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"Are you going to kill me?" she asked, her voice remarkably strong.

"Walk faster." We soon found the space between the trees. Walter was standing in the hole, throwing dirt onto the slowly growing pile that we'd use to fill the grave again.

"Go now, Walter, if you don't want to see this," I said.

Walter tossed the shovel onto the mound of dirt and scampered out of the hole and back into the forest. Mary stopped suddenly at the edge and turned around, tears rolling down her cheeks, lips trembling. She shook her head.

The gun touched her forehead, and I pulled the trigger. I didn't hear the shot. I only saw its fatal and instantaneous effect. The strength in her legs evaporated, and she collapsed, headfirst, into the hole. I dropped the gun to my side and stared down at her, remorse pulsing somewhere inside of me that I refused to acknowledge.

From her head to her waist, Mary was slumped over into the hole, but her legs still stretched out, flat against the ground. I pushed her all the way in with my boot as Walter came running up from the woods and stopped beside me. We looked down at her, and I felt relieved that dirt covered her face. Only her hair, her high heels, and her navy trench coat were visible, spread out across the black earth.

"You wanna throw some dirt in there?" I said.

"Shit, Andy."

"I know."

He reached down and felt her face with the back of his hand. "She's still warm," he said.

"Quit fucking around, Walter. She won't be warm long. Just throw some dirt on her."

He got up and walked over to the shovel.

"I'm gonna need your help with Orson," I said.

Walter threw several scoops of dirt on top of Mary. Then he tossed the shovel onto the pine straw forest floor, and we walked back towards the highway. As we neared the trunk, I dug for the cold keys in my pockets, wishing the latex gloves were warm in addition to their flexibility. I unlocked the trunk and opened it once more. Orson lay motionless in the same position his late wife had left him. We laid him out in the grass. As Walter closed the trunk, I knelt down and dug two fingers into Orson's neck and waited.

"He's got a pulse," I said. "He's probably in a coma. Take his legs."

There was an overwhelming sense of relief when we dropped Orson on top of his wife. Even as Walter reached for the shovel, I unloaded the eight remaining rounds into Orson's chest, thinking of the hell he'd created for me. There was no place for sadness as I ended my brother's life. He'd killed our mother; he'd tortured and killed others. How could I not feel a tinge of joy as his body shook at the impact of each hollow point tearing through him?

We packed the dirt, stomping on it and smacking it with the head of the shovel. When the ground was level again, we gathered handfuls of dry pine needles and covered the bare dirt.

As we walked away, back through the trees, I marveled at how we'd left no trace of the hole, or the people beginning to freeze just inches beneath the surface. We neared the highway, and I could no longer see that small space between the pines, the gravesite of my brother. It was all smooth, pine needle forest floor now, and even if someday I wanted to see this place again, I doubted if I could ever find it.

We loaded the shovel and flashlight into the trunk and had climbed back into the Cadillac when I noticed headlights in the distance. I sat in the driver's seat and had put the keys into the ignition when the car rushed by. My head turned, and aided by the enormous moon, I saw that the brown vehicle was a police car. It continued on for several hundred yards, but then brake lights exploded through the darkness, and the car turned around in the empty road.

"You gotta be kidding me," Walter said, as he looked back. "You don't think he saw us?"

My heart raced as the police car sped back towards us and then pulled slowly onto the shoulder. Its lights began blinking, and its siren rang out for a split second, then silence.

"I'll talk," I said. "We're lost--get the map out--trying to find a place to stop for the night."