And that was a real possibility as welclass="underline" that Earl might be denied the satisfaction of revenge. If Matt found a cave to hole up in or if he just continued trucking on without ever losing steam, then sooner or later hypothermia would set in. Shivering in the freezing temperatures would turn to fatigue as the body tried everything within its power to protect itself. And all it would take would be for that pretty boy to think he’d lay down for just a minute or two, just a little cat nap to recharge his batteries. He’d close his eyes and slip into a darkness from which he’d never awaken.
So, no… he had to find this son of a bitch and had to find him soon. After whatever he’d done to Mama, the bastard deserved far, far worse than dying in his sleep. He needed to scream. To beg. To know what it meant to be hunted and look into the eyes of his killer with the knowledge that he was about to die.
“What the fuck?”
Earl stepped out of the trees and into a clearing where the thick, gray clouds overhead could clearly be seen. They amassed in the sky like a gathering army, closing in ranks for one final assault against the world below. However, it wasn’t what was over his head that caused him to gape as his brow knitted in confusion. It was what was in the snow.
Up until this point, Matt’s tracks had been pretty straight forward. They had been meandering impressions that, without fail, cut a path that lead deeper and deeper into the woods. Occasionally, they would weave in and out through the trees or cut a wide swath around a boulder or deadfall. But they were nothing like what Earl saw before him now.
The clearing looked as if a hundred people who all wore the same shoe size had trampled through the drifts. Like the spokes of a wheel, the tracks radiated out in all directions from a central point that had been reduced to nothing more than a mire of muddy snow. Each spoke doubled back on itself, sometimes so often that it was impossible to tell which footprints were leading into the forest and which were returning to the clearing.
Because of this, Earl had no idea which direction his prey had actually went. It could have been any one of two dozen possibilities and he stood, scratching his beard, as his eyes looked across the clearing.
“You slippery son if a bitch….”
Earl walked forward as carefully as if he were stepping onto a frozen lake. He had it in his mind that he would put himself in Matt’s shoes but felt the need to be cautious. His plan was simple really: he’d walk to the middle of the clearing, just as Matt had done, and then study the different sets of tracks that branched off from there. Though they looked like a confusing mess at first glance, there had to be one particular direction that had more footprints leading out than coming back in. And once Earl was able to identify that set then he would be back on the trail again.
Out in the open, the temperature seemed to drop nearly ten degrees. Without the cover of trees to cut the wind, a steady breeze gusted against him and rustled the tufts of dead scrub grass that poked through the snow like skeletons clawing their way out of the grave. The tip of his nose was now so cold that it almost felt like it were on fire and a membrane seemed to form somewhere just inside his nostrils. He could feel this film flex and relax with each breath and he cursed himself for not having the forethought to grab a ski mask before taking off after the man.
By the time he reached the center of the clearing, snow had begun falling again and the tingling pain had spread to Earl’s cheeks and ears and the hairs of his beard felt like brittle needles poking into his neck and chin . The discomfort made him grumble to himself as thoughts of coffee and crackling fire plagued his mind; making Matt suffer didn’t seem as important as it had earlier. Now, he simply wanted to kill the bastard, get his ass home, and thaw out beneath a pile of blankets. And to do that, he had to solve the riddle of the footprints surrounding him.
Earl spun around slowly, taking in each track with a critical eye. He wasn’t exactly thinking about them, but rather trusting his mind to seize upon something that was just a little out of place. Something that would separate one particular trail from the others.
Halfway through his second revolution, he heard something. Almost like a snake’s hiss. Only this sound seemed to be coming through the air.
Before his mind had a chance to decode what this could mean, pain flared in his chest so intensely that everything went black for a moment. He staggered backward as his hands groped for the source of the agony and felt the warm stickiness of his own blood gushing from his body.
Matt watched the fat man stumble around like a dazed idiot. Obviously, the stupid fuck hadn’t realized what had happened yet. Otherwise, he would have been running for cover; instead he simply stayed in the clearing, blinking at his own bloody hands as if trying to figure out exactly what they were. Still, it would only be a matter of time before rationality broke through the wall of shock. And then he would run. Which meant Matt had to act fast.
He drew back the t-shaped piece of plastic that was squeezed within his fist. At first, it felt like it would take all of his strength to pull the cord it was attached to into position; but then the pulleys shifted and all of the tension seemed to evaporate. He held it for a moment, lining up his shot, and then released.
There was a soft ting as the cord snapped back, immediately followed by the whizz of the arrow cutting through the air. Instead of waiting for the projectile to plunge into Earl’s blubber, however, Matt was already pulling another from the quiver on his back and fitting the notch onto the string of the compound bow he’d taken from the house.
He released the barrage of arrows like a machine and their razor-like tips flew with precision. Again and again, they found their mark as fresh spurts of blood squished from Earl’s body. Within seconds, the man looked like an oversized voodoo doll stuck with feathered needles. His entire chest was red and glistening now and his face had turned pale and sallow. Sinking to his knees, he tried to raise the pistol, but Matt’s next shot pierced Earl’s forearm and the gun tumbled into the air as the fat man snatched his hand away.
The bolt had passed through the arm and Matt was reminded of Steve Martin and the headband that made it look as if he’d taken an arrow through the skull. However, in Earl’s case, the business end of the shaft had strands of sinew and tiny chunks of flesh still embedded on the barbed arrowhead.
“I’m a wild and crazy guy.” Matt mumbled to himself as he lined up his last arrow with a smile.
He was being more careful with this one, for Earl had started to sway back and forth as mists of blood flew from his gasping mouth. Somehow, he looked smaller now: as if all of that bulk had been nothing more than hemoglobin and he was shriveling down to a normal size now that it was all spewing from his body. On top of this, the snow had really started coming down again. It was almost as if the clearing were actually the diorama in a snow globe that had been vigorously shaken by god and it made it difficult to track the man’s subtle movements.
After several seconds, Matt finally released his shot. The arrow sped through the air and rammed into the center of Earl’s chest. Almost immediately, the man fell face forward into the snow, forcing the tip of the gore streaked arrow through his back as his weight fell upon the shaft.
He lay motionless while a dusting of snow built up on his back. . Not trying to raise his head with the last of his strength. Not so much as even a finger or leg twitching as a crimson shadow blossomed beneath his body. If it kept coming down like this, within half an hour he would be nothing more than a mound of snow that was simply larger than the drifts surrounding it.
Tossing the bow onto the ground, Matt raised his middle finger at this fallen giant, kissed the tip of it, and then snapped his wrist with a flourish. He felt like he always did following a kilclass="underline" breathless, flushed with a mixture of excitement and release, slightly tense and tranquil all at the same time. It was like he was a virgin who’d just gotten his first piece of ass. Only he got to experience the giddy thrill time and time again.