**********
“Is this far enough off the road,” Joey asked. Aside from the poorly maintained dirt roads, the sweep of woodland and rough brush around them could have been virgin, North American woodland from a thousand years ago.
“Should be,” Jim said. “Christ, we must be five miles out in the sticks. You sure the cops won’t think about this place for a couple of days?”
“Pretty sure. Uncle Aster died three years ago. Far as aunt Ruby goes, I haven’t seen her since the funeral. She probably doesn’t even know who I am. Same with my moms and pops. They don’t even know about this place.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “Let me think about how we’re gonna get out of this. Either of you got any money?”
“A few bucks,” Charlie said. He was still seething, angry, and scared.
James looked at Joey.
“You?”
“Me? I don’t think so. I sometimes stashed a little in the glove compartment, but I don’t know if there’s any left.”
James popped the glove box open and rummaged around. A half empty pack of cigarettes, a book of matches, an ancient, foil packed condom, some firecrackers, and three lonely pennies.
“Christ Jesus!” Jim exploded, sweeping everything out onto the dusty road. “Three fucking cents! How far do you think we’re going to get on three cents?”
“How was I supposed to know we were gonna have to make a run for it,” Joey yelled back. “Should I of packed my suitcase and cleaned out my bank account, huh? I told you Charlie would squeal like a stuck pig but you didn’t believe it, so now we’re pretty well boned up the ass, ain’t we?”
Charlie could no longer hold his tongue.
“If you don’t quit worryin’ that motherfuckin’ bone like a starving dog, I’m gonna punch you right in the cocksucker!”
Charlie’s blanched face exposed a vein throbbing in his forehead and his balled fists quivered at his side, but Joey showed no signs of backing down. Far bulkier and stronger, Joey would snap Charlie’s spine like kindling if it came to it.
“What are you gonna do,” Joey challenged, glad to have his mind diverted from the immediate events at hand and given a place to vent its fear and anger. For a few moments it seemed blood was going to flow in a no shit punch up.
Then the gun went off with a 155 howitzer boom.
The pain and shock were so sudden and unexpected that Charlie didn’t cry out at first. It took his stunned brain about half a second to process the searing heat of the bullet shearing through the muscles of his left thigh and the deep, blinding pain of his femur shattering where the bullet struck it. The bullet fragmented and a tiny piece of shrapnel tumbled drunkenly around in his flesh and nicked his femoral artery, starting a slow, but substantial, internal bleed.
Charlie fell to the ground, his leg bowing like a green sapling, grabbing onto his exploded thigh with both hands. Blood welled through his clasped fingers and soaked his blue jeans with sticky warmth.
Dumbfounded, Joey slowly looked at Jim. “What the fu….”
Through the blue, cordite pall and sulfur stench, Jim stood with the pistol extended casually, leveled at Joey. Jim’s face was blank not with disbelief, but with cool, utter dissociation, the mask of a computer processing nothing but ones and zeros.
“Give me your keys,” Jim said.
Afraid to speak, Joey slowly reached into his pocket and tossed the keys towards Jim. They landed with a tiny clink in the dust at Jim’s feet. Jim squatted to pick up the keys, never taking the steady sight of the Luger from Joey.
“Get him in the car,” he told Joey, motioning at Charlie, who lay moaning and incoherent in a growing red stain.
Joey hefted Charlie from the ground with brute, adrenalin-fired strength and got him to a standing position. Charlie moaned softly, but gave neither help nor resistance. Joey could sense without seeing the unnatural way Charlie’s upper leg moved as the muscles contracted and the splintered ends of the jagged bones crunched against each other.
Joey settled Charlie into the passenger seat. Oily beads of shock sweat had gathered on his upper lip and his face, which had moments ago been white with anger, was now pallored by blood loss. He was at best semi conscious and Joey spied a thready pulse beating rapidly in his neck. Joey snapped the seat belt across Charlie.
“What are you gonna do,” Joey asked, finally finding a papery voice. His saucer eyes bugged with fear and his voice shook.
“I’m gonna take care of him,” Jim said. “I’ve thought about it, and there really ain’t no way out for me. I know what I’m gonna do. I need Charlie for that, but I don’t need you.” The automaton vanished and Jim smiled a ghastly little grin. That flash of depraved humanity was more frightening to Joey than the vacuous tin man. Joey’s panic-stricken eyes darted to the crescent-shaped bite mark in Jim’s hand, scabbed over and starting to heal after a week. Seconds ticked by, Joey unsure of what to do. Jim finally broke the silence.
“Run,” he said.
“What….”
Jim leveled the gun at Joey’s head. “Or stand still.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t change what’s about to happen.”
Joey broke for the sham safety of the forest, his heart thundering. It took him only four running steps before he was encircled by trees.
Jim listened to him blunder and crash through the woods until he was out of sight. He pointed the pistol skyward and fired another round. When the echoes had died away, he heard the thundering and crashing in the forest pick up in pace.
Satisfied, he slipped into the driver’s seat with the gun on his lap. He glanced at Charlie, a little sad at how fast he was fading, the blood saturating his pants leg and slowly dripping in the seat and floorboard. He had been a good friend. Jim didn’t have many. It was better for Charlie this way.
As for Joey, Jim needed him alive, scared, and in reverent awe. He would be his Homer, carrying the legendary ode of Jimmy Thompson to the waiting ears of all that wanted to know what had happened on that fateful day that all hell broke loose in Monroe.
Jim would leave an indelible mark on this one horse town. He would be famous.