Rituals (Cainsville 5)

"It's me, Greg. It's Todd. I know what's under that tree. I know about the other two. I know everything."

His jaw worked. Then his eyes rounded. "You. It was you. How--how--" He pushed to his feet and looked around. "Where is it?"

"Where's what?"

"The dog. The huge dog."

"You mean the hound?" I took a guess. "A big black hound with red eyes?"

He swallowed and nodded. "Every time I come in the forest, it's here. I live in the fucking forest. How am I supposed to stay out of it? But I did." A high-pitched giggle. "I figured out that the dog only follows me in here. So I stayed out."

I looked at the surrounding woods. "Yeah..."

He ran his tongue over his lips. "It's my day. My time to visit her. I thought maybe if I hung out with some guys, had a few drinks, I wouldn't need to come here. But I did."

"Why?" I asked, and I knew now the question was pointless. It was like asking the theoretical background to a quantum physics tenet when I'd barely gotten my high school diploma. No answer Kirkman could give would make any sense to me. It couldn't.

"Why not?"

That was what he said, and I blinked, sure I'd misheard.

"I mean that," I said, waving at the deadfall, not even able to look at the poor girl's body. "Why?"

"And that was my answer. Why not?" Kirkman rose, his sweat drying in the cold night air. "You've thought of it. I know you have. Everyone does. We just don't like to admit it. It isn't right." A derisive twist and lip curl to the last word.

I couldn't answer. I didn't even know the words to answer.

Kirkman leaned against a tree. "You think about it. In school, that pretty girl who let you put your hand up her shirt and then said no. The one on the street wearing the shirt that shows off her tits and then she scowls when she catches you staring. Even that pretty wife of yours, when she pisses you off. You think about it."

"Think about...what?"

I knew what he seemed to mean. But I thought I must be wrong. I glanced toward the deadfall, felt my stomach clench at the memory of what I'd seen in there.

"That?" I said, barely able to get the word out. "You honestly believe normal people think about..." I couldn't finish.

"Don't be coy, Todd. That's why you're here instead of calling the police. You're curious. You want validation. Someone to say it's okay if you feel the same way. If you want to do the same thing. If you look at her"--a chin jerk toward the deadfall--"and you like what you see."

"You sick fuck."

Kirkman's face hardened. "You're the one who came out here. Tell me you didn't like looking at her. Tell me it didn't excite you, just a little. Tell me you didn't, for one second, imagine your wife there."

Yes, I had. I'd seen that girl--what had once been a girl--and thought of her life. Thought of her family. Thought, What if it was Pamela? What if it was Eden? How would I ever sleep again, when every time I closed my eyes, I'd think of what they'd suffered?

"Yes," I said slowly, feeling that cold rage seep through my veins. "I thought of my wife under those branches. I thought of what I'd want to do to the man who put her there."

I saw the blade slash without even realizing I'd pulled it from its sheath. Saw blood spurt. Saw Kirkman fall backward. Then I fell on him. I stabbed him over and over until he stopped moving. Until he completely stopped moving.

I stood there, and I wasn't heaving breath, wasn't shaking, wasn't doing anything I should be doing. That rage slid away, and even to call it rage felt like an excuse. I'd known what I was doing. I'd done it intentionally, deliberately. Gregory Kirkman deserved to die, so I killed him.

When that ice in my gut thawed, I looked down at the bloody mess of his chest, the blood splattered over me, over the bushes, over everything. I saw that, and I pictured the body in the deadfall.

What mak

es me any different?

I threw up. Vomited, crouched on all fours, dry heaving when nothing more would come. I caught my breath, leaves crackled behind me, and I didn't jump up. Didn't even think to run.

I'd been caught. I deserved that. Whatever happened now, I deserved it.