And the car kept moving, bouncing slowly over the dirt road. How much farther would it go? How much time did I have?
Curled on my side, moving my arm up and down, I listened to the grinding jack rise, feeling the sweat pour off me, feeling it soak my clothes.
The jack touched the ceiling of the trunk. Again, new hope, new strength went through me. I kept pumping—harder, then even harder as the trunk lid resisted the rising jack. I felt the metal of the lid begin to buckle and dent. I heard it. Would the driver hear it? No, not over the noise of the road. I gritted my teeth. I pumped harder. Now the lid had bent as far as it would go. Now the metal held, resisting. I pressed down on the iron. It seemed to press back up against me, refusing to budge. I leaned on it, grunting, lifting my body off the trunk floor, pressing down with all my weight.
The latch snapped. The lid flew up. The trunk sprang open.
The driver must have seen it. The car stopped at once, stopped hard. At the same time, light—blue evening light—and air—cool evening air—washed in over me, and by some magic chemical reaction all the terror and hope and desperation inside me turned instantly into a killing rage.
I grabbed the tire iron. Yanked it free of the jack. Climbed out of the trunk and tumbled out onto the road.
I was in a forest of towering pines, the sky twilit above me. Everything was falling into silhouette as the daylight died.
I stumbled a few steps, then planted my feet on the rough dirt. I clutched the cold iron in my hand. I was weak and unsteady and drenched in sweat, but the fury was like lightning in me, one long blast of white-hot power, animating my failing flesh.
I saw the dark shape of the car door coming open, framed against the low glow of the car’s running lights. I saw the dark shape of the thug rising out from behind the wheel. An animal cry tore out of me and I rushed him.
He was halfway out of the car, half turned away from me with his hand still on the door, when I reached him and brought the iron down on his head. The blow wasn’t hard enough to knock him out but it stunned him. He threw his two hands up in self-defense and tried to stagger away.
I went after him, roaring. I hit him again. This time I only connected with his hand. I heard him make a noise. I saw something drop from his fingers. I heard the sound of plastic hitting the dirt. The Taser. He’d been planning to shock me again. To knock me out, keep me alive for the skeleton’s tortures. The jagged bolt of rage inside me danced with fresh fire. I roared—I couldn’t stop roaring—and swung the iron again.
He threw his arm up, blocked the blow. I could feel the strength in him: the muscle, the power. Even dazed as he was, he managed to wrap his arm around my arm and capture it, twist it, force me to drop the iron bar. At the same time, he tried to jab his free hand into my eyes. But we were close now—too close for blows. We grabbed hold of each other, spun away from the car, and tumbled down together into the dirt.
We rolled and clutched at each other in the glow of the running lights. He was too strong for me. Quickly, he had me wrapped up, held fast. He got around behind me, wrapped his arm around my throat. I had my chin tucked in to keep him from strangling me but he was forcing me down under him. Desperate, all I could do was keep my body loose, slither my arm out of his control, reach for a pressure point.
Just before he pinned me to the earth, I found it. My hand slipped between his thighs. I made a fist.
He grunted and his grip on me loosened. I pulled away but kept clutching him. In the thrashing force of his agony, he lashed an elbow into my temple. That made my head ring and knocked me away. I rolled across the dirt, a throbbing pain behind my eyes. But I was out of his clutches and I knew I only had seconds before he recovered. I had to rush. Had to get my best shot at him fast.
I rolled up onto my hands and knees. An owl hoo-hooed in the high pines. A wind whispered through the branches. I saw the tire iron in the dirt by the light of the car. I reached for it, wrapped my fingers around it.
The day had darkened even further now. The air was deep blue, except where the double beam of the running lights cut through it. The first stars were shining mistily above the crowns of the trees. I saw the thug’s silhouette in the road. I saw him bent over double, clutching his middle in pain, but still pushing his way to his feet.
I got up first, the iron in my hand. I leapt at him. Swung. The heavy metal hit the side of his head. Halfway to his feet, he grunted, staggered. I roared. I hit him in the head again. He stumbled down onto one knee, trying to keep his hand up in front of him. I brought the iron down overhand, smashing it into his well-groomed hair. He dropped onto his butt. He tried to crab-walk away, keeping his hand up. I hit him again, roaring, and hit him again and kept roaring and hit him again, and that last time, I felt something give—his skull: I felt it cave in under the blow and that was it, finally, he went down, not in stages, but dead weight, bang, to the ground. He lay there twitching violently.
Staggering with the force of that final swing, I lost my balance and sprawled onto the road beside him.
I lay in the dirt there, gasping, cursing, sobbing while the thug next to me spasmed and shuddered—a long time, it seemed like. Then he lay still.
The owl hooted again in the gathering dusk. I climbed slowly to my feet. Took two unsteady steps to the car. Grabbed hold of its opened door, leaned on it, trying to catch my breath.
I lifted my eyes to the forest around me. The pines stood straight and tall like shadow sentries. I followed the sound of the owl and saw him, high on a dead branch, a black shape against the indigo sky. A thin mist was rising from the ground, I noticed now. It swirled in the double gleam of the car lights. It rose above me and dimmed the light of the early stars. It grew luminous at the horizon line where the edge of the moon was just rising, a bright arc visible through the trunks of the trees.
I turned this way and that and turned again, but there was no other light in the woods that I could see.
I glanced at the killer. Not shuddering anymore. Motionless.
Still breathing hard, I lowered myself into the car.
It was a Chevy, old, maybe ten years old. The radio was playing low. A man singing, his voice grainy with yearning. A GPS glowed, mounted on the dashboard, but there was no course highlighted on it: This road was off the map. With the door open, the car’s top light was on. I could see my jacket lying on the passenger seat. I lifted it. My gun and holster were underneath. So was my wallet and my phone. So was the manila envelope I’d found behind the wainscoting at Samantha’s place.
I worked the holster on. Checked the gun: still loaded. I worked my jacket on. I slipped my wallet and the manila envelope into my pockets. Finally, I checked the phone. There was no signal out here in the middle of nowhere. Just as well, I thought. I didn’t plan on calling anyone. Who would I call? The cops? The cops weren’t going to stop Stark. By the time they got here, he’d be long gone. Even if he wasn’t, even if they caught him, even if they slung him behind bars for a while, that wouldn’t end it. Not for me. The skeleton-man would keep coming after me. He would keep sending his people, his thugs. I had killed his brother, the only thing on earth he loved. As long as he was alive, I would live in a world of waiting. Waiting for him to find me. Waiting for him to drag me into whatever hell of vengeance he could imagine. There would be no end to his vengeance. Not as long as he was alive.
I stood up out of the car. Peering down through the deepening darkness, I found the thug’s fallen Taser. I scooped it up, tossed it into the car. Then I went to the fallen thug. I squatted beside him. Pressed my fingers into his neck. No pulse. He was dead. Oh, well. I wasn’t all that fond of him anyway.
I came out of my squat and grabbed the corpse by the ankles. I dragged it around to the back of the car. It was a big corpse. Thick and heavy. It wasn’t easy to lift the flopping awkward weight of it and work it over the edge of the trunk. But I did it. The cadaver tumbled in. I took hold of the trunk lid. Before I closed it, I paused—just a second. I looked down at th
e body in the trunk—in the trunk where I had been just moments ago, tied up, helpless. I sneered at the thug lying dead in there, thinking about how he’d Tasered me and drugged me.
Fuck you, punk, I thought.
Then I closed the lid.
The trunk latch was broken now and wouldn’t catch but the lid stayed down. I walked back around the car. Lowered myself behind the wheel. Pulled the door shut after me.
Through the windshield, the headlights illuminated a few feet of dirt road. I could see the road beyond the glow, rising sharply up the forested hill. I took a breath. I knew that I was sick with fear and half-crazy with rage. But I didn’t care. I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to find Stark. I just wanted to put an end to him. I wanted to silence his voice in my head.
Count the minutes till it begins . . .
I put the car in gear and started up the road.
That’s right, I thought. Count the minutes, Stark.
9
The Cabin
I DROVE THE DIRT road climbed. It got steeper and began to wind and went on climbing. The moon rose, a full moon, misty and enormous, sometimes in the windshield, sometimes at the window as the road switchbacked. The moonlight shone on the standing pines, on a forest that seemed to go on forever all around me, vanishing from sight in the deep shadow that closed over the distance. I kept driving, up the hill.
I figured there’d be a place at the end of the road. I figured Stark would be waiting there. He’d be waiting for the car, expecting it. He’d be expecting the thug to bring me to him. I figured when he saw the car, he would think I was the thug and come out to greet me. I figured that’s when I would shoot him and put an end to this. That was my plan anyway.
The road crested suddenly and I saw the cabin, just as I’d figured. But it looked empty. There were no lights on. It was just a black shape in the moonlit mist: a rustic one-story house stretched against what looked like the edge of a cliff.
I had been wrong then. Stark wasn’t waiting for me here after all. At least he didn’t seem to be.
I stopped the Chevy. Killed the engine. I got out, drawing my gun as I did. I felt the mist chilly and damp against my skin. I approached the cabin cautiously, my shoes making soft crunching noises on the dirt. I knew I was visible in the moonlight. If there was anyone inside the house, I would make a pretty easy target for him, a pretty easy shot.
But I didn’t think there was anyone inside.
I moved around the side of the cabin. I moved to the edge of the cliff. That’s what it was, all right: a sharp drop-off into thick brush. I looked out over the steep slope and saw a big river far below, the rising moon glittering on its running surface. I saw the scattered lights of towns winking in the distance straight ahead and to the south. I saw cars as small as Christmas lights moving over a highway.
I turned back to the cabin. Went around the rear of it. Found a door. The door rattled against a lock when I tried to open it. I stepped back and kicked it under the knob. I didn’t have to kick it very hard. It flew open.
I went inside.
I turned the lights on in each room as I moved through the place. I wanted the cabin to look occupied. I had a new scenario in mind now, a new plan. I figured Stark would be here soon. I figured he’d think the thug was inside, holding me prisoner. I figured Stark would come into the cabin and that’s when I’d kill him. Seemed as good a plan as the first one. I didn’t care when I killed him, as long as he died.
I turned on the lights in the kitchen first. A country kitchen with copper pots and pans hung up on the rough wood walls like decorations. I went through and turned on the lights in the big front room. It was a wide, open room, done up like a hunting lodge. Braided rugs by the fireplace. A sloppy old comfortable stuffed sofa and a couple of rocking chairs. The heads of a stag and a bear mounted on the wall.
There were doors to the left and the right. I checked them out. Two bedrooms and a bathroom on one side of the main room. I turned their lights on as I checked them out. On the other side of the main room, there was a master bedroom with another bathroom. There was also a study there.
I ended up in the study. It was a large room. There was a large desk in there that looked as if it had been made from the cross section of a massive tree trunk. There was a computer on the desk. I turned the computer on and let it boot up while I looked around. There were bookshelves built into the wall; the books were about fishing and hunting mostly. There was a mounted salmon a yard long. Another braided rug. A leather easy chair.
There were two windows here, one behind the desk chair, another one, a longer one, on the front wall. There were drapes with prints of stags on them. The long window looked out at the driveway. When I pressed my nose to the glass, I could see the Chevy sitting out in the moonlight, low mist curling around the tires.
I turned out the lights in the study. I figured this would be a good place to wait. I would see Stark coming up the drive from here. He would be focused on the front door. When he got close enough, I could take my shot.
As I stood in the darkness, the computer finished booting. The very next moment, it started to give off a musical tone. I hurried around the desk and looked at the monitor. Someone was calling on the computer phone system. A video call, the readout said. Whoever it was, they must’ve been standing by, waiting impatiently for someone to turn on the machine.
I took hold of the mouse. Clicked the program. “Video loading . . .” the readout said.
But the audio came on first. A voice said: “Are you there, Stark?”
I’d thought my rage had died down but I guess not. I guess it had just sunk to a low flame, ready to spring to life again at any moment. It sprang to life now, burning high, filling my heart with red murder.
Even before the video came on, I knew who was speaking. It was the Fat Woman.
I leaned into the screen, waiting to see her image.
Then there she was. Horrible. A horrible creature. Obese, gelatinous, practically shapeless. The features of her bloated face had been destroyed—by fire, I thought; I was almost certain. Her nose and lips had been burned away. Her skin had been left a paisley pattern of pulsing pink and cancerous brown. Her lidless eyes—of some pale color—gazed merciless and viperlike out of unnaturally smooth flesh.
“Have you got him?” she said eagerly.
I almost spoke—but before I could, she must have realized something was wrong. Even if there was a camera on my side—and there must have been—I don’t think she could’ve seen me clearly in the dark. But something unnerved her. I saw her move. The connection shut down. Her image winked out and vanished.
A second later, headlights appeared at the study window. A car was coming up the drive.
I had to move fast. I hit the “off” button on the computer to kill the monitor light. The study sank into shadow, though the out-glow from the living room still came through the door, making the space visible. I moved to the side of the window. Drew back into the stag drapes to keep out of sight. I peeked around the drapes carefully, my gun held up by my face, ready.
A car—a big black Audi—pulled to the edge of the dirt driveway. It came to a stop a bit behind and to the side of the Chevy. The engine died. A second passed. The headlights went out.
I waited. Watched through the window, keeping my body back in the drapes, keeping my gun held high.
The front two doors of the Audi opened together. Two big men got out and stood guard. More of Stark’s killers. Both had automatic rifles. They paused there with the stocks braced against their hips, the barrels raised, so I could make out the deadly, insectile shape of the weapons. Brand-new Colts of some kind, I guessed. Probably a hundred rounds in each. They could shred me with them if I didn’t get them first.
Now the back door opened too and Stark got out. God, he looked like Death. That was the way I remembered him but it was still a shock to see that face again in the flesh. If it was flesh. The white skin glowed in the moonlight like bone. The sunke
n, skull-like shape of it cast the cheeks into deep shadow and made the big, yellowish eyes seem even bigger, even brighter. The rest of him was harder to see. He was dressed in black and melded with the night. But his hands were as white as his face and visible enough. I could see he wasn’t holding a weapon.
Stark nodded at the two gunmen and they started walking toward the house. They looked relaxed. They weren’t expecting trouble. They were expecting to find their fellow thug here—and me hog-tied, ready to be butchered. Stark trailed behind a few steps, his big eyes moving, taking in the scene.
I slipped my finger off the Glock’s guard and let it curl around the trigger. I had to play this just right. Two or three more steps and I’d have the gunmen within fairly easy range, but Stark himself would still have time to bolt when he heard the shots. If I took out Stark first, the riflemen would riddle me with bullets. I had to let all of them get closer—very close—so I had a chance of getting them all in three fast shots.
I waited. They took another step toward the house, and another, crossing the driveway.
My finger tightened on the Glock’s trigger. Another two steps and I might take out all three of them before they had a chance to react.
Then Stark said, “Wait.”
I could hear the rough rasp of his voice clearly through the window. Just the sound of it sent a chill of fear through my groin. He was a spooky son of a bitch, there was just no doubt about it. And I guess his threats of torturing me forever added to my negative impression of him.
He had stopped moving. Now, at his command, the riflemen stopped as well. I cursed under my breath. I started to lower my gun, to take aim through the window. But no, it was too late. At a gesture from Stark, the gunmen retreated, backing away as their eyes scanned the house, searching for signs of trouble.
I thought of taking my shot, but I had no chance. I couldn’t get them all at this range, and in a running battle between me with my Glock and them with their automatic rifles, I’d be a dead man for sure.