Devil's Oven

by Laura Benedict

  Why was he such a sucker for people like them?

  Because you know most people are sheep, Pat said. He coughed several times. Hey, you remember that lady you did when you were broke?

  Back in the city, maybe a decade earlier, Pat had gotten an out-of-town job he didn’t want, and passed it on to Dwight. If he hadn’t needed the money so badly, he never would’ve taken it. The only woman he had ever killed.

  Ha! That bitch bit you on the ankle. Knew she would be a pain in the ass.

  “Do me a favor and go make sure the lights are out in the dressing rooms, okay?”

  “I guess you’re taking me home, then?” Charity said.

  “No. We’ll see if one of the cabs is available. I’ll pay,” he said. There was no reason to keep Charity around. He needed to think, and she didn’t need to be involved in what was going down. She had only brought Jolene to the club out of kindness.

  “You sure?” she said. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Go on and call.”

  When she disappeared into the back hallway, Dwight walked over to the stage and squatted down to pull the curtain aside.

  “It should never have happened like this, man,” he said, feeling only a little stupid talking to a dead man in a box twenty-five feet away. “I’ll let Marie know there was an accident. She won’t know it’s me, but I’ll make sure she gets the message. You have any cash put away or anything? Anything you want me to tell her?”

  You’re not going to get a chance to tell my wife shit, Pat said. His voice was a fading echo. This is going to go bad from here on out, my friend.

  Dwight snorted. “Like it’s been going so well up to now. Peaches and cream.” He waited for Pat’s next smartass remark, but there was only silence from beneath the stage.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Tripp drove into the trailer park, keeping an eye out for potholes and taking the speed bumps as slowly as he could bear. He passed two teenage boys drinking beer in the weak glow of a porch light.

  “Not my problem,” Tripp said under his breath. He gave them a cursory wave. They didn’t bother to hide the beer or wave back. One of them lit a cigarette. As long as they kept their business in town and off the mountain, he didn’t care what they did.

  Charity’s trailer was dark, its parking space empty. He parked and watched for signs of life inside. He had the police scanner turned down low, but loud enough to catch whatever came over it.

  The scanner already told him that Bud had walked out of the jail in the company of a dark-haired woman, and Tripp knew it had to have been Jolene. The good news was that Bud’s guilty behavior meant the state police would stop bothering him. That he knew they were wrong about Bud only worked in Tripp’s favor. When he found Lila, he would make things right with her. She would feel some loyalty to Bud because of what they had accused him of, but Tripp would be the one to help her heal.

  The most important thing was to get her away from that animal. Letting Jolene out of his sight had been a mistake.

  Where the hell was Jolene, and where would she take Bud? She had no friends he knew of except Charity and that loser boyfriend of hers. Hell, she wasn’t even human—if he could believe that.

  I do believe. I don’t want to, but I do.

  As he saw it, there were two things he could do: look for Jolene, starting at Ivy Luttrell’s (Bud would be with her, but Tripp would have to deal with him sooner or later, anyway); or head back up to the mountain and keep searching for Lila on his own. Something that was not only impractical this time of night, but borderline insane.

  What’s all this if not insane?

  The radio crackled, and the dispatcher came on. He heard clearly the only words he needed to hear: “caller says the woman identifies herself as Lila Tucker,” and “Git ’n’ Go.”

  His heart soared. Lila was less than two minutes away.

  • • •

  Lila sat huddled in a blanket on the curb of the Git ’n’ Go’s front walk. The store was closed, its interior lights off, but the security lights gave Tripp a good look at Lila’s battered face. Cautious of the man standing protectively over her—the concerned citizen who had called in to report he had found the missing Lila Tucker—Tripp choked back the rush of emotion that seeing her brought on. Lila stared up at him, recognizing him, but didn’t react. It hurt him that she didn’t run to him. She was obviously too damaged to be thinking clearly.

  “Where’d you find Mrs. Tucker?” he said to the man.

  “Who are you?” the man said. He was keyed up, his eyes wide behind his heavy-framed eyeglasses. A middle-age paunch lopped over his blue jeans, straining his leather bomber jacket. Crewcut, ex-military maybe, or just an enthusiast.

  Tripp flashed his badge and looked the man straight in the eye. This had to happen quickly, and he wanted the man to know who was in charge.

  The man’s obvious anxiety dropped a notch, but he was still wary.

  “They’re sending an ambulance,” he said. “You can see she’s hurt.”

  Tripp dropped down on one knee in front of Lila. “I need to ask you if this man had anything to do with what happened to you, Mrs. Tucker.”

  “You know he didn’t,” she said, her voice quiet and strained. “I want to go home.”

  “Good,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  He stood up. “Did you give your name to 911? Do they know how to reach you? I’m sure Mr. Tucker will want to show his appreciation for everything you’ve done. I don’t know any details, but I would think there’s a reward involved.”

  As he spoke, he helped Lila to her feet. She moved cautiously, like an old woman. It would take a long time to get her back to her old self. They might even have to go away—far away—for her to recover properly.

  “Wait a minute.” The man followed them to the idling truck. “Where are you taking her? Where are the other cops? You need to wait for the ambulance.”

  Tripp opened the door to the truck’s extended cab.

  “We’ll find Bud?” she said. “Please?”

  The monster had stolen the life from her eyes. Tripp would help her get it back.

  He nodded and put an arm around her shoulders to help her into the backseat of the truck where the prisoners usually rode. “Go on, lie down,” he said. “Everything’s going to be just fine, Mrs. Tucker.”

  She gathered the blanket closer and lay down on the seat. He shut the door, feeling relieved.

  “This is out of your hands, sir,” Tripp said. “The ambulance service is twenty minutes away from here. She could have internal injuries.” He reached for the driver’s door handle. The man stepped closer.

  “I don’t think you should take her,” he said. He was strident, but his voice wavered with the knowledge that Tripp was the one with a gun strapped to his side.

  “You’re interfering with official business,” Tripp said. This overstuffed rodent of a man wasn’t going to ruin his chance to be with Lila. “Please step away from the vehicle.” He rested his hand on his sidearm, flicked open the release on the holster.

  The man took a step back, but they both looked toward the road when they heard the siren. It was faint, but definitely heading in their direction.

  “I say we wait,” the man said.

  “You don’t want to get involved in this, sir,” Tripp said. “You’ve done what you needed to do. I don’t want to have to take you into custody.” Now he was starting to get pissed off.

  The man gave a short, nervous laugh that puffed out his fleshy cheeks. “Yeah? I don’t think so,” he said. “What if I told you I think you’re full of shit?”

  Tripp took out the .44. Before the man, whose face was now stiff with alarm, could duck away, Tripp smashed the gun into his right temple.

  The man fell to the asphalt, an arm across his face in belated defense. Tripp kicked him in the ribs once, twice, three times, and the man curled in on himself. His weakness made Tripp even angrier, and he kicked the man in the head.


  Time to go. They’re coming.

  Tripp holstered his service piece, got in the truck, and slammed it into gear. Lila was silent in the back. He hoped she’d gone to sleep. Driving to the lip of the parking lot, he didn’t bother to look back at the man who was lying still on the ground.

  The safest way for them to get to the cabin would be to drive west, away from the sirens. But it would take half an hour and he would have to unlock two fire road gates. He needed more ammunition before he could take Lila to a truly safe place. Food, as well. The fastest way to his place was through the state forest’s main entrance. The Good Samaritan was sure to be out for a while, so he would have some time before the state boys started looking for him and his work truck. Tripp turned left and drove in the direction of the oncoming police cars.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Running. Following the scent of the woman. The woman who was not soft. The woman who tore at him and screamed. The woman who woke something inside of him.

  He stayed far from the edge of the road, avoiding the few cars speeding past. The bottoms of his feet were hard now, better than the shoes. The hole in his throat where the stick had pierced him let in a ragged stream of air, but he felt no pain. There was no pain anymore, no anger. Only desire, a hunger in his gut that had nothing to do with food.

  Lights rose ahead of him. Lights that brought the image of Claude Who Was Not Food to his mind.

  Through the trees, he saw two men standing in front of the store where he had found Claude. The woman was nearby, but he couldn’t see her. He watched as one of the men hit the other, and a few seconds later he smelled the blood. After the man who had done the hitting drove away, the scent of the woman was not so strong.

  He ran after the truck, not bothering to investigate the man lying bleeding on the ground. He ran across the parking lot and up onto the sloping hillside, breaking through the bare, whiplike bracken without feeling it, trying to keep the truck in sight. For a long moment, he was able to keep up with the truck, but then the air filled with a piercing sound and he stumbled. The sound came toward him, bringing with it white, red, and blue lights that bounced off the tree trunks. Instinct drove him onto the leafy ground. He covered his ears with his hands.

  The cars whined to a stop somewhere behind him, and the night reasserted itself. He took his hands from his ears and stood. The truck was gone and, with it, the scent. It was immediately replaced by the compulsion to finish what he had started when he first came to this place.

  He ran.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  There had been a time when Ivy thought of leaving Alta. It was after high school, and Thora was gone every day to her job at the Department of Motor Vehicles, leaving Ivy alone in the trailer. Thora had tried to talk her into applying for cashier work at the feed and supply store on the other side of town, but the idea of it terrified her only slightly less than moving to the city to look for a job. Sewing was what she loved to do, nothing else. Sewing was something she could do alone, without anyone watching. She hardly had to speak to anyone when she was sewing. Even when she had helped Mrs. Young, the Home Ec teacher, do the costuming for the high school’s production of the musical Angel Time during her senior year, she had been allowed to do most of the work at home, on her own machine. On quiet days, walking up on the mountain with Suki, the retriever mix that had adopted them for a year and then disappeared, she had thought about what it might be like to work in a real theater, making all sorts of costumes for plays.

  When there were costume dramas on television, she would record them, hiding the discs from Thora. It wasn’t that Thora wouldn’t have liked them or would’ve made fun of her for watching them. Ivy just wanted to keep them for herself. She liked the Elizabethan films best, with their sumptuous velvets and jeweled brocades. Seeing her own plain face in the mirror, she knew she would never be suited to wear such things, no matter what century it was. But she could make them, nourishing each garment with just a little bit of herself. She would live through them.

  Then Thora had started getting sick all the time. Her government job meant she couldn’t be fired easily, but Ivy felt obligated to take care of her. In her heart she knew it was a grudging obligation. In those days, she sometimes thought she didn’t love Thora at all. But whatever she felt for Thora, she knew she couldn’t abandon her.

  One of the social workers who had shown up at the trailer door twice a year until Ivy turned eighteen asked her once if Thora acted more like a parent or a sister to her. Ivy’s sincere response was that she owed Thora her life. When she looked back, she knew she had probably sounded melodramatic, the way young girls do. But it was the truth. The love part wasn’t important.

  Ivy lay on the guest bed, Anthony’s bed, in the dark. She was finally accustomed to the rancid smell lingering over everything he touched.

  At the foot of the bed, in a soiled pile, lay the contents of the hope chest that Ivy’s mother had started for Thora: a pair of linen pillow cases, handkerchiefs with Thora’s initials, a thick wedding-ring quilt that Ivy vaguely remembered her mother working on at night, candles, a glass pitcher, a delicate linen nightgown, and a Bible. Anthony had finally broken the chest open. Had she really thought he wouldn’t bother it? Thora had come to see the thing as a joke, but she had never taken it out of the house or even suggested getting rid of it. Now everything was ruined—the pages ripped from the Bible, the nightgown ripped at the throat and shoulder seams as though Anthony had tried to put it on his own body.

  This was what she had brought on them.

  Lila had run away. Ivy had seen her run onto the highway, then veer back onto the shoulder, weaving like a drunk. Maybe she’d been hit by a car. That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it? Then no one would know where she had been.

  What kind of person have I become that I’m hoping a woman I’ve known all my life is dead?

  Without Thora, Anthony was all she had left. Now she was afraid of the one person she had left in the world.

  She closed her eyes. She would eventually have to go up to the trailer. He was up there. Alone. He might be hurt. Or suffering.

  She was in a twilight sleep when she heard the gravel crunching out in the drive. Jumping from the bed, she put her face close to the cold glass of the window. Whoever it was had already reached the trailer, and was turning the vehicle around so that the headlights swept the thinning dark. The car looked small. Not a police car or any kind of ambulance or truck. Maybe the driver was lost. She thought of the girl, the pregnant one who was expected the next afternoon to pick up her dress. Whoever it was shut off the car, then the lights.

  The motion detector light at the corner of the trailer came on, illuminating a man—large, and moving quickly toward the trailer’s back entrance—and a small woman with dark hair. Or was it a girl? She couldn’t see well, but they seemed to be wearing matching coats, a fact that was odd and not at all reassuring.

  • • •

  Ivy opened the trailer’s back door and leveled the shotgun at the girl standing in the middle of the living room.

  “Ivy,” the girl said, reaching out her hand to her. She didn’t look at all afraid of the gun. She was the same girl Thora had wanted to rent the trailer to. What was her name? The same glow surrounded her, so Ivy couldn’t get a good look at her face. Despite the obscurity of her features, Ivy wasn’t afraid.

  Behind the girl, Bud Tucker came out of the master bedroom, stepping over what was left of the door. His forehead was creased with worry, his eyes intent on the shotgun. Ivy had always liked Bud. Lila was lucky to have him. She had never heard a mean or unpleasant word said about him, not even from Lila, who had something critical to say about everyone. It had never been Ivy’s desire to cause people like Lila and Bud pain. She knew that about herself, didn’t she? Still, she kept the shotgun where it was. She didn’t know what else to do. Lila was obviously gone, but so was Anthony.

  “I’ll let you leave if you go now,” she said. “The front door is down that hal
lway.” Her voice shook, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

  “You’re not even going to ask why we’re here?” Bud said. “What did we ever do to you? What do you have to do with all this?” He stepped to stand directly behind the girl.

  Ivy looked at her. Why had she said her name like that? Ivy. Like she knew her. Like she was her friend. Something about the sound of the girl’s voice calmed her, made her feel less like the world was collapsing. She felt stronger.

  “There’s no one for you to see here,” she said. “Just get out and I won’t call the police.”

  “You won’t call the police?” Bud said. He lunged toward her and the girl put her arm out to stop him. Ivy backed up a step, aiming the shotgun directly at his chest.

  “Shhhhh,” the girl said. “You can put the gun down, Ivy. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Nobody’s going to bring the police. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  Why was the girl talking to her like she was a child?

  “There’s blood and dirt all over the bathroom,” Bud said. “Still wet.”

  “My bathroom isn’t any of your business,” she said. But she knew it was lost.

  “Her hair,” Bud said. He could barely get the words out. “It’s all over the place.”

  Ivy lowered the barrel of the gun.

  They stood, silent, as if Lila’s body had suddenly appeared in the midst of them.

  The girl walked over to Ivy, holding her hands out in front of her. As she got closer, Ivy could see how young she was. So pure. And all was ugliness around them. Ivy felt corroded in comparison. Vile to her core. She had touched evil, felt possessive of it like it was some treasured charm. She almost cried out when the girl rested her fingers on her cheek.

  “You don’t know where they are,” the girl said. “Do you?”

  Ivy could see the girl’s eyes now. Kind. Comforting in their familiarity. She shook her head.