Dead End

CHAPTER ONE1

"Father? Yes son."2

Ed Hubbard, tormented his son Mark. He got off on it. It didn't matter what it was about or what it was for, it always had something to do with how his mother died giving birth to him. Like that was his fault. Well, it didn't matter. Not to Ed. Damn near every day of his life he had to take that crap from his father. He had to listen to him bitch about how everything is his fault. Bad crop. Mark's fault. Shitty weather. Mark's fault. Bad grades. Mark's fault. He made Mark feel . . . nothing. 3

Ed hated Mark. Part of his procedure in tormenting Mark was to beat him and by the time he started school, he had been beaten so much and so hard, he had a hearing problem, a slight slur in his speech and as a result, a learning disability. The kids at school teased him and laughed at him, and when he brought his failed school work home, Ed would first, laugh at his sloppy work, then scold him, and finally beat him.4

‘Look me in the eyes, boy,' he'd say, then slap him up side the head before he moved. Not even giving Mark a chance. ‘You're not gonna cry now, are you, you little baby?'5

Mark hated looking into his dark, scary eyes. They frightened him. He frightened him. Mark learned to look but not see. And he never cried. Not when Ed was around.6

Ed never made the slightest attempt to change the way he treated Mark. Nothing ever got better between the two of them. But Mark knew that someday the time would come when he could make his move on the old man. When it did, he would be ready.7

The farm his dad owned in the country was small. Maybe ten acres. He grew no more than what he and Mark could eat in a year. They had a few cows, raised some chickens and a few pigs but mostly produce. When times was hard, Ed would do mechanical work for some of the neighbours, right in the barn where he cut off the chickens heads, and slaughtered the pigs. He was more than contented to stay out there most of the daylight hours. Any time of the year. 8

Two years ago, when Mark was almost fifteen, in the middle of his second year in grade eight, Ed pulled him out of school. 9

‘Ain't no use in a dummy wastin' any more time tryin' to learn somethin' he ain't never gonna use. If you ain't learnt it by now, you never will. ‘Sides you can work on the farm with me now. You're big ‘nough. You can start by clearin' all o' my fields of the chucks.' 10

That was fine. It was part of Mark's training. And that's how Mark treated it. Training. 11

Then, one morning in April, before Mark made it out to the barn to get the tractor, Ed told him he didn't want him out in the fields that day. 12

‘Stay here. Clean up this pigsty. I'm sick o' lookin' at dirty dishes and a filthy house.' 13

Ed socked him across the face and booted him between the legs, and pushed him down onto the floor. Mark curled up into a ball and still could hear him laughing all the way out to the barn, over the clanging bells in his head and the throbbing pain in his crotch. Everything had gone a thick, milky white, peppered with black fuzzy spots.14

Beyond the pain of his father's laughing, he could feel more than hear another sound. It was rumbling like thunder inside of him. His body ached with it. His balls ached because of it.15

He didn't know how long he lay on the floor . At first rubbing and gripping and moaning, then squeezing and sobbing and finally choking and trying to catch his breath. His entire body was numb with pain. Finally at one point, with his hands clenched together between his legs, his head cleared enough to allow him a memory. It was an old memory.16

When Mark was about two years old, he awoke to the loud arguing of his mom and dad yelling and screaming at each other downstairs. They were both drunk. Somehow he knew that. And then he heard his dad punching things with his fist. The wall. The doors. And then a very familiar sound. It hurt Mark to hear it. He winced and rubbed the side of his face under the covers. She screamed and cried and yelled back at him. Mark then heard his dad's fist thump against his mother's body. He didn't know where he punched her, but he knew it hurt her because she didn't make a sound. That's when the whole house went silent. In fact, it sounded like the whole world had gone silent. 17

Mark crawled down deeper under the covers and pulled them tight over his head. He cried himself silently to sleep. Forgetting for years, all of what happened that night. 18

Laying in the filth on the kitchen floor, he almost cried . . . but didn't. When he could move, he got up, walked around trying to stretch it out, then he grabbed his rifle and a handful of bullets. 19

The pain had now worked its way up to his head and settled there with a bang. Explosions of white light . . . (lightning!) . . . went off behind his eyes. He ignored it.20

He snuck out to the cornfield, using the bush that bordered it as protection. There, he saw (found) his dad ploughing the last two rows on his tractor, making his way toward Mark. Mark knelt down in the cover of the trees and lifted the gun to his shoulder. He felt weak and steadying the rifle was at first hard, but he managed to steady it enough once he had Ed in his sights.21

His dad was standing up, holding on to the steering wheel with his left hand and looking over his right shoulder at the ground, watching for rocks and tree roots. 22

Mark held the rifle tight, steadying it until he could see his dad clearly through the scope. 23

"Father?" he whispered. "Yes son." he answered. And at that moment, as if in reply, Ed looked in his direction. Mark pulled the trigger. Ed fell forward onto the steering wheel. 24

Mark quickly ran out to the tractor and jumped up onto it behind Ed. He placed a leg on either side of the seat and pulled Ed back by the shoulders so he could drive the tractor back. 25

Half an hour later the sun was setting as he pulled the pickup into the barn beside the tractor and shut the doors. He put Ed in the truck, grabbed a shovel and covered the box of the pickup with a canvas tarp. At midnight, when it was really dark, he drove over to the graveyard in the church yard, a mile away and buried Ed.26

That was two months ago. 27

CHAPTER TWO28

"The killer awoke before dawn." 29

(1) 30

It was almost 4:15 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. Two months after he put Ed in the ground. The day was still quite humid. The air was alive with the constant drone of both birds and cicada's. A mosquito buzzed very near to Mark Hubbard's left ear. 31

The shade beneath the small stand of wild cherry trees he was sitting under, barely put a dent in the late afternoon heat. The tall field grass growing all around him on the small hill, overlooking the highway below, gave him the cover he so desired. 32

He scrunched himself around on the ground, and tried not to think about the mosquito buzzing so very close to his ear.33

Bzzzzzzz! 34

He can't avoid it . . . bzzzzzzz!35

His knees are pulled up and his rifle is resting on top of them, aimed down at the cars and trucks below, on the highway. He moves his head forward, gently placing his right eye up against the end of the scope. His cheek rests against the smooth, polished wood of the stock. He can smell the oil permeating from it as he pulls the butt-end of the stock into the comfort spot on his shoulder and begins to adjust the scope. Turning the knob on its side back and forth. Making the cross-hairs focus, into two distinct lines.36

The buzzing by his ear, that he was trying not to think about, had stopped. 37

The enemy has landed!38

The speeding vehicles below, waver in and out of focus, and begin to look like cloudy ghost-like objects. Then as he turns the knob on top of his scope, the ghosts become real cars and trucks. Now he can actually see the drivers. 39

He swipes at his ear, shooing the sucking insect away, then wipes his forehead with the palm of his left hand, wiping it again across the belly of his ‘T' shirt. ‘Is it really this hot or is it just me?' His heartbeat picks up its rhythmic beat considerably, trying to match the speed of the vehicles he's watching through the scope. 40

‘Rush hour,' From somewhere inside him, he hears and feels the voice. Ed's voice. It was coming from that filthy pit his father made him dig a long time ago.41

‘Like a trail of ants at a picnic, kid. Just point the gun and pull the trigger. I guarantee you hit someone. Somebody's bound to die . . . Just like your mother.' 42

Mark raised his head from the gun and squeezed his eyes shut. There was something in his eye, and it wasn't tears. He held onto the gun and didn't move or say anything as he kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut. They leaked . . . nothing. 43

He wasn't crying.44

He opened his eyes, blinked twice and put cheek to gun.45

"I been thinking the same thing, Ed," he whispered. "So glad you joined me." He laughed sarcastically steadying his Winchester .22 repeater, in his tight, firm grip. Adjusting his eyes to the scope again, he held his breath.46

Seconds past. Beads of sweat were starting to drip down his forehead and into his eyes. His right elbow dropped, ever so slightly. And he thought he could feel Ed smack him. It was enough to throw Mark off. 47

"Son-of-a-bitch!" he said disgustedly, in his lateral lisp. Spit sprayed out from the sides of his mouth like pop fizzing out from under the bottle cap. "It's too damn hot." He put the rifle down in the grass, threw it down would be closer to the truth, stretched his legs out in front of him and laid down on his back and looked up at the darkening clouds through the tree branches above.48

Reaching into his cutoffs pocket, he brought out a joint and a book of matches. He lit the joint and dropped the dead match and the book together on the grass beside him and lay there on his back, beneath the tree and the darkening sky and got high. 49

It helped to steady things down inside. It had a calming effect on him. Mark was by birth, a very nervous person. Had always been. Something his dad insisted upon. And it was something Ed always made sure of. By yelling at him. Calling him names, like stupid and dummy and laughing at him. And by beating it into him. And hitting him. And hitting him. And. . . He hated it when Ed laughed at him. He hated anybody laughing at him. But most of all he hated Ed doing it.50

It began to drizzle. The warm rain felt cool on his hot face. He relished it, even when it started pouring. Mark finished the joint quickly and rolled over onto his stomach picking up the rifle. He wiped the rain off his face as he turned back around toward the hi-way, carefully placing the butt of the stock in his shoulder. With his cheek resting against the smooth, wet side of the stock, he inhaled the sweet smell of the linseed oil he rubbed into it last night, and closed his left eye. He lined up the cross-hairs and aimed it at the highway. His right index finger softly caressed the trigger. His heart was steadier now. Slower. And with that the flow of the traffic slowed also.51

‘The road will be extra slippery now with the first bit of rain.' He heard that voice again, from that sewer deep inside. It resounded throughout his being. He could feel it inside of him, like a disease, a sickness. 52

It was a point he was well aware of. A point well taken. He managed a smiled.53

He lay very still, holding his breath, relishing the linseed oil, and opened his left eye to watch the vehicles below. Waiting. Watching.54

The air was getting colder now. 55

In his mind he recited a chant. A mantra. Oh! It was not just ‘a' mantra. It was his mantra. ‘The killer awoke before dawn. 56

He put his boots on.57

He took a face from the ancient gallery and,58

He walked on down the hall.59

He came to a door and he looked inside.60

‘Father?'61

‘Yes, son.'62

‘I want to kill you.'63

He closed his eyes, let out his breath and squeezed the trigger . . .64

. . . CRACK! . . . went the rifle. 65

There was a brilliant explosion of light that brightened the darkness behind his closed eyes. It was warm and soothing in his mind. Because this, was his. It felt good. It was not like what he saw or felt, when it was inflicted by Ed. Those were cold and sharp . . . and very painful.66

He opened his eyes and stared below as a car swerved out of control, slipping and sliding into and out of the passing lane like a bumper car at a carnival trying to run into every car on the floor. Then it veered across the median and smacked right into an oncoming transport truck. There was another explosion, only this one he was looking at, then both vehicles burst into flames. He snickered.67

(2)68

Mark slept all that night and most of the next day, like a baby. When he finally woke, it was nearly 3:30 in the afternoon. He had a shower then fixed himself a large bowl of pea soup. After he'd finished eating, he drove Ed's old ‘67 Chevy pickup to the beer store and picked himself up a case of beer and two mickeys of vodka and bought a newspaper. 69

When he got back to the farm he went inside and sat in the living room and began drinking. First, a couple beers, then he chased it with some vodka. After the sixth beer and most of the first mickey, something started hounding him. Like a dream or nightmare that pushes you awake and the second you open your eyes, it's gone. You know what it was, but you can't put words to it. That's what it was like now. Hounding Mark. Something he should be able to put words to, but couldn't. 70

And ya' don't want to, that voice echoed inside.71

Usually, Mark found, the best way to forget about Ed, was to drown him. And that's what he did. He drank ‘till he passed out, and the next time he opened his eyes, it was midnight. He thought about tripping into town to ‘The Handle Bar', but decided against it. Instead, he sat on his front veranda and rolled himself a couple joints.72

He wanted to get really shit-faced, because that voice was right. He didn't want to know. Even though, way down deep in the cobwebby sewer-wells of his mind he knew what it was that was hounding him. 73

When he was finished rolling, he cracked open another beer, had a gulp then lit the joint.74

He drifted away on a cloud of smoke. Back to when he was very young. Six year's old. 75

(3) 76

Mark grew up being constantly bombarded with violence from every side. 77

Ed verbally tortured him. Telling him things, like it was his fault his mother was dead. He was useless and stupid and a dummy. Over and over. And if that wasn't bad enough, he'd beat him. If it wasn't with his fists or his belt, then with an inner tube or a willow switch or anything else he could get his hands on. Mark found it hard to have trust or faith in a father like Ed. Yet, he grew up believing everything Ed said was true. Mark still believes it. 78

He's twisted it though, into some kind of weird belief that he needs to harm in any way he can, in order to feel better, himself. To feel more alive. Sometimes, it's just not enough to know you're alive. You have to feel it. 79

Mark never knew his mother, so there wasn't ever any kind of connection between him and her. He found it hard to miss something he never had. When Mark was born, he not only lost his mother, but he was born drunk. Drunk! No matter how you cut it, he had way too much alcohol in his little system. He nearly died. Might have been better for everyone, especially him if he did? 80

Since he was around six or seven years old, he's been physically drinking. At first, maybe he started doing it to get back at Ed. He'd started out by sneaking drinks from his bottles when Ed wasn't looking. Then he started stealing a bottle of beer here and there, just to see if he noticed. What the hell. If you're gonna get smacked for just being there, then you might as well do something. Ed never noticed one beer missing. At least he never mentioned it while he was beating Mark all those different times. It didn't matter because, if Ed never mentioned it, ever, then Ed didn't know. 81

Monkey see! Monkey do! 82

One night, Mark was having an unusually hard time getting to sleep, (due to the fact that Ed, the idiot, boarded up the window Mark broke in his room.) Now, it was way too hot and Mark was melting. He had his eyes closed, trying to go to sleep, but he couldn't. It was too hot. 83

From somewhere downstairs, came the sound of breaking glass. It sounded like a beer bottle smashing against the fireplace wall out in the front room. Mark got out of bed and crawled, or slithered, over to the bedroom door and put his ear down as close as he could to the space between the bottom of the door and the floor. He wanted to hear everything. And be thankful that the door was locked. 84

He heard Ed's voice, like a knife in the dark. Sharp and exact. He closed his eyes and immediately pulled back from the door in fear. That tone in Ed's voice was the scariest thing in the world to Mark. He didn't have to ever fully understand what he was saying. Knowing how to react to that tone was what could save his life. And also being on the right side of a locked door.85

Ed was drunk. Very drunk. He was bitching about something. Mumbling and groaning and making all kinds of scary sounds that frightened Mark. It was then, that Mark heard Ed make mention of his mother. 86

"Maybe I should'a took her to the hospital." That was as clear as if he was standing in front of him. Face to face. Even at seven years old Mark knew just how drunk Ed was. By his tone, and the way he slurred his words. Which almost sounds the same, when he's not drunk. (It's not the same, but if you want to survive, you have to know the difference. Mark was familiar with the routine, by now.) Then his dad started mumbling, making no sense. 87

"Why there? . . . Why?" he whined. His voice now was much more subdued, as he mumbled on about fields and a plow, or was it a cow and crops to plant or crap to bury. In Mark's thick mind, Ed wasn't making sense, anymore. Mark was now too scared to listen any longer. Besides, he couldn't understand what Ed was saying anymore, until he heard another bottle smash against the fireplace and shatter on the floor in a million little brown slivers of glass. 88

Mark ran back to his bed and crawled in, getting under his covers as deep as he could get. Now he was freezing. He was shivering and shaking and crying and hoping Ed didn't come upstairs. Vowing that if he did, Mark would not move. He wouldn't so much as breathe. 89

You learn to adapt.90

No matter how Mark felt about his father, he liked living on the farm. It can have all kinds of advantages. Especially for a kid like Mark. For someone who enjoys shooting, a farm is chock full of things to shoot. Trees, garbage, rats and chucks.91

According to what Ed always said, Mark had been born a killer. Ed blamed Mark for his mother's death. So, not wanting to disappoint the old man, between the ages of five and twelve, when he got the gun, he would kill whatever he wanted, anyway he could. Ants. Spiders. Mice. Even the odd chicken. And as he got older and found that he enjoyed it more, the victims got bigger. 92

The wild house cats that lived out behind the barn and even the rats that the cats were supposed to kill, were both victims of Mark. He tried to kill them all. The wild cats were very smart and catching them in the same manner that he caught the chickens, proved fruitless. 93

Until he saw a show on t.v. about trapping animals for their fur. 94

He ran right out to the barn and dug out some bailing wire. He made a snare out of it and set it over the holes in the bottom of the barn-board walls that the cats and rats used freely to come and go. He went back inside the house and went to bed. 95

The next morning there was a big old scruffy tomcat in the noose when he went out to check before school. It had twisted itself around in the wire loop which tightened with each twist, choking the thing to death, and nearly took its head clean off. Mark had a grin so large on his tiny, little face when he saw that cat, that his face nearly disappeared. 96

He much preferred killing these animals this way, rather than squeezing them to death. He didn't like feeling them squirm in his hands. And he didn't like it when they scratched him, ‘cause that hurt. That made Mark squeeze even tighter. 97

Ed never suspected him, at least he never said as much, but he always cracked Mark a good one on the side of the head, whenever he felt like it. Or whenever Mark got too close. 98

The biggest mistake Ed ever made, was teach Mark to shoot a gun.99

Mark took to it, like a bird to flight. Like a fish to water. 100

He didn't have to chase stupid chickens around the pen any longer. Or squeeze cats to death. Or miss them dying in the snares. Now he could . . . hunt! 101

This was so much easier, than getting a hold of . . . You get the same result, but from a distance. He enjoyed watching them die. 102

Woodchucks were the easiest. They were all over the five acres Ed owned and besides, Ed didn't have the time to go out and shoot them himself. That's why he took Mark out early one morning and showed him the basics of shooting. He even bought him his own gun. A Winchester .22 calibre repeater, which holds ten bullets in the clip and one in the chamber. He gave Mark a box of fifty .22 longs. 103

"You has to learn to kill with just one shot, kid." Ed told him; he normally called him names like dummy and stupid or retard, but for some reason, he only called him ‘kid' when he was trying to get through his thick scull, about something important. Usually pertaining to the farm machinery, or whatever else ‘the dummy' might get himself hurt by. Something Ed might have to explain to the authorities about. And he didn't want that. Besides, he didn't want the dummy wasting too much ammo. It was expensive.104

"Aim for the heart or lungs or right in the head. Anywhere in the chest or head will pretty well stop it in its tracks." Ed didn't show Mark how to do it, he just handed him the gun, gave him the little speech, then watched him go through the first row of bullets in the box. He watched Mark shoot some holes in the back wall of the barn. Five in all. Then he sent him out to the back fields where most of the ‘chucks were. The cows pasture. 105

"One last thing . . . retard." He leaned down real close to him, eye to eye. Mark could smell and feel the liquor on his warm breath. He could almost see the waves of alcohol drifting out of his mouth, like breath in the freezing cold. "Don't shoot any of my cows. Or I'll shoot you." He slapped him on the back of the head, then turned and left, laughing. 106

Mark watched Ed as he got up into his tractor . . . ‘who's got the gun?' He asked himself, then turned and headed out to the back pasture. He had some serious shooting to do.107

Mark went out to the field farthest from the house and barn. The one Ed doesn't farm anymore. It's the same one that Ed brought Mark out to in the Spring with a scythe and made him cut the grass down to the ground. 108

He was hiding behind one of the many forest edge trees that boxed in the field on all four sides. He was hunting for ‘chucks, but today they were smarter. After his third shot he noticed two older kids come charging out of the trees directly across from him and take off running. Mark was startled at first and squatted down further, behind the tree, hiding. He watched them cautiously. They didn't look familiar. But they did look suspicious. Very suspicious. Especially the way they came running out from the trees and stopped about twenty feet away, ducking down and looking all around them, trying to figure out who was shooting at them and where the shots were coming from. When they took off again, Mark saw that one of them was carrying what looked like a feed bucket. A steel feed bucket. He could hear it squeak as it swung on the handle.109

When he was sure they were gone, far away, no more squeaks, he went to see just what they were doing on his property. 110

In the woods he found a sunny, cordoned off area. The dirt had been turned up recently and the ground was wet in about fifty spots. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what they were doing in there and ever after Mark kept a close eye on them whenever they visited the farm. The only other time he fired the gun while they were out there, was to make sure they knew what he was shooting at. The trees, one on either side of them. They never came back after that so Mark harvested their crop. 111

Finders' keepers! . . . 112

It was his property and they were trespassing. 113

. . . Losers' weepers! 114

That was Mark's introduction to pot. At times he found it maybe even better than getting drunk. They're both kind of mellow, but you don't get the hangover with pot. Or the blackouts.115

During those years that he was so physically molested by what Ed said or did to him, Mark found it necessary to keep his inner self either drunk, or stoned most of the time. And he found through years of practice that being stoned after he was drunk, actually enhanced his control with his rifle. It didn't make him sloppy. It tightened it. 116

(4)117

Mark's sleep was uneasy. His ghosts were visiting again. Haunting him while he tossed and turned. Talking to him. Telling him lies. Tormenting him endlessly. 118

When he woke an hour later, his memories still haunting him, he had made a decision. 119

ARE YOU READY? 120

Oh Ya!121

He went downstairs to the front room, sat in his armchair and lit another joint. Tomorrow, being Sunday, Mark was thinking he'd like to take a little drive. See what he could see. 122

Right now, after another ‘jay', he thought he'd get some more well deserved sleep. 123

--to be continued --124