like my Daddy taught me. But you? You let it blind you. You let it lead you into my little trap out there in the woods. It’s the reason you’ve got more arrows in you than a flowchart. And it’s also the reason why you’ve been listening to me prattle on and on without every realizing that this was about to happen.”
Earl never heard the whoosh of the crutch as it cut through the air. Just as he’d never heard Mona making her way through the snow as Matt’s taunts covered the sound of her progress. One moment, he was simply trying to focus on the snowball tossing asshole in front of him; and the next, pain shot through the back of his skull as a flash of brilliant light exploded in his field of vision.
He fell to his knees and wobbled there as his hands touched the back of his head and came away bloody. Before he’d even had a chance to comprehend what this might mean, however, Mona swung the crutch again. This time, it thudded against his temple and, as the world went dark, Earl Gruber fell face first into the snow.
At first, he was only aware of muffled voices that sounded as if they were originating from somewhere in the back of his head. No real words. Just a lull that rose and fell in volume. Bit by bit, the sounds began to string themselves into words; with comprehension there also came a pounding pain in the back of his head that was ten times worse than any hangover he’d ever suffered through.
“… sit him up.”
“Damn it, Mona, I’m doing my best. He’s a big fucking guy.”
His body was being jostled. He could feel his rolls of fat jiggling as he was shifted and positioned and, somehow, he knew that was no longer outside. It smelled like home here. Slightly musty, a trace of Mama’s powder lingering in the air…
His eyelids fluttered open, but there were only blobs of color where detail should be.
Was he sitting up? It felt like he was sitting up….
“Shit, sweetie, he’s coming to. Be a dear and whack him again, okay?”
His head jerked to the side as something hard and unforgiving slammed into his cheek. Darkness overtook him again and when reality next reasserted itself, it did so with pain unlike any he’d ever known.
It’d taken a lot of work, but Matt and Mona had managed to drag Earl’s unconscious body into the house. By the time they’d made it through the front door, they’d both collapsed in the foyer and lay there, panting in each other’s arms and grinning like a young couple who’d just lost their virginity. Earl had moaned once or twice, but every time the large man had seemed to be coming around, Mona would swing her crutch with a well placed shot to the temple.
Dragging his fat ass up the stairs had probably been the hardest part. It’d taken close to an hour, with frequent breaks so that Matt could pant for air while he stretched his aching back. By the time they’d made it to the little hallway at the top, Mona had knocked Earl into oblivion so many times that the crutch was bent and the side of his face was nothing more than a swollen bruise.
Now the large man was propped in a chair with his arms stretched out before him. His head lay on a tabletop and the couple stood on either side of him, smiling at one another.
“You ready to do it?” Matt asked playfully.
Mona nodded her head so quickly that she looked like one of the bobble-heads people put on the dashboards of their car.
“Yeah,” she said, “I wanna see what it’s like. See what the big deal was.”
“Okay then, sweetie. One the count of three. One….”
“I love you, Mattie.”
“I love you, too baby.”
“You said two.”
Mona’s eyes sparkled and she winked at Matt, who smiled back.
“Did not. I said too, not two.”
“Same difference.”
“Two….”
“Now you’re just repeating yourself.”
“Three!”
The couple simultaneously swung the hammers that Mona had found in the shed behind the house after they’d killed Mary. The metal hit the heads of the spikes that their other hands held in position, but the metallic ting was overpowered by the bloodcurdling scream that blasted from Earl’s wide mouth. His eyelids flew open as the sharp tips of the nails rammed through his hands but by then Matt and Mona had already swung again. The nails thudded further into the same tabletop that they’d found Darlene Honnicker impaled to and Earl tried to yank his hands away from the torture that burned within them. But it was too late: he was securely staked to the butchers block table and the action did nothing more than send bolts of agony racing along his arms.
“So,” Matt asked as he stepped back to admire their handiwork, “what do you think?”
“I don’t know…. I mean, it goes with the room and all. But it’s just not my style, you know? I’m just not into the whole shabby-chic thing.”
Matt shrugged and picked up the red can that sat by his feet.
“Yeah, I can see what you mean. It seems… I don’t know, kind of like American Gothic meets The Scream. Interesting conversation piece, for certain. But, in the end, it’s just not us.”
As he spoke, Matt walked around the room, liberally splashing gasoline on the floor and table. He walked out of the room backwards, leaving a wet trail to mark his passing and continued through the bedroom and into the hall. When the can was nearly empty, he screwed off the little spout, returned to the windowless room, and doused the rest over Earl’s flailing body. The fumes were sharp and pungent and wavered in the air like heat in the desert. Almost immediately, he and Mona began coughing as their eyes watered with tears.
“Come on, Mattie… let’s blow this joint.”
Mona slipped her arm around Matt’s shoulder and allowed him to pick her up as if she were a bride being carried across the threshold. Kissing him gently on the cheek, she glanced down at her bandaged leg and smiled.
“If I’d known I would get this type of treatment, I would’ve got myself stabbed in the leg a long time ago.”
Matt carried her down the stairs, opened the front door, and set her gently onto the porch. Turning back toward the house, he removed a disposable lighter from the pocket of his parka while his wife handed him the container they’d prepared earlier. It was an old Coca Cola bottle from a time when they’d still been made from glass, and the couple had carefully siphoned the amber liquid from the gas can into it. Then it’d been stuffed with strips of rags and left to wait on the porch for them like a faithful puppy.
Flicking the wheel of the lighter, Matt held the yellow flame to the gas-soaked rags which immediately caught ablaze. As clouds of black smoke billowed from the improvised wick, he leaned back inside the front door and stared intently at the top of the stairs. Then, with an expression of grim determination he lobbed the molotov into the house.
It arced upward and smashed into the upstairs wall. Almost immediately there was a loud whoosh and a fireball shot down the staircase like breath from a dragon. A blast of heat washed over them, but by then Mona was already leaning against Matt.
“Mind if you use me as a crutch?” he asked. “My arms are pretty damn tired.”
“What? Are you saying I’m fat? Is that what you’re saying? That I have a fat ass?”
Her tone was light and cheerful as she leaned against her husband and draped one arm over his shoulder. Curling his arm around her waist, Matt helped Mona limp across the porch and down the front steps.
“You got to understand, I hauled that giant bastard all the way…”
“Oh, so now it’s a giant bastard, is it? I may have put on a little weight, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call it giant.”
“You dork.”
“I’m your dork.”
She pecked him on the cheek again and by the time they’d made it to the police cruiser, the air was thick was the scent of burning wood. They could hear the fire roar behind them as it hungrily devoured the old wood amid sharp pops and crackles.
“We’ll need to ditch this thing first chance.” Mona commented. “I’d say the cop who owned it is probably dead.”
