Their smiles had some sort of hold over him. He needed to break that hold, break their smiles, and glass bottles were promising. He’d always thought those scenes in the movies when a guy broke a bottle over someone’s head looked hilarious. In real life, though, it had to be effective.
Marley opened the carton with his bared teeth and drank. Not a drop ran down his shirt despite the greedy gulps. Behind Saul, Dutch laughed.
Saul opened the heavy cream and lifted it as if to drink. With one swift motion he turned around and splashed Dutch full in the face. She stumbled back. When she opened her mouth to call out, Saul had already grabbed the nearest root beer by the neck and slammed the bottle into her upper jaw. A couple teeth went flying.
He didn’t wait for Marley to react. That was the biggest mistake fresh meat made at the ranch. During a run, they’d look back to see how much of a lead they had and would lose ground. Or they started to trash talk. So Saul was already climbing up and over the metal shelving like he’d done so many times at the obstacle course. Bags of chips popped and crumpled beneath him as he scrambled and landed on the other side of the aisle.
But his shoes were still wet. Saul skidded on the floor. He pulled down a spinning rack of travel maps to block the way behind him.
All he had to do was make it outside. He was sure he could lose them in the woods behind the gas station.
His mistake was noticing the surveillance camera by the ceiling. The barrel turned toward Saul, who, surprised, hesitated.
From behind, a strong hand grasped his shoulder and pulled him backward. Ice-cold nails stabbed through the fabrics to bite his flesh.
“We’ve been too kind to you.” Marley’s fingernails dug deeper into Saul, making him cry out. Marley slipped his other hand beneath Saul’s shirts to stroke and scratch his stomach. “We’re no better than magpies. Pretty things distract us.”
Saul heard Dutch scream, “Kihl im!” though the words were blurred by her ruined mouth.
He felt Marley push his cold fingers down the front of his jeans. Marley nuzzled his ear, and the stink of curdled milk made Saul gag.
“That mark poisoned your blood, but I’ll enjoy — ”
Saul suddenly sprang backward, slamming Marley into the ATM. They struggled near the coffee station, but Saul couldn’t reach one of the hot pots. His fingers closed around the handle of one yellowed ceramic mug stacked in a pyramid on the counter. Its fellows tumbled noisily to the floor. He slammed the mug into Marley’s side and gut. The guy went down, clutching his abdomen.
Saul glanced at the mug, dusty and cracked, a relic older than him. Black lettering on the side said IOWA, YOU MAKE ME SMILE. He threw the mug at Marley’s crotch and ran.
Before he reached the door, his peripheral vision spotted the mop, its wormy head tangled and dripping, before it struck his chest. He stumbled into a shelf, the metal raking his back, cans and shrink-wrapped goods spilling around him. Dutch shrieked as she slammed the mop against his knees and sent him to the floor.
She stood over him with a slack jaw filled with broken teeth. But no blood; delicate strands of saliva webbed her lips and hung from her chin. She reversed the mop in her hands, so the blunt end hovered over his neck. Saul could see her struggle with her lips to make a smile.
Fresh light played over Dutch. When she raised her head to look out the glass panels, Saul grabbed at her leg, pulling hard. She lost her balance and fell, her head making a sickening smack as it struck the linoleum.
That should take her out, he thought, but she was lashing out, trying to stab at him with the mop. He grabbed the nearest can rolling on the floor — an aerosol, some sort of air freshener — and sprayed her full in the face. She cried out, tried to wipe her eyes as the smell of sweet faux lemons filled the air.
Saul stood. A car had pulled askew of the pumps and its headlights were aimed directly at the convenience store.
He stopped at the counter — without any urge to peer over and see the body — to grab a lighter. The other stunt from the movies he’d always wanted to try was igniting an aerosol spray.
Outside, the rain had slowed to a steady drizzle. He could still smell the gas vapors from the spilled trash drum.
The driver’s side door of the idling car — no, a pickup truck, he saw — opened, flashing Saul the Cotre Ranch “endless trail” logo. Phelps stepped out.
He must have been searching the highway for me, Saul thought. He felt relief at being found. He was more battered and bloody from fending off homicidal siblings than from anything the ranch had thrown at him. And yet beneath that relief was a dismal emptiness at knowing he’d be taken back to the ranch. So much for finding a new life.
“Saul, get in the truck,” Phelps said, then reached across the truck’s seat for something.
Saul stepped into the headlights’ beam. “Two psychopaths are in there.” He held aloft the aerosol. Despite the drizzle, flicking the lighter would probably ignite the very air around him, but he couldn’t let Phelps get hurt because of him.
“I know,” Phelps said.
“Wait. You. you know?”
“Course.” Phelps hefted what could only be a crossbow. “Boys watching the closed circuit told me you did good.” He began walking toward the store.
“But — ”
Phelps carefully pushed open the door. “Shit, looks like I’m cleanup crew tonight.” He spit on the ground and chuckled. “Get into the pickup. And don’t be messing up my radio stations. They’re a bitch to program.”
Saul noticed that Phelps left the keys in the ignition. He told himself to count to a hundred while the man made the fatalities. If he wasn’t back by then.
But he was, with a grin, before Saul reached sixty-eight.
As Phelps smoked a cigarette and drove, Saul had to listen to Patsy Cline walk after midnight and Merle Haggard avoiding mirrors.
“You weren’t supposed to even know about their kind till Christmas.” Phelps flicked hot ash out the open window.
“Hanukkah.”
“Right. Hanukkah.” Phelps managed not to mangle the word.
“So the other boys at the ranch. ”
“Some know. We’d been luring that pair through the internet for months. The boys were supposed to go out hunting tonight. ’Cept someone messed with the gate.”
“Guess I’m in trouble.”
Phelps didn’t say anything but kept driving. The truck’s cab was bitter cold from the wind.
Phelps braked the truck to a stop in the middle of the road. “Minnesota is a couple miles north. Just follow the road. Truck stop not far over the border.” He pulled out a scuffed leather wallet. “Bounty on two of ’em — let’s say two hundred.” He held out four wrinkled fifty-dollar bills to Saul.
“I don’t understand,” Saul said.
“You’re the one who ran. Thought you wanted out.”
“But — ”
“The boys who know. ” Phelps crushed his cigarette into a crowded ashtray. “Well, they work extra hard ’fore they can go out hunting. What you went through before, that’ll seem like a Hawaiian vacation.”
Saul still had the aerosol can in his lap. He could never look at it the same way anymore. Tonight had transformed it from a cheap, lemon-scented air freshener into an aluminum trophy. And he could feel transformed, too. He didn’t want to step out of the truck and keep walking down a highway. Not after what he’d seen, what he’d done. He looked Phelps in the eyes. He knew the man was ready to pass judgment, depending on what Saul did next.
He fingered the top of the aerosol. “Ever light the spray? I mean, when you’re fighting one of them. Like a mini flame-thrower?”