The buck stared at us, his eyes looking fake, which was good, because I felt bad enough. Kept thinking how that beautiful animal had been bounding and running around, enjoying its life, probably humping a cute doe here and there. It seemed kind of a waste.
Every time we killed something, I went through this. But as my dad taught me, “It’s not like they were going to live forever anyway.” Once, in meeting for worship, I heard Daniel’s father say, “From death, life springs,” which I liked and made me think that on a net basis maybe a kill didn’t change all that much. Though I doubt that was his point.
I took the last swig and got started, everything by the book: screaming-sharp blades, rubber gloves, and those first careful incisions around the anus. Daniel slugged back a beer, narrating the action in mock hushed tones: “Ladies and gentlemen, quiet, please. The buck fucker’s going for it. Shhhh. Check out that form . . . straight hard in at that bunghole . . . and . . . and . . . he nails it!”
He’d been on me all week, more than usual, even, puffing out disgusted breaths every time I said something, calling me a “pathetic dumbshit” when anyone was around. Now he fell quiet. I sliced off the testicles, then dissected around the penis and slid it through the same opening as the anus. Daniel popped open another Bud and handed it to me. I chugged it down, switched to my gut-hook knife, and slit the belly from pelvis to rib cage. The hot, coppery odor of fresh blood rose up. I didn’t so much as scratch the entrails or we’d have been dealing with a whole new order of stink.
Daniel started grumbling about Sammy. A while back she’d been the one nagging for a commitment, but the tables had turned. She was applying to Ivy League schools and had a decent shot of getting in. Rumor had it that she was planning on dumping him. I half wondered if she already had.
“Why would she want to be with those asswipes on the East Coast?” he said.
I severed the windpipe from the base of the skull, my new blade slicing that tough cartilage like warm butter. I half listened to him singing that song of loss, surprised it’d taken him so long to figure out that if a girl’s smarter than you and beautiful besides, it’s your ass that’s going to get kicked.
That’s when his eyes slid sideways at me. “Hey, dickbreath.” He waited till I stopped, till he had my full attention. “I did that girl from the park.”
“What girl?” I said. He didn’t mean Red. That wasn’t possible.
“You know. From a couple days back. That skanky redhead. That ‘better’ thing you had to do tonight. That girl.”
And even then it took a moment, because the Red I knew was most definitely not a skank. She was beautiful. Her green eyes radiated crazy fierce sweetness, wounded yet tough as hell.
I did that girl from the park. I kept hearing it in my head, but I don’t remember feeling pissed or jealous or anything at all, really. Like I said, he had to be talking about somebody else. I don’t remember moving. I only remember seeing an odd twitch of his lips, like he was enjoying how those words tasted in his mouth. And then somehow I was airborne, that blade singing through the air.
When it struck his neck, our eyes met and the same thought flashed over our faces: What the fuck?
In all our years together, I’d never before landed so much as a single solid punch on the guy. No one could dodge incoming like Daniel Balch. The pure blind luck of such a spectacular hit, something straight out of a kung fu movie, would have made us burst out laughing, would have brought us back from our hateful last week. The two of us would’ve been snorting and rolling around on the damp ground, puking from laughing so hard, just like we had when we were kids. “You should have seen the look on your face!”
But of course Daniel’s neck was severed clean through, and I’d swear it was my own blood that was spilling out of him.
It’s hard to explain why I kept hacking after that, except that it was necessary, what with his eyes screaming every kind of pain at me and him gurgling and drowning in that horror show of a throat. I loved the guy. Who else was going to make it stop?
When it was over, I pressed myself up, his blood still warm on my skin. I told myself I’d only been kidding around, swinging at him like that. What were the odds he’d lean forward at the exact wrong moment? A freak accident. The freakiest of the freakish. But I knew better. For those few seconds, I wanted him dead. I wanted him dead with a clarity beyond thought. Maybe not the moment before or the moment after, but while I was swinging and whaling on him.
It’s strange how you discover what’s been hiding in you all along.
* * *
—
I’M LYING ALONE ON THIS BED, but I swear I hear Red breathing somewhere near. I whisper to her, tell her she’s in no way to blame. I was born with the potential to explode. She had seen that.
As for the fuel that propelled me into the air? It had been loaded over the years, one tiny drop at a time.
45
The nights grew longer, and an unyielding chill landed over the town. The house too grew colder. A week in, Isaac arrived at Evangeline’s door with a down comforter, muttering that the furnace was old, likely needed to be replaced. She thanked him and curled beneath it, once again warm enough to sleep. But the comforter brought terrors rather than dreams, landed her in the shadows of a night wood, snakes curling along branches, a buck’s eyes locked in accusing stillness. A knife would flash in a lantern’s light, and she’d bolt upright, gulping for air as if her own throat were filling with blood.
Nightmares pursued her until she began to dread falling asleep. Yet each night, she did. Each day, she got up and went to school. Each day, Isaac was still there. She got used to it, all that horror. Then, a week before Christmas, she woke in the early-morning hours needing to pee, and when she entered the gloomy hall, she didn’t jump at imaginary shadows or clutch her robe against unexpected chills. The house had shifted, as if whatever malevolence it had needed to vent had passed like the flu.
By Christmas morning, though darkness still lingered in empty corners, she felt nearly content. When she heard the knock shortly before noon, Evangeline warned Isaac to “be nice” and rushed happily to the door. Nells carried a plate of decorated cookies and Lorrie a pan of scalloped potatoes ready to be baked. They wore silly matching Rudolph sweaters with plastic red noses that blinked off and on.
Isaac, who was at the sink rinsing greens, glanced up when they entered and said, “Merry Christmas.” Evangeline thought he might as well have said, “Get the hell out,” given his gruff tone.
If Lorrie noticed, it didn’t show. She set the potatoes on the table and drew in a breath. “Smells wonderful in here.”
“I made a pie,” Evangeline said. “See?”
Nells, her thick, dark hair gathered with a red scrunchie, went to inspect. “I don’t like pumpkin pie.”
Lorrie shot her a look.
“What? I’m just saying.”
Isaac shook out the last leaf and turned, drying his hands. “More for us, then,” he said. He glanced at the plate she was holding. “Maybe you can make do with those pretty cookies you brought.” His tone was decent, familiar and a little teasing. Maybe he’d come around.