Authors: W.C. Hoffman
Henderson looked at her younger brother, knowing this was the moment that Drake was trying to prepare her for during the conversation on the walk back to the cabin. It was at this point she knew that it would be the sheriff’s life or her own and if she did not take his, the boys would take them both. Looking back at Drake for some semblance of understanding, she was surprised to see him with the same look as Tomek.
Both boys stood side by side, strong, united. Identical in every way except Tomek’s blue eye and Drake’s damaged ear lobe. There they stood, as if a line had been drawn in the blood-soaked dirt floor. Kill her boss or become like him. She had no other options, no way to talk herself out of the terror. This was either the end of her life or the start of a new one.
“It is the only way, sister,” Drake said in a comforting manner.
“You are not a murderer, Annette. Do not become one of them. Shoot one of them and shoot them now!” the sheriff yelled.
Tomek raised his voice to overpower the sheriff
“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it never care for anything else thereafter.”
“Stealing lines from Nietzsche only makes you a murderer and a thief,” the sheriff said, laughing at what he thought was Tomek’s attempt at sounding bright.
Unfazed by the sheriff’s insult, Tomek put his finger inside of the gash of the sheriff’s cheek, forcing his finger down into the man’s throat. Grasping the side of the man’s ripped-apart face, he pulled the struggling sheriff’s ear up to his mouth, as if to tell him a secret.
“It’s Hemingway, asshole,” Tomek said.
Having made his point, Tomek dropped the man and walked over to his sister.
“It is time for us to be together again, to live as a family. The way Uncle always wanted, but first this retched puke must die. Are you ready?”
“I can’t,” she said. Tomek thought the pain in her voice was evidence that while she did want to be with them, bringing herself to murder her boss was not something she could accept.
“That is unfortunate,” Drake said, as he reached down, pulling the stone-bladed knife from out of the tabletop where it had sliced through the sheriff’s hand earlier.
“Then you understand, this is the end for you both. Do not fight, do not struggle and you will die in peace,” Tomek said.
“Would you like to say something to God?” Drake asked her.
“No, I never trusted religion because it teaches you to be okay without understanding the world in which you live,” said Henderson.
“Good point,” the sheriff said, now laying down on his side with the bear trap atop of his opposite arm.
“I think you’re missing my point, little boys.”
Not keen on being referred to as little boys, they allowed her to continue.
“I said I can’t, not
I won’t
,” as she held up both the gun and the single round of ammunition. “This is a 40-caliber round and a nine-millimeter pistol. You might not know much about these types of weapons, but just so we are clear, these two do not work together.”
Her dramatic flair for informing them of Tomek’s mistake had almost gotten her killed, but in all honesty, Drake loved it. For what had been the tensest moment in their past few days of surviving and taking lives, this moment was perfectly contrasted with the sense of relief in knowing now that his sister was on their side. Tomek was less amused as he handed her the only round of 40-caliber ammunition they had in the entire cabin.
“Take this and end him, or end yourself,” said Tomek.
“We will be at the river. Join us after you make your decision,” Drake said, walking out of the cabin. Tomek was caught off guard by his brother leaving her alone with the sheriff, but knew his brother’s plan without having to be told and followed him out of the cabin.
Once outside the cabin, with the door shut behind them, Drake looked at Tomek and it was if they both could hear Uncle’s voice.
“
This hole is your home, your castle. Just as the mouse lives in a hole of his own, you must keep it a secret. If the snake finds the hole, the snake knows where to hunt. Only the mouse knows how to escape his own hole if stuck and he is lucky that snakes do not hunt together for this gives him a chance. Use this hole as a weapon, as a trap if you must, but always hunt together. Be the snake, not the mouse.”
And with that they both rolled the large boulder just uphill from the door off of its perch. It took both of them using their entire body weight to get it rolling. Landing on top of the oak tree door, it lodged into place securing the door against the side of the hill. The cabin was now a prison with Henderson inside alone with the sheriff and only one round of ammunition.
“What now?” Tomek asked. Drake knew that at this point it was a waiting game.
“Let’s go fishing” Drake said, jokingly.
“Ah, man, my fly rod is still inside,” Tomek joked.
Jumping from rock to rock towards the river they both looked back at the door to their home.
“But really, what now?” Tomek again asked his brother and was not surprised with the shortness of the answer he was given.
“We wait.”
“T
hey left you here, trapped to rot and die in this underground prison. I cannot believe you didn’t kill one of them while you had the fucking chance. Congratulations, Annette. You got outsmarted and left to die, slowly, by a couple of 16-year-olds.”
“Says the grown-ass man chained to the wall with half a face,” she replied.
Wanting to prove him wrong, Henderson walked over to the door, trying to open it in order to see just what exactly her brothers had done to it as they walked out. She had heard the thud the boulder made upon its impact, not to mention the dust that shook loose from the ceiling as it fell into place.
“I am dead, look at me. I’ll be done in a few hours. But you? Nope. You will be wasting away for days. Starving, dying slowly in this pit. This pit is where they left your ass. This is where you will suffer and die. Sure, you may have some food in here to live a while but after that you will fade away into nothing.”
“Can’t eat the food. It’s all been poisoned. Or at least some of it has,” Henderson said.
“You sure about that? My pickle was delicious,” the sheriff said, hiding the fact he hadn’t actually eaten the boys’ food.
“Yes, Drake told me. Well, no, I guess I am not sure.” The doubts about everything Drake had told her began to grow. Drake had said Tomek was the one she needed to worry about, but Tomek accepted her right away. Drake was the first to walk out of the cabin. Drake was the one who led her to the cabin in a roundabout way so she would not know the direct path. It began to become more clear to her with each passing realization. Drake was the reason she was trapped, Drake had fooled her and had done so easily.
Unable to prove her boss wrong, the overwhelming feeling of being trapped started to set in upon the female deputy. The room still dark with only the still burning beeswax candles began to feel smaller and smaller by the minute. Henderson franticly walked down the passageways dug into the hillside, avoiding the pitfall traps that Drake had told her about, all of which led to dead ends.
Returning to the living quarters, she kicked the sheriff’s foot to see if he was still alive.
“What the hell? I’m not going anywhere, you dumb bitch,” the sheriff said, very much still somehow alive. “You find any more rounds?”
“No,” she said.
“So just the one, huh? Smart little shits they turned out to be, huh?” He said. “You know what you have to do, Annette. I am done. We are done, but that bullet has your fucking name on it. Don’t waste it on me. No reason for us to both suffer. Do what needs to be done. Die on your own accord.”
“What?” she asked, confused on the sheriff’s exact intention.
“Load the weapon and think about how you want to die, ending yourself is better that rotting in this dungeon. The only question you have ever had in your entire life is if your little brothers were alive. Now you know and look what they have done to you. You have nothing left to live for. There will be no pain and you will be with your mother. Do what is right. Goodbye, Annette.”
With the pain of talking, let alone the moving of his body, the man who had hired her all those years ago had remained calm and spoke clearly and with confidence. He had presented to her the opportunity to not have to endure any suffering. She could not believe these words coming out of his mouth but more importantly, she could not believe how she did not necessarily think he was wrong.
Holding the pistol in her hand, she released the magazine. As it slid out from the interior of the weapon’s grip, her shaky hands, overcome with the emotion of the moment, missed it and it hit the ground. Picking up the magazine, she pressed the single round into the top and felt the pressure of the internal spring push back against her thumb as if it was trying to make her change her mind.
Placing the magazine back into the grip, she centered the bottom on her left palm and forced it up and into place. Walking over to the sheriff, she looked back at the door one more time hoping for some reason or another one of her brothers would open it. The door remained shut as Henderson stepped over the sheriff’s slumped body, slipping just a little bit on his expelled blood. Bending over to the counter, she blew out the candle, leaving the two of them in complete darkness.
Holding the pistol in her right hand she shuffled back to a spot on the floor that she felt was directly across from the sheriff. With her left hand placed on top of the slide, she pulled back, racking the only round she had out of the magazine and into the firing chamber.
Pulling the hammer back and into place, the metal clicking sound seemed to echo throughout the pitch-black cabin. Gripping the weapon firmly, her finger moved its way down to the trigger, which felt colder than the rest of the exposed metal on the body of the gun.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, it was still not enough to see anything more than the frail outline of her boss next to her. He had been silent since saying goodbye and she was unsure if he was dead or not, but at this point it no longer really mattered. Feeling the cold metal of the trigger against her skin, she closed her eyes, which now were filled with tears, and said,
“Be the snake, not the mouse.”
F
rom the river bank where the twins stood still making small talk in an attempt to avoid discussing what exactly they had just done, the sound as the pistol sent the round from its barrel was nothing more than a muffled pop. Had they not been intently waiting to hear it, it could have easily gone completely unnoticed. With firsthand knowledge of how loud the sound of a gun firing was inside the small room, Tomek was surprised at what little he heard from their current position.
“There, she did it. Let’s go get her. She has proven herself enough,” Tomek said.
“Did what, Tomek? Did what?” Drake said.
“She killed him. You know she did. Let’s go get her out of there.”
“Maybe she is the one that died. Have you thought about that?”
Tomek looked at his brother, then back at the boulder covering their home. Turning to walk up the rock path, he motioned for Drake to join him.
“She is not Uncle, Drake.” Tomek said.
His tone was both tense and comforting. Drake immediately felt like he always had growing up. No one knew him like his twin brother did. Their connection was always so strong that often they felt the same regardless of the situation. This time was no different. Drake did not want to see another family member dead from a self-inflicted wound, but he knew that locking her in the cabin was the only way to truly flush out her allegiance.
Standing outside the door with his hands on the large rock, he pondered if she had killed the man chained to the wall or not. Thinking to himself,
“Was she aware that this was all just a test, or would she feel as if they had left her to die? Would she take his life out of spite or mercy? Would she take her own out of cowardice? Was she a snake or a mouse?”
With Drake’s chest, head and rib injuries, trying to push the rock from its settled-in spot on top of the door would be a futile waste of energy. Electing to sit on the side hill with this back against the side slope, Drake placed both of his feet high on the boulder. Tomek joined in placing his legs against the same slope, which provided a back rest for his brother. Both boys pushed as they extended their strong legs and the top-heavy rock swayed back and forth, rocking it with a push as if it was one of their sleds loaded with firewood and stuck in the snow.
Utilizing the momentum they had built up, the rock tipped over its rolling point and rolled down the hill, gaining speed as it proceeded until reaching its final resting place, splashing down into the river’s flowing water with a thunderous splash. Finding amusement in watching the rolling rock they again were both thinking on the same wavelength.
“That would make a great...” Drake started.
“... Trap,” Drake and Tomek said in unison.
Smirking at the amusement they both found in the moment, they looked below them at the crushed oak tree door.
“Hope it didn’t hurt the hinges. That would not be good,” Drake said.
Tomek looked over the construction of the door’s framing and was happy to see nothing drastically damaged.
“Nope, I think we are fine.”
Twisting the handle and pulling the door open, the smell of fresh ignited gun powder filled the air. There was also dampness in the air that neither of them recalled being present just moments before when they last were in their home. The only light coming into the room was from the open door. Both of them shuffled their feet across the darkness of the room, not wanting to trip over any one of the multiple items that were strewn about.
“Annette,” Drake said. “Annette, are you here?”
There was no answer, but there was a peculiar sound coming from the furnace room, which was dug back into the hillside. A dull roaring that neither of them could account for filled the air. The moisture in the air was more and more noticeable with each passing minute.