The Best American Noir of the Century

Marvin tossed the notebook into the glowing coals, fished in the box beside the stove for a stick of kindling, then tossed it in after the notebook and closed the iron door. “Bye-bye babies.” Marvin’s laugh was quick and cruel. “Now turn around. We’re going out back.”

He did as he was told, walking toward the door, hearing only a silent shuffle at his back. As he passed her he glanced at Iris. She hugged the baby Marvin had threatened, crying, not looking at him. “Remember the one in my car,” he said to her. She nodded silently, then turned away.

Marvin prodded him in the back and he moved to the door. Hand on the knob, he paused, hoping for a magical deliverance, but none came. Marvin prodded him again and he moved outside, onto the porch, then into the yard. “Around back,” Marvin ordered. “Get in the bus.”

He staggered, tripping over weeds, stumbling over rocks, until he reached the rusting bus. The moon and stars had disappeared; the night was black and still but for the whistling wind, clearly Marvin’s ally. The nanny goat laughed at them, then trotted out of reach. He glanced back at Marvin. In one hand was a pistol, in the other a blanket. “Go on in. Just pry the door open.”

He fit his finger between the rubber edges of the bus door and opened it. The first step was higher than he thought, and he tripped and almost fell. “Watch it. I almost blasted you right then.”

He couldn’t suppress a giggle. For reasons of his own, Marvin matched his laugh. “Head on back, Tanner. Pretend you’re on a field trip to the zoo.”

He walked down the aisle between the broken seats, smelling rot and rust and the lingering scent of skunk. “Why here?” he asked as he reached the rear.

“Because you’ll keep in here just fine till I get time to dig a hole out back and open that emergency door and dump you in. Plus it’s quiet. I figure with the bus and the blanket no one will hear a thing. Sit.”

He sat. Marvin draped the blanket across the arm that held the gun, then extended the shrouded weapon toward his chest. He had no doubt that Marvin would shoot without a thought or fear. “Any last words, Tanner? Any parting thoughts?”

“Just that you forgot something.”

“What?”

“You left the door open.”

Marvin glanced quickly toward the door in the front of the bus. He dove for Marvin’s legs, sweeping at the gun with his left hand as he did so, hoping to dislodge it into the folds of the blanket where it would lie useless and unattainable.

“Cocksucker.”

Marvin wrested the gun from his grasp and raised it high, tossing off the blanket in the process. He twisted frantically to protect against the blow he knew was coming, but Marvin was too heavy and strong, retained the upper hand by kneeling on his chest. The revolver glinted in the darkness, a missile poised to descend.

Sound split the air, a piercing scream of agony from the cabin or somewhere near it. “What the hell?” Marvin swore, started to retreat, then almost thoughtlessly clubbed him with the gun, once, then again. After a flash of pain a broad black creature held him down for a length of time he couldn’t calculate.

When he was aware again he was alone in the bus, lying in the aisle. His head felt crushed to pulp. He put a hand to his temple and felt blood. Midst throbbing pain he struggled to his feet and made his way outside and stood leaning against the bus while the night air struggled to clear his head.

He took a step, staggered, took another and gained an equilibrium, then lost it and sat down. Back on his feet, he trudged toward the porch and opened the door. Behind him, the nanny laughed again.

The cabin was dark, the only light the faint flicker from the stove behind the curtain. He walked carefully, trying to avoid the litter on the floor, the shapes in the room. Halfway to the back his foot struck something soft. As he bent to shove it out of his way it made a human sound. He knelt, saw that it was Iris, then found a lamp and turned it on.

She was crumpled, face-down, in the center of the room, arms and legs folded under her, her body curled to avoid assault. He knelt again, heard her groan once more, and saw that what he’d thought was a piece of skirt was in fact a pool of blood and what he’d thought was shadow was a broad wet trail of the selfsame substance leading toward the rear of the cabin.

He ran his hands down her body, feeling for wounds. Finding none, he rolled Iris to her side, then to her back. Blood bubbled from a point beneath her sternum. Her eyelids fluttered, open, closed, then open again. “He shot me,” she said. “It hurt so bad I couldn’t stop crying so he shot me.”

“I know. Don’t try to talk.”

“Did he shoot the babies, too? I thought I heard …”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you look? Please?”

He nodded, stood up, fought a siege of vertigo, then went behind the curtain, then returned to Iris. “They’re all right.”

She tried to smile her thanks. “Something scared him off. I think some people were walking by outside and heard the shot and went for help. I heard them yelling.”