In the House of Spite Ch. 20

"I mean it!" Mr. Booker put his fists in his coat's deep pockets. The veins in his face were almost frightening. "You're acting up and it's no good! I don't care what you do to your wetbacks! I don't care what you do to yourself! But if you hurt that woman you'll be in worse shit than you are now!"

Waving his hand up and down from his wrist, Shawn whined out, "Whatever!" He said something to the man at the padlocks. Said man went to the van and started moving things around like he was searching for something. Then Shawn addressed his father again. "Are you here to try to get Pearlie? You should've brought some backup!"

Shrugging, Mr. Booker asked, "What are you going to do with her? Drag her around like a rag doll? Did you think any of this through?"

With a snort, and rolling his eyes again, Shawn argued, "That's none of your business! You should be at home with Mama, watching TV and eating popcorn!"

Moving a shoulder in a way that made a startling pop, Mr. Booker countered the younger man's argument. "You're act like you're a good person, but here you are starting more shit!"

For the first time, Shawn's voice sounded just a tiny bit less manly and a tiny bit more shrill. His cheeks darkened and he stomped a foot on the dirt road. "Fuck you! Darren's the one refusing to be the good guy! I'm better than him! Just like him but better!"

Tapping the earth with his boot's toe, the old man casually said in a lower tone, "Yeah, you're a lot like him, but not where it counts."

That made Shawn literally spit. He just barely missed his own shoe. "You don't know what you're talking about! You don't know what the real world is like anymore! You live off social security and nest eggs!"

The other men were trying to use bolt cutters to break the padlocks on the gate.

Another shrug, and Mr. Booker said, "You talk about the real world but you're trying to play some dumbass fantasy. Well Darren ain't playing." His eyes softened as he looked back at Pearl, then they hardened once more when he pointed them to Shawn again. "Now give me the damn girl!"

"You're just going to hand her over to Darren!" Shawn accused. One of the padlocks had already been cut away at this point. "If he wants her that badly then he needs to earn her!"

As if Darren hadn't already "earned" her! Pearl wanted to shake her head and yell so badly. She had to take some deep breaths just to keep herself from quivering in rage.

Jerking his head towards the lodge, Mr. Booker said, almost sounding offended, "I'm not going in there." He coughed out a bit, didn't even cover his mouth. "And neither is Pearl. It's dangerous. You let her past that fence and she'll lose a foot."

Pearl thought of animal traps, specifically a bear trap possibly hidden in the tall grass. She wondered if her face looked blue, or maybe green. She certainly felt like it.

Another padlock fell to the ground with a thump.

"Really," continued Mr. Booker, "what kind of man forces anyone into a hellhole, especially a little woman?" He coughed again. This time, he put his elbow to his mouth. After he put his hand back in his coat's pocket, he said, "Give her to me. I'll give her back if Darren doesn't beat your ass dead."

Oddly enough, and Pearl honestly didn't understand this, Shawn's face smoothed out. He even smirked a bit. His posture lost some of its tightness. His voice held some relief. "The only reason I have these guys is to keep an eye on her. I can't let her run away."

"Then you should've left her at home," countered Mr. Booker.

"Nuh uh." Shawn laughed just a tiny bit. "She's the prize."

Another broken padlock.

"I won't be able to hide her from you for long," Mr. Booker said as he started slowly walking towards the group, mostly towards Pearl. "You got nothing to lose if I take her."

All the padlocks were broken. One of the men tried stepping past the fence. Pearl looked away and preemptively cringed.

The metallic, creaking noise of something snapping shut, or trying to, added to the primal yelling from the Hispanic man, it all had her cringing even harder and gasping. Mr. Booker was at her side very quickly. He put one of his gloved hands on her shoulder. "Sounds like a bear trap," he said with true severity. "Give her to me. She's not going through that shit."

"Did he tell you what traps he put in there?" Shawn asked after giving an order to one of the men. The now wounded man had to wait on someone to help him.

As that wounded man hissed and groaned, another man trying to pry him free, Mr. Booker said, "Nope. He just told me he'd put some traps there."

Rubbing his temple with tight fingertips, Shawn groaned and looked down at the ground. "Okay, take her. I'll come get her after Darren and I have our fight."

"You mean after you kill your own damn brother," Mr. Booker said as he tugged on Pearl's arm, leading her away. "Piece of shit. If it hadn't been obvious, I'd have a DNA test a long ass time ago."

"I love you too, Daddy!"

Pearl wanted to feel safe then, but even though Mr. Booker was apparently had his own beast, he was still a old man that looked kind of frail. She wasn't sure what he could do for her. Another yelp of pain rang through the air as she walked farther and farther away, not on the road, but into the trees instead. The suffering didn't make Pearl feel very good.

"Mr. Booker?" she said as she tried not to trip on anything, "Why's Darren hiding in that building?"

The old man shushed her, and his grip on her arm only tightened just enough to remind her that she needed to stay with him. After a while, when they could no longer hear the group of men. Pearl assumed that meant they were a reasonable distance away. Whenever she looked back, she couldn't see any sign of them, not even the fence. Was it possible they'd taken a few turns without her realizing it?

Eventually, they cut into another clearing. This one was much more groomed, and there wasn't a fence. Instead, there was a single, sad looking hunting lodge. There wasn't a storage shed, not even a fire pit. There was, however, two four-door trucks that she didn't recognize. They both had caps in the back and a camouflage paint job.

Something else was strange. The sounds and the smells. Constant bird chirping and squawking, like there was a huge flock flying around her head. Remembering a certain horror movie that many considered to be a classic, Pearl put a hand over one eye, preparing herself to fully cover her face. The stench in the area was horrible, rotting meat. She saw piles of random meat just lying around on the ground. Flies were definitely enjoying it. As Pearl and Mr. Booker walked to one of the trucks, she noticed a speaker hanging one of the lodge's wall. It might've been the source of all the noise.

***

After a few more injuries caused by random traps, the men all decided this wasn't worth it anymore. It didn't matter how many threats Shawn barked out. They generally told him that this wasn't worth whatever he wanted. How the hell were they supposed to work for him when they were close to getting maimed?

Shawn wanted to kill every last one of them but in the long-term that would've been a stupid idea. It would be like a king of previous centuries deciding to kill most of his soldiers, or even most of his peasant farmers. One or two, not a big deal but so many at once would make everything difficult.

Fine. Go on. Get in the van and fucking go! That was Shawn's attitude. He could always get a ride later. Besides, it was better to be alone with Darren. One-on-one. He was better than Darren, after all, and it needed to be proven. Darren was cool and manly. He worked hard and played hard. He'd earned lots of money and got a cool house and a future housewife. Being better than Darren was the best thing to be.

But Darren wasn't acting like he would nor should. It pissed Shawn off to no end.

This should've been happening at the wildlife preserve, or even at Darren's house. It should be a kickass duel of the beasts. Whoever wins gets the girl. Shawn had failed to win her over before, which was fair, but he'd get her. She was Darren's girl, and so she was automatically worth having.

As the van full of mostly injured men turned around and drove off, Shawn closed his eyes, shook his head, and crossed his arms. This was unsatisfactory. Uncool.

He stood there a good while after he thought the van was gone. He wanted to make sure it really was gone. His eyes drew curved, rocking lines as they surveyed the distance between the hunting lodge and the fence's open gate. He was certain that the traps that could get in his way had already been dealt with. The path, as overgrown as it was, seemed clear enough.

His boots went past the invisible boundary. He was in the thick of it. He saw an already tripped trap that had fresh blood on it. He kicked it away. It made a light clanging noise, then a soft thump against the grass.

He kept walking.

Right up to the door.

Shawn gagged a little.

It stunk!

Like someone had left meat out for who knows how long!

One of Shawn's hands went to his nose and mouth. His spine curled over a bit. This was horrible! Where was all this coming from? He knew, just knew that if he brought Aaron out he wouldn't be able to handle it. He'd end up vomiting. There might've been a layer of shit on whatever pile of rotting meat there was.

And there was a noise. Like a beast sadly whining, close to giving up. Reese?! Was he in there? Hoping he wouldn't be found? How could he withstand all this stink?!

Was this a challenge?!

Fuck it.

The boots were untied and wrenched off his feet. The socks were put into the boots. The rest of the clothes were flopped onto the shoes in a pile. Cold air stung everywhere, even in his balls, but it would be over soon.

Shawn faded. Became more and more distant.

His muscles stretched and swelled. His bones ground and clacked. The cold soon gave way for a wintry fur coat and thick skin, sometimes padded. When Aaron's dark hand curled around the lodge's door handle, Shawn was in the background.

Aaron's fingers squeezed so hard it hurt. One of his knees gave in. His free hand pressed against his nose. The stench made him dizzy. He couldn't think of much else but the stink. That's how unbearable it was.

But he howled at his own thoughts, forcing himself to open the door. Reese was inside. He was being a cowardly little bitch. It was time to beat some badassness into him.

He jerked the door.

His head tilted as he looked down at the handle.

There was some kind of resistance, but the door didn't seem to be locked. There had been some movement. Normally, he would've thought more about it, but he just couldn't be bothered. Everything was pissing him off too much.

So, he put in a much force as he could, and successfully pulled the door open.

The handle on the other side ...

Was attached to a chain ...

And the chain was attached to a U shaped band that was designed to keep a wire fence's door closed without using a lock. When in horizontal position, it would keep the door closed. When in a vertical position, the door could be pushed open.

There was a cage, similar to a pen for an outdoor dog to live in. It barely fit in the lodge. Piles of rotting meat filled were on the rest of the floor.

The tugging of the door had forced the cage's weaker door to be pulled.

And the inhabitant of the cage was something at least a thousand times more irritable, more furious, more willing to fucking kill anything than Aaron could ever hope to be.

A hungry bear that had apparently been unable to reach food for a long time, made even more irate by all the meat around him that he could only sniff at.

***

From one of the camouflage painted trucks, Darren emerged. The first thing he did wasn't to hug Pearl, or even to tell her he loved her. No. The first thing he did was take off his gloves and hold his palms up to her face, fingers pointed to the sky.

Pearl didn't understand it at first. She'd handed Mr. Booker her purse and ran to Darren, arms wide and wanting attention. But Darren stepped away and silently wiggled his fingers. His face was colder than the air and twice as harsh.

Pearl nearly tripped as she caught herself and looked at the palms. On those paler sections of skin, particularly near the heels of the hands, there was something in bright yellow with dark outlines. On his right hand, there was a question written in an untidy script. "Ask me what's wrong there." After her brain had processed the information there, she looked to the other hand. There was a garish, poorly drawn image of what seemed to be a shoe. But the top didn't have an opening for a foot.

And on that top ...

It seemed to read, "Always in Our Heart. Joshua Booker." Plus, the date placed twice.

But ...

Pearl said, "Tell me what's wrong."

It was a hoarse voice, barely audible thanks to all the bird recordings. "The year. It's a digit off."

That was when Darren opened his arms.

He smelled different from normal. More like someone that had been out in the woods for a long time. Dirt and leaves, plus a bit of forest fungus and salted meat.

His voice weakly wafted down to her. "You needed to be sure. You needed to be sure it's me."

She wanted to laugh. She even coughed and choked a little as she held the urge down. Then she wanted to cry. Her nose and cheeks were pressed right in his coat and soon felt raw from all her nuzzling. Warmth spread out from her face, groin, and belly until her whole body felt like a giant hand warmer.

"You're going to want this back." That was Mr. Booker. His voice was cracking but it was loud enough. Pearl looked back, and out from under Darren's arms she reached out. Mr. Booker approached and handed her the purse.

Darren let her go and said with more force than before, "Get in! We need to get out of here!"

And so, Pearl got in the passenger's seat of one of the camouflage trucks while Darren got in the driver's seat. They went off to another long, dirt road. Mr. Booker followed in, funny enough, his own vehicle and not the other camouflage truck. After a moment or so, he turned on a fork, leaving the couple to seemingly be alone.

Maybe he was trying to make it seem like Pearl was with him?

"How bad were you hurt?" Darren asked with his eyes safely on the road.

"Aside from the whole kidnapping thing, I'm alright." Pearl wished she had her phone, but that was an acceptable loss. It was a no contract required device anyway. She'd only paid for service when she needed it. "What's in that building?"

A cheek jerking, he said, "The one we drove away from?"

"No, the other one."

He snorted. Then he grinned. "A hungry, mean ass bear."

Fingers at her bosom, Pearl asked, "How the hell did you get a bear?"

"Reese had to get creative." That was all the explanation Darren would give on the bear, but he did say quite a bit more about other things. "Shawn wanted some weird duel or something." He shook his head. "Nope! No way in hell! Work smarter, not harder! Real badasses don't go looking for fights. They just fight when they need to, and I don't need to, or I hope I won't need to."

Pearl weaved her fingers in her lap. Her elbow rubbed against her purse, which was squeezed against her left thigh. "What the fuck is wrong with that guy?"

"It took me a while, but I think I got some things figured out." Darren's fingernails scratched against the leather grip on the steering wheel. "We've always been rebellious little shits, but he was on a different level. He didn't want to be like me. He wanted to be a punk. If I got an A he wanted an F. That's how it was, but after we got grown, after he started getting in this shady shit, I think he changed. Maybe he hates himself. I don't know."

Pearl sighed. "He never loved me. He loves you."

Darren's jaw ground a few times as the temporary quiet visited. Then he smacked his lips and said, "He loves me so much that he wants to kill me." No sarcasm could be heard.

"Because if you beat the best," Pearl sadly added, "then you're the new best." She took one of her purse's handles in her fingers and rather nervously squeezed and tugged on it. "So, you figured out how to piss the sicko off enough to lure him to where you wanted him to go?"

With a nod, he said yeah.

"Doesn't sound too hard." Pearl's thumb nail tapped and dug into the purse's leather. "What did you do about all his ... uhm ... workers?"

"That's what the traps were for," Darren told her, "to make them abandon ship. Money talks but not loud enough for that crap."

"So who's lodge was that?"

Darren shrugged. "A farmer owns it all. Loves hunting. I gave him a stack of cash to borrow the lodge. He hates the police, the government, and the whole damn county. Calls it all the county mafia. Even if he finds out something went down, he won't talk."

"Uhm ... are you sure the bear won?" Pearl's nails bit into the leather so hard that it almost hurt.

His eyelids drew back as, apparently, a scary thought came to him. "Fuck I hope so."

"What if Aaron came out?"

Darren jerked his eyes towards her in only a flicker's worth of a moment. Then he looked back ahead. "He'll still be caught by surprise. I made sure he couldn't figure out who or what was in there without opening the door first. I put static all around for his nose."

"I guess that's one way to confuse him," Pearl said. "Static. It's a good metaphor." As she thought about smells and scents, she let her purse's handle flop onto her thigh. Then, she gasped and excitedly said, "Hey, back when Reese saved me from those creeps that took me to the cabin! He was all wet when he did it. Was he hiding his scent?"

"He was trying to disguise it," Darren explained. "Aaron was around and he was being a hell of a monster." The leather on his steering wheel creaked with his fingers' shifting grip. "I'm pretty sure that Shawn hired those guys to take you, and he lied about what he wanted. So he just killed them hoping to 'rescue' you and look like a hero."

Pearl made a delicate, aching laugh in her belly, but she didn't think anything was funny. Shawn's beast, Aaron. He was the one to get gorier than a butcher. He was the first werewolf looking thing Pearl had ever met.

"Shawn's logic makes no sense," she said.

"He's not a sensible kind of guy," Darren breathed out.

"He might have a mental disorder or something." Not that mental disorder equaled evil. Most people with mental disorders, as far as she knew, weren't particularly dangerous.

Darren grunted out a noise that sounded like, "Sure."

There were a few more quiet moments. Feeling almost like a little kid on a ride to a family vacation, Pearl watched the trees roll on by. Eventually, the truck was stopped at what seemed to be a random opening in the woods. Darren parked the car and gave her information and firm instructions.

There were canned meats, snacks, and bottles of water in a cooler in the backseat, along with a first-aid kit and some other supplies, like blankets and pillows and books with light-up bookmarks. There were small weapons, soap, flashlights, and packs of baby wipes in the front, in the glove compartment. If she needed to a number one or two break, then she'd have to stay as close to the truck as possible and hurry back. No leisurely walks allowed.

If a stranger happened to show up, she was meant to them something about being lost on a road trip and how the boyfriend was out looking for help. And be vague and dazed, act like the dumbest blonde in the world.

Darren would soon undress and then let Reese come out. Shawn's body (Pearl was told that if Aaron died, then the body would revert back to Shawn's) would have to be looked for, to make sure he really was dead and not just limping around. As for the "scene," that would need a little cleaning up. Not too much. They didn't want to hide the body nor the blood. They wanted to scoop away the rotting meat and bear shit, take the traps and signs, and get Pearl's cell phone.