About the time Tanner Bolton was convulsing on his bedroom floor, Barry “Butch” Hanover was heading out the door of the Redeye Bar and Grill, his home away from home of late. He stumbled across the threshold, grinning stupidly, accompanied by the hollers of the coworkers he was leaving behind still snugged up to the bar.
“Go home and get some for me, Butch!”
“Shame you got that ball and chain around your neck!”
As the door closed behind him, Butch heard John Mueller order another round of shots for the bar. He stood there on the front stoop, his eyes glazed, his body wavering like a reed in the wind, and for one long, teetering moment, debated turning around and going back inside. Then, as if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers, he came to life, spit on the ground and stepped off the stoop to meander his way toward his pickup.
He was feeling pretty good some twenty minutes later when he pulled onto the rutted mud track that served as his driveway. A half-dozen or so shots of whisky with beer chasers always left him feeling pretty good. The pickup bounced along the road like a bingo ball and Butch remembered, as he did every night, that the truck needed a new set of shocks. Just another item on the list of “things needin’ doin’” as Eliza always called it. But there never seemed to be enough time or enough money to work on that shitty little list. There was always something more important, like unwinding down at the Redeye with the boys or shooting a few racks of pool. He knew Eliza would start harping about it the minute she had half a chance and prayed that she’d be in bed when he got home. Butch hated to waste a good high by having to try and act sober while she slammed into him for the hundredth time about his drinking.
The woman simply couldn’t understand that a man had certain needs. He worked his ass off in that goddamned packing plant – had been for five years now – and if he wanted a little peace and quiet and time to unwind with the boys before going home to a houseful of screaming brats, then by God he’d earned it! If that dumb bitch, Eliza, was too thick to understand that, then maybe he’d have to try again to knock some damned sense into her. After all, he was a man! Not some pussy-whipped young boy still wet behind the ears.
You’d think that after eight years of marriage, the woman would have him figured out, understand his needs. But, no! The dumb bitch just kept harping on him, night after night after night after night. Always the same old shit about his health suffering, and how the alcohol was killing him.
As he rolled up in front of the house, he belched loudly and grimaced – not from the belch, but because he could hear Eliza’s damn whining voice inside his head, lecturing at him the way she always did. Hell, she’d actually got him worried enough that he even went to see the Doc for a check-up a few months ago. Okay, so there were a few things wrong – some enzymes that shouldn’t have been up, were, or some horse shit like that. But the Doc had given him some vitamin injections and now he was feeling better than ever.
He climbed out of the truck, swaying slightly, and stood a moment staring at the house, trying to get his balance in check. Even at night, with the forgiveness of the dark hiding the run-down shit hole he called home, he was filled with disgust when he looked at the place. They’d been living here going on four years now and he laughed to himself as he remembered how excited he and Eliza had been when they first happened onto the dump. It was a “real house,” Eliza had squealed. Not some sleazy, flea-bitten apartment like they’d had before. What a joke! Hell, the place was nothing more than an oversized rat hole, stuck out in the middle of nowhere, planted square in the middle of bumfuck Egypt. The old geezer who owned the place had been happy as a pig in shit when he found someone stupid enough to rent the heap. The old fart got so excited he started wheezing like a leaky accordion, then coughing so hard his face turned blue. Butch thought the old man was gonna up and kick the bucket right there, keel over right in front of him and Eliza and the kids, just cause he finally found Mr. and Mrs. Gullible.
Butch spit on the ground. Yep, that was him. Mr. Gullible! Maybe he should write a book. Call it Gullible’s Travels.
He laughed at his own joke, pushed himself off the truck and weaved a path toward the front porch. The house leaned at an angle and Butch almost fell over when he tried to counterbalance himself as he climbed the steps. He crossed the porch, side-stepping the hole where the wood had rotted away (another item on the goddamned “things needin’ doin’” list) muttering to himself. He didn’t bother even trying his key; Eliza never locked the door. Who’d want to take anything they had, anyway? Any dumb-shit burglar desperate enough to want their junk was welcome to it.
The living room, like all the other rooms, was small and dark and smelled of mildew. Eliza had tried to brighten up the place a bit when they first moved in, hanging cheap drapes and buying some furniture she rummaged up at yard sales. But it had been a hopeless cause, like trying to dress up a toothless, sagging old woman in a cheap prom dress.
As Butch pushed the door closed behind him, he saw the thin line of white light that shone through the space under the bedroom door. He cursed under his breath, started to spit, then remembered he was in the house. Then he thought, what the hell, and hocked one out anyway.
He knew Eliza was up and waiting for him behind that door, and with the thought his head began to throb. He rubbed his temples and paced back and forth. Damn! The bitch was really starting to get on his nerves. He was in no mood for one of her screaming arguments. He’d worked hard to get his buzz on, to numb the realities of his pathetically dull life, and he’d be damned if he’d let the shrew ruin it for him. Not again. He hiked his pants up and took a deep breath. No, dammit! He wasn’t gonna take any shit off her tonight!
He threw open the bedroom door, making it bang against the wall and giving him the satisfaction of seeing Eliza jump. She was in bed, the covers up to her waist, her back against the headboard, one of them trashy romance novels from the library propped open on her knees. He grinned menacingly and she glared back at him, her mouth pulling into a fine line, her beady, dark eyes piercing him.
The longer Butch stared at Eliza, the more hideous she looked. Her expression of contempt and disgust was a challenge to him, an affront. How dare she look at him like he was something that just crawled out of the earth! Hell, she came from poor white trash with a waste of a father and a drunk of a mother. She oughta be grateful he’d saved her from that shit hole by getting her preggers when she was eighteen and marrying her sorry ass.
Eliza’s eyes bored into him.
Butch’s nerves started to jangle and he clenched his fists as he felt his buzz start to fade away beneath a building fire of red-hot anger.
“Have a good time?” Eliza sneered at him. “How much of this week’s grocery money is left? Any? Or did you suck it all down again with that bunch of idiots you call friends?”
Eliza’s shrill voice scraped along Butch’s spine, eliciting shudders of agony. Her flapping gums looked like an ever-widening hole that spewed forth the sewage she threw at him. Butch felt the fire inside him grow, the flames turning white-hot, licking at his brain. His nerves felt raw and exposed.
“You just never learn, do you?” Eliza taunted. She closed the book on her lap and slammed it down on the floor next to the bed. “You piss our money away like it was nothing! Look at this place!” She made a sweep with her arm. “It’s a goddamned pig sty! Is this want you want out of life? Is this as good as it gets for you? Huh, Barry?”
She glared at him, leaning forward in the bed, her sagging tits lying like half-empty sacks of flour beneath the faded, cheap cotton gowns she always wore to bed. Watching her, Butch found it hard to believe he had ever found the bitch attractive. Not that it mattered now. After the sixth kid in as many years, he had finally figured out that their screaming bunch of rug rats was gonna keep on growing if he didn’t stay away from her. Christ, she seemed to get pregnant if he so much as looked at her! Of course she blamed the fact that he hadn’t touched her in almost two years on his drinking, too. Everything was blamed on his drinking. The woman couldn’t understand that a man had certain needs, dammit!
“You’re a pig, Eliza,” he managed to mutter.
“I’m a pig? Me? You lazy, good-for-nothing jerk!” She hissed at him. “Look at yourself! Go ahead, take a good look in the mirror! You’re nothing but a worn out, drunken piece of shit! You’re not a man! You’re nothing but shit! You can’t even perform like a man. That thing dangling between your legs ain’t good for nothing but catching fish!” She leaned forward and grinned cruelly. “No, not even a fish would bite on that worm!” she sneered.
That did it. His buzz was totally gone, ruined again by the bitch. He drew his eyes down to a steely glint and spun on his heel from the room. He strode out to the pickup, his footing sure and steady now, sobered by anger. He yanked open the truck door, reached behind the seat, and pulled out his shotgun. Cracking the barrel open to be sure both barrels were loaded, he opened the glove box and shoved another half-dozen shells into his pocket. Then he went back inside.
He had the satisfaction of seeing Eliza’s foul mouth form a surprised “O” as he leveled the gun at her.
Then he had the even greater satisfaction of blowing her brains all over the headboard before she could utter one more word of trash.
He stood there a long time, staring at what was left of Eliza, feeling his anger grow rather than ebb.
Now look what the slut had made him do. She’d made him commit murder for Christ’s sake. He’d fry for sure. And it was all her goddamned fault.
He heard a noise behind him and turned to find his eight-year-old son, Jimmy, staring at him from the doorway, his eyes wide and accusing. Damn kids! Now he had witnesses.
His anger escalated another notch and without a moment’s thought, operating on nothing more than blind fury, he leveled the gun at his son and pulled the trigger.
The blast lifted the child off the floor and threw him into the hallway wall, leaving a grotesque red smear where he slid down into a heap.
The rational part of Butch’s mind was totally gone now, a passionate anger all he had left. Anger for what his life had become. Anger for what the bitch had made him do.
He jammed a hand into his pocket, reloaded the gun, and stormed into one of the other bedrooms. The other two boys were sitting in their beds, cowering and whimpering. Little faggots! Eliza had babied them too much. They’d never be real men.
One at a time, he aimed the gun and pulled the trigger.
He reloaded.
Next bedroom. The three girls. He repeated the process on the two older ones, then hesitated when he came to the baby, just one-and-a-half. She stared up at him, eyes wide, body trembling. At first he thought he would spare this one, but then her mouth opened and a keening wail erupted, the same ear-piercing, mind-shattering cry that had kept him awake on too many nights.
Butch shoved two more shells into place, aimed, and fired.
His fury was intolerable now, consuming his mind and soul. Fury at everyone and everything. He looked at the carnage around him, smelled the acrid scent of blood and death, and knew that life had dealt him one final blow. Like things weren’t hard enough for him in this world!
He punched his fist through the wall and yelled. “Son of a bitch!”
He reeled out of the room and stomped into the living room where he started to pace, feeling the adrenaline surge through his body, feeling the heat of his frustration course through his veins. He swung his fist at a lamp, sending it crashing over, the sound of breaking glass sounding an awful lot like Eliza’s shrill recriminations.
Suddenly, he stopped and his face split into a self-satisfied grin. Dropping into a chair, he placed the barrel of the shotgun in his mouth and reached for the trigger. His arms came up a few inches short, incensing him even more.
Even the fucking gun was out to ruin him. His inadequacies fueled the flames of his anger even higher, until his entire brain felt as if it had been consumed, taken over by some alien intelligence. Butch was no longer in control.
He stormed into the kitchen and yanked open a drawer, pulling it completely out, furious as the contents spilled across the floor. He kicked at the mess with his feet, screaming a string of profanity, a strand of spittle flying from his lips to hang off his chin. His foot sent spools of thread, a tube of glue, nails, washers, and every other fucking what-not that didn’t belong someplace else shooting out across the room.
“Goddamned fucking son-of-a-BITCH!”
He snatched up a spool of heavy-duty thread and unwound a length of it. He tied one end to the shotgun’s trigger, still rattling off a stream of profanity as his fingers fumbled the knot time and again. By the time he finally had it tied, there was foaming spittle running down his chin and his face had turned so red it looked like he might explode. He tied the other end of the thread around one of the kitchen table’s legs and then stepped back until the string was just shy of taut. Thrusting a leg out to the side, he snared one of the chairs with his foot and dragged it into place behind him. With a grin of grim satisfaction, he sat down and again placed the barrel in his mouth.
His feet pushed against the floor, sending the chair sliding backwards. The thread tightened on the trigger, pulling it back. And Barry “Butch” Hanover was furious no more.