Mountain Madness (17 page)

The girl’s first shriek, one of surprise at the crude plastic surgery, the nose job from Hell, ended when the pain, which had to be tremendous, kicked in. Her shriek became an ear-piercing wail. For a second, the blood didn’t drip, it poured, as if Dave had opened some ghoulish faucet on her face. The girl reached her free hand to the stub, probably meaning to hold in the blood, but ended up brushing against the raw wound and only hurting herself worse.

Georgie screamed too, and Manny had gone crazy. He hopped from side to side, a nonstop stream of barks pouring out of his muzzle while the blood continued pouring similarly from his former mistress.

Dave looked at Georgie and didn’t have to say anything.

“Oh my God,” Georgie said, “I’m so sorry.”

Dave couldn’t tell for sure but thought the kid might be crying. Just a little. Dave knew the words weren’t directed at him, that Georgie was apologizing to the girl, and that was just about enough to make him want to knock him down again, but he played it cool. “Apology accepted. But you’d better start helping me out here, bud, or it’ll be more of the same.”

Georgie glared at him, and Dave knew the look well. If Georgie’d had a weapon, he’d have used it on Dave, would have used it to the death if it came to that. After this was all over, Dave and Georgie would have to do some serious talking. He didn’t want Georgie thinking he was the bad guy. He was only doing what was necessary. Surely Georgie would see that once they had a chance to sort it all out, but Dave didn’t have time to explain anything now.

“You wearing a belt?” he asked.

Georgie shook his head.

“Hey, girlie.” He shook the girl and turned her partway around so she could look into his face. “You got any kinda leash inside?”

The girl wouldn’t look at him. She’d quit screaming but started bawling. Her mouth opened wide, and the blood from her nose dripped into it, across her teeth and the tip of her tongue.

Dave shook her again and sensed Manny’s charge soon enough to pull himself out of the way like he was his own matador’s cape. The dog flipped over in the air and landed on his side in the dirt. He scrambled back to his feet and resumed his bark-a-thon, but he didn’t try another rush.

“Get inside the house,” he said to Georgie. “Find a hunk of rope or something. Anything. Take the sheets off their bed if you have to. I want Manny tied up until we can get him calmed down.”

Georgie stood still, but Dave didn’t think he’d dare defy him for long, and he was right. Still holding his head with one hand, Georgie gritted his teeth and moved.

“I know you’re still a touch confused,” Dave said, “but don’t you go thinking anything stupid inside that house. Get me? If you’re not back in five minutes, I’ll start with the rest of her nose.”

The girl wiggled in his grasp, and he squeezed her that much more tightly, his second knife still sandwiched between his hand and her arm.

Georgie limped past him, shoe clapping, and Dave grinned.

Manny whimpered. He was a good dog. Dave couldn’t blame him for what had happened here today. After all, they hadn’t seen each other in twenty-three years. He’d get the dog some good snacks—maybe a steak or a roast—and they’d be buddies again before the next afternoon.

The hand the girl had scratched tingled a little. He looked down at it—red but not bleeding—and wondered about his face.

It wouldn’t especially matter if he had scars, he guessed, but that didn’t mean he wanted them if he could avoid it. Vitamin E was supposed to help. He remembered that from his mom, who’d always kept a bottle of the capsules in the cabinet over the fridge. Dave had no vitamin E now, but it wasn’t exactly plutonium, he’d get his hands on some sooner or later.

Manny quieted but continued to stare at Dave and his hostage. The dog’s eyes glowed a little, reflecting light from somewhere, though Dave didn’t know enough about such things to tell from where. The stars maybe, or the couple of lights on in the house? Who knew? Regardless, the glowing eyes creeped him out. Dave tried to remember if the original Manny’s eyes had done the same thing but couldn’t.

“It’s okay, buddy,” he said. “I’m here to take you home.”

The dog cocked his head and bared his teeth, but only for a second. The girl’s sobs intensified.

“I’ll get you a ball that fits your mouth,” he said, frowning at the girl.

He looked at the house. Georgie should have returned by now. He readjusted his grip on both the knife and the girl and touched the point of the blade to the girl’s throat.

“Scream,” he said.

She sobbed and tried to say something Dave couldn’t make out.

“Don’t talk,” he said, poking her hard enough to draw a bead of blood. “Just scream, or I’ll give you something to scream about.”

He expected something pathetic, a croak or a soft moan, but what he got instead was the product of what had to have been the most powerful set of lungs in all of existence. The screech exploded out of the girl’s throat, and after a second, the echo came rippling back at him from the distant mountains.

Not bad
, he thought but didn’t say. He removed the blade from her throat.

Georgie tore out of the house, a long red cord dangling from his fist. He ran at them fast but slowed when he got close enough to see Dave had inflicted no further damage.

“I found a leash,” Georgie said angrily. “Now let her go.”

Dave remembered the way the boy’s voice had sounded in the kitchen that afternoon: high-pitched, girly. He didn’t sound that way now. His voice was as low and commanding as Dave’s own.

“Put it on the dog,” Dave said, not letting go of the girl’s arm.

Georgie did, and Dave was thankful Manny didn’t fight him, didn’t try to pull away or snap at Georgie. In fact, the dog almost seemed happy about the leash, associated it with going on walks probably.

“Wanna go for a walk?” Dave asked, inspired, trying to sound like the good guy he was.

Manny’s tail wagged so slightly that it was almost impossible to see. Dave guessed that neither the girl nor Georgie saw it at all with their comparatively poor eyes.

“Yeah,” Dave said. “We’re going for a nice long walk.”

He let go of the girl, and so much visible tension left Georgie’s body that the kid almost appeared to have fallen asleep standing.

“We’re gonna need a head start,” he said, looking carefully at Georgie. “I don’t suppose you cut the phone lines for me in there.”

“Uh, ye—” Georgie started but then seemed to think better of it. “No,” he admitted.

“Didn’t think so. Then I guess this is your fault.” And without warning, he whacked the girl in the back of her head. She dropped flat on her face, still breathing but otherwise motionless.

Manny barked, and Georgie screamed, “No!”

“Come on,” Dave said. “Lead us back where we came from. The night’s not over yet.” He could tell Georgie wanted to disobey, wanted to hurt him, but the boy finally clutched the leash and walked away from the fallen girl. Dave slipped his knives back into his pockets.

Manny didn’t want to leave at first, fought hard to get back to the spot where his former mistress lay, but Georgie finally got him moving, and the three of them walked up the dandelion hill together.

—:—:—:—

Beth opened her eyes some time later. Dirt filled her mouth, muddied by the blood still oozing from her savaged nose. She spat and tried scraping her tongue on her shirt, but the taste remained. Sitting up, she looked at the trees where the man and the boy, Georgie, had come from. They had disappeared, and Alfred with them.

More tears came, but she fought them. She had to get help first. It might not be too late. She would have time for crying later.

Straining only a little, she got onto her feet and hurried into the house.

Before she reached the kitchen phone, she noticed the wooden block where they kept their knives. It was tipped onto its side, and one of the slots, the biggest one where the butcher knife should have been, was empty. The phone lay on the counter, the cord curling back up to the base, which was screwed to the wall. The phone beeped a disconnected signal.

He tried calling for help
, she thought.
Probably didn’t get through before that maniac made me scream for him.

She picked up the phone, tapped the disconnect switch to get a dial tone, and then poked at the keypad.

While she waited for someone to pick up on the other end, she moved to the sink to wash the gore from her face. A woman’s voice came on the line and asked her what her emergency was. Beth spoke, and the words poured out of her mouth like blood from a whittled nose.

EIGHTEEN

DAVE STOOD OVER
the chopping stump, halving logs and then quartering them. Mr. Boots sat on a pile of already-split wood with a burlap sack between his feet, watching, silent. Dave wasn’t sure what he had in the bag, but it was moving.

Chop. Chop. Chop.

Dave had been counting the number of logs. He was up to forty. If he got to fifty and Mr. Boots hadn’t told him to quit, he’d ask if he was done. He might get smacked in the head for it, but he might also get a smack if he
didn’t
ask. With Mr. Boots, it was always hard to know the right thing to do.

Chop. Chop. Chop. Forty-one.

Chop. Chop. Chop.

“That’s enough,” Mr. Boots said. He got up and helped Dave stack the new wood with the rest. He left the squirming bag in the dirt.

When they had stacked everything Dave had split, Mr. Boots stood with his hand on the boy’s shoulder and stared off into the woods, sometimes stroking his beard, sometimes only breathing heavily and blinking.

After five years, Dave had learned not to interrupt these silences. He might have to stand here for an hour, tired from the chopping and ready to collapse but too scared to move. Moving too soon would mean a lashing.

“You reckon there’s anything worse than death?” Mr. Boots finally said.

Dave didn’t remember everything from his old life, but he was sure there hadn’t been these kinds of questions, these kinds of tests.

“I don’t know.” It was his usual answer.

Mr. Boots turned his attention from the woods to the boy. “There is,” he said. “There’s plenty of worse things.”

“Okay.”

Mr. Boots took his hand off Dave’s shoulder and picked up the burlap sack. He untied a length of twine from the bunched top and reached inside.

The rabbit he pulled out looked like it should have been dead. One of its hind legs was gone. The ragged, gaping wound where it had been dripped blood and strings of fatty tissue. Its eyes were black, unreadable. But it wasn’t dead; it was foaming at the mouth and trying to bite and scratch at Mr. Boots’s hand and arm.

“What happened?”

“Dunno,” Mr. Boots said. “Found it like this. Maybe a coyote.”

Dave wasn’t sure he believed that. He gulped.

“You think Mr. Bunny wants to live this-a-way?”

I don’t think he
can
live like that
, Dave thought.
Not much longer anyway.
But he didn’t say anything, only shook his head.

“This right here is worse than death. We’re gonna help this creature best we can.” He nodded his head toward the ax.

Dave said he understood and went to get the ax. He pulled it out of the stump and held it out to Mr. Boots.

Mr. Boots smiled. “No, boy. You’re gonna do it.”

“Wha…me?”

Mr. Boots nodded.

“Can’t you? Please? I don’t want to.”

“I know you don’t.” He laughed, brought the animal to the stump, and pressed it against the scarred wood.

“Don’t try nothing funny,” he said. “If I catch you eyeing my arm instead of this thing’s neck, that wood won’t be the only thing gets split today.”

Dave closed his eyes and shook his head. “Please.”

“Trust me now,” Mr. Boots said. “If you don’t do this, you’ll be all kinds of regretful.” He nodded toward the squirming animal and made a chopping motion with his free hand. “Let’s go.”

Dave stepped up to the stump. The animal writhed, scratched at the wood with its remaining hind leg. It turned its head toward him. Its black, tar-drop eyes flicked back and forth, not seeming to see anything at all.

“It’s hurtin’,” Mr. Boots said. “See that?”

So you left it tied in a bag all this time?

Dave raised the ax over his shoulder.

Mr. Boots nodded.

Kill him. Forget the rabbit. Kill Mr. Boots.

Dave considered it, but the idea of swinging the ax into Mr. Boots’s neck made his hands tremble. He wasn’t sure he could pull it off. And if he tried and failed…well, he couldn’t risk it. He wasn’t sure what Mr. Boots would do to him, but he knew what the man had done for much less severe disobediences. Knew. Remembered. Sometimes cried about.

And although the thought of slaughtering the animal was repulsive, disgusting, wrong, Dave was also a little curious. What would happen when he cut off the thing’s head? Would it die immediately? Or would it hop and kick and squirm until the blood drained out? Would it scream? And what if he chopped only partway through? Or wiggled the ax back and forth through each bone and strip of sinew? Slowly. Carefully. What if he really savored it?

Savored? Seriously? What’s wrong with me?

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t,” he said.

And before he could open his eyes, Mr. Boots had wrapped a hand around his throat and started squeezing.

“You can,” he said. “And you’d better.”

His fingers flexed, squeezed, choked. Dave’s throat burned, and his eyes watered, and when he dropped the ax and tried to pry the fingers loose, he found he couldn’t move them an inch. He opened one eye, saw Mr. Boots still holding the rabbit against the stump.