Until Death

Bob Landcaster was tired of driving, working, and living in general. Many parents are when their child is jumping up and down in the back seat after four hours of a car ride, but for Bob, it was bone deep. Natalie was a handful, sure, but he was glad to see her smiling again.

The drive to the Upper Peninsula, or UP, as the locals called it, in Michigan was a long one, but almost finished. It stayed faithful to the 23 north from his 900-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment in the southern city of Saline.

Bob thought this weekend would be well-deserved; he didn’t need to work his full-time job as an accountant, part-time job as an Uber driver, or full-time job of being a parent. Natalie would be taken care of by his parents so he could have no responsibilities for the first time in what felt like his life. While she was having a blast exploring the forest near his childhood home, he would be another hour north at their cottage.

There would be tranquility. No parenting, no work, and hopefully no anxiety. The gnawing feeling that no matter what he chose, it was making his life—but really Natalie’s—worse. He loved his daughter, but he couldn’t look at her lately without feeling an immense sense of guilt. It had been a long year, the divorce, the debt, testifying against his wife, and on top of that—

“Dad!” Natalie yelled.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Will I see an alien this weekend?” She asked

“Do you want to?”

“Yes. I wanna have an adventure.

“We’ll see if Grammy can help you find the alien’s saucer in the woods, then you can sneak in and save their test subjects.”

“Really?” Natalie said. Eyes growing in the rearview mirror.

“Of course, honey, she loves you.”

“Super cool”

Adventures were at the forefront of Natalie’s mind, and the cast of creatures she wanted to see in the mystical UP only increased with the miles of the car ride. Sasquatch, werewolves, boogermen, Draculas, and now aliens were hiding behind every tree up here. Bob would tell his parents to take her on a couple of walks in the woods. She would find a hole in the ground that had been where the spaceship landed. She would find them next time though. Always next time. She had an energy and curiosity for the world Bob could not remember if he ever had. A little jealousy crept in, but mostly he was happy for her.

The rest of the ride only served to add gelatinous goo-monsters and hut-dwelling witches to the wonders of the UP. Pulling up to his childhood home finally closed off the list. He loved how she could live in a world of her own. It had served her well and would as she got older. Bob’s parents were standing on the front door of their gray bungalow. As he got out of the car, the smell was the same as it has always been. Manure that somehow smelt good after the first minute. He loved and hated that smell.

“... And there is our little princess,” said Bob’s mother, Betsy.

“Grammy!” Screamed Natalie, running into her arms.

“Careful with my back, Nat.” She said, laughing.

His father, ever the stoic, came and rested a hand on Bob’s shoulder.

“Take the weekend to think about it. You’ll know it’s the right choice,” Graham said.

“We’re not talking about this, Jesus Dad, not even a hello,” Bob whispered. Natalie wouldn’t hear it, but still better to be safe.

Graham’s jaw tensed at his son’s language, taking a second to relaxing.

“I just love you both, you know that.” Graham replied.

“I need time to relax Dad, then I’ll be fine,” Bob said.

“Sure thing, we want to help, that’s all, and now that you’re alone—”

“Stop. End of discussion.”

His wife had never contributed; they should have figured that out after what had happened. She had been too busy getting high for her family to matter to her.

He gave them ten minutes of his time, said goodbye, and hugged Natalie. They never brought up giving Natalie away to them again, but once was enough. Every look and space between words showed they thought he couldn’t handle being a newly single father. Giving her up to them because he was late on some debts made his stomach turn. That was something a failure did. He knew they just wanted what was best, but how could they not trust him?

On the drive up he thought about the cottage. The Landcasters had owned it for generations. It was a log cabin on a picturesque hill surrounded by dense forest. The gravel driveway, wide enough for one car, led to the front door. It was quaint with a wood stove that radiated the warmest heat someone could ever feel. It was nostalgic from a time some hundred years ago in the Landcaster family past. Bob felt this as he entered the house—the generations of memories. He had always loved coming here as a kid, and now as an adult he realized how small it was, not much bigger than his apartment. He hung his rain jacket on a coat hook and looked around.

The front door opened directly facing the bathroom, to his left was one room that served both as a living room and kitchen. The subtle placement of furniture separating the spaces. In the wall of the main room was an oak door leading to the bedroom, and past that the forest. He would be the only person here for the next two days and smiled at the thought.

In the entryway there were the summer shoes for his whole family, with one extra pair. Mud-stained white with laces already double knotted and tucked in. They were Sarah’s. It amazed Bob how the time in the army was so deeply ingrained in her that he could tell her’s apart from the crowd. He picked up the sneakers and threw them into the woods. He had been cleaning her from his life, but she permeated everything. When she seeped in, he could hear Natalie crying. He had to do something, and so he had. He wouldn’t let someone in like that again. She kept coming up in his thoughts as he microwaved a meal and ate. These were common thoughts but they were happening every day now instead of every hour.

A day of driving, seeing his parents again, and remembering her; keeping his eyelids up was a real effort. Sleep was needed, so Bob took a shower and climbed into the bed. Drifting to sleep he thought about how he could sleep as long as he wanted. No need to be up before Natalie for school and to make breakfast, or for early morning uber drives. The last thoughts before sleep were those of peace.

Sadly, his sleep was haunted with dreams. Waking wet with sweat in the middle of the night. The dreams of being hit and yelled at had slowed over the past year, but whenever he relaxed, they came in again. It felt like he was being punished. After a visit to the bathroom, he was back to bed again. The cabin had seemed different, but the world often does after a bad dream. Had Bob stopped to look around he would have noticed the knives from the block were missing. He fell back asleep and didn’t remember any other dreams.

Bob woke to sunlight streaming through ethereal blinds. The motes of dust fell slowly, catching an air current and rising briefly before their slow journey to the ground continued. Feeling the sun on his face, Bob took a second’s respite. This would be the last moment of peace for a long time.

Bob reached for his phone on the dresser only to find it on the ground a foot from the bed. It must have fallen off the nightstand. Picking the phone up he saw that the screen was shattered. It started slow, a group of tears welled in his eyes. Bob tried to hold it as usual, but the contrast between the stress and serenity made him fail. He didn’t have the money to get a new phone. His debts would never be paid. He would have to pick up more rides, which would leave Natalie alone more. Everything he did hurt her. He would have to give Natalie up to his parents so she could live like a kid was supposed to. Bob was crying too loud to hear the footsteps outside the closed bedroom door, but the tears and sobs weren’t loud enough to dampen the front door slamming.

He felt like a kid again, embarrassed to have been caught. His parents had probably come by to check in, and they had found him crying. That didn’t feel right though. They would have come in to check on him, despite his wishes. So if it wasn’t them, who was it? A neighbor? There wasn’t another house for a couple of country miles. Whoever it was had certainly wanted him to have his privacy, and for that he was thankful. Taking another minute to compose himself, Bob looked around the room. His father’s hunting rifle was missing. Normally displayed proud over the dresser to the left of the bed. In its place was a dust outline of where it should have been.

Searching for the baseball bat under the bed, he couldn’t find it. It wasn’t there either. In a rush, he checked the travel bag. Even his straight razor was gone. Whoever ran out of the house had been in the room while he slept and had taken anything that could be used for defense. They had watched him sleep and not woken him up.

His brain froze and a look of hatred he would never forget entered it. The intruder had known where everything was. She was locked up, but who else could it be? Bob decided it didn’t matter who had been here. There was only one way out of this: to get out of the cabin and make a break for his car. The intruder had left Bob’s keys on the nightstand next to the now useless phone. He dressed quickly, wrapping his belt around the knuckles on his right hand. Crouched low in case the stolen rifle was pointed at where his head should be, he tensed like a sprinter and got prepared to open the door.

Bob threw open the door and bound low into the room, looking first left and then right. There was no one there. He stood up, looked around, and felt silly for running into an empty room. The bathroom door was closed and Bob awkwardly asked if anyone was there. No response. Someone had been in the cabin but was clearly gone now. Maybe it was just a robbery. What a relief that would be.

Bob had no intention of finding that out today; he went to put on his shoes, and his heart beat out of sync. The white sneakers, now covered in fresh mud from last night’s rain, were back. He looked out the screen door and saw a small hole had been dug on the hill to the right of the cabin with a shovel still in it. Faster than thought, Bob was fully tense again. He sprinted to the car and started the engine; the sweet sound of escape roared to life. The sedan tried to pull out of the driveway but made imperceptible progress. There was a sound of gravel hitting the bottom of the car. Bob got out of the car and noticed that all the knives, screwdrivers, and his straight razor from the cabin were sticking from the four tires of the car.

After fifty-eight accelerated heartbeats, Bob had put his belt back on and had started to form a plan. Someone, likely her, had trapped him. And he was stuck in the middle of the woods in the UP. The closest house was an hour away by running at a good pace. If he was lucky, the intruder would have left completely when he woke up. It should only take him an hour if he was quick. He started at a jog and after a half mile, slowed to a sturdy walk.

The road was surrounded by trees on each side, so thick the forest existed in perpetual dusk. Anything could be only 30 feet away, and he would never know. Every couple of minutes, a snap would come from the woods, and Bob’s addled brain saw himself being hunted. He started counting them; there were too many to be normal. Surely that had to be something following him. His chest tightened. A bunny hopped out from the bush, and Bob jumped. He tried running again.

A while into the more walk than jog, he saw a truck crest the hill ahead. Relief hit him and he stumbled. He waved, shouted, and begged for the quarter mile it took for the truck to get to him. The car slowed and eventually stopped. It was an old Ford F-100 pickup from the eighties and looked as though it was a pride of the owner’s life. Judging the man behind the wheel, it likely was. An older man in a plaid button down tucked into faded blue jeans and a navy blue baseball cap with a big yellow M for the local college. To Bob, he was the angel Michael.

“Y’look like y’could use some help,” the truck driver said.

“Yes, get me out of here.” Bob started to say more but realized he was too out of breath.

“Okay,” replied the truck driver slowly.

“Do you have a phone to call the police?”

“Sure do, come on son, y’ look something terrible.”

Bob got in the truck as the driver turned the radio down, but the message came through clear.

“Earlier today, two of the three convicts from the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility were apprehended, leaving one still at large. If you see her, assume she is dangerous with a history of violence. Do not approach. Call the local authorities. The death count is at two known victims.”

Bob came back to his senses as he was being shaken.

“I said—What on earth has happened to ya son?”

He couldn’t respond; his mind stuck between memories of the past and the terrifying possibilities of the future.

“Son, I’m gonna take yas to the hospital, okay?”

Bob grabbed the man’s shirt, his fist clenched tight. “Just drive.”

The man started the engine and pushed Bob off him. As he was about to ask Bob to control himself, a hole the size of the dime appeared off-center of the M on his hat. The front and rear windshields became a cacophony of glass. Everything that made this man became a limp sack of useless parts held together by muscle and bone. The bullet came from directly in front of the car. The woman there was all lean muscle with blonde hair below her shoulders and his father’s hunting rifle aimed at the car. All his fears had come true. His ex-wife was there to kill him. She pulled the rifle’s bolt back, ejecting the last round, as Bob opened the car door and unbuckled the man’s seatbelt. Ducking below the console, the next round was inches shy of his shoulder. He shoved the dead man, his saint Michael, out of the car and onto the shoulder of the road. Bob recognized that he should feel guilty, but the fight or flight response and fear of being hunted left little empathy. In tandem, Bob, still hiding behind the console, depressed the accelerator with his hand as Sarah chambered the next round. He gripped the steering wheel, and it turned slightly. He rose to steer the vehicle, but the blown-out windshield was now showing the forest. Before he could tense, his head hit the wheel.

He had run into a tree near the side of the road.

The truck was face first in a tree, but not too damaged since they were going slow. He could still make a break for it.

“Now look at what you did. Made me kill another man, then crashed his car.”

Bob looked up, seeing a rifle pointed directly at him through the driver’s door window.

“But the Lord smiled on me, and that nice man had some rope.”

“Please, I’m sorry,” Bob said.

“Get out of the truck, love.”

She sneered the last word, trying to make it hurt as much as any physical wound. He did as he was told. She walked around with a rifle leveled at him the whole time. Then, white pain exploded in Bob’s nose.

“If you were sorry you wouldn’t have done it.” She said,

She drew a hunting knife from her belt, slicing off a length of rope before roughly gagging him with it. She shoved him into the bed of the truck, tying his hands and feet tightly.

“We’re going back for a final weekend together.”

The ride back was just long enough for him to gain some composure. His ex-wife Sarah had now killed three men and wanted him as number four. She hadn’t done it yet, so that meant she needed something from him. He knew she would never forgive him, but that should have been a problem in nine years when she was slated to be released. He had planned to get a restraining order and maybe buy a gun to carry with him if she kept breaking it. The clocks had sped forward and he was found lacking. She got out of the truck, stopped the country music she always played, and went to look at him.

“Just how I dreamed of seeing you over the last year, fully mine to do what I want with.”

Her eyes were a little too wide, giving Bob the feeling that she was imagining the torment she could inflict. He tried to respond, but the gag of rope garbled his words.

“Oh, and you can’t lie anymore; it’s like you’re the perfect version of yourself.”

She looked at him with a hate reserved for people no longer seen as human. He looked back, forcing his face to be as calm as possible.

“I’m glad you still have some life left; this wouldn’t feel right without it. But I need to go make the final adjustments for your surprise. Oh, and honey, don’t try to hobble away; I’m not going far, and I want the right amount of holes in you.”

She walked away still humming the song from the radio. Bob knew he had to escape before she got back. He looked around the cab of the truck for anything he could use. There was an old steel toolbox, the rest of the rope, and anchor points had been welded onto the bed of the truck, but one of them was different. It was broken, making a jagged half circle of metal that could save his life. Bob started working on his hands, slowly rocking the rope over the broken anchor point. It was a balancing act of going fast enough to break free before Sarah returned while going slow enough to not rock the truck. If she could see the truck moving she would come and find him half-escaped. After what felt like too long the first layer gave, then the second. Sweat started to blur his vision and coat his body. For the first time, he thought about the real possibility of dying. Not the concept that he would die, but the real effect of death. That, despite what Sarah believed, he would simply cease. Only the concept of him would survive carried by Natalie and those who knew him. He wouldn’t see Natalie grow into the woman she would become, and Natalie would never know just how much Bob loved her. She would only vaguely remember him by the time she was a grown adult. Worse still if Sarah spirited her away after killing him.

The rope fell from his hands and stopped the thoughts. Bob reached down and slowly untied his legs, then took his gag out. He was almost a free man.

He pushed his eyes just above the rear gate of the truck, expecting to see her staring at him. Fortunately, she was working. The dug hole had not gotten bigger, but a wooden post was stuck in it. It stood tall with a ladder to its right. On the ground to the left were a two-by-four and his father’s old woodworking tool bag. No matter which way he ran, he knew she could outrun him. He was smarter than her, always had been. If he used his brain he could survive. It worked a year ago, and would work again this time. He didn’t want to kill her, but if that was the only way to see Natalie again, the choice was clear. Bob thought for a second, then jumped out of the truck and ran towards his car parked behind it.

“What the FUCK are you doin?”

As Bob ran by the front left of his sedan, he pulled his straight razor from the tire.

“Bob, don’t be dumb.”

She had a gun; if he rushed her, he would be dead. If he did nothing, she would check him for a weapon. Getting into his car, he turned the engine on and gunned it. It was parked behind the truck in the driveway. No more success than the first time; he hit the back of the truck, denting the bumper. The real objective, to hide the straight razor by clipping it under the belt obscured by his t-shirt, was accomplished. A couple seconds later, she was aiming the rifle at his head.

“I’m starting to think you just hate that truck,” she said.

“I’m sorry Sarah, that was dumb. I’m just scared, okay, I am scared.” Bob said, getting out of the car with his hands up.

“Shut up Bob. Are you even capable of listening?”

“Please, I never meant for you to go to jail; I just wanted what was best for Natalie.”

He heard and felt the crunch before the stars exploded in his vision. The butt of the rifle had reformed the bones around it. He sank to his knees on the gravel, blood streaming from his now broken nose. Bob was not accustomed to pain and did not take well to it. He was holding his nose while on his elbows and knees when his hands were pulled away and bound again. He had been too distracted and missed his chance. He couldn’t reach the razor. She put the gag back on him.

“I am tired of you running away from me. I know you don’t love me anymore, but that doesn’t mean you can leave. It’s untill death do us part, and I want to be rid of you.” Sarah said, looking at where the band should have been on her finger.

She left a small length of rope that was connected to his restraints. She led him to the truck, lowered the back gate, and tied that length to the anchor point opposite the one he used to escape.

She got in the cab and turned the keys in the truck. The engine came alive, then the radio started playing country music. Sarah crept the truck out of the driveway. Bob was pulled along and forced to walk behind the truck. The speed increased. Bob had to jog. He wanted to cry out to stop, but the gag ate his words. The gag was suffocating him. He couldn’t keep up with the truck. He realized with horror what was going to happen. The rope had become taut. He could only focus on keeping pace with the truck. It was so much harder to run with his hands tied. If he could keep pace a little longer, he could catch up and jump up on the bed. Sarah kept accelerating, and it was too much for Bob.

He tripped.

There was enough rope that most of his arms were raised above his head on the bed, his body lay half on the tailgate, half off, and his legs fell to the road. His feet were dragging on the pavement. The truck continued to speed up. The road was tearing through the layers of his shoes. His socks disappeared instantly. He felt more terror than pain as the first red streak on the pavement was left from his bare skin. That changed as the electrical jolt of pain from the nerve hit his brain.

It gave new context to life; he had been living in pleasure his entire life and without realizing it. The absence of this pain was euphoria compared to his life now with it. Bob wanted his nose broken again—anything except for this torment.

The road was eating Bob’s feet slowly. The skin was gone, then the knuckles of each toe began to grate away. The pain was like nothing Bob had ever felt before. It reduced every other sense to a dull ache at the back of his mind. He tried to lift himself up on the bed of the truck but slipped and smashed his mangled feet into the road hard. The pain exploded and took all the space in his brain for itself. He wailed into the gag and bit with more force than he thought possible. He felt a choking sensation and realized the gag had been bitten through. He spat it out and screamed his throat bloody as streaks of what were his feet deposited on the pavement. The country station from the cab grew louder. He existed in the valleys of smaller pain between the mountains that happened when there was something on the road that jostled him.

First he lost the concept of self. He was the tearing and ripping of his feet against the concrete. Next, he lost all concept of time. His existence was this car ride and would always be. It was pain, country music, and the golden hair spilling around the headrest in the cab flowing back to him through the broken rear windshield. Bob was no longer home, so he didn’t notice the turn to take him back to the cottage.

Sarah parked the truck in the gravel driveway, and time slowly returned to Bob. He could tell the differences between one moment and the other again. Then, he became aware of his body again. He was shaking uncontrollably. His brain was swimming in adrenaline, making his feet a dull ache compared to the torrent of pain from earlier. He thought that he could have lost his nerve endings, making it so he couldn’t feel pain, but he didn’t know. Bob rolled onto his back. Standing was out of the question; might be forever now.

The country music stopped, and a door slammed. A figure emerged from the side of his vision, cut the rope, and pushed Bob off of the bed. He hit the gravel in a heap and was dragged to the cabin. More pain, but so minor compared to the ride before that he was thankful. Sarah dropped his collar once inside; his head bounced off the wood floor. The torture had hollowed him out, leaving him empty. Despite his fight to stay conscious, Bob blacked out.

Bob’s parents had tried to reach their son early in the day. Natalie had been asking for her favorite monster plushie, and they didn’t know which one that was. When they got no response, they thought nothing of it. Then they called again at lunchtime with another question, again no response. This caused some concern, but Bob had been stressed and probably needed time alone. Finally the third call dodged, and no response to the worried texts they had sent made his father start pacing. After some deliberation, he got in the old family truck and started driving up to the cottage.

Sleep would not be the right term, as Bob dreamed of nothing. A void of thought and function allowing his brain to reknit itself. It was torn into pieces to preserve his sanity. When thought could be coherent again, the brain now bone dry of adrenaline, he awoke.

The first thing Bob was aware of was that his feet were no longer a dull ache. There were, in fact, still nerves intact that screamed for attention, forming a chorus of wails. He rocked his head around, looking around and recalling the events of the day. He was in a chair where the kitchen turned to the living room. Sarah was at the kitchen sink to his left with water running, her back to him.

He could see through the window that the project Sarah had been working on was finished. The two-by-four had been drilled into the post at a 90-degree angle about a foot down from the top; she had made a cross. There were fallen branches and spare wood around the base of the cross, and Bob gasped. She was going to burn him in a funeral pyre. He pushed himself up in the chair. The chorus from his feet became louder, and Bob let out a grunt. Sarah immediately whipped around.

“Good, you’re awake. We couldn’t get started until now.”

He could see she was washing blood—his blood—from the clothes she had been wearing. Now she was wearing his spare set.

“What I want from you is an apology, an honest one for sending me to that place, but I know I’ll never get it. You lied to the police, the judge, and broke your oath under God in that courtroom. You broke your oath to me.” She said, looking at her empty ring finger before continuing,

“You always wanted to hurt me, and the first chance you got, you took it.”

He was going to die anyway, and Bob didn’t have the energy to assuage her.

“You were out of control! Every night you would get high. Natalie would watch her mother turn comatose, worse if you were able to think at all. You would hit me and tell me I’m not providing the life that you both deserved.” Bob screamed.

“You didn’t get me the help I needed, I was suffering Bob. You don’t know what it’s like to close your eyes and be somewhere else. For any noise to make you go back to a desert where you watched your friends die.”

“I tried to get you help for four years after you got back from that hellhole. We took you to everyone who said they could help. Between that and the pills, we were in serious debt. Then we got pregnant, and I thought things might get better. But they didn’t okay, they didn’t. And I… I had to make a choice.”

“You abandoned me,” she said in a hushed tone.

“For our daughter.”

“You stole the drugs I need to live, made me face a night sober, gave yourself bruises and cuts, then went to the police station, and told them I drugged you and tried to kill.”

“I didn’t give myself the bruises and cuts, you did,” Bob said, now defeated.

“Do you know what they did to me in that place Bob? They tortured me. They put me through withdrawal, took away my baby, and then locked me in a cage. I would have a flashback in my cell, and they wouldn’t let me out; they thought I was doing it for attention. I would suffocate in there, smash my fists, head, anything I could against the bars to escape. It wouldn’t work; eventually I’d lie down and wait to die. I would wake up the next morning, crusted blood crumbling as I moved my body, not dead. Alive for another day of torment and know that you were the reason I was there. You wanted me there. Wanted me to suffer because you no longer wanted me. But we made a promise. Until death do us part means something to me.”

The anguish on her face stabbed Bob. This past year had been hard for him, but it had been hell for her. Even after everything she had done to him, he couldn’t help but feel responsible for it all.

“I just want this to be over,” she said, tears now carving paths down her cheeks.

“Fuck, I’m—I am sorry.”

She composed herself, wiping away the tears, and chuckled lightly. Smiling feebly, she said,

“Close, but I don’t believe you, Bob. I forgot how good a liar you were. You would say anything to save yourself. But you won’t be saying much anymore. You know, I still love you after it all; how fucked is that? But since I love you, I got you a present. See, you sinned directly against God, and I know you ain’t gonna ask for forgiveness. There still is a way for you to get to heaven. We’re gonna burn your sins away.”

“Please, no. You don’t have to do this.” Bob said, now crying himself. He wanted this to end any other way.

“Oh, but I do honey. Then your parents will have to atone for raising you. I’ll take our daughter and raise her right. It’ll be what we need to make sure she doesn’t get corrupted by your side.”

His parents would be killed. Natalie’s life would be over. He couldn’t let that happen.

“Okay hun, let’s say a prayer together before you meet the Lord.”

She approached him slowly, expecting him to be harmless. This was his only chance left; he had to take it. As she bent down to pray, he took the straight razor from his waistband, swung it upward, and aimed it for her neck. He had hesitated though, thinking of all his memories with this woman. It gave her the time to see his movement and react. He sliced along her collarbone, nicking her chin after.

She wailed like a banshee, more anger than pain. Bob pushed forward, toppling them to the ground, grunting as his legs screamed at him. He went for another slice, and she caught his fists. The razor was two inches from her neck, shaking back and forth. The pain in his legs kept taking up more space in his brain by the second. He put his full weight on top of the razor. If he didn’t push down, his parents and Natalie’s life would be over.

They locked eyes, and a moment became eternal. Struggling for life, fighting to hold onto the future. Bob had loved this woman, still did in some way, and now he was trying to kill her. She was the mother of his daughter. A woman beaten down by the world for trying her best and failing. Just like he had. He couldn’t do this. Then the position of the razor shifted downwards towards her throat. Bob saw recognition dawn in her eyes. She could escape this world. Sarah believed that killing herself would send her to hell. But if he did it, then she could die and still go to heaven. Bob tried to pull back, but it was too late.

“I’ll be waiting on the other side for you,” she whispered in the way that only lovers can as the strength left her hands.

Bob’s weight fell on top of her, and the razor buried into her neck. It wasn’t clean; both her throat and artery were butchered. Bob collapsed to her left, a heap on the floor. Blood splashed against his cheek, spurting to the final rhythms of her heart. Each beat sending a fresh reminder of what he had done washing against his body. He wept and replayed their life together. The good, the bad, the start, the end, and for the first time that final promise. A bubbling sound escaped her lips, and then she was silent.

The drive up was comfortable for Graham, who had been making it for almost 60 years. He was getting annoyed with Bob. He understood that his son wanted to do things himself but couldn’t see that his parents were there for him. After an attempted murder, he expected to finally see his son more. For goodness sake, he needed someone to help him. But that had always been Bob. Too proud to ask for help.

As Graham turned onto the final road to the cottage, he started to feel anxiety. After passing the neighbor’s house, he could see what looked like tire tracks in the grass, leaving and then coming back to the road, but no car. As he got closer, he saw there was a man on the side of the road with a couple of crows around him. Graham slowed the car down and saw a dead human body.

The head looked like a pumpkin being made into a jack-o-lantern. The brain had been pulled out so the crows could feast on the strands. Graham vomited out of his window. He felt then that his son was in serious trouble. Please, God, let him be alive. He swerved back into his lane, pulled out his cell phone, called the police, and hit the accelerator. He told them the address and to get the paramedics. It would be at least an hour before they got there. He hung up as he arrived at the cottage.

There were mud streaks leading to the driveway from the opposite side of the road. Two vehicles were parked in the driveway. A quickly made cross was on the left of the hill, and the front door was open. Graham stopped the truck by the road and ran as fast as he could into the cottage.

Splayed in the middle of the floor were two shapes. The first was face-up with glass eyes looking beyond this plane of existence and a neck thick with blood. It was Sarah. His eyes flicked to the other, to his son. Bob was face down in a slowly growing pool of blood. The pool was around both bodies and went back to the chair Graham’s father had built. Graham rushed up and flipped his son over.

The blood had stuck and clung to Bob’s face as he was flipped. Bob’s feet were torn to shreds. He later realized while waiting for the paramedics that those had not been mud stains on the road.

It had been his son still on the road.

Graham rushed to put his head against Bob’s chest. The sobs wracking his chest made it hard to hear anything. He would do anything to have his boy back; please just let him live. Then, two signs of life came at once: a faint heartbeat and a slow rising of his chest. His son was alive.

Years of therapy, both physical and mental, had taught Bob Landcaster three things. First, was that to keep going was worth it. After getting out of the hospital, he had almost given up a number of times, but two things had stopped him, both promises.

One from Sarah in her final moments, and the other was to Natalie. To see her grow and have a life he couldn’t anymore. He would never be ready to discover if the first promise would be kept, but was glad the second one was.

A couple years after Sarah’s death, Bob had moved back into his childhood home to be closer to Natalie and his parents. It had been hard at first, but it eventually smoothed out. She had somehow grown into a beautiful person. Kind and considerate, everyone loved her that he had met.

Eventually, she had left for college, and there were times late at night when Bob couldn’t sleep from the worry he felt for her. Then she had brought home someone. Amanda seemed sweet. After Bob’s parents had adjusted to their littlest girl liking other girls, they were on board. Bob didn’t think he could ever trust Amanda, knowing what a partner can do to you, but he trusted Natalie.

That was enough.

It made him think of the second thing his therapy had given him, the ability to walk thirty feet out of his wheelchair. Which cascaded into the third, Bob Landcaster was able to embrace that good things can happen too, like the wedding of his daughter. He adjusted his tie in the mirror, wished that Sarah could have seen her daughter all grown up despite it all, and rolled away.