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  The only thing that saved little Hunter Murdock was that he tripped over Lyle’s foot and stumbled to the side. For a second, the little boy thought it was a mistake or a goof, but his instincts kicked in when Lyle grabbed for his shirt.

  “Get back here you little fucker,” Lyle called, but he only managed to grab a small bit of Hunter’s shirt.

  Hunter managed to pull himself free and ran from the barn. He pumped his legs and ran like his life depended on it. It probably had. The three older boys weren’t going to chase him. They hated exercise of any kind, but if Hunter had hesitated, he might have been their first real victim.

  The boy burst through his front door and ran to his room. He did the only thing a little boy knew to do and hid under his covers.

  Chapter Six

  I pulled up in front of the address the guy on Craigslist had given me. I couldn’t see Kevin in the car with me, but I could feel him sitting in the back seat directly behind me.

  The weird thing was that once I knew he was there, it occurred to me that he’d been there for a while. His presence had crept up on me, and that was most likely why I hadn’t completely lost my mind when he’d shown up in my bedroom. We were old friends by then.

  I got out of the car and walked to the front door of the trailer that belonged to the address. It probably would have been a less stressful situation had it been located in a trailer park, but instead, it sat alone at the end of a gravel road.

  Without Kevin, I never would have knocked on the door. The place looked skeevy as fuck. I began to wonder if the dude had a cabin at all or if he just lured people here to violate or murder them.

  Go on.

  I heard Kevin’s voice in my head. Great, I thought, I’m hearing voices.

  Shut up and open the door.

  Not wanting to get into a fight with the voice in my head, I raised my hand to knock. The man who answered the door was exactly what I expected.

  He hadn’t even bothered to put on pants. I guess I should have been glad that he at least had boxer shorts on before answering. His t-shirt had seen better days. It was one of those you get from a package at a discount store. He’d long since abandoned washing it. The stains were a disgusting kaleidoscope of putrid color.

  The smell coming off of him was something that turned my stomach enough to make me take a step back. I didn’t think it could get much worse until he opened his mouth. The stench that emanated from between his black teeth was almost otherworldly.

  “You here ‘bout the cabin?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’m William Curtis. We spoke on the phone.” I felt myself instinctively trying to back away, but there was a phantom hand on my back holding me in place.

  “Did ya bring the deposit?” he asked as I tried to rack my brain for his name. I was almost certain he’d told me, but I couldn’t remember.

  “Yeah, I hope cash is alright. I want to keep this all as quiet as possible. No questions.”

  I’m not entirely sure how to describe the expression that came over his face. It was something evil, gleeful, and predatory all at the same time. It was the kind of look I’d only ever seen in movies.

  At that point, I was pretty sure the guy didn’t even have a cabin. I’d been tricked into coming here, and the dirtbag in front of me was about to go full Deliverance.

  “Step into my office,” he said and beckoned me in with a sweep of his dirty hand.

  Chapter Seven

  Lyle Johnson

  The afternoon sun beat down on Lyle Johnson, but he would not give up. Evan had told him not to come back without a cat, so Lyle was determined to catch one.

  Lyle never stuck around to see what Evan did with the animals, but he’d seen the aftermath once. He figured it would have made him more upset than it did. Lyle expected it to make him sick.

  The only thing it had done was make him curious. The curiosity wriggled underneath his skin like a bug was stuck there. It made him buzz like he was high, and yet he always left.

  He thought the first time, back when he still couldn’t imagine hurting an animal, that Evan would call him a pussy for bailing, but doing his work alone seemed to suit Evan just fine.

  Lyle was aware that Evan was using him, but that was okay. Lyle was using Evan too. At first, he’d just been lonely and desperate. No one at school liked Lyle. Up until the incident, he’d been smart, gotten good grades, and kept to himself.

  The night of the incident had changed everything. After that night, Lyle had been more interested in what Evan did with the stray pets he collected. He’d only liked setting the fires before that.

  Lyle blamed himself for what had happened to his sister. He hadn’t believed the things she’d said about her boyfriend, Johnny. Lyle had liked Johnny a great deal. He relished the attention the older boy paid him when he was at the Johnson house visiting with Whitney.

  So, when Whitney had tearfully told the family that she had to break up with Johnny because he hurt her, Lyle had become furious. He’d called her a whore before stomping off to his room to listen to death metal and take his frustrations out on the internet.

  Johnny called the house hundreds of times over the next few days. When he wasn’t calling, Lyle would see him standing outside on the sidewalk, but their parents had forbidden Whitney from going out to talk to him.

  Lyle’s dad had pulled him aside to talk to him about how there were things Lyle wouldn’t understand about relationships until he was older. He said that Johnny was an abuser and that what he was doing wasn’t romantic. Johnny was stalking Whitney.

  It was hard for Lyle to comprehend. Johnny was such a cool guy, and he was one of the most popular guys at the high school. Why would he need to stalk anybody? Johnny could have had any girl he wanted as far as Lyle was concerned.

  Then there was that small part of Lyle that he never told anybody about. That was the part that wished that Johnny had loved him the way he loved Whitney. He felt disgusting and wrong for wanting a boy that way, but he couldn’t deny it.

  Nobody knew, but Lyle had thought about telling Johnny a hundred times. He figured the older boy didn’t feel the same way, but Lyle just knew that Johnny would accept it. He would have told him that it was okay and that they were still friends. It wouldn’t have had to be a terrible secret that made it hard for Lyle to sleep at night anymore.

  Until the incident, Lyle blamed Whitney for those sleepless nights. He had honestly believed she’d taken away the one person who would have understood what he was going through.

  A few weeks after the breakup, Lyle and Whitney’s parents felt safe enough to go out to dinner and leave the kids alone.

  “You can’t live under lock and key forever,” Whitney said when her mother was worried about leaving them. “Besides, Johnny has a new girlfriend at school. I’m sure it’s fine. Why would he come back when he’s dating Heather?”

  They decided to go on their dinner date, but only to a nearby neighborhood restaurant. Lyle’s dad had told the neighbor they were going out and to call the police if she saw anything suspicious. Mrs. Cranson, the lady next door, knew what had gone on and promised to keep an eye out for the kids.

  What nobody had counted on was that Johnny dating Heather was a ruse. He’d just used her to make it look like he’d moved on. Johnny had been biding his time.

  Lyle didn’t understand any of that. When Johnny had shown up at their patio door a short while after Lyle’s parents left with a huge bouquet of flowers for Whitney, Lyle really believed he was sincere. He also couldn’t help but imagine how happy he would be if the flowers were for him.

  “I’m really sorry,” Johnny had said. “I know that I can make Whitney see how much I love her if I could just talk to her for a few minutes. We’re buddies, right? You believe me. Lyle, you know that I would never hurt anyone that I love.”

  Lyle had believed him, and so he let him in. What happened next was so fast that it felt like a dream. Once the door was closed, Johnny knocked Lyle to the ground and duct tape
d his hands behind his back. Lyle had been so focused on the flowers that he hadn’t seen the role of tape in Johnny’s other hand.

  He duct taped his feet too and then dragged him to the sofa. Next, Johnny went upstairs. Lyle heard the scuffle and a minute later, Johnny dragged Whitney down the stairs and into the living room by the hair. He taped her up and threw her on the floor.

  Johnny punched and kicked Whitney until she stopped fighting back. Lyle wasn’t sure if his sister was dead or just unconscious. Johnny went into the kitchen and returned with their biggest kitchen knife.

  Something inside of Lyle broke as he watched Johnny cut his sister’s head off with that kitchen knife. He became something else that day. The trauma had forever altered his brain.

  That change was what Evan had picked up on. Now, Lyle was Evan’s best soldier. At least, that’s what he told himself as he caught Mrs. Cranson’s cat. He stuffed Pepper into a pillowcase and began the walk to Evan’s barn.

  Chapter Eight

  I’d like to say that I was shocked by the state of the trailer, but I wasn’t in the least. The sting of ammonia burned my nostrils, and the air felt thick and hard to breath.

  There were crushed beer cans lining the floor. Even more cans lined every surface from the coffee table to the kitchen counters.

  “How old are you?” the man asked as he walked to the fridge and pulled out a can of beer.

  I could see the inside of the refrigerator from the living room. The only thing it contained was beer and a bottle of mustard. The bottle of mustard must have been ancient. The branding was something I recognized from twenty years ago.

  “What difference does that make?” I asked, more defensively than I’d meant.

  “Well, you have to be eighteen to sign a lease. You look real young,” he said in a way that made my skin crawl.

  “I’m well over eighteen,” I said in response.

  “You sure do look young,” the man said and his tongue darted out of his mouth to lick his cracked lips.

  “I have the money. Do you have that lease for me to sign?” I wanted out of there as soon as possible.

  “Don’t be in such a hurry, baby,” the man said in a low voice. He popped his beer open and took a step toward me. “I don’t just rent my cabin to anyone. We have to be friends first. Do you want to be good friends, baby?”

  “No, man. I just want to rent the cabin in the Craigslist ad. If that’s not going to happen, then I’m out of here,” I said.

  “Oh, you’re not going anywhere.” He took a step toward the door and cut me off from the exit. “You aren’t leaving until we are far better acquainted.”

  You’re going to have to kill him.

  I heard Kevin’s voice in my head, and I knew I’d been set up. The man in front of me was a predator that used Craigslist to lure victims out to his shitty trailer in the middle of nowhere. For a moment, I chastised myself for being stupid enough to fall for it, but then I remembered it was Kevin who’d sent me there. I wondered if there even was a cabin and what this guy did if a family showed up.

  Most people aren’t stupid enough to get out of the car once they see the place. And yes, Billy the Kid, there is really a cabin. You’re going to have to kill old Floyd here to get the keys.

  “Floyd. That’s your name,” I said to the perv blocking my way out.

  “Just drop your pants. Let’s do this the easy way. It hurts less when you do it the easy way,” Floyd said.

  That’s when I saw it. Next to me on a stained end table, hidden under a bunch of crushed beer cans, was a huge hunting knife. I doubted that Floyd even remembered it was there.

  Chapter Nine

  Chris Harding

  Chris made his way down the stairs as quietly as he could. As he’d expected, his mother and her drug-dealing pimp were passed out on the couch. He moved as quietly as a mouse to the kitchen. Waking them would mean he wouldn’t get breakfast before school.

  The thought of having to go another day without food made him want to hurt somebody. He hadn’t even asked her to fill out the free lunch form for school. He’d done it all himself, but the dumb whore had found it and thrown it in the trash.

  “We don’t take charity,” she said before slapping him. “Maybe your lazy ass should get a job.”

  “I’m thirteen, Mom. Nobody will hire me. I can’t even get a work permit until I turn fourteen, and the school guidance counselor has to sign off on it.”

  “Then maybe you should hustle. Jimmy on Fourteenth Street is looking for runners. Maybe when your lazy ass gets hungry enough, you’ll learn how to work.”

  At thirteen, Chris knew that he was old enough to go into the adult prison system. His guidance counselor, Mr. Buris, had told him as much when he’d been caught stealing a box of cereal from the school cafeteria. Mr. Buris had paid for the cereal and Chris didn’t even get detention. Since it was a Monday, it was the first time he’d eaten in three days.

  Sometimes Chris wished he could ask Mr. Buris for a dollar so he could get a milk and some fruit, but there were a lot of hungry kids at school. Chris knew there was no way that the teachers or staff could afford to feed them all out of their own pockets.

  His mom and her new pimp must have been on some heavy shit because he managed to get past them and into the kitchen. The old pimp had been sent to prison a few weeks ago for trafficking girls. That was one of the reasons Chris’s mom hated him so much. She couldn’t sell him like she could a girl. Even the pervos who liked boys wouldn’t go near him. He was too tall and thin. Chris looked almost alien, so he was worthless to the kind of people his mother hung with.

  Chris opened the pantry and found a pack of stale Pop-Tarts and a can of tuna. There was a package of crackers that had been open for god knows how long, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. He had to shake it to get the roach out of the plastic, but just the same, it went into his school bag.

  He hoped that one of the lunch ladies would open his can of tuna. They were usually pretty nice to him, but after Gladys had been fired for giving away a lunch to a kid who didn’t have any money, they were more reluctant to help. Most of them had kids to feed too.

  There was orange juice in the fridge, but Chris didn’t dare touch it. That was for his mom and her friends to mix with vodka. He’d be beaten for stealing if she caught him drinking it. He’d just have to drink some water from the fountain when he got to school.

  Chris finished the Pop-Tarts before he got to the school bus. He had to or someone bigger and hungrier than him would take them. He knew he’d have to pretend to have lunch detention that day. It would be too embarrassing to eat his tuna and old crackers in front of Evan and Lyle.

  He didn’t really like the two boys, but they were the only people who paid any attention to him. Chris had learned to ignore the shitty things they did because he needed to belong somewhere.

  Sometimes he thought about telling them how bad things were at his house or how hungry he was, but it wasn’t worth the risk. If they turned on him, not only would he lose the only friends he had, but Evan would probably hurt him too. He’d make Lyle help.

  Then, there was the camping trip. It was so close that Chris could taste it. He was going to get a whole weekend away from his life, and he got excited thinking about eating three meals a day.

  After all the years of constant, tormenting hunger, Chris knew he’d do just about anything for a full belly.

  Chapter Ten

  “I’m here to rent the cabin. Why don’t you take my money, we’ll sign the lease, and let’s handle this as business,” I said.

  “I’m going to take a lot more than your money,” Floyd said with a laugh. “And don’t worry, I’ll take you to the cabin. That’s where I take all of my bitches. You’re quite a bit older than what I usually like to keep, but you look young enough. You’ll do until I can get another retard to fall for my little ad.”

  There was no way for me to pick up the knife without alerting him to what I was doing. I’d have to kn
ock over several beer cans to get to the weapon, and Floyd had already begun to eye me suspiciously.

  “I’m giving you one last chance. Just get out of my way. I’ll find another cabin,” I said.

  No, you won’t.

  “Listen here, little bitch. I’m giving you one last chance to take off those jeans and let me fuck you nice. I’ll do it sweet the first time to break you in. Otherwise, I break you in rough.”

  My mind spun, and I finally felt something violent stirring in my belly. How many young guys had this pig done this to? What did he do with them after he was done with them at the cabin?

  You see now. You finally understand.

  The sound of the cans falling to the floor distracted Floyd. He watched them fall, and by the time he looked up, I was on him.

  The violence that had stirred in my belly erupted. I felt it all the way down to my toes. It was white-hot, and yet oddly calming. With a precision that had to have been a gift from Kevin, I plunged the knife into the back of Floyd’s neck and severed his spinal cord in one strike. He fell to the floor in an unceremonious flop.

  “Check the back bedroom,” Kevin said.

  It startled me and I must have jumped half out of my skin. He’d materialized next to me. “Why?”

  But then I heard it. A pitiful whine from the back of the trailer. It didn’t sound human, but I kept the knife in my hand anyway. I left a trail of Floyd’s blood in the hallway carpet as I made my way to the opposite side of the trailer.

  As I got closer to the door, the whine was accompanied by a strange rattling sound. Before I’d even opened the door, I had it figured out.

  Locked in a cage and covered in its own waste was a sad and emaciated-looking dog. It whined again and pawed at the door. Any fear that I’d had the dog would attack me for killing its owner disappeared. I figured that given its current situation, the poor thing was glad I’d offed its abuser.