The Savage(8)

From the far left corner next to a curtainless window, a yoke hung balanced in its center from above. It held medium-sized hooks on each end where two hinds had been attached, now shriveled. The carcass they’d been connected to was no more, only sticky splotches of matted pelt and blood lay on the floor. Looked to have been from a deer, Horace thought. Steps printed from the mess, tracked toward a hallway where shapes flicked and strobed. Worry stirred within Horace. His grip damp around the crowbar, wanting to find Van Dorn, be rid of this place. Stepping down the hall into a windowless room that reeked of urine. A candle sat creating a static haze. Shining over the blots of shag; blankets lay twisted and piled. A doorless opening descended. Basement, Horace thought. In the corner, grimed toenails poked from boots that were attached to frayed denim. The father guided the light up the legs. Made out two silhouettes. A voice came in a sparking screech. “Dim that there light, trespasser.”

The shape of a man held a length of steel pressed to Van Dorn’s throat. His face looked cooked and split. One eye stared. The other was bare skin the shade of a cherry-flavored slushie.

Van Dorn gripped the reciprocating saw at his thigh.

“Don’t be quaking that edge to my boy’s throat, we’ve no yearn for trouble.”

Thoughts of dying entered Van Dorn’s mind. Of all that he’d seen. All that he’d not done. They’d crossed some unruly types on their journey but nothing that made him question his longevity.

“This here is our squat.”

“Release your clutch from the boy, we’ll be a memory.”

The words our squat had not registered in Horace’s understanding when he saw the blade making contact with Dorn’s neck, but the aroma of dated cottage cheese suffused with humidity suddenly weighed heavy on him. Van Dorn’s whites metered wide.

Two feet of lumber angled into Horace’s nape. The flashlight danced on the floor. Horace palmed at the throb in his neck. “Shit!” Took another hit from the wood. A voice clanked over Horace with a warning: “All your kind do is cripple the foundation of its worth. Teach you not to carve and steal for density.”

Tense, Van Dorn’s gut knotted with the blows that descended upon his father. Knowing he should’ve turned back the same way he’d entered. Seeing where the plumbing had been stripped; animal carcasses and human feces littered the basement walls and floor. The blade came from nowhere, threatened him with “Yell and it’ll be your last. Just watch and listen.” The heathen man and Dorn waited.

Van Dorn spasmed, felt the sharpness against his throat. The laugh of words sprayed over his shoulder. “Elsner’s getting his groove on your pops.”

Watching Horace’s outline on the floor, Van Dorn felt the heathen’s chest in his back. A hand rubbed at the arch of muscle that connected to his hamstring. The other man laid a boot into Horace’s ribs. The heathen relaxed the knife, began sniffing Dorn’s lobe. Horace grunted. Dorn wanted to vomit. Thoughts of what to do. How to do it came all at once. Van Dorn raised his left hand up his body. Fingered the sharp line below his chin. Squeezed the trigger of the saw in his right, spun, and slanted a crosscut into the meat of the man’s leg. The man bellowed, “Aw, shit! Shit!” Hot specks peppered Van Dorn’s hand; he watched the man reach and pat at the dark that spread from his thigh like a busted transmission.

The one called Elsner looked to the screams. Then came the crack. The separation of foot. Then another crack and the discomfort that blistered up Elsner’s shin and knee. Caused the release of the wood. Elsner squealed, bent forward at the split and give of his calcified metatarsal’s tissue. Horace worked his way from the floor with a hammer. Stood heaving and leveled the straight claw into Elsner’s scalp.

Fingers raked at Van Dorn’s shoulder with adrenaline. “Help your ole man.” Dorn leaned, supported Horace’s mass as he panted, “Lead us from this goddamned layer of filth.”

Van Dorn guided them down the hall, into the dining room, where several outlines emerged. Raising the tool, Dorn mashed the trigger of the saw, cut at the air, parted through something meaty; a man groaned, “Bastard.” Bodies backed away barking, “No, stop, stop.” Van Dorn rushed, dragging Horace into the kitchen and out the door.

At the truck, Horace swung his arm from Van Dorn, reached for the driver’s-side door, and said, “I can navigate.”

Firing the engine, Horace shifted into drive and stomped the gas. Tires flung dirt till they bit hard surface. He drove out the same way he’d entered, questioned what had just taken place, trying to make sense of what they’d walked into, some unknown juncture of midwestern hell.

After surviving a near-death experience and viewing the possibility of losing his son, Horace pondered what he’d spoken to Dorn. The clenched fists he’d belted him with. Guilt of his abuse sunk in. Of their lives of salvage. Maybe he’d traveled so long that he’d lost sight of change. He felt the rhythm pounding behind his breast. Knowing what caused this beat was blood. It was the same that pulsed within Van Dorn, and as they disappeared into the raven of morning, Horace told him, “Maybe it’s time we looked to settle back home, maybe rebuild what once was, create a new existence.”

With the haze of dawn bringing the shapes of trees and field grass into focus, Horace and Van Dorn followed the back roads that morning down to the Stage Stop Campgrounds. Pitched their avocado-colored tent and camped. Slept like soldiers after a recon suicide mission. Woke well after lunch with the sun’s glow beating down on the tent. Overwhelming them with stifling heat. Making it uncomfortable to breathe. Their bodies lacquered by damp, road grit, and a week or better without bathing.