All Mortal Flesh

FORTY-NINE

Don’t move,” Aaron MacEntyre said. “Q, tie her hands.”

The young man Clare had been worried about held Elizabeth de Groot pinned in place with one hand twisted behind her back and a knife to her neck. Clare stared at him. His eyes were flat. Calm.

“Uh… how? With what?”

Clare darted a glance at Quinn Tracey. Unlike his friend, he was a wreck, his mouth slack and twitchy, his gaze skittering first to Elizabeth, then up the ladder, down the long walkway between the stalls, and finally, reluctantly, to Clare. It was then she noticed his hand, barely keeping a grip on the rifle. It must have belonged to the MacEntyres. Quinn held it like someone unfamiliar with and uncomfortable around firearms.

“With one of the stock leads,” Aaron said, a touch of impatience in his voice.

Did he mean it? Was Elizabeth really in danger? Clare narrowed her eyes. Quinn Tracey probably outweighed her, but she had no doubt she could knock him and his rifle down and be halfway to the cattle pen door before anyone could react.

She must have twitched. “Don’t try anything,” Aaron said. He shifted his hand a fraction of an inch and three drops of blood beaded up on the knife he held to Elizabeth’s throat. The deacon whimpered and shut her eyes. “Quinn! Secure the prisoner.”

Quinn leaned the rifle against a stall door and inched toward her, a woven lead dangling from his hand.

“Chrissake, Q, stop being such a pussy. She’s like a nun. She’s not going to bite you.”

Clare thrust her arms toward Quinn, clasping her hands together. It was the picture of surrender-a picture taken from TV shows. She was betting Quinn didn’t know enough to insist he tie her wrists behind her back.

He looked relieved for a second, then lashed the lead around and around her wrists. How could she reach him? She immediately discarded appealing to his humanity. Self-interest? No, that would be MacEntyre. Always go for the soft target, Hardball Wright said. Eyes, balls, throat. Hit him where he’s weakest.

Quinn knotted the lead off three times, leaving the metal clips dangling, then stepped back, straight-backed, arms akimbo. Beneath his puffy jacket, his chest swelled. “Prisoner secured,” he said, picking the rifle up.

What an ass. “Very professional,” she lied. “You’ve been training.”

“C’mon,” Aaron said, ignoring her. He twisted Elizabeth’s arm higher, forcing her on tiptoe as she pivoted away from the ladder.

“Was that what the animals were, Quinn? Training? Practicing your technique before trying it out on a human being?”

Quinn opened his mouth. “Quiet,” Aaron said, frogmarching Elizabeth up the center aisle. Quinn shoved Clare ahead of him. The smell of hay and manure and warm living cowflesh rose up around them like incense.

“Better do as he says, Quinn. I can see who’s the boss in this relationship. I bet you bend right over and take it up the-” The blow to her back sent her sprawling onto the stained cement. She landed hard against the edge of a stall.

“We’re partners,” Quinn yelled. “I’m just as much in charge as he is!”

“Bull.” And hoo-ray for the kneejerk homophobia of the teenage male. “I bet Aaron killed every single one of those animals. I bet you stood there sucking your thumb while he cut Audrey Keane’s throat. Then you poked at her a few times with your little knife and thought you were a man.”

“That’s not true! I was the one who thought of going to the Van Alstynes’. I-”

“Shut up!” Aaron whirled around, knife still hard against Elizabeth’s throat. The deacon clawed one-handed against him for balance.

“For God’s sake, Clare, don’t make them angry!” she screeched.

“We’re already dead,” Clare said loudly. “What does it matter if I hack this loser off? His boss is going to gut both of us anyway.” She straightened up, maneuvering herself against the stall door.

“No,” Quinn protested. “We’re not going to kill you.”

“Is that what he told you?”

Quinn looked toward Aaron. “We don’t need to kill them, right? I mean, they’re our prisoners. They don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Aaron stared at Clare. In his gaze, she saw that she and Elizabeth were not human to him. They were pieces in the game. Figures in his calculations. Assets or debits. She needed to convince him they were the former.

“Take us with you,” she said quickly. “We can use my car. No one will remark on two teenagers traveling with women old enough to be their mothers. You won’t be able to use our ATM and credit cards, but we can. We can take you where you want to go and leave you with a wad of money once you get there.” She searched Aaron’s face as he continued to examine her. Nothing moved behind the surface.

Finally, he said, “We can take your car and your money without you. You think she won’t tell me her ATM number if I ask her?” Aaron pressed Elizabeth’s arm higher.

“Two-one-seven-seven,” she gasped.

He gestured to Quinn with his chin. “Get that one up. We’re taking them into the processing room.”

That was how she knew she and Elizabeth were debits.

Quinn twisted his fist in the front of her parka and hauled her to her feet. Aaron whirled the deacon around and resumed his march toward the doors at the east end of the barn.

Toward the abattoir.

One cow hung her head over the edge of her stall door, her deep brown gaze fixed on the human procession. It wasn’t the first time she had seen creatures making the trip to the killing room.

“Don’t do this, Quinn,” Clare said under her breath. “You’re seventeen. You can turn yourself in and testify against him and you’ll be out of juvenile on your twenty-first birthday. But if you kill again, there’s no way they won’t prosecute you as an adult.”

“Shut up,” Quinn hissed. “You don’t know anything about it.”

“I know he’s eighteen. No matter what happens, he’s going to go up against the death penalty. He’s trying to suck you in with him.”

“Q, for godsakes, can’t you control her?”

“How?” Quinn’s voice nearly cracked.

“Belt her the next time she talks.”

She twisted her head to catch Quinn’s reaction. He gawped at Aaron, then frowned in disapproval. If she hadn’t been so scared, she would have laughed. Pretending you were some sort of secret warrior and killing in a surprise ambush was okay. Hitting a woman was not.

“What are you going to do when you get caught, Aaron? Do you have a plan for that?”

She gritted her teeth, expecting a blow. He surprised her by turning his head and regarding her disdainfully. “I always have a plan.”

“Was that why you took me aside yesterday and told me about Quinn going into the Van Alstynes’ house alone? Was that why you said Quinn told you to lie to cover up for him? Was that part of your plan?”

She registered his arm drawing back, Elizabeth stumbling forward with a cry, the knife swinging free, and then Aaron’s fist smashed into her jaw and her head snapped sideways in an agony of bone and motion. She reeled, half-blind from the pain pinwheeling through her skull, half-suffocated by the blood and tears and phlegm in her throat.

“God damn! That hurt!” Aaron’s voice shrilled with outrage. Clare wiped her eyes with the arm of her parka and spat blood onto the cement. She blinked hard. Aaron was cradling his hand, tears of pain and fury in his eyes, the first genuine expression she had ever seen on his face. “That fucking hurt! I think I broke something!”

The knife.

On the cement floor.

Clare lurched toward Aaron. Unsteady, off balance, the best she could do was throw herself at him. He went down on his backside, with Clare sprawled atop him. “Run, Elizabeth, run!” she screamed, and damned if the deacon didn’t finally listen to her.

Aaron was thrashing, swearing, trying to wrestle Clare off him. She couldn’t see Quinn, but she could hear him, his noise of protest, a cry of, “Hey! Stop!” then the slap of hands on wood as he tried to get the rifle in position.

“Stop her, you asshole!” Aaron howled. He finally heaved Clare onto the floor and staggered to his feet. She rolled onto her back in time to see Aaron snatch the gun away from Quinn, chamber a round, and fire.

The report tore through the confined space. The pens erupted in a bedlam of clanking, kicking, and confused bawls.

“Damn! God damn!” Aaron slugged Quinn in the middle of his chest. “You let her get away, you stupid waste of space!”

Quinn stared toward the west end of the barn. “Whadda we do now?” he asked in a panicked voice. He rubbed his chest one-handed. “Whadda we do?”

The two boys stared at each other, one desperate and scared, the other desperate and enraged. Finally, Aaron tipped his head toward Clare. “Get her up,” he snapped. “I’ll take the gun. It doesn’t do you any good if you won’t fire it.”

This time Quinn used both hands on her, dragging her to her feet. Aaron stepped toward her. Put both barrels of the shotgun under her chin. Pressed hard, so she could feel them bite into the soft flesh, smell the tang of oil and metal.

“I could blow your head off right here,” he said.

This time, Clare kept her mouth shut.

“Get my knife,” Aaron ordered.

Quinn ducked down and snatched it off the cement. “What are we gonna do? That other one’s gonna go for the cops, you know she will!”

Suddenly, Clare felt the weight of her car keys like a curling stone in her pocket. Oh, no. Oh, no. Elizabeth wouldn’t be going for the cops. She wouldn’t be going anywhere. The best she could hope for was that the MacEntyre house was unlocked and that Elizabeth would call 911. And then hide.

“Open it up,” Aaron said, gesturing to the wide door that separated the warm and living cattle from the cold and sterile processing room. “We’ll do her like we did the other one and then we’ll take off.”

“But… but they’ll know! That we did it! They’ll come after us!” Despite his protests, Quinn released his grip on Clare’s coat and started tugging on the handle.

“Grow some balls, will ya? Jesus, this whole thing has been about proving to ourselves what we can do. If I knew you were going to be such a goddam pussy about it, I would have picked someone else to join me.”

“No!” The door rumbled open on its tracks. Quinn dashed to one side and snapped on the lights. “I can do it.”

Without moving the rifle barrel from Clare’s neck, Aaron leaned forward. The intensity in his eyes seemed to suck Quinn toward him. “I chose you, man. We’re brothers in arms.” Aaron’s voice was low, persuasive. “Don’t let me down. All we gotta do is get through this part. Then we’ll be on our way.”

Quinn nodded.

“We can do what other people only dream of,” Aaron whispered. “We’re fucking masters of the universe.”

“Yeah,” breathed Quinn. Face shining, he reached out and tugged Clare across the lintel into the abattoir. “Where do you want her?”

“Right over there.” Aaron followed, the rifle never wavering from Clare’s head. “This time, you’re going to get to do it. The killing cut.”

The expression on Quinn’s face wavered. “Uh,” he said.

Aaron’s eyes gleamed. “It’s amazing, man. You’ll never know what power is until you do it.”

Quinn looked down at the knife in his hand. Clare looked at it, too. It came to her that despite her professed belief in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, she really really really didn’t want to die.

O God, she prayed, a little help here.

“Hey,” came a voice from the barn. They all looked. Russ Van Alstyne stood in the doorway, relaxed and unhurried, hands open and unthreatening. “What say we talk about this?”