marbles at the moment of death, and the pool of blood surrounding the body looked as if it had caused the snow to sink down ever so slightly. Almost as if its heat had melted through the top layer as the thick, red liquid spread out from the trio of bullet wounds that punctured its tawny fur.
The bellow that erupted from Earl’s throat escaped with such ferocity that has jowls shook as he threw back his head. Raising his fists to the sky, he punched at the air as if he could somehow sock whatever God was responsible for this squarely in the jaw. The tendons in his neck bulged and his eyes were clenched shut so tightly that the tears of frustration squeezed from them ran the risk of freezing his lashes together.
“A fuckin’ deer? Are you kidding me? A mother fuckin’ deer?”
On the short walk to the body, Earl had already figured everything out. He’d drag that dickhead out of the wood by the feet; Hell, would fireman carry the corpse if he had to. Once he’d made it back to the house, if Daryl hadn’t already killed her as well, he would have propped the dead body up on the living room chair and made it watch as he and Daryl took turns with that little cunt. And she would have been forced to look at it the entire time. He would have superglued her eyelids open if he’d had to. And then, the last thing she would see as the life drained out of her ravaged body would have been her sorry excuse for a man. The pathetic loser who couldn’t even manage to keep her safe.
And he’d been pretty certain that was the way it would have turned out. Daryl wasn’t capable of finding a Christian in church, much less one woman in a two story house. Earl wouldn’t have been surprised if his little brother were sitting in the police car with the doors locked and awaiting his return. It sounded like something that turd would do.
But now there was a chance that this beautiful plan had been flushed down the crapper. That piece of shit was still out here somewhere, still hiding and running through the woods. And, even though it was highly unlikely, there was the possibility that Daryl might actually find the woman. And an even slimmer chance that he wouldn’t get his ass kicked by her. And if Earl ended up hauling nearly two hundreds pounds of dead weight all the way back to the house for nothing, then someone was going to pay.
“I’ll find you yet, cock knocker. Mark my words.”
Stepping over the deer, Earl took up the trail again. Luckily, it wasn’t still coming down like it had earlier in the morning. If that type of accumulation had still been falling from the sky, then the footprints would have been all but covered now; there were hundreds of square acres of wilderness out here… miles and miles of nothing but trees, rocks, and hills. Unless you knew the landmarks, you could freeze to death before ever finding your way to a road or another house and, after that, it could be years before some hunter stumbled across your scattered bones. If you were ever found at all.
And that was a real possibility as well: that Earl might be denied the satisfaction of revenge. If Matt found a cave to hole up in or if he just continued trucking on without ever losing steam, then sooner or later hypothermia would set in. Shivering in the freezing temperatures would turn to fatigue as the body tried everything within its power to protect itself. And all it would take would be for that pretty boy to think he’d lay down for just a minute or two, just a little cat nap to recharge his batteries. He’d close his eyes and slip into a darkness from which he’d never awaken.
So, no… he had to find this son of a bitch and had to find him soon. After whatever he’d done to Mama, the bastard deserved far, far worse than dying in his sleep. He needed to scream. To beg. To know what it meant to be hunted and look into the eyes of his killer with the knowledge that he was about to die.
“What the fuck?”
Earl stepped out of the trees and into a clearing where the thick, gray clouds overhead could clearly be seen. They amassed in the sky like a gathering army, closing in ranks for one final assault against the world below. However, it wasn’t what was over his head that caused him to gape as his brow knitted in confusion. It was what was in the snow.
Up until this point, Matt’s tracks had been pretty straight forward. They had been meandering impressions that, without fail, cut a path that lead deeper and deeper into the woods. Occasionally, they would weave in and out through the trees or cut a wide swath around a boulder or deadfall. But they were nothing like what Earl saw before him now.
The clearing looked as if a hundred people who all wore the same shoe size had trampled through the drifts. Like the spokes of a wheel, the tracks radiated out in all directions from a central point that had been reduced to nothing more than a mire of muddy snow. Each spoke doubled back on itself, sometimes so often that it was impossible to tell which footprints were leading into the forest and which were returning to the clearing.
Because of this, Earl had no idea which direction his prey had actually went. It could have been any one of two dozen possibilities and he stood, scratching his beard, as his eyes looked across the clearing.
“You slippery son if a bitch….”
Earl walked forward as carefully as if he were stepping onto a frozen lake. He had it in his mind that he would put himself in Matt’s shoes but felt the need to be cautious. His plan was simple really: he’d walk to the middle of the clearing, just as Matt had done, and then study the different sets of tracks that branched off from there. Though they looked like a confusing mess at first glance, there had to be one particular direction that had more footprints leading out than coming back in. And once Earl was able to identify that set then he would be back on the trail again.
Out in the open, the temperature seemed to drop nearly ten degrees. Without the cover of trees to cut the wind, a steady breeze gusted against him and rustled the tufts of dead scrub grass that poked through the snow like skeletons clawing their way out of the grave. The tip of his nose was now so cold that it almost felt like it were on fire and a membrane seemed to form somewhere just inside his nostrils. He could feel this film flex and relax with each breath and he cursed himself for not having the forethought to grab a ski mask before taking off after the man.
By the time he reached the center of the clearing, snow had begun falling again and the tingling pain had spread to Earl’s cheeks and ears and the hairs of his beard felt like brittle needles poking into his neck and chin . The discomfort made him grumble to himself as thoughts of coffee and crackling fire plagued his mind; making Matt suffer didn’t seem as important as it had earlier. Now, he simply wanted to kill the bastard, get his ass home, and thaw out beneath a pile of blankets. And to do that, he had to solve the riddle of the footprints surrounding him.
Earl spun around slowly, taking in each track with a critical eye. He wasn’t exactly thinking about them, but rather trusting his mind to seize upon something that was just a little out of place. Something that would separate one particular trail from the others.
Halfway through his second revolution, he heard something. Almost like a snake’s hiss. Only this sound seemed to be coming through the air.
Before his mind had a chance to decode what this could mean, pain flared in his chest so intensely that everything went black for a moment. He staggered backward as his hands groped for the source of the agony and felt the warm stickiness of his own blood gushing from his body.
Matt watched the fat man stumble around like a dazed idiot. Obviously, the stupid fuck hadn’t realized what had happened yet. Otherwise, he would have been running for cover; instead he simply stayed in the clearing, blinking at his own bloody hands as if trying to figure out exactly what they were. Still, it would only be a matter of time before rationality broke through the wall of shock. And then he would run. Which meant Matt had to act fast.
He drew back the t-shaped piece of plastic that was squeezed within his fist. At first, it felt like it would take all of his strength to pull the cord it was attached to into position; but then the pulleys shifted and all of the tension seemed to evaporate. He held it for a moment, lining up his shot, and then released.
There was a soft ting as the cord snapped back, immediately followed by the whizz of the arrow cutting through the air. Instead of waiting for the projectile to plunge into Earl’s blubber, however, Matt was already pulling another from the quiver on his back and fitting the notch onto the string of the compound bow he’d taken from the house.
He released the barrage of arrows like a machine and their razor-like tips flew with precision. Again and again, they found their mark as fresh spurts of blood squished from Earl’s body. Within seconds, the man looked like an oversized voodoo doll stuck with feathered needles. His entire chest was red and glistening now and his face had turned pale and sallow. Sinking to his knees, he tried to raise the pistol, but Matt’s next shot pierced Earl’s forearm and the gun tumbled into the air as the fat man snatched his hand away.
