"What happened to her? Is she okay? She doesn't look okay."
"She's fine. We're going to the hospital now. Don't be afraid." He thought about Audrey's belly filled with human flesh and hoped she was satisfied enough to leave this woman unharmed . . . uneaten. "No one's going to hurt you."
"Okay." The petite woman crawled out from beneath the car on her stomach, pushing backward with the toes of her tennis shoes to propel herself forward since there wasn't enough room for her to get to her knees. "Okay."
She stood up, and the top of her head barely reached the priest's chest.
"I was wondering how you fit underneath that car," he said. "You're just a tiny little thing. Aren't you?"
He turned around to see Audrey glaring at him through her mask of dried blood, and he immediately felt guilty again. "I think we'd better go. Both of you get in the car."
"We have to go inside the church. I have to find Peter," the woman said. "You have to help me." Her voice rose higher and higher. "We have to help him."
"Listen to me. Peter isn't inside the church. I promise you there's nothing to be gained by going inside. Nothing. We have to go, and we have to go now." He looked down at her sternly. "Now. I need both of you to get in the car."
Audrey opened the passenger door and got into the front seat. She slammed the door shut and locked it.
"You can get in on my side," the priest said. He lowered his voice. "Just so you know, she doesn't talk much. Okay?"
The woman nodded her head.
"Okay." He opened the driver's side door and pushed the seat forward so she could climb into the back seat. "Just, um, just sit behind me. Okay?"
She nodded her head. "I just want to find Peter," she said.
"Put on your seat belt. You can't be too careful." When she didn't react, he leaned into the back seat, grabbed the seat belt and snapped it into place at her waist. "That goes for you, too, Audrey," he said. He wasn't surprised when she didn't listen.
He slipped behind the wheel and reached across the front seat for Audrey's seat belt, fastening it before securing his own. "Is everybody ready? There's no turning back now."
He retrieved his keys from his pocket and turned the car key in the ignition. The engine roared into life, and he let out a sigh of relief. He put the car in drive and stomped on the gas, intent on leaving behind the bloodbath at the church for the bloodbath at the hospital.
As he careened out of the parking lot, leaving skid marks on the asphalt, the woman in the back seat let out a scream.
He turned his head to look at her for a split second, which happened to be long enough to lose control of the car and crash head-on into a vehicle that was coming from the opposite direction.
The front air bags deployed, forcefully pushing Father Matthew and Audrey back into their seats before deflating. Their back seat passenger stopped screaming.
The priest was dazed for a few minutes. There was ringing in his ears, and a trickle of blood from his forehead forced him to close one eye. He turned to his companion in the front passenger seat.
Audrey looked straight ahead as if nothing had happened. She looked none the worse for wear. Then again, she was already covered in blood that was turning from crimson to maroon as it dried.
Ignoring a sharp pain in his ribs, he swiveled around to survey his back seat passenger.
She was vomiting blood.
Father Matthew turned the key in the ignition, but nothing happened. With numb fingers, he unfastened his seat belt. "Hang on," he said. "It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. I'm going to get you to the hospital."
He pushed away thoughts of what he'd seen at the hospital, choosing to believe that there had to be doctors and nurses who'd escaped . . . whatever it was. Opening the driver's side door proved to be difficult but not impossible.
When the door finally opened with a squeal of metal against metal, he fell onto the ground. "Audrey, I need help. Are you okay? Can you get out of the car?" He heard her door open and then footsteps.
She stood over him, looked down and frowned.
The priest clutched his ribs, certain that he'd suffered at least one broken bone in the collision. "Audrey, can you check on her? I think she's hurt. Please just see if she's okay."
Audrey leaned down and extended a hand to him.
"I'm hurt. I think I'll be okay. Just give me a few minutes." He winced.
She leaned down further and took him by the hand.
"I'm too heavy for you to help me up," he said. "I don't want you to get hurt."
She shook her head and tugged his hand.
"Okay. Okay. I'll get up. Just be careful not to hurt yourself." He gripped her hand tightly, and he was surprised when she easily pulled him to his feet in one smooth motion. "Wow," he said. "You're stronger than you look."
Still holding his ribs, he peered into the back seat where their new companion was slumped over. Only her seat belt kept her semi-upright. Her clothes were soaked with the blood that still bubbled from between her lips.
"Oh, for God's sake," he said. Then he felt guilty.
The priest thought about giving her the Last Rites, but he wasn't in possession of the holy oil, and he realized that he'd already passed up the opportunity to perform that sacrament over and over again in the moments leading up to this one. He decided it was time to walk away.
He walked away.
The screaming started before he took his second step. When he turned around, he saw Audrey tucking into the woman's abdomen like it was Sunday dinner. He didn't even have the strength to ask her to stop.
Instead, he trudged back into the church parking lot to get the ambulance, trusting that Audrey would be more than capable of taking care of herself in his absence should the situation arise.
He pulled the keys out of his pocket and opened the door to the ambulance, searching carefully in the front seat and rear compartment of the vehicle before climbing inside and starting it up. Sweat soaked through his clothes. His palms were slick with it.
Father Matthew carefully put the ambulance in drive. His head was pounding. So was his heart. Then he realized he hadn't even thought to check on the passengers of the other vehicle.
The priest hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand in frustration before slowly easing the ambulance out of the parking lot so he could pick up Audrey from the site of the crash.
He hoped she wasn't hungry anymore.
Chapter Fourteen
"What are you going to do about it? Absolutely nothing. That's what." Officer Fitzpatrick held the squirming one-armed, one-eyed woman down and sliced through her remaining arm with the scalpel. "I told you who was in charge here. Maybe now you'll finally believe me."
Blood spilled out of her cut flesh, but there were no jets of arterial blood. Despite her frenzied movements, her heart was no longer pumping. That didn't stop her from trying to fight back.
The cop scored her flesh down to the bone all the way around the circumference of her arm. "I knew this wouldn't go through bone," he complained. "How many times do I have to ask for a bone saw?"
He looked around the room as if he expected a bone saw to appear magically in front of him. When it didn't, he took the same approach that he'd used with her other arm.
Bending forward at the waist as he got to his feet, he stomped on her bleeding arm until he cracked the bone in half.
"It isn't pretty, but it gets the job done," he said, laughing. "I told you not to fuck with me, Sandra. I knew that arm was going to have to go. The other arm . . . that's just a bonus. It turned out that cutting a woman into pieces is even more fun that I expected. Who knew?"
He swiveled his body so that he could see Robin, who was still lying on the floor in her dirty bra. "I'll bet you learned a lesson from Sandra. Didn't you? Don't fuck with authority. It's a lesson you won't forget as long as you live."
Robin didn't answer. She closed her eyes tightly shut and rocked back and forth on the floor. Her breath came in gasps that
were periodically interrupted by wailing. She bit her lip, but that didn't stop her from hyperventilating or crying aloud.
"I'll give you a free pass just this once, Robin. I can understand why you're not feeling very talkative right now. Don't worry. I bet you'll be as right as rain before long. After all, it's not like you got bitten. Yet."
He rose to his feet and gave the armless nurse a kick in the head for good measure. "Let's see how scary you are without any arms, Sandra," he said. "You're not so tough anymore. Are you?"
Sandra flopped over onto her back just as the cop went to land another kick. She raised her head and bared her teeth, eyes rolling back into her head until only the whites showed. When his foot came down near her face, she sank her teeth into his ankle.
He screamed and yanked his foot back, but her teeth were clamped into his flesh down to the bone. Still screaming, he toppled backwards and hit the floor. His ankle was a ball of fire and agony.
The blood oozing from Sandra's left stump turned from red to black to match the sticky blood on the open wound where her right arm used to be.
Her head moved to match the cop's movements. The grip of her teeth on his ankle didn't falter until he raised his other foot and kicked her in the forehead.
When her head flew in the opposite direction, she took a chunk of the cop's ankle with her. She swallowed the mouthful of warm flesh without chewing and crawled forward on knees and bloody stumps for another taste.
Her mouth was open and drooling a mixture of saliva, blood and black ichor.
Officer Fitzpatrick screamed when he saw the bleeding hole in his ankle. "She even ate my fucking sock," he wailed. His shaking hands found his weapon. "I should have done this in the first place," he said. He aimed between her eyes.
He pulled the trigger.
Sandra's head exploded into smithereens of black blood, grey brain matter and white bone. Her body twitched once, then twice, then stopped.
The cop huddled on the floor, watching his ankle bleeding into his shoe and what remained of his sock. "I'm fucked," he moaned. "I'm fucked. What am I supposed to do now?"
Robin looked up with something akin to glee in her eyes. "It's going to have to come off," she said. She put her hand in front of her mouth to suppress a giggle.
"What?" Officer Fitzpatrick asked through gritted teeth. "What are you talking about?" He clenched his fists in pain.
"It's going to have to come off. You're going to have to cut off your foot if you don't want it to spread. Whatever it is, whatever she had, you don't want it to spread. You've got it now. We have to operate." She pulled herself into a sitting position. "We're going to have to cut your foot off at the ankle. No, we're going to have to cut it off at the knee, to be safe. Wouldn't you agree?"
"You look like you're really fucking enjoying this," he said. "I'd wipe the grin off your face if I were you."
"It was solid advice when you were giving it," Robin said. "I'm just trying to return the favor, on Sandra's behalf." She looked down at her bare stomach and brushed away little bits of brain matter than had landed on her skin.
Officer Fitzpatrick considered shooting her between the eyes just because he could, but he knew she was right. His leg needed to come off, and the sooner the better. "You're going to have to help me," he said.
"With relish," Robin replied.
She stood up and wiped her palms on her pants. "Don't go anywhere. I'm going to check the other operating suites for a bone saw. I don't think I'm strong enough to break your fibula and your tibia by stepping on it." She laughed. "Be right back."
"So help me God, if you don't come back, you're going to be sorry," he said.
"Is that a threat? That's adorable. Don't worry. I am coming back, but I don't think anyone's going to be sorrier than your sorry ass." She laughed again. "First, I'm going to need my shirt back."
She collected the blouse that he had tied in knots to use as a makeshift bag for all the medication from the dispensary and shook the bottles of pills out through the neck hole.
"You owe me a shirt, Asshole," she said. "This one's fucked." She picked out the knots in the sleeves and bottom of the garment, pulled it over her head and shrugged. "Still better than nothing," she said.
Without a backward glance, she walked out of the room.
Officer Fitzpatrick climbed to his feet. He winced when he tried putting any weight on his damaged foot. Using a series of hops, he made it to the operating table with its nearby assortment of surgical instruments. He didn't think any of them was sanitary.
"Fuck this shit," he said. "How did I end up here?"
He lowered himself to the floor, took off his shoe and rolled down the remains of his sock. The damage looked even worse than he'd thought. Tears formed in his eyes, and he blinked hard in an attempt to keep them from falling.
Moving across the floor on his ass using his one good foot and both hands, the cop arrived at the place where all the medication he could carry lay spilled and waiting. It only took him a few tries to come up with a bottle of antibiotics and another bottle of Tylenol with codeine.
He opened the antibiotics and dumped them into his palm. There was nothing to wash them down with, but he hadn't come this far not to try. He swallowed them dry and followed them with more Tylenol with codeine pills than he thought was safe.
It took all his willpower to force the dry pills past his dry mouth and throat, but he managed even if it felt like one of them was stuck there.
Even though he was worried about who or what might enter the room while he wasn't paying attention, he allowed himself to close his eyes. If he was going to die, he thought it might as well be with codeine in his veins.
He breathed in and out, in and out, slow and deep, and tried to ignore the fire in his ankle or the wet heat of his blood seeping steadily from the place where his meat was missing a chunk.
After some time passed, the pain in his ankle slowly dissolved, and all he felt was a pleasant numbing warmth all over his body from his head to his toes.
The door opened. He could hear someone's footsteps moving toward him, and he knew that he should care, but he didn't. He kept his eyes closed until the pain in his ankle woke up.
Someone was kicking his ruined flesh.
"Wake up, Bitch," Robin chirped merrily. "I found you a bone saw."
He opened his eyes into slits. Already the pain was beginning to fade like the edges of the room. "What?"
"I found the bone saw, Bitch. Don't make me kick you again," Robin said. She laughed. "No wonder you're such a prick. This is fun."
He felt at his hip for his gun.
"Yeah, right. Like I didn't take that away from you when I walked into the room and found you with your eyes closed," Robin said. "Don't be stupid. I'm in charge now. Do you understand me?"
He nodded his head. His eyes drifted closed again.
Robin kicked his bleeding ankle.
"Answer me when I'm talking to you," she said. "I thought we all had this conversation already. I speak. You speak. I speak. You speak. That's what people do. That's what adults do. It's called holding a conversation, and it can actually be quite pleasurable when it's done correctly. Wouldn't you agree?"
She kicked his ankle again for good measure.
The pain blossomed through the codeine. His brain was still muddled, but his nerve endings were firing on all cylinders.
Tears streamed down his cheeks.
"Honestly," Robin said. "It's not even that bad. You could have it so much worse. Look what else I brought. Today is our lucky day."
Officer Fitzpatrick tried to train his eyes on her, but she was out of focus. It looked like she was wearing a full face shield.
"It's a face mask," she said brightly. "It's to protect my eyes from flying bone chips and things. The doctor recommended it."
"You found a doctor?" he asked with a tongue that felt like it was made from cotton. "Is the doctor coming?"
"Nah," she said. "He's busy, but he said, 'Good luck.'"
She found an outlet and plugged in the bone saw. "Let's get started. I'd like to have this finished as soon as possible. I have a funny feeling our quiet time here is limited."
She turned on the saw and leaned over her patient. "This is going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt me," she said.
When he felt the first bite of the whirring blade on his skin, he started to scream. Flesh, blood and bone sprayed everywhere as Robin fought to control the tool that she had never used.
She'd never even seen one in use. If it hadn't been for running into Dr. Noble Kent in the hallway, she never would have located it to begin with.
"This is fun," she said, using her hand to clear the front of her splattered face mask. "I guess you were right. There's no better way to deal with a bite from one of those things than to take the limb clean off. . . . Well, clean is probably a bad way to describe it."
The bone saw hit the tiled floor and bounced back up through the cop's calf, making another gash. It didn't matter. There was so much blood pumping from the wound that Robin realized he wasn't going to make it.
"I forgot to ask the doctor one thing," she said. "I don't know how to stop the bleeding." She dropped the bone saw to the floor and took off her face mask. Her face was the only part of her not covered in blood and gore.
The cop lay motionless. Only the rise and fall of his chest let Robin know that he was still among the living and not already among the dead, or the undead, or whatever. Even in his unconscious state, the pain was fire. He moaned.
Robin stared at the mess she had made and started to cry. Blood dripped from her hair down her face, leaving streaks of red. She took a step backward, slipped on the spilled blood and fell onto her ass on the dirty floor.
"I didn't mean to do it," she said. "I shouldn't have done it, but you were such a fucking prick that I wanted to do it. I wanted to make you suffer." Her entire body shook as she sobbed.
Several feet away, in his puddle of blood, the cop twitched and jerked like he was having a seizure. His bleeding stump and his remaining foot beat a tattoo on the tiled floor. His eyelids opened, and his eyes rolled back until Robin could only see the whites.
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