Ultimate Thriller Box Set - Crouch Blake. Страница 73

“Jeff,” Orson continued, “how long you known Wilbur?”

“All my life.”

“Then this might be a difficult decision for you.” I was leaning against the double doors, and Orson looked back at me. “Have a seat, Andy. You’re making me nervous.”

As I sat down in the lawn chair, Orson turned back to Jeff and held up the knife and the revolver. “Jeff, the bad news is you’re both going to die tonight. The slightly better news is that you get to decide who gets the easy way and who gets the fun way. Option A. My brother executes you with this three fifty-seven. If you choose the gun, you have to go first. Option B. I take this gorgeous knife and cut your heart out while you watch.” Orson smiled. “Take a moment to think it over.”

My brother walked to me as the men stared at each other on the plastic — Jeff crying, Wilbur on the verge of losing consciousness. Orson leaned down and whispered into my ear: “Whoever you shoot, you’re doing them an act of kindness. They’ll feel nothing. I’m not even gonna make you watch what I do with this knife tonight. You can go back to the house and go to bed.”

Orson returned to the center of the room and looked down at the men. “Jeff, I’m gonna have to ask —”

Jeff sobbed. “Why are you —”

“If the next words from your mouth aren’t ‘Shoot me’ or ‘Shoot him,’ I’ll take both your hearts out. Decide.”

“Shoot me,” Jeff cried, his lips pulling back, exposing rotten teeth. Wilbur, still holding his leg, glared at Orson.

My brother walked to the back door and said, “Andy, I thought about it, and I’m only leaving you one bullet in the gun. Wouldn’t want you to do them both a favor.” Orson emptied the cylinder and reloaded one round.

“Behind the ear, Andy. Anywhere else and you might not kill him. He’d just lay around suffering.” Orson set the gun on the floor. “I’d love to stay and watch, but after that incident with Miss Tanner, well…I’ll come back when I hear the gunshot. Don’t do anything heroic like not shoot him or destroy the gun. I have others, and we’d have to play our little game again. I think the stakes are up to sixty percent now against you, and I’m sure you don’t want those odds. And if that doesn’t encourage you, let me say this. Anything goes wrong, I’ll punish our mother. So…I’ll leave you to your work. Jeff” — Orson flippantly saluted him — “it’s my brother’s first time, so take it like a man. Don’t beg and plead with him not to shoot you, because you might convince him, and then you’d have to die my way. And I promise you,” he said, smiling at Wilbur, “my way’s a shitty way to die.” Orson stepped out, shut the door, and turned the dead bolt. I was alone with my victim.

Rising, I crossed the floor to the gun, picked it up, and carried it back to the chair. The way Jeff watched me felt unnatural. No one had ever feared me like this.

I sat down to think, my hands sweating onto the metal. Jeff stared at me, and I stared back. Our eyes met, eyes that in another time or place might have been cordial or apathetic, now gravely opposed. This is preventing his torture.

When I stood, my legs jellied, like those nightmares when you have to run, but your legs refuse to work. I walked toward Jeff. It’s for his own good. Be professional, calm, and swift. Even through his pain, Wilbur cursed me under his malodorous breath. Are you actually going to do this?

“A joke?” Jeff laughed strangely. “This is a funny joke. Isn’t this a funny joke, Wilbur? Let’s go now. We have to be at Charlie’s before twelve.”

Lifting the gun in my right hand, I pointed it at Jeff and tried to aim, but my hands shook. I stepped forward so that, despite my trembling, Jeff’s head remained in the sight.

“Don’t shoot my face,” he begged as tears welled up again in his eyes. Jeff knelt down and leaned forward like a Muslim facing Mecca, his dirty blond hair in his eyes, his right arm stretched out, still connected to Wilbur. He touched the skin behind his ear. “Right here,” he said, his voice quaking. “Get close if you have to.”

You aren’t going to do this.

I took a step closer. His face now inches from my boots, he made fists and grunted, preparing to die. With both hands, I steadied the gun, and my finger found the trigger.

I squeezed, but the hammer only clicked.

Jeff gasped.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and as his back heaved up and down from hyperventilation, I stepped back. The cylinder of a Smith & Wesson rotates counterclockwise. Orson had loaded the eleven o’clock chamber instead of the two. You did that on purpose, you bastard. I dropped the round into the hot chamber, put the barrel behind Jeff’s ear, and thumbed back the hammer.

He went limp and rolled onto his left side. I hadn’t heard the gunshot or felt my finger move, but a stream of dark blood flowed fast onto the plastic. In five seconds, it had surrounded Jeff above the shoulders, a crimson halo that reflected the lightbulb redly. I could see into his right eye, open but blank, without soul or will. As the pool expanded across the plastic, Wilbur jerked back, dragging Jeff’s body with him, and shrieking his name. Do not analyze this moment. You couldn’t bear it.

The back door opened, and Orson entered, an expression of awe upon his face as he stared at the plastic. He pulled the Polaroid camera from his pocket, and captured me looking down at Jeff.

“This moment…” he began, but did not finish the thought. His eyes glistened, joyful. “My God, Andy.” He came and took the gun from my hands. Embracing me with tears in his eyes, he rubbed my back. “This is love, Wilbur,” he said. “Real as it gets.” Orson let go and wiped his eyes. “You can go now if you want, Andy,” he said. “You’re welcome to stay, but I know you probably don’t wanna see this. I won’t force you.”

As Orson looked at Wilbur, I could see his mind drift from what I’d done. His preoccupation with his next victim took precedence, and his eyes glazed over with predatory concentration. He walked across the room and returned with the sharpening stone. Then he sat down on the concrete and began sliding the knife blade against the stone, returning it to the razor edge it had held before Shirley Tanner. You killed a human being. No, stop that. Stop thinking.

“Staying or going?” he asked, looking up at me.

“I’m going,” I said, watching Wilbur watch the knife as it scraped across the stone for him. I wondered if Orson would make the knife speech after I left. Orson set the knife on the floor and walked me to the door. When he opened it, I gladly stepped outside. Wilbur strained his neck to see the desert, and Orson noticed.

“You interested in something out here, Wilbur?” he asked, turning around as I stood in the threshold. “Well, take a look,” he said. “Take a long, long look at that night sky, and the stars, and the moon, ’cause you’ll never see them again. Not ever.”

Orson’s icy stare returned to me. “I’ll see you in the morning, brother.”

He slammed the door in my face and locked it. I trudged toward the cabin, the sound of the knife blade on the sharpening stone reaching faintly through the walls.

Ahead the black mass of the cabin pressed against the navy sky. The desert had turned blue again in the moonlight. I thought of my quiet room inside. I would sleep tonight. This staggering numbness was my lifeboat.

As I stepped onto the front porch and reached for the door, the first scream rushed out of the shed and splintered the gentle night. I could not fathom the pain that had inspired it, and as I walked inside and closed the door behind me, I prayed the cabin walls would impede the sound of Orson’s handiwork from reaching my ears.

13

ON the eleventh day, I didn’t leave my room. Orson slipped in during the afternoon. I wasn’t sleeping, though. Since first light, I’d been awake. He brought me a ham sandwich and a glass of port and set them on the bedside table. I lay on my side, facing him, staring into nothing. The despondence that always struck him afterward was evident in his cumbrous eyes and hushed voice.