have been fair game.
And yet here he was, stalking through his own house like a sneak thief. Mama was dead, but it was this dark-haired bitch who haunted him.
He saw her with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth; one hand proudly displaying a thumbs up, the other pointing at the mound of bodies piled by her side in a grisly imitation of Lindy England and the infamous Abu Ghraib photo.
Daryl shook his head as if he could fling the image from his mind and looked up the stairs. She had to be up there somewhere. Crouching in silence.
Was she hiding?
Or waiting?
“Bitch killed Mama… you gonna let her get away with that shit?”
The voice he heard in his head was Earl’s and it was so clear and distinct that Daryl could almost believe that his brother were actually standing just behind him.
“You gonna let that little whore sit up there and laugh at you? Because you ain’t got the balls to go up there and show her who’s boss?”
His fingers tightened around the wooden handle of the cleaver and he flexed his arm as if testing its heft. He tried to imagine the rectangular piece of metal cracking into her skull and splitting that rounded forehead like it was a Christmas roast. But all that came to mind was a picture of her in faded, tight fitting jeans: she was turned slightly to the side and her pretty little mouth formed an oval and her eyes looked wide and surprised; her bare chest was pale white and contrasted starkly against the cocoa-colored flesh of the severed arms she held in either hand. With their palms covering her nipples, she looked like a modest psychopath caught in the act of undressing.
“There were two of ’em.” Earl’s voice said. “She had help. This time it’s just you and her. You tellin’ me that you’re afraid this piece of pussy is gonna kick your ass? That what you tellin’ me?”
Daryl took a deep breath and started up the stairs. He walked as softly as possible, ensuring that each footfall resulted in nothing more than a slight tap. He listened to the silence that seemed to enshroud the house and his flesh crawled at the tiniest of noises.
That faint creak… was it the sound of her sneaking through the hallway?
Or just old wood expanding with the heat of dawn?
Was that her shallow breathing? Or nothing more than the sound of his own respiration bouncing back at him from the walls?
By the time he reached the top of the stairs, Daryl gripped the cleaver so tightly that the rivets attaching the handle to the tong had pushed dimples into the pads of his hand. . He felt sweat trickle down the back of his neck and his stomach was gurgling so loudly now that cramps pulled at the muscles in his abdomen.
Yet he somehow forced himself to go on. To take another step.
He passed the braided rug where Earl had beaten that Chinese guy to death with a pipe wrench. Then the bullet hole in the wall that Mama had always called “your Daddy’s last home improvement project.” When he slinked past the cabinet outside of Mama’s bedroom, he almost shattered the glass of the empty display case when his own reflection made his heart feel as if it had attempted to burst right through his chest. But even then, he forced himself to keep going. For he could feel Mama and Earl’s eyes upon him, judging every move and decision as if they were dark gods who held his fate in their hands.
The door to the bed room was partially open and he pushed it as forcefully as he’d always dreamed of shoving his brother. It banged against the wall so hard that it bounced back at him as if seeking retaliation for the assault. But its brief stand was put down easily with the touch of a hand and Daryl strode into the room, certain now that no one had been hiding behind it.
The chairs and rope lay on the floor and there were more traces of blood, but nothing else seemed to be disturbed here. Mama’s scrapbooking desk looked as if she might scuttle into the room at any moment with a fresh crop of old photos to cut and paste onto the thick pieces of colored paper. Daylight streamed through the window and everything seemed to glow in a color that reminded Daryl of fresh, golden honey.
Across the way, the door to the adjoining room was open at a forty-five degree angle. He could vaguely see half of the table that so many people had been nailed to but little else. With no windows of its own and the door only halfway open, the room was as gloomy as the interior of a crypt. Mama had taken out the light bulb years ago, preferring their victims to only have light when she deemed it so. If he were to go in there and that door somehow managed to swing closed….
“Nuh-uh.” Daryl said aloud. “No way, no how. I ain’t goin’ in there. Not without light.”
“Don’t be a pussy.” His inner Earl snapped. “Get your ass in there and find that bitch.”
“Fuck that! You know I don’t like the dark, Earl. You know it. No way I’m gettin’ trapped in there without no light and no way out and God knows what all else.”
Daryl’s voiced had risen in pitch so sharply that it bordered on hysteria. Even the thought of being trapped in that lightless room was made his eyes shimmy behind a veil of tears and he paced about the room with short quick steps.
“I know Mama is dead and all but I ain’t fuckin’ goin’ in there, you here me? What if she comes runnin’ out from the hall and locks me in? What if it’s dark and I can’t get out and there ain’t nobody here to help me? What then? What the fuck then?”
Daryl stopped as if he’d come to some sort of invisible barrier as his voice trailed off. He laughed at himself with a nervous little chuckle and shook his head.
“Flashlight.” He said. “I’ll go get the flashlight. Then it won’t make a lick of difference if that bitch tries to lock me in the dark.”
He bounded out of the room like a rabbit and Mona watched through the crack in the door as she lowered the rusty machete that had been raised above her head. The corners of her lips were arched in a crooked smile that, in any other situation, would have been misconstrued as flirtatious.
So, the little prick was afraid of the dark was he? That was definitely something she could have a little fun with. And, as she recalled the black painted windows she’d noticed when she found the machete, she realized that she even knew the perfect place to play this particular game.
With the stealth of a cat, she slipped out of the two rooms and into the hallway, already giddy with what she had planned.
When Daryl saw the police cruiser parked outside, he slapped his forehead so hard that a red hand print was left in its wake. With everything that had happened, he’d completely forgot that they’d ditched the truck alongside the road. And, since the sun had already risen by that time, the MagLite had been safely tucked away inside the glovebox.
Still, a cop had to have a flashlight, right? He imagined they had to go into abandoned buildings all the time to chase out kids and squatters. And that time last summer when Earl had his license taken away for DUI, the cop had shone a light into their faces that was so bright any coon hunter would’ve been proud. So it stood to reason that there had to be a flashlight somewhere in the car.
After nearly five minutes of searching, however, Daryl was still empty handed. His mind flashed back to the officer sprawled in the middle of the road, but this time it wasn’t the pulp his face had become that came to mind. This time, he envisioned that shiny, black belt that encircled the cop’s waist. It was almost like a super hero’s utility belt with its pouches and holster. Pepper spray, handcuffs, the little cradle for the handheld radio… and also a slender, black flashlight attached by some sort of hook or clamp. To be honest, he’d been so busy looking for the handcuff keys that he couldn’t remember which. All he knew for certain was that there had been a flashlight. And that it was still attached to that now frozen corpse.
“Son of a bitch!”
Daryl wanted to hit something, to drive his fist through a piece of wood just like Earl had done when they discovered Mama’s spectacles laying inside the corpse of their former victim. Instead, he stamped his foot into the snow and slammed the car door shut with as much force as he could muster. From somewhere back in the woods, a gunshot rang out and he stared at the edge of the forest for a moment while the meaning of this dawned upon him. The initial shot was followed by two more, one right after the other, and he knew he had to get moving.
Earl was a damn good hunter and the chances that he’d missed his mark were about the same as finding an
