The Mountain Read online

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time.”

  Gerald grabbed Arley by his faded denim jacket, yelling, “You don’t talk to her like that!” as he slung him across the room. Arley grunted when he hit the wall, but came off it with a leering smile, one glaring eye trained on Gerald, the other, dull and lifeless and staring cock-eyed across the room. Gerald stepped forward, eyes narrowed, fists clenched at his sides. He pulled his jacket open to expose the pistol grip protruding from his waistband, took another step but Cindy put a hand on his chest. “It’s okay,” she said, and went back to help Tina into her clothes.

  Tina stood motionless as Cindy pulled the blouse over her shoulders, guiding one arm at a time into the sleeves. When Cindy picked up the discarded pants, Gerald nodded at Charlie. “What about him?”

  Arley knelt down. He lifted an arm and let it go, and Charlie’s hand slapped the hardwood like a dead carp.

  “Reckon he’s a goner?” Lewis asked him.

  Arley drew a hunting knife from a leather sheath attached to his belt. The bloody flecks on the blade looked like flakes of rust in the soft glow of the lantern. “Only one way to be sure,” he said.

  He raised the blade and Tina’s eyes grew wide. A long shadow resembling the grim reaper’s scythe snaked up the wall, into the ceiling as Cindy cried out, “No!”

  “Huh uh, Arley,” Gerald said. “No.”

  “Willem’s gonna be pissed if we don’t make sure.”

  “Let him go on and be pissed then,” Cindy said. “Please, Arley. Haven’t y’all done enough? Nobody was supposed to get hurt.” She cast a furtive glance Gerald’s way. “You promised.”

  Gerald laid a hand on Arley’s shoulder. “C’mon, cousin, put the knife away.”

  Arley’s expression softened as he looked up at Cindy, smiling as he sheathed his weapon. “No use in gettin’ carried away, I guess.”

  Cindy shook the pants, flailing them like a washerwoman fluffing wrinkles from a bed sheet. She held the open waist of the jeans by Tina’s knees, her voice soft and soothing, as if speaking to a stubborn child: “Step into them for me, sweetie.” And when Tina didn’t respond: “Your legs’ll get all scratched up if you don’t.” Finally, she just sighed and threw the pants across her shoulder, Arley grinning as Tina’s sneakers were gathered up and, one at a time, her feet slid into them. The shoes were untied, and Cindy left them that way as she took Tina by the arm and led her shuffling across the floor.

  They walked out of the room and down the hallway, Tina and Cindy first, then Gerald and Arley. Lewis, folding his giant frame as he ducked under the entrance, took one last look at Charlie, eyes lingering on the naked man for an awkward moment before leaving the dimly lit room behind.

  Outside, the group had gathered around Charlie’s Camaro, Arley running an appreciative hand across the hood’s smooth veneer; Cindy, the pants still draping her shoulder, standing between Tina and Gerald, one of her arms around Tina’s naked waist; Lewis towering above the lot of them from his position in the rear. A cloud drifted across the face of the moon as Arley leaned in through the driver’s window.

  “Keys’re in it,” he said, craning his head and smiling.

  “Good deal, cousin,” Gerald said. “Why don’t you follow us up the mountain as far as you can, then we’ll stash the car and go see what Willem wants to do.”

  “You got it.” The cloud relinquished its hold and moonlight flooded the clearing, and Arley straightened up, an enthusiastic smile splitting his face as he laid his hands on the roof of the car. “What a beaut,” he said, as Gerald led Cindy and Tina away.

  “We gonna get hitched?” Lewis said as they made their way across the clearing, Cindy sighing as Gerald said, “Might as well, you’ve done had the honeymoon.” Halfway to the tree line a car door slammed shut, and Gerald turned. “Aw, shit,” he said.

  “What?” Cindy asked him.

  “Be right back.” Gerald took off running across the clearing. When he got to the side of the car, he leaned into the open window. “Wait ‘til we get out of sight, then go back and finish him.”

  Grinning, Arley nodded his head.

  “I just didn’t want her getting all freaked out back there, and believe me; she would have.”

  “I know. That’s why I stopped.”

  “She’s a nice girl, a good person. She doesn’t know about… well…”

  “Don’t sweat it, Gerald. It’ll work out.”

  “Can’t have him going back to town, can we, cousin?”

  “No shit.”

  “See you up the mountain,” Gerald said, and then turned and hustled back across the clearing, where he led Tina and Cindy and his gigantic cousin up the narrow trail, moonlight filtering through the twisted branches hovering above them turning their shadows into hulking monsters as they forged ahead. They walked for a while, Cindy holding hands with Gerald while her other hand clasped Tina’s wrist. Several minutes later they climbed into the old Army Jeep they’d left on the deep-rutted mountain road.

  Arley waited until they disappeared down the trail before getting out of the car and hurrying over to the shack, and then onto the porch and through the door he went, grinning as he entered the darkened hallway. He couldn’t wait to gut that kid. He burst into the soft glow of the room, snatching his blade from its sheath; crossed the room and his smile disappeared.

  Charlie was gone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Eddie led Brenda away from the clearing and up the hill, charging blindly onward, even though he had no idea of where he was actually going. At least they weren’t shooting at them anymore.

  For now.

  The going was tough, the footing treacherous. Any second now a shotgun blast could leave one of them a bloody mess, like that poor bastard back in the trees. Eddie felt bad for what had happened, horrified at his involvement.

  Knock ‘em down and pick ‘em up.

  It was stupid. He had no business being there, and he owed it all to…

  Christmas trees and bing, bang, boom… great fucking idea, Rockley.

  Eddie hoped he lived long enough to express his appreciation.

  He figured a punch in the nose would just about do the trick.

  If he ever saw Mark again.

  He leaned forward, grabbing and clawing at anything he could get his hands on to help maintain his balance, sweat pouring off him, his legs aching, every muscle in his body rebelling against him as he kept going, all the while urging Brenda to keep moving too, even though he knew she had to be nearing the point of exhaustion, herself.

  They broke through a thick wall of brush and found a path snaking its way up the mountainside. Somebody said, “Listen… up there.”

  “Hurry,” Eddie whispered, as a beam of light swept the hillside to the left of them, and he and Brenda took off running in the opposite direction, legs churning against the steep incline.

  The path leveled off, rising in small increments across the face of the mountain.

  Brenda and Eddie kept going, Brenda in front, Eddie hoping they would gain some separation now that the terrain was easier to traverse. He could hear them, cussing and clawing their way up the mountainside. But now the voices were beginning to fade as he and Brenda drew further away on the ever-rising path.

  Brenda stopped and turned, and took a couple of deep breaths. “There’s a road up here somewhere,” she said.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, an old dirt road. My brothers and I used to come up here all the time. And there’re a bunch of trails like this one, crisscrossing all the way up to Rickert’s Peak.”

  Eddie looked over his shoulder—so far, so good. No light cutting through the night, no angry rednecks stomping up the trail. “Maybe we can get on the road, double-time our way back?”

  “Maybe they’ve already thought of that and sent somebody straight up there. They’re not stupid. And if there’s a shortcut, they probably know right where it is.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder, gently nudg
ing her forward. “C’mon,” he said. “We need to keep moving.”

  They took off up the trail, too winded to run, too frightened to walk. They were loping at a steady pace when they came to a fork in the trail, one path angling up while the other continued deeper into the woods in the direction they had been going.

  “Go up?” Brenda said.

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  Eddie shrugged his answer, beads of sweat rolling down his face, his shirt soaked with perspiration. Even though his calf muscles howled when he followed Brenda up the trail, hope had crept into him, because there was no way Butchie and his crew could know which path they’d taken. Not for sure, they couldn’t. They’d have to stop and try to figure it out, and that would put a little more distance between them. Maybe they would split up. If they did, that would be to their benefit, too. And if he and Brenda stayed on the path and out of the underbrush, there would be no noise to give them away, no beacon for Butchie to home in on. The breeze rustling through the leaves felt wonderful, and that too was in their favor, for it would go a long way toward rejuvenating them.

  They found themselves moving up a long sloping gradient of uneven terrain, the heavy foliage surrounding them swallowing up what moonlight had sifted through the treetops. Brenda stumbled over an exposed piece of root; she fell forward in an off balance pitch but Eddie snagged an arm, righting her before her topple was complete. The going became even more treacherous when the path suddenly ended in an abrupt erosion of soil, giving way to a black pit that looked more like the dark maw of a groaning monster to Eddie, wide enough for him to jump, but he didn’t think too much of Brenda making it. And no telling how deep it was if she failed, or how far she would fall or what she might hit on her way down. And Eddie had seen plenty enough horror movies to know that anything could be waiting at the bottom of that hole: busted bottles and rusty pieces of sheet metal, discarded lengths of barbed wire; rotted corpses impaled on pointed wooden stakes... rats. Who the hell could know what waited in the mountain’s gullet?

  Eddie peered into the darkness and Brenda took a few steps back. Footfalls padded up behind him, and Eddie turned to see Brenda running toward the hole. Agile as a cat, she launched her trim and athletic body over the pit and onto the weed-strewn path, Eddie grinning as she turned to face him.

  “Whatcha waiting on?” she called out to him.

  “You to do a back flip?”

  Brenda chuckled as Eddie moved back a few paces. Then he was up the path and over the hole, feet hitting the ground and the ground giving way, Brenda crying out, “Oh God!” as Eddie slid halfway into the pit.

  “Shit!” he whispered, clawing and scraping against the dirt, slipping further down while Brenda dropped to her knees and grabbed his hand. He slid from her grasp and chuckled, took a step back and laughed. Because the pit wasn’t much of a pit at all, a chest-deep hole, dangerous only if you didn’t see it and took a header into the damn thing. He took a couple of bounding strides and attacked the wall, feet digging and propelling him up and over the crest, until he had pulled his way free and crawled on all-fours onto the path.

  “Whew,” he said as he stood. “Thought I was a goner.”

  Brenda, smiling, brushed some dirt off the front of him. “How ‘bout we just get gone?” she said.

  Once again their tired legs were moving up the path, which kept rising higher and higher before them. Eddie wondered if they’d been heard. He hadn’t made much noise, but Brenda had. She’d cried out, only a couple of words, but that could’ve been enough to give them away. It had happened, and Eddie couldn’t dwell on it now. The only thing he could do was press forward and hope for the best.

  From somewhere above came the purring of an engine. Eddie looked up to see twin beams of light sweep through the tree branches before arcing back to the left, and knew that a car had rounded a curve. “Go,” he said, urging Brenda on, because in his heart of hearts he knew Mark was coming up the trail, that his friend-to-the-end would never leave him to rot on this godforsaken mountain. They ran, legs pumping, huffing out short staccato breaths as headlights illuminated the old mountain trail, their heads level with it when the wall of light pushed by them, leaving a pitch black field in its wake.

  Moments later, Brenda and Eddie emerged onto a narrow, deep-rutted path, just in time to see the Honda’s red taillights drawing slowly away from them in a lopsided up and down lurch.

  “Mark!” Eddie shouted, a euphoric rush sweeping over him as the car came to a halt, and he and Brenda hurried up the trail while the car doors opened and Mark and Thel jumped out.

  “Thank God!” Mark called out over the steady purr of the engine. He had a smile on his face, but the intensity in his eyes belied his calm exterior.

  A hand fluttered to Thel’s mouth. “Good Lord, Brenda. Are you all right?”

  “We’ve gotta get outa here,” Brenda said. “Now!”

  “Dude,” Eddie said. “We’re up shit-creek. A buncha crazies are chasing us. I think we lost ‘em, but who knows? They could be right on our tail.” He opened the rear door, pushing Brenda in ahead of him as he urged Mark to get going.

  Mark slid behind the wheel and Thel climbed back into her seat, squinting against the dome light while her eyes fixed on Brenda’s blood-soaked blouse, the gory bits still matted in her hair. “Brenda,” she said. “Are you… okay?”

  “Yeah, fine,” she answered, as the doors slammed shut and the light went out, and Mark dropped the transmission into gear to get the car rolling slowly forward.

  “But… all that… blood.”

  Brenda looked down at her chest, at the crimson smears on her shaking hands.

  She turned back to Thel, and said, “Not mine.”

  Eddie grabbed Mark’s seatback and pulled himself forward. “We’ve got to turn the hell around, fast. We’ve got to get the hell outa here. Right now.” He glanced nervously over his shoulder, then back at Mark. “I mean, right now.”

  But the road was narrow and there was no room to turn, so Mark kept the car bouncing slowly across the holes and ruts, rocks scraping the Honda’s undercarriage as four sets of eyes stared straight ahead, an unspoken hope threading through them all: find a wide enough space to turn, and then haul ass back down the mountain.

  Brenda said, “Butchie Walker and Bobby Jarvis and the Markham brothers caught us in the trees. They think we’re up here trying to rip off their pot plants.”

  Mark’s eyes found Eddie in the rearview mirror. “Pot plants?”

  And Eddie could see the wheels starting to turn. Even though they were being chased up the mountain by a pack of gun-toting rednecks, and any second now a hail of bullets could find them, Eddie could see the cogs slipping into place behind his partner’s eyes.

  “It happened so fast. One minute Jerry’s grabbing me, the next thing I know the shotgun goes off and his head is gone, gone Thel! Splattered all over my shirt, my chest, all over me!” Brenda took a deep breath. She let it out and the rear window exploded. Behind them, somebody shouted, “Goddamnit!” Tiny pebbles of glass showered the back seat and Eddie forced Brenda down, covering her as another concussive roar shook the car and the trunk popped up. Another deafening blast chewed a ragged, gaping hole through the flimsy sheet metal lid and Mark stomped the gas pedal, the car bucking like a wild stallion; the trunk lid thumping up and down as the car lurched up the rocky path.

  Eddie rose up and looked out the shattered rear window, at Butchie Walker, who stood in the middle of the road, shotgun leveled at the Honda while his two henchmen ran up opposite sides of the trail, guns drawn and aimed straight at Eddie. In the rearview mirror, Mark’s eyes were wide, frantic, the cogs apparently turning in another direction as he saw what Eddie had seen: two steely-eyed thugs running faster than the car was moving.

  Butchie jacked the handle, raised the shotgun to his shoulder and shouted, “You’re gonna die on this mountain tonight!”

  Fire belched from the barrel; pellets hammered the r
ear fender as Mark cut the wheel to the right. Gas pedal still mashed to the floor, the Honda left the roadside, wheels spinning against the motor’s high-pitched howl as they plunged straight down the mountain, across the path and down, until a tree trunk smacked them into a one hundred and eighty degree spin, giving the screaming and yelling occupants a bird’s eye view of Butchie Walker silhouetted in the moonlight between his two friends, scowling at the edge of the roadway as the car jerked and bounced and hurtled further and further away from them.

  They were still screaming, Eddie hugging Brenda tight against the back seat, Thel pounding the console while Mark stiff-armed the steering wheel, his foot mashing the brake pedal as if it could actually stop what came next: the sudden crash of metal against pine as the car jolted to a sideways halt fifty yards down the mountainside, Mark and Thel—still screaming and yelling—pitching around like a couple of rag dolls, as Mark’s door popped open and the passenger window exploded in a hail of busted glass.

  “Oh shit!” Thel said, as the car groaned, and then slid backward, the rear end dipping down and the Honda thumping to a stop in the middle of a ditch; twin beacons of light drilling the sky as the front bumper pointed up the mountainside.

  Eddie rose up, and so did Brenda, and Mark fell out his door, groping around on hands and knees before falling over onto his side and staring up at the sky, all quiet save for the ticking of overheated metal, and steam gushing from the ruined radiator. In the distance came a rustling of tree limbs and the snapping of dry sticks, as if a herd of buffalo was stomping through the underbrush. Eddie looked up the hill. Butchie Walker and his gang were nowhere to be seen.

  “C’mon,” he said. “C’mon, they’re coming. We’ve got to get out of here!”

  He opened his door and climbed out of the car, and Brenda scooted across to follow. She looked over her shoulder at Thel, who was still in her seat, groaning, the shattered glass in her lap glittering in a moonbeam that had penetrated the forest. She was leaning against the passenger door, which had bowed inward upon impacting the tree, her face twisted into an anguished and painful mask. Brenda stopped and turned. Leaning through the open space above the console, she laid a hand on Thel.