Chapter 9

When we reached the hard road, I turned toward home, hoping that Zeke’s monster Jeep would be able to get us through the deep snowdrifts and over the trees that had been blown down during the worst of the storm. We crawled along at a steady but slow pace, finally reaching Tara’s wrecked car, which is where our whole nightmare had begun.

I stopped the Jeep I had stolen from Zeke so we could retrieve Tara’s purse and luggage, along with my duffle bag from my truck, all of which had been left behind when Zeke and Merle had kidnapped us. Tara was silent and expressionless the whole time. When we had gotten back in the Jeep and resumed our slow progress toward home, she broke the silence.

“I killed a man, Seth. I burned him alive. He would have raped me if poor Merle hadn’t stoped him. He would have killed us both when he was done using my body. He laughed as he murdered his own brother. He deserved to die. He was a monster. We could have escaped after you wounded him, but I killed him. What happens now? Am I a murderer? Am I any better than he was? Will I go to prison? Will I go to Hell for this? Worse still, will I have dragged you down with me?”

She began to sob quietly, pitifully, tucking herself into almost a fetal position on the seat next to me.

I drove in silence, not knowing what to say to her. My emotions were so mixed up that I couldn’t decide if she was, in fact, a cold-blooded killer, or if her actions could be excused by the inconceivable horror of the entire situation and the mortal fear that Zeke had caused in both of us. I had shot the bastard twice, but I was at peace with that.

I had been prepared to empty his gun into him just to prevent him from raping Tara, but I had been tied up and could not get my hands free. After Merle had attacked Zeke to stop him just as he had been ready to begin raping Tara, she had untied me and I had grabbed the gun, but I didn’t fire it. When Zeke had overpowered Merle and had killed him, I threatened Zeke with the gun. Zeke lunged at me with the same fireplace poker he had used to murder his brother, so I shot him twice to disable him.

I was prepared to take Tara and flee the scene, knowing that Zeke would probably have bled to death before we could have sent police and medical personnel to his cabin, but I was comfortable with that. His death would, technically, have been at my hands, but I felt that, morally and legally, it was a killing in self-defense and in the defense of another. Tara’s dumping moonshine and kerosene all over him, knowing that it would trickle toward the fireplace and incinerate him alive was, perhaps, another matter.

The miles passed slowly on the drifted, tree- and branch-strewn woodland road. Tara and I were each lost in our own agonized thoughts. As we passed through the small town where I assumed Zeke and Merle had sold their hides and moonshine, I was acutely aware that we would have been seen as fugitives from justice if the stolen Jeep we were driving was recognized, but no one seemed to see us as we crept through the dark town. When we were back in the woods moving toward our home towns, Tara finally spoke again.