The Deepening Shade

by Jake Hinkson

  When the three had positioned themselves at the table, and King had served each bowl an ample scooping of the warm, brown stew, he clasped his hands in front of him, and bent his head. The two watched him, the man bowing his head, and turning his gaze to the table.

  Tore prayed, “Our dearest heavenly Father, blessed is Your name. We trust in this as surely as our salvation, o Lord. Bless our bodies with this food as you bless our soul with Christ. Keep my dear wife near you in Heaven, o Lord and keep my daughter near and forgive her her many sins, o Lord. Be with these weary travelers Lord as they leave tomorrow and bless my body for the hard work ahead. Forgive us our transgressions, o Lord. All this, I beseech in your precious name, Jesus. Amen.”

  “Amen,” the man repeated. He looked up at the boy but could not hold the youth’s confused stare. “C’mon,” he said, picking up his spoon. “Eat.”

  ***

  In the dark of the next morning, the man showed King the dead girl’s coat. King had awakened the two and set out biscuits to eat. Then he settled down by a lamp with his bible while the man had edged over to him with the bundle.

  He unrolled it on a large trunk by the door. “It was our sister’s,” the man said. “She died not long ago, and it’s all we have left of her.”

  King stared at it, his gray eyes hardening in his sharp, wind-burned face. But he said nothing.

  “It’s a fine coat, sir. Soft. Pretty. I recollect, when you was praying yesterday, that your wife and daughter was with the Lord, but I figured if you got a girl in town or somewhere’s, it’d be mighty nice to give her.”

  King took a deep breath. His bible rested on his thigh, his finger marking a page. He set it on his reading table and took the coat in his hands, rubbing the fabric between his fingers. He held it up to the light.

  “It’s muddy,” he said.

  “Well, yes sir, it is. It’s been raining these last few days.” King rubbed a small blood stain on the shoulder of the coat and the man told him, “That’s where Ignorant cut hisself a few days ago. It’ll wash out.”

  King stared at it a while. “Why’d you keep it?” he asked, his voice soft and high, as if he had been crying.

  The man looked down at it, his fleshy cheeks and brow bunching together. He scratched the back of his hand with his coarse beard. “I don’t reckon I know really why I kept it. On account of it’s still pretty, I reckon. Like she was pretty. She was a young thing, only twelve year or so. She was innocent still.” He sat down. “Something in that’s a might scary, to see innocence pass on.” He rubbed his temples, and behind him the boy stared at the two men. “I kept it on account of that, maybe. Try to keep some of her alive. But now I got to think of the boy. I was thinking, if you had a coat that’d fit him we could trade. He’s a might cold.”

  King looked over at the boy. The youth’s face was blank and ugly, his lank mouth bursting with teeth. King stood and walked over to his own coat hanging on a hook by the door. He pulled it off and took it to the boy, handing it over as if it were something sacred.

  “That’s powerful kind of you, sir,” the man said from behind King. “That’s a Christian kindness if I ever seen one.”

  King turned to him and nodded. He sighed. “I best go check my horse,” he said.

  He walked out to his barn in the first blue hints of dawn, and the empty serpent shed stood black in the dim light. He hurried past it. The goat was tied to the leg of his workbench in the barn, standing and staring at him, as if it had been waiting all night. King stopped at the bench and clutched the tabletop, his fingers gripping the wood as if to tear it away. His face was red, and purple bursts exploded in his vision. The only sounds in the barn were the breathing of his horse and his long fingers trembling on the table. A cry, hollow and high, rumbled in his mouth, but he bit down on it.

  He breathed heavy now, his face covered with sweat. On his table were tools, and he picked up the slaughtering knife he used for pigs. He ran it over the gray sharpening stone, stopping every few moments to listen for sounds coming from the house, but he heard nothing. He tried not to think of his daughter, but he saw her smiling down at him from her horse, her pale face framed by yellow hair.

  Finally, he turned to walk toward the house but, without any thought, he spun around and slashed the goat’s thin, white throat. It kicked and bit him, blood staining them both, but he slashed at it again, and the goat collapsed beneath him. He thought of the two in his home. Their twisted faces, their stench of goat and mud and men. He thought of their smell in her nose, their ugly faces next to hers. He pulled himself up and ran to the house.

  The man seemed to know, when the door flung open and King stood in the blood-red dawn before them, what was to happen. He almost laughed—how could this be—and sprung for the stove, hoping to get the black-iron stoker. King struck him in the shoulder with the long, hard knife, and the man screamed as his muscles split apart. Trembling, the boy crept toward the door. King caught him by the hair and flung him back over his reading table. In the same instant, the man hit King’s back with the stoker. King twisted beneath him, plunging the knife into the man’s abdomen. He caught the stoker in his left hand and pulled himself up, slicing open the man’s abdomen. The man howled like a mountain lion and thrashed about, falling on to the floor. King, the knife lifted above his head, his face red with the man’s blood, fell on him and slashed his throat open.

  When he pulled himself up, he heard the boy fleeing across the wet, open field toward the woods. He ran to his room and pulled his Winchester from the wall and hurried outside. He waited until the boy was beside the single oak left in the field, and then he fired. Blood sprayed from the boy’s back and he fell. When the boy began to move, King dropped the gun. He rushed to the barn and pulled some rope from the wall and ran out to the field.

  The youth lay on his stomach crying, blood covering the soggy brown earth around him. King threw the rope over the lowest tree limb and tied it to the boy’s neck. The boy wept, a horrible gurgling cry shaking his face, his big teeth stained with dirt. King closed his own eyes and pulled the boy into the air. A flailing foot struck his cheek, and he took a few steps back, and the rope jerked. The boy coughed. King clutched the rope, and when he realized that the jerking had stopped, he opened his eyes. The body swung above him, jaw hanging open, mouth dirty and empty.

  King released the body and it dropped to the earth. King seemed to drop with it, lying beside the dead boy in the mud as long, white branches of lightning stretched across the sky, shaking in his vision like the naked limb of a birch tree.

  *

  A shower started on his way to find her. It came through the bare trees with cold gusts of wind that pierced his clothing and frightened his horse. His face was tight, lowered to the wind and the stinging drops, and he clamped his teeth down hard.

  He wanted to cry out, to yell to God. But the shower was too hard, pricking his face like needles, and he could only ride. Was the rain God’s punishment? He thought of the boy lying dead in his field, the man bloody in his den. In his own home lay a man he had slain. The thought shook him worse than the rain or wind.

  His hands burned with the cold, but as he clutched them tight, as if to hold on to any warmth he had left, he knew that he would always feel murder in them. He would feel it each time he took up his ax, each time he rubbed them together for warmth, each time he held his bible.

  As he turned a curve in the road, he saw the box in the road. Tying the horse to a tree, he listened as rain tapped the lid. He heard the snake thumping inside. He looked around, and through the trees he saw a speck of unnatural white. He rushed through the woods, wet branches scratching his face as he went.

  He dropped beside her.

  Her face was clean and white. All the blood had long since drained away and her nose was crushed in, her teeth broken. But she was so white. He held her, and crying sat with her across his lap, as he had when she was young. Something in him wanted to pray, but he found that he could not. He felt t
hat he had no more words to speak to God.

  When the rain had slowed, and lighter clouds had drifted overhead, he lay her on the ground and stood up. He pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around her head. Walking through the trees, his skin gleaming in the rain, he thought to load her onto the horse and take her home. And yet, the thought of home was ugly to him now. The dead bodies there shook him, and he trembled at the thought of going back. Then he saw the box.

  It lay on the muddy trail. He knelt down near it and placed his hand on the lid. The wood was ruined from the rain, the latch already beginning to rust. He could feel the snake inside, dangerous and ready. He took a deep breath and opened it.

  The serpent hissed at him. Scaled and brown, its diamond-shaped head sprung out of the box. King caught it behind its jaw and clutched it tighter than he ever had before. Its tail whipped at him and coiled around his arm, and he pulled it loose with his free hand, holding it in the center. Then he turned the jaw loose. The serpent rose up in front of him, its head seeming to float in the air, its hot yellow eyes locked with his. He watched as its mouth opened, four curved teeth bared, preparing to strike.

  N IGHT TERRORS

  When the stranger next to me screamed in her sleep, I tumbled out of bed and smacked my face on her nightstand. Exploding red suns spun around me in the dark as she shrieked like someone was killing her. I struggled to my feet and steadied myself against the wall, trying to let my vision clear. When it did, I saw her thrashing about in blue moonlight and clawing at the sheets like she was possessed. Finally she twitched, curled into a ball, and began gently snoring.

  For a moment, I just stood there naked, listening to the angry thump of my heart.

  Then I realized I was bleeding. I inched my way across our clothes piled on the carpet and searched for her bathroom in the dark. When I found it, I closed the door and turned on the light.

  In that sudden glare, I looked like hell. Three bright streams of blood ran down my face from a gash on my forehead. Blood dotted my chest and arms and dripped on her sink and floor. My hands still shook with adrenaline as I tried to wash up, but I finally got the job done. When everything was clean, and I was calmed down, I turned off the light.

  As quietly as I could, I dressed in the dark. Normally, I wasn’t the type to sneak out in the middle of the night, but I wasn’t going to stick around with a screamer. I thought about leaving a note, but I decided against it. What was there to say? Nice to meet you? Thanks for the sex? Do you know you shriek in your sleep?

  Outside, the temperature dropped fifty degrees, and I considered going back inside where it was warm. Maybe crash on her couch. But, of course, the door was locked now. The Metro had stopped running, so there was nothing to do but hike home through the cold.

  I was still thinking about her. What was her name? Lynn? Yes, Lynn, after Loretta Lynn she’d told me. Her dad was a big country music fan even though they weren’t from the south. I nodded. That’s right. Lynn. I couldn’t recall her last name. She had honey-blonde hair and calculating green eyes, eyes that were always thinking. Nice girl. We’d had a few drinks, talked about music and movies, and then we’d come back to her place, tipsy but not too drunk. A couple of condoms later, we kissed goodnight and fell asleep. I was going to give her the usual fake number in the morning.

  Walking home before the sun had even begun to rise, though, I started to feel bad for not at least leaving a note.

  I shrugged and braced myself as a truck rumbled past me. I’d be lucky if I didn’t get mugged. And I was freezing my ass off. I didn’t feel too bad for her.

  ***

  She played a couple of songs on the jukebox. The first was “Somebody to Love” by Queen. She came back to the bar, three stools down from me. I leaned over. “Good choice,” I said. “I haven’t heard this song in a while.”

  That last part was a lie. Every time I came in this bar someone was playing that song.

  She smiled and brushed some hair back behind her ear. She was tiny—not more than five two, but she was wearing some heels to give herself another couple of inches.

  “Yeah,” she said with a thoughtful nod. She leaned toward me and said, “To tell you the truth, I sang this song for American Idol.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t work, obviously. I stepped up, sang, and they told me to beat it. I didn’t even get on TV.” She lifted her glass as if to toast fate. “Just another piece of cattle.”

  I leaned over to say, “Nice to try, though.”

  She nodded.

  I pointed at her empty glass. “Can I buy you another?”

  “Sure.”

  The bartender was slicing up limes. I motioned to our glasses and eased down the bar.

  I told her my name.

  We shook. Her hands were small and soft. “I’m Lynn,” she said.

  ***

  Two days later, I was standing at my kitchen counter waiting on the coffee to brew when I read in the Washington Post that she’d been murdered. Her name was Lynn Byers, and she was an assistant manager at the Apple store in Arlington. I stared at her name, and my stomach turned to ice. She had been murdered the night I was with her. I tried to sit down, but my knees collapsed beneath me. I sat on the linoleum.

  There was a picture of the front door of her apartment with police tape around it. In the corner of the article there was a small picture of her: Lynn sitting on a couch, laughing and pointing to someone or something off camera. It was an older picture and another hairdo, but it was her.

  She’d been strangled in her bed by an unknown assailant. The police were investigating leads.

  I dropped the paper. The police were investigating leads. What did that mean? I looked at my front door. I picked up the paper again. The police were investigating leads.

  Oh, Jesus. They wouldn’t think… No, no. Why would they?

  I got to my feet. Why would they? I took the paper to the kitchen table and tried to read the article again.

  A neighbor knocked on her door after seeing Lynn’s shattered back window. When no answer came, the neighbor grew suspicious. When he noticed that Lynn’s car was parked out front, he called the police.

  Someone had broken in and murdered her after I left. That thought sunk down to the bottom of my stomach.

  I touched the crusty gash on my forehead and thought of the towel stained with my blood. I’d probably dripped blood on the bed and floor, too.

  I hurried to my front door and cracked it open. Empty street, empty sidewalk. A wind kicked up, shaking the maples in front of my apartment and sweeping their scarlet leaves down the sidewalk. Across the street, a man was watching his dog piss on a tree trunk. That was it.

  Back inside, I didn’t know which way to go. I picked up the phone, but I didn’t have an idea who I might call.

  The cops? They would find me anyway. I was the last one to see her alive—

  No, the killer was. That thought made me shudder. Tears sprang to my eyes.

  She had been murdered, choked to death. Lynn. Lynn Byers. I hadn’t even known her last name. I’d had sex with her, had been inside her body, had felt her breathing quicken and settle. And now she was dead. That thought was too horrible. I could still taste her mouth, could still feel her skin. She had a mole next to her left nipple, and I could tell she was sensitive about it when she took off her clothes. She was embarrassed, but not too embarrassed. She mostly wanted to judge my reaction. Her eyes were always thinking.

  But not anymore.

  I picked up my phone and punched in 911, but I hung up.

  I walked a circuit between the kitchen and the den. I made myself stop and sit down and think. But then I got up again.

  I prayed for the first time in fifteen years. Please God. Please God. Don’t let this happen. I didn’t get any farther than that when I realized that I was more scared than upset.

  That thought sickened me. She was dead. I didn’t really know her and she was dead and I was too scared to feel anything exce
pt fear.

  I read the paper again looking for something new.

  I walked to the den and back again.

  I skimmed the paper again. My lungs felt like they were going to pop. I was going to lose it.

  I ran and looked out the front door. A light rain was falling now, and wet leaves spread across the sidewalk like open sores.

  I slammed the door shut and ran to my bedroom. After I threw on some clothes and a heavy coat, I ran out of the house without locking the front door.

  I also didn’t look behind me to see who might be there.

  ***

  After a few minutes of hurrying nowhere in particular, I saw the Metro. I slipped inside and dashed down the escalator to the trains. A green line train pulled up as I got to the platform, and I jumped on board. A moment later, we shot down the tunnel. For the first time that morning, my heart slowed to a steady beat. My stomached settled. There were about twenty people on the train, mostly people in suits on their way to work.

  Then it hit me. I was supposed to be at work. I dug in my pocket for my cell phone, but I couldn’t find it. I dug through every pocket I had three times before I accepted that I’d left it on the kitchen table. I hadn’t left home without it in years.

  I asked a woman across the aisle for the time. She pushed back the cuff of her coat and said, “Ten-thirty.”

  I was supposed to be at work at nine. That realization actually stopped me for a second. I’d never been late to work. Ever. Punctuality is like a religion with me. But now I was on a train, heading the opposite direction. How would that look to the cops? I hadn’t even called in to tell work I’d been late. As the train rumbled out of the tunnel, my bowels roiled like a cauldron.

  I tried to calm myself. First thing: I had to go to the cops. I had to go to them and tell them what happened. I met her, we had sex, and I left. That’s it. When I left, she was alive. The truth, that’s all I could tell them.

  We found your blood, they would say.

  I fell out of bed, I’d say. She had a screaming fit in the middle of the night, and I fell out of bed and bumped my head.