Murdered underground and no one will ever know.
Instead, the man cut the ropes between her hands and feet. He repeated this with Lindsay. Then, he yanked the rag from Shannon’s mouth. Shannon stretched her legs, never taking her eyes off the beast. A tingling sensation grew through her legs, circulation slowly returning. The man loosened Lindsay’s gag with a surprisingly soft touch.
He prodded the bucket toward Shannon, his misshapen fingers gesturing with a backhanded motion. His mouth contorted, the corners working to form a semblance of a smile.
Shannon hesitated, and then accepted the gift. The bucket shook in her hands, liquid slopping over the side. She sniffed the contents of the bucket. No odor. A small sip and she tasted lukewarm water. She tilted the bucket back and drank. A relieving salve to her parched throat. The man yelped unintelligibly, shaking his head like a wet dog.
Lindsay drank next. Then the man stepped into the small ring of light. Seeing him clearly for the first time, Lindsay dropped the bucket to the dirt floor. And she screamed.
Startled, the man fell back, groaning. With his eyes closed, he pulled at his hair, his fingers entangled in dark mats. He ran out the door, slamming it behind him.
“Oh my God, Shannon! What the hell is he? Where are we? What’s going on?”
“Lindsay! Lindsay, calm down! Just talk to me. We have to be here for one another.” Shannon’s tears erupted again, an involuntary response. “I don’t know what’s going on.” She leaned her shoulder against her friend. “Please. Let’s both try and stay strong…until we can find a way out.”
The girls, racked with spasms, pressed gently against one another. Speechless, their tears eventually ran dry.
“Lindsay, we will find a way out of this,” whispered Shannon. “We will. Just stay strong and stay with me. We’ll get out of here.” Strong words, yet hollow. Shannon didn’t believe them for a minute. But she had to remain strong for her friend’s benefit. Their only defense. “I promise you…we’ll get out of this.”
The door swung open again, startling the girls. The old man strutted in, a proud rooster in a hen house. Not at all the same, lost, doddering man they first encountered today.
“Hello, young ladies.” His grin cracked his face like a worn leather belt. “Now, y’all go ahead and scream your fool heads off.” He cackled, a breaking glass sound. “Ain’t no one ’round for ten to fifteen miles to hear you. So just go ahead and scream. Scream for all you’re worth.” His bony fingers formed into a hook, baiting them. “Go on! Get it out of your system.”
The man’s eyes flitted back and forth between them. His tongue explored his lips. Shannon remained quiet, damned determinedly so.
“No?” said the man finally. “That’s fine then. But you girls best behave yourselves, y’hear? You ain’t going anywhere ’til it’s time.”
“Time for what? What do you want with us?”
“You’ll find out in good time. Patience is a virtue. If I were you, I’d try and get some rest. You’re gonna’ need it.” He turned to leave, hesitated, and swiveled in his boots. “By the way, young ladies, welcome to Godland.” His laughter bounced off the low, wood-reinforced ceiling. He tapped the dangling light bulb, sending it swinging back and forth. Shadows bobbed across the man’s face. He locked the door behind him, his laughter receding into the night.
The girls sat in stunned silence, listening. They heard distant sounds of pigs crying and cows groaning. A bird cawing. Something screeching. A long way from the sounds of suburbia. The middle of nowhere.
“Shannon?” whispered Lindsay.
“Yeah?”
She patted her pocket. “I have my cell phone.”
With only two hours to go, Peter’s phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. I have the goods.” An upbeat vitality formed his father’s tone, an alien sound.
“Very good. I’ll arrive within two hours.”
The long pause prompted Peter to believe the call had dropped. Finally, “You’re early!”
“Deal with it.” Peter remained calm. He wanted nothing more than a strictly business relationship with Edwin.
“Well, then, I reckon we oughta’ move it up to tonight even if it is gettin’ on late.”
“I’m ready.” For the last twenty hours, Peter’s stops had been minimal. Nothing mattered but the hunt. He hadn’t needed—nor desired—sleep. The ultimate trophy awaited him.
“Oh, one more thing, Peter. I gotta’ surprise for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“I got double what you want.”
“We’ll discuss that when I get there.” All phone communication had to remain ambiguous. Yet he couldn’t help but smile. He knew what his father meant. Just knew it. The resultant excitement pricked at his skin, buzzed through his body.
“But it’s going to mean more money.”
“I told you, we’ll discuss the details when I arrive.” Peter hated the power his father still wielded over him, hated that he allowed it to happen.
“I’m going to need more, boy.”
“You’ll get what’s coming to you in full.” He hung up. Moisture dampened his back, his shirt adhering to the seat. He rolled down the window, but quickly put it back up due to the overwhelming stench of cow manure.
Over the last twenty years, Peter had learned how to master a calm and measured demeanor. If you didn’t wear your heart on your sleeve, your enemies never saw you coming. All his emotions, his anger—his stark hatred—were left behind him in Godwin, Kansas. He had no more use for them, had simply outgrown them.
Now, everything came flooding back again. Memories. Feelings of helplessness and despair, rendering him vulnerable and careless. Unpredictable, even. Not the best way to enter a hunt, especially with the stakes so high.
He remembered the last time he had hunted in Godwin, Kansas, twenty-three years ago. With his brother, Mattie. Even though Matt was a year older, Matt always acted like the younger brother. Peter felt obligated to take care of Matt, exposing him to the ways of the world. At times, he even tried to protect Matt from their abusive father, unsuccessful as he had been.
When they were in their mid-teens, Edwin taught Peter how to hunt. If you could call it a learning experience. His father had pushed him into the woods behind the farm, bullying him into shooting deer and other wildlife. Once, he cracked Peter across the head with the butt of his hunting rifle for shedding tears over killing his first deer.
Matt never went on their hunting trips. Peter suspected Matt wanted to spend as little time with their father as possible. One day, Peter saddled Matt up with a rifle and dragged him into the woods. Reluctantly, Matt agreed to go. Learning their father had gone into town for business sold the deal for him.
“There, Mattie,” Peter whispered, pulling back the brush. “There’s your target.” A deer leaned over a small creek, drinking. “Take your shot. Remember what I told you. Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it.”
“Peter, I really don’t want to do this.”
“Come on. You have to become a man someday.”
Matt lowered the gun and glared at Peter, anger burning in his eyes. A strange pride blossomed in Peter. Maybe Matt had some backbone after all.
In one swift movement, Matt raised his rifle and shot. The shells slammed into the back-end of the deer. It came down, silent as falling snow. Attempting to rise by the force of its front hooves, the wounded animal flopped back to the ground. Blood matted the deer’s backside, spreading across its coat. A deep red contaminated its natural white and fawn coloring. Its entire body shuddered as it helplessly scrabbled its hooves across the fallen leaves. Matt’s cheeks flushed, his eyes brimming with tears.
“Are you happy now?” yelled Matt. “Let’s go home!” Matt’s rage sent a flock of starlings flittering throughout the treetops into the sky.
“You have to finish the job.” Peter grabbed the barrel of Matt’s gun and nudged it toward the deer.
“F
ine.” Matt stomped through the brush down toward the injured deer. The rifle shook in his hands as he held it inches away from the deer’s head. Then he lowered the gun. “Peter…I can’t do it.”
Peter glowered at his pathetic mess of a brother. He loved him. Yet at that moment, he despised Matt for his weakness.
“All right.” Peter reached into his belt and withdrew a knife. He straddled the deer, pulling its head up by the antlers. He dragged the knife across the deer’s throat slowly, unleashing a steady stream of crimson blood. “And that’s how it’s done.” Peter looked at his brother, shrugged his shoulders. And nearly laughed at his brother’s obvious discomfort.
“How…how could you do that, Peter?”
“After a while, Matt, killing’s no big deal.” Peter wiped the knife blade on his overalls. “And because I can.” Even though Peter enjoyed the moment immensely, it still troubled him that he had quoted his father. It came naturally.
That had been Peter’s last hunt in Godwin. And he’d wager money that Matt never hunted again.
Now, the hunt was about to begin again. The biggest hunt of his existence. The circle of life.
As he sped down the dark small-town highways, Matt remembered the last time he made this trip. It had been under very unpleasant circumstances.
Nineteen years before, Mary had called him, out of the blue. Their mother had died. Matt met the news with a shameful hostility. He wanted to mourn her, but truthfully, he was never very close to her. In fact, he felt he didn’t know her at all. Not really. She had invested all of her time in Mary, keeping her close and working under her wing in the kitchen. In retrospect, Matt realized his mother had done that to keep Mary away from their father. At least Mary didn’t suffer the physical abuse he and Peter had. Or so he thought at the time.
Matt contemplated not returning for the funeral. But he couldn’t stay away. He owed it to his mother’s memory. And he wanted to check on Mary.
Matt pulled up to the farmhouse, relieved to see his father’s blue pick-up truck gone. Taking a deep breath, Matt knocked.
“Matt?” At the doorway, Mary squinted into the sunlight, shielding her face with her hand.
“Mary.” Dark circles ringed her eyes, her hair now unkempt and prematurely grey. The ragged hemline of her dress dragged the kitchen floor. Matt remembered her wearing the same dress twenty years ago. When he embraced her, he feared he would crush her skeletal frame. “How are you, Mary?”
“Matt,” she repeated. She pulled away, crying. Matt stepped into the kitchen. With a gentle touch, he brushed her face.
Gravel scattered across the driveway outside. Matt glimpsed out the window and braced himself. The pick-up truck coughed to a stop, smoke still spewing from the tailpipe.
“Well, well,” Edwin said upon entering. “Look what we have here.” His voice dripped with contempt. “Ingrate little bastard only comes home when someone dies.” Pushing past Matt and Mary, he barely afforded them a glance. He banged a small box down onto the kitchen table.
“Hello, Dad.” An uncontrollable urge to run back to his car and drive away struck Matt. But he needed to stand his ground. He wouldn’t let his father intimidate him after all these years. “How have you been?”
“Don’t much matter none, now does it?” He kicked a kitchen chair out from the table. “You don’t give a good goddamn.” He sat down, stretching his legs out, intentionally blocking Matt’s path.
The familiar odors of the house engulfed Matt. He recalled the flowery scents, his mother’s various perfumes and powders and tissues. The smell of an older woman’s purse. Now, an additional stench permeated the air—rot and decay. More than of spoiled food, the house reeked of death. Death’s holding house.
“And I see you’re the same caring, loving father you always were,” said Matt quietly. He steadied his hands at his sides. He didn’t want the old bastard to see his fear.
His father glowered at him with cold grey eyes, keen as knives. A grin spread, his teeth as yellow as the corn he harvested. “Don’t tell me little Matthew’s found his balls. Well, now, don’t that take the cake?”
Matt ignored his comments. No sense in another unnecessary fight. He’d spent too many of his childhood years wasted in that exercise in futility. “When’s the funeral service?”
“Funeral service? Funeral service? There ain’t gonna’ be no funeral service, boy.” Grabbing the box, Edwin thrust it at Matt. “I can’t afford no funeral service. If you want a funeral service, you pay for it. Here. It’s bad enough I had to pay for her to be cremated.”
“She was my mother. She deserves a service of some sort.”
“Well, Mr. Big City, you gonna’ foot the bill?”
“Yes, if I have to.” His father inched closer, his shoulders bunching up like mountaintops.
“Well, I’ll show you what I’m gonna do!” He tore off his cap and tossed it on the table. After he snatched the ashes from Matt, he stormed outside. A metallic banging fought for dominance over the old man’s cursing.
“Matt, don’t get him upset.” Mary appeared terrified. Her already pale color turned ashen, the color of sickness. “Please.”
“Mary, has he hurt you? Does he beat you?”
Mary’s entire body quaked, a seismic effect. Even though she said nothing, her physical response told Matt everything he needed to know.
“Mary, I think it’s time you came to live with us in Kansas City. Just until you get a place of your own. Cheryl won’t mind.”
Matt saw a fleeting spark ignite in her eyes. It didn’t last long. Despair dampened the flame. “I…can’t, Matt. I can’t.”
“Why, Mary? Surely, not for him. You don’t owe that man anything.”
“Mother taught me where my place is and it’s here.” Mary lifted a weak hand, passing it over the kitchen. “It may be hell, but it’s all I have.”
The old man bashed through the kitchen door, slamming it against the wall. Dirty plates rattled on the countertop.
“Okay, come on, let’s go.” He held a piece of PVC tubing, the ending of it enclosed with duct tape. “Come on, damn it!”
Matt and Mary glanced nervously at one another. Mary glued her chin to her chest, presumably to hide her tears.
“Where to?” Frayed nerves rode Matt’s spine up to his brain. He had no desire to follow his father anywhere, the result bound to be unpleasant.
“You wanted your damn funeral service. Well, that’s what we’re going to do.” He motioned for them to follow him with a crooked and calloused finger.
“We’d better go, Matt,” said Mary quietly.
Matt grabbed Mary’s hand and pulled her closely behind him. They followed the old man into the yard toward the large oak tree by the south side of the house. Matt’s father dropped the PVC tube into a shallow hole at the foot of the tree. He kicked a small pile of dirt onto it.
“There’s your goddamn funeral service.” He licked his lips, the same manner he’d been doing for years. Matt despised it. Even though he caught himself doing it from time to time. “Hope you’re happy now. You wanna’ say some words?”
“You’re an awful bastard. You’re sick! That was your wife.”
“That’s how she would’ve wanted it, boy. She was born here, lived here, and now is returned to Godland.” Raising his head to the sky, he howled, dancing a bow-legged jig.
Matt grabbed Mary’s shoulders and turned her to face him. “Mary, you’ve got to come with me now. Can’t you see he’s crazy?” He pulled her with him toward his car.
A powerful blow landed on Matt’s back. Stunned, he whirled, still holding tightly onto Mary’s hand. Mary’s feet lifted off the ground as light as she was.
Edwin stood, shovel poised for another attack. “You let her go now, boy.” He shook the shovel up and down, rusty steel blurring in Matt’s face. “She ain’t goin’ nowhere. I need her here.”
Any doubts Matt harbored about his father’s mental state dissipated like wisps of smoke. He knew he was
deranged, absolutely so. Matt slowly released Mary, feeling her slipping away into the abyss of insanity his father called “Godland.”
“Mary, please come with me.” While keeping his gaze firmly locked onto his father, Matt attempted one last, desperate plea. “Please, Mary.”
“Matt, I…can’t. I can’t.”
“Get on outta’ here, boy. And don’t come back. Put your tail between your legs and scamper away again, you little coward. You little worthless shit.”
Matt felt as helpless as the child he had been in Godland. He couldn’t force Mary to leave. He backed toward his car, lending credibility to Edwin’s labeling him a “coward.” He tumbled into the car, his back blistering with pain. Then he rolled down the window. “Mary, you have my address. Please, forget him and come to Kansas City. Anytime. Please. For God’s sake, Mary.”
Edwin scrambled toward Matt’s car, fast for a man his age. He brought the shovel’s blade down upon the hood with a loud clank. “I said to get the hell outta’ here, boy!” He raced toward Matt’s window, pulling back the shovel again.
Matt floored the pedal, gravel spitting up as he fishtailed down the driveway. He stopped at the road, stealing one last glance at Mary. Just as when he left home twenty years ago, Mary stood alone, tears streaming down her face, one fragile hand waving goodbye.
Edwin beat at the driveway with the shovel, screaming at real and imagined demons.
The memories of Matt’s last visit home wracked him with sobs. He rolled down the window and inhaled the fresh air.
That last encounter had been bad enough. He had failed at saving his sister. And he had no idea what to expect now. But he sure as hell wouldn’t allow his daughter to become another one of his father’s victims.
Matt travelled on into the Kansas flatlands, a newfound determination propelling him harder and faster than his car.
Chapter Eight
Edwin carried Joshua’s lunch bucket down the steps, his son shambling closely behind him. He thought it best to give the girls some food, energy for the upcoming night. Leftover remnants scraped off plates from the sink. Probably better treatment than they deserved, but even pigs need to eat.
Godland Page 9
