Last to Die: A gripping psychological thriller not for the faint hearted

by Arlene Hunt

  Ace let him be. The pain ripping through his brother was not going to be eased by some pithy remark or gesture. He opened the fridge door and closed it again; he studied a map on the wall for a moment then looked around the rest of the room. He fingered a locked metal tool case and ran his hands along the workbench. Neat, meticulous even. The shelf over the bench contained a number of plain cardboard boxes. Ace took one down and opened it. It was filled with feathers. Ace sifted through them and lifted one out.

  ‘Take a look at this.’

  He held out so Mike could inspect it. ‘Eagle, same as the one that killed Rudy.’

  Mike took it in his trembling hand. He lifted his tear-soaked face.

  ‘Let’s go check out that barn.’

  They climbed back out the window and crossed the yard, keeping their ears open and their eyes peeled, staying real close to one another. Unsurprisingly, the barn was locked by a thick chain and a padlock.

  Ace went back to the truck and returned with a lump hammer. Three strikes later and the lock lay smashed open in the dirt. Ace and Mike grabbed the doors and hauled them open.

  ‘Taurus,’ Ace said, nodding his head to the gold car parked inside the door.

  ‘It’s the car from Ray’s Diner, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mike said, his expression grim. ‘Peachy.’

  Ace tried the door handle and found that is was unlocked. He popped the trunk, and pretended he didn’t notice Mike’s expression of agonised relief when it was found to be empty. Next he checked the glove compartment.

  ‘Got something.’ He lifted out some paperwork and read through it. ‘Says here this is owned by a Maryanne Weils.’

  Mike tapped the roof with his finger. ‘I don’t care what it says, Ace, this is the car he drove. I know it.’

  They searched the rest of the barn. It was Ace who spotted the trap door. He pulled it open and descended the wooden steps into the cellar below. After carefully pushing open the cell door with the nose of his rifle, he squatted on his hunkers and sniffed the food dishes and a drink container. He was still there when his brother stepped into the doorway behind him.

  ‘Aw,’ Mike’s eyes widened when he saw the bed and toilet. ‘Aw, Jesus Lord.’

  Ace lifted the beaker. ‘Milk, ain’t full spoiled yet.’

  Mike ignored him. He walked to the cot and lifted the pillow. He tilted it towards the light. There was a dark red hair caught in the piping, a colour the envy of all the bottle redheaded women in Rockville. He began to tremble and could not stop. When he looked around the tiny space he imagined her here, felt her terror, her claustrophobia. He buried his face in the pillow, inhaling as deeply as he could, trying to capture her scent.

  Jessie.

  He wept.

  ‘Listen to me Mike. There’s food inside the cabin, right? Maybe enough for a day,’ Ace said softly, ‘Clothing too. We have the key for the Taurus, so I’m guessing he’s still around the area, meaning he’s on foot or he has another vehicle. Either way, looks to me like he’s coming back. Mike, Mike come on now.’

  Mike managed to compose himself enough to speak. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘We can go looking for him, but if we miss him we don’t know when he might surface again. We knocked out the man’s window, he’s gonna know straight out the gate he’s got visitors.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Mike choked back a sob. ‘You want us to sit around and wait?’

  Ace jerked his thumb to the steps. ‘We can talk topside.’

  ‘You think she’s already dead, don’t you?’

  Ace put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it while he looked around the tiny cell. His face was in shadow, his thoughts hidden from view. ‘I am not making that pronouncement.’

  ‘Then what? What is it you’re not saying? I saw a look on your face when we crossed the yard up there. You tried to hide it, but I know you Ace, I know you as well as you know yourself.’

  Without a word, Ace turned and walked up the stairs. Mike rushed after him.

  ‘Goddamn it, Ace! You talk to me now.’

  As soon as Mike cleared the steps, Ace kicked the door closed and yanked Mike closer to him by the front of his shirt.

  ‘Keep yelling, maybe you can let folk over the next county know our location. Quit it and help me with these doors.’

  ‘What was it?’

  Ace moved his cigarette to the corner of his mouth without touching it. His eyeballs were streaked pink with temper. Without a word he jerked his head for Mike to follow him outside.

  ‘What do ya see?’

  ‘Grass? Weeds?’ Mike looked around the decrepit yard. ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’

  ‘Mounds and depressions.’

  ‘De—’ Mike frowned. Then it hit him what Ace was talking about. He walked to the nearest mound, it was not new and the grass grew freely on it, but there were more, many more. He looked at Ace aghast.

  ‘Dear Lord, how many are there?’

  Ace closed the barn doors and joined him. ‘Dunno, let’s take a look.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’

  ‘Stay here then, I’ll go.’

  Ace walked off, smoke drifting over his shoulder as he moved around the property. He retuned to Mike.

  ‘Few recent enough, but none of ’em brand new.’

  Mike literally sagged with relief. He was pale and sweating. Ace wondered how much more his little brother could take in one day.

  ‘You think we should call someone ’bout this place?’

  Mike raised his gaze skywards and let out a long shaky breath.

  ‘Dear Jesus Lord.’

  Ace blew out streams of smoke through his nostrils. ‘Let’s move the truck out of sight.’

  68

  An explosive stitch ripped through Jessie’s side, causing her so much pain she was almost bent double. She stumbled on, each step more agonising than the one that had come before it. She managed to shuffle on another few hundred feet before she crashed to a halt against a small outcrop of rock.

  She lay where she fell, desperately trying to suck air into her burning lungs. Her throat was raw and she barely had the strength to lift her head. All the adrenaline was gone now; she was exhausted, beyond exhausted.

  You fool, she berated herself, you should have tried to finish him off. You had a chance; you had a chance.

  She looked down, the wound on her thigh was bleeding heavily and she was weak from shock and blood loss – the leg of her pants was stiff and stained dark from it. She opened her pants and eased them down her leg to examine the wound. As soon as she put her fingers to it, blood began to run afresh. It was deep, maybe to the bone, she guessed, and the flow so heavy she was scared he might have nicked an artery. She doubted it could hold her for much longer.

  No time to worry about it now, you need to keep moving.

  She pulled her pants up, refastened them and leaned hard onto her hands. Stopping had been a mistake. Already she was beginning to stiffen, her aching muscles completely spent. She knew if she rested too long she might not get up again. This was it. There was no gimmick to any of it: she either rose now or she was done.

  Jessie got to her feet, but the ground was shaky beneath her. She clung to the rock to steady herself, took a deep breath, then another. Finally, she eased upright into a standing position. She let her good leg bear as much of the weight as it could.

  The next section was technically difficult and took everything she had. She climbed over rock and hard soil. The ground rose sharply though, so she had no choice but to pause for rest every few hundred feet, glancing over her shoulder as she did, waiting to see some sign of her pursuer.

  She pushed her way through a bunch of scrub bushes and found herself standing out on a rocky cliff face overlooking a gorge. In disbelief, Jessie stepped gingerly to the ledge and peered over. There was nothing but a long sheer drop down into bushes and trees several hundred feet below.

  No
other way down.

  Jessie reeled back, stunned. Her legs trembled from exhaustion and a sudden wave of vertigo.

  ‘Oh no, no. No.’

  She peered up at the vast expanse of rock rising above her. It was limestone, mostly smooth, but there might be enough crevices to use if she had the strength to climb. She inched back from the edge of the ledge and stood looking up. She chewed on her lip.

  It had been a mistake coming this way. She should have known better; she should have gone to ground or hidden in amongst the trees. She had messed up.

  You’re wasting time.

  Jessie shielded her eyes with her hand. There was a ledge far above. It looked high and her legs had nothing left.

  She looked down again. Why had she come this way? Why?

  She wiped her hands on her pants and went to the foot of the rock face. After a moment, she took a deep breath, grabbed a handful of rock and hoisted herself upwards. She swung her injured leg left but missed the crevice she was aiming for and slid to the ground again.

  ‘Shit.’

  She slammed her hand against the unforgiving stone, gritted her teeth and stepped close again. With steely determination, she braced herself against the ground and pushed off with her good foot. This time when she swung her arm up, her fingers found a crevice. She clung to it with all her might, waited for her feet to find whatever purchase they could, and swung up again.

  Do not look down, she warned herself, don’t you dare look down.

  Jessie Conway did not look down. If she had, she might have seen Caleb Switch moving onto the rocks, his eyes fixed on her every move.

  69

  Confident now, but still wary, Caleb rested with his back against a boulder and took a long drink from his water canister. He wiped his mouth and spilled some over the back of his neck. The sun sat lower in the sky and the heat had dissipated a little. His head ached badly but he no longer had any problems with his vision. Despite her attack, he was feeling pretty damned good about himself.

  He looked down and noticed a small pool of blood beneath his boots. She had stopped here and rested for a spell. Good. He hoped she was hurting, he hoped she was feeling pain. He hoped she realised whatever she was feeling now would be nothing to what he would make her feel as soon as he caught up to her.

  He took another drink. He was amazed at her audacity, doubling back like that. It went against every human instinct, so much so he would never have believed it possible. He might even have to come up with a new category for prey like her.

  His father used to say a wounded beast was one of the most deadly creatures on earth. Didn’t matter if it was a bear or a possum, Aldo used to say, you injure or corner one then you best be prepared to kill it or suffer the consequences. Of course, the old man had said a lot of things over the years, and kept on saying things right up until the day Caleb had put a bullet in his back and another in his head.

  How the old bastard would have laughed at his son being taken out by a bra.

  The thought of his father dredged up memories that Caleb has long since shelved in a dusty portion of his brain. Aldo Switch had been a trapper and a hunter of some note. He was unfriendly to the point of feral and considered himself a man’s man, content to terrorise his wife and children and abscond at the turn of a breeze. In those absences, Caleb’s mother, sometimes swollen with child and beaten down by responsibility, would spend her evenings drinking cheap, foul-smelling alcohol, before falling asleep on the sofa, sobbing over the feckless no-good mean son of a bitch she had been fool enough to marry.

  Caleb had never understood her sadness when Aldo was gone; for him it was the only time he could let his guard down a little. For those few precious times, he was free of the man with the eyes of a snake and a fuse that was liable to blow over a perceived slight as easily as a genuine one. Caleb could eat his cereal in peace, look in whatever direction he pleased and rest in his bed without fear of being awoken by a flurry of fists.

  On the day he had killed his father, Caleb had left their home with no such thought on his mind. They had travelled eighty miles north in Aldo’s beat-up truck, heading deep into the wilderness. Caleb remembered Aldo had been in a strange mood, cheery even, bouncing with a nervous energy that Caleb knew could just as easily spell trouble.

  ‘It’s just sitting there. Can’t believe it was abandoned. Got me a friend,’ Aldo had flicked his eyes slyly at Caleb ‘to look up the deeds and yup, owned by a batshit old fuck with shit in his drawers and shit for brains. Didn’t even remember he owned it, ain’t that something? Didn’t even know! He’s sitting there in some home with shit for brains and shit leaking outta his ass and he’s worth gold.’

  Caleb had leaned his head against the cracked glass of the passenger window and tried not to think about the image his father was creating. Normally his silence allowed him to slip under the radar, but on that particular day, the radar was monumentally messed up.

  ‘You listenin’ to me, boy?’

  Caleb, then only two months shy of fifteen, was almost full height, but still sinew and bone. The question was a shot over his bow. The rest of his day depended on how he answered that question.

  ‘Hey, I’m talkin’ to you.’

  ‘I’m listening.’ But he had not been listening. Instead he had been thinking; he had been thinking that this was how it would be. He thought of Aldo’s rages, his unpredictable force ripping to pieces Caleb’s fragile life. He thought of the nature of Aldo. He thought of him as a black tunnel, stretching on with no light at the end, no end at all.

  ‘You better pay me heed, boy.’

  And there it was, that note he knew so well, the familiar black thread that Aldo tightened around them.

  That day something else occurred to Caleb Switch as they had parked the truck and walked the ancient trails. That day a thought took hold in Caleb Switch’s young mind and as he allowed it room, the thought that was unbelievable at first was then strangely … sensible.

  There would be no respite as long as Aldo lived.

  No respite. No end to his cruelty, to his endless rages.

  Not as long as Aldo lived.

  Aldo marched ahead at a blistering pace wearing a dark green jacket with many pockets. It was grimy with dirt and he had worn it for as long as Caleb could remember. Caleb watched his father’s broad shoulders and whispered his intent on the frigid air. He waited to see how it sat with him.

  It sat fine. It sat better than fine.

  They located the hides and Aldo sent Caleb up the trees to repair them. Caleb worked fast, replacing the rotten board and line hooks, his fingers numb with cold. As he worked, he repeated his intent under his breath, over and over like a mantra.

  When he was finished, Caleb climbed down slowly and carefully. Aldo offered no word of thanks. He jerked his head and they returned to the jeep.

  Caleb had to admit he was a touch curious about Aldo’s ‘secret’. Aldo was the kind of man who preferred his left hand to know nothing about what the right might be doing. Certainly, his father never took Caleb into his confidence about anything.

  They turned left at a fork in the road. Aldo leaned so far forward over the steering wheel his nose almost touched the glass.

  ‘Deers ’round here ain’t used to people. Y’can practically walk up to one, pop it on the nose and it’s yours,’ Aldo said, his voice giddy. ‘Saw bald eagles t’other time, know ’bout a nest up near the bluff, heard tell of a fella looks to buy eggs for real money. Bit of a climb but nothing you can’t handle when the time’s right.’ He glanced at Caleb, his eyes glittering like spark plugs. ‘This is prime land, dummy, prime!’

  Suddenly he swung off the road, through what looked like nothing but ditch. Caleb threw his arms across his face, expecting the truck to crash, but instead it jumped and ground over a mound of soil and shot out into an overgrown yard.

  ‘Ayeh!’ Aldo said, slamming the truck to halt. Caleb lowered his arms slowly and peered through the windscreen at a small cabin. His eyes
moved over it, making note of the collapsed chimney stack, the loose rotten boards, the badly patched tin roof. He could just about make out the pitch of a roof behind the cabin and guessed whatever was back there was in much the same state.

  ‘What is this place?’

  Aldo took a piece of paper from an inside pocket, opened it and shoved it under Caleb’s nose. ‘This is mine is what it is.’

  Caleb read the deed of sale, flicking his eyes across the words, allowing his brain to digest the wording.

  ‘Prime,’ Aldo said again, refolding the paper and putting it back in his pocket. ‘Woods is full of game, and no fucking John Law making demands on tag anywhere near here. Come on, boy.’

  They got out. Caleb whispered the words again; they danced like smoke on the air before his face, but Aldo’s attention had drifted.

  ‘Fix it up we can rent this shit easy. Ain’t no reason to quit on the seasons neither.’ Aldo walked off with his hands on his hips, squinting up at the roof.

  Caleb walked slowly back to the truck and removed his father’s Winchester from the rack. He closed over the door and stood with the freezing wind nipping at his cheeks, his eyes watering. The gun felt light in his hands and as he lifted it to his shoulder and slid his finger through the trigger guard he whispered the mantra once more.

  Aldo Switch never saw it coming.

  Caleb would later think about that, and decide that it didn’t matter a curse. Aldo Switch had had it coming his whole life. And now, Caleb thought, moving off again, finding more of Jessie Conway’s blood trail, she had it coming too.

  70

  Jessie’s hands ached and were too slippery from blood to keep going. She slumped onto a narrow ledge half way up the bluff and rubbed them against the surface of the rock, smearing them with dirt, desperately hoping it might help her grip.