John drove down Highland Ridge at seventy miles per hour. The darkness ahead appeared to be dragging his car behind it on its sinuous course, some illusionary effect brought on by stress he thought. His eyes became intent on what his headlights revealed ahead; a possum's tail as it slipped between the metal stems of a guardrail and the spasming of moth's wings before they crashed into his hood. There was music on the radio, he could not remember turning on, which leaked out his open window while the sound of crickets and frogs poured in, causing a collision of melodies by his left ear.

Every time he thought about the destination his stomach would turn and his muscles would go weak. Still, he reminded himself. It was a right turn he would make on to Nodding Road where pavement disappeared and gravel and dust sprung up. Then the trees would close in. A name ran through his head without pause, Martin. The name rolled and gained weight like an avalanche as the wheels beneath his ford ate up the distance to the rickety cabin. It had not been easy finding out where this place was. Blood had been shed, and John’s fingers stuck to the steering wheel. Involuntary images of Martin kept swamping his mind, and so in his distraction, John didn’t notice until it was almost too late that his car was driving over the yellow line as it rounded one of the last turns. He righted his course, and the images refused to leave. Martin confused and saying all the wrong things because he didn't know any better. Martin sweating profusely because of this, as he often did. Martin with his hands lashed to the table in front of him while the sound of metal on bone drove his overweight friend to tears.

Martin watched the woman before him, a funny feeling behind his eyes like he wanted to cry but his body just couldn't summon up the liquid, most likely because it had already been wasted between his legs. He blinked rapidly, and thought he could almost hear the sound of his eyelids batting together. Somewhere, hiding behind the flurry of panicky half-thoughts, he found he could chastise himself for being too slow, too stupid to see that he had not left his door unlocked. When the woman with the bright eyes had gotten the cloth over his mouth, before he blacked out, he thought if maybe he wasn’t so burdened by his weight he could have caught her. Stopped her. Killed her. Too late, the thought whined in his head. Too late and no one was coming to save him or to cover his tracks and explain away his fumbled answers.

“Where’s the money now?” she asked, a scalpel held delicately in her right hand, the other hand stayed below the table. Her eyes burned like crystals caught under spotlights and laid in velvet; caught in her stare he had only a second to wonder if a scalpel had been used against her as it was being used on him. The hand she kept in her lap had been divested of two fingers, but beneath her hand laid her gun. Lame dogs may still have sharp teeth, Martin though. Before this vision had fully passed from his mind, she slid the tip of the scalpel under the nail of his big thumb. Reflexively Martin tried to yank his hand back, but of course the straps held them fast. How many hands had she gone to work on before his? The darkened wood beneath his palms gave the answer.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he wheezed, “If I was a part of this don’t you think I’d be prepared? Wouldn’t I at least have a fucking gun?!”

Martin saw her body jerk, and under the table she kicked her foot out, making a solid connection to his groin. Her reaction succeeded in both stifling his rising panic, and causing him further, excruciating pain. He didn’t hear her ask, “Do you have one?” or the twinge of panic in her voice which gave away her oversight. The question was drowned out by a hateful buzz in-between his ears. He blinked away the new tears and saw the sharp edge work carefully around his thumb nail. This woman was not in the least deterred from her work, a smile pulling at her lips. Her dark hair like a shadow concealed her eyes when she bent to her work, and if Martin was thankful for anything it was that. He was thankful even as she removed all his fingernails. Fresh blood pooled on the wood, and would have no doubt continued to as the dark-haired and bright-eyed woman carved into Martin’s hands with increasing fervor and dedication, if not for an interruption.

The thin wooden wall, a good twelve feet behind the woman, was suddenly bent inwards past the breaking point. The loud crack of splintering wood brought Martin’s fuzzed over world into momentary focus. The next thing he heard was also the last. A gunshot.

John was out of the car almost before it had come to a stop, half in the cabin and half out. He had been going too fast, had braked too fast, and the wheels had no purchase on the gravelly dirt. Mistake number one. He scrambled for the cabin’s front door since his car had not punched entirely through the cabin wall. John found the door unlocked and in his panic decided to open it, pulling the gun from the holster at his belt. Mistake number two. His eyes were first drawn to the large man with a hole in his forehead and his hands strapped to a table. There was movement to his left, behind the swung open door, but before he could push it further against the wall it was yanked back for him by the woman. Mistake number three, he didn’t shoot her. Instead he stared at her, slowly lifting the gun with no more intent to pull the trigger than a moth intends to become an intricate splatter on a car’s grill.

The woman’s features twisted, her expression both agitated and beautiful, eyes both cruel and amused when she saw that her prey was going to be easily brought down. John was able to lick his lips before the woman turned the gun around in her hand and whipped the butt of it against his temple. She looked upon the man crumpled on the floor at her feet, lying among splinters and gravel, and what also looked like broken plastic. She nudged him with the tip of her foot and decided to return to him at a later time for he was sure to be unconscious for a while.

With a cursory glance at the car that was lodged in her cabin, the woman turned her back on the whole scene to use the phone in the far corner of the room, completely in darkness except for a single candle next to the phone. She dialed, listened to the ringing, and then explained the situation to the man on the other end.

“The good guys always win,” the man answered, after praising the woman. She hung up, smiling. A chorus of summer frogs could be heard past the open door, and the faint murmur of a radio.