Dave remembered the way the boy’s voice had sounded in the kitchen that afternoon: high-pitched, girly. He didn’t sound that way now. His voice was as low and commanding as Dave’s own.
“Put it on the dog,” Dave said, not letting go of the girl’s arm.
Georgie did, and Dave was thankful Manny didn’t fight him, didn’t try to pull away or snap at Georgie. In fact, the dog almost seemed happy about the leash, associated it with going on walks probably.
“Wanna go for a walk?” Dave asked, inspired, trying to sound like the good guy he was.
Manny’s tail wagged so slightly that it was almost impossible to see. Dave guessed that neither the girl nor Georgie saw it at all with their comparatively poor eyes.
“Yeah,” Dave said. “We’re going for a nice long walk.”
He let go of the girl, and so much visible tension left Georgie’s body that the kid almost appeared to have fallen asleep standing.
“We’re gonna need a head start,” he said, looking carefully at Georgie. “I don’t suppose you cut the phone lines for me in there.”
“Uh, ye—” Georgie started but then seemed to think better of it. “No,” he admitted.
“Didn’t think so. Then I guess this is your fault.” And without warning, he whacked the girl in the back of her head. She dropped flat on her face, still breathing but otherwise motionless.
Manny barked, and Georgie screamed, “No!”
“Come on,” Dave said. “Lead us back where we came from. The night’s not over yet.” He could tell Georgie wanted to disobey, wanted to hurt him, but the boy finally clutched the leash and walked away from the fallen girl. Dave slipped his knives back into his pockets.
Manny didn’t want to leave at first, fought hard to get back to the spot where his former mistress lay, but Georgie finally got him moving, and the three of them walked up the dandelion hill together.
Beth opened her eyes some time later. Dirt filled her mouth, muddied by the blood still oozing from her savaged nose. She spat and tried scraping her tongue on her shirt, but the taste remained. Sitting up, she looked at the trees where the man and the boy, Georgie, had come from. They had disappeared, and Alfred with them.
More tears came, but she fought them. She had to get help first. It might not be too late. She would have time for crying later.
Straining only a little, she got onto her feet and hurried into the house.
Before she reached the kitchen phone, she noticed the wooden block where they kept their knives. It was tipped onto its side, and one of the slots, the biggest one where the butcher knife should have been, was empty. The phone lay on the counter, the cord curling back up to the base, which was screwed to the wall. The phone beeped a disconnected signal.
He tried calling for help, she thought. Probably didn’t get through before that maniac made me scream for him.
She picked up the phone, tapped the disconnect switch to get a dial tone, and then poked at the keypad.
While she waited for someone to pick up on the other end, she moved to the sink to wash the gore from her face. A woman’s voice came on the line and asked her what her emergency was. Beth spoke, and the words poured out of her mouth like blood from a whittled nose.
EIGHTEEN
Dave stood over the chopping stump, halving logs and then quartering them. Mr. Boots sat on a pile of already-split wood with a burlap sack between his feet, watching, silent. Dave wasn’t sure what he had in the bag, but it was moving.
Chop. Chop. Chop.
Dave had been counting the number of logs. He was up to forty. If he got to fifty and Mr. Boots hadn’t told him to quit, he’d ask if he was done. He might get smacked in the head for it, but he might also get a smack if he didn’t ask. With Mr. Boots, it was always hard to know the right thing to do.
Chop. Chop. Chop. Forty-one.
Chop. Chop. Chop.
“That’s enough,” Mr. Boots said. He got up and helped Dave stack the new wood with the rest. He left the squirming bag in the dirt.
When they had stacked everything Dave had split, Mr. Boots stood with his hand on the boy’s shoulder and stared off into the woods, sometimes stroking his beard, sometimes only breathing heavily and blinking.
After five years, Dave had learned not to interrupt these silences. He might have to stand here for an hour, tired from the chopping and ready to collapse but too scared to move. Moving too soon would mean a lashing.
“You reckon there’s anything worse than death?” Mr. Boots finally said.
Dave didn’t remember everything from his old life, but he was sure there hadn’t been these kinds of questions, these kinds of tests.
“I don’t know.” It was his usual answer.
Mr. Boots turned his attention from the woods to the boy. “There is,” he said. “There’s plenty of worse things.”
“Okay.”
Mr. Boots took his hand off Dave’s shoulder and picked up the burlap sack. He untied a length of twine from the bunched top and reached inside.
The rabbit he pulled out looked like it should have been dead. One of its hind legs was gone. The ragged, gaping wound where it had been dripped blood and strings of fatty tissue. Its eyes were black, unreadable. But it wasn’t dead; it was foaming at the mouth and trying to bite and scratch at Mr. Boots’s hand and arm.
“What happened?”
“Dunno,” Mr. Boots said. “Found it like this. Maybe a coyote.”
Dave wasn’t sure he believed that. He gulped.
“You think Mr. Bunny wants to live this-a-way?”
I don’t think he can live like that, Dave thought. Not much longer anyway. But he didn’t say anything, only shook his head.
“This right here is worse than death. We’re gonna help this creature best we can.” He nodded his head toward the ax.
Dave said he understood and went to get the ax. He pulled it out of the stump and held it out to Mr. Boots.
Mr. Boots smiled. “No, boy. You’re gonna do it.”
“Wha…me?”
Mr. Boots nodded.
“Can’t you? Please? I don’t want to.”
“I know you don’t.” He laughed, brought the animal to the stump, and pressed it against the scarred wood.
“Don’t try nothing funny,” he said. “If I catch you eyeing my arm instead of this thing’s neck, that wood won’t be the only thing gets split today.”
Dave closed his eyes and shook his head. “Please.”
“Trust me now,” Mr. Boots said. “If you don’t do this, you’ll be all kinds of regretful.” He nodded toward the squirming animal and made a chopping motion with his free hand. “Let’s go.”
Dave stepped up to the stump. The animal writhed, scratched at the wood with its remaining hind leg. It turned its head toward him. Its black, tar-drop eyes flicked back and forth, not seeming to see anything
