Gone. When Tab gets back to the cabin that night, Carl and the canoe are gone. Tab sits at the edge of the river, throwing handfuls of sticks, pine needles and dirt into the water. The moon is a bright pearl through the trees. A female moose splashes clumsily through the water thirty yards upstream.
Tab stands and brushes debris from his pants. When he looks downriver, he sees the black silhouette of a familiar shape. The canoe. Floating upstream against the steady current. Tab squints, shields his eyes from the glare of the moon. The canoe is empty. Tab steps back, away from the shore as the canoe glides to a stop where he’d sat. It rocks gently from side to side as tiny ripples of water slap against its hull.
Is this a trick? Tab looks down the shore as far as he can. Is Carl just out of sight, laughing? But Tab sees no one, hears no movement.
“Carl!” he yells. He cups his hands around his mouth. “Carl!” His voice echoes through the forest, the cry of a wounded bird.
The canoe slowly turns in the water, its bow pointing downriver, yet maintains its place despite the pull of the current.
“Carl!”
Tab steps toward the canoe. He cautiously leans over it. There is only the paddle, yet its blade rests in a pool of dark liquid. Blood? It is hard to tell in only the moonlight, but if it’s blood—
“Carl!” Desperate now. “Carl! Please answer!”
Nothing.
He steps warily into the canoe’s stern. It wobbles, but Tab holds out his arms and the canoe steadies. He sits carefully. Picks up the paddle. Holds it close to his face and smells the blade. Is it blood?
The canoe slips slowly from shore and the current grabs hold. Tab sits frozen in place, barely able to breath, remembering the bullets, the blood of his mother and father, remembering the moment his baby brother became still in his arms…
“No!” he cries.
He lifts the paddle. Sticks it hard in the water. If the canoe is to take him somewhere, than he’ll be the one to guide it, to conform it to his own pace.
Sweat. Paddle. Propelling forward through the thin, rusty river.
How much loss can a man take?
He paddles on one side, then the other, determined to find his son.
Sweat. Muscles screaming.
We’ll talk. About where I come from. What he means to me. We’ll talk, father and son, and we’ll fish and canoe together. I won’t be afraid to share my pain with him. He’ll understand. We’ll be friends. We’ll be together. We will survive.
A wooden flute. Voices through the trees. Tab feels eyes all around piercing his skin. He sees torch-light in the distance.
Murmuring. Whispers. His paddling has no effect on the canoe. It slows. Drifts.
Altar. On the river. The cold, rusty river.
The canoe turns toward shore.
Chanting. The sound of the flute close by. Figures in black robes appear and pull the canoe onto gravel. The gravel scrapes the aluminum hull like bony fingers.
“Where is my son?” Tab asks, his voice unable to conceal his fear.
Pale arms appear from beneath the black robes and lift him from the canoe. He struggles, but has little strength left. They carry him to an altar made from rough planks of knotted pine and lay him on his back.
“Stop this,” Tab says. “I just want my son.”
They secure his wrists and ankles to the altar with copper wire. Stuff a rag in his mouth.
The chanting intensifies. Tab grows dizzy. This can’t be real.
A figure leans over Tab and pulls back a deep, black hood.
Carl.
He pulls the rag out of his father’s mouth.
“Carl,” Tab whispers. “You don’t have to do this. Please. I have so much to tell you. So much you need to know.” He’ll tell him of Cambodia, of the Mekong, the family who died there. He’ll show Tab the bullet wounds on his back and shoulder. Then he’ll understand. He’ll see how much his father loves him.
“We can survive this,” Tab whispers. “You and me.” He smiles encouragement at his son. Nods. “We’ll survive.”
Carl blinks. Slowly stands. He pulls the hood back over his head, his face disappearing in shadow.
“I don’t want to survive, Father.” He steps back. “I want to belong.” He lifts an axe high into the air. “
Swallowed
Rick Lamont looked down the rusty barrel of the shotgun shoved in his mouth. He tried not to gag, but the taste of it, the feel of rust flaking off on his tongue, the scrape of metal between his teeth forced his tongue to jerk the barrel up against the roof of his mouth. His throat spasmed as he took a step backward.
Rough hands grabbed his shoulders from behind. “Stop squirming.”
He fought against the panic. Shifted his jaw back and forth over the gun’s barrel. Let himself choke a bit so that he could concentrate on breathing through his nose. Concentrate on ignoring that awful taste.
He was cold. His shirt was soaked with sweat and the night air was a frozen hand pressing it to his skin.
He didn’t know what time it was. Hell, it was almost closing time when he left the Slaughterville Roadhouse. Almost closing time when he opened his car door and…
And then nothing. And then here he was.
With these two.
He had no idea who they were.
The one in front spoke, the voice harsh and murderous.
“Why’d you fuck her?”
He tried shaking his head, but with the shotgun lodged between his teeth, mashing down his tongue, he could barely do that. His lips closed around the barrel trying to form the word ‘No’ but the only sound that came out was half moan, half wheeze.
“Don’t lie to me.”
The beam of a flashlight struck his eyes. The rough hands of the man behind him moved from his shoulders to his throat, the fingernails digging painfully into his goose-pimpled flesh.
“He’s lying, Silver. He’s lying.” The voice behind him was like a mosquito in his ear, the breath hot and putrid.
Silver.
The name was familiar.
Too familiar.
Tears streamed down the sides of Rick’s nose, falling off his cheeks and collecting on his upper lip, making it that much harder to breath.
He’d heard stories of Silver. Stories that would make even a cop cringe. He’d seen Silver’s aftermath. The bandages, the casts, the thick white scars that ran like snakes down the flesh of those unfortunate enough to cross him.
But what have I done? Fucked
He wanted to say You got the wrong guy, wanted to say I don’t know what you’re talking about, but he
