Christopher Rice - The Vines

But Vernon Fuller hasn’t reached for the gun, or even moved an inch. Blake takes a step toward him, grateful when the glare from a nearby lamp moves across John’s framed and frozen smile.

“Mike Simmons. Kyle Austin. The other one…”

“Fauchier,” Vernon answers in a whisper. “Scott… Scott Fauchier.”

“Yes. They’re dead. All three of them.”

“You? Did… you?”

“Yes. I killed them.”

Is it a lie? Worse, is it a betrayal of the promise Blake made to himself, not to deceive Vernon into spilling blood? It feels like the truth. It feels as if he murdered those three men. Was there something in Blake’s soul that wanted those men torn limb from limb, and did the vines consume it and follow its instructions? Could they have done their terrible work without his rage?

Scott Fauchier, he thinks suddenly. The vines killed Scott Fauchier and I didn’t even know who he was, went most of my life never trusting my instinct that there’d been a third assailant, a third killer, so it wasn’t possible for me to hate that man in my heart. Or in my blood. I couldn’t even tell you what he looked like. I only knew his name because Kyle Austin said it to me on the roof, before the vines tore him apart. Because the vines knew. The crime was written in my blood somehow. And that’s why they killed Scott Fauchier too. But the vines knew what he’d done, because his crime was written in my blood somehow. So they knew and they went for him.

Vernon is waiting for Blake to strike, and when he doesn’t the man reaches for his revolver with a tentative, shaking hand. He doesn’t aim the gun at Blake with a killer’s confidence. Rather, he draws the handle close to his stomach. The barrel trembles.

“You don’t know why I come,” Vernon finally says. “You’ve got no idea why.”

“You picked the guys on your team you knew would say yes. Then you told them where John and I were meeting and you told them to—”

“I told them to scare you!” Vernon roars. “You two, I thought it was just some kind of game. I thought if you didn’t have anywhere to go that you’d just… you’d just move on !”

“John was terrified of you finding out. All you had to do was tell him you knew. He would have freaked and called the whole thing off.”

“That’s not true. The way he looked at you. I knew—from the way… I just… I wanted to scare you guys. That’s all. I told them just to make you feel scared so that you wouldn’t feel so… comfortable meeting there, just a few blocks from—”

“You liar!” Blake roars. “You wanted them to beat it out of us! You wanted them to punish us!”

Thunderstruck, Vernon gazes at Blake as if he’s tripled in size. He can’t tell if it’s his volume or his words that have stunned Vernon. The man’s gun hand is shaking, the barrel still held close to his stomach as if he plans to muffle any kickback with his own girth. And Blake’s fear that the gun might go off accidentally is just a brief spike that gives way to a kind of drowsy satisfaction. He’s beyond such petty concerns now. A marked man has no such fears. A man with only hours to live is free to pursue his own final designs and no one else’s. And so he digs deeper, urging Vernon’s finger to end this for both of them.

“Did you give them a choice at least? Did you threaten them? Or bribe them?”

Instead of answering, though, Vernon asks, “How did you kill them?”

“Magic.”

“Uh-huh. OK then. How did you find out?”

“More magic.”

“Is that how you’re gonna kill me? Magic? ’Cause you sure as hell don’t have a gun. Otherwise you would have drawn it by now.”

“Did you know they were being blackmailed?”

“Yes.”

“But you weren’t?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because they were idiots.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means Simmons called me. He actually called me after he murdered my son and the cop put the bite on him. And I recorded every goddamn thing he said. And I told him if he or any of those other boys ever mentioned my name, I’d send the tape to the police. So he could take his pick. Me or the cop. All the cop wanted was a piece of their spending money once a month. That was chump change to those little fucking brats. Me? I would have destroyed their lives with a phone call. They were idiots, is what they were.”

“They were teenagers.”

“They were murderers! You were there . You saw.”

“Because you put them up to it!”

“I put them up to being bullies because that’s what they were. That’s what I saw in them every day on the field. I didn’t know Simmons’s dad had messed with him when he was a kid. I didn’t know he was going to lose it when he saw you kissing my son.”

“Of course you knew. That’s why you picked him. You just thought he’d be smart enough to lose it with me .”

Vernon slumps back into his leather chair, resting the gun on his right thigh, his grip on the handle weak, the barrel pointed in Blake’s general direction but aimed at nothing in particular. Suddenly he has the vacant look of a nursing-home patient hollowed out by old age and isolation. Blake can’t tell if this is an admission, or the man’s just given up fighting with him. But now he needs it—he needs Vernon to shoot him. Needs his revenge. And so he keeps pushing.

“Why do you come visit me once a month then?”

“Because seeing you makes me want to die,” he answers quietly. “So I wait for you to come out those doors, and if the sight of you still hurts as bad as it did the last time, I come back here.” He raises the gun and pops the cylinder out. “I load one bullet.” He pops the cylinder back in and presses the revolver’s barrel to his right temple. “And I let God decide if I should live.”

Vernon keeps the gun pressed to his temple, and for a while the two men just stare at each other as dawn’s first light slides across the floorboards between them.

Finally, Vernon says, “Is that good enough for you, Blake Henderson?”

“No.”

“Maybe it’s time for your magic then.”

When Blake lifts up the front of his shirt, Vernon’s snarl collapses into a vacant, slack-jawed stare. In one hand Blake peels the snake of vine from his chest. It clings to him for a few seconds, but without so much resistance, and in another second or two, he’s holding it out for Vernon to see. When it starts to wrap around his wrist, Blake hurls it to the floor. Both ends curl and it starts inch-worming toward Blake’s feet. He takes a few steps back to lengthen its journey so Vernon can see it in action. The man has lifted his legs up onto his chair, like a parody of a housewife freaking out over a mouse in her kitchen.

“Shoot it,” Blake says.

Vernon’s lips are trembling; the sight of this otherworldly organism moving across the floor of his home has rattled him out of his guilt, self-loathing, and suicidal fantasizing. And Blake enjoys the sight of this, knowing that he doesn’t need to necessarily kill him to get retribution. If it’s all I can do to him, then let me. In the time I have I’ll destroy what’s left of his sanity by forcing him to bear witness to the horrors I’ve seen during the long and terrible night.

“Shoot it, Vernon.”

Vernon fires. His aim is good. But it’s as if the bullet has been captured by a pocket of electrical energy just a few inches above the vine. There’s a spitting arc of flame where the bullet seems absorbed by the vine itself. The vine goes suddenly still, but it’s undamaged.

When Blake realizes his ears are ringing so loudly he won’t be able to hear the insects coming for him, he feels a swell of genuine panic he can’t ignore. He waits another few seconds for the ringing to lessen some; then he starts talking loud enough to hear himself over the din.