The silence that followed had a horrible, sucking quality to it. Marylou’s gasps were snuffed out in a moment. The air was heavy with the onion sting, and the tension made it suddenly, painfully hot.
Henri picked up the remote control and switched off the television.
“I think it is safer if you two stay upstairs,” Henri said, mostly to Marylou. “There is a good lock on the front bedroom door. Take your sister and go there.”
“I’m not leaving,” I heard myself say. I was completely convinced that if we walked away, Henri would kill Gerard. There was no way I was leaving him bound and helpless.
“Go,” Henri said. And there was a note in his voice that told me that this is what I had to do or he would shoot Gerard right now. I could see Gerard from behind quietly straining at the ropes that bound him. Marylou had me by the arm. Her nails were digging in, and she was crying and saying, “Come on, Charlie; come on, Charlie” over and over. Gerard managed to turn his head enough to look at me. He was afraid. But he nodded, telling me to go. I let Marylou drag me up the steps.
The bedroom was stripped in the same eerie way as the bathroom. There were no sheets, no blankets, no curtains. Marylou was trembling but maintained her poise, pacing the room. I heard muffled voices from downstairs, but it was hard to hear and all in French. It sounded calm, though.
“Marylou,” I said. “It’s not Gerard. I lied. He never attacked me. I wasn’t running from him.”
“What?” she said, wheeling around.
“It’s too complicated to explain….”
“Try!”
“It was Henri,” I snapped. “That hand. It’s Henri…. It’s his wife…her hand. Gerard was trying to warn us away. I didn’t think you’d believe me so I said he attacked me.”
“So you’re saying that Henri killed his wife….”
“And probably his dog,” I added.
“And Gerard came around to tell us that. Because he knew. Because he found her hand….”
“You saw the hand,” I said.
“I saw a hand. That was in Gerard’s bag.”
“Well, where do you think he got a hand?” I yelled. “They don’t sell them here. It’s not a kind of meat.”
“I don’t know where he got a hand! But he had a knife! And you said he attacked you!”
“I just told you I was lying!”
“Oh great!” she screamed. “That’s very helpful! Just be quiet a second. I need to think.”
The storm beat away at the shutters, clapping them against the side of the house, providing a horrible rhythm beneath our argument. The mumbles downstairs had stopped. Marylou sat on the edge of the bare mattress and put her head in her hands.
Then we heard the gunshot. And a thump. And nothing. So much adrenaline flooded my system, I felt like I could have broken down the door by running at it headfirst. Which is what I did. Run at it headfirst, I mean, while screaming Gerard’s name. Marylou grabbed me and held me back. She held hard too, clawing in with her nails and tossing me back on the bed.
“Charlie!” she screamed, getting in my face. “You are not going down there!”
“Did you hear that?” I yelled back. “He shot Gerard! I told you! Gerard was innocent! He was trying to help us!”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but we are staying in here!”
“Fine….” I said, backing off by crab-crawling backward on the bed. “Fine….”
She went back to the door to make sure it was secured. Now I knew what Gerard had been saying. There was no time to argue with Marylou. The only way I could get her out of danger was by knocking her out and dragging her out of here—because otherwise we would stay up here, and eventually Henri would come back up those steps with his gun. I looked around for something to hit her with. This was so much harder than you might think. The lamps looked like they would kill her; the hairbrush would just annoy her. It was like Goldilocks: too soft, too hard….
I finally saw a sleek DVD player much like the one downstairs (Henri really liked his DVDs). It was thin and looked light. While she was securing the door, I quietly pulled the cords loose from the wall and the back of the television with a rough tug. In protest the player spit out a disk. I pushed the drawer shut.
How would I do this? Gerard had said the jaw, but that didn’t make any sense. It had to be the back of the head.
I weighed the DVD player in my grip. One side felt hollow; the other seemed to contain all the parts. I turned it so the heavier side would be the one I would strike with. My hands were sweating. I wiped each one on my jeans. Marylou turned around.
“Charlie, what are you—”
I hit her across the face—a solid clunk against bone that reverberated through the DVD player. She staggered and screamed but didn’t fall. I’d bloodied her—I’m not sure from where. Probably the nose.
“Sorry,” I gasped.
I hit her again. On the back of the head as I’d originally intended. She lurched forward to tackle me, and I swung out one more time, baseball-bat style, swinging far back and bringing the player right under her chin with all my might. She dropped to the floor, a thin stream of blood flowing from her nose, cutting across her cheek in a thin stripe. I quickly checked to make sure she was still breathing, then I rolled her under the bed to hide her.
“Sorry,” I said again, pushing her as far as I could. I opened a drawer and pulled out some clothes, scattering them around the space to hide her as much as I could. This was bad camouflage, but I was making this up as I went and I defy you to do better if this ever happens to you.
I stayed on my hands and knees for a moment, catching my breath. There was no noise from downstairs. That seemed bad. But there was also no noise on the steps or outside the door.
Marylou had brought her bag with her. I slipped the pipe from it, as well as the knife. I held one in each hand, trying to figure out which one was best for the immediate job. The pipe, probably. I crept to the door and undid the lock. I stood for a moment, pipe ready, in case the knob turned and the door opened.
Nothing. Nothing but my heartbeat. Nothing but my own blood pumping so hard my arms shook.
I reached for the knob, holding it tight, then threw the door open. I did that move from police shows to get to the steps—the one where you jump into doorways ready to swing.
I heard a faint shuffle from downstairs. From the kitchen. Henri was still down there.
I tightened my grip on the pipe and took the steps as gingerly as I could, willing my body to weigh nothing, not to inflict any pressure on the old wood. The shuffling continued in the kitchen, and I tried to move in time with it. Then I was at the kitchen doorway, the smell of onions burning my nose. It smelled like Henri had taken the time to actually put them on the stove. I could hear them sizzling. But no other movement. I readied myself.
And then a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, making me drop the pipe. I screamed.
“Is okay!” Gerard said.
He was untied, standing there, alone.
“What?” I said, gasping. “What…”
And then I saw.
Henri was lying on the floor on his back. His head…well, what was left of his head…a lot of it was missing…. I didn’t take a good look. He was dead. There was a massive splatter all over that corner of the room, and the blood ran all around him, funneled through the grooves in the wooden floor. The shotgun was on the table.
“What happened?” I said. I felt hot and faint, and I had to grab the doorway for support.
“He untied me,” Gerard said, sounding shocked. “He let me go. And then he shot ’imself. Where is your sister?”
“I knocked her out with a DVD player,” I said.
He nodded absently. I stepped around him and had a better look at Henri. He was definitely dead. There was so much blood.
“I think he saw the hand and remembered what he did,” Gerard said quietly. “Eet has happened just like the notes said, just like my cousin. Henri has killed himself, and now eet will move.”
“Oh,” I replied.
The onions popped in the pan. I pulled them off the burner. I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. Gerard came over and lowered one of the heavy covers over it.
“You believe now,” he said quietly. “I did not want to either, but once you have seen eet, you know eet is true.”
Henri’s dead body was on the floor, half a head missing. What had seemed so impossible now seemed utterly plausible. The curse was here.
“Yes,” I said. “I believe it now.”
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Fine. I mean, I just beat Marylou over the head. But I didn’t kill her. That’s good, right? I was careful about that.”
This news cheered him. His face perked up a bit.
“That is good, Charlie! That is very good!”
I remembered how Marylou had grabbed the knife and the pipe earlier, how she had fought me just now…how all of her instincts had been so murderous.
“It’s her,” I said. “She’s got it. I’m sure of it. She’s been acting strange.”
Gerard watched me carefully for a moment, examining me for any signs that I might break into a murderous rampage. He looked at Marylou’s pipe, which was now on the bench next to the table. Then he smiled, pure relief flooding his features.
“Yes,” he said. “Eef you did not kill her when you could, eef she is acting odd…yes. I believe you are right. Eet is your sister. We will lock her up then we will all be safe. We will all be safe, Charlie!”
With that he pulled me close. I don’t know what it was—maybe the mad excitement—but he kissed me. I mean a passionate, full-on, total-body-contact kiss in the true French fashion, done only as a tall village boy who was massively glad to be alive could kiss.
Which, if you are interested, is pretty good stuff. I was pretty glad to be alive myself, and the moment just swelled in that blood-splattered, onion-reeking kitchen with the rain driving away outside. Gerard paused to laugh, his lips close to mine, then picked me up giddily. I wrapped my legs around his h*ps for support, and we kissed again.