A massive wound had been opened just above John’s left shoulder at the meeting with his neck. Lance could see the shattered white of the other man’s collarbone within the cavernous hole that stretched almost all the way to the middle of his chest. Blood had pooled there, a black lake filled with chunks of muscle and pulp. But John’s face had been left untouched. A few speckles of blood stained the underside of his chin, but his cheeks and forehead were free of gore. A gas can lay on its side farther into the kitchen, spilling its volatile contents across the floor and making the air nearly unbreathable. He could see the head of a lighter clutched in John’s left hand. Absently, Lance wondered what John had seen to drive him inside and attempt to carry out the plan that was now clear.
Lance stared at his friend, tears welling up and tightening his eye sockets with their pressure. John’s own eyes were mercifully closed, and as a stroke of lightning gave the kitchen brief refulgence, Lance noticed something that stopped the grief he felt rising out of control. An unmistakable look of peace graced John’s aged features. The worry lines that had been so prominent in life were gone from his brow. The etched frown that had creased the outside of his mouth was smoothed. He’s finally dreaming, Lance thought. The weight of life had been lifted from him and death had released a fist that, until now, had gripped the old man tightly.
Lance swallowed and placed his hand on the inner part of John’s forearm. He felt blood coat his palm, along with the coldness of uninhabited flesh, but Lance felt no revulsion. Instead, a comfort flowed through him. John was no longer here, but the feeling that he had gone somewhere else, past what life had done to him, was all but a certainty.
Lance came back to his surroundings and looked over his shoulder, expecting to see the flash of the ax blade falling toward him. The empty living room was still behind him. Where the hell was Ellen? He listened for a few seconds, holding his breath and trying to make out the familiar features of the house. He stood and walked into the living room. More blood covered the floor there. He turned and looked at the point where John’s blood pool had stopped. The two areas weren’t connected.
Don’t try to make it anonymous—it’s Ellen’s blood. Now you’ve killed two innocent people through your stubbornness and need to know. You can have that on your conscience. Great resume you’re creating.
Lance pushed the voice away but couldn’t help acknowledging the truth of the words. He could’ve left when things had begun to accelerate out of control. He could’ve done just what John had intended to do. He could’ve burned it to the ground and walked away. But he knew that it wouldn’t have freed him of what resided here. He knew that no matter how far he ran or how many times he told himself that it hadn’t been real, he would’ve secretly been waiting for the night when he would wake to see the massacred face of his grandfather hanging in the darkness and his father’s voice in his ears.
Lightning crawled across the sky just above the tossing waves of the lake, and Lance saw the stain beneath the fresh blood on the floor illuminate in its membranous shape. There were footprints trailing out of the fresh pool. They were the crescent outlines of bare feet leading away from the splattered floor. Lance followed them to the hanging shards of the door. They disappeared inside. A trail to follow.
Lance peered into the darkness, waiting for something to lunge toward him, but the gloom within was still. He could hear something though, an intermittent whistling. It sounded like the wind catching just right on a jutting piece of eave or hollow on the house and making it sing, but it came from inside the room, not from the storm outside. His eyes adjusted to the gloom, and when he leaned across the threshold, he could see that the space was empty.
He stepped inside and almost slipped in the wet slickness of more blood. It was everywhere. The wall near the doorway was spattered, and he could see the black edges where the fluid finally stopped near the far wall. His hopes of finding Ellen alive somewhere in the house vanished. She was here, but there was no way that she could survive with this level of blood loss.