The Journeyman

Part Three of Five

by Allen Woods

8:28 P.M.

Cletus Watts was an easy man to follow, a foot beaten path in a dark vale of overgrowth. When James first decided to track Cletus, in his Holmesian quest for evidence, he had expected a difficult task. Fearful hesitation made James' heart pump faster. Will I run if he sees me or should I stay and fight? James didn't want to, but he'd crossed a tenuous line, his own Rubicon, and refused to look back. Deep in his soul, James would kill to save himself. He prayed it wouldn't come to that.

So far, Cletus hadn't suspected a thing. A combination of general stupidity and the beer he polished off at the Boar a few minutes ago made James' furtive task a little easier. James could have walked next to him in stride and Cletus might not have noticed. He was blitzed to the pupils, stumbling while he lumbered forward, but the air seemed to sober Cletus.

In spite of his apprehension, a refreshing adrenaline surged through James' haggard legs. It had been a long day and the contemptuous zeal that energized him outside the sheriff's station was returning.

It's worth the risk, James reminded himself. I've already come this far, might as well finish it.

***

Locating Cletus initially was the most difficult part of James' plan. Finding a needle in a haystack? Worse. As he wasted the day following up oblique leads, James had thought he was searching for the shine in shinola. It was everywhere, but impossible to extricate. Every conversation he'd overheard or listing he'd found in the Ithica phone book led to a dead end. Cletus was on the hushed lips of everybody in Ithica, but nobody mentioned where he was hiding. Can't appear too obvious, James had decided after lunch and he thought walking right up to people and asking where he could find Cletus Watts was a dead giveaway. Dead was the part that resounded through his head. He already assaulted me over nothing. All I did was talk to Carrie.

James shuddered to think what Cletus might do if he had a legitimate reason to become angry. There were also the men stealing glances to worry about. This day had passed without even the blithest of nods or acknowledgements his direction, but the circumspect feeling that had permeated James' thoughts at the Boar had lasted through the day. He still felt their eyes, men stealing glances as they passed by him. He felt like an insect under the microscope with both wings pinned down. They're still out there, James had considered. Watching where I can't see them.

After wandering through town for most of the afternoon, playing the game 'if I were Cletus where would I be', James was exhausted. He'd checked every pool hall, construction site, convenience store, and public toilet in Ithica, but still no sign of Cletus. Finally, he collapsed inside the Boar, sprawling his exhausted body across a grimy table while he sipped a Bud. His calves had turned diamond hard, permanent charley-horses, and he felt his back stiffen. Sitting down was a great relief, despite the smoke in the Boar, but James knew relief wouldn't last. His muscles swam in pools of lactic acid and as soon as his legs began to feel like melting Jell-O, the rest of him felt worse.

A few minutes past seven o'clock, Cletus Watts strolled in.

I should have known that if I waited here he'd show up eventually. The shine is rising to the top of the shinola. Or in Cletus' case, the shit to the top of the pond.

James was right. He had no idea what Cletus did for a living, and he didn't want to know, but the Boar was his bar. At one time or another, Cletus popped up there every day. Sometimes it was for a game of pool with the guys from the Park Service on lunch breaks. Other times he slithered in, ready to discuss business with a seedy associate. Usually, though, Cletus just wanted to blow off some steam and raise hell. He felt confident and safe surrounded by a familiar environment with men he trusted. If the Boar rented rooms like an old West saloon, Cletus would never leave. All he wanted in life was a constant supply of beer, a six-shooter, and a whore to keep him company. Every night he dreamt of the old West he'd seen in late night movies. Big horses, wild shoot outs, and no police except for a cowardly sheriff with a tarnished star. It was a simpler time then and people lived by the code Cletus appreciated: men were men, women belonged to men, and everyone carried a gun. Those were the days.

"How's it, Cle?" James had overheard a round man ask. He had a stomach that dangled over his crotch like a congealed gravy waterfall and James felt sorry for him. He doubted any woman had ever kissed him.

"Don't call me that," Cletus grumbled as he chugged a draft.

"Sorry, Cletus. You sure are touchy."

"Suck it, Judson, or I'll touch my foot up yer ass," Cletus slurred. James guessed he'd already had a few beers today.

"Hey, I didn' mean nuthin'."

"Then keep yer hole shut."

"Okay, boss."

Boss, James thought, feeling uneasy.

"It still on for tonight?" Judson asked.

Slamming his beer on the bar, Cletus turned aside and grabbed a handful of Judson's crumpled shirt. "Course it is, now shut up! Jesus H. Christ, Judson! If it were off I woulda told you."

"Sorry, Cletus. I just figured you'd be gettin' ready if it was still on."

"I am gettin' ready! Fuck it! I got more irons in the fire than just lookin' after you buncha spineless mo-rons! Don't try figuring anything else. You're too stupid. Every last one of you. I do the figuring for this Lodge."

"Sorry, Cletus," Judson intoned as he released his shirt.

Cletus quaffed the last of his beer and slid off his stool. He spread his arms apart like a high wire performer and wiggled his head. "Cover me, Judson, and don't be late tonight."

"No problem, boss," he answered as Cletus began his staggered lumber toward the door.

His aching legs protested, but James followed.

***

James blended into the shadows of the street and surreptitiously trailed him. Following people, especially Cletus who had already drunk enough throughout the day to put most men in a stupor, was a skill James quickly developed. He had all the right attributes. He was diminutive, sly, and quiet. James could appear nonchalant at a Black Panther rally or blend into a Daughters of the Confederacy luncheon with the greatest of ease. People simply didn't notice him. His plain face was like any other people see in a public restroom or ignore as he squats beside you on a crowded subway. James was nondescript and quiet as a mouse. More so, actually. James was the superlative for quiet. The only time he stood out was when he opened his mouth and let loose the wild beast that lived to make a fool out of him. Otherwise, he blended.

James was lean and a swift runner, but he wasn't a fool. As soon as he saw Cletus stumbled into his car, he knew he couldn't keep pace with a Camaro. His eyes scanned the street until he saw a dim yellow light glowing wanly on the top of a Ford. "F-Follow that c-c-car," he said as he jumped into the taxi--the only one in all of Ithica. A black safari hat cast a hard shadow across the driver's face and he started the car robotically, without saying a word.

"K-Keep your d-distance." The cabby did. He never asked why or made any chitchat. He was the kind of cabby James appreciated. Kept to himself and didn't ask any stupid questions as long as the customer paid the fare. He was content to sit in his seat, let baby fat grow around his waist, and collect his tips. Such was this cabby's lot on life and he accepted it wholeheartedly.

Cletus' first stop of the evening was a short one. He pulled his Camaro alongside the curb in front of a two-story house on Lee Street. "P-p-p-pull over h-here and w-wait," James told the cabby. He crouched lower in his seat, his eyes barely peering above the edge of the window. The black vinyl upholstery of the cab stuck to his legs and he crossed them uncomfortably, peeling skin from rubber like cheap decals. Now that he was on the right trail James felt edgy. Everything annoyed him and stress knotted the muscles around his neck. Sinews sprung out like party favors.

If the house on Lee wasn't so small, James would have thought it an antebellum estate. Green eaves hung over the slanted roof and a long balcony stretched across the top floor. He had imagined the same balcony when he read Gone With the Wind.

It was quiet. James heard the song of crickets in the distance and the only light was the rhythmic glow of fireflies. Darkness shielded the house and James wasn't sure who answered the door when Cletus knocked on it. He sauntered inside, following the shadowy figure into a black void, and didn't return for fifteen minutes. When Cletus walked back out, a black duffel bag hung loosely over his left shoulder. His head bobbed up and down as though he'd deprived himself of sleep and could barely stay awake.

What's he got in there? James wondered as the bag shifted and bounced off Cletus' ribs.

He carried it casually, his hand tremulously rubbing the nylon shoulder strap, but he looked back at the house three times before he sat down in his Camaro.

He's nervous, James calculated and realized the sensation was mutual.

As soon as the Camaro pulled away from the curb, the taxi's headlights flooded the dark street and followed. They drove for what seemed an eternity to James. Large portions of Ithica didn't have streetlamps and remained unfamiliar to him. Neighborhoods blended with commercial centers and then became neighborhoods again until everything was gone. James watched the Camaro pull to stop next to a grassy field. He guessed they were in the south part of town. James was unfamiliar with this district.

Little James, going to get lost and hurt himself. Fall down and scrape a knee.

Cletus got out of his car, the duffel bag tucked underneath his hunched over chest, and he walked toward an abandoned barn. He wasn't as casual now and the drunken gait was gone. "W-wait here," James said as he slid out of the side of the cab.

"You get out and I'm moving on my next fare," the cabby said. It was the first time James had heard his voice. It was deep, matching his sizeable girth, and James felt a bit threatened. There was no negotiating with this man. He was quiet for reasons entirely different than his own. The cabby only spoke when necessary and he meant every word. Such was his lot in life and he accepted it wholeheartedly.

James gritted his teeth as he watched Cletus slip inside the barn. Following Cletus from a distance wasn't doing him any good. He couldn't find any evidence waiting in the cab, but spying up close meant getting real close. If I'm going to do this, I've got to start taking risks, he thought regrettably. Think about Carrie. You can't let him get away with killing her.

But it wasn't Carrie that he thought about. It was Cletus. He remembered the detached grin and bleary eyes that studied him at the Boar two nights ago. Cletus was a sociopath. He didn't have any regard for human life, especially James'.

The fear shivering in James' heart questioned what would he do if Cletus found him spying. He'd end up the same as Carrie, a hunk of unclaimed dead flesh in the morgue. Was that what he really wanted? No, but he didn't want to turn tail, either. The bitter resolve he'd sustained in front of the sheriff station felt like a lifetime ago, though only a few hours had passed. Courage was easy to find in the eye of the storm, but now James was mired in the squall. He took a deep breath and thought about all the people who had run him down his whole life. This was his moment, a chance to stand firm, and James told himself this decision would be the hardest. If he could get out of this cab, the rest would be downhill.

He shut his eyes. The passenger door creaked quietly as he opened it. James tossed a twenty at the cabby and whispered, "Go on." The cabby didn't wait for a change of heart. He drove away and James found himself in a dark field of scrubgrass, alone.

The lights of Ithica twinkled from the north and James told himself the situation wasn't as dire as he'd imagined. They'd passed a few houses and shops a half mile back up the road. I can run it in ten minutes even if I'm exhausted, James assured himself. There was only one thing to do now. He crept up to the side of the barn, careful not to step on anything but dew-laden grass, until he pressed his palms against the rotting wood. It felt cool and damp. Whatever paint had once adorned the barn had flaked away long ago and a knot tightened in James' chest.

Whatever he's doing, he sure picked a remote spot.

Breathing deep and muted, James examined his choices. The front doors that Cletus had slipped through were out. Cletus may have been drunk, but James wasn't fool enough to stroll through the front of the barn in plain sight. He needed an alternative. A bright white light suddenly shined through a window--or maybe a hole in the roof, he wasn't certain--near the top of the barn. There was more than one source of illumination and the white beams dueled like lightsabers, radiance flickering from one opening to the next. Faint voices resonated inside. Cletus wasn't alone.

Biting his lower lip, James looked in both directions frantically. Time was of the essence. Whatever was being discussed concerned him, or at least James had made it his concern. He didn't want to miss a single word. Looking up again, he noticed the slant of the roof. The grade was very slight and he guessed he could crawl up to the miniature gable if he scaled the eight feet high walls.

No ladders or cracks in the wood to grip. Even if there were, James didn't trust the rotting walls to support even his light weight. For that matter, maybe the roof had rotted through. He imagined himself taking one wrong step and tumbling through the ceiling and landing on a bale of hay. With my luck, there'd be a pitchfork. James was willing to take that risk.

He leaned against the barn and dropped his head. Sheer determination wouldn't levitate him up the wall. I could chance the front doors if I'm quiet, he began to consider when he looked down the length of the barn. Cletus' Camaro was parked two feet from the barn. If I stand on it, he thought as he scratched his chin, and give it my best jump, I could probably pull myself up to the roof.

It was a foolhardy idea, but no more foolish than sauntering through the barn doors. He couldn't hear the voices any longer and James didn't waste time pondering the drawbacks. He scrambled to Cletus' Camaro and pulled himself onto the hood. Standing on the front fender, he faced the barn and stretched out his arms as far as they'd go. He bent at the knees like a platform diver preparing for a triple somersault. A deep breath of humid air inflated his lungs and James squatted to his ankles. He lunged upward, trying not to scream, and saw the edge of the roof nearing his outstretched fingers.

Too short! I won't make it! echoed through his mind as endless images of torture and violence flooded his thoughts. What's he gonna do to me? He's a sociopath, James recalled. Methods of torture were some of the grimmer corners of the Internet James had once stumbled upon and all the grisly descriptions suddenly sickened him--pulling eyeballs out of their sockets so they can dangle on your cheeks; stripping naked while someone pours a colony of Black Ants on your chest; sodomy with a corkscrew or an auger. James thought he was going to puke.

Please make it!

The corroded barn eaves neared his fingertips and James' jaw strained to its limit, his mouth opening wide. A wisp of air seeped through his clenched throat and his hands adhered the edge of the barn. Every finger screamed in pain as he pulled himself up, but James had made it. The muscles lining his stomach popped out and contracted as he heaved himself closer to the roof. His right forearm made it up, followed by his other arm and then his chest. Before the next gasp of badly needed oxygen made it to his mouth, James was on the roof.

Sweat coated the back of his neck and his face felt like a stove burner. Palpable heat flushed his cheeks and he knew they'd be red for weeks. For the moment, he didn't care. He'd made it, he'd taken his stand, and now it was time to reap the reward.

Reward. It unsettled him to think of what he would find as a reward. The unstable roof bowed under the added weight and James walked cautiously. He tested each step by lightly tapping his foot before he placed all his weight on it. The roof creaked a few times, fortunately quietly, but held firm as James leaned close to the open-air window centered in the gable.

The white sheen of two bright flashlights filled his eyes again as he peered inside. Cletus stood on one side of the barn and tossed the black duffel bag to another man standing four yards away. Straw lay at their feet, but nothing else. This place was abandoned. James had never seen the second man and counted himself lucky. He was the oddest person he'd ever seen in his life. Thick round glasses like coke bottles clung to the end of his nose as sweaty black hair flowed wildly in every direction. Einstein sported a tamer hairdo. It didn't look like this man had ever touched a comb in his life. Thin runnels of mucus dribbled out of his nose and he wiped it away with his dirty arm. For a moment, the thought crossed James' mind that perhaps this man lived in the barn, but he decided that was impossible. The stale hay reeked like cow flaps and no human had the tolerance to breathe this air for long.

The odd man, who James judged from his perspective might be shorter than he, twitched nervously. His head spasmodically lunged toward his right shoulder three times and he licked his sun burned lips. The coarse resonance of his dry tongue across the cracked flesh was audible, sending a chill down James' spine.

What could Cletus want with him? James wondered in frustration.

The odd man twitched twice more as he looked Cletus in the eyes. Cletus was grimly serious and didn't flinch during the stare down.

"Can I taste it?" the odd man asked.

Cletus grunted a response and nodded. He tore the bag open, groping at the zipper with his long fingernails, and reached inside greedily. James leaned closer, watching the flashlight dance across the contents of the duffel bag. Suddenly, he felt weak. The odd guy reached inside and removed the contents. James almost wet his pants. Oh shit, he barley mustered the resiliency to stop himself from saying aloud.

***

Cletus Watts never held a job he liked. Hard work bored him more than performing oral sex on a woman--which he had tried twice--and intensified the latent anger burning in his heart. He'd held all kinds of jobs through the years: shoe salesman, gas station attendant, waiter, and he even labored as garbage collector for a while. None of the jobs suited him. Cletus was as strong as an ox, never got sick, and had always showed up for work on time and ready to go. His exuberance, however, had been a façade. Deep down, in some part of his head he listened to when he was drunk or angry, Cletus despised work. The voice told him it was a waste of time. Why should he break his back for a few shiny pennies when everything was free for the taking?

Money was for the strong. Everything he needed in life hung from the trees, ripe apples waiting to be plucked. Did money grow on trees? Cletus didn't quite believe that saying, though after an all night bender he once mistook pears for baseballs growing on a tree. Cletus did believe that there was plenty of wealth for the taking if you had enough ambition. Eight years ago, the voice in his head told him he was ready.

He'd heard the stories from his old high school friends about the mules that came through Georgia at night. Ithica was a little out of their way--they went through Atlanta--but these mules were ambitious and they spread their product throughout Florida and Georgia on their way north. There was plenty of blow--an industry term Cletus quickly picked up--to go around, but they needed more distributors. Cletus offered his services.

The process was simple and Cletus should know, he'd made a living selling coke for the last eight years. Mules brought the product out of Florida at night and dropped off shipments in Macon, Dublin, and Atlanta. These professionals genuinely impressed Cletus. They delivered at night, turning off the headlights on their fast cars to avoid the police while brandishing night vision goggles so they could see the road. The product then filtered its way across east Georgia until it reached the foothills. One of Cletus' friends made the drop at a house on Lee Street and Cletus came by once a month to pick up his share.

Pure, uncut coke. Cletus didn't do the shit, he just sold it. What was it the Marlboro man said once? We don't smoke the shit, we just sell it to the poor, the black, and the stupid. Cletus was worse. He'd sell it to his own mother at a jacked up price if she were still alive. The risk was high, but Cletus managed to stay a step ahead of the men he dubbed, 'those mo-rons down at the station.' Besides, through the years he'd found ways to lessen his risk.

Stupid pushers and addicts like Scottie did the tough work for him. He turned a quick profit and let them take their chances selling the blow on the streets of Ithica. He'd called Scottie earlier in the day and told him to meet at the old barn around eight-thirty. Cletus could always count on Scottie. He was a jumpy fella and his wild hair unnerved Cletus a bit, but he never showed it.

He preferred dealing with Scottie because it was less dangerous. Scottie had been around and knew the score in Ithica. Unlike some young upstart new to town who might decide to take the blow and pay with hot lead, Scottie knew not to mess with Cletus. Scottie never threatened. He was a sniveling junkie who sold just enough grams to support his habit. He had no reason for violence--at least not when it came to his drug addiction. He and Cletus had an amicable, if strained, relationship.

"How you like that, Scottie?" he asked as the odd kid removed a Ziploc bag filled with white powder from the duffel bag. Two more bags just like the one in Scottie's hand lay inside. Cletus watched him salivate. Scottie was the only junkie he met who watered at the mouth at the sight of blow--a Pavlovian experiment gone awry.

He dabbed his moist finger in the bag and licked the snowy granules. "Yeah, yeah, it's good, man my man, I like what I see. How much, how much, how much?" Scottie rattled off like an auctioneer.

"Same as always, ya friggin' mo-ron. Hand it over," Cletus insisted. He stepped closer to Scottie as he fidgeted with the duffel bag's zipper. Cletus leaned forward and stretched out his left hand, gripping the butt of his nine millimeter stuck in the back of his jeans with the other. Even with fools like Scottie, Cletus came prepared.

Scottie barely contained himself. The urge to urinate swelled into his bladder and he mashed his lips together so he wouldn't cackle like a raving lunatic. He was no lunatic, no, lunatics, did things in public like running around nekid and sticking their tongues on flagpoles in winter. Yeah, yeah, my man oh man, that's a lunatic. Not Scottie. Scottie's a good boy, real good, gonna get me some of that sweet coke, yeah, man oh man.

Scottie reached into the pocket of his baggy black sweatpants and removed a roll of money thicker than the handle of a baseball bat. A crisp hundred-dollar bill adorned the outermost ring of cash. Scottie had taken the time to wrap a bright red Christmas ribbon around the entire wad. Man oh man, he wasn't no loony. He reached out, ready to hand Cletus the wad, when a crooked smile etched across his face. Cletus had seen this baleful grin before and he gripped the butt of his semi-automatic more tightly. He was in no mood for Scottie's games.

"What about the Lodge, my man. The Rebel Lodge, man oh man, when you gonna let me in?"

"Shut the fuck up you shivering retard!" Cletus exploded. Scottie recoiled with each harsh word. "I told you a thousand times I don't want your sorry ass in the Lodge. I founded it and I decide who's in. You're out! Now quit your belly-aching and hand it over!" Sweat glistened on Cletus' palm and the flashlight almost slipped from his hand. He caught it before it could fall to the ground, but it radiated across the dilapidated barn like a bad light-show at an Iron Butterfly concert. Scottie jumped up and down, bristling with energy.

"Man, that's bright! That's bright!"

"Shut up!"

Scottie tossed the money at Cletus and he caught it with his right hand, releasing the butt of his gun. Scottie wasn't dangerous, Cletus reminded himself. He'd shoot this fool on principle, but he knew better than to attract attention while doing business. He turned to walk away, keeping a close eye on Scottie as he backed toward the barn doors, when the mo-ron asked him a question he hadn't anticipated.

"So, my man, where's Carrie? She ain't with us no more. Where'd she go? I bet you know."

Like a dog snarling and showing its teeth in the moment of combat, Cletus whipped out his gun and had it pointed at Scottie's nose in less than a second. Scottie's jocular grin abruptly disappeared, replaced by a horrified rictus that spread from ear to ear. He raised his trembling hands above his head very slowly, almost methodically. The flesh beneath Cletus' left eye bunched into a wrinkled sac that bulged outward. A blue vein throbbed on his forehead and Scottie licked his dry lips. "Maybe she saw too much," Cletus said mysteriously. His answer was an evasion, but the quaver in his voice revealed that he knew more, or at least suspected more, than he was willing to say. "Don't go stickin' your nose in other people's business, Scottie. Take your shit home and do whatever the hell it is you do with it."

"Okay, my man. I'm sorry," Scottie apologized as Cletus backed out of the barn. His gun didn't return to his pants until he was safely inside his Camaro.

***

James Hall had never seen so much dope in his life. He'd smelled the occasional joint being smoked in the guy's locker room back in high school and he'd watched a few people sniff powder off the back of their palm in the seedy bathrooms of nasty bars, but he'd never imagined that dealers actually carried so much drugs in a duffel bag. That was the kind of thing he saw in movies, but not real life.

Maybe it wasn't dope, James considered. It was a rationalization to brace him against the audacity of what he saw. James knew it was coke. He was shocked, not stupid. If nothing else, Cletus' gun told him the drugs were real. This whole situation was growing worse by the second. He had thought he would follow Cletus around until he slipped up and admitted that he had killed Carrie in a drunken rage. Cletus was a simple rube, but the circumstances were anything but simple. He was getting in too deep.

What was I thinking? James scolded himself, wanting to slap his forehead. He hadn't considered that Cletus had the resources or the knowledge to pull off any crime besides a petty scam. Maybe he wasn't a simple rube. He was a small time hood, but in a town the size of Ithica, small time hoods ruled like tyrants. An image flashed in his mind: Cletus and Sheriff Blaine sitting on thrones, gilded crowns glistening on their swelled heads. There was enough coke in that bag to keep all of Ithica higher than a kite for a full month.

This is bigger than me or Carrie Mason, he realized.

"Maybe she saw too much!" Cletus barked at Scottie as he backed toward the doors and James decided he would do the same. He crawled down the side of the roof, his sensibilities had barely survived a cannon blast of reality. Was Carrie involved with drugs? No, James insisted, an opinion of complete and unthinking denial, but all the pieces fit. She was strung out the last night he saw her and everyone in Ithica expressed some trepidation at the mentioning of her name. It was the same trepidation Sheriff Blaine showed when he had mentioned Cletus.

I won't believe it! James concluded stubbornly. Carrie hid something from me, but it wasn't that, couldn't be drugs. Maybe it was something worse. No, stop thinking that! Carrie was a good person. She had a good heart because she didn't judge me. She treated me like a regular person, dammit! She was good.

Or maybe you need her to be good, little James. You ever think of that, retard?

James' arms contracted until a lattice of veins bulged from his biceps and elbows. He didn't want to consider the possibility, but maybe it was true. Had he altered Carrie into something she wasn't? A heroine in distress or a saint who showed more sympathy than any woman he'd ever met. It was possible. Reluctantly, James had to admit that it was possible. He was tired of running away from his fears and maybe, somewhere in the back of his mind, he transformed Carrie to make her into someone worth fighting for. By taking a stand for himself, he also stood up for her and his delicate sense of right and wrong wouldn't allow him to fight for a person who wasn't good at heart.

James' throat tightened as he considered all the possibilities he had refused to acknowledge. Until now, he had ignored the people who made strange faces and recoiled in fear when he mentioned Carrie Mason, but suddenly all of their reactions swirled around him, drowning him in an abyss of uncertainty. There had to be an explanation for their reactions. One adverse reaction James could excuse as an aberration. Two reactions he could discount as out of the ordinary. But everyone he'd met feared Carrie Mason or, at least, feared something about her.

The clicking of footsteps crushing blades of grass resounded below James and he froze still. His moral dilemma had distracted him and he hadn't noticed Cletus getting into his car. The Camaro door cried stridently as it pulled open and James held his breath. The sheer wall of the barn hid him from view--his thin, prostrated body blended into the dark wood--but Cletus was only a few feet below him.

He'll hear the slightest sound and he has a gun. Dammit! If that crazy redneck finds me now, I'm as good as dead. He almost shot that odd kid and he was giving Cletus a roll of money. He won't flinch or hesitate when it comes time to kill me.

James' hands quivered under the strain of holding him in place, mere inches form the edge of the precipice, and his feet slid a few inches. The weather beaten shingles atop the barn didn't provide traction and there weren't any grips for his boots. They slipped against the rough wood, scratching like an army of rats trying to break down a wall, and Cletus raised his gun.

James winced as he heard Cletus switch the safety off the semi-automatic. Closing his eyes tightly, he prayed he would die swiftly. The prospect of bleeding to death in an abandoned field wasn't pleasing at all. Strangely though, James considered himself lucky. If he had to take a bullet from some redneck in the middle of nowhere, he was content to think that it would come from Cletus Watts. No matter how capricious Cletus may have acted, James knew he wouldn't leave anything to chance. Cletus would blow his brains all over the side of the barn and bury the remains. There wouldn't be any bullets in the kneecaps or shots in the stomach. Cletus would kill him efficiently and smoothly.

"Who's up there?" Cletus muttered through his teeth. James felt the heat of his approaching body and he tried not to cry out. He didn't have much resolve left in him. "Come on down," Cletus intoned and James clutched at the roof for dear life.

Cletus reached toward the eaves and thought about pulling himself up for a closer look when a crow cawed and flew over his head. Cletus recoiled suddenly, firing one round at the squawking bird. It missed and he cussed himself loudly.

The bird had sat at the other end of the roof. Its feathers were so dark that James hadn't noticed it, but he thanked that bird for everything he was worth.

As soon as the gunshot echoed and reverberated in the distance, Cletus hauled ass. He jumped into his Camaro, shoved the loaded gun into his pants, and slammed the gear stick into first. Clumps of grass flew everywhere, leaving a cloying odor, as Cletus peeled out. He couldn't believe he'd shot at a damn bird. The police might be there in minutes after that bang and he didn't want to wait around.

By the time James had his feet planted squarely on the ground again, two red taillights were the last flickering images he saw of Cletus. I'll never track him now, James thought, feeling stupid for trying to follow him in the first place. He was lucky he wasn't dead or lost by now. Still, what he'd seen wasn't enough. James wanted something tangible, incorruptible proof against Cletus. If he was going to find the evidence he required to help Carrie, he needed a different method.

But am I going to try? James asked himself, coming back to that same dilemma. Everyone had an opinion about the late Ms. Mason and every consternated expression and worried glare resurfaced from his memories, but in the end, James followed the opinion that mattered most: his own. It didn't matter what Carrie had done in her past or what the other people of Ithica thought about her. James judged her as the person he'd known for only a few short hours. That person was warm, funny, and caring. That was enough for him.

I'm sick of strangers judging me. Why should I let them judge Carrie, either?

If Ithica was going to be his stand, the place where he stopped running and became a man, then he couldn't think of a better person he'd rather fight for.

He fought for himself most of all and Carrie as well, but he also harbored another motivation he hadn't recognized until he watched Cletus from that rooftop. He was fighting against all the Cletus Watts' of the world. It was time they learned that the good people were not weak. He wouldn't move on for them any longer. They could steal his car, fire him, shout names, smash his face, and point guns at him, but James Hall was going to see this fight through to the end.

His path of destiny laid before him. He'd made the choice and now he was determined to see the end of the trail and the first fork in the path led him toward a shimmering white light in the distance. Scottie was walking away. He didn't have a car, either, which was fine with James. He seemed to know something about Carrie and it was time to find out exactly what he suspected. James took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off his face with his corduroy shirt. Scottie was only fifty yards ahead of him and he needed to make up the distance before his flashlight faded away.

James scampered across the field, finally settling on what road his journey would take.

Chapter Thirteen: Murder by Any Means

8:42 P.M.

"When are you going to find a hotel?" Linda finally asked, the final word slurred to sound like hodel. They were the first words she'd uttered in half an hour. Usually, Todd considered the silence a great relief, but not on this evening. Her quiet demeanor had settled him and a trickle of sweat beaded along his left temple. He wondered if she knew or if the sarcastic, accusatory tone that resonated in her voice was liquor talking. Linda was very difficult to read. Half the time Todd thought she had passed out cold when she was completely alert and taking mental notes. Other times he thought she was wide awake, but actually her glassy eyes hid her complete exhaustion. Whatever her current state--Todd wasn't sure how much booze was left in the squeeze bottle--he hoped she didn't know they were lost. It was bad enough dealing with that fact without her yapping in his ear.

"Settle back, baby. We'll stop soon." Soon being a relative term.

"By the side of the road maybe," she added and before Todd could respond, the swish of the upturned squeeze bottle met her lips. He heard the booze slosh inside the plastic container and he realized then that she knew. Linda was completely aware of their predicament.

"Give it a rest," Todd said, the words floating on an exasperated breath that escaped his lips. He was deflating. All of the tension and stress of the last few days exited through his mouth, giving regret a chance to fill him back up again. Todd could always count on his good pal regret. It played at the clubs with him--sometimes on sax or sometimes on sticks--and it slapped him on the back cheerily after every Gator touchdown at the Sugar Bowl. Regret sat by the lake with him when he fished and helped him rummage through junk stores for classic LPs. Oh yeah, regret was a sport, a real friend. It was always there for him, waiting to make him feel low even as he climbed out of pits of despair and self-loathing.

"I need to rest," Linda answered, a hint of anger in her voice. It was a command, not a suggestion.

Don't argue, Todd warned himself. She's tired and cranky, but she'll be better as soon as I find a place to stop. What the hell was I thinking? Taking back roads in the middle of rural Georgia is just begging for a scene from Deliverance. I'll start hearing a banjo any minute.

Todd thought about his axe tucked neatly into the trunk of the Buick. The Gibson's cherry finish danced in his mind and he felt the vibrations of its perfectly tuned strings reverberating on his fingertips. He'd read somewhere that war amputees feel their legs and arms after they've lost them--a phenomenon called phantom limbs. He had the same connection with his Gibson. He sensed the jolt of electricity whenever he plugged it in or the resonance of lingering high-pitched chords that rang in his ears for hours. He loved that guitar and wished again he'd packed it in the back seat.

I really could use it now. Just to hold and strum a few notes while I get us out of this backwoods mess.

The road was dark, yellow stripes flashing by the median, but nothing else. The trees blended with the sky, enveloping everything with a murky shroud. They hadn't seen a streetlight or another car in over an hour. Todd peeked at the fuel gauge and held his breath for a brief moment. It was a short twitch away from E. Fifty more miles at most, he estimated, before they found themselves sputtering by the road. Then they really would have to sleep in the car.

With every door locked, Todd thought dreadfully as he studied the bleak pavement in front of them. The road was foreboding. The asphalt monster with its yellow lines and strategic potholes had claimed them, swallowed their Buick whole, and now it was up to Todd to escape through the bowels. The beads of sweat gathering beside his temple fell from his head in long, plump drops.

The monster was hungry.

***

"Where we going?" Baron asked as Billy walked into the back room and unplugged the TV cord with one swift yank.

"Get up, Big Paws," Billy ordered as the last black and white images of Kevin Arnold and Winnie Cooper faded into garbled static and then into nothingness.

"I like Wonder Years," Baron explained. Not as much as he liked Cheers, but the girl in Wonder Years was real purty. Baron reckoned he could sit there all day and watch her.

"Yeah, I know. Get up. We're goin' out," Billy explained as he leaned back into the front room, making sure Jumpy had the girl ready. She was bound at the wrists, not that it mattered. She breathed shallowly and her fractured pelvis and shredded anus made any movement excruciating. She wouldn't run anywhere.

"Where we going?" Baron asked, his neck craning to look at Billy.

"We're goin' on a hike," Billy said as he grasped Baron's thick, fatty shoulder. It rippled under his tight squeeze, but underneath the fat, Billy felt a hard muscle. Baron was stronger than most people realized on first appearance. He'd pulled a totaled car off his neighbor's Golden Retriever once, but everyone said it was because of adrenaline. Actually, Baron's pulse hadn't risen above fifty heartbeats. "Get up!" Billy shouted and Baron staggered to his feet, shifting his weight from one leg and then the next.

He didn't want to get yelled at, shoo no.

"Do I have to go?" Baron asked, his head turning toward the tiny television set. His expression changed from the joy he felt for the Wonder Years to one of hurt. His eyes shrank into pinpoints and the sagging flesh on his cheeks hung penduously lower. He looked droopy.

"Yes!" Billy shouted. "Now get ready and come on in here," he said, stepping into the other room of the empty shack.

"Is she going?" Baron asked as he pointed at the black girl. Jumpy held her up like a wooden puppet, her bound wrists behind her back. Her stiff legs sauntered ungracefully as he slung her around, but her eyes never left Baron's smiling face. She was vacant, her lips pursed in a silent call for help, but Baron merely smiled. She was a purty little girl, even though his daddy once told him not to say that kind of thing about black girls. It wasn't right, shoo no.

"Let's go, Big Paws," Billy ordered as he reached under the bed and retrieved a double-barreled shotgun. He opened the barrels and loaded two buckshot shells. It closed it with a loud click. Baron jumped, slightly startled.

He'd heard that sound before. It was a hunting sound. That was a gun, shoo yeah.

But what were they going to hunt at night on a hike? he wondered. His daddy sometimes said you could hunt coons at night, but he set traps for them--little clamps that grabbed their paws. He never shot a raccoon, shoo no! So what are they going to shoot at in the dark?

Baron didn't know.

***

Todd Bundy could suspend disbelief far enough to agree that scenic landscapes affected emotions in films or in stories, but never in real life. The occasional stormy day might make someone glum or the first bright sun of spring might energize a young child, but those examples were the extremes. Subtle changes in surrounding didn't change peoples' moods, but on this night it did. As the unyielding darkness of night swallowed his Buick, Linda changed. The change was so sudden he almost didn't recognize it at first.

"Todd, do you love me?"

He took a deep breath and prepared to shout, 'of course I do, what a stupid question,' when he looked into Linda's eyes. For the first time in recent memory, they were sober and longing. They were eyes, the royal emeralds he gazed upon when they first met and fell in love. He had thought her question was another set up, a prologue to an argument, but Linda wasn't baiting him. This question was the coda to a debate that raged in her mind. She was completely serious.

"Yes. I love you very much," he answered. Todd patted her hand. It was colder than ice.

"What are we going to do?" she asked, Todd straining to discern her meaning. Do about what? About them, about drinking, about Nashville, about life? There was so much to do. He took the easy way out.

"Everything will be all right, baby," he responded, patting her hand again. Slowly, she pulled it away.

"No, I don't think so." A pause lingered in the air until Linda finally continued, "What's wrong with me, Todd?"

He looked across the front seat again. This time there was more than longing in her eyes. A hint of water glistened above her long lashes. "Hey baby," he said softly, "there's nothing wrong with you."

"Yes, there is," she insisted, her eyes scrunching tight and her mouth gaping. "It's all my fault. I don't mean to be this way."

Her cries echoed in his ears. It's not her fault, Todd told himself. She's stealing my line. Jesus, has she always felt this way? Why would she? I'm the one who fucked things up. She never hit me. I'm the bad guy in this relationship!

"You haven't done anything wrong," he assured her, desperation tinting his voice. In his mind, Linda was innocent, a victim.

"Yes, I have," she insisted and she couldn't hold back the tears any longer. She buried her face in her hands and the waterworks opened wide. Salty droplets poured into her palms and trickled to the cotton sleeves of her blouse. "I don't mean to drink so much, but I can't stop myself." She'd reached the breaking point, the same moment of self-realization Todd had stumbled upon haphazardly in January. She couldn't go on like this and live with herself. Linda Bundy hated being alive.

"Listen to me," Todd said sternly. Linda couldn't bear to look up, but she listened through her sobs. "You are the best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life and I screwed it the hell up. The only thing I've ever done well is play that guitar. When I met you I wanted to do relationships well. I wanted to take care of you and make you happy because you made me feel whole inside. Hell, you meant more to me than my fucking music and I never thought anyone could mean that much. Until I met you, women were just sperm banks hanging around after gigs, but you were different. Fuck, I felt guilty for ever thinking any of those things after we got together. Linda, you make me feel special and wanted."

"Why? What have I ever done for you?" she sobbed.

Todd shook his head emphatically. "It's not what you do for me. It's how you make me feel. I can turn to you. No matter what, you're there and you've had good reasons to ditch me." Linda mewled through the tears. "Don't do that. Please, don't. You haven't done anything wrong."

"No!" she suddenly yelled. "Bullshit! Everything I've ever done is wrong. I can't hold a job. I can't take care of myself. I even forced you to move."

"Hey, we're moving, both of us. This is for us, not you or me."

"It's all my fault."

"Stop saying that!"

"Why should I?"

"Because you're scaring me."

Her sobs softened and Linda squeegeed the water off her cheeks with her palms. Cerise welts colored the distended skin around her eyes and she shook her head despairingly. "See, I did it again. I screwed up and frightened you."

"No!" Todd screamed, slamming his fist on the steering wheel. The shockwave rattled the brown vinyl dashboard and Linda's eyes widened. She didn't understand what had set him off.

My fault again, Todd thought. He had no idea how badly he'd wounded her. Not only had he driven her to drink, Linda thought she was the reason. But it's me! I did this! It's all my damn fault! He would have preferred that she hate him. Instead, he had another reason for guilt, another degree of regret to torment his mind.

"What's wrong?"

"You don't get it!" Todd screamed.

"Get what?"

"Me," he said, his voice mellowing.

"You? What about you?"

"I screwed it up. That damn coke! And as soon as I kicked the shit, it was too late. I'd driven you away and," tears began to well up in his eyes. "I turned you into a lush. I don't blame you. Hell, I'd drink all the time too if I had to live with me, which is why I did coke in the first place, but I never meant to hurt you. Linda, I never meant to hit you. I'll never forget it. I'll live with that moment forever because none of our problems are your fault. They're mine. All mine. I hit you and it's my fault!"

His fault? Linda thought. It came as a complete shock to her. She lifted her face from her moist hands and looked at him in utter astonishment. Tears streamed down Todd's face, but he didn't cry, not a peep. He suffered, as always, in silence.

Why would he blame himself?

Todd he too high in the old days to realize that she'd been a drunk for more than the last seven months? Linda's problems had built up over years, only recently did Todd begin to recognize them. Sobriety made him aware of a lot of things.

Linda lowered her head again and clenched her fists. Todd was right. It was his fault and hers too, but they were both to blame for a reason she hadn't recognized until this moment. Neither of them ever told the other how they felt. Linda imagined how much easier the last seven months would have been had they only opened their hearts and shared their grief. They could have comforted each other and used their pain to bridge a closer bond instead of laying blame and recoiling in sorrow. Silence had fucked them over and the regret that tugged at Todd's conscious every night suddenly consumed Linda.

It was her fault. It was Todd's also.

There's still hope, she told herself, burying the guilt of regret as quickly as it had descended upon her. Now that we're talking we don't have to stop. We can finally get all this junk out in the open and he'll know that it wasn't his fault. I don't blame him. Christ on a stick, I was so drunk that night he hit me that I barely remember it.

Hope lightened Linda's heart, sobering her even more than the dark night sky, but she wouldn't have a chance to tell Todd she didn't blame him.

The deafening bang of a loaded rifle barrel diverted their attentions instantly. Linda screamed in panic, sucking down a convulsive breath, as Todd swerved to the side of the road. The Buick screeched to a halt, plumes of dirt billowed around the radial tires, and the headlights shined across a level plain of clay to expose a dry creekbed. A pool of splattered blood rippled next to the edge of the creek; the vibration caused by the halting Buick sent ripples through it. It was like a rainwater puddle only darker and crimson.

Two men stood beside the puddle, one with a shotgun--viscous smoke emanating form the right barrel--and the other holding up the body of a young black girl. The left half of her head was missing, splintered across the ground in an array of bloody skull fragments and tattered chunks of gray matter. The pieces of her brain gathered dust and rolled beneath the light breeze like globs of mercury gaining mass and momentum.

The mouths of the two men gaped open. They were as shocked to see Todd's Buick as he was to see them with the dead girl. A full three seconds passed like frozen time. Nobody knew what to do and one command, a primal response, ripped through Todd's head. Get the hell out of here!

Linda's reaction was swifter and more jaded. She screamed at the top of her lungs, her mind becoming a haze of bloody puddles and dead little girls, and she couldn't control herself. She screamed without stopping to breathe and a spreading bloom of urine stained the seat of her pants. Her cry disrupted the time vortex and the two men sprung to life like clockwork toys. Linda had wound their keys and set them into motion.

Todd threw the gearshift into reverse, but he was too slow. Billy had raised his rifle and took aim at his head. He fired the second barrel.

***

Baron's shoulders lurched forward at the booming sound of the gunshot. It startled him a bit, waking him from the late-night malaise he'd felt since they corralled him into the back of Billy's Chevy pick-up. It was past his bedtime and Baron was ready to go home. He yearned for the warm safety he felt with his blue woolen bedspread wrapped around his arms and thighs like an umbilical cord. He didn't want to hunt no more--Baron wondered if he had ever wanted to hunt in the first place--and he heard the long hiss of a giant snake lunging out for him. It had come for him suddenly, as snakes tend to do, and Baron panicked.

He scrambled to his feet, diving out of the rear of the pick-up. He hated snakes. The way their slimy scales glistened and how they left long tattered strips of their skin all over the place. Even the good snakes, harmless garden snakes, stirred a queasy knot in his stomach. He thought their jade skin was really purty, shoo yeah!, but they were still snakes. Snakes were bad. They bite people and killed them. Baron didn't want to hunt any snakes.

As he laid on the ground, coughing up the dust that had swirled into his nose, Baron looked across the field of chunky dirt between the road and the creek. Two bright lights, headlights he realized, glared back at him and Baron knew it wasn't a snake he'd heard. Billy must not be a good hunter, he decided, because he'd missed any animals and shot the front tire of that big brown car.

Air spurted from the punctured front right tire of Todd's Buick like steam rising from a kettle. It hissed madly, filling the air with brief ejaculations of white steam, but only for a moment. The tire deflated rapidly and as soon as it stopped hissing, Baron heard another sound. He was certain about this one. It was a scream. A long drawn out scream that pounded on his eardrums.

Baron crawled off his belly and steadied himself erect at the same moment the driver side door of the Buick swung open. Baron's eyes widened as the darkest man he'd ever seen leapt out of the car and shielded himself behind the door. He crouched low, a leopard waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting monkey. Baron thought this man wore too much black. He could barely see him at night. His pants were black, his vest was black, he wore black shoes, and even his hair was blacker than a chunk of coal. The clean white T-shirt underneath the vest was the only way Baron could distinguish Todd from a shadow.

What's he doing? Baron wondered. Maybe he wants to hunt, too. Shoo yeah, that's it!

The scream--which had never dissipated--abruptly registered in Baron's ears again. He looked at the other side of the car and saw a purty girl with blond hair. He didn't understand why she was screaming, but her cries weren't unfamiliar to him. Baron recognized her wailing, he'd heard it before, and scratched his head to remember when. Baron wasn't very good at questions--that's why the teachers wouldn't let him back in the third grade, shoo no--but he concentrated real hard to remember where he'd heard this girl. Then it dawned on him.

"Mike Taylor!" he shouted, amused at his own erudition, but nobody was listening. Baron could have been Jesus Christ holding a winning lottery ticket and neither Billy, Jumpy, nor Todd would have seen him. She sounded like the same girl he saw with Mike Taylor back before Mike got separated from his head in that accident. She had the same color hair and she was screaming the same way she did when Mike Taylor tried to jump on top of her in Graham Farm.

The contented grin abruptly melted off Baron Davies' face. Mike Taylor.

How'd it feel to rip his neck open, Big Paws?

Mike Taylor! Mike Taylor was bad. When Baron stumbled across him and her in the field that night, Mike said they were rasslin' and Big Paws should go home.

We're goin' on a hike, Big Paws.

But they weren't rasslin'. Mike Taylor was hurting that girl. Baron knew because she was screaming. Screaming was bad. Screaming meant hurt, the same hurt he screamed when he touched the hot iron his daddy used to press his clothes. Mike Taylor was hurting her and he had to stop.

Get out of here, Big Paws! We're just doin' a little rasslin'!

But they weren't. He was hurting her. Mike Taylor was bad.

We're goin' on a hike, Big Paws.

But they hadn't. He rode in a truck and why'd Billy want to go hunting on a hike? Mike Taylor wasn't rasslin' and Billy wasn't hunting. The purty girl was screaming and is screaming again and that means hurt. Mike Taylor hurt her. Billy is tryin' to hurt her!

Rage swept the feeble placidity away from Baron's face. He felt the heat coming on again, the burning red the Judge said he couldn't listen to anymore if he wanted to live at home with Daddy. But Daddy was dead and Mike wasn't rasslin' and Billy wasn't hunting. They were hurting and she was screaming! The red-hot anger overtook him and Baron Davies never recalled what happened next.

***

I'm not fucking Bruce Lee! I'm not even an overweight Steven Segal! I'm a God damn pudgy musician with more voice tone than muscle tone--a flabalanche waiting to happen. What the fuck am I doing? Todd asked himself rhetorically as he crouched behind the open car door.

That last rifle shot blew out the tire and, to Linda's complete astonishment, he had rolled out of the car to fight these two men. They'd already killed the little girl, or so Todd rightly assumed, and he didn't think they'd stop there.

We'd never get away on that flat tire, Todd convinced himself, struggling to build courage and a strategy.

The temperature around his head and neck increased substantially and Todd gasped for a breath of acrid air. It tasted like cotton caught in his throat and deep ladles of perspiration poured off his hair. He'd handled a few guns in his day when he tagged along on hunting trips with the boys down in F-L-A and he was a good shot. One time they armed him with an antique elephant gun. It's gaping barrel looked like someone had stuck a tin funnel on the end of his rifle. Right now, Todd would have settled for even that silly gun.

Rifle! he suddenly realized. The guy in the hat fired a rifle at the car and I heard the first blast when I pulled off the road. It's a double-barreled shotgun, idiot! He's got to reload!

Todd prayed he was right as he dove beyond the protection--or so he assumed, even though the door was mostly plastic and fiberglass--of the car door. He stayed low to the ground, scrambling like a drunkard leaving the local saloon. If he didn't move in a straight pattern, he hoped they might miss.

He was right. Billy stood at the edge of conical light cast by the Buick's headlight beams, reloading both barrels of his shotgun. The stout, round shells shifted between his lithe fingers and the first chamber was ready. Billy reached to his pocket and removed a second shell. He was greedy and overconfident. He hadn't stopped to think how long it would take.

Todd hit him like a linebacker sacking a quarterback. He rammed him with his left shoulder, knocking the rifle to the ground, and sent Billy sprawling. Dusty clay runoff flew everywhere, casting a haze between them and the headlights, but a common thought ripped through both their minds: where's the gun? Both men flung themselves forward, clawing at the shaft of the warm rifle, and they rose to their feet, struggling for the firearm like children fighting over who bats first at a little league game. One hand grabbed it above the other--up and down, neither man gaining a firmer hold. The rifle shimmied back and forth between their competing grips and Todd steadied himself. In the heat of the moment, he looked up, wanting to see the face of the man who had tried to kill him so indiscriminately.

Todd looked into Billy's eyes and saw complete depravity. An instant was all he needed to see Billy's true nature. He had no sense of decency or right from wrong. His flinty eyes sparkled like a wild animal in the jungle, the jaguar stalking behind ropy vines. Something had happened to this man, making him less than human. A savage truculence laid in wait behind those baleful eyes. They waited for a moment to pounce.

Billy grinned.

"Jumpy, little help," he called out sedately. They had the numbers, the guns, and the woman's incessant screaming would fluster his adversary. Billy was as cool as the meat of a watermelon.

Jumpy hadn't moved an inch. He still hadn't crossed that line Billy had, the one that abandons all punctilious decency. He could kill, had killed, but not without pangs of remorse. The dead girl's body lay in his hands as he prepared to toss her into the creek, but the headlights had frozen him. It had never occurred to him that they might get caught. Even when Baron had peeked in the shack window, Jumpy knew they'd kill him and be done with it. Time for a little sloppy moppy with the blood, but that was it. They wouldn't leave a trace of what they'd done, but now there was this car and as the headlights glared into his beady eyes, Jumpy couldn't see anything more than shadowy outlines of people. People, not person, and where there was one there was more. They'd brought a paddy wagon full of pigs to round them up. That's what he saw through the shimmering light. They'd found him doing the sloppy moppy with a little nigger bitch.

"Now Jumpy!" Billy shouted more vehemently.

Jumpy blinked and let the girl slide through his arms. She slumped to the ground, bent over in a heap. Jumpy took one step forward and reached for the snub nose special swaddled between two sheaves of newspaper in the back of his pants. The pigs weren't taking him down without a fight. He gripped the rubber-molded butt of the gun and pulled it out carefully--he had a recurring fear of shooting himself in the ass.

Todd watched all of this from the periphery of his vision. The movement was muted, he wasn't sure what he saw Jumpy pull out from behind his back, but he knew it couldn't be good. Todd slackened his grip on the shaft of the rifle. His hands remained wrapped around it, but Billy hadn't expected the maneuver. He'd put all his weight into wresting the weapon away from Todd and when the intruder suddenly gave up, Billy fell backward, almost stumbling to his knees. With his opponent off balance, Todd seized the moment and pulled up on the shaft of the gun, hoisting Billy between himself and Jumpy.

Jumpy was scared out of his wits. Having a little fun with the girl was one thing, but now it was serious. Sloppy moppy work could land him in a cell. He once spent four days in county lock-up for refusing to pay his child support and they bunked him with a cellmate all the other inmates called Fish. Fish was serving three months for recidivist exposure of his genitals in public. He had a bad habit of masturbating in plain view. Sheriff Blaine had warned him to stop, but Fish couldn't help himself. The four days Jumpy spent in that cell with Fish were the worst of his life. Fish masturbated four, sometimes five, times a day and the mattresses on both bunks reeked of sour tuna. It took Jumpy one evening to figure out how Fish got his moniker. He had no intention of going back there and lying in a bed of another man's semen ever again.

Jumpy fired wildly. He squeezed off three rounds, not caring who he hit as long as nobody was left to take him away in that paddy wagon with the bright white headlights. The first shot whizzed past Billy's ear, forcing him to question his partner's sanity in the calmest way he knew how. "Jumpy, what the fuck is wrong with you! Shoot this fucker not me you numbnut!"

The second round sailed over both their heads, but Billy panicked. Fearing that his own partner, a fellow brother of the Lodge, was going to shoot him in a crazed rage, he decided to eliminate himself as a target. Leaning to one side, Billy curled himself around the shaft of the rifle. He threw his butt into Todd like a sledgehammer. As the wind left his lungs, Todd groaned and Billy heaved his body upward. The force of the heave caught the stunned intruder. He lifted up Todd piggyback style and hoisted him into the line of fire.

Suddenly, Todd realized what Billy was attempting and frantic hysteria forced a reaction.

The third round fired at the same moment Todd fell to the ground. He grabbed at Billy's shoulder on his way. It was just barely enough. The sweat glistening on Billy's arm lubricated his skin and Todd's hand slid off, but he maintained enough friction to steer Billy in front of him. Nanoseconds after the small bullet erupted from the snub-nose chamber, hot lead ripped through the sinews of Billy's neck and shoulder. He gurgled twice, wondering, though not at all remorsefully, if the little nigger felt this way when he blew her brains into the creek. He fell on top of Todd and Jumpy screamed. It was the last sound he'd ever make.

Dropping the gun, Jumpy's hands groped opposite sides of his head. What had he done? Killed one of the boss' lieutenants, that's what. Cletus would skin him alive if Billy died and Cletus' wrath was the one thing Jumpy feared more than the paddy wagon, Fish, and all the jail cells in Georgia. The last thought that went through his mind, besides a chipped piece of limestone, was how can I hide this from Cletus? He wouldn't have to.

Baron rose up behind him, a monolithic giant from a Grimms fairy tale. Both his hands swung above his head and then crashed down, driving a thirty-two pound limestone with them. He'd retrieved it from the dry creekbed. Years of laying underwater had ablated its rough edges, but Baron didn't need a jagged point. One tenacious blow with the force of his twenty-inch biceps was enough. Jumpy's head split open like an overripe tomato. Blood and bone chips splattered against Baron's face. He tasted the blood on his lips. It was salty like the nosebleeds he sometimes woke up with. He liked it.

The red haze in his vision was fading before Jumpy's dead body hit the ground. Baron was returning to himself, becoming Baron Davies again and not the rampaging beast that had broken its bonds for the briefest of moments. He was becoming himself because the screams had stopped. He'd stopped Jumpy just like he'd stopped Mike Taylor, only Jumpy's head looked stickier than Mike's. Baron hadn't pierced the gray matter of Mike's skull, though. Shoving Billy aside, Todd suddenly noticed the silence as well. Linda had stopped screaming over ten seconds ago.

Christ, I forgot about her, he realized as he scrambled to his feet. Todd took two steps toward the car and then stopped. Light coruscated off the windshield like a sea of stars. Something was wrong with it--there was an imperfection. A bullet had broken the glass, shattering it into an intricate spider web design.

"Linda!" he screamed and he ran toward the car. He pulled open the door, but she didn't move. Jumpy's first stray shot had gone through the windshield, pinning her head against the headrest, and embedded inside the upholstery behind her skull. A faint crimson hue tinted the white stuffing that wafted in the air around her body. Todd pressed his fingers against the carotid artery in her neck, but he knew the answer before he even asked the question. She was dead. He wanted to join her.

It's all my fault!

He fell to his knees and screamed at the top of his lungs. When his throat began to hurt, he screamed louder and harder. When he ran out of air, he sucked down another breath and screamed again. Seven months of pain and suffering spilled out of his body, lava erupting form the heart of the deepest volcano. She never had a chance to tell him she didn't blame him. Todd never realized how she felt, but he assumed he knew.

He was wrong.

It's all my fault!

Now, he had another disaster to add to the laundry list of ways he'd screwed up her life. Only this time, it didn't matter if he moved to Nashville or checked into rehab. This mistake couldn't be atoned. It was irrevocable and that hurt most of all.

All your fault you stupid shit!

"You bastard!" Todd erupted as he scrambled across the ground and grabbed Billy by the collar. He shook him hard, wakening him from a near-death sleep. He wanted to pull him out of death's rictus grip so he could kill him again.

Billy blinked twice and smiled wide. Rivulets of blood streamed between his teeth and as he exhaled, a thin bubble rose to his lips. It was a blood bubble, shimmering cerise, and it popped. "Why?" Todd screamed. "Why'd you do this? Who the hell are you? Tell me!"

The grin never left Billy's face as he whispered, "Lodge for life." He crossed his arms on his chest, forming an x, and then breathed no more. His head slumped backward and Billy was dead.

"Bastard!" Todd screamed and he punched him in the face, breaking his nose. "What lodge? What the hell are you talking about? You're not dying on me you motherfucker! I won't let you die! I won't let you die!" Billy rolled onto his side and sat crossed legged, stirring dust with his shoes. He'd given up "I won't let you die." Todd wasn't talking to Billy.

Baron dropped the bloody limestone from his paw and stepped a yard closer. His dopey facial expressions had returned--the sagging flesh and parted lips. Scratching his head, he asked, "Hey mister, you okay? You don't look so good, shoo no."

Todd couldn't hear him. His painful wails, the buzz of approaching police sirens, and the voice that echoed through his head all drowned out Baron. Todd could never forget that voice.

You killed her, Todd. It's all your fault!

Chapter Fourteen: Hitching

8:51 P.M.

Curt Vance hadn't seen any of the spiders yet, but he knew they were coming. Every time he dropped, the spiders came. Giant eight legged furry beasts that walked across the road in long strides. They were silent and completely black, large enough to stomp his car into bits. The first time Curt saw one he expunged his bowels. The spider ignored him, but that didn't lessen the shock. They always ignored him and, in time, Curt developed a fondness for the big arachnids. Their presence meant the acid was doing its job.

Benny Warren never experienced hallucinations. He'd drunk half a cup of the iced tea with the paper in it and he felt aware of everything around him, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. His plaid shirtsleeves seemed to glow and pulsate with each breath, but Benny never stopped to consider that the acid might have warped his perceptions. He didn't care. He was riding high on the cusp of the good-times wave and it wouldn't crest for hours. Nothing mattered to him except the brisk wind slapping him in the face and the roar of the car as they squealed around tight corners.

"Far flung out!" Benny shouted, sticking his maw into the passing wind as if he were a dog trapped in the back seat.

Curt was driving too fast, chomping on a saturated toothpick as he waited for the spiders. The wide-set wheels of the Firebird hugged the road, but they both felt the car lift off the ground a few inches at every sharp turn. Neither man cared. The acid trip had taken over--the exhilaration of hairpin curves actually added a little kick--and they could have driven their muscle car to the gates of hell and felt pretty good about themselves.

The gates of hell were tough to find, though Benny swore he'd felt their heat once after dropping a big dose, but they wouldn't have to search for it on this night. It came to them.

Curt screeched around a wide bend, the din of burning rubber echoed in their ears, and when the road straightened again, he didn't see the giant spiders, but something worse. A man in a brown leather jacket stood beside the road, his thumb stuck out. Curt laid into the brakes and Benny fell forward, his forearms slamming into the thick windshield. The thick, grand prix tires halted, cirrus rivulets rising off the hubcaps.

"What you doing, man?"

"Got ourselves a hitcher," Curt said and he waved the tall man over. He wasn't carrying anything and he seemed like a regular enough guy--Curt never questioned what a regular guy was doing walking down a darkened country road in the middle of the night--but he noticed the hat. It was denim with yellow stenciled letters. It said: FOUNDING FATHER.

"Going my way," the Journeyman said with a smile as he leaned against the hood of the black car.

"We're headin' to Ithica," Curt shouted out the window. He always stopped for hitchers. If they were cool, they were cool. If they weren't, he'd rob them and toss 'em out by the rod. "Yer welcome to tag along that far."

"That's where I'm going, too," Austin Goth answered as Benny let him slide into the cramped back seat. As he settled in, Benny squinted at the Journeyman's shoes. The worn down soles looked old, but comfortable.

"Guess you walked a long way," he surmised, his gaze shifting between the shoes and the glinting darkness that shrouded Goth's face.

"You might say that." Goth leaned forward, his head scraping the low roof of the Firebird, and Curt was off again. He accelerated from zero to eighty in eleven seconds flat.

"Where you boys from?" Goth asked.

"Dalton originally," Benny answered, twisting sideways in his seat to get a better view of the man they'd picked up. He liked the look of Goth. He reminded him of a trucker with his long hair and narrow, thin face. But where was his truck? Benny didn't really care and the question slipped his mind. He never understood why or where the thought went, but it disappeared like a dry leaf blowing away on a gust of wind. An invisible force had pushed it away and he felt comfortable, relaxed in this man's presence. He felt like conversing. "We're going to Ithica for the rally."

"I know, Benny," Goth answered and Benny noticed the smile on his lips.

Has he always been smilin' and I just noticed or does he got a new reason to smile? Hell if I know. But how's he know my name? I ain't said it, I don't think.

The stranger was mysterious, but Benny didn't care. For reasons he couldn't enumerate--or even comprehend--he liked this man. Goth seemed like his kind of person. A brother, someone he could count on.

"You from that freedom magazine?" Benny asked. It was the only explanation that answered all his questions. "Far flung out, I bet you are. That's how you know about the rally. You're coming to write a story about it."

Goth smiled, but didn't respond.

Curt ignored their conversation. He continued to search the road for the giant spiders, but he hadn't found any yet. Damn! Maybe this shit ain't working!

"I smell tea," Goth broke the silence and Curt's heart skipped a beat.

I picked up a narc? he wondered rather than accused. But how could he know about the tea we drank an hour ago?

"Yeah, we had some tea," Benny answered with a smile and Curt slapped him across the middle of the chest. Benny's muscles tightened and he closed his mouth. He knew when Curt was upset.

"It's okay," Goth assured them. "Tea is good. Did you know that you can read the future in the leaves at the bottom of the glass? Whenever I meet a whore, I drink some tea. Then I know if it's worth my time to talk to her. You might say it gives me a glimpse of where she's sleeping that night." Benny guffawed loudly. He really wanted to get a hold of those tea leaves. Knowing who'd sleep with ya was far flung out better than a trip.

"I don't need no leaves to know what's goin' down tonight!" Benny cackled, feeling confident that there wasn't anything wrong with this guy. Curt glared at him and shook his head disapprovingly. When would Benny ever learn? Obviously, not tonight. "We're going to have ourselves a good time!"

"At the rally?" Goth clarified.

"You bet!"

"The Rebel Lodge rally?"

All three men lurched forward as Curt slammed on the brakes. The Firebird squealed, leaving long black streaks of rubber on the pavement, as he steered it to the side of the road. Twisting around in his bucket seat, Curt glared at the man sitting behind him. A dark bloom seemed to float behind his head. It was inky and scintillating and then it was gone. Curt blinked twice, rubbing the taut skin between his eyes, and decided the acid was taking its effect. He wasn't seeing spiders, but he saw something.

Goth simpered. Curt turned up his lip. There was something fishy about this hitcher. "Just how do you know so much about our Lodge? I ain't ever seen you. You ain't a member."

Goth leaned forward, resting his arms on his kneecaps, and spoke in a low tone. "Let me tell you a story. About a hundred and fifty years ago, I owned this plantation down in Louisiana. Over two hundred acres and I owned sixty nigras to work the place." Benny rubbed his coarse hands together and licked his lips. He liked this story already, but he never understood much about voice or point of view. He didn't notice, and neither did Curt, that Goth spoke in the first person. "This one nigra bitch was part of my house staff. One day I found out that she was sneaking food to the field slaves. They didn't need it. I gave them enough to live off and treated them squarely, but they continued to steal from me."

"Did you kill that bitch?" Benny asked excitedly. He imagined what he would have done. After taking her into his bed, of course, Benny would hobble her ankles. He was handy with a sledgehammer and thought he could have done a real clean job of it. Smash her knobby ankles to bits!

Goth snorted and shook his head. "No, Benny. You can be more creative than that. Any master can hobble a slave."

"But how'd you know?"

Goth raised a finger to his lips, interrupting Benny. "Tell me, what's the quickest way to destroy something?"

"Tear it down!" Benny shouted, excited that he knew the answer.

"And how do you tear down a people or a culture?"

"Whu," Curt intoned.

"How do you tear down an idea, a system?"

Benny's brow furrowed into consternated grooves. "Hobble the idea," he said meekly.

Goth snickered. "Not quite. You're still missing the point. There is only one destroyer, the force that consumes any idea. Turn an idea against itself, fragment it. The dogs of chaos."

"Ain't ever heard of that breed," Curt resounded, thinking of his pet Doberman. It wasn't chaotic at all; well behaved after a little training.

"Should I finish my story?"

"Yeah man," Benny said excitedly. "Tell us what you did."

"I gathered up all the slaves in front of my porch and singled out the thieving bitch. I told the others that she had informed me who was stealing food from my kitchen. I picked three slaves at random and stretched them from a tree in my yard." Benny could barely contain himself. Lynching was his second favorite way to dispose of Blackies, real far flung out! He could almost see their feet dangling in the wind as twisting rope creaked languidly above their bodies.

"That's far flung out! You just picked three and killed them?"

Goth nodded. "But that's not where it ends. I killed those three to make a point. I was rich. I didn't need them, but the other slaves never forgot. They remembered who betrayed them and two weeks later that nigra bitch accidentally fell onto a kitchen knife. She learned her lesson."

Curt nodded his head slowly. A grin came to his thin lips. "Bad ass. Bad fucking ass! Where do you come up with that shit? Totally fucking bad ass!"

"Experience is the best teacher," the Journeyman answered.

"Hell, anyone who can tell a story like that is welcome at our Lodge. What'd you say your name was again?"

"I didn't. Some people call me Gaius. It's hard to remember at times, but I think my real name is Cleon. That's a shit name, though. Makes me sound like a homo, four-eyed nerd. I thought my name was Lingo a few years ago, but you can call me Austin. Austin Goth."

"Bad ass Austin Goth!" Curt shouted as the six cylinder Firebird roared to life. "We gotta move it. We need to get you to Ithica so you can meet the boss.

I'm looking forward to it, Goth thought as he settled back in his cramped seat. Cletus Watts was one name he certainly hadn't forgotten.

The journey was near an end.

Chapter Fifteen: Judgements Withheld

9:02 P.M.

Tombstones scintillated under the moonlight, gray like sickly chowder. James felt sick scampering between them, but he reminded himself that he didn't have a choice. He had to follow Scottie and if decided to trespass through a graveyard, then James did to.

I can't believe this, it's almost comical, he thought as he followed the bobbing flashlight from a distance of thirty feet. James remembered all the Halloweens as a child when he would run past the local cemetery, his heart thudding madly, and his legs feeling as heavy as anchors. The rush of excitement and horror felt good as a child. Wild invigoration made him run faster and made the candy taste even sweeter when he got home. But not now. As a young adult, James had lost any innocent fascination with graveyards. Before they were places of mystery and sources for ghost stories. Now they were nothing but fallow earth, holding the rotting corpses of long forgotten friends and relatives. The graveyard reminded him of his mortality.

And it reminded him of Carrie.

She'll be here soon, he thought, probably by this time tomorrow or the next day. He didn't want to think about that, the icy rictus of her dead body in one of the hospitals' freezers. James wanted to think about something happy, a Peter Pan thought that would help him fly away to a safer place. No such thoughts were forthcoming and he checked his pulse. It was thready and hard. Still alive, he thought. James didn't want to guess for how much longer.

The bouncing radiance of the flashlight beam settled on the ground, illuminating Scottie's feet and James stopped, wrapping himself behind the trunk of an elm tree. Bark flaked away as his fingernails pierced the tree's skin and James concentrated on his breathing. Can't be too loud, he reminded himself as he inhaled shallowly.

This cemetery abutted the farm Scottie and James had left behind. The stagnant glow of the town radiated in the near distance, but to James it felt like a million miles away. The hills rose above him to the east and he wondered why the kid had taken this route? A shortcut probably, or maybe it was the isolation of the locale. He had a large supply of coke in his bag and maybe he didn't want to be seen? Then he sure chose the right way to go, James thought. He hadn't seen another soul since they left the farm.

Scottie bent to his knees, breathing deep as he took a short rest. He's so young, James realized. Maybe younger than himself and he recalled something Carrie had told him. There's a source to every shadow.

The flashlight beam suddenly scanned across the graves and James pulled himself behind the trunk. The elm was thick and he stood sideways, shielding himself from the light. I don't think he saw me, James told himself and he held his breath, sticking his chest out like a bird. Soon, the light faded, and the flashlight beam returned to Scottie's lap.

Too close, James thought and he took an exasperated breath. He gripped the tree trunk again, preparing to creep around it, when a flash of dull green caught his eyes. He peered into the murky darkness behind him. Two sour-green-apple orbs glowed through the moonlight. They were eyes. Slitted eyes that narrowed slightly as James' eyes met them.

A cat, he thought, unable to see anything besides the eyes, but James knew that wasn't right. They were too large, set too far apart for any housecat. The thing watching him was much worse and he felt goosebumps rise on the back of his neck. James mashed his lips together to keep his teeth from chattering and repressed the urge to run. If I run, the kid will see me.

Hot flames seared through his lungs and James prayed the eyes would leave; blink and go away, drift into the night from which they came. He glanced to the east and saw the foothills. Maybe it was catamount come down from the hills to stalk the one place humans feared to tread at night. James reeked of fear and pressed his back flat against the tree. If it smells me, it will charge, he worried, but then he noticed something unusual about the eyes. In his panic, he had assumed they were staring at him. They weren't. They stared at the ground in front of James.

Slowly, he turned his gaze toward the yellow grass. A gleaming white skull, set up on a tussock in front of the elm, stared back at him. James gasped, muting the sound by cramming both fists against his mouth, and he felt his skin crawl. It was a human skull, the bottom jaw still intact, its eye sockets staring up at him. He lowered his hand to touch it and instinctively pulled away. The green eyes hadn't flinched or moved. . .yet.

It's that animal. It killed somebody! James thought frantically, pulling his hands underneath his chin. They stuck to the sweaty skin of his throat and he wanted to close his eyes and tell himself it was all a dream. This couldn't be real, everything that had happened to him in the last twenty-four hours. He wanted to wake from a drunken doze in the Boar to find Carrie walking in to meet him. She wasn't dead, he was only dreaming. Most of all, James wanted it to be a dream because he knew that the skull didn't belong to an animal.

Animals ripped and maimed and destroyed. This skull was perfect; polished to gleam white and off-white, the teeth and jaw intact. It was fresh. And someone had set it on the tussock, a grotesque present for a caretaker maybe. Or maybe it wasn't a present or a sick joke at all. Maybe it was the first kill of a young sociopath, a monument to his devious work. It was a trophy.

God no! James turned his head and breathed huskily. If there was a source to every shadow, he didn't want to meet the creature that cast this one, the monster capable of such depravity.

The flashlight beam danced against the night sky and James realized Scottie was moving again. He opened his eyes and looked behind him. The sour-green-apple eyes were gone. Momentary relief swept over him and James breathed a little easier, but his nerves sharpened to a razor edge. Something is out there, he thought. It might have been a catamount or it could have been something worse. Something much worse.

James stepped out from behind the tree and followed the dancing light. He didn't look back until he'd reached the entrance gates of the cemetery. When they left the dead bodies and fallow earth, he didn't feel any better.

***

As he neared the first commercial district on the outskirts of Ithica and the white sheen of lampposts shined down on him, James Hall narrowed the gap between himself and Scottie to fifteen feet. James wasn't too worried that the kid would spot him. He seemed distracted in his own world. He had talked to himself, sometimes shouting loudly, as they emerged from the black fields surrounding that decrepit barn. Despite the constant shouts of 'my man' and the irregular, non-linear paths the odd guy took back to town, James wasn't afraid of him.

Scottie had conducted a deal with Cletus and the black duffel bag was slung over his right shoulder, but James didn't feel any cause for alarm. Scottie was a nervous kid, caught up in something bad, but still a kid. Ithica wasn't south central Los Angeles and James felt safe walking through the streets at night.

He had often looked upon the proverbial twinkling star and wished he had a spider-sense like his favorite superhero. James' sixth-sense was acute and helped him in a few tight spots, but he wondered how his life would be different if he possessed clairvoyance. Spider-Man would have known when Cletus Watts was lurking nearby and he wouldn't have believed Glenda Markham when she asked him to the prom. But that dream was fantasy and living on the road for five years had hardened James into a realist. As badly as he wanted to feel the thoughts inside another person's head, it wasn't going to happen. Even now, when he yearned for that ability the most, James settled for speculating.

He almost felt sorry for Scottie. He was, apparently, a drug dealer or dope addict of some kind--though James couldn't imagine any individual snorting the voluminous supply of coke inside that duffel bag--but he was an outcast. James recognized his own kind as easily as one dog recognizes the breed of a compatriot. Though it sent chills of gooseflesh across his arms to consider it, Scottie was a kindred spirit.

He was twenty-four years old, almost James' age, but he had the demeanor of a teenager. He reminded James of the new kid in school, afraid to take a shower with the older guys after his first day of gym class. Scottie's eyes shifted back and forth, never behind him to see who might be following, as he ambled farther into town. He was a melting pot of pity, trepidation, and flippancy. He was a walking extreme of multifarious emotions.

James had a talent for recognizing a person's strengths and character rather quickly. People generally fell into one of two categories: the open minded, empathetic people he usually liked or the closed minded, uncaring people he usually shied away from. Scottie was different. James' opinion wavered between both extremes. He feared his association with Cletus, but he felt sorry for him, too. He didn't know what to make of this kid.

"Hey Scottie!" a voice bellowed from the road. James hesitated and ducked behind the low branch of a weeping willow. Fortunately, the unexpected caterwaul didn't startle Scottie the way it did James.

Scottie turned slowly, facing the road, as a cherry red Corvette convertible drove by. "Eat this, faggot!" a tall kid shouted from the tiny back seat. The kid raised up, almost fully standing, and hurled a tomato at Scottie. The kid was a basketball player, not a pitcher, and his aim was low. The tomato bounced off the road once and ricocheted into Scottie's leg. Pink juice squirted out of the ripe piece of fruit and stained his right pants leg. Anyone who saw the stain would have thought Scottie had lost bladder control.

"Let's go! Let's go!" the basketball player shouted at his two friends and the Corvette unleashed a high pitched squeal as the tires dug into the road and sped away.

"Man oh man, what a mess," Scottie mumbled as he slapped at the juice and tomato seeds saturating his pants. "Man, what a day for Scottie, man."

Scottie, James thought. That was the kid's name. Had Cletus used it? He couldn't remember. The feeling of dread James had experienced as Cletus stood below the eaves of the barn still harangued him. James' cheeks flushed and he still had trouble believing that he had escaped. A simple bird had saved him. Life was indeed very strange.

James patted his chest and arms, searching for bullet holes. He had checked himself every five or ten minutes since he slid off the roof of that barn. Part of him believed Cletus had shot him and now he was a walking ghost. That's why Scottie hadn't spotted him. No, James decided, he hasn't spotted me because he'd have trouble seeing anything behind those Coke bottles.

James breathed deep, feeling confident that there weren't any holes fumigating his body, and looked down the road at Scottie. Whatever disgust or anger the kid may have felt had passed. Scottie was kicking the ripe tomato off the side of the road, watching it roll in the dust, much to his amusement. He gave it one giant kick, almost missing it as his foot scraped across the top of the soggy oval, and the tomato rolled over the side of a small embankment like a glob of jelly. Throwing his hands into the air, Scottie ran in circles. "He wins the game, man!" he shouted, imitating the noise of a joyous crowd. You would have thought he'd just kicked the game winning field goal at the Super Bowl and James couldn't stop himself from grinning. This kid was worse than odd. He was certifiable.

***

Scottie meandered through Ithica with James close on his heels. James studied him as they ambled. He still wasn't sure how he felt about Scottie, but a burgeoning, and unexpected, sense of respect filled his thoughts. It was the last sensation he had expected. Scottie was a misfit outcast into drugs, but there was something more about him. When those kids threw the tomato and heckled him, Scottie took it in stride. He wiped off the juice, kicked away the projectile, and moved on. James wasn't sure if he could have mustered such levelheaded resiliency. Scottie rolled with punches. James either fought back, typically losing, or quit the game. He never endured.

When the going gets tough, little James runs away!

It's true, James agreed. I do run when I can't take it anymore.

Not Scottie. He walked on like it was a regular summer evening, a stroll in the park.

James was trying to change. Carrie's death was his chance--he didn't want to think of his efforts as capitalizing on her demise, but he took what he could get--and he wasn't going to blow it.

Like a rat suddenly aware of the cheese at the center of the maze, Scottie abruptly ducked into a grocery store. It caught James completely unaware and he stood still for a few seconds, completely nonplussed. Why would a guy with a bag full of coke stop to do his shopping? He's an odd guy, James answered himself and shook his head.

Nonchalantly, though he was so obvious he should have worn a sign that read 'ignore me, I'm only following you,' James walked in front of the sheer windows of the market. It was a small store, not a country general store with barrels of seed and chicken feed, but it was rustic. The shelves were wooden, numbers popped up on the antique register, and an old man in a white apron stood behind the counter. James smiled. It was relaxing setting.

His eyes scanned the interior of the store, moving left to right, searching for Scottie until he found him. He was hunched over a cooler of fresh meat, the nylon strap of his bag twisted between both his hands. He stared at a small package of fresh beef--Grade A, Ground Round. Scottie didn't blink. He just stood, leaned over with his eyes fixated in a trance, and licked his lips. James' brow furrowed like contour rows of wheat.

Staring at food when you're hungry wasn't so surprising. James had done it himself a number of times. He sat down at a Shoney's in Macon one night, famished from having hitchhiked all day without any luck, and the zombie malaise on his tired face disappeared as soon as the overweight waitress brought him a hot All-American burger. James had stared at it for a moment, leaned over the hot plate as warming vapors filled his nose, and he licked his lips. Scottie was doing the same, even if this meat wasn't cooked yet, but James observed a distinction. When he had leaned over that greasy All-American burger, his hungry eyes melted into a kind of relaxed serendipity. Something different glinted in Scottie's eyes. James saw intensity. Scottie wasn't satisfied staring at his potential dinner. He was hypnotized and invigorated by it.

Suddenly standing erect, Scottie straightened his glasses that dangled precariously on the end of his pointy nose, and James snapped back into focus. He had lost himself studying Scottie's expression and was almost as surprised as the kid when the wrinkled man behind the counter began shouting and waving his fist. James couldn't hear what he said through the thick plexi-glass, but the crimson glow heating the old man's face spoke volumes. He was pissed about something, loitering James guessed, and Scottie caught the brunt of his anger. But not for long.

Scottie lowered his head, his lips twitching as he mumbled to himself, and marched out of the grocery. James heard a fragment of the old man's truculence as the glass door opened with a jingle, but it shut just as quickly. Scottie never looked up, not even to look both ways before crossing the street. He pushed past James, their shoulders brushed together, and he kept walking. Fortunately, there wasn't any traffic and Scottie rushed into the small park catty-corner to the grocery store. He hurried past the Oak Lane street sign and delved into the dark vale of the tall trees.

He knows something, James determined, more certain than ever. Scottie was hiding a secret, maybe about Carrie. He had identified that reaction as he hurried, almost ran, out of the grocery store. Men that bustled with their heads down didn't want other people to see something on their face or in their eyes. It could have been the bag of coke, but James didn't think so. If that were all he was hiding, Scottie never would have strolled into that store in the first place. The old man had said something that upset him, a comment cutting to close to a harsh truth, and Scottie was looking to hide.

As he dodged a speeding Cadillac, James ran across the street. He hadn't ventured into this section of Ithica yet and he was unfamiliar with Brassy Park. If Scottie got too far ahead of him, he might never catch up. His Nike boots pounded the concrete of the dry road, agonizing pains shot up his cramped legs. They remained sore from a day of walking.

There wasn't a hint of moisture on the street and the concrete absorbed all light like a black hole. The park wasn't any brighter. The stars provided some illumination, but only enough to see a couple of feet at a time. Parched grass crinkled under his feet and James tried to walk more lightly. He didn't want to startle Scottie, but then he asked himself, how else am I going to learn anything?

Following Scottie at a discrete distance was an intriguing game, the same recreation he'd played with Cletus. He'd seen flashes of himself in the kid and the voyeuristic ebullience of stalking another human was undeniable. Suddenly, James understood why people became peeping Toms. There wasn't any sexual satisfaction or pleasure involved, but the thrill of danger, the chance that you might get caught, tantalized every part of his body. Electricity sweep through his hair, making it stand on end, and the pit of his stomach jostled like a bumper car ride. He wanted the feeling to last, but James knew it couldn't. Either Scottie would eventually spot him--his quirks didn't make him ignorant to the obvious--or the exhilaration would pass and James would confront the kid to learn more. Either way, his terms or Scottie's, they'd soon meet face to face.

The grass softened toward the center of the park where the dark shade of trees shielded some of the blades from the high angle of the drying summer sun. Five trails, two of them dirt and three of them paved, intersected in the middle of the Park like the center of a pentagon. James looked around and realized he had no idea where he was, but that was nothing new.

Stupid, damn stupid, he cursed himself. He'd lost Scottie the same way he'd lost Cletus and now he was stuck. He didn't know where to turn to look for clues. Then he heard the slow, rhythmic squeak of rusty hinges beckoning him.

Peering to his side, he saw an old swing rocking lazily a few feet away. Scottie sat atop the green painted bench, a vacant stare on his face. Scottie hadn't seen James yet and he backed behind a row of hedges. What's he doing now? he wondered. Scottie could shift gears faster than a ten speed Schwinn biking downhill and now he was almost catatonic. Only moments ago he was on the verge fanaticism.

The clockwork resonance of heavy feet walking down one of the stone paths echoed through the muggy air. James heard one distinct pair of feet and then a second, more shuffling and taking shorter strides. The Park resounded hollow and the only sounds were the feet and James' heart. It throbbed in his ears with every stifling breath and his eyes widened. Two men, one short and the other round and fat, emerged from the darkness walking abreast. They'd turned the corner just a moment ago, but somehow James knew what they were doing and it wasn't good. They were there to see Scottie.

The men walked up to the swing and the fat guy unbuttoned his black blazer. Sweaty stomach lapped over his belt and he cocked his basketball sized head to the side. They stared at Scottie unmercifully, but he remained vacant and distant. Scottie was lost in his mind, summoned by the quicksilver on some distant desert horizon. The duffel bag lay inconspicuously in his lap. His lips spread apart, but he didn't speak.

"You know what we're here for, dontcha?" the short man asked.

Scottie breathed more audibly, drying mucus was cutting off his left nostril, and a drowsy whistle blew in and out of his nose with each breath. The two men looked at each other without turning their necks. Their eyes met, a tacit glare, and James intercepted it.

Scottie's in trouble!

The fat man pulled him off the swing, Scottie's perspiring legs peeled off the wooden bench resounding like ripping cloth, and the short man clocked him across the bridge of the nose. It was a well placed punch, mashing the whistling nostril against his puffy red cheek, but the blow seemed to wake Scottie up. "Hey man!" he shouted at the same instant a thin runnel of blood dribbled out of his nose.

"We told you what to do! You didn't listen!" the little man shouted and he raised his knee, driving his knee deep into Scottie's gut.

They're going to kill him!

It was two against one and Scottie didn't seem like much of a brawler to begin with--a stiff breeze could knock him down. They're after the drugs, James next thought but neither man made any move to take the duffel bag that had fallen to the ground beside the swing. It lay there as Scottie absorbed more blows to his stomach and chest.

James turned his head, ignoring the coppery taste on the roof of his mouth that urged him to vomit. Real violence, not the desensitized stunt action he'd seen on movie screens, was appalling. Blood was much darker in real life than the ketchup in a Hitchcock film and Scottie's was flowing freely. He grunted and yelped, but Scottie didn't seem conscious enough to scream coherent words.

Run away James! Pick up and get out like you always do!

"No," James whispered, the line between the voices in his head and the voices of the real world becoming blurred. He hadn't anticipated this situation. He never had any intention of taking a stand against a punch in the face. James wanted to collect evidence and turn it over to the authorities. They had guns and armor and all sorts of protection. James was small and weak. He wasn't in this for a fight.

He reminds you of yourself, doesn't he, James? You and Scottie. Kindred spirits.

"No," James muttered again, slightly louder but not enough to distract Scottie's assailants. I'm nothing like Scottie! he told himself, but he had fought against the same circumstances. James closed his eyes and wavy lines of green and red melded into a vivid memory. He saw the cherry red Corvette driving down the road and the basketball player tossed a tomato out, but it wasn't the basketball player. It was Roger Barrett, carrying his football, and Glenda Markham was in the front seat laughing at him.

I'm tired of dating guys who only have one thing on their mind.

James shook his head, disrupting the amalgamated memory, and another vision cropped up in its place. The old man in grocery store was waving his fist, yelling at him to get out, but it wasn't the old man anymore. It was Mr. Holloway wearing his motley neon shirt and holding his clove cigarette in an upturned palm.

It had nothing to do with your stutter.

But it did. Holloway fired him because every word that began with a p gave him spitting fits. Fuck him! James raged. He was sick of being pushed around his whole life. In that moment, it didn't matter what he was fighting for. James wasn't going to sit back and take abuse any longer. He opened his eyes and peered over the hedges. The two men stood beside the swing, kicking Scottie into the ground, but they weren't the fat and short men anymore. They were Cletus Watts and Gill Gaddis. They were stomping Scottie/him into a bloody mess. Wicked smiles covered their maws and Scottie/he reached up dolefully with a quivering hand. He/himself begged for help.

"St-stop it!" James cried, hurdling the hedges and laying into the short and fat man with both fists. It felt so good to fight back, to smack that grin off Cletus' face and to show Gaddis that he wasn't the disoriented kid that had stumbled into his station a year ago. James was a man now. He was strong and hateful.

The next few minutes were a blur. Scottie rose off the ground, blood trickling from a one-inch gash on top of his head, as James swung wildly at everybody. There was a bludgeon. Yes, the fat man had pulled a solid block of rubber from his back pocket, but James had wrestled it away from him. Sharp, tearing agony had shot up and down his left leg, only making James madder. He used the bludgeon, hitting Cletus and Gaddis as hard as he could, trying to break their faces, until they had collapsed and he had fallen with them. It had ended.

When James' ire had leveled and the white-hot rage had ebbed to a lower, calmer tide, he saw the face of Scottie staring down at him. "Man, they cut you good, man." Now he remembered it clearly. The short man had used a knife. It had sliced through the back of James muscle hardened left calf. The blood loss and searing pain made him woozy. "Man, you laid them out." Scottie wasn't exaggerating. Both men were breathing, but out cold.

James hopped to his feet, almost collapsing before he lifted his bad leg off the ground. "Jesus, that stings," he said without a hint of stutter. James took shallow breaths as tears spurted from his eyes.

"Come on, my man. You helped me, now I help the man." Scottie slid James' left arm around his neck and hobbled him away from the scene. "I'll take you to my apartment, man. Fix you up good," he said smiling, and James nodded. He needed help badly before the blood loss became too much. He was near exhaustion and barely conscious, but for some reason, Scottie's grinning face kept him awake.

"Fix you up good," he repeated. It was the least he could do. The very least.

Soon, James would learn just how little.

Chapter Sixteen: Control

9:18 P.M.

Cramps ripped through the back of Amy Stewart's neck as her head bobbed up. She was exhausted, both physically and mentally, and nothing at this moment appealed to her more than sleep. But she wouldn't let herself rest. If I fall asleep, she told herself, I can't stop them. God knows what they'll do to me if I pass out.

Three leering men gawked at her from across the dusty room. Fatuous grins spread across their faces like cartoon characters and the big guy, the man with Skoal stains on his plaid shirt, drooled. Tiny gobs of spittle foamed on his lips and then plummeted to the floor. Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. A small puddle had formed. It was maddening, but Amy hid her fear.

They'll torture me if I show any fear. It's what they want. That's why they've done this, tied me up and gagged my mouth. It's the only explanation that makes sense. What else could they be waiting for? Please God, give me strength.

Amy breathed huskily, sucking down scalding air through the red bandana with white trim crammed into her mouth. It tasted like gasoline--until recently it served as the gas cap for the drooling man's Chevy Nova--but Amy lost her sense of taste twenty minutes ago. Her only sense that functioned was sight. Even the dull harmonic ringing in both ears retarded her hearing. But they wanted Amy to see. They hadn't covered her eyes and they certainly hadn't covered theirs. It had been a long time since any of these three men had seen a naked woman.

Not a single stitch covered Amy's firm body. The beams they had tied her to--two pieces of lumber crossed like a giant x--satisfied their most depraved fantasies. Her legs were spread apart, immobilized, and all three of them imagined what they would do if not for the direct order. Probably take turns sliding in there over and over. Drip. Drop. But the order was clear and unmistakable. Nobody would touch Amy until the boss arrived. Then he would decide what to do with her.

The creaky wooden door to the room swung open blithely and Amy's eyes widened. She recalled the face that emerged, silhouetted against the white light of the outer chamber. It was Jimmy Garcis, the man who had kidnapped her. "He's here," Jimmy said plainly and the three guards postured their shoulders. They stood up straight, their oiled rifles resting at their sides like Minutemen.

Whoever is coming, Amy thought, they're afraid of him. At least afraid of displeasing him.

The door swung open wider and Jimmy stepped out of the way. The bright white light of the outer room flooded the doorway, casting a warped white sheen across the rickety floorboards. The ground bowed as a tall man stepped into the room. Amy couldn't see him at first; the bright light engulfed him and hurt her eyes. He was a thin, lanky shadow blocking out a radiance as brilliant as the sun on a bright day. Amy squinted--she didn't want to close her eyes out of fear--and turned her head slightly. They hadn't bound her neck, only her arms and legs.

The door closed swiftly, but without much noise. As soon as Amy felt the bright light creep away from her pallid flesh, she looked at him. He was disgusting. His thin red hair looked as though an orange cat had shed itself on his skull and he hadn't washed the scruffy beard clinging to his jaw. Bits of stale food adhered to it like Velcro.

Maybe an orangutan sired him.

He stepped closer and she detected the sordid stains on his faded Marlboro T-shirt, the same shirt he'd worn for six straight days. Leaning forward, he sniffed at her like a dog. Amy bit down on the bandana, praying she wouldn't vomit.

The drooling man stepped up and shielded his mouth with one palm. He didn't whisper and Amy clearly heard him ask, "Hey Cletus, what are we goin' to do to her?"

Amy shivered, her nipples hardening into spiked erections pointing at the ceiling, and she squelched the temptation to cry. She knew what they had in mind and she tried to rationalize her fate.

It won't be as bad as I expect. My arms and legs are already going numb in this position. I probably won't feel a thing and they'll kill me quickly when it's over. Short and sweet. They can't do too much to me while I'm tied down, can they?

Amy didn't know the answer. She prayed she wouldn't find out.

Cletus leaned away from her and looked the drooling man square in the eyes. "Back in line, soldier. You're in the Lodge and in here we follow chain of command. You don't speak unless I'm speaking to you."

"Yes, sir," the man answered, suddenly frightened, and he stumbled back into position. Amy glanced at him and watched nervous beads of sweat roll down the sides of his face. Whoever this Cletus was, he wasn't to be trifled with.

He leaned at Amy and she smelled the stale cigarettes and cheap beer on his breath. Cletus was loaded and ready for some fun, but an unexpected pang of remorse crept into his thoughts as he looked at Amy more fastidiously. Cocking his head a few inches to the side, he studied her features, and nodded lightly. "I know you, don't I?"

Amy shook her head vehemently, glistening water welling up in her eyes.

Cletus nodded, a toothy grin parting his lips. "I do to know you. You're just like all the girls I knew back in school. I see you lookin' at me. You want to laugh."

Amy shook her head.

"Don't lie to me," Cletus said. His voice resonated with eerie repose. "I seen your kind before. You want to laugh and make fun of me behind my back. I know it happens. I heard y'all talk. Don't think I didn't. You bitches are always the same. I remember."

And Cletus did. He remembered all of them, every woman that had ever snickered at him or called him a hick. He hated them all. Misogyny was too placid a term to describe the hatred he felt toward all women. He wanted to fuck them, but that was all. When he was done, he wanted to strangle every last one of them. All the Carrie Masons and Amy Stewarts of the world. They were sperm banks and wet holes, nothing more. He had learned to despise them all. Especially all the Laurie Needhams….

***

The first week of school at Jefferson Davis Junior High School was the same for everybody, Cletus Watts included. By the seventh day of school, all the burgeoning teenagers had finished picking out the perfect outfits every morning and they were disgusted with trying to make good first impressions. Three different grade schools fed into Davis and everyone was getting to know each other, but the social scene began to take root by the second week. Everyone knew that the seeds planted now would carry through to high school and possibly beyond. The first week of junior high school was paramount to a teenager's future social development.

Cletus struggled, as all his classmates had, during this harrowing period. The first day of school he'd worn perfectly pressed bellbottom jeans and a new plaid shirt, but by the second week he was reduced to throwing on his cleanest Queen T-shirt--Cletus' favorite band for another four years until he learned why they chose the name Queen. He was content with his position in this delicate hierarchy. He was quiet and shy--two strikes against him--but he'd made the football team as a second stringer and thus he had a chance to run with the jock crowd. Cletus wasn't a standout, but the other athletes allowed him to sit near them in the lunchroom and laugh at their jokes. They didn't include him, but they didn't exclude him, either. Cletus was content with that status. Circumstances soon changed.

"What's up, Cle?" one of the guys, Jerry he thought was his name, asked at lunch.

"Not much," Cletus intoned and returned to his ham sandwich and Twinkie.

Jerry pulled a plastic seat beside him and hunched close to the table. "Big party out at Palmer Field this weekend," he whispered.

Cletus nodded noncommittally. He'd already heard about it and figured he would ride his bike up there if he could get out of the house.

"You comin'?"

"I guess."

"Good," Jerry replied, smiling. "I think we're gonna pair off for the semester at this party."

"Huh?" Cletus grunted, dropping his half eaten Wonderbread and ham.

"You know, pair off."

"Who?"

"Us."

"I don't git it."

Jerry rolled his eyes and draped an arm over Cletus' shoulder. It was his 'come here kid and I'll show you the ropes' gesture. Cletus shuddered and felt very small with the muscled bicep digging into his neck. "The football players are gonna pair off with some chicks."

"Girls?" Cletus mumbled.

"Yeah. Gonna be way cooler than any other party this year. You seen that red head in science with the big tits?" Cletus shook his head. "Looks like Raquel Welch. I'm going for that. How 'bout you? Got anyone in mind?"

Cletus shook his head.

Girls had entered the social equation. Football players were expected to date the cutest girls in school, at least for a semester or two until either the girls got sick of them or until the boys wanted to trade off. It was all part of an established social order Cletus' class inherited from the class ahead of them and the class before that one. The most attractive women were reserved for the best football players, the eighth grade captains, and as soon as Cletus saw the prettiest fourteen year olds in school, he knew he wanted to be a captain some day.

Cindy Martin had already developed a chest and rumors spread like wildfire through the boys locker room that she had let the starting quarterback, Edgar Farringer, put a hickey on her left tit last summer. Most of the boys didn't know exactly how that worked, but they all salivated at the prospect of doing the same. Then there was Cathy Boughton who, rumored had it, had given Chucky Brown a hand job behind the bleachers after the second day of practice. Chucky was a starting linebacker and at two hundred pounds, he was the biggest guy at Davis. Similar stories circulated amongst the lockers and restrooms of the school and by the second week of class, the second stringers were ready for their turn.

They weren't the stars and couldn't expect to hook up with Cathy or Cindy, but they were football players and they could get dates. Soon, they all did, everyone but Cletus. His awkward shyness had deterred him from taking any chances, but his hormones soon overpowered his dour sensibilities. He made eye contact with Laurie Needham one afternoon in the hall and his heart leapt. Laurie was flat, but cute. She had blonde hair and always smelled like honeysuckle. She's perfect, Cletus thought.

At the end of the day, Laurie leaned against her gray steel locker, pin-ups of John Travolta and Al Pacino staring back at her from the inside, and gabbed with two of her friends. Cletus swallowed hard, his throat clicking audibly, and made his move. He felt his heart in his ears, his hands swelled into miniature sledge-hammers, and his face was as red as a fire engine, but he'd planned out every sentence in his head. He knew exactly what to say and he was going through with it. What's the worst that can happen? he asked himself.

Cletus edged his way along the semicircle the girls had formed until his left shoulder brushed against Laurie's. She glanced at him, her lips curled into a disgusted scowl, but Cletus didn't notice. The throb of his heart was all he sensed. "Hey Laurie."

"Hey Cletus."

"You doing okay?"

"Why do you care?"

"Just wonderin'. What about Mr. Shays? What a jerk. Homework on a weekend."

"Uh-huh," Laurie mumbled disinterestedly.

"So Laurie."

"What now?"

"Are you going to Palmer tonight?"

"Yeah, probably."

"That's cool. Real cool. Maybe, uh."

"What Cletus?" she shouted.

It was too late to turn back. "Laurie, would you like to go with me?" he blurted out.

Her friends snickered quietly, barely containing themselves, and Laurie grunted. "No," she said almost sarcastically, as though she couldn't believe he would even dare to ask. Contempt radiated on her freckled face and Cletus felt a fire sear his skin. "I don't go with guys that look like you," she proclaimed and her friends erupted in laughter. A spear of truth punctured his chest and he felt weakened. Cletus sensed the condemnation of their mocking guffaws, but most of all he sensed where Laurie had glared when she rejected him. She was looking at his head, directly at his thinning red hair.

At age thirteen, Cletus Watts was going bald. The doctor couldn't explain it, but his hairline had already receded to the middle of his head and would only worsen during his teenage years. It was a trivial matter, an insignificant facet of his appearance to everyone but school-aged girls. Cletus would always remember that day and the overwrought expression on Laurie's contorted face as she gawked at his revolting hair. Cletus hated his hair and hated himself. Soon, he would learn to accept his appearance, but the hate couldn't die. It spread like a virus, infecting Cletus with strange, new sensations. It made him an extrovert and fury pumped through his veins. Soon, he would hate Laurie and all women.

He didn't go to the party at Palmer. Cletus didn't speak to another girl for the rest of the school year.

***

School ended mercifully, Cletus earning his usual passing grades--the teachers gave him a D in every subject simply because they didn't want to endure his misbehavior and brooding for another year--and summer followed its usual routine. Cletus wasted the days sitting in the backyard or fishing in one of the ponds surrounding Ithica. Some afternoons he walked to the drugstore to buy Sweet Tarts and Sour Balls. He watched the boys drive by in their souped up hot rods and he dreamed of owning one someday. For now, chocolate and sugar satisfied him. The circus made its annual July appearance and at least once a week the guys played football behind the school. Life was grand. Then the storm came.

A remnant of hurricane Allen that struck the gulf shore less than a week ago. It's offspring, a convecting front of thunderheads more powerful than most people had ever seen, tore a path through the panhandle and Georgia. By the time it reached Ithica, the storm's gale winds had softened to a mere sixty miles per hour. and the Watts family hid in their cellar for an entire afternoon.

The cloying odor of pear preserves made Cletus queasy, but there was nowhere else to hide. The cellar was a few feet underground, surrounded by cold earth, and Cletus shivered with each rumble of thunder. He was afraid. The cellar felt like a tomb like he'd seen in his Ghost Manor comic books. It was dark, but the power crackling through the outside air distracted him. The cellar doors rattled as the wind howled. It seemed to last an eternity. When the storm finally passed, Cletus couldn't believe what he saw.

A chicken wire mesh of downed power lines crisscrossed the street. Every other tree he stumbled upon was uprooted or split down the middle as though Zeus himself had splintered them with a bolt of lightning. Debris laid everywhere. Garbage littered the streets. Overturned cars filled driveways and Ms. Crawley from next door shrieked when she saw her cast iron washtub dangling from the shattered branches of her oldest oak tree. It was quite a sight and Cletus bristled with excitement. The fear was gone. He imagined what kind of fun he could have all summer crawling through the wreckage. It would take months to clear the debris, plenty of time for him to have his fill of exploration.

His father had different ideas.

"Come on boy, we got work to do," Gerald Watts told his son as he emerged from the cellar. Cletus knew better than to argue with Gerald. He was a stern man and the lingering pain of the last whipping Cletus had received ensured his obedience. Gerald had a fondness for belts with large brass buckles. The last time he whipped Cletus, almost a year ago, the buckle punctured his buttocks in six different places. Cletus defecated blood for weeks. Now he couldn't even remember what he'd done wrong, but he distinctly recalled the searing pain of that buckle.

"Yes, sir," he answered and followed his father onto the front lawn. Shattered trees lay everywhere and Cletus shuddered as Gerald cursed. He ripped off his Georgia Bulldogs cap and slammed it into ground. Long gray hair whipped back and forth as his boot heel crushed the curved bill of the cap. When he was through, Gerald's fuming eyes met Cletus and for a moment, Cletus thought he might get whipped for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"It'll take weeks to clean up all this shit!" Gerald screamed furiously.

More than weeks, Cletus hoped.

"Pick up my damn hat and clean it off!" Cletus did so. He never hesitated to question his father's commands. He expected submissiveness and Cletus provided it. Gerald returned to the cellar, muttering as he descended the moldy steps and cursing at his second wife, Audrey, as he ascended. Cletus couldn't hear what they shouted--they fought all the time--and he buried his chin in his chest. He stared at his feet inconspicuously until Gerald's plump hand rattled the side of his head.

"Quit standin' around. Come on boy!"

Looking up, Cletus saw the lime green handle of a chainsaw in his father's left hand. He swung the saw around, shifting it to the other hand, and Cletus saw its teeth. The chain glinted in the foreboding sunlight that had emerged moments after the storm. The sky was serene, a shocking disparity from the turbulence they'd heard thirty minutes ago, but Gerald was pissed. He'd never found a moment of serenity in his life. Cletus didn't understand why.

"Come here!" Gerald yelled as he leaned his thick workman's boot against a fallen elm trunk. It had been a young tree and the trunk was only a foot thick. The crushed branches rustled under Gerald's added weight and he stared at his son, boring two holes with the hot radiance of his baleful eyes, waiting impatiently. Cletus followed slowly, his arms twisted together. "You are the slowest mo-ron alive!" Gerald shouted. "I swear! Boy, sometimes I think you drive me crazy on purpose. Get your ass over here so I can show you something."

As soon as he was four feet away, Gerald lunged out and grabbed Cletus' shoulder. He pulled his son close and wrapped a pair of plastic goggles around his eyes. Yanking on the rubber band of a second pair, he shielded his eyes the same way. "Boy, what do you think I'm about to teach you?" Gerald likened himself to a professor and every time he decided to impart some wisdom, he asked Cletus that question. It was a barometer of his son's ignorance. Gerald assumed he would never learn and reminded Cletus of that fact on a daily basis.

"How to use the saw," Cletus answered.

Gerald shook his head in disgust. "Grade-A mo-ron is what you are. Look here. Anyone can teach you to use a saw," Gerald explained as the chainsaw's motor churned to life with one tug of the starter cord. Black smoke puffed out of the plastic green casing and Cletus' nose scrunched in disgust. It reeked of burned rubber. "I'm teaching you about life." Sawdust sprayed into the air as Gerald lowered the chain onto the knotted trunk. The captivating resonance of the saw's buzz shifted in timbre and whined higher as it cut through thicker parts of the trunk. Gerald pulled back a few times, allowing the collapsing trunk to fall inward on itself, but always returned to the same cut. Minutes later, the trunk fell in half. Gerald looked at his son with an overconfident smirk glinting on his face. "That's control, boy. Knowing when to cut and when to pull back. I'm in charge of this saw, this tree, and this land. Fucking hurricanes be damned! I'm in charge and I know how to control the situation. By tomorrow, we'll have cut all this debris into lumber. That's how I stay in control, boy. I'm the master of this yard and I've got the tool to keep it that way. Control is important, son. Control is what makes you a man. You understand?"

Cletus nodded. He understood perfectly.

Gerald smiled and showed him how to use the saw.

***

Cletus didn't own a clock--one of Audrey's slaps upside the head awakened him each morning--and he had no idea what time it was when he woke up later that night. It was dark out and late. Exhaustion cramped his muscles and Cletus had gone to bed without supper. He and Gerald had chopped up half the fallen trees in their yard and his scrawny body ached so badly that he felt lead weights dragging him down. It hurt to jostle even the slightest bit, but he managed to roll out of bed.

His shoebox sized room seemed even smaller in the dark. Cletus stuck his hands out and ran them into the flimsy, moist paper of a Terry Bradshaw poster. A smattering of smooth gloss still covered Bradshaw, but the poster was on its final leg. Cletus had ripped it down and hung it up more times than he could recall. He treated it like all his possessions--the worn down football with broken laces, his dog chewed Leggos, and the warped board of his electric football game. Cletus wore things out and tossed them away.

He'd sweated away four pounds during the tree cutting and his throat felt like the cracked ground of the Gobi desert. He needed water badly and he inched toward the kitchen. Sometimes Gerald got upset when he got out of his bed at night so Cletus always crept slowly when he went to the bathroom or sneaked to the freezer for a bite of ice cream. His legs sung a symphony of pain with every step and he duck-waddled toward the kitchen faucet.

Cletus was half way there, feeling his way along the hall between his parents' bedroom and the den, when he heard a ruckus. Audrey screamed something and Gerald returned the favor. That was nothing new and Cletus kept ambling until he heard a crash. Audrey had thrown something across the room and it landed with a ringing sound. The phone, Cletus thought. She threw the phone at Dad.

He was right and Gerald erupted with an explosion of anger. Audrey screamed in agony, but only for a moment. Gerald grunted loudly and a repeated thudding sound emanated from their room. Cletus knew what was going on and he didn't care. Tomorrow wouldn't be the first morning that bitch showed up for breakfast with bruises on her face. She wasn't his real mother and Cletus didn't give a damn about her. She'd caught him jerking off one morning and made him stop. Cletus thought it was her fault for walking into the bathroom without knocking on the door. Stupid bitch! She'd never let him forget what she caught him doing. If she got in Gerald's way, that was her problem. He loved his father, not her. His father may have beat on him every now and then when he got out of line, but he treated him like a man.

A man, Cletus thought. That's why he loved him. Gerald didn't talk down to him. He cursed in front of him and treated him like he would any other guy he came across on the street. He let his son sip beer out of his cans and had taught him how to hunt birds. Gerald was the best father he could ever imagine.

The ruckus had silenced when the door to the bedroom suddenly swung open. Before Cletus could turn and run, Gerald was standing in the hallway. Something dripped from his hand. A pitter-pat of viscid liquid resonated off the svelte carpet. Cletus looked down. It was blood. Audrey's blood fell from Gerald's gnarled knuckles, syrupy and thick.

Gerald looked at his son, enraged. What was he doing out of bed this late, the little mo-ron? Stupid little fuck probably heard the whole fight.

Gerald stepped forward, clenching his bloody fist, but stopped as soon as he saw the dour expression in his son's eyes. Cletus knew. He understood. It was about control. Gerald had to control that bitch.

The boy smiled and nodded.

"Go on back to bed," Gerald ordered calmly. Cletus returned to his room. Gerald never laid a finger on him. He didn't need to.

***

High school was much more rewarding for Cletus than junior high. Playing football allowed him to expel his aggressive tendencies and soon everyone feared him. He ran with the jock crowd and became its enforcer, a leader. Men looked to him for guidance. Cletus became the one guy in school everyone knew about and spoke of with reverence. They spoke out of fear. Cletus was in control. Even women flocked to him, much to his surprise, but he eventually discerned why they had had such a dramatic change of heart. He was strong and powerful, thin hair or not. Those qualities were the greatest aphrodisiacs.

Even Gerald took orders from him, or so Cletus liked to believe. As he grew older, his father spoke to him less. They grew distant until Gerald was just another person he passed during the day, a faceless member of the crowd. He could get his own beer now and he didn't want anymore lessons from the old man. He'd served his purpose. To Cletus, he was just another obstacle in the road.

Cletus was the king of his castle, but divine right wouldn't last. The vice-principal strolled into the first floor men's bathroom one morning and caught Cletus forcing a freshman to eat a handful of shit. Brown puddles dotted the grimy tiled floor and the VP threw up small green chunks before he could stop Cletus.

Cletus didn't know why he enjoyed making the skinny geek eat crap, but it felt good to enforce his dominance of another person. He could tell a scrawny jerk to eat shit and he would. After that realization, he didn't even care that they kicked him out of school for good. No more three day suspensions for fighting. Cletus was gone, the long fade. He took it as a blessing, but a downward spiral began.

The long fade into small town obscurity didn't suit Cletus at all. Gerald, still king of the home castle despite Cletus' aspirations, demanded that he get a job and start pulling his own weight. Thus began a series of failures and firings. Cletus hated work. He was content to sit around the house all day, munch Fritos, and watch reruns of Gilligan's Island. Then he learned of a great economic opportunity from a friend. There was risk involved, but Cletus thought of everything in terms of risk. Every decision he made carried an element of chance. If the chance turned sour, there lied the risk. Cletus didn't care. He stared chance in the face and spat. So far in his short life, despite the struggles, things had worked out for him. Cletus had always gotten what he wanted. Why should this venture be any different?

He was in control.

The new job was easy at first and Cletus was well on his way to saving up for that white Camaro he had always wanted. Then chance took him for a loop and a risk emerged. It wasn't the risk he had expected.

Cletus stumbled home after midnight on Wednesday November 3, a black duffel bag tucked under one armpit, and a bottle of Pabst shoved under the other. He was feeling good. The latest shipment had arrived and he was ready to let the good times roll. He was twenty-three, loaded, and about to be rich. He staggered through the front door of the house, almost tripping over the hook rug in front of the door, as spit drooled over his lips. They felt fat, like he'd taken a punch to the mouth, but Cletus hadn't endured any pain yet. It was still coming.

"Boy," a deep voice called out. Cletus looked up. He knew that timbre anywhere. Two blurry eyes scanned the darkened room and suddenly a lamp switched on. Gerald sat in his gray Lazy-Boy, his Winchester rifle lying careful across his legs. "I know what you been doing, boy."

Cletus' mouth gaped open, a sardonic smile, and he staggered against the wall. So what if Gerald knew? He was getting rich and nobody had stopped him yet. "You don't know nuthin'," Cletus shouted. He had no concept of his volume.

Gerald's cheeks flushed a rosy red and he leaned forward, gripping the oiled rifle between his hands. "You and me gotta talk."

"What about?" Cletus asked. He saw the rifle and wondered what his daddy was doing cleaning his gun at this hour?

You don't have to tell him shit, Cletus.

"What you got in that bag. If it's what I heard you been carrying around in those bags, then I want to see it."

"Why you want to do that?" Cletus asked, salvia dribbling onto his chin. He was out on his feet and silvery tunnels extended from his eyes. At the far end, his father scowled and the rifle rotated in his hands.

"I'm your daddy, boy. I'm in control here and if anyone is going to sell that shit, it's me." Gerald knew what kind of money his son had made the last two years and he wanted a piece of it. This was his house and he was in control.

"You're crazy," Cletus said mockingly. Before the movements even registered in his lethargic mind, Gerald was on his feet, slapping Cletus across the face. A red, handprint welt glowed on his cheek and Cletus sobered abruptly. Gerald wasn't fooling around.

Cletus, don't take his crap!

"Boy, if there's money to be had, good money, in that bag, then I'm the one who's gonna make it! Not you! You here me? I'm in charge and I say what goes in this house! Now show me what's in there!"

Cletus nodded, the dawning realization of his father's orders sinking through layer upon layer of useless brain matter. He realized what was happening. Gerald was usurping his business. He had taken all the risks, spat at chance, and now someone else was going to steal the reward. He couldn't let that happen.

Show him, Cletus. It's your chance.

Cletus was in control.

He unzipped the top of the duffel bag and reached inside. He glanced at the Winchester. It was loaded, but Gerald wasn't prepared to fire it. Good, Cletus thought. A second was all he needed. He yanked his hand out of the bag, aiming his Saturday Night Special. He kept it there for emergencies like this night.

Gerald's eyes widened at the sight of the handgun and he raised his rifle, but it was too late. Before he could take aim at his son, Cletus had fired two rounds into his skull. Gerald fell backward, the back half of his head already splattered across the cheap Lazy-Boy, and dropped his gun. The rifle never fired. That was the end of Gerald Watts and he left his son with this lesson: power and control are one in the same.

Screams resounded form the back of the house and Cletus smiled. He'd already gone this far without hesitation--he felt no remorse for his father--and didn't see any reason to stop now. This was how guys treated each other. Gerald had always treated him like a man and a man couldn't let someone else steal from him. If that bitch Audrey was home, then she'd get hers, too. For no other reason than Cletus didn't like her. She'd made fun of his receding hair once and that was reason enough. Stalking toward his father's bedroom, his handgun clutched between both palms. He thought how much sweeter life would be without so much dead weight around the house. The place was his now and disposing of the bodies wasn't a problem. Cletus already had in mind a drying creekbed in the south part of town.

He was in control.

***

Cletus caressed Amy's chin. She shuddered, trying to turn away, but the best she could do was pray. The bonds were too tight and she was so tired. Cletus licked his lips. She was the same as all the other women. She stared at his hair and snickered behind his back. She considered him a loser, but she, like the rest of them, was wrong. Cletus was in control. He had power, an entire militia of men who followed his every word.

Her skin felt softer than any flesh he had ever touched. It was feathery porcelain and Cletus wondered what her erect nipples would feel like in his mouth. The guards behind him had the same thoughts and Cletus knew it, but he wouldn't let anyone touch her. He wanted to, but couldn't. The voice in his head said she had to remain virginal. It was the same voice that had told him where to find her and it was the same the same voice that gave him the idea for the rally. It was the same voice that told him he was in control. He heard it again:

Take care of our precious flower, Cletus. She hasn't bloomed yet and that will make it all the more sweet when we take care of her at the rally tonight. Nobody wants to see a precious flower ripped to shreds.

Cletus nodded hesitantly. What were they going to do with this precious flower? He wasn't sure yet, but something would come to mind. Something always did.

To Be Continued . . .

Bio: Allen Woods' stories have appeared in Lost Worlds, Pablo Lennis, Of Unicorns and Space Stations, Art Mag, Gotta Write Network Litmag, Titan, Nuketown, Dubious Matter, The Thread, Dragon's Lair, Little Red Writer's Hood, Home Made Stories, and Pegasus.

allenwoods@sprintmail.com