The Remedy (30 page)

Here goes nothing
.

“Would you mind putting on some music?”

As expected, Sam was answered with a moment of stunned silence followed by Clementine muttering, “Come again?”

Sam cleared his throat. “Well, I was just thinking, it’s your daughter’s first time, right? I just thought some music might make things a little bit more romantic. I find it always helps me.” He nodded his chin toward the ancient record player.

“Oh, hush! She don’t need music and neither do you. Now come on!”

His shoulders fell slack with Clementine’s response, pushed down by the weight of failure. It was worth a try, but it had also been his only idea. Even if he had the mental strength left to think of another ruse, he doubted he had the time.

Sam stopped touching himself. What was the point? It wasn’t going to work. All he could do was close his eyes and wait. So he did.

From the darkness of his closed lids he heard a sound, something that was part moan, part snarl. It had come from Grizzly’s mouth, no doubt a protest to Sam’s lack of participation. Another threat from her mother would come at any moment now. Or maybe not. Maybe she’d just get straight to the cutting.

It was only when Clementine spoke again that Sam realized Grizzly hadn’t been snarling at him.

“Now honey, I didn’t mean you don’t deserve romance, I just—”

Grizzly once again slammed her foot on the ground, the bed frame dancing across the wooden floorboards.

“Okay, okay!” Clementine released the brake of her wheelchair. “If it’ll help make this special for you, I’ll put a record on.”

More squeaking from the chair’s rusty wheels. The old woman was moving away toward the phonograph.

Grizzly, however, hadn’t budged and wasn’t taking her eyes off her gentleman caller.

Please, God…

“Well, come pick out a record if you want music so badly.”

With the obedience of a well-behaved child, Grizzly lumbered over to her mother’s side. Both of them hunched over a wooden crate of vinyl records. They did not see Sam whip his hand out and snatch up the dynamite from the floor. There was just enough time to stuff the stick under the bed’s top sheet before the crackle of needle on vinyl filled the room.

“Ah, Billie Holiday,” Clementine said with a sigh. “Excellent choice.”

Over pops and snaps of the vinyl’s cracks and dust, the soul singer crooned, “
Crazy he calls me…”

“Isn’t that lovely?” The old woman began to wheel herself back over to the side of the bed.

Sam shrugged. “It’s no ‘Sexual Healing,’ but it’ll do.”

The bed shook as Clementine’s chair collided with its sideboard. Sam could see her shadow towering over his body and onto the floor before him. Sam swore he could feel her sour breath blowing down the backside of his neck.

“Roll over and face me, boy. It’s show time.”

Sam tensed, the entire room becoming silent except for Billie Holiday’s tearful lyrics.

“The impossible will take a little while…”

He couldn’t roll over to face them. Not yet. There was still one more thing that needed to be done first, one more miracle that needed to happen.

After a long, deep breath to steady his nerves, Sam closed his eyes and said, “I’m just about ready to go. But I think we’re missing some candlelight.”

“No!” Clementine’s response came so quickly it practically cut off Sam’s last word. “There’ll be no more stalling.”

“I just thought your daughter would like some—”

“I said that’s enough!”

This time Sam didn’t even get the chance to be disappointed by the old woman’s denial of his request. Grizzly was already stomping her feet and letting out a string of frenzied moans. Her whining came out high-pitched and liquidly, the combined vocalization of a sparrow/sow hybrid.

Before her mother could placate or scold her, Grizzly was pacing over to the bureau near the door and grabbing something that rattled in her hand. Sam peered over his shoulder to spot a box of matches in her grip, which she slammed into the chest of her elderly mother.

Clementine looked down at the box of matches and back up to her daughter. “Now, don’t listen to him. He’s only trying to…”

This time it was Clementine’s turn to be interrupted. The sound piercing from Grizzly’s lips could only be compared to that of a boiling teakettle. She banged her fists against her misshaped forehead, yanking at the dirty clumps of hair that sparsely populated her scalp.

“Okay, fine!” Clementine dropped the matchbox into her lap and reached for her wheels. “Quit your wailing and I’ll light the lamp by the bed. Lord have mercy.”

“Yeah, that’ll be great!” Sam pretended to be as enthusiastic as possible as he gave Grizzly a flirtatious wink. She flashed a smile that was missing two front teeth, and clapped her hands like a delighted little girl at a puppet show.

Grizzly moved aside to let her mother pass as she wheeled around to the other side of the bed, rolling right over Sam’s heap of clothes. With her chair mere inches away, Sam made sure to keep a hand over his crotch to hide his still-nonexistent erection.

Clementine’s bony, arthritic hands drew a match and struck the box’s flint with a surprising amount of strength. She removed the lamp’s glass chimney and brought the flame to its thick, cotton wick. It ignited instantly, filling the room with a soft, flickering glow. It reflected off the lenses of the woman’s glasses, making her look even more hellish.

“I can’t believe I’m going through all this trouble,” she said, extinguishing the match with a shake of her wrist. “Guess it shows how much I love my daughter.”

A thin, gray tendril of smoke snaked its way from the match’s burnt head into Sam’s nose. There was something oddly pleasant about the scent; it was reassuring. This was the smell of order. Of logical progression. Fire gives you smoke, every single time. If only the rest of world worked by such a reliable equation. A good man gets a good life.

But there is no force greater, or more unpredictable, than nature. Sam was living proof of that.

“Well, you’re a wonderful mother,” he said, brandishing his most obsequious smile.

The woman scoffed, a scowl accompanying the sound. “Don’t think flattery’s going to get you anywhere. As soon your job’s done here, I’m gonna turn your meat into jerky.” She leaned forward, her vinegary breath overpowering any lingering trace of the sulfuric smoke from the lit match. She bared her teeth in a malevolent grin, so close to Sam he could see the wiry white hairs bordering her upper lip.

“You’ll be your own child’s first meal away from the tit.”

Sam tilted his body as far forward as the binding ropes would allow.

“The things we do for our children,” he answered.

Through the reflective lenses of her glasses, Sam could see Clementine’s ashy, clouded eyes actually widen in surprise.

The speed of a camera’s shutter wouldn’t even have been able to capture the moment. But Sam saw it. The twitch of her eyebrow, the quiver of her bottom lip.

She knew: something isn’t right.

Now!

His free hand flew from his crotch with the speed of a cobra about to strike. Sam didn’t feel the weight of the chair nor the woman sitting in it when he pushed out as hard as he could. Before the nerves in his fingers could register the cool touch of the chair’s metal frame, nor the flaky rust that rubbed at his skin, Clementine was already rolling backward, propelled by Sam’s mighty shove. She slammed into the wall behind her, the force sending her onto the floor.

As much pleasure as the sight should have brought him, Sam couldn’t spare any time to enjoy it. He was already reaching into the sheets for the dynamite, his fingers gripping the prize like the sword in the stone. Nor did he hear the end of her descent, her body landing on the floor with the loud snap of breaking bone. His conscious thoughts had collected in a single, unbreakable notion. Nothing else existed but his one goal:

Reach the flame
.

He stretched out his arm toward the uncovered, burning wick of the lantern.

And then Grizzly was upon him.

The only thing stopping her from crushing his skull into a pulpy mound of blood and brains was the foot he threw up between their colliding bodies. She was impossibly heavy, as if her blind rage actually contributed to her physical weight. Her uncountable pounds pushed down on Sam’s bent leg, driving his bony kneecap into his chin. A distant part of his mind was aware of his hamstring literally snapping under the pressure. But the pain did not deliver any message.

Reach the flame
.

“Get ’em, Grizzly! Kill the bastard!”

In spite of her useless legs and definite fractures in several of her brittle bones, Clementine Cedar found the strength to crawl across the floor toward the bed. Using only her spindly, skeletal arms, she dragged herself closer and closer.

Reach the flame
.

Sam’s arm trembled. The fuse of the dynamite danced over the tip of the lantern’s wick, teasing to ignite but not yet sparking to life. Perspiration dripped into his eyes, blurring his glowing target. His shoulders cramped. He wouldn’t be able to hold this position much longer. In the fight between the demands of the body and the orders of the mind, sooner or later the body always won.

A sudden, powerful movement rocked his vision. Grizzly was lashing out with her sasquatch-sized fists. Although Sam’s legs kept her from delivering the full force, her blows still dizzied his focus and brought a warm, torrent of blood when she connected with his nose.

But it also brought focus: Sam knew what he had to do.

He relaxed his legs. All of Grizzly’s crushing weight landed on his chest, pushing all the air from his lungs. Her thick, calloused hands immediately found his throat.

Even with the coming darkness of asphyxiation, his hand was as steady as a surgeon’s.

“Crazy he calls me…”

The fuse ignited.

Sam spun, catching a glimpse of Clementine directly below him as she crawled over the pile of his clothes. With Grizzly’s bulbous nose touching his, he brought the dynamite forward, its fuse raining light like a Fourth of July sparkler. Head ready to explode from blood pressure, vision blackening with every passing second, Sam gritted his smiling teeth—

And slammed the stick of dynamite so far into Grizzly’s open mouth that he felt its end hit the back of her throat.

She looked down at the sparkling fuse protruding from her cracked lips, disbelief raising the unibrow above her black eyes. Her stare darted back up to Sam.

He blew her a kiss.

“Suck it, bitch.”

Samuel Tucker never got the chance to flip off the foundry owner whose failure to comply with safety standards robbed him of a father. Nor he did he ever get the chance to slug the face of the deadbeat who’d taken his mother on a one-way ride. But on that morning, in the bedroom of a cabin in the woods, Samuel Tucker finally got even with the world.

As the explosion destroyed the entire room and everything in it, the justice denied him in life finally arrived with his death.

Paid in full.

“What the hell?”

Rob turned toward the sound of the explosion that shook the ground. He’d been seconds away from grasping Leigh’s hand when the blast occurred. From the corner of her eye, Leigh could still see the mallet, but Rob’s unwavering stare had not allowed her any chance to reach for the weapon.

Then the entire world outside the barn was blown to smithereens. The detonation claimed Rob’s attention, his distraction lasting only a moment.

But a moment was enough.

With the blast still echoing, Leigh didn’t dare take her eyes from Rob’s preoccupied face as her fingers searched the surface of the worktable.

Come on. Come on. Find it
.

Something smooth and cylindrical found its way under the crook of her knuckles. As Leigh wrapped her hands around the wooden shaft, she knew she’d located her prize.

Not a moment too soon.

His gaze trailing behind him, Rob slowly turned back to her. “Come on, Leigh, let’s go see what—”

Leigh swung the hammer with all her strength, making direct contact with Rob’s right cheekbone. Harsh vibrations shook her palm as it connected with the hard patch of skull under his eye, sending tremors all the way up her arm. But Leigh’s attention was focused on the sight of Rob slouching to the left and falling to the ground.

If she had drawn blood, she didn’t see it. In fact, she had no idea at all how badly she’d injured him. She was already sprinting toward the barn door, not taking a second glance at her fallen enemy.

At first, her legs seemed to rebel against her, refusing to operate as quickly as her mind demanded. Fear and stress had taken their toll, seizing her muscles with incapacitating cramps.

But still the instinct to survive would not be denied, and it ordered her protesting muscles to shut their screaming mouths. One thought repeated over and over in her mind.

Please, let him be unconscious
.

Another prayer unanswered.

Over the pounding of her feet on the ground and heart beating wildly in her chest, Leigh could just barely make out Rob’s voice coming from behind her. It sounded weak, almost groggy, as if he had just awoken from an afternoon nap.

“
Leigh…”

And then, stronger:

“LEEEIGGHHH!!!”

He was pissed.

Had she had the courage to glance over her shoulder, Leigh wouldn’t have been surprised if Rob had been transformed into a snarling werewolf. His voice sounded guttural, feral: the sound of pure rage. Whatever haze he’d momentarily suffered from Leigh’s blow to the head was gone now.

“Get back here!”

Leigh could practically hear his vocal chords ripping to shreds.

“You BITCH!”

If the door had been closed just an inch more, perhaps she wouldn’t have been able to slip through the slim crack without pausing to push it open. As it was, she turned her body sideways and forced herself through the opening, shoulders scraping the splintered wood.

The slam behind her suggested Rob’s body was too large to do the same.