SEEING THE BULLET FROM HIS Glock hit its intended target feels satisfying in a way Jeremy can’t describe. He could have hit Katie and Emily, too, with ease, but he isn’t finished playing yet. It’s a meal too delectable not to draw out, bite by bite.
He watches Katie and Emily running aimlessly through the verdant grounds. Jeremy keeps them in his sight and allows them to feel like they have created a safe distance between themselves and him. Katie is frantically wiping Matt’s brain matter off her face and stumbles, falling behind. She is foolish, and Matt was practically a Neanderthal, but at least Emily is a fighter. She brings the challenge. He notices one of the flashlights flicker, dim, and go dark, as it bounces through the thick overgrowth.
Down to one light.
He smiles and picks up his pace a bit as “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult begins to play, moving with the music. He is the Reaper tonight.
Katie is sobbing loudly across the tree line, and her voice reaches a pitch not unlike that of a rabbit suddenly confronting a bloodthirsty predator. Jeremy glances at his watch and allows a grin to slowly form across his face. It has been a few hours since he dropped his guests out here, and as he watches Katie takes a clumsy step, with her right leg lifted higher than a natural stride requires. The drugs are taking effect. He is starting to feel giddy at the realization that his experiment is working.
After reading about the Jamaican ginger poisonings during Prohibition, he felt inspired. In the Deep South during the early 1930s, some brilliant minds conjured a form of Jamaican ginger, or “jake” as it was better known, that was able to pass through the US Justice Department’s rigid regulations. With the help of an unwitting MIT professor, they created a formula that used tricresyl phosphate because it was able to pass the tests without ruining the taste. This revolutionary bootlegger recipe ultimately resulted in a plethora of patrons walking with their legs stretched high and their toes unable to extend upward. The paralyzing epidemic that became known, somewhat dubiously, as “jake leg,” and allowed researchers to determine too late that tricresyl phosphate is actually a dangerous neurotoxin that causes nerve cell death and damage to the myelin sheaths that aid in vital muscle movements. When ingested in substantial amounts, the chemical will cause gastrointestinal distress and partial paralysis in the limbs. And after daily injections of the chemical through her IV lines, Katie seems to be presenting with a rousing case of jake leg right on time.
Katie begins screaming to Emily that her leg is going numb, and Jeremy can see Emily desperately trying to convince her to push forward. He smiles as Katie withers down into a ball, pressing her knees into the swampy earth. He begins closing the gap between himself and them. He can see Emily weighing her options as she fearfully scans the tree line in front of them with their remaining light. Katie is sobbing and gagging, and Emily tries to hoist her to her feet with an arm around her waist.
Emily is ready to abandon her. Jeremy can feel it. Self-preservation will win. He pumps the shotgun once and places the scope to his eye. Emily and Katie hear the sound, and Emily tries again to pull Katie along. Jeremy squeezes the trigger and hits his target with ease. Katie lets out an agonized screech as the bullet rips through her right kneecap, leaving a mangled mess of flesh and muscle flayed in each direction on her leg. She crumbles beneath the weight of her upper body and hits the moist ground with a slapping sound.
Emily’s choice is clear. She flees.
Jeremy slings the shotgun over his back and slides the bowie knife from its sheath as he swiftly walks toward Katie’s pathetic sobs. Like an apparition, he appears in front of her, and her eyes are wild with fear. He grins and squats beside her, pushing a piece of matted hair behind her ear.
“Shhh,” he whispers with a smile.
He grabs a handful of her hair, tilts her head back, and slowly drags the blade across her throat. He holds her there for a moment, allowing her to sputter and struggle until her body goes limp. Jeremy closes his eyes and listens to the music, both the organic symphony of the bayou and the canned music slithering through the speakers. He lets Katie’s head drop into the mud and cracks his neck.
Now, where did Emily run off to?