Up ahead an animal prepared to cross the road. The headlights made its eyes glow.
Lisa swatted me several times, telling me to slow down. I shoved her again, harder this time. Her head cracked against the passenger window. Joe was still dead asleep in the back. Lisa cried and held her head. The truck’s speed climbed to sixty.
“Pull over now,” she yelled.
I unclicked her seat belt, setting her free from me and this world, and braced myself.
She yelled, “What the hell is wrong with you?” while she tried to refasten it.
It was too late. The truck went from sixty to zero in an instant, a collision of metal, flesh, and glass. It all went black. The sound of gurgling woke me, almost like a babbling brook. But it wasn’t. Lisa was pinned against the passenger seat, trying to breathe. The elk’s antlers had gored her, and her pierced lungs were quickly filling with blood. She coughed and choked on it, spitting it up, attempting to speak. Her eyes were wide and soaked with tears, pleading to me for help. I just stared. I couldn’t bring myself to call 911, until I knew that she would never leave for Alaska.
My eyes reopened, the memory rescinded to the back of my mind, compartmentalized.
Grace narrowed her eyes. “And then you moved your brother to the driver’s seat and put it all on him?”
“Yeah,” was all I could manage to say.
She shook her head and left the room, reappearing in the doorway not more than thirty seconds later.
“I almost forgot,” she said. From behind her back, she revealed the stuffed teddy bear I bought her.
Grace crawled on top of me, straddling my hips. Her eyes stared into mine. I begged her to stop, to leave, to call the police, and to take anything she wanted, at least I think I did. I’m not sure what words were coming out and which were still swirling around my brain.
“Please . . . don’t do this . . . Grace.”
“For your comfort,” she said, placing the teddy bear beneath my arm.
Grace lifted the knife high above her head. The sun hit the blade again, making it shimmer. I let out a labored scream.
“You said you’d call the police if I told you,” I panted.
She dragged the tip of the blade lightly down my ribs, feeling the metal rise and fall, up and down the peaks and valleys of the bone. Then between the bottom two ribs, she leaned forward; she and the knife simultaneously moved into me.
“I guess I lied too, Calvin.”
My eyes widened so much, it felt like my lids would split at the corners. Grace raised the knife above her and plunged it into the center of my chest. My white tee turned red. She yanked the knife from my chest. Blood sprayed from the wound, splattering onto her.
I gurgled and coughed, choking on a pained scream. Without hesitating, she thrust the knife into my cheek. The tip nearly touched the back of my throat. It slid through my skin like butter. I knew this was the end. Where had it all gone wrong? How did she know? How did she get the upper hand? The weight in my muscles seemed to go away. Finally, I was free of the spell. Free of the dizziness and fear. I finally let my eyes close, allowing them to get the rest they deserved.
49.
Grace
I pulled the knife out and shoved it into him over and over again. His face, his neck, his chest, his arms, his stomach. The human body is an endless soft canvas to enter and draw upon. I raised and lowered it until my arms were tired, finishing long after Calvin stopped breathing. I propped his lifeless eyes open so he could gaze up at me. He enjoyed looking at me when he was alive, so I’m sure he’d enjoy it in death too. His chest looked like a pit of tar. The headboard and walls were splattered with blood. I was soaked in Calvin. I climbed off his body and laid beside him for a few minutes, caressing his shredded face. Mr. Snuggles was a blood-soaked mess.
The drugs had timed out perfectly. He was lucid enough to know what was happening but quickly went into darkness not a moment later, Charon arriving right on time to ferry him across the River Styx. The handle of the knife was sticky and his white T-shirt was a fantastic canvas for the color show on display. Like a paper towel soaking up juice spilled by a child having far too much fun. This part was inevitable. Calvin’s own behavior made it so. One of us wasn’t going to leave here, and it wasn’t going to be me.
I needed to clean up, but the shock of what I had done was finally setting in. I did what I did because I had to. I never had a choice. I brought the knife with me to the kitchen sink, running hot water and bleach over it again and again. It was like cleaning a fillet knife after gutting a fish—the pieces of blood and viscera that had already dried clinging for dear life to the edge of the steel, not wanting to disappear into the black hole at the center of the sink basin.
The process was long and tedious with lots of cleaners and chemicals and even more double-and triple-checking every detail. No fingerprints, no strands of hair, no threads of clothing. Nothing that is or ever was part of Grace Evans could remain in the ranch. But then again, did that really matter?
I tossed the empty hair dye box into a garbage bag beside the bathroom sink. My hair was swooped up into a bun, covered in brunette hair dye, my natural color. I looked at my bloodstained face in the mirror. Leaning closer toward my reflection, I pressed a finger to my eye and pulled out a blue contact from one and then the other—revealing my caramel-colored irises. Just as the timer on my phone went off, I undressed completely. Steam rose from the shower, and I let the water burn my skin. It felt good. The hot liquid turned pink as it removed Calvin from me, swirling down the drain. I rinsed the hair dye, careful to get all of it out.
After drying off and getting dressed, I did a once-over around the house and grabbed a canister of gasoline from the garage. Returning to Calvin’s room to finish up, I threw several items on the bed beside him, things I needed to get rid of and things to help him burn. There was so much blood, so I knew more kindling was required. I threw open his closet doors, expecting clothes, but it was nothing like that. Startled, I screamed and nearly fell backward. Three motion lights flicked on, each one lighting up a mounted head. But they weren’t animals. Their faces were frozen in the fear they experienced just before their last moments. Small wooden plaques hung below them, each one with a name carved into it—Cristina, Kayla, Amber. I closed my eyes for a moment. You were sicker than I thought you were, Calvin. I shook my head, noticing two plaques hung on the wall beside the others. No mounts were above them, just a white wall, a blank canvas for his vile art. The names carved into them were Briana and Grace. I slammed the closet doors closed and turned back toward Calvin’s lifeless body.