Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet

by Adam Howe

  18.

  Tilly startled awake as the Bug gave a violent jolt that pitched Dwayne’s deadweight off her. She quickly braced her arms against his chest to prevent him rolling back and crushing her. Her wrists bent back painfully, her arms buckling and burning under the strain. She couldn’t hold him like this much longer. She gulped greedily for air while she could, ignoring the hellish stench inside the trunk as the car continued to roll—

  And then the Bug thudded to a sudden stop, striking something that crumpled the trunk and twisted one corner of the lid up into a sneer. A sliver of moonlight shone through the gap. Clean air wafted across her face. Tilly raised her head gratefully towards the gap and inhaled deeply.

  Before her arms collapsed, and Dwayne fell back on top of her, she pressed her back against the floor of the trunk, kicking upwards with all her strength at the damaged trunk lid. She gritted her teeth against the pain and kicked until her bare feet were bloody … and slowly but surely the gap began to widen. Still kicking, she grunted determinedly as more clean air breathed inside—

  The trunk lid clattered open, squealing up on its hinges. Moonlight blinded her.

  Lurching up inside the trunk, Tilly released her grip on Dwayne and let him slump to the floor across her legs. She raised her bound hands to shield her eyes from the glaring light. Where was she? Where had Hingle brought her?

  Through the cracks of her fingers she saw an overgrown yard choked with weeds, strewn with the hulks of rusted junk cars through which sprouted tall grass and sunflowers. Crickets chirred in the tall grass. A ramshackle farmhouse loomed above her. The faded white clapboard was bearded with creepers and lichen. Above the buckled porch were two windows. One window was boarded over with wooden slats; reflected in the grimy glass of the other, the lunatic eye of the moon winked at Tilly. An old oak tree sagged against the side of the house. A withered black branch overhung the porch roof. A tire-swing dangled from the branch like a fishing line with a Goodyear lure. The tire was chewed-up and mangled.

  Tilly glanced at Betsy Bug’s nose crumpled against the tree and knew at once that even if she had the keys, she wasn’t driving anywhere. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was she was free. She couldn’t see Hingle anywhere … but that didn’t mean he wasn’t close. She had to get out of here. Right now. While she could—

  She wormed her legs out from under Dwayne and massaged some life into them, hissing as they prickled with pins and needles. She tried to stand but her legs were still numb and refused to support her. Her bound hands made it difficult to climb down from the trunk. Clinging to the trunk like a nervous swimmer at the pool edge, she lowered herself gingerly to the ground.

  Her legs folded beneath her and she landed on her butt more heavily than she’d anticipated. Her teeth clacked together, biting her tongue and bringing fresh tears to her eyes. Shattered glass from the broken car headlights crunched under her butt and gouged her thighs. Barely registering the pain, she snatched up a shard of glass, and began sawing awkwardly through her pantyhose shackles. She glanced about anxiously—the yard, the house—expecting Hingle to appear before she could finish sawing through the nylon. The way her hose always laddered, she wouldn’t have thought it would be this difficult. Then the fabric tore and she clawed her hands free with a cry of relief, rubbing first her grazed wrists, and then her numb legs, the feeling slowly prickling back.

  Clutching the car for balance, Tilly staggered to her feet.

  Blood rushed to her head and the world teetered sickeningly around her. She shut her eyes and sucked deep breaths until the nausea passed—

  Something roared in front of her. Her eyes snapped open in time to see the dog bolting out from under the porch. Its claws raked the mud as it hurtled across the yard towards her, the chain around its neck unspooling with a jangle. Its fur was matted with dried blood, standing up in spikes along the ridged muscles of its back. Its ears were pricked back on a bullet-shaped skull that was more gargoyle than pit bull. Its fangs were bared as it charged her.

  There was nowhere to run, not before it pounced.

  Cowering back against the Bug, Tilly slammed the trunk shut and clambered onto the lid, scrambling up the oak tree and lifting her legs out of harm’s way.

  The dog slammed against the trunk beneath her bare feet. It strained on its hind legs to reach her. Saliva sprayed from its chops as it snapped at her heels.

  She hauled herself higher up the tree, branches raking her face and drawing blood as she butted upwards through the foliage. She found an uneasy perch upon an outstretched limb and huddled there gasping for breath and gaping down at the dog. It prowled around the tree, barking furiously at her.

  Tilly shook her head in disbelief.

  Treed by a fucking dog … What the hell next?

  19.

  Dwight wasn’t the sharpest tool in the cellar torture chamber, but even he knew something smelled rotten at RITTER GAS & TOW. His first clue was the puddle of blood on the forecourt next to the Special Gas pump. Clue number two was lying nearby: His brother’s prized Baywatch cap. Dwight struggled to recall the last time he’d seen Dwayne not wearing it. Dwayne was sensitive about his thinning hair. Dwight told him he just ought to take the plunge and grow it out long at the back like he did and then no one would notice. But Dwayne wouldn’t listen, reckoned he knowed it all.

  Inside the filling station, the store sign was flipped to CLOSED, but the door was unlocked, and the register was empty and the counter unmanned. That wasn’t like Dwayne at all. Normally he’d be sitting at the counter with Old Lady Crenshaw snug on his lap, the two lovebirds watching Baywatch on the portable TV.

  Dwight fetched the mason jar from under the counter.

  “Where’s Dwayne at, Mrs. C?” Shaking her up like a snow globe.

  Mrs. Crenshaw silently bobbed and butted against the glass. If she knew, she wasn’t telling.

  The TV was on with the sound muted. Tuned to local news. Dwight was about to switch it off and lock up the store and then head back home to see if Dwayne had showed up there, when a photo of the fella he’d just hung in the cellar flashed across the screen.

  Frowning, Dwight turned up the sound: “—the hunt for escaped mass-murderer Terrence LeRoy Hingle continues tonight. Hingle, also known as the Sorority Slayer, escaped earlier this evening from the Pine Grove State Hospital after killing several orderlies. He remains at large and is known to be highly dangerous. Police have warned the public not to approach him and to remain vigilant until he is apprehended—” Dwight shut off the TV.

  Highly dangerous, my ass. But maybe this Hingle fella had done something to Dwayne? And Dwight didn’t like the thought of leaving the Jarvis gal alone in the house with a madman. Hell, anything could happen.

  He hustled from the store and back to his truck. Fetched Dwayne’s bloody cap off the forecourt and frowned at it. Nope, Dwight didn’t like the look of this at all. For all their bickering, Dwayne was kin, his baby brother by five minutes. It filled Dwight with dread that something might’ve happened to him. He leapt in the truck and hit the gas and floored it home.

  20.

  Hingle woke with a hiss of pain. His skull was pounding where the shit-kicker had cold-cocked him as he’d stooped to check the car engine. Oldest trick in the book—hell, he’d used it himself a time or two—and he’d fallen for it. The hick must’ve seen his mugshot on TV and decided to make a citizen’s arrest. Except this didn’t look like no jail cell. None Hingle had ever seen before, anyway.

  Glancing around, his vision blurred like an old Movie of the Week flashback … and then the root cellar swam slowly into focus. The corners of the room were thick with shadow. A naked light bulb glowed dimly above him. In the dingy light, at first it was hard for Hingle to tell why he couldn’t move and why it hurt like such a sonofabitch when he tried. Then he realized he’d been stripped to his shorts—shit, that wasn’t good—and that he was hanging by chains from the rafters, like a goddamn puppet on strings. His arms were wrenched
above and behind him, like a madman flapping his arms in an attempt to fly. His shoulders were forced to take the brunt of his weight. And they weren’t happy about it, burning like they were aflame.

  Hingle tried to stretch his feet to the floor to relieve the burden from his shoulders, raking the cold dirt with his toes. At full extension he managed to teeter on his big toes like some half-assed ballerina, but it barely eased the pressure from his shoulders, and the effort required was exhausting. He slumped down heavily, shoulders popping under his full weight. He stayed hanging here like this and pretty soon his arms would wrench from the sockets.

  He raised his head towards the stairs leading up to the kitchen.

  Was the shit-kicker up there? Had to be. What the hell was he waiting for?

  “Hey …” Hingle croaked.

  He choked down the frog in his throat and tried again. “Hey, fucker! Come on down here and cut me loose, let’s you and me dance a few rounds!”

  No answer; not a sound up there.

  Maybe the shit-kicker had gone to fetch the cops?

  Then why go to the effort of stripping him and hanging him up in chains?

  Maybe … maybe he’d found his brother in the trunk of the Bug?

  That was not the most comforting thought—especially not now that Hingle had noticed the pegboard wall cluttered with tools. Hammers and saws and chisels and drills and pliers; it was a regular hardware store down

  here, every tool coated in rust. Wait a minute—

  Hingle squinted … Was that rust?

  His balls didn’t think so, shriveling in fear as he gaped at the bloody tools and saw his own fillet knife hanging among them on the pegboard.

  21.

  Perched on the outstretched tree branch, Tilly stared down at the dog; the dog stared up at Tilly, salivating.

  “Hey! Get me out of here! Goddamn it, get me the hell out of here!”

  Her head snapped towards the cries. They were coming from the house. Behind those bulkhead doors. Down in the cellar.

  Then she recognized HIS voice and a chill shivered down her spine.

  Why would HE be yelling like that? This was HIS place … wasn’t it?

  As if in answer came the rumbling approach of a truck engine. The hairs on the nape of Tilly’s neck prickled as she saw headlights ghosting along the wooded trail towards the house. She wondered again just where she was.

  Below her the dog stood against the tree on its hind legs, barking like a furry Judas, eager to reveal her presence to its master. Tilly thought about what they said about dogs and their owners, and she shivered once more. Before the truck could emerge from the trail, she scrambled up the tree as high as she could climb and concealed herself—she hoped—behind a dense cluster of leaves.

  The truck growled into the yard, skidding to a stop behind Betsy Bug. The driver’s-side door cranked open (RITTER GAS & TOW was printed in faded red paint on the siding) and a man climbed down from the cab. DWIGHT was stitched on his coveralls. Even in the moonlight, Tilly could see the resemblance to his brother. Unmistakable. The Ritters were a memorable-looking family.

  Tilly held her breath as Dwight approached Betsy’s trunk. He seemed afraid of what he might find inside. The dog was still barking up at the tree. Dwight picked up a rock and tossed it at the dog. “Shaddup!” The rock hit the dog in the ass and it yelped and tucked tail and scuttled back under the porch.

  Dwight hesitated outside the trunk. Gave a nervous flick of his mullet. Then he lifted the lid and his worst fears were realized as he saw his dead brother. He unleashed an anguished scream that chilled Tilly to the core.

  She was suddenly very glad she hadn’t shown herself when he pulled up. This man would not help her; Tilly wasn’t sure he was even human. She didn’t know how it had happened, but somehow she’d fallen out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  Dwight turned towards the house and glared at the bulkhead doors. Hingle was still crying out in the cellar. But nothing like he soon would be, Tilly thought. And right then she would not have traded places with Hingle for all the money in the world. She watched as Dwight threw open the bulkhead doors and stomped down to the cellar.

  Now was her chance: While Dwight was busy with his brother’s killer—

  Praying he’d left the keys in his truck, Tilly started scrambling down the tree …

  And of course, the fucking dog reemerged from under the porch, trotted over lazily, and stood waiting for her at the bottom. Are you kidding me? Stopping her descent, she reclaimed her perch on the outstretched branch and glared at the dog. It wagged its tail and lapped its chops, smiling its glistening fangs at her.

  Trapped in the tree, Tilly stared with hopeless longing at Dwight’s truck. Ten yards away, but it might as well have been the moon. There was nothing she could do but listen to the screams echoing from the cellar.

  22.

  “What’s … what’s that?” Hingle wheezed. A rope of bloody bile swung from his lips. The hick had finished working his body like a heavy bag. Now he was coming towards him with what looked like a rusted budgerigar cage. A round hole was sawed in the bottom of the cage. A head-sized hole. “Stay the fuck away from me with that!” The hick slugged him again in the guts. Fractured ribs crunched like kindling. Hingle rocked back on his chains, the air punched from his lungs, his shoulder blades creaking like an old rocking chair. Hanging from the chains like a side of raw beef, he bowed his head and sucked for breath. The hick fixed the budgie cage over his head like a crown. He adjusted the cage upon Hingle’s shoulders, positioning the little barred door in front of his mouth. Then he opened the door and shuffled back into the gloom of the cellar.

  “Wait …” Hingle gasped. “Just wait a minute—”

  Wrenching the lid off a coal bin, the hick reached down inside it and withdrew a grain sack. Something wriggled inside the sack, writhing and squealing. The hick unknotted the end of the sack. Peered inside it. Gave it a shake and grinned.

  He wriggled on a pair of heavy work gloves, and then reached down inside the sack and pulled out a gnarly black timber rat the size of a puppy. The rat squirmed wildly in his grip, thrashing its thick scaly tail. It sank its long yellow incisors into his fingers. The hick hissed in pain and pulled it loose. The rat’s teeth tore a strip from the finger of his work glove. The hick held up the rat for Hingle to take a good long look: The beady black eyes and twitching whiskers and the long yellow teeth, spackled with blood where it had bitten him. Hingle’s eyes widened with horror as the rat-wielding hick ambled slowly towards him—

  And all of a sudden he was ten years old, cuffed to the drainpipe beneath the kitchen sink, surrounded by rats, their fur slick with momma’s blood, Little Cyril’s skeleton grinning fiendishly, the rats creeping towards Terry Lee in a bristling black tide, the boy’s terror reflected in their hungry black eyes.

  “Christ, no—” Hingle cried. “Please!”

  He cowered back as far as his chains would allow.

  And that was nowhere near far enough.

  The hick raised the rat to the open cage door and relaxed his grip on it. The rat darted from his hand, inside the cage. The hick closed the door and fastened it shut with a piece of wire. The rat squirmed around the circumference of Hingle’s head, its greasy fur filthy as a toilet brush. It gave a panicked squeal as it realized it was trapped—

  And then its claws were raking his cheeks, tail whipping at his eyes. It sank its incisors into the soft flesh of his earlobe, blood spurting as it ripped it off and gobbled it down. Hingle roared in pain and thrashed his head, the cage rattling wildly about his shoulders. Biting in frenzy, the rat seized his bottom lip and with a jerk of its head, peeled it away like a strip of chicken skin. Hingle screamed and the rat lunged towards his open mouth. His teeth snapped shut like a guillotine upon its neck. Bones splintered and crunched. Hot, bitter-tasting rat blood flooded his mouth. The headless body jerked back, crashing against the cage bars. Blood jetted from the ragged stump of its neck, blinding
him. Its whiplashing tail went limp and it keeled onto its side and lay there twitching.

  Hingle retched up the head and dry-heaved.

  The hick slapped his thigh and roared with laughter.

  “Not bad, mister,” he nodded. “Not bad at all.”

  He reached inside the sack and pulled out another huge, wildly thrashing rat.

  “But let’s see if you can do that again, you kin-killing sonofabitch.”

  23.

  From her perch on the tree branch, Tilly couldn’t see what was happening in the cellar. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Judging by Hingle’s screams he wasn’t enjoying himself. Couldn’t be happening to a nicer guy, she thought.

  She looked down at the dog.

  It sat patiently below the tree, watching her with its head cocked.

  She gazed along the length of the branch she was perched on. The end of the limb overhung the porch. She glanced at the windows above the porch: One boarded over with wooden slats, the other closed. Maybe there was a phone inside to call for help? Or a weapon she could use to fend off the dog and escape to Dwight’s truck? She couldn’t just stay here. Dwight would find her up here eventually. That would not be good. Not good at all. Maybe he’d blame her for Dwayne’s murder? Fetch her down to the cellar for a taste of the same medicine he was dishing out to Hingle.

  Forcing herself into action, she began caterpillar crawling along the branch towards the house. The limb started about the thickness of a telegraph pole. At its end, where it overhung the porch, it became broom handle-thin, tapering to a brush of dry withered leaves. As she inched forwards, the limb sagged beneath her weight. She pictured the branch drooping lazily to the ground and the dog plucking her loose like a ripe piece of fruit. And it was old wood; at any time she felt the branch could just shear away from the tree and hurl her to the ground to be savaged. These weren’t the most encouraging thoughts. She pushed them firmly from her mind and continued inching along the branch towards the house.