Paul Cleave - The Killing Hour

Keeping the shotgun level he moves to the door and slides it open. The cold wind sweeps into the cabin, chilling Landry to the bone. It chills his mind too, and in these few frozen seconds he hates himself for what he’s going to do before the night is over.

No. No, no, no. He’s gone through this already, he’s gone through this and justified it.

Sure you’ve justified it. But you’re hiding something too, aren’t you? The change of clothes. The Bible. You knew where tonight was always going to go. It’s not that you came out here with no plan. You came out here with a bad one.

He looks over at Feldman. The anger is starting to return, but not all of it is directed at this murderer, yet to direct some of it at himself is detrimental. He hates Feldman. He hates Feldman because all of this is his fault. He hates Feldman for forcing him to do this.

Worst of all, he hates himself.

There’s no blood on my chair or on any of the walls or on the pine-needle stained glass door, so maybe Landry was telling the truth when he said he hasn’t been out here since finding the dead girl in the bathtub. Or maybe he’s lying and isn’t in the habit of shooting people indoors. Things would be easier for him if he took me for a walk in the woods.

“You’re going to feel empty when Cyris is found,” I say, looking up at him. “You’ll never be able to forgive yourself for killing an innocent man. Will you turn yourself in when that happens?”

He doesn’t answer me, just stands next to the door with both hands on the shotgun. The look on his face suggests he doesn’t want to be out here either. The gun reminds me that I’m just a homicide in progress, tomorrow’s statistic, I’ll be a story in the news. Read all about me. My heart is pumping so loudly I can barely hear the rain. My stomach is so weak the fluids inside have created a cesspool of fear that makes me want to throw up and soil myself at the same time.

I’m going to die.

It’s the worst knowledge anybody can ever have, even though we know it all our lives. We just don’t know when-but when you do know when it’s a lot worse. Especially when that time is only a few minutes away.

“Come on, Feldman. It’s time to go,” he says, and he’s the one who sounds as if he’s been defeated.

I try to get to my feet, but the angle of the chair and the way I’m buried in it makes things difficult, as do the handcuffs. The springs in the chair cut into me as I wiggle forward. I fall back into the chair on the first attempt, and I look up at Landry expecting him to either be laughing, or be mad, but he’s neither. He’s just staring at me the way people stare at movie credits they’re not really reading. When I finally get to my feet I’m puffing, but it’s too cold in here to sweat. He gestures me toward the door where I pause looking out at what Mother Nature has to offer me on my final night, which isn’t much. The wind is racing in and gripping us both tightly. My legs are shaking from fear and cold and my teeth are starting to chatter.

“No jacket?” I ask.

“I’m sure you can survive without one.”

“I thought I was supposed to be the funny one.”

He thinks about what he’s just said, then shakes his head. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

“Can I at least make an appeal?”

“Yes.”

“Then I want to say-”

“Appeal denied,” he says. He reaches into his pocket for his cigarettes. He offers me one.

I didn’t say it before, but I say it now. “Those things will kill you.”

He smirks at my comment, then slowly shakes his head. “Goddamn it, Feldman, don’t you ever shut up?”

“I can’t help it,” I hear myself saying, and I really can’t. “But I guess now’s as good a time as any to try one.”

He tosses me a cigarette and I hurt my wrists plucking it from the air. I’ll smoke the whole lot if it will buy me some time. “Light?”

He throws the lighter. This guy is taking no chances. He’s not going to get anywhere near me. Early in the evening I was intimidated by his authority. Now it’s the gun that demands my respect. I hold the cigarette tightly between my lips, raise the blue lighter, fumble with the catch, then light the end. The flame works, but the cigarette doesn’t.

“You need to breathe in,” he says, and he almost sounds compassionate, as if teaching a five-year-old how to ride a bike. Or a five-year-old how to smoke.

I don’t know exactly what to expect, but my mouth is quickly filled with thick smoke. It catches in my throat as if I’ve just swallowed a wad of tissues. I start gagging. Smoke is drawn into my lungs where it burns them, and smoke and snot gush from my nose. The cigarette falls from my mouth, but clings to my lower lip. I brush it onto the ground. A small tentacle of smoke whispers from the end.

Landry is motionless, watching me with that same credit-rolling emptiness in his eyes that suggests nobody is home. Nothing here, it seems, amuses or angers him. He looks lost.

“You don’t have to do this,” I tell him.

“I’m almost sorry I have to kill you.”

“ You’re sorry?”

Suddenly he seems to snap out of whatever daze he’s in. “I was right about you, Feldman. You’re a real smart-ass.” He waves the gun at me. “Now tidy up that mess.”

I pick up the cigarette and flick it toward the fireplace. I pause, trying to think of an action or a word that will help me, but he pushes me onto the small porch by jabbing me with the shotgun. I put one foot forward and start walking. When I step down onto the mud it feels like I’m being acupunctured with needles that have been kept in the freezer overnight. The cold wind drives those needles deep into my flesh. My wet clothes flap against my skin. It’s the coldest I’ve ever been in my life, and the realization I will never be warm again makes me want to cry, but I hang on to those tears. I don’t want Landry to see them. Fuck him.

He orders me forward by prodding me again then turns on the flashlight and tosses it to me. I miss the catch, and have to stoop down to pick it up. I think of it as a weapon. A useless one, but a weapon all the same. He directs me into the belt of trees. Damn trees. I’ve seen more trees this week than in my entire life. I can’t see exactly where I’m supposed to be heading.

“Stop stalling, Feldman, I’m sure you can find a path in there.”

I point the flashlight into the inky blackness, spotlighting branches and leaves, but not a whole lot more-certainly no dirt path. I head forward anyway, figuring Landry will stop me if I’m too far off the track. I step between a couple of birch trees, struggling to cover my face from the branches that claw at me like dirty fingers. I manage two steps before becoming lost. Can’t see the forest for the trees. Well, in this case I can’t see the forest for the dark. The ground turns from mud to hard-packed dirt and roots. I move the flashlight around and start to walk slower, not to preserve time, but in order to concentrate on each footstep.

“You’ve got the wrong man, Landry.”

“I doubt that.”

“Shouldn’t you at least hold off killing me?”

“I’m a busy man.”

“You could just tie me up. At least until you have a few more facts.”

“I’ve all the facts I need.”

“You’re wrong. Tie me up and when you find you’re wrong I promise not to tell anybody.” I really do promise it. The river nearby is getting louder. “Think about what you’re doing.”

“I am thinking. I’m thinking about your next victim.”

I don’t know how far we’ve come. Obviously Landry doesn’t want my body found near the cabin. I’m thinking he has a nice location out here for me. Maybe a big hole. The colder I get the more I lose any comprehension of time. It could have been ten minutes now. Or fifteen. We could have walked a couple of miles. Kathy told me that time and distance slip away when you’re being marched through a bunch of trees toward your death. Well, she was right.