The clouds hang low to the ground and the elevation of the hills covers the roadway with a never-ending bank of fog. Gary’s inability to use the Ford’s high beams is the least of his worries. As it is, any traffic going either way nearly blinds him, reflecting off the road surface and through the windows of the truck’s cab. But each swipe of the wipers smears the rain on the windshield, and lights in the oncoming left-hand lane turn this into an obfuscating rainbow.
With it being the middle of summer, and humid, regulating the defroster on the windshield is a chore. It’s a pain in the ass, but Gary knows the drive here and back to his hotel in the shitty little city of Cortland will be worth it once he reaches this first destination. He smiles thinking about it. The euphoria lasts until his cell phone rings.
The caller ID on the truck’s dashboard tells him his new employer is calling. Gary connects the call but doesn’t speak.
“Mac?” the client asks after an uncomfortable silence.
“Yeah.”
“How was the flight?”
“Like you’d expect from Dulles to Syracuse in this weather. Why are you calling me for small talk? You only paid for three burners,” Gary says.
“Ya think I’d be usin’ up a phone just to call and tell ya how pretty yer eyes are?”
“Okay, good point. What’s up?”
“The information I gave ya earlier has changed. The, um, package, it’s moved an’ we can’t locate it.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? So what’s the deal? You know the deposit is nonrefundable.”
“I know. I know. The event isn’t off. It’s just, well, on hold.”
“What happened?”
“She, I mean the package, we lost it yesterday.”
“So you’re telling me I flew all the way to this shithole, where I’m currently out in the middle of the night driving a rental around in a rainstorm, and—”
“Hey, Mac,” the client says, interrupting Gary, who scowls at the act. “Don’t forget I’m the banker here. The job wasn’t until tomorrow. It’s not my fault ya went out in this shit. It ain’t supposed to rain tomorrow anyhoot.”
“Whatever. If you need to know, I’m getting a new emotional support dog. My old one just died.”
“Emotional support dog? Really?”
“Fuck you.” Gary wishes this asshole was in front of him right now, with the barrel of a Desert Eagle in his mouth. “You try, um, checking tickets on people for a living. I’m busy. Call me tomorrow when you have an answer. Cycle the phones and don’t fucking call me unless you have the location or you’re calling it off, got that? And if it’s the latter, there’s no refunds.” Gary doesn’t wait for an answer. He ends the call, shaking his head in displeasure. He doesn’t like the employer, not one bit. But he doesn’t have to.
“There’s more natural teeth in a maternity ward than there is in all of Cortland county,” the mousey man who went by Dennis told him during their first meet. A stop at a gas station earlier in the day did nothing to disprove this theory. “Don’t ferget yer in the asshole and armpit of the Appalachians. Bring plenty of teepee and deodorant with ya.” The client pronounced it Apple-A-shuns, like the rest of New York’s population did, which annoyed this West Virginia native living in Georgetown to no end.
The road swerves as he presses the button for the automated windows to go down. Wind whips rain into the cab, soaking him. Now the truck is on a straightaway with no bends or curves. With one hand on the wheel, Gary fishes a cell phone out of his pocket. He smashes it on the steering wheel and pulls out the SIM card before tossing them both out the window into the stormy darkness.
A few miles later, the GPS tells Gary to turn down an unmarked side road. There’s no road on the map, only a waypoint indicated, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It’s quiet, and the rain lets up. The high beams light up the rural setting, revealing a serpentine, pothole-ridden gravel road, if you could call it thus, lined with gigantic oaks. A sign, hidden in the brush and listing to one side, declares this to be BONNEY FARMS. The top of the signpost is decorated with a trio of dog head sculptures.
Nothing bad has ever happened in these situations, he thinks to himself sarcastically as he recalls a night in Afghanistan over a decade ago when everything changed for Gary McCarthy. The night an insurgent’s IED gave the Army Ranger a going home gift in the form of a titanium plate covering a majority of his forehead. The resulting PTSD had prompted Gary to adopt an emotional support dog after his recovery. That dog, Rambo, passed away a month ago after a decade at Gary’s side.
Now, ahead of him, the brush of the wilderness bordering the gravel road subsides, unveiling the lights of the property. In the back of the F-150, a new dog crate rattles as the Ford hits the superfluous potholes filled with mud and captured water from the storm. The headlights reveal another country road bisecting the property next to a small creek flowing down from the surrounding hills. The stream runs under a wooden footbridge before disappearing into the darkness.
A homestead, or more correctly, a single-wide trailer on a concrete slab, sits on one side of the informal intersection. Following the creek, across the drive sit a half dozen steel and aluminum sheds and an ancient barn. Gary’s lights illuminate most of the yard, and he can see half of the barn’s roof is listing, with a gaping, black hole near the peak.
Gary finds a gravel drive adjacent to the trailer and parks the Ford next to a shiny, newish black Subaru Forester. The decals with the logos for Lyft and Uber peak his curiosity. Do these hicks drive rideshare? He wonders for a moment. Maybe it was how they supplemented their income? He considers the possibility, then disregards the thought. No, there’s something more to this, he resolves and sits there for a few seconds, pondering the Subaru and mustering the strength to deal with a person and not kill them for the sake of it.
It’ll only be long enough to get the dog, Gary mentally reminds himself. Tomorrow you can take it out on your mark and leave them dead and stinking in the water, his id adds as a consolation. Gary smiles at the thought. He pulls the card with the details out of his pocket. MELANIE BONNEY, BONNEY FARMS, BOX 2539, HOMER, NY. When he opens the door, the stench of a sulfurous musk immediately assaults him.
“A fuckin’ polecat? Really?” He scans the area, making sure the skunk isn’t nearby. The last thing he needs is to get sprayed. He walks down the path to the trailer’s dilapidated porch. Charms and chimes hang from wires and twine, and the building smells worse than the skunk. It’s a sickly sweet, nauseating combination of mildew, piss, and shit. The malodor waters his eyes and makes him wish the skunk would materialize and deodorize the place. Sweet Jesus. Gary keeps this thought to himself as he steps up onto the porch.
The shadow of a large dog standing in the corner of the porch catches Gary’s eye. He steps back, not wanting to antagonize a mastiff. A curtain inside the trailer moves and light bleeds out, exposing the watchdog as something peculiar. Is that a stuffed dog? Gary wonders. Turning on his phone’s flashlight, Gary confirms his suspicions. A taxidermized dog, with three poorly stitched together heads and marbles for eyes, silently stares back at him. That’s all sorts of fucked up. What are these people? The welcoming committee for secondhand Hades, he thinks, shakes his head, and knocks on the door.
The rapping is greeted by a high-pitched barking, followed by a chorus of snarls and howls originating near the proximity of the metal sheds. At least I’m in the right place, Gary thinks, as the barking persists. The sounds of someone approaching the door from the interior follow. With each step, the trailer’s frame buckles, the metal screaming in distress until he hears the tumblers of the lock fall.
The door opens and Gary is assaulted by a freshness of stench he can’t believe possible. A monster of a woman stands before him, as wide as she is tall, dressed in a grease-stained purple housecoat. Her gray hair is thinned by alopecia, and the woman’s face is riddled with oozing sores. At first he thinks she’s crying, but then he realizes it’s pus, not tears, dripping down from her left eyeball. She holds a ring of rusty keys in one swollen hand, and in the other, a coffee cup filled with some steaming liquid.
Behind her, a little ankle biter of a mutt that appears to have combined the worst traits of a pug and chihuahua growls and hisses. It’s smaller and thinner than a typical pug, with the lean body of the chihuahua and the familiar anthropomorphic pug face. The dog reminds Gary of David Hedison’s infamous last scene in the original version of The Fly, where the human-headed insect is trapped by a spider pleading for its life. This poor creature is no better off. A victim of cerebellar hypoplasia, the dog waddles sideways as it runs. Its tilted face is covered with swollen lesions.
Gary stifles a laugh, noting how much the dog and its master mirror each other. He smiles, recollecting how he and Rambo, too, shared similar traits. The correlation nearly kicks off an anxiety attack. He shuts it down with the only coping mechanism he knows to use, outside of killing the old woman outright. Humor.
I guess the commercials are right and shingles don’t fucking care who or what you are, poor dog. Gary keeps the joke to his inner monologue. “Melanie Bonney?” he asks.
“Mmmmhmmm, but ya can call me Mamme Mel, it’s what da kinfolk roun’ here do,” the woman replies, nodding.
More like Mamme Nasty Ass, he thinks, ignoring the lady’s attempt to teach him her pet name. “Gary McCarthy. We spoke on the phone last week about the puppy.”
“Mmmmhmmm. Ya da man who lost his support dog, righty? Y’all din’ soun’ like no darkie on da phone.”
“Beg pardon?” Gary didn’t appreciate the woman’s verbiage, pointing out his mixed heritage. Gary’s father was of Irish-American descent, his mother a dark-skinned Cuban dancer, and their son shared her mocha complexion. Say one more racist thing and give me an excuse to unload this Desert Eagle in your face, please.
“T’ain’t ‘portan’.”
“And yes, my emotional support companion passed away. I’m just here for the puppy.”
“Mmmmhmmm. Yes ya are, indeed, mmmmhmmm,” she says, then shouts out, “emotional support. Hah! Eloy! Get out to da spring house an’ get dat pup. Da man is here for it.” Gary notes she has one tooth on her bottom jaw and no others. It juts up like a tusk when she closes her mouth. “Eloy’s mah boy, he’s a little daft, but he’s good with da pups. Dis one yer getting, she’s a prettyful one. Nice markings. That’ah be sick hunna, carsh.”
“That’s not a problem.” Gary fetches a wad of bills from his pocket and hands it to the woman. Her fingernails are crusted filth and Gary is skeeved by her touch. It sends a shiver up his spine, and it requires all of his willpower to not pull the Desert Eagle out of its holster at the small of his back…
And empty it into her face.
She counts the money then adds, “It’s airish tonight. Chillin’ me to da bones. Lemme get ya da paperwork for da bloodline.” She steps back into the trailer and shuffles through some papers on the kitchen island. The floor is covered in pages from newspapers and magazines, complete with piss stains. A Navy Jack (known to some as the Confederate flag or the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia), stained and torn, hangs on the wall above a sofa. The furniture and flag have seen better days.
Fucking wonderful, Gary thinks when he sees the tattered banner. The last thing I need to see tonight is that racist piece of shit flag. Gary knows there are two sorts of people who fly this flag, racists and idiots. He’s mostly certain the Bonneys, being in Upstate New York, fall into the latter category. The longer Gary stands here, the more nauseous he gets and less patient. He’s about to snap—and gut the old hag—when he hears the sniffling and whining of a puppy behind him. The pug-chihuahua’s barking resumes.
“Peanut! Quitcher bawlin’!” the woman commands. The yapper doesn’t listen. Gary turns around and the puppy comes into view, led by the man called Eloy, who is obviously Melanie Bonney’s kin. But unlike Mamme Nasty Ass, the puppy does not resemble Eloy. Eloy’s cleft lip was sewn up poorly when he was a child, and now his face appears askew.
The ugly didn’t fall too far from the tree, Gary thinks. Shit, it mighta hit the roots.
The puppy is excited. Fawn colored, its tail wagging, the wee critter makes eye contact with Gary. As he and the pup stare at one another, he feels the oxytocin course through his body with each second. This is the one, Gary thinks. He bends down at the knees, and the puppy charges to him, jumping into his arms and licking his face.
“Well hello there! Ain’t you a sweetheart!” Gary tells the dog. All at once, months of apprehension and stress seem to leave his body. Not since Rambo’s last days has Gary felt this good, this emotionally satisfied.
“Her name is Per-Per-Perseffff…Annie.” Eloy manages to stutter out of his toothless mouth.
“Persephone?” Gary verifies the name. Eloy answers with an affirming nod.
“I think it’s a beautiful name,” Gary says, scratching the dog behind the ears. “We’ll keep it.”
The pup licks and nibbles at Gary’s face. He lowers her down and stands up. “Come on Persephone!” He motions to the puppy to follow him to the truck. She obliges. He picks her up, opens the door, and scoops the little dog into the waiting crate where a new bed and toys await her.
“Don’tcha forget dis!” Mamme Mel shouts to him from her spot in the trailer’s doorway, the paperwork in her hands.
“Oh, right, can’t forget that. Be right there,” an elated Gary says as he closes the crate. “I’ll be right back, baby girl,” he tells Persephone, giving the truck door a gentle slam then returning to the trailer to fetch the dog’s papers.
For the first time in weeks Gary doesn’t feel the urge to leave anyone dead and stinking—on the land or in the water, for the matter at hand.
He takes three steps and stops when Eloy shouts at him. “Ain’t no coon takin’ nunna my bitches!” Eloy’s words are still hanging in the air when Gary’s ears fill with the din of a gong being struck by a mallet. The lights go out for a second as Gary struggles to regain his orientation. This is followed by a wet crunching and an unearthly screech.
It’s just like night when the IED went off in Nuristan all those years ago, except those Taliban lunatics were screaming Allahu Akbar at the tops of their lungs, Gary’s instincts tell him, but he’s about to discover they’re wrong. Sweat and salt burn his eyes when he opens them, and he wipes his brow with a free hand. The liquid is sticky, and the coppery scent of blood pulls him from his stupor. I’m fucking bleeding? Gary wonders. That motherfucker hit me in the head with something?
Then he sees Eloy twitching on the ground in front of him and big Mamme Mel running to her son’s aid. The woman is moving faster than Gary thought she could, with the little pus-face dog at her heels, yipping away. The key ring in her hand jingles with each bounding step. What happened to him? Gary wonders. His question is answered with a step forward. The barrel of an aluminum baseball bat is embedded in Eloy’s face.
“Look at whatcha done to mah boy!” The woman screams. The man’s lower jaw is dislocated, the mandible bent and twisted. If he had possessed any teeth, they would’ve been scattered around him. Instead, a pink froth of snot and blood discerns the seal between flesh and metal.
Bent over on her hands and knees with her housecoat riding up her bare ass, Mamme Mel coddles her son’s broken face, still holding her keys. Peanut, the little fucked up dog, stops yipping but the other dogs in the sheds let it out with abandon. It’s deafening. Gary slowly steps away from the pair, toward the trailer, while reaching behind his back. A few steps later he withdraws the Desert Eagle, keeping his eyes on the old woman the whole time.
Something he regrets doing almost immediately.
Behind the woman, the little dog is standing on its hind legs. Its front paws are spread out, one to either ass cheek. Her backside is riddled with dripping, pustulant sores. They surround and infest her exposed vulva and labia, swollen with infection. Swabs of toilet tissue are stuck to the inflamed lips.
The image reminds Gary of a spoiled roast beef sub, complete with curdled cheese protruding from between the flaps of meat, that he bought by accident from a vending machine back home in Georgetown.
A thick, matted cake of dried blood, shit, and hair covers where her taint and ass crack should be. Trailing out of a hole in the center of this mass is a lime green, thinned out turd, and Peanut is gobbling it up with glee. The little dog’s tongue wipes it clean, before continuing to lap at the blisters and sores surrounding the woman’s sagging and flapping vaginal lips.
Gary kicks the dog to the side. “No!” He commands the animal. Peanut ignores him and runs back to its master’s exposed genitalia, tongue licking away at the pus-oozing boils.
No no no no no no no no fucking no… the word runs through his brain on repeat at light speed until Gary snaps.
WHAT IN THE EVERLOVING FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?
He aims the giant pistol at Mamme Mel’s back around the vicinity of her heart, and squeezes the trigger. The report of the weapon sends gouts of blood squirting out of the exit wound in her chest. The splatter covers Eloy with a second coat of hemoglobin-infused paint. Gary hears the clinking of metal as the woman drops the key ring and slumps to the side, collapsing on her son’s ruined face. His body kicks as she smothers him, but it doesn’t stop the dog from digging into her ass for more.
Dead and stinking…
Gary has seen enough. He ignores Peanut this time and walks away, but not before grabbing the woman’s key ring and taking the papers off the trailer’s porch where the Bonney matron dropped them.
Near the sheds, he catches movement from the corner of a blood covered eye, telling him he’s not alone. It’s pitch dark without the lights of the trailer and truck illuminating the area. Gary decides it’s better to handle this professionally. Unsure if it’s a dog or another human, he stuffs the papers into his back pocket and returns to the F-150.
And what is my profession?
He opens the door to the cab and sees little Persephone wagging her tail and whining, happy to see her new human. Gary lets her sniff and lick his fingers. “That’s a good girl. I’ll be right back,” he tells her as he places the paperwork on the seat next to the crate. “Be right back little girl. Daddy’s got work to do.” He blows her a kiss and shuts the door.
And said work amounts to dealing out death to some redneck motherfuckers who deserve it.
In the truck’s bed is a locked case. It’s long with no markings indicating what is inside. Gary unlocks the case with a key and opens it. Inside is his weapon of choice for close-up jobs, an SKO-12 semiautomatic shotgun. He loads it with a twenty-five-round drum magazine filled with two dozen shells packed with number four buckshot. At point-blank range the pellets will eat flesh and bone.
He wipes the blood from his brow, grabs a headlamp and slips it onto his head, then closes the case. The glow of the headlamp provides him with a good view of everything around him.
Time to die, motherfuckers.
A quick jog later Gary makes his way across the road and over the little footbridge to the sheds and barn where the other dogs are housed. Or so he believes. What Gary McCarthy is about to discover on this property will change him forever.
Behind the first shed, the headlamp illuminates a trail leading around the metal hovels. The constant barking from the dogs is deafening and emanates from all of the sheds, not any one in particular. Gary notes the stream runs under the backside of each shed—a practice done to keep salted food cool.
Now why would they need to do this? Gary thinks, not understanding how much he’s going to regret asking himself this question. Hearing some commotion from within, he slides open the door to the closest shed and is greeted by a blast of hot air. The sweet stench of rotting meat and the sounds of sex greet him.
Chained to the floor on some sort of support is a large dog, and from the coat markings it looks to be a German Shepherd. The animal squeals in agony. Behind it, a naked man, covered in filth, is busy moaning and humping away at the dog’s hind section.
He’s fucking a dog? Already nauseous from the surrounding smells and a blow to the head, Gary loses the contents of his stomach and projectile vomits onto the wall. Bile and bits of finely masticated chicken nuggets and fried potatoes splash onto the man’s backside. Without missing a hump the naked man turns around, revealing an insane, devilish grin on his face. He has one more tooth than Mamme Mel.
The man raping the dog speaks. “Spota be white? Spota say what? Spota—”
The hitman wipes off his lips and nose. He doesn’t talk. Talking is for movies and dead men. There is no hesitation. Gary strikes the freak across the temple with the barrel of the SKO-12, ending the discussion. There is no discussion, Gary reminds himself, only action. The hillbilly drops to the ground and Gary steps on his neck. A wet crunch resonates from underneath Gary’s boot. Blood froths and bubbles out of the freak’s mouth and nose as he twitches. After one more convulsion his body evacuates, shitting all over the floor. The Army vet wrinkles his lip in disgust, steps back and kicks the body. A fecal streak marks the path as the dead man rolls off the floor and into the stream. Gary smiles at his work.
Dead and stinking in the water.
The Army vet goes to help the trapped dog. Part of him fears he may have to put the animal down. He looks for the restraints holding the dog in place. He unbuckles a leather strap and quickly steps back, shock and disgust working in tandem to repel him.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding,” Gary says, throwing a hand to his face and covering his mouth. He grabs the dog’s tail and pulls. The head pops back, hollow and empty. The coat tears away from the animal’s legs and comes off the body with ease, followed by a wailing screech and a sudden realization for the hitman.
This isn’t a dog.
Chained to the floor and mutilated is a mustachioed man with thick, black hair and a bronze complexion. Gary isn’t one hundred percent sure of his precise nationality, but he’s certain of one thing, the guy is in a world of fucking hurt. His hands are missing, and the bloody stumps of his wrists are duct taped into the front paws of the dog pelt. Whoever had removed his hands, also amputated his legs from the knees down and sewed the stumps into the hindquarters of the pelt. They hadn’t done a professional job. Bloody clots encircle the makeshift surgical points and a yellow mucus substance oozes through the fur.
“Help… us… please… help… us,” the man manages to say, his words slurred and barely louder than a whisper. But Gary can hear a clear accent. Is he Afghan?
“Us?” Gary asks the imprisoned man.
“My… rider…. help… Allah…,” he manages to say until his words trail off to labored breathing. The man passes out, his head hanging between his shoulders. Drool mixed with blood drips from his mouth. Gary resolves there’s nothing he can do for this man.
I can still help someone, all the same. His thoughts are epiphanic as it all becomes clear. The dying man before him owns the rideshare car in the driveway and had a passenger with them. This person is likely somewhere on the property, probably in one of the sheds.
Ain’t this a hoot, Gary thinks. After being wounded in the war, he never thought he’d see a day come where he’d be interested in saving a person’s life. Yet here he is, putting together a makeshift plan to do just that.
He may not be able to save this man, but his passenger? This remains to be seen. Gary resolves he can only try. This day, or night, it seemed to him, was fast becoming a day of firsts. The hitman backs out of the shed cautiously, keeping the weapon level and his eyes open for any more surprise attacks.
He opens the door to a chorus of snarls, barks, and rattling cages. A first glance through shed number two tells Gary it’s filled with a half dozen dogs in crates. They appear to be healthy. The two larger dogs in bigger crates are busy gnawing on bones resembling tibia. He flashes the light at another crate full of puppies, one gnawing on the remnants of a human hand. It’s now become obvious, to Gary at least, how the Bonneys are feeding their breeding pack.
They’re fucked up, but hey, at least they’re not cannibals.
Gary moves on to shed number three.
The fetid stink of rotting meat overpowers the farm’s skunky aroma. Other than the stink, at first glance, this one is mostly a bust. It’s empty of living things, no barking dogs or people in duress. The origin of the shed’s ambient stench is swinging from long hooks attached to the ceiling—pieces of carcasses.
Human parts and pieces.
Gary grimaces at the sight before his headlamp reveals a treasure in the corner, a pile of things. They’re personal effects, and judging from their appearance, they aren’t things in the Bonney aesthetic. Flip flops, women’s clothing, sneakers, men’s clothing. On top of the stack are two cell phones. Gary picks them up and notes both are powered down.
“Why the fuck not?” he says, and turns them on. In moments, both phones buzz to life with a cacophony of alerts from missed calls and text messages. He ignores the buzzing and chirping, puts the phones in his pocket, and moves on to shed number four.
As he nears the next building, Gary hears the sounds of a panicked scuffle from within the structure. He checks the SKO-12 to ensure the weapon is ready to rock and roll, and adjusts the headlamp to illuminate as much of his line of sight as possible. Gary aims the SKO-12 and slides the door open.
The Bonney farm does not disappoint, as Gary has learned from more than one instance on this night. The property is fast becoming a smorgasbord of backwoods inbred fuckery.
The hitman had expected something fucked up, and he gets it. A pair of bipedal dog-men are humping away at either end of a bound, naked woman. Gary aims the shotgun at the back of the closest dog-man’s head, and squeezes off a single round from the SKO-12. The roar of the shotgun silences the barking dogs, while the blast removes the dog-man’s head with a couple dozen pellets of number four buckshot from a 12-gauge shell. Pieces of skull, cartilage, flesh, hair, and brain splatter the ceiling, creating dripping stalactites of crimson goo.
A fountain of blood erupts from the stump of the dog-man’s neck and covers the woman and other dog-man in a crimson spray littered with bits and pieces of head. The standing corpse slumps down to the floor and the stream of blood turns into an expanding puddle surrounding the body.
An inhuman screech of rage comes from the other dog-man. He leaps over the woman. The dog-man’s dick, an all too human cock, is sticking out of a canine penile sheath, flapping around like a propeller. Through the dog-man-thing’s gaping maw, Gary can see human eyes staring back at him from behind the teeth.
These redneck motherfuckers are wearing dog suits? Gary’s mind does not want to accept what is going on with the Bonneys. His body shakes, his heart rate rises, his palms sweat. The Army vet’s entire being wants to remove them from his presence, delete them from existence.
The shotgun obliges.
The hitman unleashes a barrage of shotgun shells at the man in the dog suit. The kick of the weapon pushes Gary back, out of the shed as the SKO-12 burps out a half dozen shells, creating a moving wall of ball bearings. Fire shoots out a foot from the barrel, lighting up the interior of the shed. Instantly, hundreds of impacts turn the costumed target into a gooey mass resembling a multi-family sized portion of steak tartare.
Then, for the first time since shit went down with the swinging of a baseball bat, the farm is quiet.
The bits and pieces of flesh, bone, and internal organs hover in midair, then fall. With a wet slap the matter covers the prone woman in a sheen of gory goop. Gary stands and stares at the bloody mess, breathing as deep and slow as he can to reduce his heart rate and slow his anxiety. His mind is still trying to rationalize what he has encountered at this farm on this night when his burner phone rings, ruining the moment’s peaceful bliss.
This is not the time for this shit, Gary thinks before fishing the phone out of his pocket. He connects the call and doesn’t wait for his client to speak. “What did I tell you about using these burners? Right now I’m not in a good place, so this better be important,” he says.
“Well hello to you, too, Mac. You’ll be happy to know I’ve regained contact with the mark and everything should be back on for tomorrow.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. It looks like the mark’s at one of the ski lodges right now, so you might have to do some wilderness work to get it done.”
Ski lodge in the middle of summer? he thinks before replying, “Enough, I’m in the middle of something. Call me tomorrow with the location, I don’t care where they are now.”
“Copy that.”
“What did you say?” Gary’s tone turns colder.
“I said copy that, you know, like soldiers say on radios when they’re in the field.”
“Are you prior service?”
“No. But I thou—”
“Then don’t say that again.” Gary hangs the up, then crushes the phone with his heel. Fucking amateurs, he thinks as he kicks and scatters the phone’s pieces and shakes his head. He doesn’t have time for this bullshit, and has a victim to save. Gary steps back into the shed and reaches down to the woman lying on the floor. He can hear her labored breathing, confirming she’s at least still alive.
“Hey, are you with me?” he asks the woman as he touches her shoulder. She’s shivering, shaking. The dogs restart their incessant barking. He speaks louder, so she can hear him over the dogs, but tries to maintain a kind tone. It’s difficult for him to do, considering the circumstances. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m Gary, I’m going to rescue you.” The woman moves, covers her face with her hands and folds herself into a fetal position. “Okay, you stay here, I’m going to get you some clothes and something to clean up with. Nobody’s going to hurt you now. They’re all—”
A screeching wail erupts from behind Gary, and it drives the barking dogs into a frenzy. He spins around to see Mamme Mel, a giant bloodstain covering the front of her housecoat, charging at him with Eloy’s ball bat grasped in both hands, raised over her head.
“Fuck ya, moolie!” she screams. “I’mma gonna hang yer balls on da porch!”
“Oh, would you just fuckin’ die already?” Gary says, breaking his silence rule as he raises the SKO-12. He squeezes the trigger and unloads a trio of shells at the Bonney matron before she can reach him. The first burst of buckshot hits her in the chest, erupting into a bloody red flower exposing the bones of her sternum and upper rib cage.
It only slows her down.
The second and third shell loads hit the large woman on the left side of her body. She violently jerks to the side and something black splashes out of the impact points, covering the grass. Hypovolemic shock takes over her body. The baseball bat tumbles out of the woman’s hands as she twists and falls from the force of the buckshot. Mamme Mel tumbles and rolls in the rain and blood-soaked grass, sliding to a stop, ass first, at Gary’s feet. Sticking out from between her ass cheeks, coated in runny shit, the hindquarters of a little dog lay limp.
“Poor little Peanut,” Gary laments for the pug mix before going to the previous shed and gathering the woman’s clothes and a blanket. Unsure of which garments are hers, he grabs the whole pile. She’s sitting up in a fetal position when he returns, her forehead on her knees. “Here you go. Do you know if there are any more of these hillbillies?” The woman shakes her head. “I think I got them all. Okay, then I’m good with giving you some privacy to get dressed. I’m going back to my truck. Come over when you are ready and we’ll, well, we’ll get out of here and call the cops. Sound like a plan?” She nods in response. “All right. I think one of these is your phone, too. You need me, holla. I’ll be right over there.” He points to the truck and leaves her to clean up.
Back at the F-150, Gary stores the SKO-12 before he checks on Persephone. The puppy’s eyes light up when she sees her new human. His heart swells at the sight of her. He reaches into the crate and scratches the little dog’s head. She licks at his hand and Gary allows himself to laugh for the first time in a month. Their bond is secure.
On the seat next to the crate is the mission briefing for his current job. Gary leans over and grabs it; he can’t have the police finding a contract sitting out in the open. The contents spill out onto the truck’s floorboards. “Are you fucking shitting me? Goddamnit!” Gary says as the picture of his mark stares back at him. He stands, motionless, gathering his thoughts until the puppy whines and paws at the crate. Gary picks up the papers and stuffs them back into the folder. “It’s okay, girl. It’s okay,” he says to the dog. No, it’s not, he tells himself, then closes the truck’s door.
The woman is walking to him. She’s now dressed and has the blanket wrapped around her. Gary stands in front of the truck, his arms crossed.
“I can’t tell you how much… oh God, this… all this. I don’t know. Who are you?” She shakes her head and starts crying.
“My friends call me Mac.”
“I’m… I’m Wendy.”
“Of course you are,” Gary replies. “What brought you to this shithole if you don’t mind me asking? I’m assuming it’s for the same reason I came, to get a dog?”
“Yes… I came here to get a dog to protect me from my husband.”
“Now why would you want to do that?” Gary asks.
“He’s been trying to kill me for over a year. Getting rid of me gives him the free time to fuck his whores without splitting the bill.”
“Do you have proof?”
She nods.
“Okay, then if you do, why don’t you go to the authorities?”
“It isn’t that easy, sir. He owns the police down here. Corruption is rampant in Cortland County. You ain’t in Syracuse anymore, honey.”
“Thank God I’m not, I’m from Georgetown, so go Hoyas, hah?” They laugh in unison. “It’s good to know that after this with witnesses, you have an easy and convenient way to talk to them now, don’t you?” She nods. “Hop in and we’ll get you to a hospital and call someone who can take care of this for you.” He opens the F-150’s passenger door wide, almost folding it backward on the hinges before walking to the driver’s side. He hops up into the cab and pulls the door shut.
“I can’t reach the door handle,” Wendy says, reaching out of the cab. Then she notices the folder on the dashboard. The picture of Gary’s mark has slid back out. She stops breathing for a moment before asking, “Why do you have a picture of me in your truck?”
“Yeah, I know,” Gary says. His right hand slips behind his back and withdraws the Desert Eagle 50AE holstered there. Startled, Wendy moves but it’s too late.
He doesn’t speak. Speaking is for movie villains and dead men. He is neither. He only squeezes the trigger.
The automatic handgun fires a .50 bullet at just over fifteen hundred feet per second. It strikes Wendy in the face and travels through her cranium before her ears register the roar of the weapon. The woman’s head splits in two, well, more like half of it is disintegrated by the impact. The other side still has a stupid fucking “what the fuck is going on” look on its eye and half a lip while cranial fluid and blood slip out the bone cavity. The whole scene resembles a raw oyster in a half-shell, covered with cocktail sauce. Wendy tumbles out of the open door.
Behind him, in her crate, Persephone softly whimpers. “It’s okay, girl, we’re done here.” Gary places the pistol on the seat, starts the truck’s engine. He jerks it into reverse, and physics closes the passenger door for him.
The soothing whine of the puppy behind him settles Gary’s anxiety ridden nerves. Within a few more moments, he forgets the night’s stress. In an hour he knows he’ll be in his hotel with Persephone, and tomorrow he’ll be getting home early from this job. He waits until he’s a few miles from the Bonney farm to make the call. The burner phone rings and the employer answers. Gary doesn’t wait for him to speak.
“It’s done.”
“Whattaya mean it’s done? I was just about to call you and tell you we lost contact again.”
“Cos I smashed her phone. The news will be all over this, and not on account of me, so you better cover your ass. We’ll stay on the line until the transfer comes through.”
“Whattaya mean the news will be all over this? Mac? What are you talking about?”
“The transfer, Dennis. Now.”
“All right already. But you gotta tell me what is going on.” The alert comes across Gary’s primary phone for a six-digit deposit in his Bank of the Bahamas account. Gary disconnects the call. He waits until Dennis calls back to smash the burner on the steering wheel, then throws the pieces out the window.
“I don’t have to tell you jack or shit, motherfucker,” the hitman announces as the window raises back up. Behind him, secure in her crate, Persephone sighs before letting out a little yip, as if to acknowledge her new master’s words. Gary reaches behind with his right arm, and scratches the puppy’s head. She licks his hand in response and something wet and cold grazes his wrist. Gary turns around and sees a boogery, gray lump on the pup’s snout. Realizing it’s some of the mark’s brains, he freezes in momentary disgust. Before he can act, the dog’s tongue snakes out and pulls the cranial matter into her mouth. The dog gobbles down the morsel with glee. Gary snorts a chuckle and feels his muscles relax as the stress of the day leaves his body. “That’s right, little girl,” Gary McCarthy says to Persephone. “Let’s go home.”