Jim waited in the thick stand of slash and loblolly pines behind Rachel’s father’s trailer—the same trailer where her father had abused her so many times, so many violations of decency. Rachel had told Jim that she believed her father viewed her as his personal property, a living, crying doll for carnal amusement.
+++++Jim knew the bastard would emerge before dark, walk the footpath to the woodshed and gather rounds of seasoned hickory for the stove. Jim had observed him and his rituals many times. He was a creature of habits, filthy and otherwise.
+++++Jim was a student of weather, and of time, and of human behavior. He knew that the cold December rain would descend from the northwest before midnight, the dark clouds traversing the hills in their usual pattern. He knew that he had three hours before dark, and he knew he could maneuver through the forest and over the mountains in the dark if he must. He also knew that the rain would cover his tracks. Many days of soggy weather would likely pass before the deed would be discovered. He knew that the local sheriff, a decent but unimaginative man, would blame someone else, some group of youths, bent on robbery. He knew,or at least believed, that no clue would evince his guilt, but none of those concerns mattered, not really; he intended to kill Rachael’s father before dark, and, perhaps, to kill his own father’s memory. No fear of punishment, divine or terrestrial could dissuade him. He longed to draw his keenly-stropped blade across the dirty, taut, and stubbled throat and watch the evil blood pour out on the dark ground around him. For the first time in his life, Jim was free of all moorings, and no force on earth or in heaven could stop him …
+++++Jim took one final swing with the thick round of stove-wood. He heard the hollow sound when Rachael’s father’s skull popped, like a newly-picked melon dropped on a large field stone. He flung the bloody stove-wood deep into the pines. He had beaten her father for a quarter of an hour. He was spent. He felt the knife against his ankle—he had never thought to draw it—such was his rage. He examined his battered knuckles, a shard of shattered tooth protruding from the largest. He extracted the shard with his own teeth, and spat it on the ground. He took one last look at their father. Nothing about what was left of his skull looked human. Jim felt sick, for a moment. But the sickness soon went the way of the guilt.
+++++The rain had begun, a bit early. Jim turned and set about the long hike back to his truck. An hour later, Jim arrived at his Chevy, exhausted, his legs like bags of wet sand, his broken hands aching so badly that he struggled to identify and then turn the correct key and unlock the door. When the door opened, the interior light clicked on, revealing a bloody stick of stove-wood lying in the driver’s seat.

[Image Credit : Photo by Alessandro Bellone on Unsplash ]

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Alan Caldwell

Alan Caldwell has been teaching in Georgia since 1994 but only began submitting writing in May 2022. He has since been published in over two dozen journals and magazines, including Southern Gothic Creations, The Backwoodsman, You Might Need To Hear This, The Chamber, Heartwood Literary Journal, Rural Fiction Magazine, Deep Wild Journal and many others.

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