AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pick the spilled groceries off the floor. Luckily, most of the stuff stayed inside the paper bag, so it’s only one bottle of beer that got wasted.
Now, finally, I can turn my attention to the severed head.
Ear tufts. Facial ruff. Dark yellow eyes, open and vacant. It’s a bobcat, or maybe a lynx. Kinda hard to tell without seeing the rest of it. Makes me furious to see a majestic animal like this killed so brutally. Shouldn’t be legal to hunt these things in this area, you ask me. Technically, they’re not an endangered species, but the way they’re trapped and killed out here, it’s not humane. All so that their pelts can be sold to foreign markets. It ain’t right.
I know who did this as well. At least, I think I did.
‘Finn?’ asks Addison, still stroking Eric, who looks a lot happier now, lying on the couch with a sleepy, satisfied look in his eyes. ‘Am I allowed to take a shower?’
I look down at the severed head, and then back at Addison. The way she asked that question is so damn sweet. ‘Of course you’re allowed, darlin’,’ I say. ‘Probably for the best you don’t see what I’m about to do, anyhow.’
Addison stands. ‘I, uh, I don’t remember seeing a shower in your bathroom.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ I smile. ‘It’s an outdoor shower. Just help yourself to towels and whatnot from the bathroom, then you’ll find everything you need round the side of the cabin.’
Addison looks like she’s hesitating for a moment. Probably turning her nose up at the idea of having to take off her clothes and get wet out of doors. She’s a city girl, after all.
‘Do you think… do you think they’ll have gone?’ she asks. ‘I’m just a little scared to go out there.’
Ah, right. My bad. She’s not nervous about showering out of doors. She’s nervous about some kind of psychotic killer coming after her while she’s naked and vulnerable and alone. Fair enough, I guess.
‘They’ll be gone sweetheart,’ I tell her. ‘You don’t do something like this and then hang about to see what happens next.’
Addison nods bravely, her face a picture of cute defiance. Then, she says, ‘I just can’t believe Chris would do something like this.’
I’m about to tell her that I don’t think Chrisdiddo this. That I think it was someone else. But do I really want this girl to think that nowtwopeople are after her?
‘You just go and get yourself cleaned up,’ I say. ‘I’ll make this thing here look like it never happened.’
Addison takes a towel outside and before long I hear the shower going. Good. The girl has some guts. Not just to be out there in the forest after something like this, but to be showering in cold rainwater collected in an old whiskey barrel too. I’m impressed.
I take some old newspaper from a pile by the fire, and then wrap up the head as best I can. I get a little blood on my hands and my pants, but that’s inevitable. This thing isfresh. I take the bloody newspaper bundle outside then, far away from my cabin, I light a fire in an old oil drum. Normally use this thing for burning brambles and stuff I can’t put to any good use in the cabin, but now I’m going to have to burn a bobcat’s head in it. Not pretty, and kind of tragic, but that’s how it is.
I get the fire going, then back at the cabin I get on my hands and knees with a cloth and some wood soap. Then I have a go with a mop and bucket, and some antibacterial wipes, and after ten minutes of good, old-fashioned scrubbing, it’s as though the damn thing never happened. Good job I waxed these wooden floors so carefully when I built the place. In spite of all that blood I’m not left with so much as a single stain, and thank god for that because I don’t want to be reminded of this shit ever again.
I go outside next, back to Addison’s tire. I’m pretty damn desperate to take a shower myself, but Addison is still out there, and besides, I’ll only get messed up changing this tire. I can’t help but take a quick detour in the direction of the side of the cabin, though, to check the girl is alright.
The shower has stopped running now, but I can see her feet standing there, moving a little, behind the wooden screen. Wonder what she made of myal frescobathroom.
I go over to the car and get working on the tire, jacking up the chassis so I can remove the old tire. Jesus. She really did one helluva number on this thing. It’s flat as a pancake.
As I’m removing the tire, I hear the snap of a twig and my gaze shoots quickly toward the noise. Who can blame me for still being a little on the jumpy side since the whole severed head in my home incident?
‘It’s only me,’ says Addison, smiling.
She’s wrapped in one of my dark blue towels. Those towels are a lot smaller on me. This thing goes from her armpits down to her knees, completely hiding the hourglass figure beneath. But I don’t need to see her hourglass figure right now to be turned on by her.
Her pale shoulders gleam, still moist. Her skin is so smooth, and her features are so shapely, it’s like she’s cut from marble. And don’t even get me started on that long, wet hair, falling in ropes around her shoulders. I just want to grab her, to cover her with all the oil and grease and dirt on my hands, to watch her squirm as I mess her up, then get in the shower with her, making our bodies wet together…
Quit it, Finn. This woman is a person, not an object designed to satisfy your basest desires…
‘Have you got a plastic bag?’ she asks me. ‘I’ve got some trash I wanna get rid of.’
‘Just give it to me. I’ll toss it for you.’
She blushes, and looks suddenly furtive. ‘No, it’s OK. It’s, um, kinda private.’
I shrug. ‘OK.’ I wonder what she’s worried about. I’m not gonna press her now of course, not after everything she’s been through today, but I gotta admit, I’m curious as hell.
