his well-crafted plan was about to explode into a million—no, a billion—pieces and snow down deep into the fibers of the carpet, where they would remain forever out of reach and sundry. He couldn’t allow that to happen. Not after coming so far.
"Rusty, I’m so ashamed of you," he said, not steadily. "Do you think I’d go through the trouble of bringing you here if I didn’t expect you to fight back in some way? I’ve got an escape plan, too. I started working it out in my head weeks ago—the day you kicked me out of your house, in fact. So you can keep saying all the lies you want, and boosting yourself up so you’ll feel special, because it really don’t matter. What’s coming to you when Hector walks through that door is gonna make you cry. And I ain’t talking about killing you, either."
Russell sat on the couch and leaned into the V where the armrest joined the backrest. He searched with the toe of his sneaker for Huey’s tail. "I think your plan’s falling apart and you’re grasping at straws."
"Things are going smoothly."
Russell scooted to the edge of the cushion and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. He looked across the length of the room at Mike’s half-drawn and downward pointing bow and said, "Say, Mike, when I drove by your house a couple of
hours ago, I noticed that your dad’s truck was gone. What? Did he abandon you, too?"
"YOU—"
Russell was on the floor and rolling when Mike got off the first shot. The arrow struck the wall where Russell’s head had been milliseconds before. As O’Brien reached behind his back for another arrow, Russell hooked his hand under the end table and pulled out the dying bulldog by his stumpy rear right leg. Sitting up and holding Huey at arm’s length in front of him, belly forward, Russell watched the horror explode over Mike’s face.
The silver streak penetrated Huey’s lower abdomen, stopping midway through. Huey bellowed and writhed as ropes of blood spurted out both holes, staining the puke-green carpet under him dark burgundy. He shimmied so much that Russell was forced to drop him to the floor, where the dog continued to convulse violently and cough weak, gurgling barks.
"HUEY!!!" Mike screamed. Letting go of the bow, he ran across the room. He fell to his knees, skidded up to the impaled dog, and lifted him in his skinny arms. "What did you do to my Huey?!!"
Huey flailed and clawed as Mike sought to nestle the bulldog’s head in the hollow of his neck. From the canine’s belly, thick arcs of arterial blood sprayed the air, pockmarking Mike’s face and chest with fat, red dots.
Huey slithered through Mike’s slippery arms and retched a black, ichorous bile upon his master’s stomach and groin. He then stood up, looked at Mike’s shocked, panicked face, coughed once, and fell over.
For five seconds the room was silent. Then:
"YOU KILLED HUEY!!!"
Mike jumped to his feet then toppled back down again, his legs giving out under him like a newborn calf’s. He curled into the fetal position around Huey’s body and threw an arm over his eyes. The arrows spilled out of his quiver. The boy bawled out in pain.
Seeing his chance, Russell ran across the room and picked up the bow. How do you work this thing again, he wondered, pulling at the rearmost line. At the tips of the bow, two more lines crisscrossed and threaded through pulleys.
[Go over there, grab an arrow, and shoot him.]
I don’t know how.
[What kind of man can’t figure out a bow and arrow?]
"HUEY’S DEAD!! AAAHHHHHH-UH-AAAHHHHHHHH!!! YOU KILLED HUEY, YOU MOTHER FUCKER!!"
Russell was still working out the mechanics of the weapon when the first arrow whizzed past his left ear.
"Hey!" Russell shouted, dodging another one. Mike threw them, but without the bow he was a lousy shot. "Stop it!"
The last arrow veered left and went into the piano room, where it bounced off the piano’s mahogany casing and crashed into the mini blinds. Right after that came the knife. It missed Russell by a mile.
Realizing he had exhausted his ammunition, Mike slammed his open hand against the carpet. "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!"
Where it had landed next to his foot, Russell reached down and picked up one of the projectiles. He notched it into the line, but when he pulled on the draw, his shoulder—still sore from the impact with Hector’s Jeep—rejected the motion. He fired a hasty shot that piddled lamely to the floor. Meanwhile, his speckled face set in a spoiled sneer, Mike picked up the arrow and hurled it at Russell. Russell dodged and the arrow struck the wall.
"You killed him!" Mike said. "That’s two dogs you killed, you killer!"
"No, Mike. You killed him. You fired the arrow; I only protected myself." He let off another shot that went nowhere.
"You’re a cheater," Mike said. "You cheated and you ruined everything! Huey’s supposed to be alive."
"And so is Pete. And so is Lola. And so is that old lady whose face got ripped off."
Sobbing, Mike stood up. This time his legs supported him. "You don’t know how anything works, do you? There’s supposed to be order and structure to all this, and you’re…you’re knocking it down more and more every second you stay alive. You’re not supposed to rule. I am! I hate you!"
Mike then broke out in a careening sprint toward Russell. The instant the bloody body lunged, Russell turned and dropped to his knees, allowing O’Brien to tumble clumsily over his back and strike the wall with the top of his head. The plaster caved in around Mike’s crown. The nearby picture frames rattled. To Russell’s amazement, the impact didn’t knock the kid out. If anything, it made him wilder and more aggressive.
Mike stumbled to his feet, rubbed his head, then leapt for Russell again.
Russell blocked his charge with the bow.
"Gimme that," Mike said, pulling the dirty yellow handle. "It’s mine."
Russell pulled back stronger. "No. It’s Pete’s."
Mike spat and Russell closed his eyes. O’Brien yanked Russell forward and head-butted him.
Russell let go of the bow, tripped over his feet, and fell onto his ass. When he opened his eyes, Mike was plucking an arrow off the carpet. On his hands and knees, Russell scurried to the boy posing as a man and kicked his scabbed, dog-bitten ankle.
"OOOWWWW!"
Reaching up, Russell tore the bow from O’Brien’s blood-slick hands. "That’s Pete’s," he said, throwing the cursed object over his shoulder. "You stole it!"
Mike rubbed the freshly-opened wounds and looked at his rival’s face. "I killed Pete, you faggot."
"Pete fell. It was an accident."
But the angle of Mike’s eyebrows and the steadiness of his voice told him otherwise. Even as Russell assured himself that the kid was obviously lying, the part of him that feels instead of thinks knew that O’Brien had just told him the worst truth he would ever hear.
But Russell wasn’t ready to let his heart speak for him. "Pete fell," he repeated. "He slipped."
"Yeah, after I threw a sparkplug at his stupid head. You should have seen it, Rusty. It hit him on the noggin and phweeeewww"—Mike clapped his hands together, sending one on a tangential path away from the other—"bounced clear over the house. Then he slipped and fell."
Russell’s mind raced. The sparkplug. I found it on the street. No, Apollo found it on the street.
Mike continued. "But he had it coming. He almost killed me in that field. You told him to do it, but he could have said no. He could have stuck up for me, but he didn’t. So I killed him. It was easy. I just leaned back and threw as hard as I could."
Russell seethed. "You bastard…"
Picking up on the shift in Russell’s tone, Mike backed away. "I had to! And he told lies just like you. I was hiding in the bushes, listening, when Pete came over to your house the next night, telling you lies about dogs—saying they’re just glorified wolves and betas, whatever that means. He said that Huey didn’t love me, that he couldn’t love me, because he was a dog and an animal. They were all lies. Huey loves—loved—me. Don’t you see? Pete deserved what he got. Just like you deserve what’s coming to you."
"You bastard!"
Mike retreated even further, fearing what Russell would do next. "Don’t look at me like that." He reached behind him for the wall. "Pete didn’t count anyway. He was—what do you call it?—a Mulligan. He shouldn’t have existed in the first place. So I took care of it."
Mike’s image wavered in Russell’s eyes. "Pete was my friend."
O’Brien inched up the short hallway; the living room wall slowly eclipsed his body.
"Where are you going?" Russell asked.
"Nowhere," Mike said, creeping back into the room.
"You can’t do shit without that bow. It’s over, Mike." Russell glanced over his shoulder. "It’s way back there, and you can’t get past me."
O’Brien shuddered then shouted, "You shouldn’t be here!"
"You shouldn’t have killed Pete!" Russell hollered back.
In response, Mike screamed the most horrific sound Russell ever heard. It didn’t sound human at all. Then he bolted for his foe, who stood square and faced the approaching onslaught. Right before O’Brien was to crash into him, Russell jumped aside and rammed his fist deep into Mike’s slick and emaciated belly. O’Brien doubled
over but remained standing, clutching for breaths that didn’t want to come.
With the lunatic temporarily out of commission, Russell looked down at his fist and the dark red liquid coating it. Disgusted, he wiped his knuckles on O’Brien’s right shoulder. What remained, he wiped on his own shorts. "You’re not getting that bow," he said in Mike’s ear.
O’Brien heaved and gulped, and Russell, sickened by the sight and smell of him, lifted his foot and pushed him over. Mike staggered backwards and tripped over Huey’s corpse. Realizing what he had tripped over, he screamed the same God-awful howl.
“Face it,” Russell said to the sniveling mass. “You’re beat.”
O’Brien scrambled to his feet and retreated to the rear wall, where he had a difficult time keeping his crying jags, which were mostly hiccups, at bay. They kept popping up as he spoke. "You won’t get any—uhck—mercy. Me and Hector—uhck—are gonna watch. And then we’re gonna—uhck—laugh when you die. Because me and Hector are—uhck—friends."
When Mike finished, Russell lifted his foot and dropped it on top of Huey’s torso. It was mostly effect he was aiming for. He just hoped Mike would pick up on it and run away in defeat.
Why won’t he give up? Why’s he making me do this?
Glancing at the bulldog, Russell felt a sick uprising in his stomach—not for the dead dog or how it got that way, but instead for the way he was resting his foot on top of it, like he had gotten the better of Huey and now had the exclusive right to brag about it. He was trying to rub salt into Mike’s wounds, but more of it was seeping into his own.
This isn’t who I am, he thought, pulling his foot away and looking ashamedly at Mike. O’Brien watched Russell’s actions intently, scrutinizing his movements from the relative safety that only distance can provide.
"Why aren’tchu bragging?" Mike asked.
"Why should I brag?"
"Because you won," Mike replied, sneaking up the hallway again.
"There are no winners. Only dead dogs and dead people."
"But you killed Huey. You should be happy."
"I’m not."
"And that’s another reason you’re not a man. You don’t have that thing in you that makes you want to celebrate after you win, or fuck a bunch of bitches, or be part of a family with other men. You don’t belong. You and Pete never should’ve become friends with me and Hector. You never fit in with us."
Russell glanced from Huey to Mike and said as simply as he could, "You are not a man."
O’Brien’s face twitched. He turned and disappeared down the dark hallway.
"Not a man, huh?" Mike asked from one of the rooms. The voice that bounced off the plain, white walls was muted, transmogrified, more bestial than human. "Come look at this, then tell me I’m not a man!"
Russell approached the hallway cautiously, expecting another surprise attack. The door next to the piano room, which had been previously closed, was now open, but no light shone from its black rectangle. It was from that room that Russell heard Mike jostling about. When Russell reached the piano room, O’Brien’s skinny butt appeared in the hallway, followed by the rest of his crouched form. In his arms, he dragged something long and white.
Then Russell saw the reddish-purple mop cascading over Mike’s bloodstained arms and shrieked. O’Brien dropped Michelle’s nude and lifeless body like it was a sack of dung. First the back of her head struck the wall. Then her shoulders and back. When she finished sliding to the floor, her neck was at right angles to her body. A silver shaft jutted from the center of her pallid forehead. A maroon bull’s eye at the point of impact. Eyes open. Always open.
Russell looked away.
So pretty.
Michelle…
In another universe, in another time, someone said, "How was your summer, Rusty? Did it suck?"
Michelle…
"The other bitch is in there, too. I shot her through the titty. They shouldn’t have screamed when they saw me. That’s not how bitches are supposed to treat a man."
Russell collapsed, and as he fell—like Michelle had fallen—he shut his eyes tight. When he hit bottom, he screamed out in twisted, primordial tongues. The sounds he made were so excruciatingly incoherent, he didn’t even realize he was the one making them.
Michelle!
Standing over him, Mike shouted, "I fucked them both, Rusty. And you know why?"
As the savage taunted (possibly dancing, too; who would know?), Russell writhed and jerked and vomited.
He also listened.