Bad Parts

by Brandon McNulty

  Ash nudged the hilt of the knife.

  The beast collapsed on its belly.

  So did she.

  Filling her lungs with air, she used her good arm to pull herself toward the table in the middle of the clearing. Her vision became cloudy as she wormed toward it. When at last she gripped the edge, she couldn’t find the strength to drag it.

  Snare rose onto its forearms again.

  Pursued again.

  Went down again when Ash nudged the blade.

  The gap between them narrowed. Ash could smell the beast now—ancient rot, fishy and filthy. It invaded her nostrils and stuffed her lungs. The combination of blood loss and stench was overwhelming, and bile splashed the back of her throat. She swallowed it back, nostrils flared.

  Releasing the air from her lungs in a gush, she gripped the table by its leg and yanked it a few feet before nausea leveled her.

  Behind her, Snare slapped her ankle and squeezed.

  Ash rolled onto her back and jerked the knife.

  They both moaned.

  “Enough,” Snare growled. Blood dripped over the red gash of a mouth. “You have nothing left to fight for.”

  “The hell I…don’t,” Ash said, her consciousness fading, light dimming.

  “I’ve waited countless years for this. For the final trade.” The beast dragged itself closer. Ash flinched as its hand crept further up her leg. “Your lives…your parts… They’ll be put to good use. They’ll ensure the rebirth of my tribe.”

  “Tribe?” Ash didn’t care about the details, but she needed to buy herself time to recover. “What were you, some kind of warrior?”

  “Not a warrior—a healer.” The creature’s weight flowed over Ash’s lower body like a soiled, soggy blanket. A swampy stench overwhelmed her as Snare’s hand patted Ash’s hip and slid up her torso. “I told you I used my mind to heal people’s bodies. My tribe, my family, my son—I saved so many. But then they were taken from me.”

  “Taken…by who?”

  “Settlers.” The hand roamed along Ash’s collarbone. “They had a sick child, one I refused to cure before my own people were healed. But the outsiders didn’t understand that. Nor did they understand that exiting and reentering my body took a toll. Those fools didn’t care. They pressured me to help, more and more, until one monster among them shot my five-year-old.”

  Snare’s hand slid down Ash’s arm, toward her wounded hand.

  “My last human memory was seeing my son’s insides fly out his back.”

  “That’s…no excuse to kill us. We did nothing to your son, you bitch. All the people killed by your fog… You’re telling me they deserved to die?”

  “It was nothing personal.” Snare’s hand paused on Ash’s forearm. “The fog was necessary. After decades of absorbing all your diseases and injuries, I had to purge my poisons.”

  “Purge your…poisons?”

  “Yes. Did you think your trades came without cost to me? That wasn’t the case. I’ve been harboring all kinds of cancers and fractures for decades. Even in water form, storing them was an excruciating burden. When I completed my collection I had no choice but to release them.”

  “Take them back. If that fog keeps spreading—”

  “It won’t. It’ll only spread as far as my reach—my ‘zone’ as your people call it.”

  “Take it back anyway.”

  “It can’t be done.”

  “Bullshit!” Ash drew her impaled hand back and swung it at the creature, hoping the hilt would strike Snare and drive the blade deeper into her palm. Instead, Snare caught her forearm mid-swing and the knife slid free.

  Stars exploded beneath Ash’s closed eyelids.

  Despite the agony, she found the strength to slap the dirt. Her ruined palm struck some sharp twigs, and the beast hissed before rolling off her.

  Somehow, Ash mustered the will to crawl a few feet, far enough to gain some breathing room. She lunged for the table, but Snare beat her to it and swatted the table away. It bounced behind her, landing near the spillway, but farther from where it needed to be placed.

  “Stop this. You can join me in my new world.”

  “I’d rather have the old one back.”

  “That, I’m afraid, is impossible.”

  “Bullshit. If you can revive your tribe, you can revive my town.”

  “I’m not reviving anyone. I’m rebirthing. Creating children born of my mind and the waters of this creek.”

  “Then they won’t be your people. They’ll be fake.”

  “They’ll be as real as I remember them. As real as I am now. I can even rebirth Cheeto.”

  Heat flamed across Ash’s cheeks. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Why not? I swore I’d let you both off easy. Remember? Back when you promised you’d never play guitar again?”

  Snare’s words stung, sending Ash back to three nights ago, when she lay helpless in the Dark Diamond parking lot. Lying on the pavement, she couldn’t gauge how tall her attacker was. Almost anyone could tower above you when you were scared out of your mind. But now it made sense. Turned out, the ski-masked man hadn’t been some random lunatic.

  “You…” Ash said, gasping. “It was Mick. In the parking lot. It was Mick…you controlled him. You smashed my hand.”

  “That’s right,” Snare said. “Thanks to Mick’s memories, I knew you’d be desperate enough to help me gather the final parts. All I had to do was ruin your hand. Once that was done, you did the rest.”

  “You couldn’t gather the goddamned parts yourself?”

  “I could only control Mick when his head was soaked with bend water. If he asked for parts while drenched, people would distrust him. I considered blackmailing Candace, but I suspected she might refuse. She was, after all, content to keep Mick within the zone.”

  “Then why me, of all people?”

  “Because of your birth parents.”

  “What about them?”

  “You were born from my parts, remember. Because of that, my waters had a special effect on you. I could speak to you. All it took was a little mist on your tongue. I could’ve done the same with Trent, but he hadn’t arrived in town yet. Even if he had, you were my first choice. You were the better option. You’d do anything.”

  Tears stung Ash’s eyes. To think she’d been targeted from the start. Used. Lured along until she triggered mass damnation. And all because she’d wanted to peddle demo CDs after a show. All because she didn’t visit her bandmate in the hospital.

  “My offer still stands. I can rebirth Cheeto as soon as we’re done.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “You’d rather abandon him in death?”

  “I’d rather we both join him.”

  Eyeing the table, Ash shoved herself upright, but she wobbled, about to pass out. Her senses randomly flickered, leaving her in darkness and silence. Then came an abrupt awakening. A shock of life. She clung to consciousness and stumbled toward the table. With her good hand, she grabbed the metal leg and yanked it toward the bend.

  A hiss filled her ears as the beast lunged, hammering its shoulder into her side. The impact connected with her ribcage—their shared ribcage—and dropped them both flat.

  Ash lay on her back, dazed, staring up at falling snowflakes. A bloody fist entered her line of sight. Before she could move, the fist dropped. First her hip, then her stomach, absorbed blows. Air whooshed from her lungs, leaving her shaken and numb. It was like the Dark Diamond parking lot, but worse.

  The fist rose again, directly above her face.

  Ash reached for the table. With her remaining strength she dragged it over her head like a clumsy shield and braced herself.

  The beast hissed.

  “Don’t move!” From the far end of the clearing a voice shouted. Ash’s hearing was fuzzy, but she recognized it.

  Dad!

  87

  The place stank like an old wound. Even the fog carried a reddish tint. But nothing disgusted Karl more than the situation he observe
d near the spillway. There lay Ashlee, beneath the folding table and the beating fist of a blood-covered monster. Though she’d shielded herself, he couldn’t stand to see punches flying her way.

  With a sure hand, Karl aimed and fired.

  A direct hit. Blood splashed from the monster’s neck. The shot should’ve been fatal, but instead of dropping dead, the thing turned toward him. Karl fired two more rounds, but the bullets had no effect. The creature grabbed the table, ripped it away from Ashlee, and flung it aside, exposing her.

  “Ashlee!”

  Karl charged ahead. He lowered his shoulder and barreled into the monster. The impact, to his surprise, knocked him backward. He landed hard on his rump. As he picked himself up, he noticed the creature’s left arm was missing a hand—Ashlee’s hand. Not only that, the legs had loose, stringy muscles where the knees should’ve been.

  “Dad—our parts!” Ashlee yelled, raising a bloody hand. “It’s the only way to hurt the thing!”

  Karl shuffled backward. Pulled his knife from his pocket. After a second of hesitation, he slashed it across his sleeve.

  The beast hissed and grabbed its forearm. With a fluid, fishlike twist of its body it faced him.

  Karl launched himself upright and sliced his skin again. Snare released a fresh hiss, albeit a short one, and dove straight at him. Its head bashed into his stomach and dropped him onto his back. He lifted his hand to slash his arm again and realized he’d dropped the knife.

  Snare grabbed him by the jacket and flipped him over, strength beyond strength. As he tried to push himself up, Snare slammed his head into the snow. The icy snow softened the impact, but now Karl couldn’t breathe. Nor could he see.

  In that moment he expected to suffocate, but Snare hoisted him into the air. Oxygen tickled mercifully at his nose. He blinked to clear his eyes as melting snow dripped from his lashes.

  His vision cleared just in time to see the creek’s surface.

  Then he was thrust down into it.

  Ash watched in horror as her father was slammed through the bend’s surface like a cheap action figure. He barely kicked or splashed as Snare held him under. The waters themselves thrashed, no doubt trying to drown him.

  She had to do something.

  Her knife was gone, so she grabbed the first rock she could find and jammed it into her wounded palm. Fireworks burst beneath her eyelids. She made a fist, squeezing the embedded rock like a burning coal. Snare hissed and gurgled, grabbing at its empty stump.

  The intensity topped out at eleven and left Ash withering in the snow.

  “Ashlee!” Now free, Dad lumbered out of the creek past Snare. “The table!”

  She opened her fist. The relief was overwhelming. With Dad’s help, she rose to her feet, and they rushed toward the table. He was shivering and soaked but he quickly grabbed one end. She lifted the other. They hurried through the snow toward the creek.

  Grabbing a shovel, Dad broke up the dirt wall that blocked off the spillway. Water immediately forked away from the creek and into the trench. At first it trickled through and then outright rushed.

  Less than ten feet away, Snare threatened to rise. When Ash punched her bloody hand, they both collapsed.

  Dad helped her to her feet.

  “Now the table!” he said.

  Together, they slid it between the creek banks like a deadbolt. Water shoved at the makeshift dam, tipping it toward the bend, threatening to flatten it. Dad hopped in to support it and keep it upright. The dam redirected the creek’s path into the spillway. For a moment they grinned at each other, sharing a sense of triumph. Then Ash noticed thin streams trickling beneath the table, feeding the bend.

  “Dad!”

  “I see it.” He sat in front of the biggest leak. Water squirted through other gaps. He tried sweeping mud in front of the leaks but couldn’t reach them all.

  She climbed in after him and sat in front of the table with a splash. The freezing water jolted her. It rushed alongside her legs, soaking her jeans, making her reluctant to move. Shivering, she steadied her back against the table and dug her heels into the muddy bottom.

  Snare growled and darted toward them.

  Beside her, Dad moaned through gritted teeth. He shook as though something were eating him from within. When he drooped forward, the table tipped along with him, squishing them both.

  “Dad, hang on!”

  He growled and leaned back. Some of the table’s pressure lifted from her shoulders.

  Another leak sprang between them. Water gushed through the new gap. Snare became less frantic and approached the improvised dam, turning an ear toward them.

  Her knees bent, Ash drove her shoulders backward against the table. The weight resisted her. She became lightheaded. Blood loss, she thought. Even with Snare so close, she couldn’t rally herself to damage her hand again.

  The beast rolled its crimson fingers into a fist. A punch flew past her ear, a red blur. It rattled the table, inches from her head.

  Snare jabbed again, smashing Ash’s shoulder. She cried out and realized she’d just made her face a target.

  The beast took another swing.

  The third strike drilled Ash’s nose, cracking it with a sound that reminded her of a snapping guitar neck. She smelled blood. Tasted it, too. At some point her head had bounced off the table, and she sensed the birth of a throbbing bruise along her scalp. The rest of her didn’t feel any better, but she continued to sit upright. She refused to go down.

  Snare cocked its fist yet again. Blood dripped from its gruesome arm as the beast drew a seething breath. Then, with a subhuman shriek, the creature launched its knuckles toward her face.

  Ash begged her body to dodge, but nothing below the neck responded.

  Wincing, she braced herself, expecting this next hit would shatter her skull.

  But the impact never came.

  Instead, Snare hissed.

  When Ash blinked, she saw two hands clutching Snare’s arm.

  “Leave her the fuck alone!”

  88

  Trent clung tightly to the blood-slick arm. Beneath his grip the beast’s muscles flexed, hardening as they prepared for another haymaker. The elbow drew backward, causing his now-empty leg to bend like a rubber sleeve beneath him. Queasiness stirred his insides as the beast squared its shoulder. Trent shoved every fear aside and held on, weighing down the arm.

  Yet another punch sailed wide of Ash’s face.

  Snare adapted and whipped its arm sideways, trying to fling him off.

  Good fucking luck, Trent thought. I’m not letting go. Not after hopping back here on one foot. And definitely not after what you did to Jake.

  “Ash!” he shouted. “Dad! Finish the dam!”

  Snare slammed him against the ground repeatedly. The first couple times, the snow softened the impact. When he struck solid earth, Trent managed to tough it out. He could handle a bruised shoulder, a bashed hip, even the bizarre discomfort of his boneless leg flopping around. But the damage kept adding up. The pain kept multiplying.

  Snare hoisted him overhead. Trent hugged the arm tightly to his torso, his back toward the ground. He braced himself, swearing he wouldn’t let go.

  The arm swung downward. His shoulders slammed the cold earth, and his neck whipped brutally, pounding his head against the ground. Everything went fuzzy.

  His grip waned and Snare flung him aside. He bounced, rolled, and landed in the trench with a splash. Frigid water shocked him awake, but he couldn’t move. Something was broken in his chest area—rib, collarbone, he couldn’t tell. Worse yet was his neck. When he tried to lift his head, his nerves screamed.

  Grimy water flushed against his face. He could see Ash a few feet away. He spat the filth and tried pushing himself upright. He barely lifted himself an inch before his neck roared with heat.

  He couldn’t fight.

  Couldn’t move.

  Couldn’t—

  “Daaaad!”

  Jake screamed from the edge of the cle
aring.

  “Daaaad!”

  Neck be damned. Trent dragged himself out of the trench. His heart burst as he spotted Jake’s face poking through a wreath of pine branches.

  “Stay there, Jake! Don’t come closer!”

  “But Ash and Grandpa—”

  “Stay there!”

  Looking at the makeshift dam, Trent realized Snare had locked Ash in a chokehold. Her head drooped sideways. Her eyes were closed. Dad reached for her, but the table tipped forward as he did. They were losing their dam. If it collapsed, there would be no stopping Snare. The beast would slaughter them all, including Jake.

  Trent stumbled ahead, pain lancing through his neck. He ducked under the arm Snare was using to choke Ash and splashed down on his butt between his father and sister, blocking a leak and steadying the table with his shoulder. His neck roared.

  “Snare!” he called. He brought Ash’s ruined hand to his mouth. “Here’s your fucking favor.”

  He bit down on the seeping wound like it was his last meal. A metallic taste soaked his tongue. The beast hissed and pulled back, releasing Ash’s throat. The bite shocked his sister into consciousness. She screamed and yanked her hand away.

  Trent tried to reclaim her arm, but Snare clapped its hand over his face. Massive bloody fingers closed around his cheeks, jaw, and eyes like a cursed mask. Through a gap, he saw Jake leave the thicket. Trent tried to shake free, tried to warn him.

  A bloody thumb slid along Trent’s cheek. It left a greasy trail as it curled along his nose and into his eye socket. The pressure on his eyeball blacked out his vision. Heat flushed through his head. The pressure increased, harder and sharper.

  Then the thumb punched through.

  Ash shrieked as she watched Snare bury its thumb into her brother’s skull. With a soggy crunch, the thumb tip disappeared, followed by the joint, then the entire thumb. All the while, Trent roared at a pitch too extreme for human ears. His head spazzed. His body jerked. Then he abruptly stopped.

  From somewhere—it could’ve been ten million miles away—came a boy’s screams. Jake had just watched his dad die, she realized. Gets his eyes back, and this is what he has to see.