I always knew he would come. He’s here now, outside the cabin door. I didn’t even bother to lock it. He’s knocking now, soft taps that run up my spine. I want to go back to the past, apologize, change; but it’s too late. He’s here now. I can only remember…
Humidity, heat, flames dancing and raging around a rusted firepit, smoke billowing through spurts of gasoline blasted from a water pistol. That’s when he first appeared. Purple suit, purple shoes, pitch black eyes the same color as the acrid smoke curling around his thin frame. In the moment between moments we looked at each other, him perched on the half charred firewood, seared yearbooks, twisted and jagged trophies, and anything else me and my friends grabbed from Lee’s house in a drunken haze that reminded us of high school. We locked eyes and even though no words were spoken I knew who he was, what he wanted, and what I would do. I just didn’t know when.
I know now. He’s come to collect what is owed. I flip the safety switch off over the Mossberg shotgun resting in my lap; he won’t get it without a fight.
I watched as my friends circled the pit, dancing and singing to the tune of Brown Eyed Girl, their shadows swirling around the pillar of fire. One of the figures, a tall boy with lanky dirty blonde hair clad in a leather jacket and blue jeans, collided with my still form and we fell together, our bodies intertwined. He laughed and the pungent scent of beer, Doritos, and pizza rolls hit my nostrils as he looked directly at me. Warm brown eyes, dimmed by liquor but still burning like coals in the night. Warm brown eyes that peered into the ocean of regret, angst, and fear that pooled inside my sockets. Warm brown eyes that my Jess looked at me with the night she died.
I shouldn’t have come back to the cabin. He knew me too well, knew I’d be here. I came to bury old sins, but it looks like the grave has been dug for me.
Lee. My best friend. My worst enemy. My own reflection. He staggered up and offered me his hand.
“What’s the matter, Jason?” he half-slurred. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I brushed off his hand, standing up and attempting to wipe the blotches of mud from my windbreaker.
“Not a ghost.”
I glanced back at the firepit and a log collapsed, sending a bloated gout of smoke into the air. In between the smoke I saw him, his pitch-black eyes containing every evil act ever committed since Cain slew Able. The man raised his arm, and I saw his fingernails had been pried off and blood was welling from the wounds. He pointed a finger at me, blood dripping from his nail beds, sizzling in the pit and forming streams of purple smoke. The man spoke in a voice that resonated in my skull, bouncing around like it was empty.
I see you.
I can hear him banging on the door outside now. He’s getting impatient. I see the door strain at the hinges, and I see the blood seeping in through the cracks…
I woke up the next morning lying on an unfamiliar bed with a hangover fit to split my skull in half. The world spun round and round, little painted birds seeming to be fluttering around the pastel walls. I realized in some far away corner of my mind I was in Lee’s guest bedroom. My hands sunk into the navy-blue bed sheets and a dull anger began to sprout.
“Whoa there, buddy. Take it easy.” a familiar voice soothed out. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
I looked to my right and through my blurred vision I saw Lee sitting down next to me and the man in purple suit with bleeding fingernail beds occupying his space. Their eyes were one and same.
“What… what happened?” My vision lifted, and I saw only Lee sitting next to me. It was just a product of a drowsy and frightened mind, surely. But Lee’s warm brown eyes were cold, cold like Jess’s lips when I kissed her last.
“I don’t know.” Lee said, his voice calm, almost uninterested. “How about you tell me, Jason?”
Blood was trickling down my nose, dark red and clotted. I tried to wipe it away, but it stuck to my hands, seeping in between the cracks of my trembling fingers.
“Wh-why didn’t you take me to the hospital?” I said, my voice creaking, “And where did all our friends go, Lee?”
Lee grinned and leaned over to me, placing his hand over my shoulder as if in a comforting manner but his grip was tight and his fingernails dug into my skin.
“After you fell down we thought you were dead for a bit. You weren’t moving. Then you let out the biggest fuckin’ snore I’ve ever heard in my life. So we figured you were alright. Everyone else was drunk but I wasn’t fully gone yet so I offered to watch over you. They all left a few hours ago. I stayed with you. Make sure you didn’t croak or anything. It would be a dumb way to go out.”
I tried to stand up, but Lee’s hand pressed against me. I could feel dread start to prick the edges of my consciousness.
“I brought you up here and was talking about the good ole days, you know? When you, me, and Jess would go out on adventures. You remember how we used to go out hunting all the time?”
My face blanched. “I don’t like to remember it. Not since… well. Not since Jess died.”
Lee frowned. “I don’t think I like to remember it either. I only brought it up since you were out cold.” He laughed bitterly. “But then you started talkin’ back to me, Jason. And you never talk in your sleep.”
I reflexively leaned back but Lee’s grip didn’t diminish, holding me in place. “Wha-what did I say, then?”
“You talked about that last time we all went hunting. That night Jess died.”
I could feel the color draining from my face, see the pallor of Jess’s skin, the same as the marble tabletop that her body was slumped over. I could taste Jess’s lips on mine, could taste the residue of Lee left behind. I could see myself and Lee arguing, punching, shouting, all while Jess cried in the background. I could hear the roaring winds of the blizzard like howls of the damned as I flung open the door and stormed off into the dark. I could smell the stench of death on the threshold of the cabin when me and Lee walked back hours later, and I knew what we’d find when we opened that door.
I said nothing, but nothing needed to be said. Lee removed his hand, and I saw that his nails had pierced my skin. Little spots of blood collecting underneath his fingertips.
Lee stood up and stretched, striding over to the cabin’s window. Sunlight and cold poured through the window, and my eyes were drawn to the Mossberg shotgun propped up against the windowsill.
I had no other choice. He didn’t leave me one. He’s the reason Jess is dead.
Lee sat down in a rocking chair, facing me. “There were only three people that police ever confirmed were in the cabin that night. You, me, and Jess. They suspected I did it; can’t say I blame them. I’ve never been a friend of the lawman, and you left the cabin first. But you stuck up for me, Jason. You had my back. It helped that the DNA was useless, what where we were all there for a few days and both you and I had been chopping firewood. And of course there was that other set of footprints leading out of the cabin. They never could figure that one out. Looked like dress shoes.”
Fear began to glaze my mind over. “I don’t want to talk about this right now, Lee. I’m not feeling well.”
Lee let out a short bark. “Ohhhh, you’re not feeling well! Well, I’m sorry you’re a bit under the weather, bud. How do you think I felt when you started talking about that night in the cabin? When you said that Jess is dead because of me? When you said I’m gonna pay for what I’ve done?”
My head started to spin, thoughts of that night racing inside unbidden. In between my grief and guilt I saw the man in the purple suit with bleeding fingernails once more, rocking slowly back and forth in the chair next to Lee. Blood poured down from his fingers and tumbled onto the floor, little droplets wriggling and squirming on the cashmere rug like earthworms drawn up onto the dirt. I didn’t want to but my eyes bent towards his own and in those pitch black orbs I saw—
Snow swirling, fire crackling, laughter, crying, kissing, lips moving to form such tender, loving lies. A hatchet glimmering in the back of the shed as the door slowly opened. Tears, blood, sweat, life, longing, and regret springing forth from the same hatchet that impaled itself on Jess’s back. A tall man looming over her body, letting go of the hatchet to turn and face me. Brown eyes like wilted flowers. Cold eyes.
—Lee ran his hands over the barrel of shotgun gently, his warm brown eyes glinting like shards in the sunlight. He reached into a box of ammunition and pulled out two 28 gauge shells, and I saw faint streaks of my blood blend into brass.
I can’t take it anymore. I can’t fucking take it anymore! I see the door crumple and swing open. He’s standing inside the threshold of the cabin, blood dripping off his hands, and his eyes… oh god his eyes.
“Do you remember,” Lee said, flicking the breach lever, “the day we first went hunting? You didn’t really want to go, but I was soooo excited. I —we—were going to kill a 15 pointer. I’d mount it on the cabin wall, and it would be so cool that I got a bigger deer than my old man ever killed. He got me this shotgun as a present for my first hunt. It’s my favorite gun. Sentimental and whatnot.”
Lee rested the shotgun on his lap so it was facing me, and snapped open the barrel.
“We got out to the stand around 4 a.m., and we just sat there all day, freezing our asses off. Barely even saw a squirrel. Looking back, I think we talked too much and scared off pretty much any deer in about a mile. Talking about nothing, stupid things.”
He slipped in the two bloodstained shells into the barrel, a faint smile on his lips.
“But after hours of just twiddling our thumbs, a deer finally wandered into the clearing, a doe. It was skittish; I think it knew someone was close. But it stayed, for some reason. I was so angry that I didn’t get my buck; I wanted to kill it. I was going to. But you stopped me. You threatened to scream if I raised my gun. You said it was just a doe, and we were hunting for antlers not meat.”
Lee snapped the barrel back into place.
“So I said you were just jealous because you couldn’t hit the deer if you tried. You got so mad at me. I thought for a second you’d shoot me. But you aimed for the deer instead.”
He flipped the safety switch off. The shotgun was still facing me.
“A shotgun isn’t as clean a kill as a rifle. You remember when my old man taught us about that? The bullets spread out and hit the entire body. The deer can still run away, but it feels pain with every step it takes. And all the while it’s running it’s just pumping all that blood out of its body faster.”
Lee’s finger slid underneath the trigger.
“We tracked her, from that blood. She was too far in the forest to drag out, so we just left her there. Out in the cold to rot slowly.”
I looked at Lee. [into his warm brown eyes, his corpse walking upright as if it were alive]
“You think I murdered her. [She deserved it, and you did too. I don’t have any regrets]”
Lee laughed. [mirthlessly]
“I watched you storm out of the cabin after your fight with Jess into a blizzard. [I’m not surprised you went back here, Jason. I almost didn’t go out there to save you that night, you know] You weren’t even wearing a jacket. I knew you wouldn’t last long, so I went out after you. [But I realized that was selfish. You were my friend. I thought you were my friend, anyway] I should have realized it then. That blizzard was something out of hell. No way you could survive out there for long. As for me, I couldn’t find my way back. I thought I would end up like that deer. [You should have let me die out there, Jason] But you found me. And you brought me back. [But I don’t think it matters. He would have brought me back anyway] Why didn’t you just kill me, Jason? Would two murders have strained your conscience?”
I turn from Lee’s broken, shattered corpse standing before me and turn to look at the man sitting next to me, with the purple suit and black eyes and bleeding fingernail beds. I expect to see excitement, smugness, something in his eyes, but there’s nothing there. Just emptiness.
I grit my teeth in anger. [and level the shotgun to Lee’s cracked open chest, his insides tinged with frostbite]
“Like you’re so fuckin’ high and mighty, Lee. You and Jess cheated on me! You had sex on this goddamn bed! [It doesn’t matter. I’ll beat you with my own hands back into hell if I have to]”
Lee stood menacingly from his chair. [and shuffled towards me with broken steps, his face twisting into a grisly smile] “And that meant she had to die? People cheat, Jason. People make mistakes! [All I felt was the cold before I came back. But you don’t need to die to go to hell, Jason] That doesn’t mean you fucking kill them! [Killing you is freeing you from your own hell. I’m doing you a mercy. You should thank me]”
I grit my teeth, [and a tear rolls down my cheek] trying to think of a way out. “I made a mistake all right, Lee. [I-I made a mistake, Lee.] I should have killed you that night too. [You think killing me is going to fix that?]”
Lee levelled the barrel of the shotgun at my chest. [and swung his bloody and splintered hand towards my face]
“The Devil always gets his Due.”
With a quick burst of movement I grabbed the barrel and flung it to the side and I heard a crack as Lee’s frozen hand made contact with my face, jagged bone etching tiny lines and I shoved my shoulder into Lee, knocking me into the ground and sending the shotgun careening out my hand as it’s blast goes wide. Lee looked up at me from the floor in shock as I stumbled over, tendons creaking and snapping as Lee’s left leg collapses and his body falls on top of me and I grasped his neck and began to squeeze before he could shove me off. Taking short gasps I clawed at his face and my fingers tear through skin and flesh and Lee thrashed against me, his fists hitting me over and over but I didn’t stop and I tore and tore but he didn’t stop until gradually his movements became weaker and weaker and as the world is sloughing off my mind I see the man in the purple suit leaning down and the last thing I see are his eyes, and in his eyes I see—
A white doe in a snowy clearing, drinking from a cracked open pool of icewater. It flicked its ears at something unseen behind me and was gone, bolting into the woods. A hand rests on my shoulder, and out of the periphery of my vision I see blood trickle down to the snow beneath me. In the water’s reflection I see my own eyes, brown like wilted flowers.