by Joe Ide
Gretta was on her feet, staring. “That’s Warren Long.”
Irene grabbed her hand. “Run!” There was only one way to go. Across the campsite, past the Witches’ Tree and into the darkness. Two shots, BLAM! BLAM! The flashes lighting the night and echoing down the canyon, bullets ricocheting off the rocks.
They kept running, frenzied shouting behind them. They reached a steep slope. It was pitch-dark, but Irene knew what was down there. Riprap and boulders, some round and smooth, others like prehistoric cutting tools. There were a thousand crevices to get stuck in, fall and smash a kneecap. Irene looked back. The killers were very close. BLAM! BLAM! Bullets punched holes in the air.
“Come on, Mom!”
They started to descend. You wouldn’t do this in the daytime, Irene thought. She climbed down slowly, between, around and over the riprap, using her hands, sticking her boot out to touch the next foothold. “Careful, Mom! Keep going!” They had no advantage here. The killers would be directly above them, and there was no cover until they reached the bottom where the forest began.
Irene heard the killers coming. Any second, she expected bright beams and more gunshots, but there were none. Had the killers gassed out? “We’re almost there, Mom!” She reached the bottom and stumbled into the safety of the trees. “We made it!” She turned around. No one was there. She looked up. Gretta was at the top of the slope, held in a flashlight beam and shading her eyes. She’d waited for the killers so her daughter could get away.
“Mom, no!” Irene screamed. “Come down, please come down!”
“Go, Irene,” Gretta said. Her normal voice seemed louder than shouting. “Go, my darling. If you love me, please go.” The beams were getting brighter. Irene could hear the killers laughing. “Mom, please come down!”
“You would do the same for me,” Gretta insisted. “Go now, sweetheart.” She looked down the incline. She couldn’t see her daughter and yet their eyes met. She smiled lovingly. “I’ll see you on the other side.” She stood straight, raised her chin and looked squarely into the beams. They might take her life but never her dignity. It broke Irene’s heart. The smaller man went face-to-face with Gretta, snarling like a rabid dog and waving that fucking axe.
“I got you! I fucking got you!” he screamed.
The big man was pissed. “Goddammit, where’s the girl? I don’t want this old bag! Where is she?” He cupped his hands over his mouth and screamed, “WHERE ARE YOU YOU GODDAMN CUNT?” He fired blindly. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
“GO NOW, IRENE!” Gretta screamed. “GET OUT OF HERE! GO!”
“I’m okay, Mom, I’m safe!” Irene yelled, but they’d taken her away. “YOU COWARDS! I’LL KILL YOU. I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”
She turned and walked farther into the trees, sobbing and enraged. She didn’t feel like herself anymore, like a junior in high school who played softball, had lots of friends and got good grades. She felt feral and vicious, with only an instinctive need to rip flesh, taste blood and watch those motherfuckers die.
Big Man yanked Gretta along by her arm. Something in her knee had popped; the pain was excruciating. She could see the fire. She knew once they got there, it was the end. She started to scream but held it back. She wouldn’t let Irene listen to her mother die. She couldn’t believe it. Billy’s serial killers were real. The big man must be—what was his name? Crowe. That’s right, Crowe. As they reached the campsite, she thought he was going to throw her into the fire. Instead, he shoved her to the ground. “Try something, okay? I want you to.” He turned to Warren. “Go get some more firewood.”
“Why do I have to do it?” Warren whined.
“Just do it, Warren, for fuck’s sake! It’s getting dark.”
Warren left, muttering. The wind came up, Gretta’s fear growing with the fluttering flames. Crowe was behind her. She could see his gargantuan shadow. He bound her hands with a strap from a backpack. She could hear his breathing, feel his need to violate and plunder. He started to hum, walking around her, occasionally touching her with the knife.
“Warren will be back in a minute,” he said, grinning. “And then we’ll begin.” This was actually the end, Gretta thought. She didn’t fear death. She feared dying. She held back another scream.
Warren returned and threw wood on the fire. “There, okay? Satisfied?”
The flames billowed, glowing brighter, crackling louder, sending swarms of sparks hopping into the air. Warren began dancing around, hooting and laughing and jabbering, the poster boy for lunacy. Gretta closed her eyes and thought of Irene. How she was getting away. How she’d never see her again.
The fire’s radiance writhed and flickered on Crowe’s face, one eye dull, the other like a bomb crater, the knife gleaming in his hand. He didn’t look like Satan, he was Satan, and she was on his cutting board, about to be carved into slices like a country ham. He stood over her, his looming figure blotting out the heavens. He laughed and started to kneel. In the same instant, Warren was beside her on his knees, cackling and raising his axe. Crowe caught his wrist and twisted the axe away from him.
“I go first. I always go first,” Crowe said.
Warren got to his feet and reached for the hatchet. “Gimme, it’s mine!” he shouted. Crowe was a head taller than Warren. He held the weapon up high, Warren on his tiptoes like a bully was holding his glasses out of reach. “Gimme it, Crowe! Gimme it!” He screamed in Crowe’s face, “GIMME IT, YOU FUCKER!” Warren stopped. The Bowie knife was under his chin.
“I always go first,” Crowe said. He took Warren’s axe and hurled it into the darkness.
“Fuck you, Crowe! Fuck you!” Warren yelled. Then he picked up a flashlight and stormed off after it.
Gretta was alone with Crowe and somehow that seemed worse than the two of them, like the torture would be more personal, more intimate. He kneeled beside her and grabbed a bunch of her hair. He twisted it until she yelled and cut it off, tossing it into the fire, each hair a sizzling fuse before it disappeared.
“Are you ready?” he said. “I think you’re gonna like this.” He looked off into the dark. “We’ll wait for that stupid prick. If we don’t, he’ll be a bigger pain in the ass than he is already. He put the point of the knife against her shirt and cut off a button. “It won’t be long,” he said. He smiled. His teeth were yellow. “It won’t be long at all.”
He wants to completely dominate your body and your mind, Gretta thought. Nothing you can do about your body but you’re not going to give him your mind. Your very self. Defy this motherfucker with your last breath. She smirked at him, her eyes amused and contemptuous.
“If I could spit on you, I’d do it now.” Crowe reared back in surprise. She screamed the only thing she knew would hurt him. “IRENE GOT AWAY! THE ONE YOU REALLY WANTED GOT AWAY! YOU’LL NEVER GET HER! YOU’LL NEVER GET MY DAUGHTER!” Crowe roared like no beast that ever roamed the earth and raised the knife with two hands. As he started to bring it down, a rock came whistling out of the darkness at a speed only the All State catcher from Palomino High who threw out more base stealers than J. T. Realmuto, who led the major leagues, could throw. She missed the strike zone but hit Crowe in the elbow, apparently his crazy bone. He shrieked like he’d been shocked with a cattle prod. He got to his feet, holding his elbow, turning around and around, kicking up dust, grunting and moaning with pain. Furious, he went for his gun, but a high and outside slider clipped his ear, and he bawled even louder, clamping his hand to the side of his head while it bled like a bloody nose.
“HIT ’IM, IRENE!” Gretta screamed. “KILL HIM! KILL HIM!”
Irene came out of the dark with a rock as big as a grapefruit. She rushed over to Crowe, holding the rock overhead, about to finish him off. Warren barreled into her so hard she was lifted off her feet and slammed into the ground. Warren couldn’t stop his momentum. He tripped over her and stumbled forward, windmilling his arms, sliding face-first into the campfire like cleats into second base. A volcano of sparks erupted around his head. Warren scrambled to
his feet, screaming, face blackened, embers burning his clothes. He slapped at them wildly, ripping off his T-shirt and yanking down his pants. He lunged for a bottle of water, tripped over his cuffs and fell over a campstool. He lay there in the dirt, sobbing into his arm.
Gretta was stupefied. It was like a slapstick movie shot in a burning insane asylum. Irene was lying still. “Oh, no,” Gretta said. She called out to her. “Are you all right? Irene. Are you all right?”
Crowe was bent at the waist and muttering, “Jesus Christ, Jesus fucking Christ.” His ear was torn, blood all over him, one arm dangling like a hung prisoner. Warren got up, his face a gooey mixture of snot, tears and soot. There were charred holes in his clothes, an eyebrow had burned off, skin peeling off the walrus snout, his forelocks brown and frizzy. The killers looked like dazed idiots who’d been tortured by a tribe of sadistic primitives. They could hardly stand, exhausted and bewildered. They looked at each other in disbelief as if to say, how could this be happening? We only wanted to murder people. Crowe straightened up, his hands on his hips. He was panting, saying, “I think we’re okay, I think we’re okay.”
“Are you sure?” Warren gasped.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure, everything’s okay.”
“Stay right there or you’re fucking dead!” a voice shouted. It was Ava. She was holding a gun with two hands. Crowe and Warren froze. She stepped closer; her hands were shaking. Warren held up his palms.
“You already fucked me up once. Wasn’t that enough?”
“Not even close. Lie down on the fucking ground.” Warren bent his knees, but didn’t lie down. “Did you hear me, you fucking asshole?” she shouted.
“Don’t kill me, please,” Warren said. “I did wrong, I know that, but I won’t do it no more.” He’s stalling, Crowe thought, waiting for her to make a mistake. Smart boy. Crowe took a sideways step away from him.
“Stay there!” Ava said. The gun was heavy; she struggled to keep it aimed. Instinctively, Warren took a step sideways, widening the gap between himself and Crowe. Ava moved the barrel back and forth between them. She didn’t know what to do with two targets. She was crying, her face pleading, begging them to go along. “Get down on the fucking ground!” she screamed. She lifted her aim and fired two shots into the trees. BLAM! BLAM! The gun bucked and jerked her hands over her head. Crowe took off left and Warren went right. The girl brought the gun down, swiveling clumsily toward Warren, and fired. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! But he was already gone. She swiveled the other way and fired at Crowe. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! But he was out of sight, behind a tree.
The girl screamed in frustration and fired two more in Crowe’s direction. BLAM! BLAM! Click. She was out of ammo. She pulled a spare magazine from her back pocket. She tried to insert it, but she hadn’t released the one that was already there.
Crowe came out of hiding, smiling, walking toward her, not hurrying, rubbing his fist like he was polishing his knuckles. Ava was breathing through her teeth, fumbling with the spare, eyes darting at him, frantic now. He reached out to grab her. She tried to hit him with the gun. He caught it, twisted it out of her hands and tossed it away. He collared her with one hand and hit her with the other. She was knocked backward and fell to the ground. She lay there bleeding and unconscious. Crowe stared, seemingly incredulous. How did this puny little bitch make it all the way here? A bewildered, tearful Warren staggered back into the campsite.
“Them shots went right past my head!” he yodeled.
Gretta was lying on the ground, her hands bound behind her. Irene was lying still. She hadn’t moved since Warren barreled into her. “Irene?” Gretta said. “Irene, sweetheart, are you all right?” She tried to stand up, but the pain in her knee was crippling. She lay on her side and inchwormed her way toward her. She struggled for breath, her throat clogged with dust. She glanced at the killers.
Warren was seemingly in despair. He was sobbing, beseeching. “What’s going on, Crowe? I don’t know what’s going on!” Equally confounded, Crowe cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted into the night:
“ANYBODY ELSE GONNA FUCK WITH US? BOY SCOUTS, LITTLE OL’ LADIES, THE GODDAMN MARINES?”
Gretta reached Irene and glanced back. Crowe had stopped shouting. He was looking at her, Warren too. They remembered why they were here. Warren picked up his axe. Crowe drew his knife. They lumbered toward her, a cyclops and an incinerated scarecrow, grinning, going faster. Gretta tried to cover Irene with her body.
“NO! NO! STAY AWAY!” she screamed. “TAKE ME! TAKE ME! I’LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!” She lay back and kicked at them. “GO AWAY! LEAVE US ALONE!”
“Kick all you want, bitch, but you’re done.” Warren laughed. He tipped his head back and howled at the moon.
“Over there,” Crowe said, suddenly grim. A flashlight beam was on the trail, bobbing up and down in the darkness, really bright and coming fast. “Whoever that is, he’s really humping it.”
“Something else? It can’t be,” Warren moaned.
“Shut up. We’ve got to get ready.” Crowe looked at Ava sprawled on the ground. “She’s out of it. Put the other two in the tent.”
Cannon heard gunshots and someone yelling. He saw the light of the campfire. He picked up the pace. He was heaving and sweaty as he reached the edge of the light. The fire was low, ghostly shadows on the rock wall. Cannon smelled charred wood, gun smoke and pine. Ava was nearest him. She was on the ground, semiconscious and moaning. Beyond her, close to the fire, a man was lying on his side, curled slightly, his back to Cannon. He was motionless but alive. There wasn’t the melted stillness of death. It wasn’t Isaiah. The area was surrounded by darkness. There was no way to secure the scene.
“Mr. Crowe? Mr. Long?” Cannon said in his cop’s voice. “This is Sheriff Cannon of the Coronado Springs Police Department. There’s only one way out of here and my officers will be arriving any minute now. If you shoot me, they will beat you into shit puddles and bum hole you with their flashlights just before they pour gasoline over your heads and set you on fire. Just sayin’.”
Ava was hurt, no way to tell how badly. He put the shotgun down and drew his pistol. He hunched low and ran into the clearing. He grabbed Ava by her arm and dragged her back to safety. An ugly, swollen bruise on her face but no gunshot wounds. He checked her breathing. She was okay, but that didn’t mean she was okay. She opened her eyes, and they flashed with alarm.
“It’s Sheriff Cannon. Stay still and be quiet.” A strangled voice came from the tent.
“Sheriff, it’s Gretta Abbett. I’m hurt, my daughter is bleeding. Please help!”
The tent was on the other side of the campfire, a long way to be out in the open. The flap was down. Maybe it was a setup, Cannon thought, but he’d be hard to hit. The campfire was almost out, and he was wearing a Kevlar vest. Hitting a fast-moving target in low light was hard to do for anyone but a trained marksman. Cannon holstered his sidearm and picked up the riot gun. If he fired into the dark, he wanted to hit something. The man lying on his side worried him. He might be a decoy. The shotgun would favor him.
Cannon breathed in deeply, got low and took off, scuffling around the campfire as fast as he could go. He reached the tent and hunched down. “I’m here. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Gretta shouted: “Watch out!” BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Bullets came through the tent flap, aimed low, below the vest, one of them catching Cannon in the thigh. It was a mule kick. He dropped the shotgun and collapsed. He reached for his sidearm, but it was underneath him, the pain overwhelming. You’re fucked, Cannon. And so is everybody else.
Crowe crawled out of the tent, a gun in his hand. He’d put the barrel to Irene’s head and told Gretta to yell for help. She’d pay for that last part. Warren got up from the ground. Pointlessly, he brushed himself off. He’d complained about being the decoy, but Crowe threatened to shoot him. Warren tossed Cannon’s shotgun aside but kept his pistol. The sheriff was on the ground, holding his bleeding leg.
Warren kicked him. “Re
member me, you pig? Yeah, not so badass now, are you, motherfucker!”
Isaiah was in darkness at the perimeter of the campsite. He knelt next to Ava. She wanted to sit up, but he held her down. “No. Not until we know you’re okay.”
“Sorry about leaving you.”
“Doesn’t matter. You have water, don’t you?” She turned slightly, and he slid the water bottle out of the carrier. He opened it. She drank and he did too.
Cannon was on the ground, curled into a ball, losing blood, helpless. Warren was pacing back and forth, taunting him, waving the axe and kicking him. Crowe was yanking Irene out of the tent, Gretta screaming at him. All Isaiah had was the folding knife he’d taken from the car. The killers had guns. One of them would have to be taken down and disarmed. There was only open ground between Isaiah and the killers. Rushing them was suicide.
Isaiah was on one end of the campsite, hidden in the trees. At the other end was the Witches’ Tree, the tent and campfire in the middle. To Isaiah’s left, a sheer rock wall. To the right a cliff. Step over the edge and you’d fall into a canyon so deep you couldn’t see the end of it. He thought a moment and didn’t like his prospects. He had to get over the edge, find footholds, his hands on level ground. Then he’d have to sidle along until he got even with the tent. He’d be behind it and out of view. Until he got there, his head would be in the open. The killers were yelling louder, the intensity and volume rising, Gretta pleading for her daughter’s life.
Isaiah stayed in the trees and moved right, to the cliff. He swung one leg over and got a tenuous foothold. He swung the other leg over and found another foothold, keeping both hands on the ledge. Only his toes, fingers and the balls of his feet were keeping him upright. He didn’t have to look to know what was waiting for him. A long fall and certain death. He started moving, carefully extending his lead foot, finding an extruding rock, a divot or a ledge of dirt, testing it before putting his full weight on it, bringing the other foot to the same spot, keeping his hands in synch.
