by Greg Barth
“You’re a cruel sonofabitch,” Chris said.
“Here’s where I’m going with this. I might put my hood on for you. I just might. And I’ll be sure to get our session on film, you know, for posterity’s sake. Too bad my film crew’s all dead.”
“They deserve to be dead,” Chris said. “And so do you.”
“Hey, you know who’s good with a camera? Lilly Bett, my little girl. She takes all kinds of pictures. You should see her stuff online.”
“You want her filming her own father raping someone? Are you that fucking debased?”
“Lilly Bett loves her daddy. I’m like a god to her.”
“The last time I saw your daughter, she was getting her ass kicked by a stoned chick chained to a board.”
“Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t you put my girlfriend on the phone? I’m done talking to rice-nigger, seaweed sucking, tinty-eyed, soy-back, gook-cootch, goldfish-mongers like you.”
“I’m here,” I said. “Ira, what are you doing?”
“My little queen cocksucker from the coal mines. I’m hanging out with your better half. A real tall girl, nice figure, named Enola. You got good taste, girl. A woman so stacked she don’t know she’s got her feet standing in dog shit. She and I, we’re just getting to know one another, and I’m getting to know her real well. Honey, you could say I know her inside and out. If you catch my meaning. I’ve seen her special little spot, something meant only for you. But now it’s mine too.”
“Ira, what do you want?”
“I want a lot of things, honey.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“Well, let’s start with this. I want my little girl to not have a gunshot wound through her hip. I want Timmy not to have his arm amputated. I want my son Corbin to not be dead, and not be…dismembered like he was, by that panda pussy. I want to not get text messages from Bucky telling me he’s lying in the woods bleeding to death and here’s where to find the person that done it. I want to not have to tell my two other sons that they need to leave the country, because some hillbilly whore out there is trying to kill off my whole family, and then them ask me who this holler hooker bitch is so they can find her for me. I want those boys to call me, honey. I really do. I ain’t heard from them all day, and I’m kinda worried for their safety. I want to not have to walk with crutches because I had two bullets—two bullets that were flattened already from punching through an industrial, steel fryer—shot through my leg, and hot oil poured out on me. I want to have never seen or heard from you.”
“You’ll never get any of those things, Ira. So tell me what you really want.”
“Most of all, I want you to come home. Come here where I’m at. Come home now. Be with me again, girl. I didn’t get to finish last time. I’ve still got a nutsack full just for you.”
“Don’t hurt anyone, Ira. I’m on my way. You hear me? I’m making a beeline straight to you.”
“Oh, they’re done hurt, honey. I done hurt ’em some. I was mad, you see. But if you don’t get here soon, I can sure hurt ’em some more. You know I can.”
“I’m coming, Ira. I’m coming. I’ll be right there. You wait for me.”
“You bring my little wonton too, you hear? Might need my fingernails done.”
“Anything else, Ira?”
“Yeah. B.T. Dubs. Tell Mulan not to bother calling that Sheriff friend she’s got. He’s already here. And I hate to break it to you, honey, but I think he and your little lady friend’s got a little thing going on. Guess you don’t have what it takes to keep the little woman content. Anyhow, if I see a hint of law outside, I’ll start killing folks. Hear?”
“I’ll make a deal with you, Ira. I won’t call the cops if you won’t either.”
I ended the call.
Chris said, “It’s a fucking shame we can only kill him once.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said.
THIRTY-TWO
IT WAS PROBABLY the shortest stay the Econolodge had ever hosted. We gassed up at the Speedway next door. I hit I-65 south for just a mile and took a right on the parkway. Once on it, I tapped my headlights to high beam. There was no traffic and I kept the pedal to the floor. The Challenger chewed through the miles in the night, guzzling gasoline and blurring the landscape.
Chris and I didn’t say much. We had the windows cracked, the breeze keeping our hair wild.
The parkway ended at Owensboro. I zigged and zagged through the town streets, all but dead in the middle of the night. When I crossed the long, dark bridge across the Ohio River into Indiana the song “If You Want Blood You’ve Got It” ripped itself free from the speakers.
Narrow, two-lane blacktop straight as an arrow ahead, farm fields on either side.
We saw no one as I pushed us at blinding speed through the middle of fucking nowhere Indiana. Nothing but the occasional barns and silos shot past the speeding car.
We stopped for gas before getting on I-69 north. Once on the interstate, I kept the car in the left lane, headlights bright, pedal to the floor. I passed a semi every few miles.
Compared to the rest of the southeast—or northeast, for that matter—Indiana was desolate. Humble. Nothing.
The shotgun and assault rifle were on the back bench seat behind us. I had the pistol close to hand. We’d made sure everything was loaded back in Bowling Green. The pockets of the denim shorts I was wearing were filled with shotgun shells.
We didn’t say much—I once made the comment that clearly I was moving to the middle of fucking nowhere, and even that was tinged with the fear of losing those closest to me—we just wanted to get there.
We crossed the miles in record time, the black car an invisible blur in the abandoned night highway.
Chris gave me directions through town. I parked up the street from the house. I didn’t want Ira to know we’d arrived.
“We’ll sneak up to the property,” I said. “On foot. Get a look around then plan our next move.”
Chris had the pistol and the assault rifle. She’d looked the rifle over on the drive in, and thought she’d figured it out.
I had the cut-down twelve gauge.
We crept along the sidewalk leading up to the house. It was my house, but I’d never been there. The neighborhood was dark, only a couple of streetlights. Small, old houses lined either side of the street.
The street came to a dead end. My house was the last one on the left.
Steps led up a short hill from the sidewalk, then a concrete walkway to a covered porch. The porch light was off. Large trees lined the short lawn up to the porch.
We crept up the steps.
An orange glow appeared on the porch. It burned brighter and a face shone behind it. A puff of smoke followed by a voice.
“You girls walk all the way here?” It was Lilly Bett. “Might as well come in. Everybody’s waiting for you.”
THIRTY-THREE
THE DOOR OPENED to a short hallway back to the kitchen. The den was off to the right. Another hallway led off to the left to other rooms.
I hoped I’d get the tour of my house later.
Lilly Bett led the way. She walked with a stiff limp. Chris had her rifle at the ready. My shotgun was on the bitch’s back. She didn’t seem to care.
“They’re here, Dad,” Lilly Bett said.
“Bring ’em back,” Ira said.
We stepped through the doorway into the kitchen. On the left was a wraparound counter spanning three walls. It included a large refrigerator, oven, and sink. Lots of counter space. Enola had put out a vase of fresh flowers when she’d gotten home.
The dining area was on the right. Ira sat at the table. He wore the black knit toboggan hat, greasy black hair spilling out around the edges, the oversized glasses, a black t-shirt. One leg of his jeans was split up the side. His shin was wrapped in white bandages, a set of crutches propped against the wall behind him. He held a coffee cup in one hand. His grizzled face and long, thin mouth looked more simian than human.
An automati
c pistol lay on the table in front of him.
Three people lay on the floor dressed only in their underwear, their wrists and ankles duct taped together, mouths taped shut. Enola was one of them.
The thin girl beside her with spiked, platinum-blonde hair, wide hips, long legs and small breasts, wearing nonmatching underwear, I assumed was River.
The guy next to her had to be the sheriff I’d heard so much about. He had thinning hair. I’d guess 40-something. Chubby but strong. Some kind of military tat on his hairy bicep.
They’d been beaten, their faces bloodied, eyes blacked. One of Enola’s eyes was swollen shut, her lip split. She had dried blood on one cheek. The two women looked at me with terrified eyes. The man looked concerned but pissed.
Another guy stood over them. He had filthy long hair, wore a knit hat of his own only his was red. Much shorter than Ira, he held a pistol pointed in the general direction of the three people on the floor. The knuckles on his right hand were skinned bloody.
I made the deliberate decision to kill that motherfucker at my earliest convenience.
“Welcome home, ladies.” Ira pushed his heavy glasses up on his nose.
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to us yet, Ira,” I said.
“Fix us another pot of coffee, Lilly Bett.”
I had my shotgun pointed at Ira. Chris had the other guy covered with her rifle.
Lilly Bett worked her way around behind us, turned on the water in the sink, and filled the coffee maker.
“I’m thinking there’s no reason for us to quarrel, Ira,” I said.
“Do tell?”
“What’s done is done. Let’s not make it any worse than it already is. Let these people go, and you and Lilly Bett, and…” I gestured toward the other guy.
“Jimmy,” he said.
“Jimmy here can just go on and get back to your lives.”
“How do you figure I can do something like that?” Ira said. “One of my boys lost an arm. Four of my other boys lost their lives.”
“Do it for Lilly Bett,” I said. “Let’s make peace. She’s worth it. You don’t want anything happening to her, do you?”
“Now that’s a threat,” Ira said.
“If you kill all of us. All five. Do you really think she can just walk away from that and have a normal life?”
“Look at her.”
I didn’t take my eyes off Ira.
“She’s doing all right,” he said.
“Thirty to life. That’s how many years she’ll get.”
He didn’t respond, just stared at me.
“Come on, Ira. You’re a reasonable man.”
“Now what in the fuck have I ever said or done to make you think that?”
“You might be a twisted sick fuck of a Southern redneck, but I think you love your kids.”
“The two I got left. Thanks to you.”
I shrugged.
“I got another idea. How about you and the little chink there put your guns down, before I tell Jimmy to start hurting people.”
“Go on. Tell him.”
“You think I won’t?”
I held the shotgun right on his chest. “I hope to god you do.”
“You want ’em dead, we can make ’em dead. Or you can put the guns down.”
“The last time I was in a kitchen with you, and I didn’t have a gun, it didn’t go so well for me. I’m not making that mistake again.”
Ira grinned. “You want to hear how I found your lady friend there? How she and the cop were here together?”
“I don’t care what they do, Ira.”
“You know they’ve been fucking.”
“I don’t care, Ira. She can do what she wants.”
“You wanna know what I’m going to do to you? Let me just—”
“I’ve heard enough of your nasty mouth, Ira. Untie my friends. Get out of here.”
Lilly Bett stepped past me. “Excuse me,” she said. She held a couple of empty coffee mugs by the handles in her left hand and a full coffee pot in her right. I could smell the hot coffee as she passed.
She set the cups on the table. “You like milk with yours?” she said to me.
“No thanks. None for me.”
She turned. She wasn’t as fast as she could have been if she didn’t have the bullet hole in her hip. She brought the coffee pot up, angling for my face. I raised the shotgun and turned my face away.
Next came the impact to the gun barrels, the shatter of glass, and hot coffee showered around me, scalding my scalp, neck, back, and arm.
I screamed.
I turned back and saw Jimmy raising the pistol.
I triggered the first barrel of the shotgun. The buckshot ripped Jimmy’s face to shreds.
I heard Chris firing her rifle.
Ira’s pistol.
Lilly Bett leaped at me, was on my back, her fingernails clawing at my neck from behind.
I spun, tried to shake her off. Another guy stood in the kitchen doorway. A fat guy, bearded face, ball cap. He held a shotgun of his own. Must’ve been hiding in another room. Ira’s ace in the hole.
I fired the second barrel at the fat fucker’s gut. He dropped to the linoleum.
Lilly Bett slipped off my back, fell to the floor on her ass. I turned, stuck the shotgun in her face and jerked my finger back on the trigger. Nothing. I’d already fired both shells.
When she realized she wasn’t dead, she scampered away.
I broke down the shotgun and reloaded.
Chris was on one knee firing the rifle in the direction of the front door. The front of her shirt was drenched in blood.
My ears rang, the room blurred.
Chris, covered in blood, shouting at me, pointed toward the door.
The gagged sheriff’s eyes were blazing at me.
I turned back to find Lilly Bett, but she was gone. The back door stood open.
I went up to Chris. She screamed at me, tears streaming down her face, she pointed to the front door.
I checked for Ira behind the table. He was gone, but his crutches were still propped against the wall.
I turned to the sink, opened drawers until I found a knife. I went over to Enola, cut her hands free, and handed her the knife.
I turned back to Chris, put out a hand to her, tried to see where the blood was coming from. She shoved my hand away and kept pointing to the front door, screaming words I couldn’t hear.
I thought I understood what she was trying to tell me. I nodded. I ran through the front hallway and out the door. I jumped off the porch, ran through the grass, and up the sidewalk.
I saw Ira in the distance climbing into his pickup.
Adrenaline surged. My heart pounded.
I ran as hard as I’d ever ran in my life, the shotgun gripped in my strong hand.
THIRTY-FOUR
I GOT IN the car, put the shotgun on the seat next to me.
I turned the car and shoved the gas pedal to the floor. The rear tires squealed against the asphalt as they fought for traction. The tires got a bite on the pavement, and the sudden acceleration pushed me back hard against the seat.
I could see Ira’s tail lights in the far distance.
I picked up the shotgun and got it ready. I’d have to hold it in my right hand, my strong hand, to fire it. So I’d have to get up next to him. Either that or fire through my windshield.
The Charger quickly chewed through the distance separating us. When I got up behind him, I moved to the left to get up next to him. Ira cut the wheel hard, closing me off.
I kept pushing it. As he swerved left, I moved over the to the right lane. He cut me off again.
My car could outrun his truck, but I couldn’t get around him.
I gunned the engine hard, made contact with his bumper. Through the back glass of his truck I saw Ira jolt from the impact.
I was against his bumper, my car pushing against his truck. He tried to swerve to the left, but our bumpers were still making contact. His truck lurched
hard to the left, spun around, I was pushing against the back end.
I got the shotgun up. The barrel was short enough that I could turn it across the front of my chest and point it out the window while still holding it with my right hand. I held the wheel with my weak left hand, the twin gun barrels resting across the top of my left forearm.
Ira had lost all control. The truck spun around, the car pushing the back end forward, until Ira was next to me facing the other way.
I lined up the shotgun. The kick was going to be a bitch.
Claws bit into either side of my neck. My airway was cut off.
I looked up and saw Lilly Bett in the rearview mirror. She’d gotten out ahead of me and hidden in the back seat of my car.
I glanced Ira’s way, adjusted the shotgun, and fired.
His truck ran off the road into the tree-lined ditch, headlights illuminating the dense green foliage.
Lilly Bett had me. She held my neck firm with her fingers. My air and blood supply were cut off. Her nails bit deep into my skin.
I held the steering wheel in my left hand and the shotgun still with my right.
I couldn’t breathe. Black dots buzzed around in the corners of my vision.
The road ahead led to a four-way intersection. I couldn’t turn the wheel. I couldn’t pull my foot away from the gas pedal.
As I felt consciousness fade, I saw a truck stop looming ahead. I tried to turn the wheel, but my arm was too weak. The gas station was getting closer, closer. A tanker truck sat next to the pumps, a large hose filling the underground tanks.
