by Peter Cry
Inside him, there was an overwhelming desire to get out of the truck and survive. Deeply inhaling, he held his breath and began struggling to pull himself out of the trap. Lying on his side, Jason moaned continuously and loudly. Everything inside him shook. The broken ribs seemed to touch his internal organs, causing infernal pain. Jason straightened his legs and, tried to extend his right hand as far as possible. Fighting the constant flashes of pain and growing heat, he slowly began to free himself. The side windows had burst, scattering into small fragments after the crushing of the cabin. They cut his hands as he desperately struggled to crawl out.
Without stopping, pushing off his weak legs and elbows from the roof of the turned over pickup truck, he finally managed to climb out. Turning over, sensing the cold rock with his back, he exhaled deeply, trying to catch his breath for a new start.
The sky had turned blue over Jason and was growing darker. The vehicle next to him had lived its own life and was dying, just like its owner. Fire escaped from the trunk, and flames were penetrating the cabin. It was growing stronger with every second, and the rising cloud of smoke, hundreds of feet high, was certain to attract attention. And this was the last thing Jason needed as he was trying to hide and escape from his pursuers. The only thing in his head was that he had to escape.
Clenching his teeth so hard that they were on the verge of shattering, he raised himself up, then, leaning on his left hand, stood on his knees. Putting his hand in his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone. The black screen of the phone was covered with a web of cracks. An attempt to unlock and revive it was futile. The device was broken, just like everything around Jason. Throwing it away, the fugitive examined himself. The shirt near his left shoulder was torn and all stained with blood. His jeans also had a couple of large red spots. Although his shoes remained untouched, with a look like that, it was impossible not to attract attention.
Without looking around and not knowing where he was, driven by fear and a new persecution mania, Jason staggered forward into the woods and small hills before him. He dragged his weak legs along the ground becoming also worried that the predators living in that terrain had already smelled his blood and would follow his trail to tear him apart.
What he did not understand is that the local forests knew many proud, beautiful, and dangerous animals, but that the most dangerous and terrible of creatures had just burst into their neighborhood in his red Silverado.
The twilight that enveloped the surrounding world brought a coolness and a slight wind. Interacting with the crowns of trees, it made them creak, the natural sounds and atmosphere filling Jason with new emotions.
He hoped that the night wouldn’t be too cold and that he would not freeze. The main thing was not to stop, move on, trying to find some shelter – an abandoned house or a barn, a place where he could come to his senses and get some sleep. It would help recovery best.
He moved forward, sometimes stopping and using his left hand to lean on a tree to catch his breath. The wounds on his face had stopped bleeding and the blood had dried. But the pain was still strong and recurred frequently. He noticed that it depended on how he leaned his body and on where he placed his weight. After a while, Jason managed to adapt. He was able to walk in such a way that it caused minimum pain.
Cool fragrant air invigorated. The gibbous moon rose somewhere in the distance beyond the horizon of trees and harmoniously complemented the starry sky, which became brighter with each passing hour.
“Motherfucker...” Jason whispered suddenly. “Finally, something good.”
A few minutes ago, when he heard the sound of a river for the first time, he thought that it was just a simple trick of the mind. But the river, or rather stream, was in fact close, and its sound caressed the ears of the wounded fugitive. When he finally saw it, Jason breathed a sigh of relief. A shallow stream, about ten feet wide, which was so clean that even by the faint light given off by the moon, he was able to see stones and algae in the water.
Jason fell to his knees. Scooping water, he took a few sips, then more and more. Having drank, he washed his face with the cold water and, despite the hell he’d just been through, managed a smile.
When he looked at his reflection in the water, the smile disappeared from his face. Because of the darkness, it was impossible to make oneself out normally, the moon colored the forms in a peculiar way, emphasizing only the worst and the ugliest. The black silhouette that appeared on the surface of the stream seemed vile and sinister. Jason wasn’t used to that face in his reflection. After looking far away into the distance, he felt how agony crept into his soul. Pain, fear for his life, a lack of understanding why everything had happened that way. And total ignorance about his next steps – not then, at that specific moment, but tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. All his plans and hopes had collapsed at once.
Jason got up again. Everything went dark, the surrounding world swam. His legs refused to listen to him, but he decided to cross the river and wait out that strange attack of dizziness there. The creek was just knee-deep for the tall black-haired young man. He made his way through it, as if through gooey tar. Ten feet seemed like a mile to the fugitive.
On the bank, he collapsed to his knees. His head was spinning even more, and he was nauseous.
“So that’s how death felt,” Jason thought.
Trying to grab some air into his choked, aching, chest, he quickly passed out on the cold moonlit ground…
Chapter 4
All day long, Howard fussed around the house. He had to fix everything that was broken, nail and glue everything that was needed. Most importantly, he had to attend to the farming activities very actively. It was necessary to look after the soil, the stalks of corn, to visit all the graves in which children rested. Dead, mutilated beyond recognition, the eldest of them was not even fourteen years old. There were twenty-seven graves. Stray dogs that came on the field at night could dig up fresh loose soil in search of discarded meat.
Howard was usually exhausted by the sunset and had no energy left for anything but sleep. Well, perhaps there was still a bit left for a brutal rapist murder. In the absence of the master, Howard always controlled himself. The punishment for violating subordination and set boundaries was terrifying. It seemed to him, that in such cases Jason treated him worse than abducted or bought children. To be honest, at first, he even liked it, but the appetites of the master had grown, and the upgraded punishments for violation of the rules became life-threatening.
Walking down a gloomy corridor, lined with lacquered wooden boards, darkened with time, Howard stopped several times at the basement door. He just looked at it, breathed deeply and rolled his eyes. He imagined what he would do when he finally got to the cute blonde Andrew and played with the sparkling sharp screwdriver in his pocket.
Jason had been gone for more than eight hours. Howard sat in the kitchen. He had emptied the second can of his favorite beer.
His eyes were fixed on the TV, watching the news with slight alarm. It had happened before that the master had lingered, that he had vanished for a whole week or even a month without informing his associate. However, he never did anything like that when they had a job on, and so urgent.
Howard tried to call Jason, but the operator kept repeating that he could not be reached now. And even though the same had already happened, his loving heart could not remain unperturbed.
Each time, when any noise came from the road, he turned around, hoping to see the headlights of a familiar pickup truck in the dark, heading towards the garage.
And his wish came true. The sound of an approaching vehicle was heard. Howard smiled, got up and hurried to the door to meet Jason and help him with his purchases. He suddenly froze and turned pale, almost merging with the color of the house, for he saw a black and white police Dodge Charger appearing out from the trees. Blinding Howard with its headlights, the car slowly approached the house.
Shaking with fear, Howard closed the door and hurried back to the kitchen. Openin
g the bedside table, with trembling fingers he began to sort through cutlery and stopped only when he pulled out a sturdy kitchen cleaver which had already tasted human flesh more than once.
There was a knock on the door behind Howard. It was hard for him to restrain the panic that gripped him, but, according to Jason's instructions, in such a situation he tried to behave as calmly as possible.
Approaching the door, the short farmer opened it a little, leaving his right hand with a cleaver behind the door, and his left hand being used to lean against the wall. His right hand squeezed the kitchenware so hard that his fingers were burning with pain.
“How can I help you, officers?” Howard smiled in surprise.
The policemen exchanged glances.
“Is this the house of the owner of the ‘99 red Chevrolet Silverado?” Helen asked.
Well, that’s it, now Howard would be handcuffed and arrested. The heads of the police officers were only three feet away from Howard. “No need to wait,” he told himself, “stab them...”
“Um... Yes, but he is out now,” he answered, stumbling his words.
“Do you know where he can be, or how could we contact him?”
Howard shrugged.
“He went to town to shop... I have already called him a couple of times, but there was no connection. Did something happen?”
Helen Escamilla glanced at her partner, then again at the man standing in the doorway, who was clearly not interested in inviting the police inside.
“The man who owns this house and the red Silverado was running away from Iowa patrolmen today as if he had done something illegal. Do you know what the explanation for this could be?” Steve smiled gently.
Howard realized that there was some confusion and, most likely, the police had come not because of the kidnapping, or suspicious connections with pedophilia and murders.
“Honestly, I don't,” Howard continued to play the fool. “Neither today, nor yesterday did Jason do anything extraordinary... Believe me, he is a normal guy. I can't imagine what could have happened…”
“Does he ever drink and drive?”
“Drink… Well, it happens, but to get behind the wheel after that... I don’t know. It might have happened before, but he never told me about it…”
“And how are you related to him?” Helen interrupted suddenly.
She turned her head slightly to the right, trying to look inside the house.
Howard noticed that and hastened to answer to distract the uninvited guests from pursuing their curiosity.
“I am his cousin-uncle. But we are close. We have few relatives left, so we stick together, you know.”
“Hmm...” the officer was feeling amiss. “And what do you do?”
“Jason and I are farmers. What a field we have!” Howard pointed into the darkness with his trembling finger.
The cops turned around for a moment.
“Once, we even participated in an exhibition. We have a bunch of awards. Do you want to see them?” he opened the door a little wider.
“No, no, it’s okay,” Steve stopped the oddball. “Please, have it,” the policeman took a golden credit card out of his pocket. “Give it to Jason. And tell him not to drive drunk anymore.”
Howard took the card and nodded.
“And also let him know he must pay all the fines for speeding. He has accumulated lots of them,” Helen added firmly.
Just a couple of minutes ago, everything inside Howard had turned upside down and inside out. The fear made him ready to plunge the cleaver into the heads of the policemen. But, as it turned out, two quiet cops stood in front of him, one a woman. They were not hunting grotesque monsters with a dark soul. They were concerned about a drunk farmer who had exceeded the speed limit.
Howard salivated profusely. There was so much of it, as if he were about to have a meal after a long hunger. He longed to spit out into the face of the police scum.
“Yes, of course, I’ll pass that on. And we’ll pay for all the fines tomorrow.”
“That's all,” Helen glanced at her colleague.
“Have a nice evening and sorry to bother you,” Steve added.
He nodded his head, turned around and walked to the car. So did his partner.
Howard made a sudden move. He rapidly brought his right hand from around the door and lifted the cleaver for a brief second over Helen's head. Barely touching her hair, he returned it back behind the door just as sharply.
“Have a nice evening, officers,” he smiled acidly, watching the cops leave.
They got inside the car and started the engine, only after stopping for a moment, observing the plump man closing the door.
“What do you think?” Helen asked her colleague.
“Nothing... Ordinary people, just like the rest. He was a bit strange. But, I think, we seem even stranger to him, suddenly arriving here at night.”
Helen smiled.
“His hand behind the door moved strangely, it was like in a movie. He seemed to have a knife or a gun there.”
“You noticed that too?” Steve laughed. “I thought I was the paranoid one.”
“Let’s go. I want to go home... There should be a new series of Hannibal.”
“You know, we have paranoia because of those series.”
Steve turned the steering wheel of the car and drove away towards his native Hampton.
Standing by the window, Howard watched the receding black and white Dodge Charger until the last gleams of the red headlights disappeared from his view. Putting his cleaver back in the drawer, he sat down at the table and, putting his elbows on it, then grabbed his head. He needed to figure out what happened to Jason. Did he know something and, without saying anything, decided to flee, leaving him to be torn to pieces by America? Or maybe he was simply scared of the police, so he decided to escape? But then why was his phone out of reach? There was another possibility for Jason’s disappearance known only to him alone – a meeting with clients, tracking a very promising child, and other routine field work. And what if it wasn’t…?
Howard stood up and walked back to the window, watching into the darkness. Thinking about Jason and what might have happened to him, he felt that there was no simple explanation for the situation. The anxiety in his heart was not misguided, it had to have a justification. If his master did not return, he should continue what he had started.
Too much had been done and invested to run or to abandon what had been created by such hard work over several years. That meant that now Howard should do everything that Jason did, and not wait until scraps fell from the table for the hungry dog.
Howard lowered his eyes and looked down at his bulging housecoat. He noticed that he had a strong, even painful erection. His breathing suddenly became deep and compressed, and his body charged.
“No need to wait...”
This thought did not leave his head. It was no longer clear whether he wanted his master to return or not. The forgotten card, Jason’s silent phone and, according to the cops, the red Silverado escaping to the neighboring state excited Howard, who already could not control his desires.
His hand found the cold screwdriver in his soft pocket. Turning his head, sickly exhausted, he looked towards the corridor, where the door lurked. There were sweets behind that door. He sobbed two times with a strange vile moan.
“I'm coming, Andrew... I'm coming, my dear.”
Howard jumped up and rushed into the corridor with a roar…
Chapter 5
Jason's body lay in the middle of a dense forest on dark dry soil, covered with small dry branches that fell from tall conifers, and small burnt-out needles. The sun rose high and reached almost the middle of its daytime journey. Its warm rays penetrated through the thickness of branches into the cool forest.
Jason woke up from the fact that his cheek was burning terribly. Lying near the river, he did not move, trying to understand where he was and what was happening to him. Together with the flashing memories of the disaster from w
hich he had miraculously escaped, he was in considerable pain. It was not as terrible as when he regained consciousness in the pickup truck, but nevertheless strong. A lump still stuck in his throat, reminding him of the remnants of nausea and dizziness that been present during the night. Ants ran along his broken, swollen hand, and annoying buzzing flies constantly sat on his injured face. If nothing were done, the fauna of the forest would eat Jason alive.
“Get the fuck out!” he brushed off the ants.
The broken arm ached, and his faint moan disturbed the quiet afternoon forest.
Jason got to his feet and examined himself in the daylight. He looked as if he had been smashed to pieces and then put back together again. Unbuttoning his shirt, he looked at his body. On the left, he had two large bruises on the left and one smaller one on the right. Apparently, the broken ribs had not damaged the vital organs, but they did provoke some internal bleeding.
It seemed then that it would be easier to die than to continue the journey again. For the first time, such thoughts came to the tormented fugitive. But he didn't want to suffer from pain as well. If he simply stopped existing while he was unconscious, that would be easier, but he certainly did not want to be eaten alive by forest insects.
Buttoning his shirt, Jason went on. Having traveled through endless forest for quite a distance, he was feeling incredibly hungry.
To maintain a good physical condition, Jason was used to eat little, allowing the body to experience a slight, unobtrusive, hunger. Apparently, all those days when he had limited himself made his body feel the need for new resources. The hunger was so strong that it even began to dull the pain.
While he wandered through the woods, trying to find a way out, images of food flashed in his head. What a pleasure it would be to eat all those delicacies. The color, aroma, shape, and taste of dishes in his head were so bright and real. Excellent medium-rare beef steak with onions and parsley, in sour cream sauce, probably French fries with ketchup, or maybe a pepperoni pizza, where there was more pepperoni than dough. But for a starter, a moldy, dried-up piece of bread would do. Anything just to satisfy his hunger. Dragging his weak legs and limping to the left side, Jason looked around at the shrubs. He was hoping to notice some berries there. Alas, he was not a scout and did not know how to survive in a forest. Therefore, the only thing left for him was to find civilization.