Shut The Fuck Up And Die! (16 page)

Standing, Mona walked to the sofa and plopped
down. She watched as the old lady pulled herself blindly across the
room and occasionally laughed when Mary’s arms gave out and caused
her to collapse to the floor. She whimpered as she crawled and Mona
imagined the singed lining of her throat slowly closing up as the
damaged flesh swelled. How long would it take before the airway was
completely closed? Five minutes? Ten?

The old woman had drug her sorry carcass
almost entirely out of the living room by the time Mona grew bored
and began thumbing threw the pages of a catalog. While the younger
woman looked at pictures of gardening tools and seeds, Mary
continued to pull herself along. Her voice was nothing more than a
wheeze now and a series of bloody hand prints marked her trail.
Reaching out into the darkness that had become her world, her
shaking hands felt fabric. She gripped it tightly and began to pull
herself up, thinking that if she could just manage to walk maybe
she could make it to the kitchen. Maybe she could somehow figure
out how to dial 911. Though she wouldn’t be able to talk, they
would trace the call and . . . .

A pair of strong hands cupped her armpits and
lifted her to her feet. She felt like crying as her unseen
Samaritan assisted her but the throbbing masses that were her eyes
didn’t seem capable of producing tears anymore. Instead, she laid
her cheek against the broad, solid chest and allowed her weight to
fall forward, trusting this man to continue giving support.

“
Shhhhh . . . .”

The voice in her ear was soft and soothing
and she felt hands stroke her hair.

“
Shhhh. Everything’s going to be fine.
It won’t hurt forever. I promise.”

Matt was framed against an open door that led
down into the cellar and he looked over the old woman’s trembling
head at his wife. Glancing up from the catalog, Mona smiled and
winked at him as she jiggled her breasts like a go-go dancer.
Shaking his head slowly, Matt suppressed a laugh before turning his
attentions back to the injured woman in his arms. He felt, rather
than heard, the wet gurgle that bubbled in her throat and her hands
gripped his shirt as if it were the only thing anchoring her to
life.

“
It won’t hurt forever . . .
.”

Mary gasped as her own paring knife sliced
into her gut. The pain traveled quickly in an arch, almost as if a
smile were being carved into her gut. She pulled away from the man
and wrapped her arms around her belly as if she could keep the wet,
slippery organs from spilling through the gash. There was another
flash of pain as Matt rammed the knife into her upper abdomen.
Buried entirely up to the hilt, the knife stuck out of her body
like some bizarre handle and scraped at the edges of bone that it
was wedged between. Staggering backwards, she felt the hands again.
On her shoulders this time. They yanked her around so roughly that
her teeth snapped against one another and then she was pushed
backward again.

The old woman toppled over the stairs with
her arms pinwheeling in the air and Matt felt the house shake as
her body bounced and rolled down each step. After a few seconds of
this, there was a final thump as her body struck the concrete floor
of the cellar. The door above then creaked shut, leaving Mary
Gruber to die alone and in the dark.

SCENE THIRTEEN

The pages of the scrapbook appeared in
Daryl’s mind like rapid-fire recollections of a nightmare. He saw
Mona with her dark hair and cherubic face, looking absolutely
gorgeous in a tight, black tee shirt that clung to the curves of
her breasts as if the fabric itself wanted nothing more than to
fondle them; wearing red lipstick, she smiled for the camera as she
held the head of a bearded man as if it were a trophy. His eyes
were wide and round, his mouth opened in a silent scream, and the
cut along his severed neck as clean as if it had been taken off
with a single blow. In the same cursive script that had spelled out
Mona’s Secret Delights were the words
Frankfurt, Kentucky.
Another page, this one
labeled Rock Hill, SC: the living room of what appeared to be a
middle class suburban home, a woman tied and gagged, kneeling in
front of a wall splattered with blood as Mona held a pistol to the
side of her head. Locks of blood-matted hair taped to pages,
newspaper articles detailing brutal slayings, and pieces of road
map with bright blue Xs that marked the towns where each snapshot
had been taken. Entire families lined side by side, men and women
who were either dead or about to die, drivers licenses, Matt in the
woods and holding a rifle with his foot propped on some fat guy as
if he were a big game hunter who’d just taken down the trophy of a
lifetime. One page even containing a blood splattered letter, this
one written in a shaky scrawl:

I am about to die and this is a testament of
my sins. I slept with my wife’s sister and stold money from work. I
once paid a hooker fifty dollars for a blow job, beat her up
afterwards, and took my money back. I am not worthy of life . . .
.

Page after page of violence, bloodshed and
death. Picture after picture of Mona and Matt looking smug, happy,
even one with the bare-chested woman glaring seductively at the
camera as she straddled a business man whose tie had been cinched
so tightly around his neck that the flesh overlapped the black
silk.

And these monsters were with Mama. Alone in
the house.

Daryl knew they were tied up, that there was
a good chance they were even still knocked out. But that didn’t
stop the fear from gripping his stomach as securely as that dead
man’s necktie. What if they somehow got loose? What if Mama found
herself face to face with these butchers? What then?

True, they weren’t exactly angels
themselves. But somehow, for reasons Daryl couldn’t quite put into
words, what they did was different. And by the time Mama had her
chance to play with the things they brought home, Earl and Daryl
had always made sure there was no chance that she could possibly be
in harm’s way. There were the ropes, the nails, the handcuffs, and
leather straps. But those had always been
normal
people. They were shop clerks, drifters,
and housewives . . . not psychotic thugs who, judging from the
pictures in the scrapbook, didn’t have an ounce of compassion in
their cold, dark hearts.

All of this went through his mind in the time
it took for the cop to bark and order and pull back the hammer of
the gun pointing at him.

“
I said
drop
the weapon, mother fucker!”

Daryl’s knees felt as if they were seconds
from buckling out from under him and nausea rumbled through his
intestines. Somehow, he felt as if he were growing smaller. As it
was if the barrel of the cop’s gun emitted some sort of magic ray
that burned away everything inside him. The longer it was pointed
at him, the more he deflated and the more he became like that small
child who had shivered in the darkness of the closet.

He looked at the tire iron in his hand and
almost seemed surprised to see it there. How could he have actually
thought he had what it took to be the hero? Who the hell was he
kidding anyway? He was nothing more than a stupid crybaby who
pissed himself in the dark. Just like Earl always said. Like Mama
always said.

He would never be a good boy.

Would never get his chance to shine

The metal rod fell from his hand and
disappeared into the snow with a thump. Taking this as his cue, the
cop raised slowly from his crouch. The man braced the wrist holding
the gun with his other hand and his aim remained steady and true as
he stood to his full height.

“
On your knees! Hands behind your
head!”

Daryl lowered himself to the ground and
kneeled in the snow. With fingers clasped at the hem of his ski
cap, his shoulders slumped and the features of his face seemed to
grow longer, almost as if they were made of putty that was being
pulled tightly. His eyes never left the gun trained upon him; but
as the cop sidestepped his way closer, everything began to waver as
warm tears slid down Daryl’s face and soaked into his mustache.

He’d killed Mama. He was sure of this. When
he and Earl didn’t come home, she’d get worried. And that would
cause her to be distracted. He was certain that’s all it would
take. The young couple would somehow manage to get free and they
would kill her as viscously as they had all those people in the
photos. And it was all his fault.

The cop had closed nearly half the distance
between them now and he no longer gripped his wrist with his free
hand. It had slid to the waist of his belt and fumbling with the
radio that was clipped there.

“
Calling for backup.” Daryl
thought.

From behind the cop, Earl staggered to his
feet like some prehistoric beast pulling itself from a tar pit. For
a moment he seemed to simply loom there with his hands cuffed
behind his back. But then he charged with a guttural roar that
would have made an African lion stop in its tracks.

The cop’s face drained of color and he spun
around just as Earl’s bulk smashed into him with such force that
the man’s feet were lifted off the ground. The cop fell backward as
both his weapon and the radio flew from his hands. He landed on his
back in the snow and was trying to scramble to his feet when the
Earl fell upon him like a man doing a bellyflop at a pool.

The air whooshed out of the officer’s lungs
and Earl drove his forehead into the bridge of the man’s nose. His
head smacked down again and again, piston-like in its assault, but
rather than fighting back, the cop seemed to be trying to squeeze
his arms beneath the layers of Earl’s fat. Finally, he yanked his
arm free and there was a small, black cylinder in his hand.

The cop yelled as he depressed a button and a
stream of liquid sprayed from the top of the cylinder. Almost
immediately, Earl’s roar turned into a scream and water gushed from
eyes that looked as if they were swelling shut. Rolling off the
cop, Earl plunged his face into the snow as if some sort of relief
might be found in the cold, white drifts.

The cop now had his baton in hand and he
practically ran toward the screaming giant with it raised above his
head like a club.

Just as he was about to strike, a gunshot
echoed through the hills and valleys like a sudden clap of thunder.
A flock of birds perched in a nearby tree took to the sky amid the
fluttering of wings as a flap of scalp knocked the officer’s hat
from his head. His body pitched forward and he fell, face first,
into snow that was speckled with his own red blood.

Blood continued to bubble and ooze from the
missing top of his head, but somehow he managed to roll over onto
his back where it seeped into the snow and formed a crimson halo
around him. Staring up into the sun, he saw a man step over his
prone body. Saw his own service revolver coated with snow pointed
directly at the center of his face.

Daryl said nothing. He simply pulled the
trigger and listened to the complete silence that follows a gunshot
in the wilderness as the cop’s face disappeared in a mist of blood
and bone. He stood over the corpse for a moment, staring at the
remains of the cop with a slack-jawed expression of detachment.
Then he dropped to his knees and began searching for the key that
would free his brother from the handcuffs.

The cruiser handled the icy road better than
the truck, but Earl still had to focus his full attention on
driving; every so often the rear of the Impala slid to the left
while the front insisted on going the opposite direction. Easing up
off the gas, Earl made slight corrections to the steering wheel
that pressed against his gut and the car moved through the snow
like a sidewinder through sand.

As the sound of his brother’s heavy breathing
filled the car, Daryl slumped in the passenger’s seat with his ski
cap laying across his lap. Alternately looking at the pistol that
lay on the seat and the length of chain at his feet, he brushed the
side of his cheek as if he were stroking a kitten. Though his
expression looked tired and bored, his mind actually replayed the
events of the morning as if it were footage of the game winning
touchdown in the Super Bowl.

He hadn’t expected the cop’s face to
just disappear like that: the way his nose and mouth erupted like a
volcano of gore; flesh, blood, shards of teeth and bone spewing
into the air and splattering against his pants. Not that he’d never
killed before. Plenty of throats had been slit with the blade of
his hunting knife and he’d stared into countless eyes, watching for
the moment that light of life finally flickered out, as his hands
squeezed their necks. But he’d never truly
obliterated
someone before; and, for a reason he
couldn’t understand, that simple act had made him harder than any
of the naked women who’d been tied up in their house.

Daryl’s stomach churned with nervous
excitement and his breath felt as if it kept getting stuck halfway
down his throat. At the same time, however, he fidgeted in the seat
as if his entire body was as numb and tingly as his hands and feet.
Fighting the urge to reposition the cap, he stole quick glances at
his brother from the corner of his eye.

Earl leaned forward so that his jowls
were almost directly over the steering wheel and he seemed to look
nowhere other than the road ahead. But what would happen if he
noticed the lump that Daryl tried to hide beneath the hat? Would he
be able to sense what was going through his brother’s mind? Would
he instinctively know that the smaller man was thinking about the
cop and not that cute little brunette waiting at home? The officer,
after all,
was
a man. Did
this mean that Daryl was somehow gay? He’d been as curious about
homosexuality as he was putting his hand into a whirling blender .
. . it was just something he knew he’d never do. So why was it then
that he was sitting there, thinking about the cop, while his crotch
felt like it was seconds away from exploding?