by Blake Crouch
“So that must make you Charles Kork.”
Kork panicked for a split-second, then realized the cop must have gotten his name from his license plates.
“Yeah.”
“You staying out of trouble, Mr. Kork?”
“Doing my best,” Kork said through clenched teeth. The gun pressing into the small of his back felt enormous, and he ached to pull it out and start shooting.
The trooper said, “Well, that’s all we can do, brother. Our best. Lord knows.”
He looked over at the crows again and tugged his sunglasses down, squinting in the afternoon light. The field seemed to stretch on forever. Silos loomed several miles away and the sweet, rotting scent of a dairy farm was on the breeze.
“A coyote?” he said finally. “No, that looks too big to be a coyote.” Then he turned and walked around to the front of the Accord, shielding his eyes from the sun as he gazed with a heightened intensity into the field.
Charles felt the moment slipping out of his control, a mad rage building inside his head, a sound like white noise getting louder and louder, demanding an explosion of violence.
The trooper said, “Could it be a dog?”
“Looked like a coyote to us,” Orson said.
“If it’s a dog, maybe I should check the tags. Could be someone’s pet.”
The trooper had begun to walk off the shoulder into the field.
Charles looked at Orson, who gave him a little nod. Charles reached back, put his hand on the .45.
The trooper walked ten steps into the field and stopped.
He stood just a short distance back from the crows, so many of them now that Charles could only see fleeting glimpses of the purple and red underneath.
The trooper unholstered his firearm
What the fuck?
Raised it toward the sun and fired a shot.
The crows dispersed in a riot of squawking and flapping, like a black cloud rising into the sky.
Orson walked around to the front of the car, motioning for Charles to follow.
The trooper stood with his back to them, staring down at what the crows had left.
He was shaking his head, saying, “That is positively the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”
Kork stared, too.
The whore was unrecognizable as anything human. Especially with her insides pulled out and strewn over the cornfield like a massacred piñata.
But she must’ve been delicious.
Because almost as quickly as they’d fled, the crows descended upon their meal again, blanketing the body in an instant.
“If you want to go hunting through that mess for a dog collar, you’re a braver man than I am,” Orson said.
The trooper looked indecisive, chewing his bottom lip.
Radio chatter squeaked through the mike on the trooper’s lapel.
He tucked his chin into his collarbone, said, “Roger that.”
The cop turned and headed back toward his car. “You need me to call a tow truck for you, Mr. Kork?”
“I think we got it under control, Officer.”
“Then you gentlemen have a good day.”
Kork watched the trooper climb into his cruiser and crank the engine.
It whipped around in a one-eighty, slinging dust and gravel, and then the tires bit into the pavement and it screamed off down the road, the deepest tones of the turbo-charged V8 audible long after the car had disappeared from view.
Orson smiled at Kork.
“Well played. So, Charles, why don’t you tell us about the coyote out there in the field. The one with the human arms and legs.”
Kork pulled the .45, pointing it at Orson’s face.
Simultaneously, Luther pulled a gun of his own.
“I’ll bet,” Orson said, “that when you were a kid, you were the type of little shit who played in his own corner of the sandbox and didn’t share his toys with anyone. Am I getting warm?”
Kork didn’t like having a gun pointed at him, but it did have the effect of capping his boiling temper. “Who the fuck are you?”
“We’re just a couple of guys heading to a mystery book convention in Indianapolis. Looking for a little fun on the way. To be honest, we were kind of hoping your name was Ben. Because we have Ben’s partner in the trunk.”
Kork couldn’t tell if Orson was kidding or not. The man was seriously hard to read. “You’ve got a man in your trunk?”
“Well, I’m not sitting him in the back seat where he’ll bloody up the leather.”
“You’re bullshitting me.”
Orson raised an index finger and drew an X across his chest. “Cross my heart. Winston and Ben were a couple of predators. Like Luther and I. And like you, judging from the corpse in the field. Only they made the mistake of hurting Luther and his family when he was a kid. So now Luther’s exacting a bit of well-deserved revenge.”
A faint smile curled across Charles’s mouth. “Prove it.”
Orson nodded to Luther, who walked to the rear of the Lexus.
“Keys,” Luther said.
Orson slowly took a key ring out of his pants and tossed it to the pale man. Luther caught the keys and tucked the gun away. Kork walked over, covering Orson, who had his hands at his sides.
Luther popped open the trunk.
“Fuck me,” Kork said.
Inside the compartment lay a man, completely naked, his body wrapped tightly in cellophane, all except for his head. His lips bulged wide around a ball-gag. He was older, in his fifties, white and hairy. His green eyes were wide with fear.
“Think those crows are still hungry?” Luther said, his mouth twitching.
Kork lowered his gun. He wondered what the chances were of running into these two kindred spirits in the middle of Indiana. Then again, he’d heard that the FBI estimated there could be as many as five hundred active serial killers in the U.S., so maybe the odds weren’t as high as he might have guessed.
Luther walked around to the rear passenger door on the shoulder-side of the Lexus and pulled it open. He fumbled around for a moment inside, and then returned to the trunk.
“You want in on this, Kork?” Luther asked.
Kork was staring at the wide-eyed man, thinking that aside from wrapping him in cellophane, it didn’t appear that they’d so much as laid a finger on him yet.
Fresh, untouched meat.
“Kork?”
“Yeah. For sure. You guys planning on doing him right now? Right here?”
“That’s up to Luther. I know he’s been itching to get to it ever since we picked Winston up in Gary.” Orson looked at Luther. “Luther, you sure you’re all right with bringing him in on this?”
Luther stared at Charles. He had eyes like black pits.
“As long as he shuts the fuck up, and doesn’t do anything until he’s offered the chance.”
“Charles?” Orson asked. “You cool with that?”
Kork had killed many people on his own, but the ones that were most memorable, and the most fun, were the ones he did with his sister, Alex. Orson had nailed it when he said Charles didn’t like to share. But with murder, it was different. Sharing made it more exciting.
“So when you pulled over to help me,” Kork said, “were you thinking I’d wind up in your trunk as well?”
“It crossed our minds,” Orson said. “We hate to pass up low-hanging fruit. How about that body in the field?”
“Blow torch versus whore.”
“I thought I caught a whiff of BBQ in the air. So do you want to join in the fun?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
Luther seemed distracted. He was kneeling against the back bumper, leaning over the terrified man wrapped in plastic, staring down into his eyes with a brutal, predatory intensity.
“What you did to my family,” Luther whispered. “To my sister…” He pulled something out of his pocket. “…is something you’re going to pay for with more pain than anyone could endure.”
“What’s he doi
ng?” Kork asked.
“Just give him a moment,” Orson said.
Luther’s face was inches from the man in plastic. “You killed my sister, didn’t you?”
The man wildly shook his head.
“No? So you deny it?”
Wild nodding.
“That just made it worse for you.”
Now Luther held up whatever he’d taken out of his pocket—a small, metal cylinder with six tiny blades on the end.
“This is called an artificial leech. Old-school medical instrument. It’s for poking holes in skin.”
Orson put a hand on Luther’s shoulder. “Not in the trunk.”
“Help me get him…Winston…out.”
The two men wrestled the package from the trunk, one at the head, the other at the feet. Charles joined in, cinching an arm around the wiggling man’s waste. He was screaming around his ball gag, and Kork felt himself becoming aroused.
They set him down on the shoulder-side of the car, and Luther sat on top of him.
“Look at me, Green Eyes,” he said. “I still dream about your eyes, about your friend walking up the beach at night toward our bonfire. You’re going to tell me the truth. Do you understand that?”
Frantic nodding.
“If I take out your gag, you’ll tell me the truth?”
Nodding.
“And do you know what will happen if you tell me the truth?”
Shaking.
“I’ll let you go. I just want to hear you say what happened to my sister. I never saw her again, never heard from her again after that night you and Ben came along and destroyed my family. I just want to know what you did to her. Are you ready?”
The man nodded.
Luther reached around behind his head and unstrapped the ball-gag.
Winston’s chest rising and falling.
The man’s gray hair slicked back with sweat.
“Please,” he said, “please don’t do this—”
Luther silenced him by simply holding up a finger.
“I don’t want to hear a single word come out of your mouth except for your explanation of what happened to my Katie.”
“Katie?”
Kork saw Luther shut his eyes for a moment, then open them again.
“Winston, this is your last chance. Then I’m going to stick you with this artificial leech about five thousand times and feed you to the crows.”
“Just tell me what it is you want me to say. I’ll say it. I’ll say anything.”
The wind was whipping Luther’s long, black hair around his face.
He tucked it back behind his ears.
“What did you do to my sister?”
“I…I…I’m sorry.”
“Where is her body?”
“It’s…I don’t know.”
“You don’t remember?”
“No.”
“Did you kill her?”
Tears streamed out of the man’s eyes.
“Did you kill her, Winston? Tell me you killed her and how you did it, and I won’t kill you.”
“I…I did it.”
“You did. Okay. How?”
“With um…with a knife.”
“You killed my eight-year-old sister with a knife?”
He nodded.
“Did you rape her first, Winston?”
“I…”
“Like you raped my mother. Tell me if you raped her before you killed her.”
“No…I didn’t…”
“You didn’t rape my sister? Or my mother? Because I saw you, Winston. I watched you do it. Don’t you fucking lie to me.”
“If I tell you…admit…that I raped her, you won’t kill me?”
“That’s right. I won’t kill you.”
“Yes,” Winston said. “I did it.”
“Do you know where Ben is?”
“Ben?”
“You’re partner. Tell me where Ben is.”
“I…I don’t know…”
Luther sighed. He pinched the man’s cheeks together and jammed the ball-gag into his mouth and snapped it back into place around his skull.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Luther said, “but I didn’t lie. I have no intention of killing you. I’ll let the crows take care of that. But first, we have to let them know there’s something yummy inside of you.”
The man was still trying to speak through the ball when Luther stabbed him with the artificial leech. Blood appeared beneath the plastic and the man screamed through his gag, the sound racing out across the cornfield.
“All you had to say was the truth,” Luther said, and he stuck him again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Andagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagain…losing control, wild stabbing thrusts, until sweat poured down his face.
Orson grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back.
Luther was crying.
He wiped his eyes, breathless, screamed, “That son of a bitch took everything from me.”
“I know,” Orson said. “I know.” The man was screaming and choking under the gag, blood leaking through the puncture holes in the plastic onto the pavement. “But let’s give our new friend a turn.”
By this time, Kork was fully aroused, and he didn’t even bother hiding it.
The tiny sting of embarrassment overwhelmed by his urge, his need.
“Would you like some private time with Winston, Charles? We could cut away the plastic if you want to have a go at it. Turnabout is fair play, they say.”
“Don’t need you to take off the plastic.” Charles removed a folding knife and placed it above Winston’s flabby stomach, looking for a spot where he could cut deep. “I can make my own hole.”
“This must be like the best day ever to be a crow in Indiana,” Orson said.
There were at least four hundred birds perched on top of Winston, who had finally stopped struggling after an hour of being dined upon.
Several cars had driven by in the interim, and a few had even slowed down.
But no one stopped.
The sun was already halfway between its apex and the horizon, and the first hint of the hard freeze that was coming nipped at the tips of Orson’s ears. He and Charles were sitting on the shoulder, leaning against the Lexus, watching the show.
Luther sat out in the cornfield, just a few feet away from the hungry birds, absolutely still save for his black mane of hair that the wind was blowing back behind his shoulders.
He looked like some terrible scarecrow.
“So your buddy finally got his long-awaited revenge,” Kork said. “How did you find old Winston after all this time? You said Luther’s family was attacked, what? Almost twenty years ago?”
Orson grinned mischievously. “Want to hear a secret?”
“Sure.”
“That man out in the field? He’s the fourth Winston we’ve found in the last two months. Whenever Luther sees a man with green eyes, he sees Winston again.”
Kork laughed. “So that poor fucker wasn’t Winston?”
“Nope. Just some poor fucker. Winston’s partner, Ben, was short and stocky. We’ve killed a few short and stocky guys, too. It’s all a healing process, and I’m doing what I can to help.”
“You mind giving me a ride to the nearest gas station? Still gotta get my car fixed.”
“Of course. We wouldn’t leave a fellow traveler stranded. Birds of a feather, and all that.”
“It’s been good meeting you, Orson. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again sometime.”
“It’s a small world, Charles. Anything can happen.”
The One That Got Away
Hinsdale, Illinois, 2001
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