Darlene squeezed her eyes shut and her hands instinctively tried to form into fists; but this only sent fresh spasms of pain through her already sensitive nerves. It felt as if millions of fiery needles gouged and scraped somewhere inside her hands and the blood gushed from the holes more rapidly now as her heart rate ramped up to a breakneck speed. . She sank her teeth into the hard, rubber ball and tried to pretend that it was a throat: either one of these bastards, it didn’t matter which. She would rip away chunks of flesh like a rabid dog if given half a chance, would chew and tear until strands of the jugular were wedged between her incisors like little slivers of roast beef. Just let one of these low-life, redneck sons of bitches try to kiss her for a change… just let them fucking try….
“Earl! Daryl! You boys get your sorry asses down here this minute, hear?”
Even through the floorboards, the old woman’s voice was shrill and piercing. Earl slammed his fist into the wall as he cursed beneath his breath; Daryl, however, had frozen like a possum in headlights. The color seemed to drain from his face and his bottom lip quivered so slightly that it almost seemed as if it were the thin layer of drool, and not the chapped flesh, that was actually moving.
“Damn it, boys! Don’t you make me come up there…”
Earl’s voice bellowed, though the frustration that was reflected in his grimace was carefully camouflaged with what he hoped to be a tone of respect.
“We’re comin,’ Mama. Be right there!”
Yanking up his zipper, he dropped his voice to a low growl.
“This ain’t over, darlin’ You just stand there and think about all the things I’m gonna do to you when I get back. And, I swear to God, if you try any more of that foolishness, I’ll slice your fuckin’ tits off. You hear me, girl?”
Darlene nodded her head so rapidly that droplets of sweat flung from her soaked hair like a spray of mist.
“Alrighty, then. Guess we have what I’d call an understanding.”
“I’m a’gonna count to five and if’n I don’t hear you boys comin’ down those stairs, may the God Lord help your souls….”
“Come on, shit for brains. What the hell you gawkin’ at?”
Daryl trudged after his brother, pulling at the hairs of his mustache as he walked. The two walked through a short, dark hallway lined with doors and then descended a flight of stairs that wobbled and creaked beneath Earl’s bulk.
By the time Mary had counted to four, they two brothers stood in front of her; Earl stared at the young couple slouched over on the couch and the corners of his lips turned up into a smile. Something cold and hard glinted in his eyes and he ran the tip of his tongue along his top lip as he allowed his gaze to follow the contours of Mona’s body. Daryl, on the other hand, stood slightly behind his brother’s enormous frame and wrung his hands together as if he were holding an invisible cap. His head was slightly bowed and he only allowed himself quick peeks at the unconscious couple out of the corner of his eye.
“Now you boys listen here. I want you to take these two upstairs and tie ’em real good, you understand? I don’t want no repeat of that time last summer, you hear?”
Both brothers nodded their heads but remained silent.
“After that, the pair of ya go find that there car of theirs. Reckon they couln’t got too far before you boys found ’em. You take the chain and you.”
“Shit, Mama, it’s fuckin’ freezin’ out there.”
Mary stormed across the room with her first two fingers spread into a V. The wrinkles on her face pulled into a tight scowl and she clenched her teeth together as if she were attempting to shatter them.
“Earl Gruber, don’t you sass me, young man!”
Clutching Earl’s shirt with her free hand, she thrust up with the other. The extended fingers drove into Earl’s nostrils so deeply that his nose seemed to swell with the presence of the sudden invaders. The large man’s knees gave out for a fraction of a second as his eyes watered and blood trickled around the old woman’s fingers. But he didn’t try to pull away or defend himself; he simply stood there with his eyes clinched shut as his mother leaned in so closely that spittle peppered his face.
“I don’t care if Hell’s done froze over, you’re gonna do what I say, when I say to do it. You hear me, boy? You hear me?”
Earl nodded his head almost imperceptibly to keep his mother’s fingers from plunging even further into his sinuses than what they already were. But this seemed to satisfy the old woman, for she yanked them out and released the tide that had built up behind them. As her son pinched his nostrils and tilted his head back, she licked the blood from her fingernails so slowly that it almost seemed as if she were inspecting them for chips and cracks with the tip of her tongue.
“Good.” She finally said. “I’d expect that kind of thing from your no-good brother, but not from you, young man. You’ve always been such a good boy.”
The rage that had gripped her dissipated as quickly as it had descended. She stroked Earl’s hair gently now and he leaned into it like a cat which hoped a scratch behind the ears was soon to follow.
“Always such a loving son….”
Placing the palm of her hand against his cheek, Mary spoke softly and slowly as her fingertips smeared fresh blood across his upper lip.
“You make your Mama proud, you hear? You take that little whelp and you hide that car where ain’t nobody never gonna find it. . Then you high tail it back here.”
She turned her head and studied Matt and Mona for a moment, watching the steady rise and fall of their chests while their arms hung by their sides like strands of overcooked spaghetti.
“Then once the two of you are back all safe and sound, we’ll all show our new guests a little hospitality.”
Even Daryl couldn’t suppress the grin that the words coaxed from his pale face.
“If’n you do a good enough job, I might even let ya have a go at the woman before she’s all cut up and bleedin’ like a stuck pig. You’d like that, wouldn’t ya, boy? All fresh and new and tidy?”
Earl remained silent, but the gleam in his eyes was answer enough. Before the night was over, fresh blood would be spilled in a house that had come to crave it and screams for mercy would fall flat on a dark and uncaring forest. There would be pain and suffering and it would be sipped like water from a cup.
SCENE SIX
Mona drifted as if she were nothing more than a piece of wood in a sea of darkness. She floated on the black waters and bobbed on the crests of undulating waves while empty space yawned above her. There were no pinprick holes of light in the dome of the sky, no wisps of gray cloud, or even the hint of a rising moon brightening the distant horizon. Above, below, surrounding her on all sides: nothing but a darkness so complete that the heavens and sea were indistinguishable from one another. Up was down, left was right, and she spiraled in eddies that threatened to suck her into the undertow before spitting her back to the surface again.
The lightless ocean also made a sound that somehow reminded Mona of the flub and swish of an ultrasound. She could almost feel the cold jelly smeared onto her stomach, the slight pressure of the paddles as they slid across her skin. In the distance, something soft and warm began to flicker in the darkness; it pulsed in time with the rhythm of the noises around her, its aura growing stronger with each muffled sluice of unseen fluid. Something that looked like a blurry cashew began to form in the center of the light and as Mona watched she saw bluish veins spread like stain across a translucent onionskin. Two perfectly round and perfectly dark eyes formed on either side of what was now obviously a head as paddle like hands waved as slowly as seaweed on the ocean floor. The fetus seemed to absorb the light it had formed from so that the radiance came from somewhere within: the luminance acted almost like an x-ray, silhouetting the tiny heart and network of arteries against the honey-colored glow.