Brother (2 page)

When he got to the top of the hill, he could already hear her strangled, struggling breaths. She scrambled up to what she hoped was escape, crying and trying to pray while she gasped for air, muttering something about “God” and “help.” Ducking behind the trunk of an oak, he watched her climb the hill. She spun around and looked down at the valley below her, empty of any pursuer, but also devoid of any roads or houses or clues of which way she should run. But that didn't seem to matter. The terror on her face blossomed into hope. She had outrun her attackers; she had saved herself. Soon, she'd be a face on the news, giving interviews about how some charming guy in a brown Oldsmobile had picked her up while she'd been hitching along State Road 10. That was when her abductor had grabbed her by the back of the head and slammed her face into the dash. The car was a '68 coupe; the dashboard was a solid slab of steel. It was a wonder Reb hadn't killed her. When she had fallen back against the passenger seat, unconscious, Michael was surprised her nose hadn't been shoved right up into her brain.

Michael hated chasing down the ones who managed to break away, hated how he extinguished the flash of dogged optimism that sparked in their eyes. He couldn't stand the way they looked at him, as though he'd walked in on a private moment. He despised the way their eyes grew to twice their original size and their mouths worked the air, as though chewing invisible food. He liked it better when they died in the yard, where all he had to deal with was an unblinking stare and a slashed throat. People were much easier to deal with when they were dead.

He gritted his teeth and stepped out from behind the tree.

The girl saw him, her reaction just as he had predicted—­terror, disbelief. Her eyes bulged out of her head, the skin beneath them purple half-moons of blood. When her mouth fell open, Michael saw that Reb's little move in the car had broken one of her front teeth in half. She began to gobble the air, backing away, struggling for breath, her bound hands held out in front of her to fend him off.

Michael squeezed his eyes shut and moved in.

Once upon a time, he had convinced himself that chasing girls would get easier, that he'd get used to it and these moments wouldn't affect him. He was waiting for autopilot, a way to disconnect himself from his emotions, a way to make his eyes glaze over like Wade's seemed to. He was tired of seeing the shock, the fear, the dread. But it had been years at this point. Autopilot had yet to come.

His eyes snapped open when he heard her run again. But instead of bolting after her, Michael wondered whether the Morrows really would disown him if he returned empty-handed. For a good five seconds, he considered letting her go. The girl staggered away from him, her bare feet bloody, dead leaves clinging to the sticky bottoms like makeshift shoes. But the sixth second brought clarity. If he let her escape, he was sealing his own fate. She'd come back with the police. The cops would arrest the Morrows like they had those guys Rebel had read about in the paper and idolized so much—Mr. Bundy and that Gacy fellow, John Wayne.

He fell into a sprint.

She screamed.

He caught her by the right shoulder and spun her around in mid-run, her legs folding beneath her. She hit the ground hard, crying out in pain. But she didn't give up—she kicked her legs to propel herself away from him, performing an armless crabwalk across the forest floor. Michael reached down to catch her by the wrists, but she coiled up and shoved her feet hard against his chest. He stumbled, surprised by the force of her kick. He reached for her again, but she pulled the same move, leaving him stunned as she shrieked for help that both of them knew wouldn't come.

“
Get away from me!
 ” she wailed. “
Get away, you fucking freak
!
 ”

She rolled onto her side and scrambled to her feet, but she was in agony. As soon as she stood, Michael noticed her right arm hanging limp at her side, looking broken. Whimpering with every step, which was now little more than a desperate jog, she looked like a runner at the twentieth mile of a marathon. She was exhausted but determined to keep going, pulled forward by the promise of a finish line. Except this finish line was at the foot of the Morrow's back porch steps.

Michael followed her easily, walking behind her as though the two of them were taking an early morning stroll. She shot a glance at him over her shoulder, looked away, and began to sob. It was a distinct cry, hopeless and empty, torn from the chest of the walking dead.

He wanted to place his hand on her shoulder, to tell her that it would be okay, that Momma usually made it quick. But he doubted the girl wanted such reassurance. Lost in his thoughts, he hardly noticed when she slowed, paid no mind to the fact that he had cut the distance between them in half. She swung around to face him, threw her bound arms over his head, and opened her mouth as wide as she could, ready to tear his throat out with her teeth. Michael jumped back, but she moved with him. He grabbed her by the elbows and gave her a shove, feeling the duct tape pull hard against the back of his neck before tearing free. The girl fell, stared at her now-free arms, and, despite her dislocated shoulder, began to scramble again. Michael jumped on top of her, no longer in the mood to draw things out. The girl released a garbled scream, whipping her good arm in his face, her fingers bent into a claw. She slashed his cheek with her nails. Kicked her legs beneath him as hard as she could. Michael managed to pin down the girl's arms and render her helpless, fascinated by how much fight she still had.

There was no way to get her back to the house like this, not with her thrashing around the way she was. He moved his knees one at a time, crushing her fighting hand into the damp earth, and caught sight of a stone within arm's reach. He grabbed for it, sunk his fingers into the ground, and unearthed a three-pound monster, grubs and worms squirming in the pale indigo light of the morning.

Someone yelled in the not-so-far distance, though Michael couldn't make out the words over the girl's constant wail.

When he hefted the rock up over his head, she stopped fighting, as if suddenly coming to terms with her fate. He was caught off guard by her stillness. Her face was red and puffy with tears, the bags beneath her eyes now horrible black bruises, her teeth smeared with blood. And yet somehow, at that very moment, she struck him as angelic—a beautiful girl who probably looked a lot like Momma had when she had been that young. The girl stared up at Michael with a look that left him dumbfounded, as though she was seeing God.

“Why are you doing this?” she whimpered.

Michael's chest constricted. His fingers tightened around the stone. He wanted to explain that it wasn't him, that he had no choice. But all he could manage was: “Because I've got to.”

And then he brought the rock down against her head.

Wade and Rebel crested the hill just as the stone rolled from Michael's grasp and onto the ground.

“Shit!” Reb spit out, charging forward. “What're you tryin' to do, kill her?” He shoved Michael away from the girl with an impatient hand, leaned down, and pressed two fingers against her neck to feel for a pulse. A moment later, he shot Michael an aggravated look. “You're lucky,” he murmured. “You think you let her run far enough?”

Wade's hand fell onto Michael's shoulder. That distant look was still in his eyes, but three words rolled smoothly off his tongue: “Good job, son.” He patted Michael on the shoulder, then turned to make his way back to the house.

Michael watched him go before casting a look at his brother. When their gazes met, Reb rolled his eyes at their old man's back.

“Goddamn loon,” Reb muttered. “Bring her back.” He stepped away from the unconscious girl. “And you better hope Claudine don't care you're bringin' her back half-dead neither. I ain't taking blame for this.” He sidestepped Michael to follow their father, murmuring beneath his breath.

Michael looked back at the girl splayed out on the forest floor. Her breathing was shallow but steady. He had knocked her out pretty good, but there was no telling how long she'd stay under.

“I'm sorry,” he told her, then he hefted her onto his shoulders.

The next time he'd be alone with her they'd be down in the cellar.

The next time he'd see her, she'd be undeniably dead.

M
ICHAEL WAS SPRAYING
down the cellar floor with a garden hose when Reb appeared at the top of the stairs. Diverting his attention from the spirals of watery red that circled a rusty drain in the floor, Michael looked up at his older brother. The narrow stairwell that flanked the sagging wooden steps shadowed Reb's hard, angular features. Michael had never said so before, but Reb looked a lot like a bird—the kind that used their hooked beaks to pick apart roadkill. A vulture, especially when he glared, and that was something Reb did a lot.

Rebel crossed his arms over his chest. His stance reeked of impatience, as if to suggest that Michael was taking way too long with this girl—first with the rundown, and now the disposal.

“Are you done or what?” he asked.

Michael gave the floor a final once-over with the hose and hung it on a metal hook jutting out of the wall, the spray attachment dripping onto a concrete floor.

“Pretty much,” Michael said. “What's goin' on?”

“We're goin' on a run,” Reb told him. “Hurry up.” He was trying to sound casual, but Michael picked it up in his tone. They hadn't gone on a booze run in nearly a week. Reb was drying out.

“Gimme a minute,” Michael told him. “Just gotta lock up.” He wiped his cold, wet hands on the front of his jeans and stomped his boots against the floor to shake off some of the water that had soaked into the leather. Reb ducked out of the storm cellar without offering any help . . . something he didn't do for anyone. Sometimes Michael got the feeling that Rebel only spent time with him because he was fast enough to outrun any gas station clerk in West Virginia. Because when it came to true friendship, Michael had caught his brother rolling his eyes a hundred thousand times, as though Michael was the stupidest, most annoying person in the whole entire world. Misty called it sibling rivalry, and while Michael didn't know exactly what that was, he sure didn't like how it felt.

Climbing the creaky wooden staircase, Michael surfaced from underground. He needed to change out of his wet clothes. Crunching leaves beneath his boots, he let the propped-open storm doors fall shut with a crash, then slid the deadbolt into place. He hooked a padlock through a metal loop to secure the room below, then turned to go inside. The hose water had made his hands so cold that his fingers ached. But the blast of a car horn stopped him short before he could make it inside. Rebel hung out the window of the Delta. His left arm swept across the ugly metallic-brown paint while his right clung to the steering wheel. Reb had spotted the car at a junkyard near Lewisburg the year before. He and Michael had stolen it right off the lot, towed it out of there with Wade's old pickup truck. A bloodhound barked at them to stop, but the old boy never did make a move to protect his master's property. That dog was smart. It hadn't been willing to put in the effort it would take to defend little more than four bald tires and a pile of scrap. The Morrow boys had spent the rest of the night scratching VIN numbers off of body panels with chisels and screwdrivers. And while the Delta was in sorry shape at the time, Reb thought that it was a real find. A jewel among junk. All it needed was a little polish to make it shine.

“Where you goin'?” Rebel called out.

“To change,” Michael shot back, hooking a thumb toward the farmhouse behind him.

“Man, you couldn't change if your life depended on it. Let's go.”

Michael grimaced, but rather than arguing that his socks were squishing between his toes, he changed direction and wandered toward the car instead. Settling into the passenger seat, he sighed. They'd have to drive a good twenty miles one way to get to a suitable hit. As Rebel liked to say, you don't shit where you sleep.

 • • • 

The gas station sign read
MOE'S,
written across a metal awning that hung over two lonely pumps. A sign out front advertised
1.15
^REG
for a gallon of gas and
ICE COLD DRINKS
in capital letters, some of them crooked and ready to fall off the marquee. Reb made a couple of passes before pulling around the side of the building. It was a small, middle-of-nowhere stop that serviced maybe a dozen customers per day—tired, wayward strangers in need of a frosty TaB and a Hostess CupCake.

Michael slid out of the car, grabbing an old sweatshirt out of the backseat as he went. Pulling it on, he zipped it up and pushed his hands into the pockets across his stomach. He was trying to look casual as he took the corner and stepped across the bank of windows at the front of the store. A little bell chimed overhead when he pulled open the door.

The guy behind the cash register regarded him with dis­interest. A
Flash Gordon
rerun playing on his rabbit-eared television kept him distracted from what was more than likely his first customer of the day. The cashier looked to be in his late thirties or early forties, though it was hard to tell with that bushy Paul Bunyan beard. He hunched his square shoulders forward as he sat on his stool, peering at the TV so intently that it looked more like he was studying the show than watching it for fun.

Michael avoided eye contact as he wandered down the center aisle. Chips and pretzels were to his right. Cans of motor oil and replacement fan belts to his left. He veered right when he reached the wall cooler at the back of the store. The hard liquor was on an end cap across from the Pabst and Schlitz. There wasn't much to choose from, but Reb didn't care what it was as long as it got him drunk. In shitkicker stores like this one, it didn't pay to be picky.