be able to say anything else.
“I didn’t do nothin’!” Cliff said again. “Swear to God! It weren’t me!”
Jason thought of the dark shape he’d seen moving through the trees. Despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins, he shivered.
“We’ve got to get her to a hospital,” Valerie said quietly.
“I’ve gotta kill this bastard first,” Frank said, and before anyone could say another word Frank was on top of Cliff, swinging his fists. He landed a solid punch to the side of Cliff’s head and Jason could hear the dull thud, like a wet towel smacking a kitchen floor.
Jason stepped over to Frank and grabbed his wrist as he reached back for another punch. Physically they were pretty evenly matched, even though Jason had a few inches on his brother, and after just a few seconds of struggling Frank gave up and allowed Jason to pull him to his feet again.
“Listen, Frank, this is one sick son of a bitch right here, that’s true, and right now I wanna kill him as much as you do, but we can’t. You know that. We have to take care of Lucy.” He hadn’t finished speaking when he thought he saw Cliff grin, but when Jason looked directly at him he was shaking his head and there was no trace of a smile on his face. “We’ll call the police, let them deal with this guy.”
Frank was clearly not going to accept that, but then Valerie spoke up again.
“Frank, you’re the only one of us that can drive in this weather, and we have to get her to a hospital.”
Jason could see the emotions passing over Frank’s face—hatred, rage, bloodlust—and then concern. He turned away from Cliff and reached into his pocket, pulling out his cell phone. He flipped it open.
“No fucking signal out here,” he muttered. Then, a little louder, “Okay. Okay, let’s get her back to the car.”
“What should we do with him?” Jason asked.
“Tie him to a tree,” Frank said.
Cliff shook his head. “No, please, I’ll freeze to death out hee-ah. Lemmee come with you. I swear I’s only comin’ to help, I didn’t do nothin’ to her.”
Jason was inclined to believe him. He didn’t know if it was because of that elusive shape he’d seen or if it was just old-fashioned gullibility, but he felt a little stab of pity for the man. Then Lucy began to shake her head again.
“Uh-uh! Uh-uh!” she said, but that was the best she could do.
“If you freeze to death you’ll be getting off lucky,” Frank said, but he made no move to tie Cliff up. Besides, they had nothing to tie him with anyway.
“Let’s get back to the car,” Valerie said. She knelt down and pulled a small package of tissues from her coat pocket and handed them to Lucy. Lucy tried to wipe some of the blood from her face with them but it was a useless endeavor.
“Can you stand up?” Valerie asked.
Lucy nodded. She put one arm around Valerie’s shoulder as she stood and the two of them started back in the direction of the car. Frank took one more long look at Cliff lying there in the snow, then he and Jason both turned and followed the women in silence.
“Please,” Cliff said to their backs, but that was all.
It had seemed like they’d run for a long time on the way there, but they were back to the embankment on the edge of the road in only a couple of minutes. They all helped Lucy climb over it; even though it was her tongue that had been injured and not her arms or legs, she was a little unsteady on her feet. Once over the embankment, Jason helped her into the front seat. The car was still running and it was blissfully warm inside. Jason could feel a tingling sensation in his fingers and his ears as the warm air from the heater vents washed over him.
Valerie climbed into the back behind Lucy, and Jason ran around the car to the other side but stopped before he opened the door.
“Uh, Frank?” he said.
“What?”
“Uh, I don’t think that’s supposed to be like that.” Jason pointed to the tire on the front driver’s side. It was completely flat. Then he noticed the rear tire looked exactly the same. The car was sitting on its rims.
Frank ran around the front of the car, Jason around the back. Both tires on the passenger side were flat, too. Slashed. Jason could see the long gouges where the rubber had been torn. He looked over his shoulder, back into the trees and the darkness.
“That bastard!” Frank yelled, “He’s really dead now,” and before Jason could do anything, Frank had already scrambled back over the embankment and was heading back to where they’d left Cliff.
“You fucker! You’re fuckin’ dead!” Frank was shouting this as he moved away from the vehicle. Jason turned to follow, if only to prevent his brother from committing murder out in those woods, but Valerie swung the door open hard.
“What now?” she said.
Jason pointed to the rear tire. “Slashed. All four of them. We can’t go anywhere.” He turned again, but Valerie caught his arm.
“Don’t leave us here by ourselves,” she said. It sounded like a plea. “If he has to go, let him go, but you stay here with us.”
Jason thought about it for a few seconds. What good could he do if he followed Frank? At best, he would get punched in the face for trying to intervene. At worst, he would be an accessory to murder. He nodded and climbed back into the car.
They locked all the doors.
They waited.
It seemed like forever. Lucy was whimpering in the front seat, holding her hands to her mouth and shivering despite the heater. Her chin, neck, and cleavage were covered with red gore. Jason remembered something he’d heard once about mouth injuries looking a lot worse than they really were. Could she bleed to death from a severed tongue? He didn’t want to think about it. It made him nauseated. But he couldn’t think of anything else. He wished Frank would hurry up and get back. Even if he really did kill Cliff, how long could that possibly take?
He realized that he suddenly had a very cavalier attitude toward murder.
But it was all relative. The man had chopped off Lucy’s tongue. Or ripped it out, or something. Whatever had actually happened out there, Cliff probably deserved to be killed. Lucy was sitting in the front seat, shaking her head as if in denial, moaning and crying, and it was all that crazy bastard’s fault. Jason hadn’t liked him from the very start. But then, they didn’t actually know if Cliff was responsible. Maybe he’d been telling the truth. Jason thought of that shape moving through the trees again. Had that been his imagination?
He leaned forward and broke their silence. “Lucy, was it Cliff that did that to you?” For some reason they hadn’t thought to actually ask her yet.
Lucy turned to face him, the lower half of her face a smear of blood as if she was wearing a red bandana. She gurgled something, and Jason thought she was nodding, but before he could be sure, they heard heavy knocking on the passenger window. Lucy whipped her head around, eyes wide. They hadn’t been paying attention.
It was only Frank. Thank God.
He ran around to the driver’s door and Lucy reached across and unlocked it. Frank climbed inside, shivering. “Can’t find him,” he said. “Asshole must’ve taken off, run out into the woods. I didn’t wanna go too deep, ‘fraid I wouldn’t be able to find my way back.” His teeth were clenched as he spoke.
“Can we drive away?” Valerie asked. Her voice was very quiet. “I know the tires are flat, but can we drive anyway? On the rims?”
“We’re sure as hell gonna try,” Frank said. “Any of you able to get any sort of service on your phones?”
They all checked their phones again, but nothing had changed. No signal.
Frank put the Acura in gear. He patted Lucy’s knee delicately.
“Don’t worry, sugar,” he said, “we’re gonna get you to a hospital, you’re gonna be fine.”
He pressed the gas slowly. Jason could hear the wheels turning beneath them, slicing the snow like a pizza cutter. Despite his doubts, slowly but surely they began to roll forward. Frank pressed the gas a little more. The wheels made a sound like a w
eak buzzsaw. They gained a little speed.
And then they were sliding sideways. It was slow. They couldn’t have been moving more than 5 miles an hour, but as they all felt the car slipping across the road, moving past the centerline that couldn’t be seen, it didn’t matter that it was effectively in slow motion. Valerie screamed, short and loud. Jason gripped the armrest with one hand, Valerie’s leg with the other. He also started to scream, but cut himself off before it escalated into the real thing. Lucy made a sound like someone sucking the last bits of a milkshake through a straw.
Only Frank was silent, a look of steeled determination on his face. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, trying to turn into the slide, then trying to turn out of it when that didn’t work.
But it was useless. The Acura made its slow track across the road, wheels still grinding beneath, and planted itself into the snow embankment on the opposite side. The jolt was minimal. They all breathed deeply.
The front left fender was embedded in the snow. Frank put the Acura in reverse and hit the gas but the wheels just spun. He threw it into drive with the same results. He tried reverse again. And drive again. And reverse.
Finally Lucy put her hand over his, on top of the gearshift. She shook her head and said something that sounded like “ohoosh.” Frank got the point.
He put it in neutral and looked at each of them one by one. They each looked back blankly.
“What now?” Frank said.
“What now?” Valerie repeated, her voice still quiet.