BoneMan's Daughters (39 page)

Ryan spun back. “Bethany?” His mouth and throat felt like sandpaper. “What… what did he do?”

Her eyes slowly turned to him and in them he saw not even a flicker of grace or kindness.

“He’s only going to kill us both now,” she said.

“No, he would have already—”

“You’ve never been a father to me,” she bit off in a low voice. “You were never there when I needed you. I’ve hated you most
of my life. What makes you think you can come in here and expect me to care what he does with you now?”

“Bethany, I… please—”

“He says you can live if I show you how I feel and send you away, and that’s what I’m going to do. It’s the only way now.”
She glared at him. “You do want me to live, don’t you?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Then let’s get this over with.”

It was all happening too quickly, like some sick initiation in the middle of night. He hadn’t expected her to be so harsh
or calculating. What she was saying might make sense; it might if he knew everything. But the bitterness in her voice, the
darkness in her eyes…

She might be doing what BoneMan had insisted she do, but she was doing it as if she were BoneMan herself! How could she be
so cold?

To save him? Yes. She was granting him his life perhaps. But more than this she was doing it because her psyche belonged to
Alvin. The man had won her over. She couldn’t know what she was doing!

“Bethany—”

Something hit the side of his head and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

THERE WERE TWO things that Alvin Finch, aka BoneMan, wanted; nay, three that he would cut off his own hands to possess. His
daughter, because Bethany was the seed of his life and all that was beautiful in him.

To crush the father’s heart who, having been rejected, would be forced to live out a terrible life with the knowledge of his
utter failure.

To break both of their bones if he couldn’t have Bethany’s love.

Naturally, he would allow her to express that love in new ways—for example, maybe she could take to breaking bones with him
on a regular basis as they sought other daughters.

Alvin remained calm as he always did when he broke bones, but this time, controlling his pleasure was more difficult than
he remembered it being. The idea that had grown in him was now before him, illuminated by the lamp’s flame.

He’d hoisted the man up on the cross upside down, then strapped his ankles spread-eagle to the frame by running rope through
a hole he’d drilled in each block of wood for this purpose. He’d also tied the man’s hands to the bottom portion of the cross
frame and strapped his mouth with tape.

Then he’d asked Bethany, his promise of God, to wake him, and after looking at him with long eyes, she’d done so by slapping
his face.

The father now hung awake, face red and eyes bulging, silent because of the tape, but inside surely screaming. Screaming with
enough force to expel his lungs and his intestines.

This was what Alvin Finch had learned: you can break their bones, but it is far better to break their heart.

Suffice it to say that he had broken the father’s heart.

Satisfied, he picked up the sledgehammer leaning against the wall and walked over to the daughter, who stared at the cross
without expression. He held out the hammer to her.

She took it with her right hand and supported its weight with her left, though it was badly swollen. The sledgehammer was
longer than her arm and the black iron head was the thickness of her calf. Seeing her frail frame gripping such a large hammer
was an interesting sight.

He nodded his encouragement and indicated the short stool he’d placed by the man’s head. “I’ll hold his foot steady.”

She just looked at him, lost. Was she thinking about backing out?

A shot of adrenaline washed through his blood and he felt his neck grow suddenly hot. If she backed out now, he would not
be responsible for the pain he would inflict on her skeleton. No judge could blame him for what he would do to the father.
Every bone, not just those that could be broken in the extremities, but all of them would have to be cracked or crushed. If
she betrayed him now…

The daughter walked away from him and mounted the stool, hammer in hands.

His anger fell away like dead leaves in the fall. In fact, he regretted his doubt. How could he doubt such a lovely daughter
who had agreed with him at each turn, though he’d had to break three of her fingers to convince her that he was right?

He hurried up to the cross, grabbed the bared right foot, and pulled it away from the cross so that she would have ample room
to land the blow.

“Right on the heel. You’ll have to swing the hammer hard and land it square or it’ll slip off. Don’t hit me.”

She held the hammer over her shoulder and stared at the heel. “The heel,” she said.

“Just the heel.”

“And you let him live?”

“We agreed on that.”

“I can’t kill anyone. I’m not like that.”

“Not yet, no. Just the heel, I promise, my child.”

The last two words came out awkwardly, but with time they would flow from his tongue like honey. And with time she would beg
to break all of the bones of anyone they took.

He’d thought about the possibility that she could direct the hammer’s blow to his head, of course, and standing here beside
her the concern reasserted itself. She was a clever little pig. She might just try it. It’s what he would do and she was
very much like him.

“Hold on.”

He bent and picked up a five-foot length of rope left over from strapping Evan up. He quickly looped it around the man’s toes
and stepped back, pulling the foot flat so that the father couldn’t ruin Bethany’s blow by twisting.

He was now slightly behind her, making a blow to his head impossible.

She looked at him dully.

“There,” he said. “Remember, swing as hard as you can.”

She faced the father again. He was trying to talk through the tape, but she ignored him and brought the sledgehammer back.

There were tears in her eyes, but her jaw was fixed. Her arms were trembling, but the hammer was heavy and her left hand wasn’t
entirely functional. And besides that, striking that first blow was always the hardest. It had taken him three months from
the time he’d decided to kill his mother to work up the courage to break her bones.

He’d wept with each blow.

“It’s okay, my child. You’ll get used to it. I’m right here behind you.”

She held the hammer cocked above his foot for a long time, trembling so badly that Alvin doubted she could swing straight.
She would miss and lose her resolve.

But she had to swing! She had to break his heel! Alvin wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted anything so badly as he wanted her to
smash Ryan’s heel now, while he watched.

He glanced down. The father had quieted and closed his eyes. He would accept this fate because he knew that he’d lost her
already. Now he was at their mercy.

Later, a day from now, a month from now, he didn’t know when, Alvin would walk into the father’s house and kill him. But today
he wanted only to break his heart.

And he wanted Bethany’s full adoration.

“Swing it,” he said.

A soft, terrible wail came from the girl’s mouth and Alvin began to panic.

“Swing! Swing, you dirty little pig. Swing!”

Bethany swung the sledgehammer.

BETHANY FELT AS little as she thought she could possibly feel without it being nothing and as much as she’d remembered feeling,
all at once. It sounded impossible, but it was as though her mind had been split in two when she swung.

Part of her cried out in horror at the action she was taking.

Part of her screamed with rage.

But part of her wanted to do only what made Alvin happy. What would endear her to him, even though she was loosely aware that
she shouldn’t feel that way. She was siding with him even though she knew deep down where thoughts are hidden that he was
a monster.

She would rather be a monster and with him than be dead and nowhere.

So when Alvin screamed
swing
, she felt both horrified and compelled to swing the hammer with all of her might.

It landed hard on the flesh of his heel and bounced off.

Crunch.

Something had broken.

She was panting from the exertion. Ryan was still, except for scattered staccato jerking movements, like a freshly slaughtered
pig.

Something had broken, all right.

Bethany’s strength left her legs and she stepped back to steady herself, only too late remembering that she was on a stool.
BoneMan caught her and set her straight before she fell.

He leaped up to the form on the cross and quickly examined the heel. “You did it.” His voice was thick with pleasure. “I think
you did it.”

Bethany stared at her father, sickened. He’d stopped shaking and she thought that he might have passed out. His face looked
at peace now. He was stretched on the wood frame and his shirt had slipped down to reveal his belly with his ribs sticking
out. He was breathing quietly.

He’d come to save her. He’d come to hold her. She was sending him away and she didn’t understand why or what she should do.

She was looking at his face when his eyes suddenly opened and he looked directly at her. She blinked, and when she looked
at him again, his eyes were closed again.

But in that one moment she’d seen her father. Not the man who’d abandoned her for the navy. Not the man who did not love Celine.
But a man who would die to be her father. To hold her and make her life right again.

But she’d chosen. The only way to survive in BoneMan’s world was to become like BoneMan, the man who would kill to be her
father.

She walked over to her piss pot and threw up in it. Her gut was empty so only bitter yellow bile came out.

Then she walked to the bed, lay on her side facing the wall, and closed her eyes. She was in hell, she thought.

And Alvin Finch really was Satan.

“WAKE UP.” A hand slapped Ryan’s face. “Wake up.”

He blinked and opened his eyes. A man dressed in a clean cotton shirt with a close-shaved jaw leaned over him. His mind was
trying to tell him who this was, what was happening, where he was, why he was on his back, how long he’d…

BoneMan
.

Ryan blinked again and the details of the last week flooded his mind. He’d come to save Bethany and landed in hell.

She’d pushed him away. She’d swung the hammer. She couldn’t possibly be in her right mind, but she had rejected him and this
should have been no surprise to him because they’d never been close.

“Stand up,” BoneMan, who was named Alvin Finch, said.

The smell of gasoline stung Ryan’s nostrils.

“Stand up.”

Ryan struggled to his knees, wincing. His right heel throbbed and he saw that the man had wrapped bandages around his ankle
for support.

“Stand up.”

He pushed himself up on his left leg and stood, carefully applying weight to his right leg. The smell of gasoline was thick
in the air. A heavy layer of clouds shut out the sun. Not a sound from the compound that he could hear. He’d been able to
see the place when BoneMan had brought him, and he knew they were far from the nearest town because he’d paid attention to
the sounds as they drove. But standing at the edge of the deathly still compound now, he felt utterly abandoned.

BoneMan had a machete in his right hand. He glanced down the gravel road, then returned his bright blue eyes to Ryan.

“In a mile the road runs into a paved road. I’m going to give you twenty minutes to reach it. Then my daughter and I will
burn this place to the ground and drive out. If you’re not gone, we’ll kill you. Don’t bother calling the police, we’ll be
long gone before they can get here.”

Ryan couldn’t think straight. They were setting him free and would then vanish.

“Why didn’t you pay more attention to her when she was yours?” Alvin asked, but there wasn’t a hint of curiosity in his voice.
He was only inflicting more pain by pouring salt into Ryan’s wound.

“You’re dead to her. She killed you. This is your hell now. Wander around and regret every breath, but if you come back for
her, I will break every bone in her body and I will begin by snapping off her teeth, one by one. Then I will burn both of
you and go find myself another daughter. Do you doubt me?”

Ryan made no attempt to push back the fear that spread through his bones. He’d lost. He could either lie down here at BoneMan’s
feet and die or he could run.

Run as fast as his bruised heel would carry him into the hell that would be his life.

“Are you deaf now?”

“No,” Ryan croaked.

“Do you doubt me?”

“No.”

“Then leave. And if you try to find us later, I will find you and break your bones in your bed while you sleep. Do you doubt
me?”

“No.”

“Then leave,” he said again. “Go.”

Ryan limped the first step and then another, unsure.

Alvin Finch landed a loud blow on his back with the machete’s broad side.

“Run!”

BoneMan’s voice echoed across the compound.

Ryan ran. More precisely he stumbled forward, jaw set, holding back tears. And with each step he found the pain in his leg
less bothersome and the barrenness in his heart less confusing and then he did begin to run, albeit a jerky, limping run.

He was like a dog, chased out of the house with a whip. He was not wanted here. He’d come for his daughter and was leaving
without his daughter or his heart.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end. How could she turn away from her own father who’d come to save her?

You’re not her father, Ryan. They’re right, you never really were her father.

No. No, but I want to be. I came here to be her father and to take her away from this monster and to hold her tight and to
chase away all of her fear. To cherish her and lavish her with gifts.

He cast a quick look over his shoulder. Alvin Finch stood on the edge of the compound, staring at him like a watchdog. To
think that he could still go back and do anything but demolish any last hope was utterly foolish. The worst kind of denial.