-4-
Karen wiped the dead man’s blood from Martin’s cell phone and dialed 911. The call failed a moment later, and she tried once more before shutting off the phone to conserve the battery. She would need it once she found Martin—provided she could get a signal.
Next, she searched the dead man, but he had nothing of use to her except for a pair of sandals two sizes too big. They might be awkward, but they would keep her feet safe from the scorching sands. She slipped them on and turned back to the SUV. Herman must have driven them a good distance into the desert to have run out of gas. When she looked toward the horizon, she saw nothing but desert and sky.
She sat on the passenger seat, her legs dangling through the open door, nursing water from Martin’s Aquafina bottle as she took in her surroundings. Other cars and trucks were scattered across the area, long abandoned and left to bake in the unrelenting sun. We aren’t the first, she thought, surveying the dumping grounds. Herman’s words echoed in her head: Only the men. Where did that leave her? Was this Golgotha of lost cars and wayward travelers meant to be her final resting place?
Karen glanced over at the dead man. A metallic smell rose from the body as flies swarmed around his battered skull. Now she would never know.
She watched as the sun fell behind the rocky butte and a long, oppressive shadow crawled across the valley. Night would soon follow. Time to move.
Her thirst slaked, Karen used the remaining drops to cleanse her hands of Herman’s dried brain matter. She tucked the cell phone into her bra, clutched the stone—it had served her well so far—and set off across the desert toward the encampment.
Most men would have felt apprehension or fear in those moments, creeping across the shadowy waste toward potential death, but Karen felt neither of these emotions. She was driven by a singular purpose, an urgent desire to find her husband and seek retribution against those who took him—especially that laughing blonde bitch from the highway. Especially her.
Keep a clear head, her daddy whispered.
“But I do,” she said, smiling to herself. “I do.”
Night fell before she reached the first RV. A slick coating of sweat clung to her exposed skin, working in conjunction with the cool air to produce a bone-deep chill that would not cease. She shivered in the dark, hidden in the shadow of that motor home behemoth. There were voices within, clattering, footsteps, and then a door slammed.
One of the robed men wandered around the side of the RV before she had a chance to react. He stopped at the edge, hiked his robe, and began to piss against the side.
“Goddamn Herman,” he groaned. “Dimwit cocksucker could get lost puttin’ on his underwear.”
Karen froze, her heart shuddering something fierce, quaking her entire torso. He hadn’t seen her. The adrenaline was exquisite, and the stone in her hand felt weightless.
The cultist’s prick was still in his hand when she struck him, practicing the same maneuver on him as she had on Herman, quickly fracturing his skull before he could alert the others. He collapsed in a heap, the open wound hemorrhaging blood at an alarming rate. Karen stepped back after her attack and marveled at how quickly the dark matter oozed out of his head. If she had the time, she might have entertained watching him bleed out just to see how fast it would happen, but she had to save Martin first. Maybe on the way back. Maybe.
Something caught her eye. The hatchet was tucked into a loop of a belt made from a length of golden brown rope. She pulled it from the makeshift holster, examined its dull blade, and dropped the trusty stone in favor of something less awkward.
A dull blade won’t cut anything, honey.
“We’ll see, Daddy.”
Hatchet in hand, Karen crept to the end of the RV and peered around the corner. The mobile homes were parked in a semi-circle and illuminated by a series of tiki torches. Party lights colored red, white, and blue were strung from RV to RV, flickering in and out of life as a generator hummed from somewhere out of sight. In the center of the half-circle was a makeshift idol, a bizarre construction of junkyard parts assembled into the effigy of a creature with hubcaps for breasts and two pieces of bent rebar for horns. Its face was the same mask worn by Martin’s attackers, giving the creature that same dimwitted, slack-jawed appearance.
The idol stood eight feet high with burning torches in each of its elongated arms, making for a sinister, contrived appearance. Karen thought it looked like the worst piece of modern art she’d ever seen.
“Michael?”
Another loud bang filled the night as the screen door slammed home. Karen tightened her grip on the hatchet and readied herself. She stepped out of Herman’s clunky sandals and curled her toes in the warm sand.
“Shit, boy, where’d you go? It’s almost time to go pay our respects.”
The robed man wandered into the gap between RVs. His mask sat upon the top of his head, its fastening string cutting divots into the sides of his bushy beard. Karen waited for him to turn away—he did so, calling out yet again—and stepped into the open. He heard her footsteps and turned back around—
“Michael, we ain’t got time—”
The hatchet blade sank into his skull with a single crack; a moment later his body went limp, collapsing into a heap between the mobile homes. His left leg twitched rapidly.
Karen leaned over, planted her foot against his chest, and pulled the hatchet out of his skull. The blade came away covered in the dead man’s gore and chips of bloody bone. She was busy examining the blade when another door creaked open.
“What the fuck? Ezra, it’s that bitch from the road! She killed Joseph!”
Two men emerged from the RV across the clearing. One of them held a rifle in his hands. Karen froze, her mind racing. Should she run? She’d be no good to Martin if they shot her.
Ezra raised the rifle. “You got lost in the wrong neighborhood, darlin’.” He glanced at his partner. “Aaron, go fetch your sister. The Lord’s sent a lamb to us. We’re ‘bout to have us some fun before the sacrifice.”
Aaron turned to his partner. “Me? Why me?”
“‘Cause I got the gun, dummy.”
Karen listened to their exchange, the glimmer of fear pushed from her blood by the onset of adrenaline. She stepped outside of herself for a moment, allowing her body to work its magic while she watched, a cheering spectator to her own private film. Karen watched as she ran forward, her muscles pumping and propelling her toward the first man, Aaron.
Rage took over, filling her lungs with fire and boiling her blood. For a brief moment, watching her body close the gap, Karen saw not a woman but a demon from the dark bowels of Hell, a red-skinned creature with hate in its eyes and the taste of blood on its tongue. That vile thing sprinted forward and leapt onto Aaron like an animal.
He screamed as she sank her teeth into his throat. The poor man never had a chance: he twisted and turned in place, trying to shake this seething, raging thing from him, but the harder he shook the tighter she clenched her jaw.
Karen’s mouth filled with Aaron’s blood as she tore out a chunk of his neck. A dark stream spurted into the night, anointing her head in a warm arterial spray. Aaron panicked, his shrieks weakening into desperate gurgles, and he thrashed from side to side in one last effort to dislodge the gnashing bitch. When he spun on his heels, Karen saw the other man over Aaron’s shoulder and pushed away from her victim.
She fell flat on her back with a jolt as the rifle fire punched her ears and blew a hole through the back of Aaron’s head. Bits of hair, bone, and brain cascaded across the sand beside her as Aaron’s body collapsed in a gory, smoking heap.
“Aaron? Oh God, Aaron?”
The gunshot’s echo snapped Karen back into herself, suddenly aware of the low vibration coursing over her skin in waves. The coppery taste of Aaron’s blood in her mouth twisted her stomach, but now was not the time to be squeamish. Karen climbed to her feet and spat blood. She clutched the hatchet and met Ezra’s terrified stare.
“You sta
y back, you godless cunt.” His shaking hands struggled to chamber the next round, but Karen was faster. She closed the gap in two strides just as Ezra shouldered the rifle and buried the hatchet blade between his eyes. Ezra’s eyes rolled back into his head as he sank to his knees. The hunting rifle clattered to the earth.
Karen tugged the blade from her victim’s face, her chest rising and falling in heavy convulsions, one labored breath of fire after another. The taste of blood lingered on her tongue and she spat again, her spittle pooling in the open gash between Ezra’s eyes.
You’ve got a hell of a bite, little possum.
“Goddamn right, Daddy.”
Movement from the corner of her eye. She looked up to see the blonde woman step out of a nearby RV. Karen was already moving before the blonde bitch saw her, the raw pads of her feet slapping all the way across the clearing.
Blondie turned and had but a moment to react, her chipped nails clawing to open the screen door as this bloody creature raced past their burning idol toward her.
“You get back from me, demon!”
Karen didn’t listen. The same fire that drove her to kill the others filled out her lungs, taking her blood to boil, fuming out her mouth and nostrils like a dragon. Maybe she was a demon.
“Am I not damned?”
Blondie paused, her wrinkled cheeks sagging as she tried to understand the question, but Karen’s question was merely rhetorical. She already knew the answer.
“BROTHERS!” Blondie screamed. “AARON! MICHAEL! EZRA?” She choked back tears, shrinking against the screen door. “Joseph? Herman?”
“All dead, honey.”
Karen grabbed a fistful of Blondie’s hair and yanked her off the short steps, dragging her back to the center of the half-circle where the bodies of her accomplices lay still and bleeding. Blondie collapsed over Aaron’s body, her hand sinking in the mushy exit wound that was his face. She screamed, teetering backward and landing flat on her ass.
“What did you—Why didja do this?”
Karen knelt beside Aaron’s body and stuck her hand into the bloody hole of his skull. Blondie turned her head and vomited. She retched until there was nothing left to expel, her chest convulsing into a hoarse coughing fit.
“Look at me,” Karen said. Blondie did as she was commanded, looking up at the demon through teary eyes.
Holding the blonde woman’s gaze, Karen raised her hand and smeared Aaron’s blood down her face. “Where is my husband, you blonde bitch?”
-SESSION #15-
Dr. Tanner shifted in her seat, clicking her pen against her nails. Karen had never seen her so nervous before, but she liked the idea. Tanner had always come across to her as one of those holier-than-thou types, getting off on other people’s misery, and to see her so jittery was almost empowering.
“Something wrong?”
The doctor looked up from her pad of paper and offered a light smile. “Just collecting my thoughts for our session. How are you doing?”
“I feel better,” Karen said. She smiled wide, an expression that made her doctor shrink back in her seat. “I feel more like myself.”
“And . . . and how are things with your husband? Have they improved?”
“Martin is great. I love him so much. He’s the best thing to happen to me, and I’m so grateful that he was there for me through all my troubles. Without him, I would be dead by now.”
“Yes, Martin . . . ” Dr. Tanner trailed off. She clicked her pen against the pad of paper. “Karen, I spoke with your husband last week. He said he found you crying in the shower the night your father died, and when he tried to get you out, you growled at him like an animal.”
Karen ignored the comment. “Martin has been so supportive. He’s driving me back to my hometown this weekend for the funeral—”
“Your husband also told me about an incident a couple of weeks ago at a restaurant. Do you remember?”
“I remember,” Karen said, her expression drooping as she clenched her fingers around the edge of her blouse. “I remember the way that waitress looked at him. The way she flirted with him. He’s mine, and I told her as much.”
“Karen, you threw your glass of water at her. Martin says you’ve stopped taking your medication, that you still won’t talk to him, and when you do, it’s one- or two-word responses. He’s frustrated and . . . ” Dr. Tanner paused, composing herself. She cleared her throat. “Karen, I’m going to refer you to another specialist. I don’t think we can maintain this relationship any longer.”
Fine by me, Karen thought, but held her tongue. Her mind turned back to Martin. How sweet he was to offer to drive her back home to see her daddy laid to rest. Martin never got along with her daddy all that well, but in the end, Martin was still there for her. Thinking about him, and how supportive he was, filled her heart to its brim.
A chirp filled the office, startling Dr. Tanner from her seat. She walked across the room to her desk and picked up her cell phone.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Take your time,” Karen said. “Do you need to take that?”
Dr. Tanner smiled, blushing like a teenager just for a moment before remembering her place. She returned to where Karen sat and extended her hand to shake.
“Best of luck to you, Karen.”
But Karen was too busy staring off into space, fantasizing about her husband, the man she loved, her hero and savior. They had been through so much, but now there was a light at the end of their tunnel. She would do everything she could to make him happy—or die trying.
“Best of luck to us,” she whispered.
-5-
Blondie screamed as the fire blistered her skin, melting the flesh into a waxen glob while Karen held the torch to her face. She stood with one foot pressed against Blondie’s chest, holding the toothless woman at bay, watching the blonde bitch squirm and squeal in agony. Karen smiled and counted off the seconds.
One one-thousand. Two one-thousand. Three—
“HE’S AT THE ALTAR!”
Karen raised the torch but kept her foot in place. Blondie’s face was bubbling and red, her eyes swollen shut, a clear fluid dribbling down from her eyelids. Karen shifted her weight, easing her heel into the soft curve of Blondie’s throat.
“Where is the altar?”
“Up the p-path,” Blondie sobbed. “Along the ridge. P-Please just luh-let g-go.”
Karen looked up at the opening of the circle and noticed two burning tiki torches stuck in the ground near the butte wall. Their flames cast dancing shadows along the rock.
She curled her toes and pressed her weight against Blondie’s throat, crushing the woman’s larynx and giggling at the labored, wheezing sound gurgling from that toothless mouth. Karen waited until she stopped struggling before lowering the torch and setting Blondie’s curls alight.
“Thy will be done,” Karen said. She smiled up at the flaming effigy of their silent tin god. “Here’s another lamb for you.”
Karen’s heart slowed to an even pace as she passed a rusty red pickup truck. She looked inside, eager to find a set of keys, but they were absent. One of them must have the keys, she thought. I’ll look on the way back.
She wandered through the dark toward the torches. The fire in her lungs abated and the adrenaline drained from her system, leaving her limbs feeling weak and filled with jelly. Martin, she thought, I’m coming. Just hang on, honey. Almost there.
An endless pattern of stars stretched overhead, twinkling back at her, congratulating her on reaching her destination. She marveled at the view, wondering if her daddy was one of those stars winking at her.
You know it, sweetie.
Karen smiled. She loved her daddy so much. Now he was an angel by the side of the Lord.
A sandy trail rose alongside the incline of the butte, marked by the pair of torches she’d seen from afar. Her muscles ached and her feet cried out with each step, but she didn’t dare stop now. Martin was waiting for her at the top. Her mind flashed back to the
blonde bitch jamming that blade through his foot. He would need medical attention.
She pulled the cell phone from her bra and powered on the device. She held it up to the display of stars, praying for a cellular signal from one of those twinkling angels. The screen lit up: NO SERVICE.
Frowning, Karen continued her ascent up the path to the top of the ridge, following a trail of sand and burning torches every few hundred feet. She leaned against the rock wall for a moment to catch her breath and steady herself. Her hands were shaking again, and her throat was scratchy, dry.
The cell phone vibrated, startling her so badly she almost dropped it. She fumbled with the device, its bright screen stinging her eyes, and a moment later she found her focus, reading the jumble of letters across the display.
There were several missed calls, three unread text messages, and two unread emails. Karen tapped the screen.
At first, the message didn’t make sense. She had to read it a few times before understanding dawned on her, and when that epiphany finally eclipsed her mind, she felt the strength give out of her legs. Karen sank to the dirt path, struggling against the urge to cry, her throat clogged with cotton.
When can I see you again?
She scrolled down through the list of unread messages, all from the same sender.
Are you home yet?
Did the crazy bitch lose her mind at the funeral?
Karen moved on to Martin’s replies. They were dated as recently as yesterday.
I can’t stop thinking about you, Meredith.
What you did last week, my God, your lips were like heaven.
Tears wrapped her eyes. This was wrong. This was impossible. He wouldn’t. Martin loved her. He was there for her when she needed him. He saved her from herself, stood by her even after losing their baby. Why would he do this?
The phone chimed. Another email. Karen opened Martin’s inbox and died a little bit more. The email was from M. Tanner:
Ugly Little Things Page 16