Child of God

The following December at the Frog Mountain lookout, Lester, out hunting squirrels, finds a couple inexplicably dead in their car. Lester pulls the man off the woman and is surprised by the man’s still-erect penis. Turning off the engine and closing the car door against the cold, Lester has sex with a woman’s corpse, “pour[ing] into that waxen ear everything he’d ever thought of saying to a woman” (93). Lester leaves with the woman’s underwear, only to sprint back to search the car for valuables. He steals their money, the woman’s makeup, and a pint of whiskey. Again, he departs, before returning again for the woman’s corpse. As he returns up the road this final time, a hawk wheels overhead.

Lester lugs the corpse to his cabin. He builds a fire, undresses the corpse, and climbs into bed next to it. Later that afternoon, two men to whom Mr. Waldrop has given permission to hunt on his property appear unexpectedly. Worried that they’ll see the corpse, Lester scares them away. He cleans a spot in the loft and, using a rope and a ladder, hauls up the corpse. Lifted by the rope, the corpse appears reanimated.

Lester makes a squirrel stew then hides the ladder and walks three hours into Sevierville.