Wildlife- Reckoning

by Jeff Menapace

  “Can’t help you there. Can give you another smoke, but I don’t got any heroin on me.”

  She forced a friendly chuckle. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

  “What’s it like?” Travis asked.

  “The single greatest feeling in the world,” she said. “Nothing comes close. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about using it again.”

  Travis shrugged. “Why don’t you?”

  “Because after a while, you just do it to stay even. Nothing is ever as good as the first time. ‘Chasing the dragon,’ they call it. If I could find a way to make it as good as the first time, I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

  Travis stared at her.

  It’s now or never, she thought. Leap. “I see the same in you,” she said.

  He frowned. “I don’t use drugs.”

  “I’m not talking about drugs. I’m talking about chasing that high. You’ve got something behind your eyes. You’re chasing something yourself.”

  Travis’s frown dissolved. He looked at her now with the surprised and naked face of a man whose identity, long thought to be secret, had been revealed with as little as a glance.

  “How can you know something like that about me?”

  “Because I’m an addict. We spot one another fairly easily.”

  “I told you: I don’t use drugs.”

  “Addicts don’t have to be hooked on drugs. They can be hooked on anything.”

  “And what do you reckon I’m hooked on?” he asked challengingly.

  Say it. Just say it.

  “The thrill of the kill.”

  Color drained from Travis’s face.

  Gotcha.

  When he didn’t reply, Stacey went on.

  “All this here, everything your family is doing, it’s good, but it’s not great, is it?” she asked.

  Again he said nothing. And again Stacey took this as a cue to keep going.

  “It’s not personal enough for you, is it?” she said. “Your reckoning was your drug. Your ultimate high. But that’s over with now, isn’t it? You’re trying to fill that void, but nothing seems to work, does it?”

  “You don’t know me,” he said. His voice was soft and nonconfrontational, almost as though he was debating with himself in a private moment.

  “I think I do. Only you’re in a much better position than I would ever be in.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You can find that ultimate high again. Catch the dragon.”

  “How would I do that?” His voice was still low and even. A man asking for an opinion, and only an opinion. That’s all.

  Stacey flicked her chin towards the porch. “By killing them.”

  Chapter 44

  “You’re crazy,” he said to her.

  “You telling me you haven’t thought of it? That you didn’t fantasize about throwing Wayne into that pit the moment he challenged you? Imagine the high you would get. The high you would get from taking all their lives. They would never expect such a thing in a million lifetimes. And pulling off something so unexpected would be…God, I envy you.”

  “Envy me?”

  “I can never experience that high again. But you…”

  “You’re just trying to mind fuck me, lady. It would be easier for you if I killed them. Give you a chance to get away.”

  She snorted. “Right—like you wouldn’t kill me and Morgan right after? I’m not stupid. But I do have one more proposition that might interest you.”

  “What?”

  “If you did spare our lives, mine and Morgan’s, I could find out where that asshole lawyer of yours lived. I have the resources. I could arrange something.”

  Travis shook his head. “I’m not stupid either. The second you got free, you’d go running for help.”

  “Not if you took Morgan hostage. Kept her somewhere until the deed was done. I wouldn’t risk my friend’s life going for help if you had her.”

  Travis just stared at her.

  “Imagine that high, Travis.” She flicked her chin towards the porch again. “Them in there, and the piece-of-shit lawyer who sent you to hell. You would be the one true exception to the rule. No more killing just to stay even. Christ, it might even be better than the first time.”

  “I could find the lawyer without your help,” he challenged.

  “No, you couldn’t,” she said bluntly. “I mean no offense by this—in any way, shape, or form—but look at you. Do you really think a man like you could get within a hundred yards of some wealthy upscale lawyer like him? And how about even finding him to begin with? Good with technology, are you, Travis? I am. Research is my job. My specialty. I could find that lawyer blindfolded. Face it, your whole life has been in the swamp, or damn close to it. With my help…”

  Travis shook his head. “No—no. Forget it. You’re trying to trick me. To trap me.”

  “No—what I’m proposing is a trap for that scumbag lawyer who ruined your life. Imagine how good that mark would feel on your arm. You can have it all, Travis. I really do envy you.”

  “Chatting away again, are you?” Cooper said as he entered the den. His thick body swayed heavily with drunkenness. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were falling for the young lady.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Trudy said, following her father into the den, swaying more so. “She’s single now.”

  Cooper laughed.

  Wayne appeared, looking equally drunk and unamused. “Hell, he probably wouldn’t even know where to stick his pecker. Given his time at Hattenworth, I reckon he favors having the peckers stuck in him.”

  “Wayne!” Trudy snapped.

  Travis lunged for him. Wayne lunged back. The two locked horns like charging rams, became tangled in an upright grapple, fell to the ground and began rolling, each swinging punches wildly and ineffectively from the floor.

  Travis snaked an arm free and went into his waistband, pulling his knife, ramming it into Wayne’s gut, and then dragging the knife up his torso as though butchering a deer.

  He’s doing it! Stacey thought, looking on with wild intensity.

  Wayne groaned and released his grip on Travis.

  Can’t stop now! she wanted to scream to him. No choice! You have to kill them all, and fucking QUICKLY! Keep going keep going keep going keep going…

  Travis jerked the knife free and raised it overhead to plunge it down into Wayne’s neck, to finish him.

  YES!

  Darla screeched and pounced on Travis like a wild animal, ripping and clawing in a bid to stop the attack on her father.

  Cooper grabbed Darla and tossed her aside, grabbed Travis by the scalp, and jerked him to his feet. Travis slashed at Cooper’s wrist, cutting deep, forcing him to release his hold on Travis’s scalp, Travis then ramming the knife deep into Cooper’s eye, driving him back towards the far wall, Darla behind them both, colliding hard with the wall, banging her head and dropping unconscious, Cooper seconds after, dead.

  YES!!!

  Travis then spun on Trudy, ready to attack, only to receive a bullet in the chest, Trudy pulling the trigger as fast as she could, her one eye and drunkenness causing her to miss all remaining five shots, curse, and throw the empty pistol at Travis.

  Travis, badly wounded, yet momentarily anesthetized with adrenaline, dove at her, knocking her to the floor where they scrambled and fought, Trudy ending up on her stomach, Travis mounting her, snatching a handful of hair and jerking her head back, promptly slitting her throat from ear to ear, Trudy gurgling and gasping before Travis let go, her head dropping to the floor with a bang, a circle of blood immediately growing beneath her lifeless head.

  Travis slowly rose to his feet, drenched in blood both his and not. Wayne continued to moan and sputter blood from the floor. Travis straddled him.

  “Look me in the eye,” he said between pants of both exertion and lack of wind to the bullet that had pierced his lung.

  Wayne spat blood in Travis’s face.

  Travis wiped the
blood away. “Look me in the eye.”

  Wayne spat again, and Travis rammed the knife deep into Wayne’s throat, pressing until he could hear the point of the blade hit and scrape the wooden floor beneath. Wayne died almost instantly.

  Travis got to his feet once again, slower than before. He wheezed heavily, expelling blood in a mist with each wheeze. He approached Stacey and stood before her, eyes wide and wild. The knife in his fist dripped blood. The fresh corpses of his family surrounded him.

  Stacey’s fear was electric. She’d gotten him to murder his family in cold blood as she’d planned, but the blood lust that now shone in the dilated pupils of his eyes…why wouldn’t she be next?

  Her pounding heart was her whole body. She questioned her ability to speak. And if she could, what would she say? She’d never gotten that far in her plan.

  The words came out on their own. Desperate and absurd. “How was it?” she asked him in a voice that didn’t sound like her own.

  He only continued to stare at her, wheezing, soaked in blood.

  “Did it…did it…”—Oh God, what the hell to say?—“Did it…fill the hole?”

  To a relief she’d only ever known after securing a fix back in her drugging days, Travis said, “I don’t know,” and then dropped his knife at her feet before crumbling to the floor, dead.

  Well, I guess I don’t have to take him to see the lawyer now, the part of her mind that courted sick humor in times of strife mused, and she could not help but let out a delirious laugh.

  And then Darla began to stir in the corner, and a fresh bolt of terror ripped through her heart.

  Chapter 45

  Darla began to stir. Moaning lightly at first, eyes still closed, arms and legs beginning to move. She lay on her side, facing Stacey.

  She was knocked out. She’ll be groggy and disoriented at first. Maybe not even remember what happened.

  Her eyes left Darla and went to her feet where Travis still lay and, more importantly, where he’d dropped the knife.

  Get the knife.

  (How?)

  With your fucking foot! Hurry.

  (Even if I get it under my foot, then what? It’s not like I can pick the damn thing up with my toes!)

  Kick it away. Kick it far away so she doesn’t spot it. If she spots it, you’re dead.

  Stacey frantically stretched her foot towards the knife. It was too far, her toes missing it by inches. She began scooting in her chair, the chair legs squeaking against the floor.

  The noise expedited Darla’s consciousness. She got to all fours, still moaning.

  Stacey’s pulse hammered in her chest, her eyes ping-ponging between Darla and the knife. She scooted farther, her right foot now almost upon it.

  Come on, goddammit!

  Darla got to her feet.

  “Morgan!” Stacey cried. “Morgan wake up! Wake up!”

  Morgan remained unconscious, head on her chest. Dead, for all she knew.

  Darla stood, swaying, disoriented, looking at Stacey for a moment as though never setting eyes on her before.

  “MORGAN!”

  (What the fuck is she going to do?)

  Something. Anything, for Christ’s sake!

  Darla continued to gape at Stacey, dumbfounded.

  Stacey hopped forward in the chair, nearly toppling over. Her foot landed on the blade. She slid the blade as far away from her as possible, praying Darla didn’t register what she’d done.

  Except Darla had. Her eyes tracked the knife as it slid across the room towards Morgan. Then her gaze fell back on Stacey, then to the massacre around her, her family butchered.

  Stacey saw the light bulb click on Darla’s face, her recollection of it all returning in a brutal instant.

  “MORGAN! WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!”

  Darla bared her teeth like a primal thing, her face equally wild, and Stacey was unequivocally sure the crazy little bitch had no such interest in the knife, but meant instead to pounce, to sink her teeth into Stacey’s face and gnaw until there was nothing left.

  Morgan woke. Her eyes settling on the scene, her ability to process it all agonizingly slow.

  “MORGAN, HELP ME!!!”

  Darla screeched the same animalistic screech she’d let out when trying to protect her father, charged, and leapt onto Stacey, the impact of her pounce knocking the chair back and over, Darla on top, her little fingers clawing at Stacey’s face, going for her eyes, Stacey thrashing her head from side to side to avoid the attack, spitting, cursing.

  Darla dropped to sink her teeth into Stacey’s nose, and Stacey whipped her head forward, catching the girl in the face with a resounding headbutt, momentarily stunning her, Darla groaning and rolling off.

  Stacey kicked and flailed her legs like an upturned tortoise, desperate to right itself.

  Darla rose to her feet once more. She did not bare her teeth again, did not seem keen to fight as an animal would this time. Instead her eyes settled on the knife by Morgan.

  She ran for it. Morgan stuck out her leg, and Darla’s feet caught it like tripwire, tumbling hard to the floor.

  Stacey began rocking the chair from side to side, gaining momentum with each frantic jerk. One final, powerful drive with everything she had, and the chair rolled completely.

  On her knees now, face pressed into the dirty wooden floor, she began to crawl, knee over knee, face scraping against the floor, not feeling it, desperate to reach the wall for the leverage to right herself completely.

  Darla was back on her feet again. She snatched the knife. Stacey heard Morgan’s scream and craned her neck to glance behind her, saw Darla riding Morgan’s lap as she’d done hers just moments before, bringing the knife down again and again into Morgan’s face, neck, and torso, screaming wildly—gleefully—with each plunge.

  Oh God oh God oh God oh God…

  (Move! Fucking move!!!)

  Stacey reached the wall, practically scaled it with the strength of her head and neck alone, brought the chair upright onto all four legs once again. She then bent forward at the waist, the chair dangling from her back like a second attacker, and began ramming it backwards against the wall, hoping to break something, a leg, the frame, anything to loosen the slack on her binds.

  With each backwards thrust against the wall, she had the horrific pleasure of watching Darla’s own thrusts with the blade into Morgan, over and over again, Morgan still screaming, still alive, the little girl’s lack of strength perhaps the only thing keeping Morgan alive, to keep the little girl from delivering a lethal blow.

  A sudden crack from the chair (she didn’t know which part gave, nor did she have a single fuck to give about which part gave) and her binds loosened.

  She shrugged herself free, stood, and ran towards Darla, snatching her by the scalp and yanking her off Morgan’s lap, dragging her to the floor, Darla swiping wildly behind her with the knife, trying for any available target, screeching louder and more animalistic than ever.

  “CRAZY FUCKING BITCH!!!” Stacey stomped once on Darla’s head and knocked her cold.

  Chapter 46

  Stacey ran to Morgan and dropped to her side.

  “Oh God, Mo…Oh God…”

  Morgan turned her head slowly towards Stacey. Her face was crisscrossed with slashes, her neck and chest more so.

  Stacey immediately began working on Morgan’s binds.

  “Don’t,” Morgan managed. Her voice was weak. She coughed blood right after.

  Stacey looked up at her with disbelieving eyes. “What?”

  Morgan flicked her chin towards Darla. Stacey spun, expecting Darla to be standing there, grinning maniacally at them, ready for round two. But she was not; she lay unconscious where Stacey had left her.

  But she could have been standing there. That’s what Mo’s talking about. The psycho thing could have been standing there.

  Stacey spun back towards Morgan. “I can’t kill a child, Mo. I can’t.”

  (That thing’s a child?)

  I can’t.


  (You better do something to make sure she doesn’t get back up. Don’t be the dummy who only knocks the killer out instead of finishing them off. You know how those movies end.)

  Stacey ran a hand over Morgan’s hair. Her usual strawberry blonde color was now soaked in red. “Hold on, honey, okay? Can you hold on for me?”

  Morgan gave a feeble nod.

  “Just hold on, honey.”

  Stacey ran towards her broken chair, towards her former binds. She snatched the rope and quickly set about tying Darla up, cinching the rope around her wrists and ankles, not caring if it was too tight. Let it cut off the damn circulation until fucking gangrene sets in.

  Stacey then snatched the knife next to Darla and returned to Morgan. Began working furiously on her binds. She glanced up at her. “Almost there, sweetie,” she said. “Almost there.”

  Morgan smiled at her. Her teeth were filmed with blood. She then closed her eyes and went limp.

  “Mo? Mo?” Stacey shook her. “MO?” She placed her ear to Morgan’s chest and heard no heartbeat. She shook her again. “MO?!”

  Stacey pulled Morgan from the chair and laid her on the floor, started performing CPR. Gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and came away with a mouthful of blood. Checked her pulse again. Nothing. Gave her chest compressions and checked her pulse again. Nothing. Morgan was dead.

  Chapter 47

  Jumbo’s Tavern

  Two days later

  “Everyone shut up a damn minute!” Jumbo yelled at the bar.

  Everyone turned towards Jumbo, who stood behind the bar, then tracked his gaze towards the television perched high in the corner. Jumbo had the remote pointed at the TV and was increasing the volume. His face held a look of disbelief.

  “…CNN breaking news. Once again, what was referred to as ‘The Swamp Massacre’ in south Florida over five years ago now has a grisly sequel. Nearly a dozen dead in what law enforcement is calling one of the most horrifying discoveries in American history…”

  “Jesus Christ, Jumbo,” a bartender muttered.