Page 78 of Crybaby

Darcie’s attention is fixated through the windshield, and when she gives directions on where to go, it seems she has the backdrop for the final act set in mind. We drive in silence. The only thing filling the truck is some tragic country ballad.

“How did you know about the club?”

Clenching my hands around the steering wheel, I confess, “Some pervert with a fondness for underage boys.”

Darcie waits for me to continue.

“He was a rich fucker. Married with five kids. But it was all for show. He owns the club. I wanted a fifty-thousand-dollar painting in his house. So I did what I had to, to get it.”

I don’t need to fill in the blanks. She gets it. It was at that club I learned a lot about people by watching and learning how to get what I want. And after a while, that life became my norm. It was my norm because I knew it wasn’t permanent.

I did what I had to, to survive because I knew it would help my mom.

And what a fucking joke that was.

Darcie doesn’t pry, but she knows me just as well as I know her.

“Here,” she says, pointing at a junkyard.

And what a backdrop she’s chosen.

I park the truck around the back and kill the headlights. Even though this place isn’t patrolled by security or have any killer dogs on-site, we can’t go waltzing in through the front gate. Opening the console, I pass her the guns.

Darcie follows as I get out and check to see if Blake is still out cold. He is.

I’m not gentle as I grip him by the ankles and hurl his ass out of the truck, ensuring to smash the side of his head on the edge of the tailgate.

Darcie’s fingers brush over a similar injury sustained, thanks to this sack of shit, which is why I ensured he felt what she did. The finger up his ass is indicative of what he may have done to her.

My jaw clenches, and just for good measure, I make sure his raw ass is exposed to the dirt as I drag him along the ground littered with broken glass and rocks. When I reach a small hole in the wire fence, I gesture with my hand for Darcie to go first.

Her tiny frame fits through with ease.

I use the toe of my boot to pry Blake up like a raggedy doll and shove him through the hole. The barbed wire scratches him. He’s going to be one scarred-up motherfucker once tonight is through because unlike the others, Darcie doesn’t want him dead.

He would be already if she did.

Darcie’s shoes kick up dirt as she pulls him out of the way so I can fit through the hole. I love that she doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty.

Once in, I peer around the desolate field filled with waste which was loved once upon a time. But now, it lays in twisted, broken heaps. We dispose of things so easily when something better comes along.

Blake is still unconscious, but he’ll rouse soon.

Dragging him by the arms, I lug him through the junkyard. I don’t clear a path for him. Whatever is in my way, I use Blake as my sweeper. When I drag him over a pile of rusted kitchen silverware, a dessert fork gets imbedded into his thigh.

I don’t bother removing it.

If he doesn’t die from whatever Darcie has planned, then he’s going need a tetanus shot. As well as a shower in fucking bleach because when I see a heap of black garbage bags oozing something brown and nasty, I take a slight detour.

Darcie covers her nose with the back of her hand while I sideswipe the bags with Blake’s torso. The unidentified goo covers Blake, and it’s good to see it smells as nasty as it looks.

With that done, I see a small alcove between a mountain of squashed cars piled high to the skies. “There,” I order, and when Darcie follows my line of sight, she nods.

I prop Blake up against some steel railing, and Darcie passes me some rope she found along the way. He is still out cold, so I hold him up with my shoulder as I tie him to the railing. When one arm is tied, I yank the other, and when I hear something akin to an orange being squashed by a truck, I grin because I’m pretty sure I just dislocated his shoulder.

Once tied, I step back and am pleased to see him displayed like Jesus on the cross—it seems fitting ’cause this motherfucker is about to be crucified.

Darcie places some empty bottles and beer cans around Blake’s head. “I always wanted to learn how to shoot,” she says, turning out her bottom lip. “Now is as good a time as any.”

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