by mike Evans
She was going to ask who he was, but when she looked at Tim’s head, she saw the small smiley face on his cheek. “You—you are The Stranger… You’re the one that killed all those people in California last month. But what are you doing out in the middle of nowhere?”
“Trying to learn how not to kill. I guess I’m not doing a very good job though, am I?”
“You can start with letting me go. We don’t have to tell anyone, I’ll just leave. You can go home or wherever you live. I don’t even know where I am. Just leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone, and we can all live.”
Shelli stood, walking backwards, slowly wiping with her arm at the snot and blood from her broken nose. Matt weighed his thoughts on how he was going to kill her. “You see, I don’t let people go; especially when I need this place to be mine.”
“But what are you going to do with us? Someone is going to find us out here.”
“By the time I’m done cutting you into little pieces, no one will even know what species you were. Getting rid of you won’t be the issue; that isn’t the hard decision here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m just debating if I should slit your throat like your boyfriend, and then run the knife through your skull, or if I should shoot you with my arrow and watch you run until you bleed out, and then start peeling your skin back with my hunting knife. You ever get the chocolate and realize you should have had vanilla instead? Well, this is that same, very difficult decision.”
“Just let me go,” she begged.
Matt ran forward, lifting and slamming her into a tree. He stabbed the knife through her shoulder, pinning her to the tree. She tried to scream, but he muffled her cries for help with his hand. He rolled his eyes, shaking his head at her. “I need you to be quiet. I didn’t realize you were thinking that I was still going to let you go. I just can’t decide how I’d like to kill you. I’d like to do so many fun things to you, but I fear that after a while your friends are going to come down the hill, and well, I’m going to have to spend some time with them too, or it wouldn’t be fair. I won’t lie, your little group is giving me just the smallest hope that there will be other people as dumb as you, coming from the city, wanting to experience nature. How are you finding it? Are you enjoying nature? Do you feel at one with Mother Earth?”
With her good arm, Shelli was slamming her hand into his arm, trying to get him to let go of her mouth. “Please let me go.”
“Are your friends smarter than you? I hope they are, because I like a challenge, and I’d like to hunt, just a little. The great part is, you’re so far into the woods that you could scream all you want and no one would ever hear you. There won’t be anyone coming for you; not in a time frame that will matter. Your hotel won’t care for a day, and your parents think you are on vacation. Maybe your Facebook friends might send you a message, asking how the vacation is. Imagine how jealous everyone is of you being on vacation. Did you ever think that this was how your life would end? The sad thing is, you won’t get to be listed with my other victims, because no one is ever going to know what happened to you. It’s a shame I won’t get any credit for you four.”
He left the knife in her shoulder, pulling out an arrow, and sliding it into her gut. The four-bladed arrowhead pierced through her skin with very little effort. Matt smiled, looking down and watching the blood as her clean, smooth skin begin to separate and let him insert the arrow into her. Her entire body was beginning to shake; she was starting to go into shock. Matt bent down two feet so that the two of them could share eye contact. “I need you to stay with me. I think you’ll like what is next.”
Matt pulled off his belt, removing the arrow from her stomach. He let her rest a moment, patting away the sweat from her forehead, which was cool to the touch. “You aren’t doing well. What’s your name? I don’t think you’ll ever get to know anyone as well as me. It seems only fitting that we know each other’s name. How rude, let me start off: my name is Matt Hardin. They usually just call me ‘The Stranger.’ The news doesn’t know how to be respectful enough to just call me Matt. It is so much scarier for them to just call me, The Stranger. Oh, how scary! Chills up and down my back.”
Shelli, even on the brink of passing out, could only shake her head. “You’re fucking insane. My name is, Shelli. There’s nothing you can do to me now that is going to change the outcome of today.”
Matt nodded his head side to side, thinking about it. “You know, I think you’re right, Shelli. But the one thing, the one thing you aren’t giving me credit for, is if you think you can handle any more pain. Is there anything I could do to send chills through your friends? To scare them worse than they’ve ever been scared before, and at the same time, kill you? We both know you’ve only got a limited amount of time left, right? So if we’re going to do this, we might as well get rolling.”
“You aren’t going to rape me, are you?”
“Not my thing. In all reality, if I came upon someone doing that to a woman against her will, I’d slit his throat and stuff his cock down it, I can promise you that. No, it doesn’t do anything for me. A killer has to have a set of guidelines, right?”
“A killer with a consciousness?” she questioned.
“Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far. Okay, were you good with those being your last words? I think you’ll have a hell of a time with everything else to come, now.”
“What are you talking about, freak?”
Matt smiled, pulling a hatchet free, and used his knife to cut loose the shirt from around her. She sat there shaking, her bare skin now full of goose bumps. “Don’t be in too big of a rush, this might take a little while. Dad’s a much better aim than me, with this little thing. I’d rather use an axe, but who would have thought a gift such as this was going to be bestowed upon me today? Such a pot shot; some days I get rabbits, other days I get a group of friends hiking in the woods. God, I wish we could make this like, a daily thing. I don’t think I’d ever get bored. And I usually try to be more creative, so please, please accept my apologies if this seems mundane or boring to you.”
She got what last bits of saliva she had in her mouth and spit a mouthful of blood in Matt’s delighted face. He wiped at it with his hand, licking it off, sucking a drip from his finger and smiling. “I’d say you’d regret that, but I think you’ll regret just about everything about today. From heaven, hopefully.” Matt chose two branches a few inches wide. “We’re going to need one of these to stop the blood, and well, the other’s going to keep you quiet.”
Matt took the stick, using his blade to turn one end into a point, and then jammed it through her cheek tissue and out the other side. She tried to scream, but couldn’t open or shut her mouth. Matt whispered in her ear, “I wish that I could hear those screams. I can guarantee you it’s going to get much worse before it gets… come to think of it, honey—I mean, Shelli, we are on a first name basis—it isn’t going to get better. It’s just going to get worse and worse for you. This has been the happiest that I’ve been in months. Thank you for this, Shelli. I’ll remember you forever. Or maybe I won’t, I guess only time will tell.”
Shelli’s eyes looked as if they were going to pop from their sockets. She was hitting her head against the tree trying to get the stick out of her mouth somehow, but had no luck or hope of getting it out.
Matt took her shirt, ripping it in two even pieces and said, “No better time like the present to get something going I guess.”
He took the second stick and the shirt and put it around her elbow just under the triceps muscle. He tightened it until her arm started to go purple. She was trying to yank her hands free, but still had one of his knives in her shoulder, holding her to the tree. He took the second piece of cloth from her and put it around her other arm and repeated the action and then pulled out the blade from her shoulder, letting her fall to the ground.
She collapsed, trying to lift the arm that he’d stabbed with the knife, but couldn’t do anything with it. “
Did you want to wave goodbye Shelli, it’s going to be the last time you are able to.”
Shelli looked at him curiously, defeated, tired, and weakened and he shrugged, putting a foot on her side and pulling at her arm with his free hand. What was coming next finally hit home, and she started trying to scream “no,” but it was too late.
Matt brought up the hatchet as high as he could and swung it down into her arm. Even with all the power he could muster, he was still not able to get through her bone in one hit. He got close to her again. He was enjoying this woman immensely. Not in so long had he the time he’d wanted to do what he wanted to, to one of his victims. The crunch noise made her sick. Vomit came out of her mouth slowly as the stick through her face was blocking the way. With nowhere else to go, she began to choke on her own vomit.
Matt looked down at her mid-swing, seeing her face turning a plethora of different colors, and he paused, dropping the hatchet and ripping out the stick from her mouth. He rolled her to her side where she began to lose everything she’d eaten recently, coughing and begging in between for him to stop.
“We can’t stop, it’s too much fun, Shelli. You’re almost done though.”
When she was done puking, he put a hand up to cover her mouth and brought down the hatchet on the already partially-severed arm repeatedly until it finally broke free. He picked it up, brushing her hair back with her own now-severed hand.
“Halfway there, Shelli, just one more to go, hopefully the blade didn’t dull, that’d be a shame. Let's put this back also.” He took the shaft of wood, jamming it into an already open hole and through a fresh one on the other side.
She was shaking her head no, having problems staying awake. Matt slapped her, sending a sting she wasn’t sure was human through her cheek. She tried to say something, but Matt brought the hatchet down three more times in a blindingly fast succession. She tried to squeeze her hands, but Matt was holding them in front of her, dangling them.
He got her up to her feet. The world was spinning, and she didn’t know what to do. She felt like she was drunk.
“You can run now.”
She looked at the hill and back at Matt. “I promise you that you can have a head start. Now might be the time that you want your friends around you.”
She thought for sure that he was playing with her; that under no circumstances would he actually let her run free. But he stood back, picking up the bow and arrow and wiping the blood from her arms off of the hatchet on his pants. He stood there a moment longer, sheathing his hatchet before pulling out one single arrow looking at it.
He smiled, showing it to her, and said, “Well, if you want to see how far this will go through you, then stay there. Otherwise, if you want to have a chance, then this is your time to do it. Unless you want to stay and play with me?”
When she didn’t move, he nocked the arrow, holding the bow up and putting two fingers around the string, pulling it back slowly. When the bow began to creak, that was when it clicked in her head, and a little voice in the back of her head yelled to run.
***
Jason watched with a look of the Devil on his face as Shelli disappeared and headed down the hill. He snuck over towards the edge, making sure that she was going all the way down. Joyce saw him and knew there was no way he was up to any good—he was never behaved. “Baby, get over here and eat your sandwich.”
“What if I told you that I wasn’t necessarily hungry for a sandwich?”
“I’d say that if you have anything else in mind, that you’re probably going to starve to death.”
“That isn’t funny, Joyce,” he whined.
“Noted, but unfortunately for you, I wasn’t trying to be funny. I’m not getting ticks God knows where because you are horny in the middle of the woods. And apparently you forgot, but we all stink. I can assure you, and the last thing I want is for Shelli and Tim to catch us half naked, lying on the blanket we are supposed to be eating on and bumping uglies together.”
Jason undid his pants, exposing himself and the fact that he’d bypassed putting any underwear on that morning. He put a hand to cover his mouth. “Oops! And what are you talking about ‘bumping uglies’? It’s pretty impressive, if I am allowed to say so myself. You’re allowed to say whatever you like about it, honey.”
Jason thrusted it forward pointing with both hands. “Just look at it. You know a lot of ladies would say you are a pretty lucky lady.”
Joyce pretended to not see it, squinting and leaning forward. “You know, there are a lot of women out there with alcohol and drug abuse problems. What if I promise you the best twelve and a half minutes of your life when we get home? Would that suffice for you until we can get back to the hotel? I don’t want to do it out here, and this place, in all honesty, gives me the fucking creeps. He picks a spot in butt fucking nowhere, where no one is around, and then when we get here his main train of thought is that he doesn’t want to see people, and he’d like to toke it up. Is there anything besides turning wrenches and smoking pot that interests him? I mean, how old are you guys?”
“Old enough to know that smoking pot and enjoying the quiet is almost as good as sex, when you get to our age. I know you two don’t like it, but cut him some slack. He kills himself day in and out for Shelli, and she barely appreciates it.”
Joyce patted his crotch, pulling his jeans out a little, giving him just the slightest hope before she tucked him back away and zipped up his pants. “You better check that thing for ticks when we get home before sticking it in me, because if I get some kind of disease or God knows what, it will be the last time that it ever does go in me. I hope that you understand that, dear.”
“Yeah, I understand it, I'm not going to get any and I'm going to have to pray that you don’t fall asleep on the couch tonight, playing with your damn Kindle.”
“It isn’t playing with it if you are reading, genius,” Joyce retorted.
“Oh, I’m sorry I forgot you were the intellectual one with your near-porn books. But there’s words in between the humping right, that’s what makes it classy?”
“You better be careful. Reading about those porn stars that you are talking about is probably what still helps you get any nowadays. You come home stinking of grease every night, complaining about your back and knees hurting.”
“Yeah, that’s a little thing called manual labor, dear; it kicks my ass and I don't enjoy it. Problem is, we have bills to pay and—you know what? Forget it, I'm good. I’ll take care of myself when I get home.”
“Oh, don’t be like that Jason. You know I love you, right?”
“I have to wonder, from time to time.”
A scream came from the hill and Jason didn’t even break stride. “Would you two try to keep it down? You aren’t getting any brownie points when I have to watch my dip shit best friend go trotting around all afternoon, since he got some and we both know that I haven’t, and won’t be getting any,” he yelled.
“I thought men were just kidding when they said they only thought about sex.”
“No, we pretty much need it, or we could be single a hell of a lot cheaper.”
“If you were single, we couldn’t ever have babies, because we’d never be married.”
Jason spun on his foot, ready to impale his face on the tree. “Yeah, you can’t get pregnant if we don’t do any fucking. You realize that right? I mean I know there’s artificial insemination, but fuck that royally.”
“Well, if we’re trying to have a baby that kind of changes things, don’t you think?”
Jason went to tell her off quite confidently when the scream grew until it consumed everything. He spun to see what it was and his eyes told him, but his brain did little to understand or believe what it was that it was trying to tell him. He reached out a hand wanting to touch her, to make sure she was what he thought she was.
Shelli came up over the hill. Massive blood loss had stained her sides and front, and tears and the look of pure shock was plastered to her face. The words Jason
was capable of getting out were limited, the sentence barely coherent. “What—what—what the… where’s… hey, what about—what about Tim? Where is Tim? What happened to you?”
Joyce pushed past, throwing him out of the way. She had no clue what to do with her. She held out a hand; the stick coming out of her best friend’s mouth broke her heart. She looked at the mangled skin, the arms no longer in their place. “How?”
Shelli began to shake. She looked more like she was going to drop than be able to escape with them. Her face was paler than they’d ever seen.
Jason whispered, “Are they still here?”
Shelli looked to him and nodded her head slowly. He patted his pockets, finding a Swiss Army Knife, and laughed aloud. “Oh, we’re saved now. Fuck me with a stick!”
