John Lutz - Kiss

And with an intensity that surprised him, he did want to live, wanted to go on and on being the crippled but breathing and feeling Carver. Right now, life seemed the sweetest condition of all.

“Hey, Carver? Where you go to, asshole?” Raffy’s voice was louder, irritated. He wanted to get on with the game.

Carver dragged himself over the hard ground, beyond the mound of earth and the grave that had been dug for him. A crawling insect tickled over his bare arm. Gnats flitted around his nose and eyes. He stopped and lay curled on his side, staring into the darkness of nightmares.

Raffy stepped out the back door. He expanded his chest and hitched up his shorts. Swiveled his head on the muscular column of his neck.

Saw Carver and smiled.

“Ah, there you are, fuckface. Hey, you look scared. Well, you got a right. I been looking forward to this, you know?” He slashed at the air with the edge of his hand, leaped high and did a few spinning, lightning karate kicks. Giggled like a schoolgirl out of control. “Chop a gimp like you in half, I wanted to. But I won’t do that. Not for a while, anyway.”

He moved toward Carver with a slow swagger, clenching and unclenching his huge fists. “Got nothing to say, scared man? I seen ’em like you before, find out they got no guts and just wanna get it done with. Like a shit-spooked rabbit caught by a dog and dangling there in its jaws. Know it’s all over but the formalities, so they go limp. Natural thing to do, I guess. Well, it ain’t gonna be that easy. Gonna be fucking fun, man! Though you ain’t gonna think so.”

Carver lay still and watched him approach. Raffy was obviously taking his time, stretching this out for maximum enjoyment as he relished Carver’s terror. This was his amusement, the mainspring of his mind and the real reason he killed. The muscles in his face were taut and he seemed about to break out in his girlish giggle again. He wouldn’t have laughed like that in front of someone he planned on leaving alive.

“Gonna pull some meat from the bone,” Raffy crooned. “Gonna rip you where it hurts most, scared man. You know, we got all fucking night, you and me.”

Raising the knife so its blade caught the moonlight, Carver said, “I’ll see you get some sport out of it.”

Raffy did giggle. “Man, you so right about that.” His wide, white grin spread on his face and stuck there. “You gonna be surprised the tricks I can do with that knife. Nice of you to be holding it for me.” He wasn’t kidding; the knife represented little threat to him. But his dark eyes glimmered with the slightest caution and stayed trained on the blade. He couldn’t totally ignore it. He had to be ready to dodge in case Carver threw the knife. “Cut off some small parts of you, won’t even bleed much,” Raffy said, crooning again, getting himself deeper in the mood. “Cut off some of you and make you goddamn eat it. Learn to fucking like it. Keep wishing you were passed out, but you won’t be. Tell you, I learned some things from good old Dr. Pauly. Taught him some neat shit, too. Graduated the dumb bastard less than an hour ago. I mean, taught him his final fucking lesson. What I got planned for you-”

Raffy dropped from sight.

Made no sound.

Carver had been holding his breath. He exhaled now in a rasping whoosh of air. His hands were shaking.

He’d sharpened the pieces of his broken canes and embedded them pointed-side-up in the bottom of the grave. Then he’d laid the screen from the front door over the grave and hurriedly scattered loose earth lightly over it. A tiger pit. One that Carver had made sure was between him and Raffy.

High on drugs, concentrating on his prey and the knife, Raffy had forgotten what side of the mound of earth the grave was on and hadn’t noticed any irregularity on the ground’s surface. Hadn’t noticed until it was too late and he’d crashed through the screen onto the sharpened walnut spikes.

Carver had expected a howl of pain and rage. An animal cry of surprise.

Anything but silence.

He crawled toward the edge of the grave, then used the shovel protruding from the mound of dirt for support. He stood up.

He edged closer and peered down into the pit.

Raffy shrieked, startling Carver, freezing him just long enough for Raffy to clutch his ankle.

The knife dropped into the grave. Raffy was pulling Carver down into the dark hole with him. The smell of raw earth was like a whiff of death.

Carver remotely realized he was screaming along with Raffy. Without thinking, he raised the shovel. Lost his support and almost fell. Propped himself with his stiff leg. Slammed the shovel down on Raffy’s head. His arm. Again! Again!

Raffy maintained his crushing grip on Carver’s ankle and laughed wildly. “ Bastardo! You gonna fucking pay!” He inched Carver nearer the grave.

Carver swiveled the shovel and with all his strength chopped the sharp edge of the blade down on Raffy’s wrist.

Raffy roared and released his grip.

Carver scooted backward, out of reach. Swallowed, and sucked in air deeply, in relief.

Raffy rose up from the black hole as if the devil were down there boosting him. He was free to the waist and using his powerful arms to hoist himself all the way out. He actually got a leg up, dug in a heel. Carver saw that a sharpened spike had penetrated his foot and was protruding from the top of his jogging shoe. Saw a glistening black trickle of blood on his side.

Then the soft earth gave way and Raffy grunted and slid back down. Into shadow. Out of sight.

Rose again, this time not quite as high.

Carver slammed the shovel down on his head. It glanced off and he almost dropped it.

“Think I ain’t gonna get outta here, asshole?” Raffy screamed.

Carver thought Raffy might be right; despite his wounds he might be able to crawl out of the grave. Whatever his disadvantage, he seemed capable of anything.

Raffy hoisted himself up again, and this time when Carver brought the shovel down he tried to grab it.

He deflected it from his head but slipped down again into the pit.

“Sport, all right,” he said, giggling. “You know I’m gonna have your ass, Carver!”

Carver began scooping dirt frantically into the grave, leaning on the shovel when he plunged its blade into the mound of earth, teetering in precarious balance as he flung each load into the hold. A regular, lurching rhythm.

“Hey, you motherfucker!” Raffy’s protest suggested Carver was doing something outside the rules. Unfair.

Carver kept shoveling.

Raffy began hurling dirt out of the grave by the handfuls, but it was a hopeless struggle. He didn’t have the shovel and he couldn’t keep up. More dirt was going in than was coming out.

Carver’s breath screeched in his throat and his chest heaved. He’d never worked so hard. Sweat dripped from him. His powerful upper body ached with each plunge and arc of the shovel. His forearms began to cramp. The dirt dropping into the grave sounded like hail falling.

Raffy was quiet now, only grunting now and then as he tried to throw out enough dirt to slow Carver’s progress, tried to churn his legs so he could stay on top of the loose earth Carver was shoveling in. But he was hurt too badly for that. Doing a clumsy kind of dance.

Maybe he thought Carver would fill in the grave until it was shallow enough for him to climb out. A desperate hope. The dirt was raining down around him too fast. And the harder he struggled the faster the flow of his blood and the weaker he became.

After a while the action of his legs ceased and they were buried up to the ankles, then the knees.

Carver shoveled faster.

Raffy saw he was losing the battle and snarled with frustration. Thrashed with immense effort and managed to fight his way higher. Carver admired the heart in the beast. He slammed the shovel down between the flailing arms, sickened by the vibration and melon-thump of it bouncing off Raffy’s skull, off human bone and flesh. Raffy made a feeble attempt to snatch the shovel handle, but Carver yanked it back out of reach and resumed scooping earth. Shoveling! Shoveling! A brutal exercise in survival that lent raw energy.