TotenFolio

The silhouette fell over Snatch and he turned to look over his shoulder. His gray eyes turned up to view the source of the shadow in the woods.

“Mother?” Snatch asked. He stood so quickly his knees popped and both locked into place with enough force to send sharp pains from his kneecaps to his shins.

Mother stood barefoot, in a stretched, sweat-stained knock off sports jersey and a pair of black cutoff denim shorts. Rolls of sweaty fat hung over the unbuttoned waist band of her shorts and beads of dirty sweat clung for their lives to her forehead. She blinked her beady eyes and looked at Snatch through a drunken haze.

“Why are you out here, Mother?” His throat shoveled the sound of his voice out of his mouth; each word lurched and rolled off his dry, sticky tongue.
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Snatch turned in a full circle after he spotted the blinking lights of the patrol car in the farmhouse driveway. He stood alone in the trees now. Mother had gone back to the farmhouse. The old farmer vanished.

He shivered and felt lonely. Nervous.

Sweat rolled down his forehead and his temples pulsed with each slam of his heart. His curly dark hair stuck flat to his head, held in place with a greasy texture and a twist of salty perspiration. He stunk.
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As soon as he said it, Edgar Snatch knew he was wrong. The officer, on closer inspection, looked nothing like Danielle.

Her eyes weren’t glazed over. Her mouth didn’t hang open at an odd angle. Her hair didn’t cling to her head, matted with sticky blood.

And the most telling thing of all. Her head didn’t look like a split honeydew melon. It couldn’t be Danielle.

The officer shook her head and smiled. “Laura, actually.”
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Snatch had to think hard about what the old farmer said. If the Reaper didn’t sit across from him right now, would he go outside and kill Laura?

He scratched his stubble-covered chin and shook his head. “You’re wrong, old man.”

The old farmer held a hand up. “Call me the Reaper. You should know that by now. We’re good friends, right?” The Reaper paused. “I give fantastic advice, if I must resort to patting myself on the back.”
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Snatch rolled out of bed and put his bare feet on the floor. He scratched his chin and popped his eyes open to look out into his room. The floorboards from the center of the room still leaned precariously against the wall; he’d never nailed the boards back down. He ran his fingers through his greasy hair and looked down at the floor.

He did not remember coming to bed.

He turned to look out his bedroom window and placed his hand on top of a warm body. He jerked around to stare at a woman in his bed. Her back faced him.

“Danielle?” Snatch shook her.
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Snatch pulled away from Laura and pushed off of the bed. He could feel his heart pound in his throat. His tongue moved and his mouth tried to form words but nothing came out.

“What did I tell you?” Snatch asked, finally.

Laura narrowed her eyes and slid to the edge of the bed. She rubbed her neck and cleared her throat. “I just told you. You told me about Danielle.”
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Snatch looked down at the mouse and narrowed his gray eyes. He scraped his tongue over his teeth and scratched the greasy stubble of the beard growing under his chin.

“Do you know where my hammer is?”

The dead mouse played dead.

“Do you know where my damned hammer is?” Snatch growled. His voice rumbled in his neck and chest like a diesel engine sputtering along on fumes.
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The ground lurched beneath Snatch and he stumbled forward several steps before the ground punched him in his jaw. He recoiled from the pain and reached up to his chin.

A line of blood trickled from his chin.

It took a couple of seconds for Snatch to piece together what happened. When the ground moved under him, like someone snatching a rug from under his feet, he fell. The ground hit him, or he hit it.
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Snatch turned the sledgehammer around in his grip and glanced at the dark brown weighted head. On the end of the sledgehammer’s head, a stain turned the brown metal a sick mixture of purple, crimson and rust-red. Snatch licked his teeth behind his pursed lips and chewed the inside of his mouth.

“Rat,” Snatch said. “I killed a rat.”

Laura exhaled. “Maybe you should try to kill that snake I saw?” She forced a laugh in an attempt to ease out of the tense situation.
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Laura shoved Snatch’s head against the wall.

The impact dazed him and he peered through tunnel vision with his teeth clenched. His temples shook like drum heads stretched too tight.

“Was that a threat?” Laura asked.

Snatch didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. His mind raced and sent words to his mouth, but the single impact of his forehead against the wall left him speechless, stunned; her action surprised him, shocked him.
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