Kealan Burke - Kin

“Luke?”

“Yes.”

Papa did not lower the gun. “Where’s your brother?”

“They’re dead, Papa. All of ’em. The coyotes got ’em. Isaac too. I was hidin’ up there on the far side of the clearin’, waitin’ for you. I saw ’em take him. But I got the son of a bitch. He’s trussed up in there, ready for you.”

Papa didn’t move. He wanted to believe what Luke was saying, but the history between them suggested the enemy he should be fearing was not a coyote at all, but his own son, who should have been reborn, but had resisted, as he had resisted Papa all his young life.

“You lyin’ to me boy?” he said, as he thumbed back the hammer and pointed the gun at Luke.

“Why would I lie?”

“’Cuz you’ve changed. Bein’ inside your Momma changed you, but I suspect not the way we all wanted, not the way she wanted.”

“I’m changed all right,” Luke told him and stepped back into the trees. “I seen the light.”

“Well,” Papa said, licking his lips. “That’s good, ain’t it?”

“I reckon it is. I’m just mad I didn’t see it sooner.”

“They did this to us, Luke. This is all their doin’, and there’s only us left standin’ to stop it.”

“The corruption,” Luke said. “The poison.”

“That’s right.”

“Thing is,” said Luke. “The light I seen told me somethin’ different.”

“Oh?” Come out you little shit , Papa thought. Face me like the man I taught you to be .

“Yeah. Angels told me you’re the poison, and always have been. Said you used God as an excuse to hurt people, includin’ your own kin.”

Papa sneered. “Then it weren’t angels you was hearin’ boy.”

Quiet settled in the woods. Papa listened, eyes narrowed, trying to discern Luke’s form from the dark, but he could no longer make him out. Of course, Papa himself had taught the boys how to make use of the night. He’d taught them well. Too well.

“Why don’t you come out here and we can talk face to face? There ain’t no cause for you to be lurkin’ around in the dark. I’m your father. Whatever you need to discuss with me, we can discuss it right here in the open. I won’t hurt you.”

Nothing.

“Luke, I know you got questions, and I know you ain’t yourself. But like it or not, I’m all you got left, and you’re all I got. Time for both of us to make a clean break, son.”

Leaves rustled as something scurried over them, but there was nothing to suggest he wasn’t alone.

Breathing fast, he scanned the trees.

“ Son? ” Luke said suddenly, coldly, close to Papa’s ear, and with a startled grunt, the old man turned. He had time only to register that Luke was holding a machete before it was buried in his shoulder, all but severing the arm holding the gun. His hand spasmed. The gun fell to the ground, and he staggered back screaming as Luke, bearing a face far too malevolent to ever be that of a mere devil, yanked the long blade free with a spurt of blood. The world dimmed and Papa clenched his teeth, animal panic paralyzing him. “Stop Luke…stop…for God’s sake…” He raised his good hand, palm out. “Please, just… listen …”

With a short swing, Luke severed the hand. It tumbled into the leaves.

Papa screamed a second time, a hoarse guttural sound of horror and disbelief, the echo of it caught and sent back by the trees and the hills beyond. He dropped to his knees, unable to cradle the severed limb due to the unimaginable agony in the other.

“Stop it,” he told Luke. “Listen…you have to stop. They…they poisoned you—”

“ You poisoned me,” Luke said tonelessly.

“No. No, there’s only us. Only us, Luke,” Papa babbled. “Me and you. Ain’t too late. Not yet it ain’t. Only us , Luke.”

He looked up, tears streaming down his face.

Luke, bare-chested and blood-spattered, stood with his body lit by the moonlight, his face a patchwork of shadow. He was breathing calmly, his eyes like black ice.

“There ain’t no us no more,” he said, drawing back the machete like a baseball player aiming for a home run. “Only me.”

The swing took Papa’s head clean off at the shoulders.

For a moment, the old man’s body stayed kneeling, the neck spurting blood upward like an offering to whatever God might thirst for such corrupted wine, then it dropped heavily to the ground.

Afterward, Luke tossed the machete into the brush and set about making a fire, being careful to ring the shallow pit he’d dug with stones to avoid burning down the woods. Then he stripped the old man’s body naked, cut off the genitals and cooked them over the fire.

Under the stars, the eyes of his father still watching, the dead face given the impression of life by the flames, Luke sat alone, lost in thought.

He ate in silence.

“I guess I gotta go,” Pete said, looking longingly at the house in which Claire had said she expected a minor kind of Hell was awaiting her in the form of Kara’s histrionics. Although he didn’t say it, Pete would have considered such a greeting a fine one if it meant there was a house and people in it who loved him enough to care what became of him. Back in Elkwood, there was nothing but questions and the memory of violence he wasn’t sure he’d been given the right to commit, if a right indeed even existed for such terrible acts. On the surface he’d done what he’d had to do to protect Claire, just as he had blinded a stranger to protect Louise, but when it came time for judgment, whether by man or by God, would those reasons be enough to save him?

“You don’t have to,” Claire said. Since leaving Elkwood, she had not let go of his hand, and he cherished the contact, the feel of her skin warm against his own. He knew he would wed her right then and there if he thought for one second she’d agree to it, but it was a preposterous idea. He could hope until the stars burned out and it wouldn’t change the fact that they were two people from completely different worlds. For a time they’d walked the same road, but ultimately they were bound for different poles. It saddened him to think of leaving her, but staying would only mean more hurt.

“I do,” he told her, meeting her watery gaze. “I don’t belong here and I reckon over the next few weeks you’re gonna have your hands full all over again.” He sighed heavily. “Me too, I expect.”

Around the truck the sky was vermilion, the clouds bruised violet. Morning birds awoke and began the opening strains of their day’s symphony. The world was waking. To Pete, it signaled the end of their shared nightmare, but also the end of their association. He knew they would promise to stay in touch, but wouldn’t as time forced them to grow back into their own routines.

“You did nothing wrong,” Claire said, the sentence dropping in pitch as she glanced toward the house. Pete followed her gaze and noticed that a light had come on. “You were there for me.”

“We’re friends,” Pete said with a shrug, wishing he had the courage to say more. We’re friends and that’s all we’ll ever be, but I love you, Claire. And right now, you’re all I got in the world.

“That sounds so simple,” Claire replied. “And wrong.”

With another wary glance at the house, she leaned over, cupped a hand behind his head and drew him close. During the drive here, he had rationalized the kiss at the Merrill House as one of relief or gratitude, particularly considering the iciness she had shown him prior to that moment, but there was no mistaking the motive behind the kiss she gave him now. It was soft and wet, and prolonged. As soon as she broke contact, she quickly initiated it again, her tongue briefly touching his own until he felt like he’d been electrocuted.