The last sentence was not a question.
After a moment of silence, Mary nodded her head as if in agreement to some argument only she could hear.
“Don’t have no real use for you, anyhows. ‘Cept for just plain fun.”
She circled around the chair Matt was tied to like a predator closing in on prey that had been brought down, but not incapacitated. Standing directly behind him, she looked at her own reflection in the blade of the knife and nodded once again.
She bent her arm so that it was angled around Matt’s neck and pressed the blade of the paring knife against the bulging vein in his throat.
“I reckon I should put you down just like I did ‘ole Smokey.”
Mona tried to scream, but her voice got stuck in a hard little knot somewhere behind her vocal chords. It was as if she were still in the clutches of whatever drug Mary had used on them: paralyzed by the thought of losing the only person she had ever truly given a damn about, Mona could only sit and watch as her new husband’s blood trickled slowly from the wound.
SCENE SEVEN
By the time Earl and Daryl had finished tying the unconscious bodies to the chairs, the snow was falling so heavily that the windshield of the truck had already been buried beneath several inches of accumulation. It fell from the sky in wet clumps that seemed too large to be considered flakes and made the pine forest surrounding the old farm house look like a snow globe that had been vigorously shaken by God. Daryl had taken an old broom and whisked away enough slush that the wipers would be able to do their job; but even on the highest setting, Earl still had to lean forward and peer through the streaks of moisture on the windshield as the truck rumbled along the road. The headlights cut through the darkness and illuminated the white specks racing toward them, but only his familiarity with the snow-covered road kept the vehicle from easing off the buried asphalt and onto the graveled shoulder.
“You know what it puts me in mind of, Earl?” Daryl asked. “Star Wars. Right when the Millennium Falcon jumps into light speed. Don’t it you?”
“I’ll knock you into light speed if ya don’t stop flappin’ those gums.”
Daryl slumped in his seat and folded his arms across his chest like a reprimanded child. He watched the snow tunneling toward the truck from beneath a heavily furrowed brow and stole quick glances at his brother. Earl clutched the steering wheel like it was the grip on the Strength-O-Meter down at The Crow Bar; his knuckles were so white that it almost seemed as if the bone were attempting to burst through them and he ground his teeth together with each slight correction of the wheel.
“Don’t see why you got to be so mean.” Daryl finally mumbled. “Just tryin’ to pass the time and all.”
Earl took a breath through his nose and held it for a moment. He was too tired to argue with his brother: the exertion of the day had already made his eyes feel as if pieces of grit had been blown into them and his back throbbed from sitting in the truck for so long. All he wanted was to take care of the job at hand, go back home, and climb into his nice, warm bed. He sighed deeply and shook his head in an attempt to clear away some of the fatigue that clung like cobwebs in his mind.
“Just don’t let Mama hear you talkin’ stuff like that. You know she don’t like it. You’ll end up down in the cellar again, you mark my words.”
Daryl straightened with a smile, almost as if he’d just received some sort of praise. Rubbing his eyes with his fists, he decided not to press the matter any further.
“How you reckon we’ll be able to find that car? I ain’t seen it come down like this since the blizzard of ’91.”
“I got a pretty good idea ‘bout where it’s at. When you was talkin’ to those folks, it sounded like they wrecked right around the same place you and me saw that bear that time. Hard part’s gonna be figurin’ out what to do with the damn thing. I reckon Sunderson Pond is about froze over. We can try and sink it, but it might not even break the ice.”
Daryl pinched his bottom lip as he listened to the windshield wipers slap out their frantic rhythm.
“What about the old Crouse place?” he finally said.
“What about it?”
“Ain’t no one lived there goin’ on seven years now. Remember how they had all them old cars out in the barn? We could just tow it out there and set the dang place on fire. By the time anybody showed up, they’d think it was just another one of them old cars all burned up and shit.”
Earl arched his eyebrows and nodded at Daryl.
“Ya know, little brother, sometimes you ain’t half bad.”
Daryl’s jaw dropped and he struggled to find words; but they seemed to get lodged in the lump that bobbed in his throat. His eyes stung with tears and he quickly looked past his own reflection in the passenger window and watched the snow-covered world scroll by. After a moment, he simply decided to say nothing: Earl’s words were literally the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him… and he didn’t want to give his brother any reason to take the compliment back.
Forty minutes later, they finally spotted the wrecked car. They’d driven by this same spot nearly five times; but on this pass, the high beams had caught the tail lights of the Honda and made them glow like the eyes of a deer in a spotlight.
Earl steered the truck carefully over the embankment and made minute adjustments as the wheels slipped and slid in a mixture of snow and mud. Within minutes, he’d backed the truck so close to the car that the bumpers were nearly touching. Before Earl had even shifted into park, Daryl already had the flashlight in his hands. its beam glared off the windshield and he took a deep breath as he prepared to step into the darkness. As long as he had the Mag Lite, however, everything would be fine: though he’d never admit it to Earl (and certainly not to Mama) he liked to pretend that the beam was a lightsaber. With such a powerful weapon in his hands, darkness would be held at bay. True, he sometimes felt silly when these little fantasies took over his imagination… but, as he knew so well, there were far worse things than feeling like a grown man playing childish games.
“Let’s get ‘er done.” Earl grumbled.
He opened the door and frigid air gusted into the cab as if it had been pressed against the other side and awaiting an opportunity to pounce. The sudden drop in temperature tingled Daryl’s neck with a shiver as he clutched the flashlight to the point that his gloved knuckles throbbed; taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated on the cool air that ballooned his chest. He could do this: he had his Mag Lite, the truck’s headlights were still on, and his brother would be close by. All he had to do was step out of the truck.
“You comin’ or what?”
Earl’s voice was muffled by distance and snow. It sounded so soft that it was almost overpowered by the grating of the chain against the bed liner as the man pulled the frosted links of metal to him. There was a slight clinking, a sound like a moan as the wind passed through the trees that clustered around the road, the ticking of the engine as it cooled… there was nothing to be afraid of. Nothing out there was going to hurt him.
After all, he was the one with the power wasn’t he? He was the one who caused grown men to openly weep as their knees trembled and pleas for mercy gurgled from their mouths. He was the one who caused women to shiver as he approached and who sparked dilated eyes with glints of terror. He was the giver of life or death, whichever he saw fit… and there was nothing in the darkness that could possibly take that away.
Opening his eyes, Daryl slid out of the truck. The darkness seemed to close in around him like the coils of a constricting serpent, squeezing tighter and tighter with each step he took. He could feel a tremor in the pit of his stomach and his mouth was so dry that it felt as if he hadn’t had a drink of water for days; but still he forced himself to exhale slowly. His breath formed a plume of vapor that conjured images in his mind of a fierce and powerful fire-breathing dragon and he tried to cling to this picture like a drowning man grasping at a life preserver.