AllFreeNovel
Share Us
While she wipes down J.D.’s rental car, I take one of the lanterns and follow the trail back into the jungle to the second hole we dug the day we spent sweating in the sun with our shovels. I bury the weapons quickly and then cover the freshly turned earth with leaves.
If the police have dogs, there’s a chance everything will be found, but there will be no prints and no way to track the illegally purchased firearm, Todd’s knife, or a bat purchased with cash to either Sam or me. This is just a precaution, but one I’m glad we thought to take. After nearly dying, I have no interest in ending up in prison facing a death penalty.
I grab the wicker basket containing the snakes I bought from the weird dude down the road from the compound, chilled by the sudden squirming inside, and hurry down the trail.
Back at the clearing, I find Sam standing in between the headlights, chewing on her thumb as she stares down at the pit.
“You ready?” I ask, setting the wicker basket carefully down in front of her.
“What about the blood?” she whispers. “Todd might have your blood on his hands. And I know there’s blood on the ground. I saw it drip from your stomach while he was…while he was getting ready to do it.”
I put my arm around her shoulder and pull her in for a hug, holding her close while I think.
“Well,” I finally say, keeping my voice low in case J.D. or Jeremy is alert enough to be listening. “We can go clean it up the best we can, but I’ve never been arrested or enlisted in the military. My DNA shouldn’t be on record. As long as I keep it that way it should be fine.”
“That’s not good enough. I need to know you’re safe.” She pulls away, looking up at me. “Do you still have your lighter in your pack?”
I nod. “You want to burn him?”
“We can use the basket to get it going,” she says. “It’s so dry, it should burn well enough. And we don’t need the body destroyed, just for the fire to burn the skin with the blood on it away.”
“And I can dig up the place where I bled on the dirt and throw it farther out in the woods.” I grab my lighter from my pack and press it into Sam’s hands before reaching for the basket handles. “I’ll empty this in the pit and meet you by the body.”
She touches my wrists. “No. I… I don’t want to. Not anymore. Just let the snakes loose in the woods.”
“You sure?” I say. “You’re not going to regret it later?”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m not. We’ll leave those two in there with their hands tied and let them figure their own way out. They will, sooner or later, and eventually they’ll learn what happened to Todd. I think altogether that’s a strong enough message.”
“Then I’ll let these guys out and meet you there.”
By the time I dump the snakes in a gulley and make it back to the place where I almost died, Sam’s got Todd propped up against the tree stump and a bundle of sticks wedged into the crevices beneath his back and under his legs.
“I already threw the dirt with your blood on it out into the woods,” she says. “We just need to get him ready.”
We tear the basket apart and stuff the pieces around the body, not speaking until the moment comes to light it up. Then, we stand side by side, staring down into the flat, empty eyes of a dead monster.
I don’t know about Sam, but when I look at him, I feel nothing.
Not hate, not fear, nothing but exhausted by what we’ve been through and sickened by the gore beginning to drip from the hole in his forehead.
He isn’t a monster now; he’s just dead tissue.
Whatever it was that made Todd the nightmare he was—his mind or his soul—is gone. I don’t know where it’s gone, but I don’t feel any guilt about my part in its destruction. And if there is a hell, I know he’s on his way there, to rot and roast with the rest of the wicked things.
“To the end of it,” Sam whispers, flicking the lighter on.
“To the end of it.”
She lights the wicker pieces and they go up fast, flaming hot long enough to catch the sticks and Todd’s clothes on fire. We stay until he is engulfed in flames and the smell of human skin catching begins to overcome the smell of burning sticks and cotton and then we turn and walk away.
One of the men is calling out from the pit as we get into the car, but we don’t answer his cries for help.
We get in, buckle up, and drive away, and we don’t look back not even when we’re safely strapped in on a plane taking us far, far away.
