Page 28 of Caution Tape

Nolan

We hit a deer on the way back. It’s too perfect. It darts into the road, gives us a startled look, then tries to bolt, but the front bumper clips it as we race past, a dullthudechoing in the car.

Cora doesn’t flinch.

I ease the car to the shoulder of the road and shut it off.

“Glovebox,” I tell Cora. “There’s a flashlight, a knife, and gloves.”

“Do it yourself.”

I retrieve the flashlight and gloves, watching her closely as her gaze sets on the knife. “Go on,” I instruct.

Without any further hesitation, she grabs hold of it, looking at me from the corner of her eye. I shouldn’t trust her with the knife. I also shouldn’t walk in front of her, but I do anyway, enjoying the thrill and half-anticipating to feel the sting of the blade in my back. She follows me into the woods past the tree line and even deeper toward the direction I saw the deer fleeing in.

The flashlight manages to find a loose trail of broken vegetation the animal crashed through, pushing bushes and brambles out of the way in its panic. There’s a small, trickling blood trail I keep the light trained on.

“What are we doing?”

“The deer we hit is hurt,” I tell her. “This is something I do when it gets to be too much, and I need to unleash it. Find an animal and kill it.”

She’s walking beside me now, our feet crushing sticks and twigs, the small orb from the flashlight bouncing in front of us.

“Does it help?” she asks.

Our shoulders touch briefly as we crest a small hill. “It quiets things down for a little while.”

The deer is laying limply in a small clearing, leaning against a splintered, fallen tree-trunk. When it sees us, it struggles to try and stand, but the back-half of its body sags and it collapses again.

Cora beats me to it, looming over it. I hand her the gloves. I put one foot on the quivering deer, holding it down while she slides them on, a serene expression on her face. She tosses the knife from hand to hand.

I laugh. “Quit stalling. Unless you’re all talk.” I shine the flashlight in her face, making her blink. “Or you could just go back to your boring little life. Go back to being a rude little bitch with a dead friend. Or—“ I shine the light down at the deer, “we can play in blood together.”

She sinks to her knees, and I can’t help but picture her doing that for me. Looking up at me she tilts her chin.

“Fuck you, Nolan.”

The knife glints dangerously in the dim pulse of the flashlight before being driven into the stomach of the deer with a frenzy that shocks me. Cora’s face is twisted almost beyond recognition as the deer bucks and shrieks, twisting underneath my foot. One of its hooves kick out and grazes her lip, drawing blood, but it doesn’t faze her.

She grabs the leg, pinning it down and digging the knife back into the abdomen of the animal. She’s not trying to kill it. She’s trying to make it suffer. She hits something major with the blade and a gout of blood spurts out, coating her arms, neck, and chest. It turns her from a forgettable suburban woman in the woods into a demonic shadow, flickering in the low beam of the flashlight, coated in crimson. The blood doesn’t stop her. I don’t think I could stop her either.

The deer goes completely still, yet she’s still hacking away at it, carving a hole into the side of the creature. Its entrails spill out and slide onto the ground in a mess of dirt and gore.

“Cora,” I say, and she slows down, panting heavily while looking up at me, her visage covered in the result of her own violence.

“That was…” She gulps air, stretching her fingers and arms eyes shining with amazement at what she’s done. A smile claims her face as I help her to her feet. “It was just that…finally.I couldfinallylet go.”

“I know.”

She is still breathing hard, chest heaving, but I see it coming. I feel the air change. And the way that she readjusts the grip on the knife, looking down to throw me off. The flashlight is starting to die, and the woods have darkened completely. An enveloping blackness pressing against us.

A twig breaks as she shifts her weight and swings the knife in a driving arc, trying to bury it in the center of my chest.

Silly little bitch.

Her arms are tired so she’s slow. Too slow. She has to know that. I turn sideways and she lunges past me, easily allowing me to catch her wrist and bend it, making her cry out. As a result, she drops the knife. Pulling her arm as hard as I can, I yank her to me like a doll. Gathering both her arms and pinning them behind her back, I force her body against mine. She looks up at me, face contorted in a grimace. She smells like blood and sweat. Her hair is matted and tangled. She feels wet and warm against me.

“Still trying to kill me?” I rasp.

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