Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet (23 page)

Hingle woke with a hiss of pain. His skull was pounding where the shit-kicker had cold-cocked him as he’d stooped to check the car engine. Oldest trick in the book—hell, he’d used it himself a time or two—and he’d fallen for it. The hick must’ve seen his mugshot on TV and decided to make a citizen’s arrest. Except this didn’t look like no jail cell. None Hingle had ever seen before, anyway.

Glancing around, his vision blurred like an old Movie of the Week flashback … and then the root cellar swam slowly into focus. The corners of the room were thick with shadow. A naked light bulb glowed dimly above him. In the dingy light, at first it was hard for Hingle to tell why he couldn’t move and why it hurt like such a sonofabitch when he tried. Then he realized he’d been stripped to his shorts—shit,
that
wasn’t good—and that he was hanging by chains from the rafters, like a goddamn puppet on strings. His arms were wrenched above and behind him, like a madman flapping his arms in an attempt to fly. His shoulders were forced to take the brunt of his weight. And they weren’t happy about it, burning like they were aflame.

Hingle tried to stretch his feet to the floor to relieve the burden from his shoulders, raking the cold dirt with his toes. At full extension he managed to teeter on his big toes like some half-assed ballerina, but it barely eased the pressure from his shoulders, and the effort required was exhausting. He slumped down heavily, shoulders popping under his full weight. He stayed hanging here like this and pretty soon his arms would wrench from the sockets.

He raised his head towards the stairs leading up to the kitchen.

Was the shit-kicker up there? Had to be. What the hell was he waiting for?

“Hey …” Hingle croaked.

He choked down the frog in his throat and tried again. “Hey, fucker! Come on down here and cut me loose, let’s you and me dance a few rounds!”

No answer; not a sound up there.

Maybe the shit-kicker had gone to fetch the cops?

Then why go to the effort of stripping him and hanging him up in chains?

Maybe … maybe he’d found his brother in the trunk of the Bug?

That was not the most comforting thought—especially not now that Hingle had noticed the pegboard wall cluttered with tools. Hammers and saws and chisels and drills and pliers; it was a regular hardware store down

here, every tool coated in rust. Wait a minute—

Hingle squinted …
Was
that rust?

His balls didn’t think so, shriveling in fear as he gaped at the bloody tools and saw his own fillet knife hanging among them on the pegboard.

Perched on the outstretched tree branch, Tilly stared down at the dog; the dog stared up at Tilly, salivating.

“Hey! Get me out of here! Goddamn it, get me the hell out of here!”

Her head snapped towards the cries. They were coming from the house. Behind those bulkhead doors. Down in the cellar.

Then she recognized HIS voice and a chill shivered down her spine.

Why would HE be yelling like that? This was HIS place … wasn’t it?

As if in answer came the rumbling approach of a truck engine. The hairs on the nape of Tilly’s neck prickled as she saw headlights ghosting along the wooded trail towards the house. She wondered again just where she was.

Below her the dog stood against the tree on its hind legs, barking like a furry Judas, eager to reveal her presence to its master. Tilly thought about what they said about dogs and their owners, and she shivered once more. Before the truck could emerge from the trail, she scrambled up the tree as high as she could climb and concealed herself—she hoped—behind a dense cluster of leaves.

The truck growled into the yard, skidding to a stop behind Betsy Bug. The driver’s-side door cranked open (RITTER GAS & TOW was printed in faded red paint on the siding) and a man climbed down from the cab. DWIGHT was stitched on his coveralls. Even in the moonlight, Tilly could see the resemblance to his brother. Unmistakable. The Ritters were a memorable-looking family.

Tilly held her breath as Dwight approached Betsy’s trunk. He seemed afraid of what he might find inside. The dog was still barking up at the tree. Dwight picked up a rock and tossed it at the dog. “Shaddup!” The rock hit the dog in the ass and it yelped and tucked tail and scuttled back under the porch.

Dwight hesitated outside the trunk. Gave a nervous flick of his mullet. Then he lifted the lid and his worst fears were realized as he saw his dead brother. He unleashed an anguished scream that chilled Tilly to the core.

She was suddenly very glad she hadn’t shown herself when he pulled up. This man would not help her; Tilly wasn’t sure he was even
human
. She didn’t know how it had happened, but somehow she’d fallen out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Dwight turned towards the house and glared at the bulkhead doors. Hingle was still crying out in the cellar. But nothing like he soon would be, Tilly thought. And right then she would not have traded places with Hingle for all the money in the world. She watched as Dwight threw open the bulkhead doors and stomped down to the cellar.

Now was her chance: While Dwight was busy with his brother’s killer—

Praying he’d left the keys in his truck, Tilly started scrambling down the tree …

And of course, the fucking dog reemerged from under the porch, trotted over lazily, and stood waiting for her at the bottom.
Are you kidding me?
Stopping her descent, she reclaimed her perch on the outstretched branch and glared at the dog. It wagged its tail and lapped its chops, smiling its glistening fangs at her.

Trapped in the tree, Tilly stared with hopeless longing at Dwight’s truck. Ten yards away, but it might as well have been the moon. There was nothing she could do but listen to the screams echoing from the cellar.

“What’s … what’s that?” Hingle wheezed. A rope of bloody bile swung from his lips. The hick had finished working his body like a heavy bag. Now he was coming towards him with what looked like a rusted budgerigar cage. A round hole was sawed in the bottom of the cage. A head-sized hole. “Stay the fuck away from me with that!” The hick slugged him again in the guts. Fractured ribs crunched like kindling. Hingle rocked back on his chains, the air punched from his lungs, his shoulder blades creaking like an old rocking chair. Hanging from the chains like a side of raw beef, he bowed his head and sucked for breath. The hick fixed the budgie cage over his head like a crown. He adjusted the cage upon Hingle’s shoulders, positioning the little barred door in front of his mouth. Then he opened the door and shuffled back into the gloom of the cellar.

“Wait …” Hingle gasped. “Just wait a minute—”

Wrenching the lid off a coal bin, the hick reached down inside it and withdrew a grain sack. Something wriggled inside the sack, writhing and squealing. The hick unknotted the end of the sack. Peered inside it. Gave it a shake and grinned.

He wriggled on a pair of heavy work gloves, and then reached down inside the sack and pulled out a gnarly black timber rat the size of a puppy. The rat squirmed wildly in his grip, thrashing its thick scaly tail. It sank its long yellow incisors into his fingers. The hick hissed in pain and pulled it loose. The rat’s teeth tore a strip from the finger of his work glove. The hick held up the rat for Hingle to take a good long look: The beady black eyes and twitching whiskers and the long yellow teeth, spackled with blood where it had bitten him. Hingle’s eyes widened with horror as the rat-wielding hick ambled slowly towards him—

And all of a sudden he was ten years old, cuffed to the drainpipe beneath the kitchen sink, surrounded by rats, their fur slick with momma’s blood, Little Cyril’s skeleton grinning fiendishly, the rats creeping towards Terry Lee in a bristling black tide, the boy’s terror reflected in their hungry black eyes.

“Christ, no—” Hingle cried. “
Please
!”

He cowered back as far as his chains would allow.

And that was nowhere near far enough.

The hick raised the rat to the open cage door and relaxed his grip on it. The rat darted from his hand, inside the cage. The hick closed the door and fastened it shut with a piece of wire. The rat squirmed around the circumference of Hingle’s head, its greasy fur filthy as a toilet brush. It gave a panicked squeal as it realized it was trapped—

And then its claws were raking his cheeks, tail whipping at his eyes. It sank its incisors into the soft flesh of his earlobe, blood spurting as it ripped it off and gobbled it down. Hingle roared in pain and thrashed his head, the cage rattling wildly about his shoulders. Biting in frenzy, the rat seized his bottom lip and with a jerk of its head, peeled it away like a strip of chicken skin. Hingle screamed and the rat lunged towards his open mouth. His teeth snapped shut like a guillotine upon its neck. Bones splintered and crunched. Hot, bitter-tasting rat blood flooded his mouth. The headless body jerked back, crashing against the cage bars. Blood jetted from the ragged stump of its neck, blinding him. Its whiplashing tail went limp and it keeled onto its side and lay there twitching.

Hingle retched up the head and dry-heaved.

The hick slapped his thigh and roared with laughter.

“Not bad, mister,” he nodded. “Not bad at all.”

He reached inside the sack and pulled out another huge, wildly thrashing rat.

“But let’s see if you can do that again, you kin-killing sonofabitch.”

From her perch on the tree branch, Tilly couldn’t see what was happening in the cellar. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Judging by Hingle’s screams he wasn’t enjoying himself. Couldn’t be happening to a nicer guy, she thought.

She looked down at the dog.

It sat patiently below the tree, watching her with its head cocked.

She gazed along the length of the branch she was perched on. The end of the limb overhung the porch. She glanced at the windows above the porch: One boarded over with wooden slats, the other closed. Maybe there was a phone inside to call for help? Or a weapon she could use to fend off the dog and escape to Dwight’s truck? She couldn’t just stay here. Dwight would find her up here eventually. That would not be good. Not good at all. Maybe he’d blame her for Dwayne’s murder? Fetch her down to the cellar for a taste of the same medicine he was dishing out to Hingle.

Forcing herself into action, she began caterpillar crawling along the branch towards the house. The limb started about the thickness of a telegraph pole. At its end, where it overhung the porch, it became broom handle-thin, tapering to a brush of dry withered leaves. As she inched forwards, the limb sagged beneath her weight. She pictured the branch drooping lazily to the ground and the dog plucking her loose like a ripe piece of fruit. And it was old wood; at any time she felt the branch could just shear away from the tree and hurl her to the ground to be savaged. These weren’t the most encouraging thoughts. She pushed them firmly from her mind and continued inching along the branch towards the house.

Below the tree the dog tracked her movements, stalking along beneath the branch. It seemed to realize what she was up to and gave a guttural growl. Hanging from the middle of the branch was the tire-swing. Snatching the tire in its jaws, the dog dug its paws in the dirt and pulled on it. The branch bent back like an archer’s bow. The wood creaked under the strain. Tilly let out a cry as the dog released the tire and the branch whipped back and forth and nearly catapulted her from her perch. She gripped the branch tightly between her thighs, looped her arms around the limb, a literal tree-hugger holding on for dear life. The tree shuddered violently. Leaves showered down over the yard. The tire-swing yo-yoed beneath the branch. But she managed to hold on.

The dog whined, snatched the tire, started pulling it again.

The branch began to splinter. Feeling it giving way beneath her, Tilly scrambled the last few feet to the end of the limb, and threw herself onto the porch roof, seconds before the branch snapped away from the tree like a twig.

The branch thudded to the ground, the impact rocking the porch beneath her.

“What in the luvva fuck was
that
?”
she heard Dwight exclaim from the cellar.

Peering over the porch roof, Tilly prayed she’d see the dog crushed beneath the branch … But, no. The fucker was right as rain and still barking at her.

She teetered to her feet and turned towards the window that wasn’t boarded over. There was nowhere else to run. She cleared a porthole in the filthy glass and peered inside. A black blizzard of flies needled the window, pinging off the glass, obscuring her view—yet what she saw was enough to make her lurch back in horror.

Tilly would have said that nothing on this earth could have compelled her to enter the house. But then she heard Dwight’s heavy footsteps ascending the cellar stairs, and in a flash of panic, she hauled up the window, gagging at the charnel stench as she crawled inside.

Dwight emerged from the cellar.

“Damn it Roscoe, I don’t have time for your shit!”

He saw the broken branch lying down in the yard.

“Now why the hell can’t you do that when I put you in the fighting pit?”

He followed the barking dog’s gaze. Peered up at the porch roof. “What is it, boy? A squirrel?”

Dwight thought Roscoe had lost his appetite for squirrel once he’d had him a taste of long pig.

Then he saw Momma’s window was wide open, haloed by buzzing flies.

Dwight patted the dog’s blood-matted head. “Good boy, Roscoe …” he murmured, gazing thoughtfully at the open window.

He returned to the cellar.

No two ways about it, the townie was a fucking mess. Bloody tatters of flesh flapped from his face like open doors on a Christmas advent calendar. He upchucked another rat head and croaked, “Please … No more—”

Dwight shushed him, said: “Who you got with you, mister?”

Away—

Look away—

But she couldn’t.

And oh, there was so much to see.

A naked young woman was chained to the bed in front of her. She wore a bodysuit of bruises, her wrists and ankles rubbed raw and scabbed where the manacles had abraded her flesh. She looked more dead than alive. One of her eyes was swollen shut, the other glazed, gazing up at the cracked plaster ceiling. Blood-matted blonde hair spiked stiffly from the woman’s scalp. She wheezed for breath through cracked bleeding lips, her chest hitching raggedly. Clamped to her breasts was a set of alligator clips, their steel teeth biting sharply into her nipples. The jumper cables were attached to an oil-smeared car battery on the nightstand. Reaching out from between the woman’s thighs was a disembodied human arm. Near mummified with decay, the withered brown limb was wedged inside the woman shoulder-first, where the rotten flesh had receded around a sallow stump of bone. The hand was clawed— fingers grasping—begging Tilly for release. The knuckles of the hand were hairy; one of the man’s fingers wore a high school football ring; on his wrist was a cheap Timex watch with a splintered face.