“In time for what?” part of Daryl’s mind whispered. “What are you afraid of this time?”
His eyes drifted to the book again and he felt his breathe catch in his throat. Somehow it almost seemed as if, by opening its pages, he’d unleashed some dark and terrible demon upon the land. The chill bumps tingling the nape of his neck were the cold wind displaced by the flapping of leathery wings and the headache clustering behind his left eye was from talons sinking into the soft mass of his brain. He could feel the creature’s presence, pressing in on him from all sides as it repeatedly whispered three words like some archaic incantation: Mona’s Secret Delights… Mona’s Secret Delights….
A flash of color in the rearview mirror caught Daryl’s attention and he saw red and blue strobing through the ice-encrusted glass of the hatchback’s window. The frost diffused the lights into fuzzy halos that flickered and flashed in an almost random pattern. At the same time, Daryl became aware of a sound from outside the car. It was like a voice emerging from the crackle and pop of static, distant enough that the words were indistinguishable but close enough that he instantly recognized the source: a police radio. So that’s why Earl had stopped the truck… he’d been pulled over.
The demon’s hot breath tickled Daryl’s ears as it hissed dire warnings into the man’s thoughts: too late, you’ll be too late, you’ll never be a good boy now, you’ll always be a useless simpering crybaby, no use to anyone, you’ll be too late and it will all be your fault….
A shadow, vaguely man-shaped, passed the window and the tinny voice of the dispatcher sounded as if it were as close as the demon Daryl imagined to be latched onto his back. As the shadow receded, however, so did that sound of the radio, leaving Daryl with only the whispered litany of derision in his mind: dead, she’ll be dead because of you, all because of you, and you’ll never get to prove to her that you were anything other than what she always thought you were….
A voice that sounded as if it were speaking through layers of cotton broke through the contempt that plagued Daryl’s consciousness.
“License and registration, sir.”
Daryl’s heart felt as if it were fluttering so fast that every other beat was missed; his breath came in quick pants and he felt slightly dizzy, as if the interior of the car had lost its grip on reality. And he felt a tremor somewhere deep within him that almost made it seem as if every organ in his body quivered in unison.
His eyes darted to the book again.
Mona’s Secret Delights.
The demon sank its claws deeper into his eye, shredding nerve endings and snyapses with barbed tips that were nearly molten from a thousand years in the lake of fire.
“Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the vehicle.”
Earl’s voice, low and gravely. Daryl knew the tone all too welclass="underline" anger tinted with frustration, the way even the most innocent words seemed to mock.
Mona’s Secret Delights.
“Step out of the vehicle now, sir!”
The demon crushed Daryl beneath its weight and caused the doors and ceiling to constrict in response to its incessant murmur: and she’ll hurt you, she’ll make you scream again, there in the dark with the rats and the mice and the scent of fresh blood all up and down your arms and chest, all because you weren’t good enough, weren’t strong enough, because you failed her when she needed you most and lacked the backbone to do what needed to be done….
Earl was shouting now, his voice booming so loudly that the thud of the truck door almost seemed as inconsequential as the chatter on the cop’s radio.
“Fuckin’ pig, I know my damn rights, I wasn’t doin’ nothin,’ you stupid piece of shit.”
“Put your hands on the hood of the car, sir…”
“What? You gonna shoot me, asshole? You gonna blow me away with your big, bad gun? Mother fucker, I ain’t scared of you and that tin fuckin’ badge…”
“Put your hands on the damn hood!”
Daryl panted so quickly that his breath seemed to warm the interior of the car to the point that sweat moistened his armpits and chest. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that he could force the talons out of his head with his tightly clenched eyes and grinding jaw.
But, even in the darkness, he could sense the book beside him.
Could picture that leather cover….
“Sir, I’m not fucking telling you again!”
The little note card inside the gilded frame…
“Or what? Or what, you son of a bitch? You gonna taser me, pig? You gonna zap my fuckin’ ass? That it, big man?”
The curves and loops of such innocent looking handwriting…
“Step back! Step the fuck back!”
Mona’s Secret Delights.
The shouting from outside of the car now sounded distant, as if it were nothing more than a television playing a little too loudly through the walls of a padded room.
“Come on! Come on, mother fucker! Pig! Let’s do this….”
The growl of Earl’s voice degraded into a garbled mash of sounds that, for some reason, made Daryl think of a man sitting in an electric chair. He could picture spittle spraying from his brother’s lips, drool sliding down his chin as layers of fat quivered and jerked, his eyes rolling back into his head as his body flopped in the snow like a headless snake.
The demon’s spiel had now reached a frenzy and it filled Daryl’s head with a cacophony of hissed whispers whose words bled into one another: now, prove yourself now, show your worth, be a man for God’s sake, grow a pair and make her proud, oh so proud, be a good boy, be the best damn boy she could ever ask for….
Daryl’s eyelids opened and the voice fell silent. Turning slightly in his seat, he looked into the back of the car. His eyes took in the mounds of clothes and baggage, the plastic bottles of brake fluid and motor oil, all the flotsam and jetsam that had come rushing forward when the vehicle had come to its abrupt stop.
And there, poking out from underneath a pink t-shirt, he saw the curved tip of a tire tool.
Reaching back, his fingers closed around the cold metal and he lifted it slowly. It was heavier than he thought it would be… thick and sturdy like they used to make them. Not one of those cheap aluminum rods with the swiveling lug head that came with newer model cars. This was solid, a single piece of forged steel.
Daryl lifted the lever on the door so gently that there was only the smallest of clicks as the latch freed itself. He pushed it open just enough to allow himself to slide through the gap.
Ten feet away, Earl laid on his stomach like some whale that had washed up on an arctic shore. Snow billowed around his body and the cop was behind him, one knee firmly planted in the small of his massive back. The cop had Earl’s arms pinned just below the shoulder blades and the morning sun glinted off the handcuffs as if they were made of silver flame.
Daryl placed one foot in front of the other as carefully as if the twinkling flakes of ice on the snow were actually broken glass. His stare was focused on the little knot at the base of the officer’s skull and every muscle in his body wanted to break into a run. He wanted to hoist the tire tool above his head like some primal hunter and rattle the stillness of the morning with a guttural battlecry.
But he forced himself to proceed calmly. As if he were stalking game in the woods.
And the closer he came, the heavier and more powerful the metal gripped in his hand felt.
One swift blow.
One dull thud coupled with the cracking of splintered bone.
A splash of blood, stark and red against a field of white.
And then he would be the man Mama had always wanted him to be.
He would be the hero.
The protector.
He would finally be a good boy….