“May be stupid,… ‘least I ain’t fat and ugly.”
Earl glared as his hands balled into fists and the red glow of the taillights seemed to be the fires of Hell raging just beneath his skin. His jaw was clenched so tightly that it was almost as if he were trying to keep these flames from shooting from an opened mouth and incinerating his little brother on the spot. His massive frame trembled with what could have either been either the cold bite of the air or repressed pressure building up within.
“Look numbnuts,” he finally spat, “just turn on the damn flashlight. I’m cold and tired and not in the mood for any more of your shit.”
Daryl patted the pockets of his coveralls like a man who just realized he’d misplaced his wallet. His eyes shifted from his brother to the darkness of the forest that surrounded them before his shoulders drooped.
“I… I’ll go get it. I left it in the…”
“Sweet Jesus, you retard! Can’t you do anything right?”
“I said I’d go get…”
“You just never mind. I’ll get the damn thing myself.”
Earl stormed around the truck, his stream of mumbled curses muffled by the shuffle of feet that cleared snow out of their way like a plow. Throwing open the driver’s door, he saw the Maglite instantly. It was half burrowed into the crack between the bench seats and the backrest and he snatched it so quickly that it almost seemed as if the man thought it were trying to get away from him.
Glancing back through the rear window, Earl saw Daryl hopping from one foot to the other as he rubbed his forearms with gloved hands.
“I’ll teach ya to fuck with me, you little pansy.”
And, with that statement, Earl pushed in the little knob that turned off the truck’s lights.
Darkness rushed in from all sides like a ravenous pack of animals. At the same time a shriek cut through the night. The shrill sound came in short, quick bursts and rattled with the force of terror. In the blackness, it was all too easy to imagine that the cries were coming from a frightened, young girl instead of a full-grown man.
Earl closed his eyes as the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile. If anyone had been present to observe the way he stood with his head cocked slightly to the side, they may have mistaken him for a man lost in the appreciation of a particularly moving piece of classical music. He held this pose for close to a minute before snapping on the flashlight and returning to the rear of the truck.
Before he’d even closed half the distance, Daryl scrambled into the narrow beam of the Maglite like a moth hopped up on speed. His cheeks glistened with a sheen of tears and his eyes were wide and bloodshot as clouds of breath belched from his quivering lips. The younger brother had his hands cupped over his groin, as if expecting to be kicked at any moment, and he almost seemed to cower in the safety of the flashlight like a beaten animal.
“What the….”
Earl wrinkled his nose as his nostrils were stung by a sharp, pungent stench.
“Did you piss your damn self again?”
Daryl whimpered softly and recoiled from the force of the words hurled at him.
“You little fuckin’ pussy. Pissing yourself like a baby.”
“You know I don’t like the dark, Earl. You know it.”
“I got half a mind to make you ride home in the back… what’cha think of that, you candy-ass son of a bitch?”
“I couldn’t help it.” Daryl’s voice raised in pitch as he pleaded with this brother. “Why the hell did you turn of the lights anyway, Earl? Why’d ya do that? You know how I am and…”
“Shut your booger hole and take the damn light, you stupid piece of shit.”
Earl thrust the flashlight at his brother and for a moment the younger man seemed almost afraid to touch it; he reached forward and then pulled his hand back as if expecting the black cylinder to come alive and strike at him. He looked from the beefy hand wrapped around its base to the scowl of the man at the other end of those arms and blinked back the tears which still shimmered in his eyes.
“I said fucking take it!”
Without further hesitation, Daryl snatched the Maglite from Earl’s grasp and held it close to his chest like some sort of magic talisman. Relief brought color back to his face and he wiped away the film of ice that was beginning to form from the tears with the back of his hand. At the same time, Earl returned to the bed of the truck and hoisted the tarp over his shoulder with a grunt.
“Come on, wussy… let’s get this shit over with.”
Now that they were back on familiar territory, Daryl’s heart began to slow its breakneck rhythm and his labored breathing started to even out. The surge of fear had momentarily overridden all other sensations: he had known only the fluttering of panic deep within his stomach, the tenseness of muscles that felt as if they had been pulled so tightly that they were mere seconds from snapping, and the feeling of that he had somehow been reduced to the size of a small child. But now that the adrenaline was receding, Daryl became aware of the chill that seeped into the wet stains on his coveralls and his face warmed with shame. He’d have to do better, have to really pull his own weight. He needed to show Earl that he wasn’t some sniveling little coward, needed to remind him that he was capable of….
“Just up this path a bit. Almost there.”
The two had walked into the woods, Earl leading the way with the blue canvas draped over his shoulder and Daryl bringing up the rear. The flashlight bobbed and weaved in the darkness, illuminating a narrow trail that had been beaten down into the snow. A few tracks could be made out and they were embedded into the packed down powder like molds: the split-toed hooves of deer, cat-like prints left by foxes, and even the large, perfectly circular toes of a black bear. But, for the most part, the game trail had been so widely traveled that the moisture had been squeezed out from the snow underfoot, creating a surface that was as slippery and treacherous as oiled glass.
The men inched forward with short, quick steps; perhaps it was the added weight, but the slick surface underfoot didn’t seem to have much effect on Earl. He headed deeper and deeper into the wilderness with the confidence of one who’d been born into the ice and snow. Almost as if he knew Nature would never dare humiliate him with another tumble into the cold. Daryl, however, didn’t fare quite as well: several times he felt as though he were the dinner plates in a parlor trick as the tablecloth was yanked out from beneath him. He slid, pinwheeled his arms for balance as the flashlight splayed crazily over the trunks of trees, and cursed to himself in the darkness. As long as he held the flashlight within his hands, the panic was kept at bay; but, in his imagination, he saw the Maglite tumbling through the air as the safety of its beam spiraled away from his grasp. He imagined the black of night rushing in, squeezing him from all sides, suffocating him with like a wet towel around the face. As a result, his hands trembled more than what could be contributed by the freezing temperatures and the beam of light quivered as if it, too, were terrified of what might lay within the shadows and gloom.
Finally, the two came to a small clearing and Earl hoisted the tarp from his shoulder. He allowed it to thump into the snow and took a moment to catch his breath.
“Good enough.” he panted. “Don’t have to go any further.”
Daryl eyed the trees and underbrush circling them as if he expected some vile and twisted creature to leap out at any moment.
“You sure? I mean, we ain’t been walkin’ but ten minutes and…”
“You want dry pants or not?”
Daryl nodded his head and snapped his mouth shut.
“Okay, then… as far as Mama knows we went the whole twenty minutes, okay?”
Rather than waiting for a reply, the man grasped one end of the blue canvass in his meaty mists and, without hesitation or ceremony, gave it a sharp pull. The rolled up canvas spun away from him like toilet paper across the bathroom floor, growing smaller with each revolution, until it was laid out flat against the forest floor.
Now that it had been unfurled, the body that had been wrapped tightly within its confines stared up at clouds the color of dirty cotton with eyes that would never see again. Its flesh was pale and bruised and sections hung from the carcass like tattered ribbons. The thing’s mouth was opened in a silent scream and barbed wire coiled around the skull like some sort of grisly gag. The little twists of metal dimpled the skin around the cheeks and the corners of the lips and dried trickles of blood surrounded the punctures like rust stains. Constellations of stab wounds dotted the torso and a wide gash curved across the stomach as if someone had attempted to carve a smile into the thing’s gut. Below this was the severed stump of a penis, cut so cleanly that it looked as if the organ had
