by Bryan Smith
Grant glanced at her and couldn’t help wincing when he saw the head of the nail sink into the flesh beneath the top of her right foot. She was screaming behind the duct tape. The pain had to be beyond unbearable, yet she kept at it. He could scarcely fathom the level of desperation and determination necessary to do something like that. The bottom of the foot was coming off the floor, leaking a steady stream of blood as part of the nail became visible beneath it.
At that point, it was clear she was going to get at least one foot free, and if she could endure the agony that came with doing something that incredible, she’d probably be able to do the same with the other foot, too. As this was happening, Lindsey’s gaze was riveted to the closed front door. Her obvious shock at what she was hearing had rendered her oblivious to everything else. If not for that, Grant would’ve immediately raised the alarm about what the girl’s mother was doing. He also still didn’t consider the mother anything like a real threat. Even if she managed to get both feet free, she would still be bound to the chair. Even free of the chair and her bonds, she’d still be severely inhibited by her hobbled feet.
He looked at Lindsey. “I thought you killed the fucking baby.”
She glanced at him a moment, frowning, before her gaze went back to the door. “I did. Sort of.”
Grant gasped and sputtered, temporarily befuddled by this statement. “What th—” He gave his head a hard shake and smacked a hand against his forehead, as if to kick his brain back into gear. “I mean, hold on, what the actual fuck do you mean by sort of?”
She was gnawing nervously at her bottom lip as she glanced at him again. “Okay, I killed the brother. The older one. He’s definitely fucking dead, but I left the baby out there on the private drive. And I mean way out there, like hundreds of feet away. There’s no way a fucking infant could’ve crawled all the way up here. It makes no sense.”
Grant rubbed at his eyes and shook his head again. “Let me be sure I’ve got this perfectly fucking straight. You left the baby out there . . . alive?”
She scowled. “Yes, goddammit. Isn’t that obvious by now?”
Grant huffed out a breath of utter astonishment. “Nothing is fucking obvious anymore. Why would you do that?”
Her defensiveness faded and she looked mildly chagrined as she said, “Because I thought it was this uber-fucking-cold, super-cruel thing to do, leaving it to get dragged off by wolves or a bear or some fucking shit like that.”
Grant smirked. “Well, call it a crazy hunch, but I don’t think that’s what happened.”
Lindsey rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know that. Now. The question is, what did happen?”
Still smirking, he said, “Only one way to find out.”
He went to the window by the door and pulled back the curtain to look out at the porch. The porch light was still on from the last time he’d ventured out to the camper. He saw the baby right away, lying on its back on the porch and still swaddled in its blanket. The presence of the blanket told him someone had carried the baby up to the cabin and set him there. While the possibility of the baby crawling all the way up to the cabin on its own struck him as unlikely in the extreme, if that was indeed what had happened, surely it would’ve shed the blanket somewhere along the way.
“Well, there’s definitely a fucking baby out there.” He turned his head this way and that, scanning the area for signs of an interloper. Nothing. “Don’t see anybody else out there, though.”
Lindsey frowned. “Do you think it really did make it up here by itself?”
Still staring out at the porch, Grant shook his head. “No, I don’t think that.”
He explained his reasoning.
Lindsey sighed and conceded that it made sense. “So someone else is out there, even if you can’t see them. Hiding.”
Grant nodded. “Seems likely.”
He sensed his wife’s rapidly rising fear of the possibility and all its implications, mirroring as they did what he was also feeling. Glancing back at her, he became conscious again of the knife still in his hand. He thought of how close he’d come to lunging at her with it mere minutes ago. His plan had been to slam the knife into her throat while she was distracted by the prospect of whipping the girl again. It wouldn’t have taken her long to bleed out from a wound like that, and killing her would’ve freed him from the worry of her doing the same to him as soon as she got the chance.
After that, he’d been planning to take the girl with him when he left this place, maybe keep her prisoner in the camper until he had to get out of the country. He figured he needed to be gone from the states and headed somewhere with fuzzy or difficult extradition laws within no more than a day or so. The girl wouldn’t be able to flee the country with him, obviously, but that day together would allow him ample opportunity to do all the things he’d been fantasizing about doing to her. He was still hoping for that, but he’d first have to get past the complications presented by this baby and the unseen interloper.
He looked out at the clearing and saw no one lurking in the vicinity of the truck, but that didn’t mean much. Part of the problem was the way he’d parked, parallel to the long porch instead of pulling straight up. The attached camper was large enough that someone could easily be hiding between the truck and his dead cousin’s minivan. The porch light not being very bright wasn’t helpful either. Someone could easily be hanging back in the darkness at the edge of the clearing.
Lindsey made a sound of flustered impatience. “What’re we gonna do?”
Grant looked at the baby again. “I don’t know. I’m trying to think.”
Lindsey grunted. “Great. Now you decide to start thinking.”
Grant stepped back from the window and turned slowly toward her, glowering as he made eye contact with her. The anger that had been simmering inside him since learning of her cheating ways again threatened to boil over. His grip on the knife’s handle tightened again. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from you, the fucking genius who ditched our carefully formulated plan almost right from the goddamn beginning. None of this bullshit would be happening if not for you.”
Instead of immediately snapping back at him in her usual snide way, Lindsey looked at the knife and frowned at the way his hand was shaking. She’d finally realized how close he was to exploding and seemed ill at ease, perhaps suspecting she wouldn’t be able to fend him off with the belt if he took a run at her with the knife. Seeing her unease made him yearn to do it. He could almost feel how it would be to drive the knife deep into her deliciously yielding flesh. The look of agony on her face would be a joy exceeding anything else in his experience. Killing her was something that had to happen anyway. Why keep delaying the inevitable?
The girl, Kelsey, had been swaying on her feet for several minutes, staring at the door in a drooling, dopey-eyed way that made her look like the recent recipient of a frontal lobotomy. She seemed oblivious to the escalating tension in the room. When the baby cried out again, this time in a particularly loud, distressed way, she began a wobbly approach to the door.
Grant looked at her, frowning. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Kelsey continued along her unsteady trajectory toward the door without saying anything or even glancing at him.
Lindsey heaved an exasperated sigh. “For fuck’s sake, just kill her and be done with it.”
Grant did not want to do that. He wanted Kelsey alive when the time came to act out his fantasies with her. The experiment with necrophilia Lindsey had suggested remained a line he wasn’t willing to cross. He was clearly a terrible person perfectly willing to do many things the vast majority of people would consider vile, but the idea of fucking a corpse still grossed him out on a basic, reflexive level.
Lindsey stamped a foot on the floor. “Don’t let her open that fucking door! What the hell are you waiting for?”
Despite the increasing gravity of the circumstances, Grant almost laughed. He’d asked himself the same question just moments ago, albeit in a different context. Lindsey w
as right, though. He couldn’t let Kelsey open the door. They still didn’t know what they were dealing with here. Someone with sinister intent could be somewhere outside the cabin, and giving whoever it was an easy way in would be a really bad idea.
Kelsey was only a few feet away from the door now, reaching for the doorknob with a shaky hand. Grant moved to intercept her, putting a hand on her shoulder and stopping her in her tracks.
She muttered something indistinct under her breath.
Grant frowned as he began to turn her toward him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. What the fuck did you say?”
The girl sneered as she lifted her chin to look Grant straight in the eye. “I said, fuck you, motherfucker.”
Her right hand shot toward him before he could react and he screamed when he felt something hard and sharp punch into his groin. He reeled away from her and looked down, shocked to see one of the big nails protruding from his ball sack. Even in the midst of his pain, he realized what must have happened. After extracting the nail from her face, he’d thoughtlessly cast it aside. When he dumped her on the floor earlier, she must have landed near the discarded nail, perhaps palming it while their attention was distracted by the cries of the infant. And now he was paying the price for those moments of distraction, and for not taking her seriously as a threat.
Kelsey again began heading toward the door, but Grant was in no condition to do anything about it. He screamed again when he gripped the head of the nail and began trying to pull it free. Tears streamed down his eyes as he realized how deeply inside him she’d driven it. He’d never known pain like this, not even close. Until now, he’d thought of the pain they’d been inflicting on their captives in an abstract way, but now he grasped the reality of it. It was horrendous and it made him whimper ceaselessly as he pulled harder at the nail.
After gaping in disbelief at his injury for several moments, Lindsey belatedly leapt into action, taking a run toward the door as Kelsey’s hand was curling around the doorknob. She looped the belt around the girl’s neck and roughly yanked her backward.
She was still dragging her away from the door when Kelsey’s mother let loose a muffled scream, causing Grant’s head to snap in her direction. The nail was about halfway out now, but what he saw then made him pause in the process of removing it. While they’d been occupied with other things, the woman had managed to pull her foot free of the other nail. She tried to stand in a semi-erect way, but it was impossible. There was too much duct tape strapping her ankles to the legs of the chair. It was a valiant effort, but she was still far from a real threat. She screamed again as the chair toppled sideways, landing on the floor with a heavy thump.
After an agonizing stretch of time that felt like forever but was probably less than a minute, Grant got the nail pulled out in time to watch Lindsey dump the girl on the floor again and scoop up the knife he’d dropped. His gut clenched for a second as he anticipated her attacking him with it. Instead, she rushed over to Piper Weatherby, dropped to a knee next to her, and slammed the big knife into her midsection several times in rapid succession. Her face was red and she was breathing heavily as she almost immediately bounced back to her feet and looked at Grant.
“So much for the mother,” she said, sneering. “Now for the daughter.”
Kelsey was beginning to get to her hands and knees again as Lindsey approached her.
“No!” Grant screamed at her.
Lindsey stopped in her tracks, giving him a confused look. “Why the fuck not?”
Grant whimpered as he held his balls with a trembling hand, watching as blood trickled between his fingers. “I haven’t gotten to fuck her yet.”
Lindsey laughed. “Grant, baby, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not going to be fucking anything again for a long time. Maybe never.” She laughed again, harder this time, her breasts jiggling as her body quaked with the hilarity of it. “Probably never. Man, that bitch really nailed you.”
She laughed harder than ever then, almost doubling over.
Granted wanted nothing more than to go over there and start slamming his fist into her face. Over and fucking over, feeling her nose break and pulp and her lips split apart while he beat her to death. It would be exactly what she deserved. Right then, however, it hurt to even move. Beating anyone to death at the moment was about as likely as the possibility of him sprouting wings from his back and flying off to the goddamn moon.
While Lindsey was still in the grip of hysterics, the girl surged to her feet and ran toward the door. Grant reached out to grab her with his free hand, but she easily eluded him. She grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and hauled the door open, letting in the October chill. Grant shivered as the cold air touched his skin. He’d been outside naked not long ago, but at that point he’d been physically whole, a young man in the prime of his life. But now he had blood leaking from his balls and it hurt so goddamn much.
Kelsey stepped outside and knelt to scoop her baby brother off the porch. She had the crying infant in her arms and was cooing at him when a shadowy figure emerged from between the camper and minivan and came running toward the porch. Grant caught a glimpse of him as he came up the steps, a scraggly-looking mountain man with a bushy beard and long gray hair. He was dressed in threadbare, patchy clothes and had the leathery skin of a person who’d lived most of his life outdoors.
The mountain man had a machete, old and heavily encrusted with rust, but the blade was probably still sharp enough to do some damage. He raised it as he stepped onto the porch, and Kelsey looked up in time to see the oncoming threat. She gasped and backed up into the cabin. The mountain man followed her through the open door.
Lindsey scowled at him. “Who the fuck are you, you Grizzly Adams-looking motherfucker?”
The mountain man did not immediately respond. He took a moment to look around at the gruesome scene inside the cabin. Then he grunted and spoke in the creaky voice of one long-unaccustomed to speaking out loud. “I am the rumble of distant thunder. I am a messenger from the heart of darkness. I am judgment.”
No one seemed to know how to react to that as a silent moment passed.
Then the mountain man raised the machete and brought it around with the practiced, savage swing of a skilled executioner.
32
LINDSEY WAS SHOCKED AS SHE watched the rusty blade cleave through Kelsey’s neck with surprising ease. She supposed the man’s raw strength more than compensated for any lack of sharpness in the blade. The girl remained upright a few moments longer, blood spurting from her neck stump as her head fell to the floor, landing with a loud thump. Her headless body moved backward a few wobbly steps before dropping to its knees and toppling over. The crying infant slid from her limp arms and rolled onto its back on the floor.
Grant’s blood-smeared hand came away from his mangled balls. He held up both hands now in a desperate warding-off gesture as the wild-looking stranger came farther into the cabin. “We don’t want any trouble. Look, you have to leave. This is a . . . a private property. If you don’t leave, we’ll call the police.”
The mountain man said nothing as he took a pointed look around at all the evidence of depravity.
Grant abruptly seemed to realize how futile his argument was. His shoulders sagged as he said, “Okay. Fuck you, then.”
The mountain man grunted.
Then he charged at Grant and rammed the blade into his abdomen, making Lindsey wince as the bloody tip of the blade emerged from her husband’s back. His body slowly went limp as the scraggly stranger held him there on the blade a few moments. When the man yanked the blade free, Grant collapsed to the floor and didn’t move.
The mountain man turned and looked at Lindsey.
They stared at each other for a time as she pondered what to do. She still had the knife, which was slightly reassuring. It had some real heft to it and having it was infinitely preferable to facing this enigmatic backwoods madman unarmed. Still, the situation boiled down to short blade versus much longer blade. The
reach advantage would probably allow him to cut her down before she could do anything to him. Overall, things were looking dire from her point of view. The tranquilizer gun was still over there on the table, though. She might be able to get to it before he could get to her. There was just one problem—she didn’t know if it still had any darts in it.
Alternatively, she could try to make a break for it. The mountain man had displayed surprising quickness in the way he’d dispatched Kelsey and Grant, but she was confident she could elude him and outrun him. Hell, she could outrun damn near anyone who didn’t possess Olympic-level track talent. Fleeing this place naked wouldn’t be ideal, but she’d do it if she had to.
Before she could do any of these things, the mountain man spoke. “I saw you out there.” His voice was gravelly, dense, and not easy to understand. If there’d been any other significant source of noise in the cabin, she wouldn’t have known what he was saying. “On the ridge. Saw you kill that boy. Saw you leave the little one. Devil’s work, that was. How mean it was. How cold-hearted.”
Lindsey’s heart was beating so hard she felt faint. Her head was swimmy and she had to concentrate to stay on her feet. She didn’t remember seeing anyone else out there on the drive, but this strange man had been watching her from somewhere, which should’ve been impossible. There was nowhere to hide out there, no trees to lurk behind. The only thing she could think of was if he’d been hanging down a side of the ridge, just below road level. But that was crazy. The sides of the ridge were so steep and rocky and perilous. Who would do something like that?
But the answer to that was obvious, wasn’t it?
A crazy person would do that.
Coincidentally, a crazy person was standing in front of her right now, staring at her in a strangely expectant way, as if waiting for her to say something. She didn’t get it. Did he expect her to defend what she’d done?
