His body is limp in her arms, finally spent. His head lolls, lips slightly parted. Air hisses softly between them, seems like barely enough to keep him alive. Blood flows silently from shoulder and belly, smudging like ink, like paint, like blue sky falling away piece by piece but he doesn't feel it. He doesn't hear Kate's voice, raw with desperation or feel her hands on his face, tangling through his hair all wet with rain, tears. The blessing of unconciousness takes him somewhere far away.
Safe inside his head, Ben Hawkins dreams.
There's a tree. It's huge, with gnarled, spreading branches. Ben is leaning against it, his forehead pressed into the bark. His hands spread over knots and lumps. When he turns his head away from the tree he can see that it stands on a hill overlooking a field of corn.
His hands are wrapped around the blade of a dagger. The hilt is nowhere to be seen. The blade is buried deep in the tree, and turquoise drops of blood patter down to the green grass below.
The tree bursts into flames.
It burns. Thunder rolls and lightning opens the night sky to send rain like tears coursing down but the tree still burns. Ben backs away from it, stumbling and falling, lying in the grass as it sends sparks into the night sky. The tree is screaming.
Or is that him?
Its branches crack and groan. The heat blisters his face. He scrambles back to his feet and now he is running, running faster than he ever has before, through the maze of corn. Familiar. He's been here before. His breath tears at his chest, his heart pumping a thousand beats a minute until out of nowhere his feet tangle and he falls.
Justin is below him. Justin lies in the mud, his jacket open to show the twisting lines of a tree, inked deeply into his flesh. The dagger-blade gleams from deep in his ribcage. Ben rolls off him and lies in the mud, gasping for air. That's it. He's done. Justin's dead. He lies there and breathes. In the distance, the tree burns. Ben's heart slows. He's tired. He's fucking sick of running. But it's over.
Brother Justin sits up.
His lips twist into a sneer. His mouth opens. His voice, when it comes, is Samson's voice, familiar as ever.
You think the Lord had to die to make his point? Dumbest thing is dyin' when you ain't gotta.
Ben's heart seizes in his chest. Pain runs in burning lines down his chest, sudden, unexpected, making him writhe in the dirt. His shoulder and belly are on fire the same way the tree is on fire. He clenches his teeth until he can't anymore but when he goes to cry out there's no voice there. There's nothing. He's falling hard, the world spinning around him, and inside he can feel his heart slowing like a badly wound clock.
Justin stands over him. The sickle drips onto Ben's face, but he can't raise a hand to brush the stickiness away.
Tell you somethin' else - when it comes to livin'? Dyin' is the easy part.
On the hill the tree flickers once, and the flames are gone. It stands whole and hearty while all around Ben the corn bends down, turns brown and fades as the wound in Justin's chest closes up. The preacher-man smiles.
Ben's heart
stops.
Dyin' just 'cause you're piss-poor at living.
no. no no no no NO NO NO
Rita Sue kneels in the mud bends down to touch his shoulders his face and he doesn't flinch away or can't--
you're a good boy Ben Hawkins
kisses his cheek so that strands of her cornsilk hair tickle his lips
no subject
His body is limp in her arms, finally spent. His head lolls, lips slightly parted. Air hisses softly between them, seems like barely enough to keep him alive. Blood flows silently from shoulder and belly, smudging like ink, like paint, like blue sky falling away piece by piece but he doesn't feel it. He doesn't hear Kate's voice, raw with desperation or feel her hands on his face, tangling through his hair all wet with rain, tears. The blessing of unconciousness takes him somewhere far away.
Safe inside his head, Ben Hawkins dreams.
His hands are wrapped around the blade of a dagger. The hilt is nowhere to be seen. The blade is buried deep in the tree, and turquoise drops of blood patter down to the green grass below.
The tree bursts into flames.
It burns. Thunder rolls and lightning opens the night sky to send rain like tears coursing down but the tree still burns. Ben backs away from it, stumbling and falling, lying in the grass as it sends sparks into the night sky. The tree is screaming.
Or is that him?
Justin is below him. Justin lies in the mud, his jacket open to show the twisting lines of a tree, inked deeply into his flesh. The dagger-blade gleams from deep in his ribcage. Ben rolls off him and lies in the mud, gasping for air. That's it. He's done. Justin's dead. He lies there and breathes. In the distance, the tree burns. Ben's heart slows. He's tired. He's fucking sick of running. But it's over.
Brother Justin sits up.
His lips twist into a sneer. His mouth opens. His voice, when it comes, is Samson's voice, familiar as ever.
You think the Lord had to die to make his point? Dumbest thing is dyin' when you ain't gotta.
Justin stands over him. The sickle drips onto Ben's face, but he can't raise a hand to brush the stickiness away.
Tell you somethin' else - when it comes to livin'?
Dyin' is the easy part.
Ben's heart
stops.
Dyin' just 'cause you're piss-poor at living.
no.
no no no no NO NO NO
bends down to touch his shoulders
his face
and he doesn't flinch away
or can't--
you're a good boy Ben Hawkins
of her cornsilk hair tickle his lips
He knows that hair.
But forgets.
Rita Sue is touching his cheek.
Or someone
is.
Brother Justin lives.
Ben dies.
NO.
(what dies?)