9. Two Fish, One Hook
Two Fish, One Hook
Kenny wheezed through a caved-in mess of teeth and bone and Marlowe’s only relief came when his chest fell and didn’t rise again.
His head thunked off the porch onto the first step, thwacked onto the second. The sound dulled under the patterned sheet she had wrapped him in.
“I’m sorry,” Marlowe whispered again, and she meant it.
She grimaced and crouched, digging her heels into the soggy path and hauling him over her shoulders to stagger in the direction of her truck.
Her legs shook, but Kenny deserved better than being manhandled through the dirt. And she was running out of time.
Any minute Heather would come back to find Marlowe’s note scrawled on the back of the movie tickets meant for tonight.
“If you made it, come to the boat. I’m sorry.”
But Marlowe wasn’t sorry. She couldn’t be. Not for what she had planned for Heather.
A plan that, as she rattled through the dark woods toward Pike’s Lake, consisted only of baiting the creature with Kenny and hoping it would strike at the right time.
“Two fish, one hook,” Marlowe muttered to herself. “Hope you’re still hungry, Pike.”
Headlights blazed Marlowe’s path through the pines and branches scraped along the truck doors like overgrown teeth.
The same cold, dead calmness she’d felt in the boat with Pike crept icy-fingered along her spine and she knew no one could stop what came next, not even her.
Buzzing filled Marlowe’s head and she white-knuckled the steering wheel.
Forgiveness could never wash away the stain of Heather on Marlowe’s life. Forgiveness, the one conviction haunting Marlowe’s life, would finally drown along with Heather.
Marlowe had forgiven her parents for Camp Atonement and for going out drinking on July 4th when she still couldn’t stomach the stench of lake water, and she’d forgiven classmates and coworkers, and that one lady who had kissed her and very politely said she wasn’t into women.
She had tried to forgive Heather, but mercy always rotted.
Marlowe would leave Heather’s ghost in that shitty little cabin with the remnants of whatever faith she had believed in before the acts of man overshadowed the acts of God.
Everything would be over soon. And she would be damn happy.
Marlowe took a sharp left.
Pike’s Lake rippled in front of her, waterlilies crowding the air with a thick, heavy scent.
Smoke filled the truck cab as she lit one up and whipped the truck around, backing toward the lake’s edge.
Heather could arrive at any moment and she had to be ready.
This was what Marlowe wanted. This was what she had planned.
Cigarette clamped between her teeth, she swung up into the truck bed, throwing her keys onto the hump of the wheel well, and swept her flashlight across the mess. Scarlet painted the rusty metal. In the sunken space where Kenny’s jaw had been, blood puddled on the floral sheets.
Something splashed in the lake.
Marlowe whipped around, instinctively searching for Pike. The beam of her flashlight weakened, only reaching the edge of the water. She cursed and smacked it against her palm.
The beam blinked.
Off.
On.
Waterlilies rocked in the waves, petals shredded by a knife-edged fin slicing under the surface.
A smile touched Marlowe’s lips.
Her flashlight went dark, and she rattled it again, but not so much as a spark flared to life.
Fuck.
Even in the mess of her backseat, she was fresh out of spares. She tossed it to the side with a shaky, aggravated sound and hauled Kenny to the ground with a thump. She dragged him until her heels sank into the muck at the edge.
The lake was still as Marlowe unrolled the sheet and waited.
She expected to see Heather darting through the pines any minute, coming to save darling-dearest Kenneth from her heretical mistress.
But the forest was as quiet as the lake.
As silent as Pike.
Marlowe grimaced as she pushed the sheet into the shallows, rinsing off blood and brain-matter in hopes of luring it. Ripples washed the bait deeper into the lake and she waited, guarding the body and watching the tree line.
Seconds passed and thinned her nerves.
Minutes ate away at the rest of her patience.
Marlowe stood and flung the wet sheet over Kenny, dragging his body with her. “I thought you were so fucking hungry, huh?” She splashed into the lake, soaking the bottom of her shorts. “I came back again and you don’t fucking show? I killed a man for you.”
Anger rushed over her like the lake at her hips. “I killed a man for you.” Marlowe said again, and this time she made herself believe she had done it for Pike, not her own selfish aspirations. “I brought you a body, you let me go. That was the fucking deal.”
Slimy green stuck to her fingers and prickly pondweed scraped her wrist. Not a damn thing surfaced. Her sandals sank in mud, miring her in place.
Marlowe’s voice twisted into a snarl. “This is what you wanted, right? One body, sunny side up with a helping of fresh cunt?” The mark, the memory of Pike’s mouth and fingers, the phantom feeling of Heather’s hands still on her body suffocated her.
She wanted it to be over. She never wanted to leave.
Marlowe’s eyes strained in the dark and she spread her hands wide under the surface, searching.
A line of fire sliced behind her knees.
Marlowe shouted as she went down. Water flooded her mouth. Fins slashed at her thighs. She choked and fought to the surface, hacking up strings of algae, and lurched toward the bank, cursing at herself for ever thinking antagonizing it was a good idea.
Her legs buckled as she hit the shoreline and a wave surged behind her, dragging her back again. With it, knobby fingers wrapped around her shoulders, her throat, twisted in her hair. Marlowe hissed and bucked, caught solid footing and was suddenly laying ashore, snarling as Pike snarled back.