Darkheart

The Present: Show & Tell

Heather showed up at the door, game processing kit in hand, feeling genuinely useful for the first time in her life. It was about one o'clock in the morning, and rain still fell in sheets. Had it really only been several hours ago that they'd all sat with each other again? When Cris had gone through some sort of meltdown and then Kevin had grown angry and demanded Heather take him home? She'd done as he asked, though, dropped him off at his house, and she'd just settled back into her motel room in Red Axe when Kevin had called her and actually shown some kind of emotion--told her he had a body to dispose of and hadn't known who else to call! Well, Heather had never been so pleasantly surprised. She'd pulled out that maternal instinct she'd always been so desperate to employ and told him to sit tight, that she'd be there within the hour, and now, true to her word, here she was, and surely he'd appreciate the fact.

Surprisingly, she felt a little shy when he opened the door to her, but the sight of blood on him eased her reserve. He definitely needed her help. In response to his wan expression, she raised the large case she held in her hands, smiled without showing any teeth, and stepped up into the house.

"What is that?" he asked, and rather than respond directly, Heather entered the kitchen, set down the kit, and unsnapped it. Opening it up revealed an array of sharp, shiny objects, including a hacksaw with a set of spare blades, a fourteen-inch cleaver, a sharpening tool, and an array of wicked-looking knives. Kevin raised an eyebrow. "You just happened to have that lying around?"

Heather huffed. "This is rural Michigan, Kevin. I just picked it up at Walmart."

"What do you--are you implying we--we cut him up?"

"Obviously! How else do you think we'd hide a body?"

"We could just drag him into the garage--"

"No. He'll smell. He'll attract animals. Just--just trust me, all right? I know it's messed up, but you always said he was an asshole. He doesn't deserve much more, does he?"

Kevin's lack of response was the only response she needed. "Where is he, then?"

The man sighed in resignation and led her into the back den. The body was bigger than she'd anticipated. Not having seen Kevin's brother in years, she was surprised at how solid he was. Wiry and slender Kevin was nothing like his older sibling. Heather briefly wondered whether one took more after their father and the other their mother, but she certainly wasn't going to ask Kevin about that. He surely wouldn't want to discuss his parents, not at a time like this.

"Well, this is a big job," she admitted, staring down at the bloodied corpse sprawled in its La-Z-Boy. One arm hung off the side of the chair, while the other rested over the massive chest. Its legs lay limply across the footrest. The head was twisted awkwardly to the side, its face obscured with a towel that had been thrown across it.

As if understanding her thoughts, Kevin explained, "I felt like he was looking at me."

Heather raised her eyebrows in answer, enjoying the sense of having the upperhand in a situation. "Right. So, I've had some experience, sort of . . . but this is going to be pretty difficult, and really messy. So first thing is to go get some shower curtains, as many as you have--damnit, how did I not buy some? I was right there . . . How many bathrooms are in here? With showers, I mean?"

"Two, but--but only one with a curtain. The other one's got a door."

"Ok . . ."

"But there are tarps out in the garage--that's better than shower curtains, right?"

"Absolutely. Go get them."

Kevin did as he was bid, slipped out the back door into the dark rain. Heather chewed her lower lip while she took a quick look around the room. It was obvious a single man had lived there. The cleanliness was questionable, and the decor was sparse: a sagging couch, the La-Z-Boy, a table with three legs whose fourth had been shamelessly replaced with a cinder block, a painting of a sad landscape near another with a vase of flowers (probably left on the walls due to apathy more than any sort of personal enjoyment), a blackened unused fireplace, gray carpeting which was now splattered with blood--Heather wasn't sure the tarps would do much to preserve it, actually. Overall, the place exuded a rather depressed vibe, like it were some giant lung that had let out all its air and couldn't muster the energy to re-inflate.