The Pain of Others

by Blake Crouch

  This is a real bad situation.

  “I don’t enjoy repeating myself, but you hit that dashboard pretty hard, so I’ll ask one more time. Did you kill the driver before you stole the Pinto?”

  Donaldson knew he was screwed, but he didn’t want to get himself even more screwed.

  “You a cop?” he asked, not sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.

  The barest flash of mirth crossed Mr. K’s face. “No. But your biggest worry right now shouldn’t be getting arrested. Your biggest worry should be the hole I’m going to put in your head if you don’t answer me.”

  The gears began to turn in Donaldson’s head. How the hell do I get through this? Talk my way out?

  “You won’t shoot me,” Donaldson said, surprised by how calm he sounded.

  “No?”

  “You’d ruin your car.”

  Again, a faint hint of a smile. “It’s not my car. And you still haven’t answered my question.”

  Mr. K thumbed back the hammer on the pistol.

  Donaldson contemplated his own death—the first time in his life he ever had—and decided dying would be a very bad thing.

  “I killed him,” Donaldson said quickly.

  Mr. K seemed to think about this. He nodded slowly. “Was it someone you knew?”

  “No. Jumped him in a parking lot in Sarasota. Wouldn’t have wasted the bullet if I knew what a piece of crap his car was.”

  Donaldson watched Mr. K’s eyes. They betrayed nothing. The two of them might as well have been talking about the weather.

  “How’d it feel?” Mr. K asked.

  “How did what feel?”

  “Killing that man.”

  What kind of freaky talk is this? Donaldson thought, but all he said was, “I dunno.”

  “Sure you do. Did it feel good? Bad? Numb? Did it get you excited? Did you feel guilty afterward?”

  Donaldson thought back to the day before. To holding the gun to the man’s ribs. Seeing the shock in his eyes when he squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times. Watching him flop to the ground in a way that had struck him as funny. The holes in his chest had made sucking sounds, blowing tiny blood bubbles.

  “Excited,” Donaldson said.

  “Did he die right away?”

  “No.”

  “Did you stay and watch him die?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long did it take?”

  It’s so strange that we’re both so calm about this.

  Donaldson shrugged. “Few minutes, I guess.”

  “Did you do anything else to him?”

  “Like what?”

  “Did you hurt him first?” Mr. K raised an eyebrow. “Rape him?”

  Donaldson scowled. “Do I look like a queer to you?”

  “What does being a homosexual have to do with it? You had a human being at your mercy. That excited you. I’m asking if you capitalized on that opportunity. If you made the most of it.”

  Donaldson thought about it. The guy had been at his mercy. He’d begged for a while when Donaldson pulled the gun, and that was kind of a turn-on.

  “I didn’t rape him,” Donaldson said.

  “Could you have raped him?”

  Donaldson licked some dried blood off of his top lip, let the salty, copper taste linger on his tongue. “Yeah. I could’ve.”

  This answer seemed to satisfy Mr. K. He was quiet for over a minute.

  The road stretched out ahead of them like a giant black snake.

  Empty swampland and blue skies as far as Donaldson could see.

  I can’t believe I’m telling him this stuff. Is it because he’s threatening to kill me?

  Or because he understands?

  “How’d you know?” Donaldson asked.

  “Know what?”

  “That I stole that car?”

  Mr. K offered a half-smile. “I saw the gun in your pocket when you stopped, along with your clumsy attempt to hide it. You should get an ankle holster, or stuff it in your belt at the small of your back. You obviously aren’t a Florida native, or you’d have a tan already. That means you flew in or drove in. If you flew, you probably would’ve had a rental car, and those are usually new. That Pinto was an old model. When you first got in, I noticed the powder burns on your shirt, and under your rather oppressive body odor, you smell like gunpowder.”

  Donaldson was impressed, but he refused to show it. He knew a lot about being victimized. One way to stop being a victim was to stop acting like a victim.

  “I asked how you knew about the car, not my gun,” Donaldson said, sticking out his lower jaw.

  If Mr. K noticed Donaldson’s display of bravado, he didn’t react. “Your loose jeans didn’t jingle when you sat down in the car. When people abandon their vehicles, they take their keys with them. So I assumed it wasn’t yours.”

  Donaldson appraised Mr. K again. This was a smart guy.

  “How about you?” Donaldson ventured. “Did you kill the owner of this car?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Not yet?”

  “He’s tied up in the trunk. I’m taking him someplace private.”

  Donald worded his next question carefully. “Do you want to kill me?”

  Mr. K drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  Donaldson counted his own heartbeats, trying to keep cool until Mr. K finally replied.

  “Haven’t decided yet.”

  “Is there anything I can do to, uh, persuade you that I’m worth keeping alive?”

  “Maybe. The Pinto owner you killed. He wasn’t the first.”

  Donaldson thought back to his father, to beating the old man to death with a baseball bat. “No, he wasn’t.”

  “But he was the first stranger.”

  This guy is uncanny. “Yeah.”

  “Who was it before that? Girlfriend? Family member?”

  “My dad.”

  “But you didn’t use a gun on him, did you? You made it more personal.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d you use?”

  “A Louisville Slugger.”

  “How did it feel?”

  Donaldson closed his eyes. He could still feel the sting of the bat in his palms when he cracked it against his father’s head, still see the blood that spurted out of split skin like a lawn sprinkler.

  “I felt like Reggie Jackson hitting one out of Yankee Stadium. Afterward, I even went out and bought a Reggie Bar.”

  Mr. K gave him a sideways glance. “Why buy candy? Why didn’t you eat part of your father? Just imagine the expression on his face.”

  Donaldson was about to protest, but he stopped himself. When he broke Dad’s jaw with the bat, the old man had looked more surprised than hurt. How would he have reacted if Donaldson had cut off one of his fingers and eaten it in front of him?

  That would have shown the son of bitch. Bite the hand that feeds you.

  “I should have done that,” Donaldson said.

  “He hurt you when you were a child.” Mr. K said it as a statement, not a question.

  “Yeah. He used to beat the shit out of me.”

  “Did he sexually abuse you?”

  “Naw. Nothing like that. But every time I got into trouble, he’d take his belt to me. And he hit hard enough to draw blood. What kind of asshole does that to a five-year-old kid?”

  “Think hard, Donaldson. Do you believe your father beat you, and that turned you into what you are? Or did he beat you because of what you are?”

  Donaldson frowned. “What do you mean what you are? What am I?”

  Mr. K turned and stared deep into his soul, his eyes like gun barrels. “You’re a killer, Donaldson.”

  Donaldson considered the label. It didn’t take him long to embrace it.

  “So what was the question again?”

  “Are you a killer because your father beat you, or did your father beat you because you’re a killer?”

  Donaldson could remember that first beating when he was five. He’
d taken his pet gerbil and put it in the blender. Used the pulse button, grinding it up a little at a time, so it didn’t die right away.

  “I think my dad knew. Tried to beat the devil out of me. Used to tell me that, when he was whipping my ass.”

  “You don’t have the devil in you, Donaldson. You’re simply unique. Exceptional. Unrestrained by morality or guilt.”

  Exceptional? Donaldson had never felt like he was exceptional at anything. He did badly in school. Dropped out of college. Never had any friends, or a woman he didn’t pay for. Bummed around the country, job to job, occasionally ripping someone off. How is that exceptional?

  But somehow, he felt that the description fit him.

  Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve been trying to be normal all of these years, but I’m not. I’m better than normal.

  I’m exceptional.

  “How do you know this stuff?” Donaldson asked.

  “The more you understand death,” Mr. K said, “the more you appreciate life.”

  “Sounds like fortune cookie bullshit.”

  “It was something I learned in the war.”

  “Vietnam?” Donaldson had been exempt from the draft because he didn’t pass the physical.

  “A villager in Ca Lu said it to me, before I removed his intestines with a bayonet.”

  “Was he talking about himself?” Donaldson asked. “Or you?”

  “You tell me. Did you feel alive when you killed your father, Donaldson?”

  Donaldson nodded.

  “And when you killed the owner of the Pinto?” Mr. K continued.

  “Goddamn piece of crap car. I wish I could kill that guy again.”

  “How about someone else in his place?”

  Donaldson squinted at Mr. K. “What do you mean?”

  Another half smile. “The man in my trunk. If I gave you the chance to kill him, would you?”

  This final bonus excerpt is from the eBook Perfect Little Town by Blake Crouch, also available in the Kindle Store for $2.99…

  -1-

  They arrive midmorning, the Benz G-Class rolling down Main Street with its California tags and rear end sagging under the weight of luggage, and though the windows are tinted, we bet the occupants are smiling. Everyone smiles when they come to our town, population 317. It’s the mountains and fir trees, the waterfall we light up at night and the clear western sky and the perfect houses painted in brilliant colors and the picket-fenced lawns and the shoppes we spell the olde English way and the sweet smell of the river running through.

  Parking spaces are plentiful in the off-season. They choose a spot in front of the coffeehouse, climb out with their smiles intact, squinting against the high-altitude sun—a handsome couple just shy of forty, their fashionably-cut clothes and hair in league with their Mercedes SUV to make announcements of wealth that we all read loud and clear.

  We serve them lattes, handmade Danishes from the pastry case, and they drop dollar bills into our tip vase, amused at the cleverness of the accompanying sign: “Don’t be chai to espresso your gratitude.” They lounge for a half hour in oversize chairs, sipping their hot drinks and admiring the local art hanging on the walls. As they finally rise to leave, the woman shakes her head and comments to her husband that they don’t make towns like this anymore.

  -2-

  They wander through the downtown, browsing our shops as the sky sheets over with leaden clouds.

  From us they buy:

  a half-pound of fudge

  five postcards

  energy bars from the hiking store

  a pressed gold aspen leaf in a small frame

  They tell us what a perfect little town we have and we say we know. Everywhere they go, they ask exuberant questions, and we answer with enthusiasm to match, and in turn solicit personal information under the guise of chitchat—Ron’s a plastic surgeon, Jessica a patent attorney. They drove from Los Angeles, this being their first vacation in four years.

  We ask if they’re enjoying themselves.

  Oh yes, they say. Oh yes.

  -3-

  They each have a camera. They shoot everything:

  The soaring, jagged mountains in the backdrop

  Deer grazing the yard of a residence

  The quaint old theatre

  The snow that has just begun to fall and frost the pavement

  They ask us to take pictures of them together and, of course, we happily oblige.

  -4-

  The day wears on.

  The light fades.

  It snows harder with each passing hour.

  Up and down Main, Christmas lights wink on.

  It is winter solstice, the darkest evening of the year, and when the Stahls attempt to leave town, they find the highway closed going both directions, the gates lowered across the road and padlocked, since what has become a full-blown blizzard is sure to have made high-mountain travel exceedingly dangerous.

  Or so we tell them.

  -5-

  They approach the front desk.

  “Welcome to the Lone Cone Inn.” And we smile like we mean it from the bottom of our hearts.

  Ron says, “It appears we’re stuck for the night in Lone Cone. Could we have a—”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, we’re booked solid. I just sold our last room not two minutes before you walked in.”

  We watch with subtle glee as they glance around the lobby, empty and quiet as a morgue, no sound but the fire burning in the hearth.

  The wife chimes in with, “But we haven’t seen another tourist, and we’ve been here all day.”

  “I apologize, but—”

  “Is there another hotel in town?”

  “There’s a motel, but it’s closed for the season.”

  “What are we supposed to do?”

  “I’m not sure I under—”

  “It’s a blizzard out there, the roads are closed, and now you’re telling us you’re the only game in town, and you’re booked?”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Where are we supposed to sleep? Our car?”

  Jessica appears on the verge of tears.

  We hand Ron a notepad and tell him to write down his cell phone number, promising to call if something opens up.

  -6-

  Ron and Jessica sit in their Mercedes, watching the snow accumulate on the windshield, piling up in the city park, a deep bluish tint settling over Lone Cone.

  “Are you fucking kidding me, Ron?”

  “I know.”

  “Do you? Because I thought you were the one who was supposed to call and get us room reservations.”

  “We weren’t gonna stay here, Jess. Remember? Spend the day and drive to Aspen.”

  “Well it didn’t work out that way, did it?”

  “No.”

  “So maybe having reservations as a backup plan might’ve been a bright idea. Right, Ron?” He’s been staring through the glass, his hands gripping the steering wheel, and now he glances over at his wife, into that wild-eyed, exacting glare he figures she terrorizes her firm’s paralegals and secretaries with.

  “What?” he says.

  “Why didn’t you take care of that?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Fuck you, Ron. I don’t want to sleep in my fucking car tonight. That isn’t what I had in mind for my Christmas vacation while busting my ass these last—”

  “I get it, Jess.”

  Ron pulls the key out of the ignition.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Baby, let’s go get a big, hot meal, drink the best wine on the list, and forget about all this shit for a while, okay?”