The Killing King of Gratis (25 page)

Kero grabbed Delroy’s arm.

“Looks like we might’ve guessed right. I can’t imagine who else would be here in a boat right now, at this time of night,” Kero whispered.

“Yep, you’re right. Look, go back to Daddy Jack’s and come back at me like you said you would,” Delroy replied. “We’ll trap him one way or another. Call Tommy and let him know what we’re doing. We could use more men in case he gets by us.” He didn’t say “kills one of us.” It was pretty much implied.

“I’ll go and I’ll call Tommy. If you get there before I do, Delroy, and things go bad, hang on, because I’ll be there soon enough.” With that, Kero went back to the truck and went burning down River Road. For a moment the night was totally quiet. Delroy reached back to check his gun. He wanted to make sure it was loaded and the safety was off.

He found nothing.

The gun wasn’t in his waist band, and he immediately remembered leaving it Amy’s car. He didn’t want to bring it into the hospital so he left it under her seat, not thinking to get it before he got into Kero’s truck.

Typical dumbass move
, he thought. Every instance of forgetting his briefcase for court or locking himself out of his house bombarded him. He sat there not sure what to do.

Yep, I’m hunting for a psychopath with a shotgun and all I brought was nothing
. Delroy grimaced and looked around. The tunnel entrance was waiting to swallow him whole, and the waves banged on the old shrimper, mocking him. He was scared.

A slight sound echoed from the tunnel. It could have been any number of sounds. Barely discernible, it may even have been nothing at all, just his mind having fun with him. To Delroy, however, it was the sound of children dying. Any fear he had for himself turned into fear for the children. He walked into the tunnel, clasping his flashlight, ready to eat that shotgun shell Cozette told him he had coming.

Meg and Peck needed him, plain and simple. He had to go, whether it was the smart thing to do or not. Being smart didn’t apply, not here, not now.

S
kipper was surprised at how pliable the boy was. He didn’t put up a fight or say anything at all. All Skipper had to do was point and the boy went. He was starting to wonder whether the boy was slow, whether anything that was happening was even registering with him.

What a little sissy-boy
. Skipper was disgusted with him. He would have killed him already but was curious to see his reaction to what his sister would go through.
Little turd will probably just cry
. Skipper considered whether the boy would close his eyes, and whether he would need to cut off his eyelids to make sure he didn’t. He wished he had brought a straight razor.
Next time be more careful packing,
he thought.

Meg at least struggled with him as they went into the tunnels. She didn’t fight so much as become dead weight and pull against him when they first entered. That stopped after he aimed the shotgun at the back of Peck’s head.
You just have to know how to lead a little heifer
.
It’s not hard after you figure it out.

Skipper smiled. This was getting easy.

The trio moved back into the tunnels, further than the children had ever been. The darkness was overwhelming, and the children tripped on every root and rock in their path. Skipper just kept moving them along. The air hung heavy and stale, no breeze penetrating this far back from the opening.

The children were exhausted when they finally stopped. Skipper instructed them to get on their knees. They did so, and Meg wrapped herself around her little brother. Skipper hung the lantern on a small hook in the wall, and then took out a flashlight and rummaged in his bag. Out came two more lanterns, each bigger than the first one. He lit them.

The children could see that they were in a room about thirty feet long and twenty feet wide, with a ceiling that was at least ten feet high. The sides were hollowed out, probably to store illegal liquor long ago. The lanterns flickered against the damp walls and Skipper spoke.

“This is as far as you two will go with me. Boy, you need to come here.”

Meg refused to unwrap from her brother and they stayed there, their knees and elbows grinding into the mud and rocks.

Skipper’s tone didn’t change a bit. He leveled his gun at the children.

“You can move or I’ll shoot you and then shoot him. You don’t want your little brother to die, do you Meggy?”

Meg was mustering all the bravado she could. She didn’t know how to answer Skipper’s question in a way that would save her little brother, so she finally let go of him. As Peck crawled toward Skipper, all Meg could do was scream at the man holding the gun.

“I hate you. I HATE you!” With that she crumpled and sobbed.

Skipper’s eyes were starting to glisten, but he answered her in the same even voice.

“Little Meggy, you don’t have any idea what it is to hate, but you will.”

He took plastic ties from his bag and bound Peck’s hands. He marveled that the boy still hadn’t said a word or even whimpered.
What a little turdstain
. He would have to get creative with Meg to get anything out of the boy. He would have to let his imagination run wild.

Forget Millie and Merry. This is going to be a work of art.

The boy lay back on the ground after Skipper tied his hands. He considered tying them behind his body, but decided not to with Peck. The boy didn’t merit the extra effort. Anyway, Skipper was curious to see when the boy covered his eyes for the first time.

He knew it would be soon.
And even if you don’t see it all,
Skipper thought,
you’re sure as hell gonna hear it. And it’s gonna be something to hear, boy, something you won’t forget.

D
elroy was stumbling and crawling his way through the tunnels. They were dank and damp with a thin muddy sheet of water continuously running under his feet. He fell every twenty or so feet and could feel the mud starting to cake up and get into his eyes.
Great time for my contacts to be killing me
.

His small flashlight barely pierced the darkness in front of him. The main tunnel split off into smaller ones as he went forward. He tried to stay in the widest one at each split, which was hard to do in the dark. He hoped that he was in the right one each time he had to choose, but he wasn’t sure.

Worse yet, the inky blackness gave him the willies, even now as he was stumbling trying to find the children. He was never a big fan of the dark, not as a child and not now. Memories of his mom sleeping on a couch outside of his room when he was twelve bombarded him. He had seen his first slasher movie, without her permission, and was afraid to sleep. She was mad at him, but she slept on that couch for two weeks, keeping the nightmares and the darkness at bay.

Now, Delroy had to make the darkness his friend, as much as he couldn’t stand it. He kept his flashlight facing down and could only see the ground directly in front of him. His sole advantage was surprise, and he hoped that Skipper would be too pre-occupied to hear or see him coming if he found them. As it was, every stray glint of his flashlight made him wince, and every footfall seemed to echo.

Finally, he began to make some progress by shuffling his feet as he walked. It was a little louder than he wanted, but that way he could feel his way over the floor. He didn’t have to use his flashlight as much, didn’t have to fear the light nudging Skipper to let him know he was there. He shuffled this way for what seemed hours. Delroy was starting to believe he was lost or had gone down the wrong tunnel when he heard murmurs ahead. He had no idea how far ahead but kept shuffling toward them through the dark. Soon he could make out words and saw a faint light further ahead. He turned off his flashlight and listened.

“Shut up Meggie…take your jeans off or I’ll take your brother’s head off….your choice so don’t mess it up…” The voice was definitely Skipper. Delroy could also hear low sobbing. It was definitely Meg, and at the same time not her. His Meg was defiant and sure of herself. The sobbing he heard was a child’s defeat. The anger welling inside made him tremble.

He wanted to make it to Skipper before that shotgun went off. He wanted to put his hands on him. He needed to hurt him badly.

Delroy shuffled ahead, as quietly as he could, going toward the light and voices. He couldn’t fall now. Any stumbling, any sound, would alert Skipper.
If I make noise the children will die
. It felt like it took forever, slowly shuffling toward the light, although he probably got there in under ten minutes.

Finally, at the opening where the tunnel got wider, he saw his Meg. She was wearing nothing but her underwear and a t-shirt. It was a Barbie t-shirt he got her last year on her birthday. She loved her Barbie collection when she was little, but Anna laughed when Meg tried it on, telling him that “Meg put those dolls away years ago.” Meg wore the shirt anyway. He knew it was only because she loved him, and he loved to see her in it.

Now it looked obscene and wrong because it made her look so young.
Just how Skipper wants her
. Delroy’s stomach hardened into a knot.

Around her neck, Skipper had looped a rope tied to a rusted metal bar bolted into the rock wall, running from one wall to the other. Meg had to stand on tiptoes because the rope wasn’t long enough for her to stand flat footed. She leaned against the rope, her body twitching from one side to the other as she struggled to maintain her balance. She would choke when she slipped, gagging if she failed to keep her feet under her. Skipper was standing only ten feet away from Meg by this time, holding a shotgun in his left hand. He was also totally naked, touching himself with his free hand, as he stared intently at the young girl in pain.

That son of a bitch, I’ll kill him
. Delroy was sick with rage, the knot in his stomach about to explode. Before he could stop himself he let out a low growl.

Skipper turned and saw Delroy just as he was starting to come toward him. He was twenty feet away and closing fast. Skipper was surprised but recovered quickly and raised his gun at Delroy. He smiled, not believing what good luck he was having.
Damn, I get to kill her favorite uncle, too
.
I wonder if mommy’s around?

The shotgun went off and echoed inside the cavern. For a second all was quiet, and then a scream as powerful as the blast filled the damp air.

“
N
o boy, that ain’t how you gut a fish. This is how you gut a fish.”

Matthew took the day’s catch from Peck and showed him again how to gut and clean the fish so it was ready to fry later on that night. At first Peck was afraid of the knife and the fish as well. His hands didn’t seem dexterous enough to do the job, and he was as likely to slice his own finger as to prepare the catch.

Most men would have lost interest in Peck and decided this strange boy wasn’t their problem. Matthew was not most men. He would sit there with Peck, showing him how to hold the knife for the hundredth time, letting him practice with one blue gill or bream after the next.

Peck got the hang of it and learned how to hold a knife and not stab himself at the same time. Finally, Matthew let him be the fish cleaner, a job Peck took very seriously. He gave him his own filet knife and ankle sheath to carry it in. Peck followed Matthew everywhere that summer. He tied that knife to his ankle whether they were going fishing or not.

Almost daily they went deep into the Neck, where Peck soaked up everything Matthew taught him, especially about patience. Peck understood patience like no other boy in town. He waited his whole life to understand people. Being told to wait until the “time was just right” made sense to him.

They hunted squirrels and rabbits and whatever else the Neck had to offer. Matthew kept driving home the same point.

“You got to wait, Peck. You think it’s never gonna be time, but that’s okay. You gotta wait. The time to take care of business will show itself to you. It wants to be found. You just have to wait for that time to be just right and keep looking every second you’re waiting. When the time comes for anything, especially out here, you’ll know. You’ll know it like you know how to wake up in the morning, like you know how to kiss your momma on the cheek after you say your bedtime prayers.”

Peck spent that summer waiting with Matthew, watching him know when to take care of business with every animal they hunted. Matthew never seemed hurried, never let the wait fluster him. Sometimes he looked at Peck expectantly and almost smiling, as if to say “no problem, any minute now, boy.”

Now, in the tunnel with his sister, Peck knew that they were the animals and that the bad man was the hunter. He caught them, and Peck knew that sooner or later he would gut them, too. The only difference in this and hunting with Matthew was that the bad man didn’t kill them right away.

Matthew always killed his animals right away. That was just the nature of hunting another living thing. Even when you put fish on a string they were as good as dead. He never caught something, carried it away, and saved the killing for later. Never. The killing always came first and everything else followed.

This bad man is doing everything backwards
, thought Peck, and he was glad of it. He knew that, as long as he wasn’t dead, there was a chance to help his sister. He had the chance to wait, to be patient, to take care of business.

So Peck waited.

He waited when the bad man was being mean to his sister. That was the hardest waiting he ever had to do, but he kept hearing Matthew tell him to be patient, to let the time “show itself to you.” He waited when the bad man was leading them through the tunnels and calling him names. Others had called him names his whole life. He could wait through that. He waited when the bad man put the ties on his hands and left Peck lying on the ground like a sack of corn. Through it all, he waited.

The bad man didn’t know that Peck was patient. He didn’t know that Peck was waiting for the time to show itself. He didn’t know that, over the long, hot summer, Peck learned about taking care of business.