Her Terrifying Love

Part 86

Maybe she was dead. Perhaps she just didn't know it yet.

Lyla couldn't hear a sound, not the buzzing of locusts, not a leaf fluttering in the night breeze, not Jack's labored breathing. 

Dead silence. 

Entombed in the thickest darkness she'd ever known, she couldn't see a trace of the faint light emanating from the car's emergency flashers, not a dim star visible through the canopy of trees above her. 

"Jack," her voice cracked.

No reply.

If she were dead, then this must be hell. Her nostrils burned with the pungent odor of Keenan's cheap cologne. Despite its potent, sickeningly sweet scent, the cologne failed to mask the stench of his decaying flesh. Her heart thundered as the odor grew stronger.

When her phone came back to life, she was horrified to find Keenan's cadaver sprawled at her feet, insects buzzing about the body, his skeletal hand at his jacket zipper. She recoiled, covering her mouth to muffle a scream.

Jack advanced cautiously. He placed his boot on Keenan's shoulder and shoved. The body was inert and stiff, Keenan's cold, dead eyes staring blankly. His lips had receded, exposing a gnarled toothy smile.

She bolted into Jack's arms, her knees shaking. For Lyla, a boundary no longer divided reality from the realm of the nightmare. She growled in a hoarse whisper at Keenan. "You want an apology? You got what you deserved!" 

If her taunt didn't reanimate the corpse, then nothing would. The body lay twisted like a discarded mannequin.

Jack glanced up toward the roadway where the emergency lights on his car pulsed. "Come on," he said. "We gotta move."

He lifted Keenan's bony arms. She grasped the corpse's ankles and they set off on the backbreaking journey up the embankment to the car. The corpse's head wagged heavily back and forth with their alternating steps. 

She momentarily lost her cargo when her foot dislodged a clump of loose soil, sending her down onto her knee. Jack slung his arms beneath the corpse's armpits and dragged it up the hill to the road.

"All clear," he wheezed. "Pop the trunk."

She stumbled onto the road and released the trunk latch, checking both directions of the narrow asphalt two-lane. Not a car in sight. She raced to the edge of the road and grabbed Keenan's ankles. They lugged him to the car.

She didn't have the strength to help Jack lift Keenan's torso into the trunk. "I can't," she gasped as her arms gave out. The corpse's upper body draped over the bumper. 

Jack seized the shoulders of Keenan's jacket, preparing to force the corpse into the trunk when suddenly, he was transported back to Coughlin's Farm.

FLASH.

He grabbed Keenan by the shoulders and hurled him aside.

Keenan hit the ground hard then rolled to his knees. He pointed an angry finger as he got to his feet. "How 'bout staying in your lane, dude?"

Jack advanced. "Put your hands on her again. Watch what happens." 

Keenan anxiously tugged at the zipper on his jacket, up and down, up and down, his narrow eyes brimming with contempt. "Screw you," he snarled.

FLASH.

Jack shook himself loose from the vivid memory as he crammed the body into the trunk, the corpse landing with a CLANG atop the shovel and hoe. He slammed the trunk closed and wiped his brow. "Let's get the hell outta here." 

He got behind the wheel and started the car. Lyla jumped into the passenger seat.

 "So... where do we go?" he asked.

"Keep going straight. In about twelve miles we'll need to make a right onto Old Henderson Pike."

"Twelve miles," he repeated.

She offered a soft smile. "Just one more step. And it's over."

Her optimism didn't bring comfort. Jack drove, his eyes frequently shifting to the rearview mirror, his lips pinched in a scowl. Lyla knew that he never wanted to see that place again but for her, it wasn't over. She'd be back at the crevasse again and again in her darkest dreams.