by Aly Noble
No, it didn’t matter at all now.
For an instant, it had occurred to me that pulling the knife from the tree wouldn’t be the worst plan. And yet it would be—it’d slow me down with little reward. The heavy, rapid footfalls behind me reinforced the need to move even faster. I tried to maintain my breathing. I tried to mind where I went. And I tried to avoid even the slightest entertainment of the thought that this may not work.
A slow build of sound began behind me, and it took some time for me to realize it was laughter. Crazed, but winded laughter. Dead leaves and frost crunched beneath our shoes. I started looking for the rocks I’d arranged around the leafy camouflage, wondering if the wind had disturbed the leaves enough to expose the traps. If a rabbit had run through the leaves. If a rabbit had run through the traps. If I was about to run through the traps.
I noticed the first semi-circle of rocks at the last possible instant. I avoided them, and Price must’ve seen my swerve in time to do the same because he barely nicked the edge of the trap. It was enough to cause it to snap shut with a clang that pierced the air and lingered like a ghost.
He stopped, and I exercised false hope that he’d gotten caught in the trap despite the lack of reaction that followed. I darted behind a tree and gathered myself as well as I could, measuring breaths and listening.
Price began to laugh again, but it was quiet this time. “Look at you. Trying to get me back,” he mused distantly. A bird darted through the canopy overhead, and I pressed back against the tree hard enough to realize part of the trunk was hollow.
“You know, the jaw thing… It’s like a metaphor,” he mused as I fumbled with the bark behind me, feeling to the edge where the wood started to rot. “It just keeps coming up. Just like us.”
I listened to Price move amongst the leaves. Maybe he doesn’t know I put that trap there, I realized, clenching my teeth as I reached inside the hollowed trunk and hoped it was one I’d picked as a supply bunker. My fingertips moved through the empty air before brushing the cold, mossy interior again. Nothing.
“Did you think you could outrun me?”
I shoved away from the tree just as his arm swung around, knife back in his hand and aimed for my neck. The sound of the point burying itself in the wood cracked in the air behind me as I dashed behind another tree further ahead, trying to absorb what this new location meant for me. I pressed back against my new hiding place, and my hand went through a dead patch in the trunk. I caught myself, but when my hand went through the decaying bark, it hit something smooth.
“You’re just staving off the inevitable,” he huffed, sounding frustrated as he ripped the knife from the tree and his footsteps once more shuffled against the leaves. I looked down and saw the rotted maw in the side of the tree, remembering it and trying to silently tilt the bat inside into my hand. Memories started welling up past the panic, and I looked toward a gap between two trees nearby where there lay a crescent of rocks aligned to near-perfection just adjacent from my tree’s roots.
I’d lost track of Price, and he was suddenly next to me with his hand latching onto my jacket. I panicked and lost my grip on the bat, my foot slamming into the side of his knee. He grunted in time with the sickening crack the joint produced on impact, but he didn’t let go. He hurled his knife toward me right as I shoved the heel of my palm toward his face. I caught his nose at an angle, and his knifepoint sliced my sleeve just shy of my arm. He let me go this time, and I took the chance to run.
Inhaling a shaky breath, I darted behind a nearby tree, watching him reach up to touch his face and inspect the damage I’d done. He growled, the sound very human now that it was just him in there. I made myself calm down. Adrenaline was rushing through me with the blood in my ears. It sounded like an ocean.
“How the fuck do you think this ends, kid?” he shouted into the woods. “You gonna dart around some trees until I give up? You think that’s going to happen? You think if you get away from me this time, I’ll just stop? Is that what you’ve learned so far?”
While he ranted, I was desperately trying to think of a way to get back to that bat. If I got it and hit him hard enough, even if I just stood in the right spot and he ran at me, he’d hit one of the remaining traps. I had the map back in my mind of how I’d laid out the area. I had a clear vision of the trap locations. This could work. I just had to stay calm enough to stay smart.
I looked down toward my feet and spotted a tennis ball-sized rock by my feet while Price continued to beg questions of wind-rustled trees. I glanced past the trunk of my hiding place and lowered myself toward the ground as quietly as possible. I heard Price moving around, but he was staying in place. Looking around.
He’s not sure where I am.
My fingers wrapped around the stone and I slowly rose back to my full height. I had to pick a spot near enough that it was believable, but far enough away that I’d have time to make my way back to the bat. There was a tree somewhere between fifteen and twenty feet from me that looked plausible—it was old with a thick trunk that gave me a reasonable amount of room for error if my throw wasn’t as spot-on as I wanted it to be. I waited until he’d turned his back to me completely again before I wound my arm back and pitched the rock at the leaves behind the tree.
The rock struck the ground, the leaves absorbing some of the noise and making a series of rustling sounds instead as the stone rolled some and came to a stop.
Price’s head swiveled toward the sound, his grip loosening a little on his knife as his anger at potentially being outwitted started to ebb. He sneered and started slowly stalking toward the tree, moving in ways that would limit the noise he made as he crept up on my decoy. As he moved, I began to move as well, taking my first step away from the tree as his foot hit the ground. And then another step. And one more. It was the direst waltz two people could do.
He reached the decoy and realized he was being tricked just as I reached my hollow tree. I took the last few steps to get behind the trunk and a few treacherous leaves rustled against my shoes. He heard me, but the risk was worth the reward, I hoped. The sound of his footsteps once again began to move toward my location. “Cute,” he commented in a flat, unamused tone. “I’m glad you’re not giving up, Miri. It’s never as fun when they give up. But this is a little much, don’t you think? Childish even? I’m starting to get angry.”
I wet my lips and tasted blood as I produced the bat from the rotten throat of the tree, figuring I’d bitten my lip at some point and not felt it. I eyed the covered trap and adjusted my grip on the bat, preparing my swing while knowing I’d really only have one shot at best.
Come on, you bastard.
I listened to him moving and pinpointed his location before intentionally kicking a few leaves toward the left side of the trunk.
He paused and slightly altered his direction, playing right into the lure. His steps were measured and predatory despite his brewing anger. His breathing was heavy enough for me to hear it and it was difficult to say whether it was labored or excited. I gathered myself, placing my other hand on the bat and stretching my hands before tightening my grip.
He waited a breath before lunging around the tree and stabbing the knife toward me. I dodged out of the way and the moment the knife was buried in the bark was the same moment I swung the bat.
It connected hard with the side of his head.
Price stumbled backward. The sounds around us died. Blood ran down from his brow. I advanced forward and hit him again. The foot he used to catch himself sprang the second trap.
The jaws snapping up from the leaves and a grotesque crack from his ankle broke the silence that was followed by breathy, staccato shouts of pain. He fell into the leaves and immediately reached down to grapple with the trap to no avail—he wasn’t as strong as he’d been before. Not even close.
When he couldn’t pry the jaws apart, he gave up and glared toward me, his lips curled in a feral snarl. “You fucking cunt,” he declared with a rasp, the spittle flying from between hi
s teeth tinted red.
I looked down at him and realized I was looking at him—really looking at him—for probably the first time. He looked the same, but more human. Perhaps because he was more human now or perhaps because he was finally the one at a disadvantage. He looked like a rabid, trapped animal.
“If you think,” he growled, pushing himself as upright as possible while the trap bit deeper into his leg, “for one fucking second that this is over… You’re so fucking wrong. You stupid—“
“Stop talking,” I said quietly. He bared his teeth, but before he could call me another foul name, I pointed the bloodied end of the slugger his way. “Stop. Talking.”
He did for a moment. He glanced between the bat and me, and then at the trap before realization slowly dawned. Now he just looked flabbergasted. And then pleasantly surprised. “You…,” he began, hesitated, and then continued, “…planned this. That’s where you were.” When I didn’t argue, he started chuckling. “Well, this,” he smirked. “This is new. I didn’t expect this.”
“Obviously not,” I mumbled, deliberating about how I was going to do this. I’d bought myself options, but hadn’t known exactly how this would play out. I kept feeling little thrills of victory, but they were coming too soon. I still needed to get rid of him.
I still had Jeff’s gun in my jacket, but I was also worried about using it. It was loud and identifiable even though I wasn’t intending on leaving much behind. However, if I didn’t do that, I’d have to beat him to death or pour the acid on him until he went into shock—neither of which were great alternatives. Just thinking over those options had me questioning my humanity.
“Well?” Price chided me, a sneer in his voice. “What are you waiting for, killer?”
I wanted to walk away from him for a few minutes to clear my head. He was jarring me, and he knew it. Yet I didn’t want to leave him to his own devices because lucklessness would undoubtedly have it that he’d find a way to finagle his way out of the trap while I had my back turned.
“Want my advice?” he chuckled. “I’m an expert. Maybe I can help you.”
“Shut up,” I muttered.
“For what? What could you possibly do to me?”
“Neither of us wants to find out,” I promised him, feeling my teeth grind in the back of my mouth.
I heard him move around through the leaves behind me, audibly wincing when the trap adjusted with him. I needed to get this over with.
“You weren’t close to Carla,” he stated calmly, and I had to bite back a reflexive “well, duh!” for how much that didn’t matter to me in that moment. His breathing was ragged, and I knew he was at least in a lot of pain. He’d maybe even lost a fair amount of blood. It wouldn’t kill him though. I’d have to leave him out here for days for that to work and he’d either trick someone into helping him get out (unlikely, but possible) or cut his own leg off before that worked. It was all too risky. I started looking for his knife as I had that thought, but realized he didn’t have it on the ground with him. It was still buried in the tree where he’d stabbed it before I hit him.
“You didn’t know any of the other ones,” he rasped. “But you’ll know the next one… Estelle, was it?”
He was baiting me. But why? So I’d lash out and make a mistake?
“It’s a pity you don’t have a sister somewhere… Just a brother, right?” he said in a low voice. “I don’t kill other men. We have to look out for each other, you know. You filthy pigs are the ones that need sent back to the weeds—some of you think you’re just like us. I know you’re one of them. You will never be like us.” He pulled in a rasping breath and smirked up at me with bloodied teeth and empty eyes. “If women didn’t have cunts, they’d be hunted.”
My fingers flexed around the bat. I remembered where I put the chain.
“You do have a mother though… I’ve always wanted to see the east coast. Been meaning to take a trip down south for years. Now I have a reason to go.”
Something in me shuddered. I turned and stalked toward him. He grinned and watched my feet in anticipation. He was planning to kick my feet out from under me. I stepped aside before he could. As his sorry attempt swung him awkwardly around after missing his target, I swung the bat up over my head like an executioner’s ax and brought it down on his face. His nose shattered against the wood and blood spurted sideways through his nostrils, splattering his teeth as he opened his mouth to shout.
He gurgled, and I hit him again and again until it was enough to force him to grapple with consciousness. As I retrieved the chains from the log nearby, I wondered if he’d thought I wouldn’t do it. Maybe he wasn’t baiting me, but trying to freak me out instead. Whatever he’d intended, I’d surprised us both.
I brought the length of chain over once I gathered it up and looked at his lax, battered face. I stared at him for a few seconds to be sure he was really knocked out before I kicked him over and pulled his arms behind his back, winding the chain around his wrists. He started to rouse as soon as I’d secured them and I gave one last pull before quickly putting distance back between us. He was slower now, wincing as he raised his head to look around and try moving his hands.
He spat blood and looked at me through swelling eyes. “You’re doing great, champ. But you’re still dragging this out.” Price smiled, and my stomach churned as I realized I’d broken off two of his teeth with the bat. “Where’s the rage?” When I didn’t respond, he screamed at me. “WHERE IS IT?”
Price was correct, unfortunately. I was furious. I wanted to hit him more. I wanted to kill him. Some part of me wondered why I was holding back—it was because of that, I think, that I was stuck hesitating.
He spit blood again once it refilled his mouth. Price smirked once more, slowly with relish, before sealing his fate. “And maybe before I leave, I’ll flay little Bethaline Roberts.”
I ripped the knife from the tree so hard I felt the ball of my shoulder disrupt in its socket. “Stop fucking talking,” I growled as I whirled on him and hurled the blade down into his throat.
Chapter 28
I could feel my pulse behind my eyes. In my ears. Up my neck. My hands shook on limbs that felt detached and numb and electric and monstrous on my frame. I was mechanical. Breathing was automatic. I swallowed, but not without having to remember how.
Price wasn’t Price anymore. He was beaten beyond recognition. There was no coming to terms with the fact that I’d done that to him. It just was.
There was a wet squelch as a clump of viscera slid off the end of the bat and hit the ground. My out-of-body experience ended with me dry heaving against a tree.
Sinking into a state of auto-pilot, I dumped the jug of chemicals across his body, pressing the back of my free hand against my nose to try warding off the pungent smell rising from the corroding flesh and bone. I watched the acid corrode everything Connor Price was, from his haunting corpse to his broken, rotten soul. In some ways, it was my closure. In others, it was my way of holding myself accountable for making it all happen.
Moments after doing so, I had no recollection of walking back to the car. It wasn’t even until I was circling back to the trunk of the Jeep in Estelle’s driveway that I was sure I’d remembered to put all my supplies back inside to get rid of before sunup. I felt myself sweating despite the cold and went inside the house, silently shutting the door behind me and walking to the laundry room just off the hallway.
I flipped the overhead fluorescents on and turned to my own reflection. It was troubling, but not for the reasons I’d expected. There was always the revelation in books and film where the antagonist or fallen hero looks at their reflection after doing something horrible and doesn’t recognize what they’ve become. At least, that was the type of story I’d come across again and again.
I still looked like myself. I looked tired—drained even. But I was me. I was just a version of myself I’d never been before. Simultaneously, there was no “lust for more” or morbid, addictive sweetness to what I’d don
e either. If anything, I just felt like I could breathe again. My body was tensed out of habit, my vision defaulting to its periphery to check for a threat that was no longer valid. However, in the aftermath of that tension, there was something close to freedom.
I rinsed my hands clean, bearing orange water into the sink basin—vaguely, I remembered watching similar colors drift down the bathroom drain by means of hair dye, when I’d first begun to come to terms with what I would have to do to put this mess to bed. I shed my clothes into a trash bag for the time being and got new attire from my bag in Estelle’s bedroom. She was still passed out on the couch—I didn’t have to wait for her to show signs of life this time. Not only was I certain Price hadn’t done anything to her between meeting me in the kitchen and walking me outside, but she was emitting a continuous, low snore I didn’t have to strain much to hear.
I shut off the flow of water, and the groan of the faucet brought back the exact sound Price’s skull had made when I caved it in. The pop of a watermelon under a sledgehammer. I gagged, and my mouth became acidic. The taste brought back the smell of the hydrofluoric acid, and the dull fizzling sound of the acid on that bastard’s flesh ate at the edges of my memory. I drew a shuddering breath, and my knuckles turned white as my hands took the sides of the sink in a death-grip.
I couldn’t control the recall anymore, and it was spiraling past what I could handle. All shock gone, I relived the moment I’d hurled the knife into his neck, then immediately withdrawn it to shove it through his right eye. He’d bleated like a sheep, and I’d brought the bat up over my head and swung it down at the hilt of the blade, splitting his eye socket with a loud crack. After that, I couldn’t stop swinging. I wanted it over, and this was creating a path to that ending. If I stopped now, what would I do? Call him an ambulance? Nurse him back to health? Leave him out there to suffer or potentially get back on his feet with the help of some stranger, as I’d considered earlier? No. He was going to die and, despite all the wrath and pain he deserved, I wasn’t leaving him room to endure it long.
