Chapter 6

Addison was the only one who had the stomach to pick the dead girl up. He knelt down beside her in the dirt and gently slid his arms under her broken body. Blood dripped down from her wounds as he lifted her up, cradling her against his muscular chest as he carried her to the bed of David's truck. Cal had stretched a battered, torn tarp out against the metal.

“Feels wrong to treat her like trash,” Addy said as he set her down in the center of the tarp.

“We'd never get the blood out of the interior of your Jeep.” David climbed the side of his truck and hopped into the bed. He grabbed one end of the tarp and flipped it into itself. “We can bleach the truck.”

“We should crush the truck.”

“Yeah. True.” David frowned and then nodded. “Good idea. Crush the truck.”

“You're going have your own truck crushed?” Cal asked with surprise in his eyes.

David shrugged at him. “Beauton Toyota didn't offer Pappy shit for the little truck when he went to trade it in last week. They didn't want it because of that big ass dent on the right side of the bed. He told me I could have it if I'd agree to stop staying at Dad's and move back in with y'all.”

“He's bribing you,” Cal commented.

“He didn't know he didn't have to,” David said mildly. “I was already planning on moving back in. The novelty of living with Dad wore off real quick.”

“Pappy didn't think you would make it a month,” Cal said.

“Which is exactly why tomorrow is day 32. I was planning on packing all my shit back up and coming home Sunday.”

“Why Sunday?”

“Because y'all would all be at church and I wouldn't have to listen to Pappy saying 'I told you so' as I toted all my crap back up all those damned stairs.”

David gestured for Addison to grab the other end of the tarp. Together, they rolled the dead girl into the blue plastic until she was completely concealed.

“That looks like a dead body,” Cal muttered.

“Not once I put her in the toolbox.” David opened the battered diamond plate toolbox on the Ford. He began handing items down to Cal. “Put all my shit in Addy's Jeep.”

It only took a few minutes to transfer David's collection of tools, spare parts and tow straps from the toolbox of his own truck into the back of Addy's.

“Ian is falling apart,” Cal said as he walked back to David's truck with his arms empty.

“He's in Addy's Jeep, ain't he?”

“He's curled up in ball in my backseat. He's crying again.” Addison jumped up into the bed of the truck beside David. “Do you really think its a good idea for us to bury this girl?”

“No. I think its a wretched idea.” David put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “But she's already dead and there ain't nothing in this world that I can do to save her. I can save Ian.”

“Unless he falls apart.”

“He'll pull it together.” David sounded more confident than he felt as he grabbed one end of the tarp. “Help me lift her in.”

Addison picked up the side of the tarp where the girl's feet were. He made a counting gesture with the fingers on his right hand. When he reached three, they lifted the dead girl up and into the toolbox of the truck. Her body crumpled neatly into the full-size metal container.

“She's tiny,” Addison muttered. “We'd have never got Gracie into the toolbox.”

“Gracie's not a small girl.” Cal looked nauseous again. “Y'all stop. I can't do this if y'all make me think of Gracie when I look at-.” He pointed down at the toolbox. “I know this girl has got to be around the same age as Gracie. She probably goes to the middle school. If Gracie were here, she'd probably know her name. I'm thanking God that Gracie isn't here right now because I couldn't do this if I were looking into Gracie's eyes and thinking that someone is probably waiting on this girl to come home. I can't do this if I have to look at this girl and wonder if her boyfriend, her brother or her parents are going to be waiting on her.”

Cal turned away from them, blinking back unshed tears.

“Maybe we just shouldn't talk,” Addison suggested. He slammed the lid of David's toolbox down harder than necessary. His normally healthily tanned skin had a distinctive gray tone that couldn't entirely be accounted for by the cold, cloudy day.

“Good idea,” David agreed. He and Addison climbed down from the bed of the truck together. Addison's gaze traveled from the toolbox of the Ford to the crumpled Dodge, still laying on its roof in the trail.

“We have a game plan?” He asked.

“Tentatively,” David admitted. He bit the inside of his cheek. “We can get back to my place through the trails. Never have to touch pavement. I'm pretty sure Dad has the wrecker at the house. It was there this morning when I left for school. He's too lazy to get off his ass and go down to the shop, so I'm praying it'll still be there.”

“Use the wrecker to bring Ian's truck back to the house,” Addison filled in the blanks.

“Exactly.” David nodded.

“What are we going to do about the blood?” Cal asked.

“What blood?”

“The blood on the trail.” Cal gestured to the area next to the rolled truck. The place in the dirt where the girl had been crushed. “We can't leave all this blood on the trail. What if someone comes through here and sees the blood and the truck while we're gone?”

David paused mid-step. “I hadn't thought about that,” he admitted.

The three of them stood in silence and stared at the bloody mess.

“I don't know,” David admitted.

“Ian and I are going to have to stay here while y'all go for the wrecker,” Addison said.

“I don't like that idea.” David shook his head.

“Its not a matter of you thinking its a good idea or not,” Addy replied. “Ian and I can stay here with the Dodge. If someone comes along, we'll tell them that Ian wrecked his truck and you're on your way back with the wrecker to pick up the truck. Its the only story that will make sense. I just hope we get lucky and I don't have to try to tell it.”

“What about the blood?”

“I'll get rid of the blood,” Addy promised.

“How?” Cal asked, sounded reluctantly curious.

“Just trust me.”

“Don't you think I always do?” Cal thumped the bed of the truck. “Let's get this waking nightmare rolling.”