Stalking through the warm nightwoods the campfire came into view like another kind of sun. They’d pitched their tent in a small opening of elm trees the color of bone. The fire was built against the opening of a limestone combe and the smoke blackened the rock. Rigby had expected a scene of repose; what he saw instead drove him headlong to hunker in the scrub and clasp his hand over his mouth. On a blanket near the fire the girl rode atop the boy with naked hips. She was bronzed in the firelight and her small gilded breasts hardly moved. The echoing sounds Rigby heard were a kind of litany. He watched her clever hips and felt a rousing. The boy held tightly onto the girl’s thighs and with their eyes closed both were lost to the world.
Rigby laid his shotgun by and unfastened his trousers. He watched from that elevated vantage like God down upon Eden. She said the name Billy. She said it again, and in a whisper Rigby said, Now say mine. He knelt there watching them until it was over.
She’d hung her clothes on a tree limb and for the next hour went about her jobs just as God had made her. Cooking supper and cleaning the dishes. Her nipples gold with firelight, a little hair between her legs. She tempted the boy with a swim and dove hands first into the slough. The moon broke all over the surface like pouring embers, and Rigby watched the sparkle of all that dim light on the water. She came rearing from the surface, her hair slick and the stars panned over her skin. She swam about for a while, calling Billy’s name.
Rigby lay out till the fire was nearly gone, a dull pulse of ember. Confident now of the snores he heard, he gathered up the gun and crawled to the edge of the camp. He tiptoed over the sand. Next to the Styrofoam cooler he crouched with the gun cradled in his lap and stared a long time at the zippered flap of the tent. Cicadas started up in the trees like small sirens. A mosquito gnashed in his ear. He stood and found the girl’s bikini limp on a tree branch and sniffed it. Stuffed that into his trousers. He turned and eyed the tent again. What little light offered by the glowing embers painted the tent with his shadow and that shadow grew as he came up on it.
He knelt at the flap and with the barrel of the shotgun pulled the thin nylon back. His heart trembled and quaked, his hands like they’d taken a chill, as the shapes of their bodies accrued out of the darkness. He looked at the boy first, his back to him. Then he looked at the girl. Only a sheet covered her and he allowed his eyes to linger on the warm curve of her hip. Figured there must be more. So he reached to part the sheet from her breast thinking he might steal a glimpse. But at the first slip of the sheet the girl’s eyes snapped open and seeing this impish troll above her she screamed horribly. The sudden start threw Rigby backpedaling into the dirt where he lost his hold on the shotgun. Left him sprawled on his back on the ground. Heard the booming of the boy’s voice, the girl wailing. He scrambled, raking the dirt and twigs where the gun had fled. His scraping nails had just reached the wooden stock when a hand clamped around his ankle.
You son of a bitch, Rigby heard the boy say.
All too quick Rigby rolled and levered back the hammer and shot the boy through the chest. The shot pitched him back like he was a carnival target jerked on its string. The tent crumpled under the weight of him as he fell and he lay there bleeding out as the girl kicked and reeled from within. The report of the gunblast was incredibly loud against the limestone wall, and the ringing in Rigby’s ears drowned out the girl’s screams.
Rigby had gotten himself to his feet and stood shivering over the dying boy. The ragged opening was black and slick as oil. The boy sucked down air only for it to escape gurgling through his chest. There were words writ in those troubled young eyes but he spoke none of them and then he died. Rigby levered back the second hammer and leveled the barrel at the writhing girl within the tent. He could make out the shape of her head and he took aim. His finger pressured the trigger. But just as he was about to pull it he let the gun slip from his shoulder and trained the barrel toward the sky and fired at the stars. She gave out another burst of horror as Rigby raced into the woods.