ALONG THE ENDLESS RIVER

Paul sat upright against the wall of the cabin, dressed only in his underwear. The space heater had the temperature hovering at a warm and toasty range, and only a sliver of moonlight piercing through the space in the curtains light the dark room. It must have been 3am , maybe later, and his body ached from the muscles of his back to the joints of knees and elbows.

The digging had taken considerably more time than he had estimated it would. Once things went haywire and he knew he had to dig a hole, in his mind the digging required would be an hour of labor, give or take. It had been nearly three. Three hours of pounding a shovel into hard, cold ground with only the light of a clouded moon to guide him. He had read somewhere online that mobsters now buried bodies upright, because they were harder for GPS satellites to detect. In his state of mild panic he had remembered this tidbit of info, and so the grave he dug was deep and narrow.

Getting the body in the ground was a challenge, as he had to keep it propped up as he filled around it with dirt, basically standing it up, slumped against the interior wall of the hole. It had not been a pleasant task, and now that it was over, Paul found himself alone with only his thoughts and demons in the quiet. His mind began wandered into a place so dark and remote, he could barely sense himself breathing. It was almost like he was suspended in air, floating above himself, above his entire world and staring down in disconnected disbelief at what had become of everything.

His entire life , Paul had sensed something dark wrestling under the surface of his personality. A cruelty waiting to be appeased, a rage that sought the chance to break free and level the world around it. It was difficult to capture in the frame of his mind’s eye, even more difficult to expose the roots of this feeling. But it was there. Lurking just under the skin, stalking and panting, waiting for the moment that it could emerge and slake its thirst for dark desires that he was afraid to admit existed.

Once, as a teenager, he had come very close to releasing the monster within and that brush with an alternate reality had scared him, driven him back at the knowledge of what he was capable of. He had been fourteen at the time. He had been fishing with a couple of friends on a summer day at a lake behind the neighborhood they lived in. Just an innocent day of standing under the trees, with branches that hung drunkenly into the water’s edge, trading crude but benign insults and stories about unproven sexual conquests. There were just boys being boys, on a warm and lazy afternoon.

A pair of older guys had surfaced across the lake, emerging from another grove of bushes and trees. They proceeded to sit down and light a joint, which they passed back and forth without much effort to conceal their operation. Paul and his friends had watched them cautiously, trying not to seem like they were paying attention. They were kids from across the county border and staring might cause something to happen. And whether or not they had been staring, within minutes of finishing their smoke, the two strangers rose and began walking around the lake to where the fishing party was located.

Within minutes they were among Paul and his friends. And it was obvious that the weed had made them paranoid and itchy. The larger of the two wore cowboy boots under jeans, and he was sweating through his grey T shirt. He was the one who would trouble, Paul had known from the first moment he laid eyes on him. What happened next was a blur then to Paul and even more blurry as a memory. There had been angry words exchanged, the stoners accusing the boys of being ‘Narcs’ and ‘ratting them out’. Then before cooler heads could prevail, the big kid in the cowboy boots had swung and struck Paul’s friend, Brian Rowley, in the face, breaking his nose and sending a spray of blood down the Celtics jersey he was wearing. Everything that followed seemed to be shrouded in fog.

When that fog had lifted, Paul found himself up to his knees in the lake, driving the head of the boy who punched Rowley under the water and then lifting it out, while his cowboy boots kicked crazily. The boy’s face a bloody mess, teeth pulling free from his gums, and as Paul looked into his other hand, he saw his fishing rod, the handled end slathered in blood. Lifting the boy’s head again form the water, Paul remembered feeling himself drive the rod’s blunt end into the boy’s face, jamming it into his mouth, ripping another tooth loose as he did. The boy tried to scream but just choked on the rod and lake water, and Paul stood there over him, pinning his head back with one hand and punishing his face again with the rod he held in the other. It must have looked like a demented river baptism to his friends, like the born-again church down the road had gone absolutely nuts. Paul remebered he could feel himself smiling, laughing as he performed his baptism of pain- and then he felt the arms of his friends snaking around him, pulling him off of his prey. The boy sunk into the lake, and then his stoner friend dashed in after him, tears streaming down his face as he pulled his friend from the water.

Paul could remember them scrambling up out of the lake and running from the scene like a gang of bank robbers. He could remember his friends looking at him, in both awe and horror, and how Brian Rowley thanked him while holding his own bleeding nose behind his now wadded up Celtics jersey. But, what Paul remembered most was the feeling. The ecstasy of the altercation and the almost unbearable joy of the punishment he had dished out. He could remember the urge he felt to run back and finish the job, to leave the boy dead in the lake and take care of his friend too. While his friends were running, scared and excited and laughing in shock, Paul had the distinct feeling that he had ALMOST gotten what he always wanted. And that feeling-once it settled in and the noise around him quieted- scared him more than anything ever had.

Sitting there in the cabin, with memories washing over him, Paul reflexively open and closed his right hand, feeling the muscles of his fingers contract and relax and, briefly almost feeling the weight of that fishing rod in his hand again. His knuckles still bore small scars form where they had rammed against the boy’s teeth. Paul ran his left index finger over the scars - and the realization that the monster had finally won swept over him. Strangely, there were no tears, no fluttering of his broken heart. Instead, he simply felt cold and detached, and in a strange way almost relieved.

Paul thought about everything that had led to this moment. He thought about Elizabeth and everything that had happened between them. There had been so many good times. So many memories of happiness and laughter, but the crimes between them had piled up slowly and never been resolved. Elizabeth had always been brutal and hurtful towards Paul, and he had always been unable to brush it off. He had used alcohol as a release point, maybe to mute down the stress or the rage that burned inside him. Over time, Elizabeth had stopped forgiving him for his excess and public drunkenness. She had become bitter about it. And while she had always been critical and nagging, this only increased as she became frustrated with Paul, whose escape drinking had only increased as he became frustrated with Elizabeth. So a long spiral had ensued , one which ended with Elizabeth beginning, willingly, a secret relationship with another man which Paul discovered. And naturally, Paul had been unable to look beyond it and had sought the man out, to confront him.

It had not been supposed to go down this way. The man in the grave was not supposed to be dead. Yet, there he was, now covered in dirt and as dead a doornail. And here was Paul sitting in his underwear, in cabin in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, feeling not so terrible about the very worst thing he had ever done.

The planned confrontation had been so easy. By following Elizabeth on one of her screen lunch dates, Paul had learned the identity of the man she was meeting. Then by waiting in the parking lot, in a rental he arranged for a meeting he planned on the day he was going to conduct his surveillance, Paul watched the man walk to his own vehicle. When the man drove him and Paul followed him, all the way to the townhouse where the man parked his vehicle and walked inside, using his keys on the front door before he did.

A couple of weeks later, Paul planned to drive overnight for a meeting. As he usually did, he would rive his own car and stay in an inexpensive hotel nearby his client’s office. He packed his clothes as he usually did, then made sure he was home alone as he dressed himself in dark jeans, a dark sweatshirt, and ball cap. No one had seen him slip the stun gun he had bought at a flea market years ago into the sweatshirt pocket, an no on had seen him leave his garage with the plan to make a stop before he left town. It had all been so very easy, and he had been able to carry out his secret plan in a simple, silent fashion

The plan was to wait on the man’s street until he came home, then to confront him the driveway. The stun gun was something for just in case. Just in case of what?, he thought. Who knew, but it was better to have then not have and need. Then, as Paul sat in the street, the man’s vehicle emerged just after dark as if on cue. And following the next cue, Paul found himself walking up the sidewalk in his dark get up, just as the man exited the vehicle to walk to his front a door.

Then, the altercation occurred. Paul, as planned, got the man’s attention and quickly introduced himself as “the husband of somebody you shouldn’t be talking to”. The man though, did something very unexpected then. Without a word of response, he dropped what looked like a gym bag, and gave Paul a hard two handed shove. The move seemed to be something to create space so he could run to the front door, but Paul’s reflexes countered the element of surprise and before he knew it they were struggling on the ground. The man buffeted Paul’s head with fists at the end of blows short circuited by Paul’s arms blocking the swings. Still the fists found home, and the lit a fuse inside Paul which detonated into flurry of short-arm right hands to the face, as he pinned the man on his back. Then, suddenly Paul found the stun gun in his left hand, and without even a hitch of hesitation he dug the prongs into the man’s neck and pulled the trigger. There was a sudden, violent spasm from the man, and he uttered the only words Paul ever heard him speak.

“Fuuuckkkkk eeeeeeyawwwww iiiissshhhhh”.

The man’s eyes bulged and he made a choked, gasping attempt to say something else. At that point the struggle needed as quickly as it started, and Paul left up off of the man’s motionless body. His first instinct was to bolt to his car and get out of there. And he was halfway in the street when a weird stillness overtook the adrenaline and testosterone that was pending through his brain and body. He looked back, and he realized that the man was not moving. At all. And that his head was turned toward Paul and his eyes stared wide open in a look that could only be one thing.

Paul searched the street and saw no one. Not a walker, not a car, nothing. And then, before he knew it, he had the man draped across his shoulder and was carrying him toward his own vehicle. His body was powered with almost inhuman strength, like the mother who lifts a fallen tree from atop her child’s legs in a storm. He popped the lift gate with his key fob and in no more time than it would take to load a bag of mulch from Home Depot, he slung the body into the back of his SUV and pulled the lift gate shut.

Everything happened fast, really fast. Like the first high school football game he had ever played or the first time a girl let him actually inside her. Build up, anticipation, action , then bang! and it was over. Now he found himself driving nervously out of the tangle of streets that comprised the man’s town home development, and out onto the major roads that would take him toward the highway.

Paul’s mind was compiling and processing at warp speed now. He was sure the man was dead and he was sure that he had , indeed , killed him. The next move along this twisted chessboard was an obvious one. The body would have to be disposed of and there was only one place he could think of. The perfect place, in fact. RJ’s cabin. So, with that determined and focused mind, Paul drove through the darkness toward that rural exit and then the dusty two lane road that lead to a gravel drive with its formidable security gate. He needed privacy, he needed time, and he needed a shovel. All of these awaited him and a few hours later, he sat on the cabin floor almost naked and replaying everything in his head for one last time before the next move.

For now, the situation seemed under control. And in that feeling of the calm after the storm, Paul felt a strange tingle of satisfaction creeping up his spine. He was glad the man was dead and he was not unhappy that he had killed him. This man had crept onto his land, into his house, and had tried to take from him. And for that, their must be punishment both swift and severe. He no longer felt the rage he had against Elizabeth, instead he felt a strange power over her that he had never felt before. It was almost like pity, but their malice underneath. Poor Elizabeth, so unhappy and desperate that she had turned to a stranger to fill the emptiness she felt. Poor Elizabeth, always needing to be the center of attention, now her sad and selfish ways had come up empty again. The man was just a prop, just a casualty of a war of wills. He was a fool for chasing another man’s wife, and a dead fool now to boot.

Paul shuddered at the cruel and cold thoughts that filled his mind, and he searched for the control to push them away. The beast had been loosed and now all of his darkest feelings were being served. He knew this couldn’t last, that order must be restored. So, without a twinge guilt or remorse , Paul started compartmentalizing everything that he had to do from this moment forward, building an itinerary and locking away the memory of what had occurred this night, and with that the memory the feelings that had awoken. There was much to do and time would be of the essence, there could be no looking back and no more indulgence. It was time to get back to work.

The appointment was two hour drive, and Paul could make it to a cheap hotel by early morning. He would pay cash, check in and then take a hot shower and change. The work here was done. The hole was dug and filled, and he had covered the ground around it with sticks , leaves and rocks. Within a week , it would be indistinguishable. The shovel had been wiped clean with Paul’s sweatshirt, which also served as the cleaning rag. His vehicle was blood free, the man had not bled at all from the few hard shots he had landed around his eyes and the reaction to the stun gun seemed to be a heart attack. Paul knew his clothes might have some traces of the man on them anyway, so he after clean up was finished he put them in a garbage bag and they lay in the corner of the cabin.

The time came to move, so Paul stood and went down into the bunker where RJ kept the spare clothes. He picked a simple flannel shirt and brown work pants, and slipped them on keeping his tennis shoes on. He had kept a few things from the man’s person, his wallet, keys, and a silver bracelet. The man had not had a phone on him, so Paul just assumed it was left inside the man’ vehicle. Paul put the keys and wallet inside a small bag RJ had in the bunker and made the decision he would bury these separately at a later date. He took the cash from the wallet first, then took the small bag to the barn where he hid it inside the glove box of the Bronco. He never even looked at the driver’s license or credit cards. The man would have no name. The silver bracelet he kept, slipping into his pocket without thinking.

After locking up the cabin and the barn, Paul got back into his vehicle and exited the compound. The clock read 3:14am and he knew he had a brisk 2 hour drive to his destination. But, he would be able to rest later, maybe 18 hours from now, as there was absolutely no stopping at this point. He had to complete his mission.

So Paul drove for nearly one hundred miles before arriving at a small motel just before 5am. He paid for a room at the front desk in cash, grabbed his bag , took a shower, and laid down wrapped in his towel on the bed. He was tired, sore from the night’s work and his head was spinning fast. The hotel blanket scratched against his back and he felt himself almost pass out before snapping awake. He was caught between exhaustion and extreme excitement, and his body had not caught up in the adjustment as quickly as his mind.

He turned his phone back on and made the decision to take a two hour nap. So he set his alarm for 8 at the highest volume alert possible. The bed was stiff, the mattress more wood than filler, but it mattered little. This respite would be enough power him through the day, at whose end his own bed await him and the promise of a new beginning. Then, half-naked and spent, with soft morning light creeping in through then musty drapes, Paul feel asleep flat on his back, thinking about how his meeting would go at 10. There was a substantial re-structuring of the current client agreement that had to be resolved today, but he felt confident they would get it done. His eyes slid shut as he thought about the non-compete clause of the agreement, which he feared would be the sticking point.