The curves and loops of such innocent looking handwriting…
“Step back! Step the fuck back!”
Mona’s Secret Delights.
The shouting from outside of the car now sounded distant, as if it were nothing more than a television playing a little too loudly through the walls of a padded room.
“Come on! Come on, mother fucker! Pig! Let’s do this….”
The growl of Earl’s voice degraded into a garbled mash of sounds that, for some reason, made Daryl think of a man sitting in an electric chair. He could picture spittle spraying from his brother’s lips, drool sliding down his chin as layers of fat quivered and jerked, his eyes rolling back into his head as his body flopped in the snow like a headless snake.
The demon’s spiel had now reached a frenzy and it filled Daryl’s head with a cacophony of hissed whispers whose words bled into one another: now, prove yourself now, show your worth, be a man for God’s sake, grow a pair and make her proud, oh so proud, be a good boy, be the best damn boy she could ever ask for….
Daryl’s eyelids opened and the voice fell silent. Turning slightly in his seat, he looked into the back of the car. His eyes took in the mounds of clothes and baggage, the plastic bottles of brake fluid and motor oil, all the flotsam and jetsam that had come rushing forward when the vehicle had come to its abrupt stop.
And there, poking out from underneath a pink t-shirt, he saw the curved tip of a tire tool.
Reaching back, his fingers closed around the cold metal and he lifted it slowly. It was heavier than he thought it would be… thick and sturdy like they used to make them. Not one of those cheap aluminum rods with the swiveling lug head that came with newer model cars. This was solid, a single piece of forged steel.
Daryl lifted the lever on the door so gently that there was only the smallest of clicks as the latch freed itself. He pushed it open just enough to allow himself to slide through the gap.
Ten feet away, Earl laid on his stomach like some whale that had washed up on an arctic shore. Snow billowed around his body and the cop was behind him, one knee firmly planted in the small of his massive back. The cop had Earl’s arms pinned just below the shoulder blades and the morning sun glinted off the handcuffs as if they were made of silver flame.
Daryl placed one foot in front of the other as carefully as if the twinkling flakes of ice on the snow were actually broken glass. His stare was focused on the little knot at the base of the officer’s skull and every muscle in his body wanted to break into a run. He wanted to hoist the tire tool above his head like some primal hunter and rattle the stillness of the morning with a guttural battlecry.
But he forced himself to proceed calmly. As if he were stalking game in the woods.
And the closer he came, the heavier and more powerful the metal gripped in his hand felt.
One swift blow.
One dull thud coupled with the cracking of splintered bone.
A splash of blood, stark and red against a field of white.
And then he would be the man Mama had always wanted him to be.
He would be the hero.
The protector.
He would finally be a good boy….
SCENE TEN
Mary opened the front door of the house and the cold, outside air rushed in. It forced its way through the thin fabric of her dress and rustled her white hair as flakes of snow blew into the foyer like tiny animals fleeing the approach of a ravenous predator. The metal blade of the knife absorbed the chill almost instantaneously and felt like a slender icicle weighing down her pocket. Hugging herself, the old woman rubbed her arms briskly as she blinked in the sudden glare of the sun.
“Mornin,’ Chief Howarth. What’d them boys of mine do now?”
The man on the porch was dressed in a heavy, wool jacket and the blue material contrasted sharply with the white backdrop of winter. The silver buttons were polished almost as brightly as the star-shaped badge pinned just above the breast pocket and his angular face hid in the shadows of the wide brimmed hat that perched atop his close-cropped hair. He looked at her with eyes the color of mahogany and spoke through lips that were dry and cracked.
“Morning, Mary. Hope I didn’t wake you. I apologize for it being so early and all.”
Mary sniffed once as if she were testing the air and cocked her head to the side.
“Don’t sleep much when ya get t’ be my age. I reckon I’ll sleep enough when I’m dead.”
“How’s that knee been? Acting up with the cold and all?”
Chief Howarth glanced over the old woman’s shoulder and his eyebrows arched ever so slightly; the emphasis he’d placed on the word cold wasn’t lost on Mary… but she kept her body planted squarely in the doorway and simply hugged herself more tightly.
“I’ll live, I s’pose.”
They stood in silence for a moment as the chief shuffled forward a few steps while he licked his lips.
“Feels like you got the fireplace all nice and warm, at least.” He finally said. “Heater’s on the blink in the cruiser… cold as a witch’s tit out here, too.”
“More on the way… I reckon we might as well get used to it.”
The chief’s shoulders drooped and a cloud of vapor billowed from his mouth and nose as he sighed; somehow he seemed a little smaller now, almost as if the air he’d been holding within his lungs had been the only thing keeping him inflated. Mary stood as straight as a pine sapling in the doorway smiled. At the same time, she breathed in through her nose, inhaling the same air the chief of police had just expelled, and her chest seemed to swell. For a fraction of a second, she looked like a smug, old teacher who’d just bested a smart ass student… but the expression melted away and she was just a shivering pensioner again.
“Yeah,” the chief agreed, “I suppose I will.”
He glanced around, taking in the snow covered shrubs in the yard and the pines that towered on the edge of the property. Dawn had yet to force its way through the canopy of green needles overhead and darkness still held sway among the rows of trunks and undergrowth. The trees were so thick and dense, in fact, that it almost seemed as if the forest existed in some reality that had been freed from the bonds of time: in there, amid that brambles and fallen limbs, it was as black as the bottom of a deep water well. Almost as if the night had become lost in this labyrinth of wood and lacked even a trail of crumbs with which to find its way out again.
“Where are the boys, anyhow? Awful early to be out and about. Especially on a morning like this. Thought we were going to have to close the pass last night. Had the highway boys all ready to mobilize, but in the end….”
“Now, Chief, I know you didn’t come all the way out here to pay me a social call.”
Mary’s tone was as sharp as a mother reprimanding a child; the chief sighed again and his head almost seemed to swivel beneath his hat as he shook it.
“No… no, I suppose I didn’t. .”
Chief Howarth slipped his hand inside his coat and when it emerged he had two photographs fanned between his fingers.
“You seen either of these two folks around lately, Mary?” he asked as he handed the snapshots to her.
The old woman glanced down at the pictures and gasped as she saw the faces staring back up at her. Her jaw hung open for a fraction of a second and she blinked rapidly as if perhaps she’d just awoken from a dream and was attempting to rid her mind of the lingering afterimages. The chief leaned in so close that Mary could smell the coffee on his breath and gripped her elbow gently.
“You have, haven’t you? You know these kids, don’t you?”
In the same amount of time that it had taken for Mary’s facade to slip, she repaired the damage that had been done. She glanced at the pictures again, shook her head with a wry smile, and handed them back to Chief Howarth.
“Thought that fella was my Cousin Fred. Spittin’ image of him, he is. From back in the day, I mean. Reckon Fred hasn’t been that handsome since… well, since never I s’pose.”
