by Blake Crouch
"Look, guys, I said I don’t want any trouble." Orson let the fear ooze from his voice.
"Then cough up your wallet, you dumb shit," said the obese middle passenger. "We need more beer."
"Will you fix my car?" The men broke into laughter. "I have more than twenty dollars," Orson pleaded. "At least look under the hood and see if you can tell what’s wrong."
Orson moved to the front of the Buick. Reaching through the grille, he pulled a lever and lifted the massive hood. Then he returned to where he’d been standing, on the right side of the car, near me. I could see nothing now but my brother, still talking to the men.
"Just take a look," Orson prodded. "Now if you guys don’t know anything about cars…"
"I know cars," a voice said. "Stupid city fuck. Don’t know shit about shit, do you?"
The Buick squeaked and sank as if someone had knelt against the bumper.
"Check the radiator," Orson said. "Something’s causing the engine to overheat."
The car shifted again. "No, on the inside," Orson said. "I think something melted. You have to get closer to see. Move, guys. You’re in his light."
A muffled voice said, "I don’t know what in the fuck —"
Orson slammed the hood. The two passengers shrieked and jumped back in horror. Blood speckled the windshield. Orson lifted the hood once more and slammed it home. The driver sprawled momentarily against the hood, squirting the windshield as he sank down into the dirt.
"Get the shotgun!" the fat one yelled, but no one moved.
"Don’t worry about it, boys," Orson said in that same timorous voice. "I have a gun." He pointed my .357 at the two men. "I hope you aren’t too fucked up to know what this is. You," he told the slender man, "pick up your buddy’s head." The man dropped his beer can. "Go on, he won’t bite you." The man lifted it off the ground by its long, grimy hair. "Right this way, boys," Orson said. "Walk around the side of the car. That’s it." The men walked by the driver’s door, and Orson walked by mine. I turned to look through the back window, but the trunk was open. He’d never shut it.
"I’m sorry about the wallet…."
"In you go," Orson said. The car didn’t move. "Do I have to shoot you both in the kneecaps and drag you in there myself? I’d rather you not bleed all over my car if it can be helped." When the hammer cocked, the car suddenly shook as the men climbed clumsily into the trunk.
"Stupid, stupid boys," Orson said. "It’d have been better for you if you’d all three looked under that hood." He closed the trunk.
As Orson walked back toward the truck, I heard the boys begin to sob. Then they screamed, pounding and kicking the inside of the trunk. As Orson climbed into the truck and turned off the headlights and KC lights, I noticed the laboriously slow ballad still pouring from the black Ford, the steel guitar solo twanging into the desert. As my eyes readjusted to the darkness, the music stopped. The driver’s door of the Buick opened, and Orson reached into the backseat and picked up a two-by-four and a length of rope.
He shut the door and said, "If they keep carrying on, tell them you’re gonna kill them."
"Look." I pointed down the road at a pair of headlights just coming into view.
Orson untied the handkerchief from the antenna and ran back to the truck. He climbed into the cab again, put the truck in gear, and let it roll forward several feet until it pointed east into the desert. For several minutes, Orson worked on something inside the cab. The men continued to moan, their intoxication intensifying their fear, making their pleadings more desperate. I didn’t say a word to them, and still the headlights approached.
The Ford sped off into the desert. I watched it through the windshield and then through the windows on the driver’s side. In ten seconds, it had disappeared into the night. Orson came running up to the car, breathless. He gave me a thumbs-up and dragged the driver to the back of the car. Then he was at my window.
"I need your help," he said, opening the door. He unlocked the handcuffs and handed me the car keys. As we walked to the back of the Buick, I could hear the approaching car in the distance and see the taillights of the minivan, which had yet to fully disappear — a glowing red eye dwindling into darkness. I clung to that happy family. We let them go. We let them go. I looked down, but there was still no license plate on the Buick.
Orson pointed at the driver on the ground and said, "When I tell you, unlock the trunk and throw him in there. Can you do it?" I nodded.
"Gentlemen!" Orson yelled: "The trunk is being opened, and I’ll be pointing a three-fifty-seven at you. Breathe and I start squeezing."
Orson looked at me and nodded. I opened the trunk without looking inside at the men or the body I had to lift. Heaving the driver from the ground, I shoved his limp, heavy frame on top of the two men. Then I slammed the trunk, and we got back into the car.
Orson started the Buick after the oncoming car passed us. The interior lights came on, and I gasped when I looked down at my brown suit, doused in blood, which had pooled and run down the coarse cloth into my boots. I screamed at Orson to stop the car. Stumbling outside, I fell to my knees and rolled around, scrubbing my hands with dirt until the blood turned granular.
From inside the car, Orson’s voice reached me. He was slapping the steering wheel, his great bellows of laughter erupting into the night air.
12
HEADING back to the cabin, the men continued to pound against the inside of the trunk. Orson relished their noisy fear. Whenever they screamed, he mocked and mimicked their voices, often surpassing their pleas.
Watching the dirt road illuminated by the headlights, I asked Orson what he’d done to the truck. He grinned. "I secured the steering wheel with that rope so the truck would stay straight, and I shoved that two-by-four between the front seat and the gas pedal." Orson glanced at his luminescent watch. "For the next half hour, it’ll roll through twenty-five miles of empty desert. Then it’ll run into the mountains, and that’s where it’ll stop, unless it hits a mule deer along the way. But it’d have to be a big buck to stop that monster truck.
"Eventually, someone will find it. Maybe in a few days, maybe in several weeks. But by then it won’t matter, ’cause these boys’ll be pushing up sagebrush. Local law enforcement will probably find out where they were coming from and where they were headed. They’ll realize something happened on that road back there, but so what? It’s gonna rain tomorrow for the first time in weeks and rinse all the blood from the ground. Only two cars saw us, and they both had out-of-state tags, so they were just passing through. This’ll be an unsolved disappearance, and judging from the rude dispositions of these young men, I have a hard time believing anyone will give much of a shit."
Upon reaching the cabin, Orson pulled up to the shed. When we got out, he called to me from the front of the Buick, popped the hood, and motioned for me to look inside. Floodlights mounted to the shed illuminated the metallic cavity as I peered in.
"What?" I asked, staring at the corroded engine.
"You’d have fallen for it, too. Look." A few inches in, a piece of metal three feet long had been welded to the underside of the hood. "It’s an old lawn mower blade," Orson said. "Razor-sharp. Especially in the middle. If his head had been a little farther to the right, it would’ve come clean off the first slam." Gingerly, I touched the blade with my index finger. It was scratchy sharp, and there was blood on it, sprayed all over the engine, too.
"Have you done this hood trick before?" I asked.
"On occasion."
One of the men yelled from inside the trunk, "Let me out, motherfucker!"
Orson laughed. "Since he asked politely. Come open it up." He tossed me the keys. "You hear that, boys?" he yelled, moving toward the trunk. "I’m opening it up. No movement."
I raised the trunk while Orson stood with the gun pointed at the men. As I backed away, he whispered, "Go get the handcuffs."
I glanced into the plastic-lined trunk, a gruesome spectacle. The driver had been shoved to the back of the roomy compartment, bu
t not before his blood had soaked his friends. They looked at me as I walked by, their eyes pleading for mercy that wasn’t mine to give. I grabbed the handcuffs from the floorboard on the passenger’s side and returned to Orson.
"Throw them the handcuffs," he said. "Boys, lock yourselves together."
"Go fuck yourself," said the heavy man. Orson cocked the hammer and shot a hole in his leg. As the man howled and screamed obscenities, Orson turned the gun on the other man.
"Your name, please," he said.
"Jeff." The man trembled, his hands in front of his face, as if they could stop bullets. His friend grunted and squealed through his teeth as he grasped his thigh.
"Jeff," Orson said. "I suggest you take the initiative and handcuff yourself to your pal."
"Yes sir," Jeff said, and as he cuffed his own hand, Orson spoke to the wounded man, who was now grinding his teeth together, trying not to scream.
"What’s your name?" Orson said.
Through clenched teeth, the man responded, "Wilbur."
"Wilbur, I know you’re in agonizing pain, and I wish I could tell you it’s all gonna be over soon. But it’s not." Orson patted him tenderly on the shoulder. "I just wanted to assure you that this night has only begun, and the more you buck me, the worse it’s gonna be for you."
When Jeff and Wilbur were cuffed together, Orson ordered them to get out. Wilbur had difficulty moving his leg, so Orson directed me to drag him out of the trunk. As he screamed, I pulled him onto the ground, and Jeff fell on him, crushing the injured thigh.
Leaving their cowboy hats in the trunk, the two men came slowly to their feet, and Orson led them toward the back of the shed. As he unlocked the door, he told me to go wrap the driver up in the plastic lining and remove him from the trunk.
"I can’t lift him by myself," I said. "The blood’ll spill everywhere."
"Just go shut it, then. But we gotta get him out before he starts stinking."
I returned to the car and closed the trunk. Walking back toward the shed, I felt the keys jingle in my pocket. Staring at the brown car, dull beneath the floodlights, I thought, I could go. Right now. Get in the car, turn the ignition, and drive back to the highway. There’s probably a town, maybe thirty or forty miles away. You find a police station, you bring someone here. Maybe you save them. Sliding my hand into my pocket, I poked a finger through the key ring. Orson’s voice passed through the pine structure, taunting the groaning man inside.
Go. I started for the driver’s seat. Shit. The hood was still raised, and I quietly lowered it so that it closed with a soft metallic click, which Orson could not have heard from inside the shed. With the key held firmly between my thumb and forefinger, I opened the car door, my hands shaking now, and sat down in the driver’s seat. Key into the ignition. Check the parking brake. Don’t shut the door until you’re moving. Turn the key. Turn the key.
Something tapped on the window, and, flinching, I looked over at Orson, who was standing by the passenger door, pointing the revolver at my head through the glass.
"What in the world are you doing?" he asked.
"I’m coming," I said. "I was coming." I pulled the keys from the ignition and stepped out of the car. "Here." I tossed him the keys and walked toward the shed. Don’t shoot me. Please. Pretend this didn’t happen. At the back door he stopped me.
"I’m considering killing you," he said. "But you’ve got an opportunity in here to dissuade me. After you."
He followed me into the shed and locked the door behind us, having already collared the men individually and chained them to the pole. You’ve seen this before. It won’t be as bad as Shirley. Can’t be. We let the family go. We let the family go. Those kids will see Old Faithful tomorrow. Hold on to that.
Orson retrieved his handcrafted knife and inserted a tape into a video camera that sat on a black tripod in the corner. I didn’t recall seeing a video camera on Shirley’s night.
When he noticed me looking at the camera, he said, "Hey, I gotta have something to tide me over." Orson walked to the center of the room with his knife as Wilbur moaned on the floor.
"Jeff," Orson said, "you’re smarter than your recalcitrant friend here. I’ve known you only forty minutes, and it’s an obvious fact." Orson looked at me and said, "Drag the plastic over here, Andy." I walked to the corner, where at least two dozen neatly folded sheets were stacked. On a nearby shelf, I noticed a cardboard box filled with votive candles, and I wondered to what use Orson put them.
"Look," Jeff said, "please just listen —"
"Zip it, Jeff. It’s futile. Normally, I’d have given you two a test, but your roadside manner automatically flunks you both. So with that matter settled, get up, gentlemen."
Jeff stood, but Wilbur struggled. He’d already bled a little pool onto the floor. I spread the sheet near the pole, and the men sat back down, Jeff looking with confusion at the plastic beneath him.
"Jeff," Orson continued, "how long you known Wilbur?"
"All my life."
"Then this might be a difficult decision for you." I was leaning against the double doors, and Orson looked back at me. "Have a seat, Andy. You’re making me nervous."
As I sat down in the lawn chair, Orson turned back to Jeff and held up the knife and the revolver. "Jeff, the bad news is you’re both going to die tonight. The slightly better news is that you get to decide who gets the easy way and who gets the fun way. Option A. My brother executes you with this three fifty-seven. If you choose the gun, you have to go first. Option B. I take this gorgeous knife and cut your heart out while you watch." Orson smiled. "Take a moment to think it over."
My brother walked to me as the men stared at each other on the plastic — Jeff crying, Wilbur on the verge of losing consciousness. Orson leaned down and whispered into my ear: "Whoever you shoot, you’re doing them an act of kindness. They’ll feel nothing. I’m not even gonna make you watch what I do with this knife tonight. You can go back to the house and go to bed."
Orson returned to the center of the room and looked down at the men. "Jeff, I’m gonna have to ask —"
Jeff sobbed. "Why are you —"
"If the next words from your mouth aren’t ‘Shoot me’ or ‘Shoot him,’ I’ll take both your hearts out. Decide."
"Shoot me," Jeff cried, his lips pulling back, exposing rotten teeth. Wilbur, still holding his leg, glared at Orson.
My brother walked to the back door and said, "Andy, I thought about it, and I’m only leaving you one bullet in the gun. Wouldn’t want you to do them both a favor." Orson emptied the cylinder and reloaded one round.
"Behind the ear, Andy. Anywhere else and you might not kill him. He’d just lay around suffering." Orson set the gun on the floor. "I’d love to stay and watch, but after that incident with Miss Tanner, well…I’ll come back when I hear the gunshot. Don’t do anything heroic like not shoot him or destroy the gun. I have others, and we’d have to play our little game again. I think the stakes are up to sixty percent now against you, and I’m sure you don’t want those odds. And if that doesn’t encourage you, let me say this. Anything goes wrong, I’ll punish our mother. So…I’ll leave you to your work. Jeff" — Orson flippantly saluted him — "it’s my brother’s first time, so take it like a man. Don’t beg and plead with him not to shoot you, because you might convince him, and then you’d have to die my way. And I promise you," he said, smiling at Wilbur, "my way’s a shitty way to die." Orson stepped out, shut the door, and turned the dead bolt. I was alone with my victim.
Rising, I crossed the floor to the gun, picked it up, and carried it back to the chair. The way Jeff watched me felt unnatural. No one had ever feared me like this.
I sat down to think, my hands sweating onto the metal. Jeff stared at me, and I stared back. Our eyes met, eyes that in another time or place might have been cordial or apathetic, now gravely opposed. This is preventing his torture.
When I stood, my legs jellied, like those nightmares when you have to run, but your legs refuse to work
. I walked toward Jeff. It’s for his own good. Be professional, calm, and swift. Even through his pain, Wilbur cursed me under his malodorous breath. Are you actually going to do this?
"A joke?" Jeff laughed strangely. "This is a funny joke. Isn’t this a funny joke, Wilbur? Let’s go now. We have to be at Charlie’s before twelve."
Lifting the gun in my right hand, I pointed it at Jeff and tried to aim, but my hands shook. I stepped forward so that, despite my trembling, Jeff’s head remained in the sight.
"Don’t shoot my face," he begged as tears welled up again in his eyes. Jeff knelt down and leaned forward like a Muslim facing Mecca, his dirty blond hair in his eyes, his right arm stretched out, still connected to Wilbur. He touched the skin behind his ear. "Right here," he said, his voice quaking. "Get close if you have to."
You aren’t going to do this.
