Horrifying.

“Is it really you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I never thought I’d see you again.”

Luther reached out, touched the side of her face. “You’ve grown into a beautiful woman.”

“Thank you.”

Luther glanced at Donaldson, and then came to his feet. He lifted the kerosene lantern off the nail and carried it with him across the barn. The firelight splashed across a wall covered in ancient farm tools. Scythes of every size. Bill hooks. Sheep shears. Hay rakes. Axes. Hatchets. Sledgehammers. Drill spuds. Tail-docking shears. Yokes. Spades. Long-handled slashers. Hooks. Pruners. Pitchforks.

“I have my toolbox in the car,” Luther said, selecting the bill hook, “but I always like to make use of what’s around. You guys ever do that?”

“Can you pick a different one?” Lucy asked. “That one looks rusty. I wouldn’t want Donaldson to get tetanus.”

Luther chuckled.

“What exactly, darling, do you think is about to happen here? We tag team Fat Man and then I rush you back to the hospital?”

“Yeah, that sounds great.”

Luther returned the bill hook to the shelf and pulled down the pair of sheep shears. He started toward them, opening and closing the blades to dislodge the clumps of accumulated rust.

“I’m going to start with you, Lucy. Show me those pretty little feet.”

Lucy reached her hand down into her pants.

“What?” Luther grinned. “This getting you hot? Wow, you are a little firecracker.”

He sat down on the floor in front of her and set the kerosene lamp next to him.

Grunting, Lucy extended her foot. The one Donaldson had shot three toes off of.

“Not quite as pretty as I was imagining.”

“You won’t do it,” she said. “We have a connection.”

“Think so?” He opened the shears. “Stick your big toe between the blades and find out.”

Lucy groaned, her hand still down her pants.

She set her big toe on the bottom blade.

Luther looked up, said, “Watch—”

His face dropped, and then a smile stretched his lips.

The blast of pepper spray hit him dead between the eyes, Lucy leaning forward, squirting it into his mouth and nose, and when the spray ended, Donaldson kicked Luther in the chest.

Luther fell back and dropped the shears, his hands clutching his face.

“You fucking bitch!” He pawed at his eyes.

Donaldson laughed. “Tell me, Luther, did she get lucky just now?”

Luther clambered onto his feet, one hand outstretched, his face buried in the side of his jacket.

“I can’t fucking see!” he screamed. “It burns!”

Luther stumbled like a drunk toward the opening of the barn.

Donaldson stuck his hand into the old hay, becoming frantic because he couldn’t find the key. After ten seconds of desperate groping, his fingers locked onto it.

“Grab the pitchfork,” Lucy said as he undid the cuffs. “Wait behind the door for him to come back.”

Donaldson heaved himself up to his feet and took a staggering step toward the wall of rusted farm implements. He grabbed the pitchfork, and then paused.

“Hurry!” Lucy said. “Hide before he comes back!”

“I’ve been maced before. Hurts like hell. Even if he washes off, he’s not coming back for at least ten minutes.”

“You going to sneak up on him, get him by his car?”

Donaldson shook his head slowly.

Lucy let out a short pant of air. After a moment, she nodded. “Hermit crabs can’t change who they are.”

“No,” Donaldson said. “They can’t.”

He raised the pitchfork and staggered toward her.

Lucy stood up.

“You goddamn lying little bitch,” Donaldson said, thrusting the fork at her.

Lucy jumped back, wincing as her legs took the weight. Then she ran awkwardly toward the tools.

Donaldson got to her just as Lucy was pulling a scythe from the wall. She tugged it off the nail and swung it hard and fast. Donaldson ducked and the sickle blade slammed into the wall, its tip embedding a quarter inch into the wood. Lucy yanked it out as Donaldson came at her with the pitchfork, sidestepping as the prongs missed her by inches.

She raised the scythe and swiped again, catching Donaldson in the bad arm. When the tip went in, she twisted the handle, dropping the fat man to his knees with a whimper.

Lucy pulled the scythe out and cocked it back.

“We could’ve been amazing together,” she said.

“Yeah.” Donaldson grimaced. “But killing you is going to be even more amazing.”

She swung the scythe at his neck but Donaldson raised his weapon and caught the blade between the prongs. Rising, he jabbed the pitchfork toward the ceiling and sent Lucy’s scythe flying across the room, where it clattered against a dormant tractor.

Donaldson backed her up, cornering Lucy against the wall of tools.

“Okay, D. You got me.” Lucy raised her hands. “Is this really what you want?”

Donaldson put his weight into the thrust, stabbing her through the fronts of both thighs.

Lucy fell to the floor, screaming for Luther, and she continued to scream as Donaldson plunged the sharp, filthy tines into her legs, over and over and over.

By the time he’d worked his way up to her pelvis, she was just screaming incoherently.

By the time he started on her arms, all the fight had gone out of her.

Panting, Donaldson set the pitchfork on the ground and leaned on the handle. He used his good arm to mop some sweat from his brow.

“You still alive there, little girl? Or have I reached one hundred and thirty-one?”

Lucy moaned softly.

A pool of blood spreading out beneath her.

Footsteps at the opening of the barn’s sliding door drew Donaldson’s attention. Luther stood in the threshold. He was holding something that the shadows kept hidden.

“That mace hurts like a bitch, don’t it?” Donaldson said. “I straightened Lucy out for you, but if you want to come give her a few pokes, by all means, help yourself.”

Luther walked into the barn, and as he reached the lantern’s field of illumination, he stopped.

Donaldson saw what he held. He said, “Oh shit.”

“Drop the pitchfork,” Luther said. His face was swollen, his eyes red as strawberries. The gun in his hand was a semi-auto.

“You mean drop this, or you shoot me? Don’t be an asshole, Luther. I’d rather have you shoot me than—”

The first shot blew out Donaldson’s right knee, toppling him over.

Luther strolled over while Donaldson howled.

“Still rather have me shoot you, Fat Man?”

He aimed and fired. Donaldson’s left knee exploded.

A feeble, breathy sound caught Luther’s attention. He turned and saw a smile on Lucy’s face.

She was laughing.

“Knees are supposed to hurt the most,” Luther said. “Tell me if that’s true.”

Two more shots, and Lucy’s laughter became sobbing.

Luther went to the wall and chose a tool to play with.

After twenty minutes of exhausting his imagination with that one, he went on to get another.

On Luther’s third tool, Donaldson went into cardiac arrest.

Happily, Luther kept a portable defibrillator in his car, and it only took three shocks to get the fat man’s ticker back on track.

Then he started in again.

Dawn approached.

Soon there wasn’t much Luther could do, even trying really hard, to illicit more screams from the duo.

Donaldson tried to say something but it came out too soft for Lucy to understand.

They lay side-by-side on the floor of the barn. There were bits of them everywhere.

Lucy could barely speak.

“What…D?”

“Is…he…gone?”

“I think so.”

The barn was quiet. Somewhere, across the field, a rooster was arguing with the sun.

“Why aren’t we dead yet?” Lucy asked.

“Because your friend is very…very…” Donaldson coughed up a chunk of something. “Good.”

“I can’t feel anything anymore,” Lucy said.