Skunky was still all giggles as she started up her truck and pulled back onto the road. Elroy was rock-hard next to her, squeezed in between Skunky and Ross like a hulking dick-sandwich. The novelty was in no way lost on Elroy, of being the only person in the truck capable of getting a hard-on, and Ross's gigantic ass beside him did not concern him one bit. Let the old coot say somethin'... he thought to himself, and he'll wind up just like that fuckin' rapist sumbitch we strung up in the tree not 20 minutes ago.
Skunky rolled down the window and let out a howl. There was nothing like a southern summer night in her book. The way the thin ribbon of silvery road cut through trees, tall and plentiful on either side, was comforting to her. And she loved the way the balmy night air felt cool when it was passing through her truck window. Summer days were hot and long and could drain the life out of anybody, but summer nights were alive, and she felt that life truly was a party as she chugged the rest of her beer and tossed it into the tall roadside grass. Ross passed cigarettes to Skunky and Elroy. She gave Ross a nod and an enthusiastic, "Thank ya, Daddy!"
Elroy nodded his own appreciation quietly. He hated the old man's sloppily rolled pipe-tobacco cigarettes. They were too juicy and too strong and they tasted and smelled like a bucket of fresh-picked assholes. He needed a fuckin' cigarette in a big way and had a full, unopened pack of Grim Reapers in his back pocket, but he wasn't going to pull them out in front of Ross and end up giving half of them away even if it meant he'd be buried with them. Skunky didn't seem to mind too much, but he hated to see his woman go without a beer. Also, he hated to do the world such a big, costly favor and not get a celebratory piece of ass immediately after.
Although Elroy didn't realize it, he was seething visibly. Ross nudged him with his elbow. "S'amatter, Sasquatch?"
Ross heaved a big sigh and said in a gruff voice, "Baby, get us to Denham and let's stop off at our spot. Damn beer's in the bed, can't get to it."
Skunky shouted, "Sure thing!" Partially because of the radio being up and the windows being down, but also because she was bubbling over with excitement. She was smiling, her eyes electric and a little wild. Usually, running out of beer spoiled her good moods, but tonight it was early and they'd already had a better night than usual, even if Ross was along for the ride. Hell, he was the reason for this particular ride, anyway.
The old man nudged him again, annoyed that Elroy hadn't responded to him directly. "Did'ja hear me there, son? I asked you a question."
Elroy sighed again and shut his eyes. Whether Ross was the reason for this particular party or not, Elroy wished like hell he wasn't there. Regardless of Ross's presence, Elroy had no intention of not bending Skunky over the oak stump at their favorite little swimming hole in Denham. He didn't give a fuck if her daddy, grandparents, and the whole damn town showed up for it, either. Matter of fact, he thought to himself, if she don't take her hand off my damn leg here in a minute I'munna cum my pants. Of course, he didn't want to spoil the party, and there was a reason they were driving Ross around tonight, after all. He smiled and gave Ross a good-natured jab back. "Just anxious to see the fruits of this here excursion," he replied, sounding jolly. Ross grinned and nodded and patted his pocket.
Skunky's hand continued to play hell on Elroy's thigh until the moment they pulled into their hidden parking spot by the swimming hole. Ever the gentleman, Elroy did not cum his pants, neither did he forget to grab Skunky (and himself, and even Ross) a fresh beer. The three of them gathered around the hood of the truck, all of them stretching a bit as Ross handed out more cigarettes. The moonlight was strong and the sky blissfully cloudless, so they didn't have to worry about attracting attention with headlights or flashlights. She felt like she imagined she might have felt on her prom night, had she made it that far into her education. She felt young and vital and ready for anything, especially if it was attached to Elroy.
Ross reached into his pocket and produced a button bag almost stuffed full of white powder and little crystal shards. It didn't look like the meth they normally picked up from Ross's guy, but maybe this was something different. "Did Red try him a new recipe?" Skunky asked.
Ross shrugged. "He said it was some sort o'... new shit or some goddamn thing. Shit must be purty good. He was so fucked up he dumped out a goddamn half an ounce of the shit right out on the hood o' your truck and separated it up before he gave me mine. Fucker didn't even get it all up off there. Like he ain't never done a damn deal before or somethin', and I to-" Ross was cut off by his own diseased lungs. He pounded his fist on the hood of the truck as deep, hacking coughs took temporary control of him.
That had been all the explanation Skunky needed, anyway. She pressed herself against Elroy and nibbled at his neck while they waited for Ross to get done hacking and start doing some dope. Over a minute and a half later, it was finally under-way. Unfortunately, his coughing fit had taken his good mood down a notch or two, and besides that he didn't care to see that big ape walking around with a tent in his britches and his paws all over Skunky. While he'd been coughing it had occurred to him that they were waiting for a line or a bowl so they could run off into the trees for a quicky and leave him with nothing to do but stand around and overhear his own baby girl getting plowed by a Sasquatch. Damned if he wouldn't do most of his dope up in the truck with the radio goin'. He cut out a skinny little line for Elroy, right on the hood of the truck. He fixed up a slightly bigger one for Skunky, and then laid himself out a rail of an appetizer before tucking the baggy safely back into his pocket. He pulled out a wrinkled and blood stained dollar that was tucked away in the back of his wallet and rolled it up. "Ladies first," he offered, handing the bill to Ross.
Ross rolled his eyes and heaved an annoyed sigh, but took the dollar anyway and did his line up, then passed it to Skunky, who did her own line and passed it on to Ross. Within seconds her heart rate sped up and she jumped into Elroy's arms and wrapped her legs tight around his hips. With a cheerful grunt he grabbed on and walked her off into the woods without a word to spare for Ross.
Ross climbed into the truck. He didn't want to hear them fucking, but when he really stopped to think about it he didn't want to suffocate with the windows up or get the cops called with the radio on. He dug around in the glove compartment until he found Skunky's meth pipe. She kept it wrapped in paper towels inside some fancy-pants bag she'd gotten a bottle of liquor in for Christmas. Sometimes he really couldn't believe he'd raised such a responsible girl. Still, he never had been able to get his head around her wanting Elroy. Ross loaded the bowl and finished it off. And again. And again. And again. He'd been speeding his balls off since the hood of the truck. The speed calmed his spasming lungs, and he looked forward to at least one night of relative relief.
And he was relieved to find he couldn't really hear them. Now and again a bit of voice or a snapping branch, or the heavy rustle of dry leaves beneath two very active bodies. He just couldn't stand it. He knew that she was the kind of girl that did who and what she wanted, but he wished like hell he'd never introduced her to Elroy.
Thinking about it wasn't doing much for his buzz. He loaded another bowl as he tried to push his daughter's poor taste in men out of his mind. He took a long, deep suck off the little glass tube and shut his eyes. His heart sped up. Then he felt the slightest twinge of pain in his throat and arms, followed by a tightness that clasped slowly and firmly around his chest. He wheezed in a deep breath, prepared for what he thought would be the coughing fit of his life, but the cough did not come. He exhaled. His lungs were clearer than they had been in days. Heart attack, he thought immediately. He tried to shout, but the tight grip on his chest wouldn't allow it. He tried to pound his fist on the door, but his arm muscles were seized tight and he he couldn't make a sound.
A few yards into the trees, Elroy and Skunky were just re-robing themselves. Elroy was pretty well ready for round 2, but Skunky didn't feel right making her Daddy wait for them any longer. "Besides," she tried to soothe her sulking man, "another line'll have us good and revved up by the time we get some time alone tonight."
Elroy managed a grin for his Skunky. She did have a point. Besides, he'd got his rocks off, and as far as he knew she had, too, and that would do for now. Skunky hummed a little tune as she fastened her belt and pulled her boots back on. The insects were in full-blown concert. All-in-all, the night was going well. He walked up to Skunky and helped her up off the stump she'd been sitting on to dress. She smiled and gave him a big, smacking kiss before they started back for Skunky's truck.
The bugs weren't quite as loud when they stepped out of the woods and into the clearing around the swimming hole. All was quiet. Skunky raised an eyebrow when she saw Ross was sitting in the driver's seat. "Old fucker better not think he's fixin' to drive my truck," she muttered to Elroy as they approached. Ross's arm rested on the open window. "You 'wake, Daddy?" she called out. He didn't move or respond.
The couple approached Skunky's truck slowly. She didn't realize she was squeezing tightly to Elroy's arm, nor did she attribute her heart rate to anything more than drugs, but whether Skunky knew it or not, she was scared. "Ain't no way he fell asleep on that shit," Elroy mused.
At the truck, Skunky opened her mouth to scream, but Ross clapped a rough hand over it tightly and pulled her close against him. He wrapped his other arm around her and kept holding her mouth. She threw back her head and stared up at him, her eyes wide. He stood and whispered for her to "breathe" until finally he knew she wasn't going to scream and let go of her mouth. He stared down into her strikingly blue eyes, even bluer when she'd been crying, and he couldn't help realizing he'd never known that because Skunky did not cry. In a small, shaky voice that he could hardly believe was Skunky's, she said simply, "Daddy..." She broke free from Ross's embrace, felt her father's wrist for a pulse and found nothing. No breath escaped his nose or mouth. "Aw, fuck, Daddy..." she moaned, and for once Elroy didn't enjoy the sound of that. She held Ross's hand in both of hers and turned her face back to Elroy. "Whatta we do, baby?"
Elroy sighed. "We'll drop him off at one of the bus stops in Woodruff. He'll look like he's sleepin' on the bench and a cop'll come up and they'll take care of it."
Skunky frowned, her eyes welled up with tears, and Elroy could do nothing but grab her and hold her close. "We can't leave him on a bench like that, Elroy..." she said, her voice more unsteady with each word. "We just can't, we can't, we can't, we-"
"Shhhh!" Elroy held her tight and smoothed her hair with his hand. "You know we can't go to the hospital, baby, you know we can't do that... We'll cover him up with my old coat that's still sittin' in your truck. We'll say goodbye – quickly, baby – and we'll go and they'll have him picked up and tended to in no time. Nobody'll know we was even with him."
Skunky crumpled in his arms and heaved silent sobs into his beer gut. Elroy wanted to comfort her. He didn't want to let go until she was ready. But he was starting to get nervous. It wasn't too wise for the two of them with their handful of warrants each to sit around in a semi-public location with a dead man and a bag of dope in their truck. He gave Skunky a gentle shake and pulled her up straight. "We can't just stand around here, baby, we need to get to Woodruff and get him outta your truck."
It was at this moment that Skunky said two words Elroy never thought he'd hear his woman say - "You drive." His jaw dropped and for a moment he wasn't sure how to proceed. The keys were in the ignition. She was just standing there. He'd never seen Skunky look vulnerable before, and couldn't imagine that before this very moment she ever had. She seemed somehow smaller, and fragile. Elroy went to her and put a gigantic arm around her. He helped her to the truck, one shaky little step at a time, and lifted her into the passenger's seat. He wasn't sure the truck even had seat belts, so he checked, and found that it did. He buckled her in and kissed the top of her head. Then he went around to the driver's side for the first time ever in his life. He gently pushed Ross into the middle, and Skunky made sure he didn't lean forward or topple back the other way, and once he was settled beside her she cuddled against him and cried into his shoulder, whispering things that Elroy couldn't hear or understand.
When he started the engine, the radio blared on, and for the first time ever, Elroy turned it off. He almost couldn't stand it, seeing her that way.
Woodruff was barely big enough to be considered a city. Trailers and houses sprawled on its outskirts, and lead up to a downtown that was slowly becoming worthy of the title. What had been a tiny sanitarium 103 years ago was now a gigantic hospital that provided most of the city's jobs. It was nestled in the long curve of the Red River, and the rest of town seemed to have sprung out from it. The way Elroy saw it, somebody would find Ross at the bus stop, and he'd be brought to the hospital just like anybody else that died. They'd check his license and someone would come to the house or call and tell them Ross was dead. And they'd plan the funeral, just like regular people who didn't have warrants and need to avoid being grilled and ID-ed by the police. Ross would've understood. He'd have done the same, even. Elroy knew it, and he knew that Skunky knew it, too. They didn't have a choice.
They left him there on the park bench and went back to the swimming hole. Skunky cried in Elroy's arms for exactly seventeen minutes and forty-two seconds. It was the first time he'd ever used his watch outside of work. Ross took a hearty bite or so out of the first two people who approached him on the bench, and it wasn't long before he was strapped firmly to a gurney and transported to the hospital, where he bit the two ER nurses who brought him in and several other patients before finally being locked in an exam room by two desperately frightened secretaries.
About thirty miles away from where Elroy was comforting his woman, the four remaining friends wrapped up their game of SG, and paired off to bed. The next morning, they piled into Ciji's car to head for IHOP. On the way there, Robby saw frantic movement just inside the trees and called out to his friends, "There's someone... in the woods..." His voiced trailed off to below a whisper. He'd realized too late that he really hadn't wanted to say it out loud, and he definitely didn't want to go back and check it out. Something had been very, very wrong about what he'd seen. It had only been a glimpse, but a glimpse of what appeared to be a human bouncing and flailing with its feet at a consistent three feet off the ground. The form of a human, jerking and writhing only to stay in one spot, suspended in air. And something else... something about the clothes...
He couldn't hide the sigh of relief when Wynn said casually, "Probably just a hunter or somethin'," and Ciji didn't hit the brakes. They went to IHOP, had breakfast, talked, and tried to all pretend that Marcus wasn't missing from the group because he was angry, but because he was sick or out of town and everything was going to be just fine with the five of them.
They might have all gone back home after that, gotten cleaned up and dressed and started on the next game of SG, except that Robby hadn't been able to help fixing his eyes on the very same spot on the way back. This time, Maddy had followed his gaze and seen it, too. She gave him a questioning look, needing confirmation that she wasn't imagining things. "What the hell is that?" she asked out loud.
Ciji raised an eyebrow and nodded to Wynn when he cast a curious glance in her direction. "Should we stop and check it out?"
She was already pulling over when the others chorused agreement. The four of them got out of the car and immediately could hear the ruckus whatever they'd seen was making. They tried to free their friend immediately, and he thanked them all by biting them. He got all of them but Ciji at least once. Maddy did not make it back to Ciji's car with them. Even Robby hadn't noticed she wasn't with them until they were almost back to Wynn's house. They all teared up when they realized it, and Ciji sobbed outright as she drove down their long stretch of road, but she did not apply the brakes, and not one of them suggested that she should.