Chapter Eight

The business of tying Dunwoody up had made Chuck nauseous. What with all the struggling and crying and screaming, which brought swift kicks and punches from Dredd and Mick, it was all getting to be too much. Each time Chuck was about to intervene and call for cooler heads, Marnie, who must have been able to sense his distress, would do something as simple as touch him, forcing him to look at her, and he would sigh and shut his mouth.

The question of whether Dunwoody would tell the cops if and when they released him sent icy bolts of panic down his spine. Chuck’s entire life was now going to be decided by this moment, a moment that had spiraled out of his control by their collective emotions over what had been done to Marnie. He finally understood the true nature of a crime of passion, and while he couldn’t use it to excuse some of the more heinous atrocities committed in the name of love or betrayal or hate, he did feel a measure of sympathy for those who had simply been caught in the throes of letting their hearts overtake their brains.

Dunwoody had been gagged and tossed in the back of Dredd’s Ford pickup, which he kept under a green-and-brown-painted tarp behind the cabin. He’d been tied up good, so there was no worry about him leaping out of the back and running for help. It was small comfort.

Dredd, who had to be in his mid-twenties, but at some angles looked to be far older, had given them each a cold can of Piels. Some of the suds remained in his wild mustache. They sat on stumps of wood he’d cut from a fallen tree. Mick had been growing more and more restless, his hands and legs fidgeting. Chuck felt like he could sleep for days, while Marnie probably needed a hospital bed. She sipped at her beer, each swallow looking as if it hurt going down.

“So, how long do we have to wait?” Mick asked, crumpling his can.

Dredd checked the sky, which was barely visible through the trees. The small patch of sunlight was starting to turn a darker shade of blue. “Give it another thirty minutes or so. If it’s still light, they’ll stay away.”

“Why?”

Dredd scratched the back of his neck, snorted and spit out a wad of phlegm. “Because they live in the shadows. They know it’s what keeps them alive.”

Snickering, Mick said, “They tell you that?”

Dredd shot him a withering glance. “I don’t need to talk to them to understand. And vice versa.”

Silence settled over them. Mick turned away like a scolded child. Chuck had never seen his friend defer to an adult like this before, not even to his own mother. That meant he either looked up to Dredd, which seemed a stretch, or, more likely, he was scared of him. The alarm bells in Chuck’s head had been ringing like it was New Year’s ever since Dredd came out of the cabin wielding his shotgun. And what kind of a name was Dredd? The kind of nickname a person earns when they instill actual dread in people.

Taking his chances, Chuck broke the uneasy hush with, “I’m still finding it hard to believe that the Melon Heads exist. No offense, Dredd. We’re just going to dump Dunwoody in the woods, right? And when he gets out, then what?”

Instead of getting the ire he expected from Dredd, the older man nodded, looking at the ground between his own feet but seeing something far, far away. “I hear you, man. I hear you. I was the same way, or at least I’d talked myself into thinking they didn’t exist when I was a kid. I could have stayed that way for the rest of my life if it wasn’t for that Christmas morning.”

He paused, finished his beer, and tossed it into the trees.

“What happened on Christmas?” Marnie asked, her voice weak and broken and a tinge scared.

Dredd took a deep breath and said, “That’s when I lost my brother. I had just gotten this new bike, a sweet three-speed that all us kids wanted at the time. I was being a pain in the ass because I wanted to ride it and my older brother, Dylan, he convinced my parents to let me go with him for a quick spin. I was shocked because he was a lot older than me and never wanted me around.”

A bird flapped its wings above them. Pine needles rained down on Mick, who flicked them away.

“He insisted we ride down Dracula Drive. Said him and his friends hung out here all the time. I thought he was trying to make it so I wasn’t scared of the Melon Heads anymore. So I followed him. But I was wrong. He’d set me up. He wanted to leave me out here for them. I found out later he’d gotten this girl pregnant. He was in real trouble and didn’t know what to do. He said to me, ‘This is the only way.’ I didn’t know what the hell that meant. I was so damn scared. Dylan took off, leaving me there. And then they took him instead.”

He took a crumpled pack of Backwoods cigars from his pocket and shook out a slightly bent, narrow cigar. It had been intentionally made to look roughly hand-rolled and smelled sweet as candy for the first few puffs. Only after he’d smoked it down to the halfway point did he continue. Chuck heard Dunwoody’s muffled pleas in the distance, each mumble or shout putting him closer to thinking he’d just thrown his life away. There had to be a way to get out of this with minimal repercussions. Unfortunately, anything close to a solution was evading him.

“I learned later when I tracked down Dylan’s friends what my brother was talking about and why he did it. I’ve just never been certain why they turned on him. Maybe because I was faster. Maybe not. I expect I’ll never know.”

Mick batted a rock into the trees with a random stick he’d picked up. “Tell him why.” He pointed the stick at Chuck.

Dredd’s eyes slid over to Chuck, veiled behind a cloud of smoke. “If you take care of the Melon Heads, they’ll take care of you. Life isn’t easy out here, especially for them. Lean times happen more often than you think. Now don’t get me wrong, they don’t like people coming out here. I don’t know whether it’s fear or hate, probably both. But sometimes, they let someone in, and as long as that someone figures out the rules, well, they’ll do things for you.”

Chuck thought Dredd was full of shit, but he needed to play along, if only to allow him time to figure out a safer endgame. “What would they have done for your brother?”

He took a very long drag on the cigar. “I think he was going to have them kill that girl and the baby inside her. Problem was, her parents wouldn’t let her go near Dylan. So he had to get the Melon Heads to go to her. They don’t do that for nothing. Part of the rules.”

“Jesus,” Marnie whispered, wrapping her arms around herself as if she’d caught a sudden chill.

“You really think your brother would have done that?” Chuck asked.

“I once saw him push a shopping cart into I-95 during rush hour. He said it would be cool to watch a car crash. Luckily, the drivers were quick enough to swerve around it and not hit each other in the process. The cart rolled over three lanes and hit the guardrail on the opposite shoulder. He told me he would stomp my head in while I slept if I ever squealed to my parents. I didn’t think he would, but I was never a hundred percent sure. So yeah, I think he was capable of it. Just like I’m capable of helping you all out now because Mick is a friend and no woman deserves what happened to Margie. Plus, this is one of those lean times. The Melon Heads’ll appreciate the help.”

“Marnie,” Chuck said.

“Yeah, Marnie.”

Marnie didn’t bother looking up. She was either lost in pain or thoughts, with neither being a happy place.

Dredd ground the cigar out with his boot, slapped his knees and stood up. “Time’s about right. Let’s get this over with.”

* * *

They all piled into Dredd’s truck and headed for some serious off-roading. Dunwoody thumped his feet against the tailgate. Twice, Dredd stopped the truck to threaten him. “He better not dent my truck.” The truck was riddled with dents and dings and rust. His promises to beat Dunwoody senseless only quieted the captive man for a minute or so before he started up again. Marnie figured Dunwoody knew he was in for worse than a beating, so why not make a scene? It wasn’t as if anyone was going to hear him way out here. She remembered what Mick had said about even the bugs and animals being scared off by the Melon Heads. If Dredd stopped his truck and they sat still for a moment, would there be birdsong in the air? Or crickets chirping? Or even the crunch of deadfall from skittering chipmunks?

They wove around thick-trunked trees bathed in almost total darkness. The thick canopy above was like a dome, keeping the real world out.

And the Melon Heads in.

She curled into herself, the icy touch of a finger slowly running up and down her spine. This was a bad place. You didn’t need to know the legend of the Melon Heads to sense that something was very wrong here. If they thought she was going to get out of the truck, they were sadly mistaken.

With his head out of the window, Dredd said, “All that banging around is only sounding the dinner bell, moron. But hey, it’s your funeral.”

Mick had another beer in his lap, holding on to Dredd’s because the wheel kept jumping out of his hands when the truck dipped and swayed. Marnie felt Chuck’s body heat. At one point, when Dredd was outside yelling at Dunwoody, Chuck touched the back of her hand as if to say, We can just get out of here and run.

She understood he was scared. She was terrified.

But he hadn’t been raped. He hadn’t had his insides pounded and scrambled by a sloppy, violent drunk. He hadn’t had something vital carved out of him, a whittling of his personality and soul and maybe even his future. Maybe he could empathize – he was here, after all, part of their foolhardy, quite possibly dangerous plan – but he could never, would never, fully understand.

The truck’s headlights lit upon a wooden structure smack dab in the middle of a clearing that could be no more than fifteen feet around. The decaying trunks of fallen trees draped in thick carpets of moss lay at the circumference of the clearing, almost as if they had been put there intentionally as a kind of wraparound bench. In the center of the rough circle stood the gutted remains of a tree. It was no taller than Chuck. All of its bark had been stripped away. Thick, arthritic-looking branches were tied around the tattered trunk by frayed cord so it looked like it was thrusting out of a crude teepee. There was even a triangular entrance, the threshold jammed by a jumble of something that Marnie couldn’t make out.

Dredd hit the brakes and the truck rocked for a moment. “This is it.”

Mick, Chuck and Marnie stared at the wooden teepee. It was not a random creation of nature, that was for sure. This time, it was Marnie who took Chuck’s hand.

“What the hell is that?” Chuck said.

Even Dredd had taken on a kind of quiet reverence. “That’s where they come.”

A voice inside Marnie’s head began to scream. “I don’t want to do this anymore! Please get out of here! Please, dear god, take me home!”

Her burst of internal panic made her cringe. The act of cringing elicited a bolt of pain from her core that drowned out that frantic voice.

For a long moment, no one moved or spoke. Even Dunwoody had fallen silent. Looking out the back window, she saw him trying to lift his head up to see where they had stopped, but the ropes binding his legs and arms made it difficult. When his watery eyes lit upon the teepee, he sagged into the bed of the truck.

She listened hard. There was nothing out there. Even the wind refused to wend its way this deep into the forbidden woods.

“They’re watching us, aren’t they?” she whispered.

Dredd gnawed on the corner of his lower lip. His eyes roamed the surrounding trees. “They’ve been watching us since the moment we got in the truck.”

Mick leaned forward until his forehead touched the windshield. “I don’t see them.” Marnie could tell he was scared, but he was also curious.

“That’s a good thing,” Dredd said. He opened his door, hesitating before setting one foot out. He looked all around, took a deep breath, and swung completely out. Mick slid over to Dredd’s vacated seat.

“You’re not really going out there,” Chuck said.

“Like hell I’m not.”

Chuck tried to grab his shirt sleeve, but Mick was too quick.

“Just take it slow and stick close to me,” Dredd said to him. “They don’t know you. They don’t like strangers, especially out here.”

“I gotcha,” Mick said, standing just beside the open door, his eyes as wide as ping-pong balls.

“I’m serious. You do anything stupid and there’s nothing I can do to help you.” Dredd walked slowly to the back of the truck and opened the tailgate.

“You okay?” Chuck asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” Marnie said.

They both knew it was too late to turn back. Part of Marnie wanted this to all be a big joke, like Dredd’s pretending he didn’t know Mick and threatening to kill them. But the ghost of the parts of her that Dunwoody had forever ruined or taken away hoped to hell everything everyone had ever said about the Melon Heads was true.

“Hey, big guy, help me get this asshole out of the truck. But do it slow as molasses in winter.”

Chuck didn’t move, his gaze locked on the foreboding teepee. Marnie squeezed his hand. “You don’t have to do it. I’ll do it. All of this is because of me, anyway.”

He shook his head. “No way.” He looked at her and she almost didn’t recognize him. Chuck had always stood head and shoulders above everyone and carried himself like a benevolent giant, unafraid because there was no one to be afraid of. What she saw now was unadulterated fear. It twisted his features and made him look like a little boy scared of the dark corners inside his closet.

He opened the door, the squeak of the hinge sounding like feedback at a Nirvana concert.

“You stay in here. And don’t you ever think you’re the cause of this. Whatever happens today, you’re never able to blame yourself. Promise me that.”

Marnie wanted to cry for more reasons than she could count. “I promise.”

Chuck got his wind and stood tall. “Let’s get this over with.”

He’d only taken three steps out of the car when Dredd hissed, “Slow the fuck down, man.”

“I am going slow.”

There was real fear in Dredd’s eyes. “Then go slower.”

Dunwoody thumped his feet against the side of the truck bed. Dredd raised a fist high. “Do that one more time and it’ll be the last.”

Marnie was on her knees looking out the back window. She caught Dunwoody’s tear-filled gaze and felt nothing. Mick swayed from side to side, anxious, she was sure, to see what would come next. He saw her and settled down, giving a simple nod. Chuck walked like he was on the moon, but his large strides had him behind the truck quickly.

“Mick, you take that cord of rope,” Dredd said. Mick looped the rope over his shoulder. “All right, you rapist pig, time to meet my friends.”

If Dunwoody hadn’t been gagged, his scream would have echoed for miles. Marnie saw a fresh wave of sweat break out on his exposed flesh. He squirmed mightily as Dredd, Mick and Chuck reached in to grab hold of him. Chuck wrapped his arms around Dunwoody’s legs while Dredd and Mick each took an arm. They carried him over to the eerie trunk and branch-woven teepee. He flailed in their arms like a giant catfish brought to land. This time, Dredd didn’t say anything. He just kept looking around worriedly, his jaw set, straining against Dunwoody’s protestations. Marnie swiveled in her seat, watching the slow, grim procession. A knifing ripple of pain went from between her legs to her chest. She really did need to see a doctor. Maybe Heidi could take her to one in another town, miles away. How much had Dunwoody ruined her? Would she ever be able to have kids? Did she need surgery? There sure had been plenty of bleeding the past few days. Just thinking that she might never be a mother restarted her rage.. She knew they were here. A couple of times, she thought she caught shadows shifting behind the trees. She’d seen the one before when she was with Mick and Dredd last year. It – she hated thinking of the Melon Head as an it, but she really couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman – had been behind Dredd’s cabin, collecting a sack of turtledoves he’d shot for them. It had been going on dusk so she couldn’t make out any features, but even the meager light was enough for her to notice the outline of a large, bulbous head as it dipped low and then, upon sensing them, darted into the forest clutching its bag of birds.

When she got back home that night, she’d convinced herself that the Melon Head had actually been one of Dredd’s friends who’d dressed up to scare them. But the more she thought about it, the more she came to realize Dredd had no friends. That’s why he’d stuck himself way out where no one else would dare to go. Well, no one but Mick, who wasn’t afraid to take a beating from his stepfather when he was six.

Mick and Chuck were using their body weight to peg Dunwoody against the severed tree in the center of the teepee while Dredd tied him up. Dredd had broken his rule about moving slowly. Sweat dripped from his nose as he worked the ropes. Once Dunwoody was secured, Dredd leaned into Mick and then Chuck, whispering something in their ears. Her friends started to walk backward very slowly, their heads swiveling in every direction. Dredd stood before Dunwoody with his hands on his hips as if admiring his handiwork. He stayed there until Mick and Chuck were back in the truck. They both stunk to high heaven.

“I think he shit himself again,” Mick said. He couldn’t take his eyes off the teepee.

Chuck’s shirt and pants were wet. “And pissed himself. Be glad you had his top half.” His eyes were glazed, as if he had a fever.

Dredd shot a look back at the truck. “You ready, Marina?”

Marnie wasn’t amused. Was he fucking with her? Was all of this a big joke? The urge to flip him the bird almost overcame her.

Even if this was Dredd’s way of amusing himself, the whole experience had literally scared the crap out of Dunwoody. She hoped it left him with some Vietnam-grade PTSD.

Instead of giving Dredd the finger, she raised her thumb like a Roman royal in the Coliseum.

“Feel free to scream your heart out,” Dredd said, plucking the gag from Dunwoody’s mouth. Dunwoody didn’t fail to comply. He let out a pained wail that made Marnie’s ears hurt. Dredd ran back to the truck, slammed the door and locked it. “Roll up your window,” he said breathlessly to Chuck.

Dunwoody’s soiled boxers sagged until they were at his knees. His pathetic, flaccid penis was nearly lost in a nest of graying pubic hair. He screamed for help. He cried for god to save him. At one point, he even said he wanted his mother.

“Pathetic,” Marnie mumbled.

The truck roared to life. Dredd had one hand on the gear shift, the other on the wheel. Dunwoody squinted against the harsh glare of the headlights.

“You can’t leave now,” Mick said, sounding like a little kid that was told he had to come in for dinner while all his friends were still outside playing.

“I’m not,” Dredd said irritably. He turned to Mick. “This isn’t fun and games, bro. There are rules. If I break ’em, we’re as dead as Dunwoody will be. So shut the fuck up.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” Mick retorted.

“I just did. And if you think you’re such a hardass, why don’t you get out and watch the show up close?”

“Maybe I will.”

Dredd unlocked the door. “Well then, get out.”

Marnie barely paid attention to their stupidity. Her eyes danced from tree to tree and back to Dunwoody. Despite all his screaming and rocking, the only response was the all-encompassing silent darkness. He was blubbering now, a wilted sack of wasted humanity, the ropes the only thing keeping him up.

“Can you guys just stop it?” Marnie said. She couldn’t hear if anything was coming.

Dredd punched Mick in his upper arm just hard enough to make him wince. “You need to fucking chill.”

Mick rubbed his arm, but he’d stopped arguing his pointless point.

“You both need to chill,” Chuck said. Dredd gave him a dirty look but didn’t hold it for long. He was too busy twisting around in his seat so he could look out of all the windows.

“Do you see any?” Marnie asked. Before Dunwoody had been tied up, she swore the Melon Heads were everywhere. If any loud noises or fast movements could draw their ire, Dunwoody should be surrounded by now.

Dredd gripped the wheel. “Nah. Don’t you worry, they’ll come.”

They waited for several interminable minutes. Chuck started to get antsy, rocking in his seat, his thumb lightly tapping on the door lock. Marnie’s nerves rode on a knife’s edge. Where were the Melon Heads?

Mick said, “See, even the Melon Heads don’t want anything to do with a sack of shit like that.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Dredd said. “When they come, you’ll wish you’d never rolled up to my place. Normally, I just leave game here for them and take off. Considering your situation,” he cast a quick glance at Marnie, “I figure it’ll give you some measure of satisfaction in seeing this all the way through.”

“If they come,” Chuck muttered.

Dredd flashed a wicked wolf’s grin. “Oh, they’ll come.”

More time passed. The interior of the truck was bordering on stifling with the windows rolled up. It stunk like bad breath, sweat and Dunwoody’s piss and shit. Marnie’s stomach rolled.

Dunwoody had gotten quiet. If not for the visible rise and fall of his chest, she would have sworn he’d died. His head hung low, his hair like a curtain of wet spaghetti hiding his face.

A thought occurred to Marnie that had somehow evaded her consideration. Or was it that she had intentionally avoided it in case it made her change her mind?

What would become of Chad if his father never returned? Chad’s mother had passed away from breast cancer years ago. Did they put seventeen-year-olds in foster homes? Would there be any kind of inheritance he could use to restart his life? It was doubtful, considering the state of their house. Chad wasn’t high on her list of favorite people, but no one deserved to be robbed of their family, even if said family was a shitheel like Harold Dunwoody.

Everything was wrong.

The shadowy Melon Head she’d seen that first time was a trick of the light and part of a dumb prank.

There were, in fact, no Melon Heads out here. That stick teepee was creepy as hell, but that’s why it was there. To freak them out.

And finally, they would have to bring Dunwoody back. They’d busted his nose, scared him half to death and made him crap himself. It might not balance the scales, but it would have to do.

“This is ridiculous,” she said. Marnie climbed over Chuck’s lap and opened the door.

“Don’t go out there,” Dredd spat. He reached over to grab her arm, but she yanked it away.

“Chuck, help me untie him.”

His hesitation to get out of the truck stopped her from running to Dunwoody. A lone leaf twirled down from its lofty perch and stuck in her hair. “Chuck!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Chuck unfolded himself out of the truck. Mick was right behind him. “Don’t untie him, man.”

“Enough of this shit,” Chuck said. “We’re probably going to jail for this, Mick. Enough already. Maybe if we let him go now, they’ll take it easier on us.”

Mick tried to spin him around, but his fingers weren’t up to the task of changing Chuck’s course. “That’s why we need to leave him. Let the Melon Heads finish him off. We can’t go to jail if he’s never found.”

Now Chuck turned around, lowering his head so they were eye to eye. “You see any Melon Heads?” His beefy arm swept around the clearing.

Mick folded his arms across his chest. “No. We need to give them more time.”

The truck door slammed shut behind them. They watched Dredd palm the lock shut. He smiled at them and waved bye-bye.

“Dude, what the hell?” Mick said.

Another stabbing pain hit Marnie’s lower abdomen. “Guys, please.”

Chuck rushed ahead of her. “I got it. Mick, toss me your knife.”

“No way.”

With a grunt of disgust, Chuck got behind an unconscious Dunwoody and began grappling with the knots.

The pain rocketed from a mild hurt to unbearable with breakneck speed. Marnie’s head spun. She felt warmth between her legs and knew it wasn’t pee. Chuck and Dunwoody’s images slid sideways for a moment and she was sure she was going to pass out.

She reached out for something to hold on to, her fingers grasping air. She heard Mick pulling on the door handle and cursing at Dredd, but he sounded very far off. Had Dredd pulled away, heading back for his cabin? Or was her consciousness dragging her away?

She thought she said, “Help,” but couldn’t be sure.

She looked to Chuck. He would help her.

A ball of white light emerged from the forest to Chuck’s right. What was that doing there? Was it a flashlight? Had someone else heard Dunwoody’s screaming? Was it the cops?

Another white orb formed to Chuck’s left.

Marnie dropped to one knee, peering at the lights. Chuck still worked at the knots. He hadn’t seen them, if they were even there. They may have just been neural explosions signaling an imminent shutdown.

More and more lights appeared.

But no.

They weren’t lights.

They were shapes illuminated by Dredd’s headlights.

The closer they came, the bigger they got, some much larger than the others, the shapes not quite round or even oval.

Those shapes were heads. Large, misshapen heads.

And they were heading straight for Chuck.