Whatever It Takes

Byron Barton

For the fifteenth time in the last hour, Lisa checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. She chided herself for fawning over superficial appearances like a sixteen-year-old on prom night. She’d left behind such behavior in her twenties, well over a decade past.

The makeup looked good, just like it did five minutes ago. Dark eyeliner around blue eyes, Cleopatra-esque wings extending half an inch past the ends in an upward flip. Artfully applied concealer lessened the crow’s feet creeping like a cancer across her temples with every passing year. A smear of bright red lipstick announced she was still in the game, not yet brought low by the burden of age, years piling on like the encumbrance of a blood-sucking lamprey.

At least she was parked this time. On the drive over, focusing too much on her makeup, she’d nearly run down a pedestrian carelessly crossing the street, texting on his phone instead of watching where he was walking. At a half hour to midnight on New Year’s Eve, he was probably drunk.

A hundred meters in the distance, across a dark field of long grass, brown from winter and matted by the trampling of feet and cars, illuminated by a crescent moon and stars, lights from the party were visible. At this distance, she could barely hear the sound of music spilling over the wooden fence surrounding the front yard. Lisa loved that about rural parties. With the closest neighbor half a mile away, they could blast the music and not have to worry about noise complaints. Her friends were in there, some she’d known for three decades.

Lisa turned off the car. As her eyes adjusted to the night, she took one last look in the rearview mirror and saw a pair of eyes, set in a shadowed face, staring back at her. With a startled sucking of breath, her heart hammering, she turned around to face whatever was in her backseat. Nothing. She risked another look in the rearview, afraid of what she might see. Nothing.

Lisa tried to laugh, blaming her imagination. She should really lay off the booze. Too much to drink. That was the problem, Lisa told herself. She was too old to be pre-partying, even on New Year’s Eve. Nonetheless, the open field suddenly looked more ominous, the shadows between parked cars darker and more foreboding. For the first time, she noticed how far away she really was from the party, parked where the grass met dark woods.

Perhaps she should just start the car back up and park closer, Lisa thought, but then she would be blocking somebody in. No, Lisa told herself, she was being silly.

Taking a breath to bolster her nerves, Lisa readied herself for the party, trying not to look off into the woods through her passenger side window. Trunks and branches of denuded trees, waving in the wind, reached out like a skeletal army of long dead lovers engaged in an orgy from beyond the grave.

Lisa opened her door and stepped out into the night. Cold air cut through her thin jacket and even thinner party dress. The sooner she was inside and drinking, the better. She took a couple of rapid steps, but her heals became tangled in the long grass and irregular bumps in the frozen ground. Cursing, trying not to lose her balance, she slowed.

Was that a noise? Lisa jerked erect, head slightly tilted, listening. Shivering from the sharp cold, she looked back into the dark woods. Just some branches rubbing together, she thought uneasily. She turned back toward the distant party and felt something thick and muscular slither around her neck. She tried to scream, but suddenly lacked the ability to move air past her throat. She struggled, trying to slip her fingers between the cord of muscle and her neck. When this proved futile, she settled on clawing it with her long nails, the bright red paint a hue of dark grey under the moon’s scarce light, but this did nothing to ease the intense pressure around her throat. Nightmares of an assault from twenty years ago, and the helplessness she’d felt in that long ago time, came flooding back as blackness descended.

“Damn, this party’s hoppin’. There must be fifty cars here,” David said as he exited the wooded lane and drove out into the parking area, the headlights of his car sweeping across trampled grass and parked cars.

“Hurry, it’s only ten minutes to midnight. Park up there, close to the gate,” his girlfriend Jenny said. They were both in their early twenties, invited to what was supposed to be the biggest New Year’s Eve bash in central Kentucky by one of their older work colleagues.

“There’s no room. I’d block somebody in. We’ll have to park by the woods and walk.”

“Fine, just hurry. I don’t want to miss the ball drop.”

David turned off the lane and drove across the grass, down the line of parked cars, looking for an open space. There was almost enough room to start a second row behind the ragged first, but judging by how people seemed to have pulled in without any thought to a parking plan, parking close was asking to get his car dinged by some half-drunk guy.

“If people would have parked in a straight line, we’d have plenty of room for a second row. Or maybe even a third,” David said. He hated it when people were less than fastidious.

“There’s no space,” Jenny said accusatorily, as if David were personally responsible for the haphazard parking. David rolled his eyes.

“If you hadn’t insisted on stopping at Lynn’s we would’ve been here two hours ago,” David said, referring to one of Jenny’s high school friends, whose parties were always as lively as an oncologist’s waiting room and attended by half a handful of rejects who had nowhere else to go.

David flinched as his car, a brand new Ford Taurus, bottomed out in a rut. He slowed.

“Damn. There’s nothing,” David said as they reached the end of the field. A car was parked right up against the woods.

“It’s kind of spooky down here,” Jenny said, as if this too were David’s fault.

Rather than back out, David started a three-point turnaround. His headlights swept across deep woods. Most of the light was dissipated through overgrowth and brambles along its border, but what penetrated revealed a scape wrought sterile and unwelcoming by winter’s hand.

“Stop!” Jenny shouted. David slammed on the brakes.

“What is it?”

“I think I saw someone lying against that car.” Jenny was pointing to an older red Impala parked in the last spot right up next to the woods.

“Probably nothing.”

“No, I know I saw someone.”

David sighed. “Probably someone who drank too much, if anything.”

“We need to help him. He’ll freeze to death out there.”

“Fine.” David put the Taurus in park and opened his door. He heard Jenny scream a second before things went black.

* * *

Three hours earlier.

“This party’s rockin’ and it’s not even nine,” Joe Sanders said to Mike Healey. The two were in the kitchen, shotgunning beer over a beige ceramic sink. A dozen handles of booze were spread across an off-white Formica counter, along with plastic cups and mixers. The fridge was stocked with beer, and Prince’s “Tonight We’re Gonna Party Like It’s Nineteen Ninety Nine” was blasting in the living room. People were spread throughout the one-story ranch in two’s and three’s, drinking and talking. A few were drunk enough they’d started dancing.

Mike cut a one-centimeter triangle out of the bottom of a can of beer with the tip of a sturdy butcher knife, held it above his mouth while tilting back his head, and popped the top. Cold beer poured down his throat, the can emptying in less than ten seconds. Mike threw the spent container in the sink with a flip of his wrist. “Yeah!” he shouted, as Joe cut his own triangle in a fresh can.

“I bet there’s close to a hundred people here,” Joe said, after shotgunning his beer.

“Maybe.”

“I bet we get one fifty by midnight,” Joe said, offhand.

“Nah, probably more like one twenty-five. Way out here in the boonies, people can’t just drop by. Most people who are coming are here by now.”

“I bet. One fifty.”

“One fifty is the over under?

“One fifty or more, I win. One forty nine or less, you win.”

“Sounds good. How much?”

“A hundred bucks.”

“Done.”

Mike stuck out his hand and Joe shook it. A done deal.

“Let’s do a count,” Joe said. Mike and Joe made the rounds, finally agreeing the tally was a hundred seven people. It was now a simple matter of keeping an eye on the front door, to see how many people came and went.

Mike was proud of his bet. It would be the easiest hundred bucks he’d made in a while.

As the night progressed, car after car rolled down the wooded lane and one person after another flooded through the front door. Mike’s elation at easy money and bragging rights was slowly replaced by a nagging discomfit, and finally, around eleven o’clock, downright worry.

“That’s one forty-four and forty-five,” Joe said as a buxom woman with long brown hair and her dorky looking date walked in the door right at eleven thirty. “Five more to go.” Joe rubbed his hands together eagerly, like a cartoon villain watching an evil plan come together.

Mike felt sick, like that time during his tenth birthday party. He was sitting there in a goofy hat, waiting to cut the cake, when his father told him his mother had been killed in a car wreck en route to the party. Mike felt the loss of a wager as keenly as he felt death. God, he hated to lose. Really, really hated to lose. He reached down and plunged his hand into the icy water of a Styrofoam cooler he and Joe had placed by the door. The cold felt good, numbing his hand as he rooted around for a beer, at last pulling a silver can free, icy droplets running down the side.

Ten minutes passed without the sight of headlights in the lane. Mike began to breathe easier. Maybe he would make it, after all. He grabbed another beer and popped the tab, drinking it down in three long slugs. Drops of cold water dribbled down his chin.

“Headlights! Headlights!” Joe shouted, pointing down the lane as if he were a castaway seeing a sail on the horizon. Mike held his breath. Hopefully it was only a single latecomer.

Mike and Joe watched as the car parked, its headlights bouncing up and down as it drove across the field. The pair stepped out onto the front porch—Joe in eager anticipation, Mike in nervous anticipation. Voices drifted across the field, barely audible over the music from inside. There were at least two.

“Come on, baby! Let there be five!” Joe shouted, a beer in hand, eagerly waiting for the group to come into sight.

Thirty seconds later a trio of half-drunk pudgy men in their mid-thirties, wearing blue jeans and flannel shirts, came through the gate. They were accompanied by a heavy-set woman with blondish hair. Fried ends and brown eyebrows betrayed her true hair color. A wedding ring and sour expression said she was married to one of the three.

One of the men hungrily eyed the Styrofoam cooler on their way through the door.

“You’ve had enough,” the woman said sharply, seeing the man’s gaze. This, then, was her husband.

“Poor bastard,” Mike whispered.

“One more!” Joe said.

Mike tried to stay calm, but felt a panic rising. The next car down the lane would have the final person required for Joe’s victory. Why? He asked himself. Why did he have to make that stupid bet? Losing was about the worst feeling on earth. He would rather cut off a toe than lose. Literally. If pulling out a knife and lopping off a toe would somehow reverse defeat, he’d do it. The difference between winners and losers was that winners did whatever it took to win. Whatever it takes. Winners do whatever it takes to win. Mike suddenly had an idea.

“I’m hitting the pisser,” Mike said, turning around and going inside.

“Hurry up. You don’t want to miss the last guy walking through the door,” Joe said, goading.

Mike went inside, through the kitchen and into the living room. Behind grey curtains with white accents, a set of sliding glass doors led to a concrete slab that served as the back porch during summer months. Mike took a quick look around, but everyone was too busy drinking and talking to pay him any mind. He slipped behind the curtains, slid open the door, and stepped outside. Mike crept out the back gate and followed the fence around to the edge of the woods. If he lost the bet, no one was going to say it was because he failed to go the extra mile.

In the woods, Mike found a spot to hunker down. It was ghostly quiet and dark, lit only by the reflection of moonlight off branches and brush. After a minute, he lamented not bringing a couple of beers along for the wait. After two minutes, he began to feel the cold, and wished he’d thought to grab his coat. He tried to focus on the prize. He fortified himself by imagining the look on Joe’s face at midnight, and the thought of a crisp Benjamin. There were only fifteen minutes to go. Maybe he would get lucky and no one else would show. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, headlights flashed through trees, coming from the lane.

Joe must be ecstatic, Mike thought, but the rules said a hundred fifty people had to be at the party. Still, in the parking area wasn’t at the party. Rules were rules. Mike smiled. He would win this thing yet and snatch victory from Joe’s stubby, grubby hands.

As the car drove into the field, it paused. Mike imagined the driver looking left and right, across the parked cars, assessing the area for a parking space. The car slowly turned right and bounced along the frozen, uneven ground. It drove along the line of erratically parked cars, heading right for Mike’s position, crouched down in the darkened woods. He said a silent prayer that a flash of skin or clothes wouldn’t be revealed in the headlights.

The car carefully inched into the last place in line, right up next to the dense brambles marking the wood’s edge. Mike recognized the driver. It was Lisa. She was a friend of Joe’s from way back, and Mike had known her for a decade. He’d always liked Lisa, and regretted what he would have to do to her, but the balance of victory and defeat was at stake.

“Whatever it takes,” Mike whispered to himself.

Lisa pulled out and readjusted her car. Branches rubbed up against the passenger side fender and windows, sounding like fingernails across a chalkboard and probably scratching the paint. Lisa shifted into park and turned on the overhead headlight, looking into the rearview mirror and checking her makeup. She was decent looking, Mike thought, but getting a little long in the tooth. It was sad, really, a woman her age trying so hard to attract a man, while the younger women drew them in with so little effort.

As smooth and quiet as mist, Mike rose from his hiding place and worked his way around the rear of the car, crouching down to avoid being seen. He eased his head up above the trunk for a second to get a look. His eyes met Lisa’s in the rearview mirror. Like a prairie dog seeing a wolf, Mike ducked his head back down, cursing. Of course she saw him. She probably didn’t recognize him, but she was alert to his presence. Now his task became that much more difficult.

After a tense moment, the car door opened. Lisa stepped out, looking around, her face alert and concerned, if not scared. She set her eyes on the party and, fixated, began walking in a rapid gait. Luckily, her stilettos frustrated her progress across the uneven ground. Mike slipped up behind her and wrapped an arm around her neck. His goal was merely to knock her out. In another ten or fifteen minutes, she could party to her heart’s content.

Lisa struggled, but Mike kept up the pressure on her carotid, trying to choke her out. Although he’d never done it himself, he’d seen the move a hundred times on YouTube. For some reason, they never seemed to struggle this much. Finally, Lisa went limp. Mike lowered her to the ground and rubbed his jaw. It hurt from gritting his teeth. He looked down at Lisa. She didn’t look so good. Was she dead? Mike couldn’t tell. If she died, there would be problems.

Gripping Lisa just above the ankles, Mike dragged her to the other side of the car, out of sight. He checked his watch. Ten minutes. Hopefully Lisa would be the last to arrive until after midnight.

Once again, no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Mike detected headlights filtering through the trees. A car was coming down the lane.

Mike got down in front of Lisa’s car, hugging the grass, watching the latest car’s progress from behind the front passenger tire. Where was this car going to park? Lisa had taken the last spot. Anywhere else would risk blocking someone in. Perhaps they would have to go back and park along the lane.

The car followed Lisa’s path, pausing at the head of the lane, turning right and making its way slowly across the field. It would have to turn around. Mike looked over at Lisa’s body slumped against the passenger side, her head lolling to one side. There was a chance the driver might see her as he turned around. Mike cursed. He should have taken the time to put her in the woods, but how was he to know another car would follow so soon?

As he feared, the car came to an abrupt stop halfway through a three-point turnaround. By the way the car rocked on its suspension as the brakes engaged, Mike knew the driver had seen Lisa. Mike felt around him, and found a wrist-thick branch lying in the grass. He pulled the wood closer. It was about three feet long, its smooth bark still intact. It would have to do.

The driver’s side door opened. Mike rose, and as stealthily as possible worked his way around behind the car. Hopefully the occupants would have some night blindness from the headlights, or at a minimum be fixated on Lisa’s prone body.

A fit looking man in his late twenties, dressed in khaki pants and a modish, lightweight wool jacket, stepped out of the driver’s side. Mike closed the last ten feet in a flash. He saw a shadow in the passenger seat. A bloodcurdling scream cut the air. Before the man had a chance to turn around or otherwise respond, Mike hit him over the head with the branch. Vibrations from the impact traveled up the wood into Mike’s arm. The man crumpled to the ground, an arm flopping into the V where the door met the car.

Mike saw a woman reaching across from the passenger’s side, trying to shut the driver’s side door. She managed to get a hold on the handle and slam it, but it hit the man’s arm with a meaty thud and popped back open as if spring loaded.

Mike paused. If he stayed by the driver’s side, she might try to make a run for it out the passenger’s side. If he went around to the passenger’s side, she might make a run for it out the driver’s side. He sighed. This was getting out of control, but he was in too deep to turn around. Whatever it takes, he reminded himself. He could be inside drinking beer right now. Mike shook off his feelings of doubt. Whatever it takes. In ten minutes he would be the victor, collecting his money and downing a celebratory brew.

“Hey,” Mike said, trying to get the woman’s attention while keeping his face above the doorsill where she couldn’t get a good look at him. He blocked the open driver’s side doorway with his body. The woman scuttled back across the front seat and huddled against the passenger’s side door, as if Mike were a leper and she lived in an age before antibiotics. Mike checked his watch. Five minutes. He realized he didn’t need to subdue her, he just needed her to stay in place until midnight.

“Hey,” he said a little louder. “I’m going to let you lock the doors. I’ll be in the woods. If you step out, I’ll kill you.” Mike had no intention of killing anyone, of course, but she didn’t know that. “Wait until five minutes after midnight, and you can come inside.”

The woman whimpered something unintelligible. Mike took that as a yes and ran into the woods the way he’d come, being careful not to turn his face toward the car. He retraced his steps through the backyard, opened the sliding glass door, and slipped inside. No one was paying any attention as he stepped out from behind the curtain and made his way through the revelers to the front porch, where Joe was maintaining his vigil.

“Took you long enough,” Joe said as Mike pulled a fresh beer from the cooler and popped the tab.

“There was a line at the pisser.” Mike took a big gulp of the beer. He’d earned this one. A roar of “Happy New Year” passed through the party. After lowering the can and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Mike said, his voice dripping with satisfaction, like thick cream from a cat’s muzzle, “It’s after midnight. Looks like you lose.”

“A couple of cars rolled in,” Joe said lamely.

“Did anyone come through the gate?”

“No.”

“Then it doesn’t matter. The bet was for people at the party. They’re probably out there necking, or maybe it was lost strangers.”

“I guess you’re right,” Joe said begrudgingly, digging out his wallet and forking over five twenties. “Damn. You always win.”

“Of course I do,” Mike said. He pocketed the money and reached for another beer. “Happy New Year.”