Raw Wounds

by Matt Hilton

  Po planned to wait for an opportunity to slip undetected off the pickup when the Menons slowed on the approach to their destination, yet the opposite occurred. Instead of decelerating, Zeke hit the gas and the pickup tore down the track. A few times Po was thrown up from the bed of the truck, and was concerned they’d hear him as he bumped down again, but the pickup creaked and rattled, the suspension squeaking and knocking wildly as the rough terrain abused it, and the sporadic sounds of gunfire were enough to cover any dull bangs he made.

  The pickup slewed to a halt, Zeke exclaiming something about Darius Chatard.

  Po went to his hands and knees, preparing to act, when bullets began drilling the pickup. Steam billowed from a punctured cooling system. Bullets caromed off the hood, the roof, and windshield glass, even as Cleary Menon ran for the forest. Zeke threw open his door, and Po heard the solid impact of a bullet striking it. Through the small window in the rear of the cab, he caught sight of Zeke lunging out of the passenger door, and he began to rise up, his blade in hand, within easy stabbing reach of the bastard as Zeke backed up, using the blanketing steam as cover.

  Po went down, not hard, more a slow deflation of his pent-up frame, as his world grew dark. Darius, shooting blindly, had sent a bullet directly through the windshield, and the small window in the rear of the cab. He’d sworn for years he’d kill Nicolas Villere, and his prophecy had come true …

  Po jolted back to lucidity.

  He had no idea how long he’d lain unconscious on the bed of the truck, but it couldn’t have been long. Steam still gouted overhead from the ruptured radiator, and from a distance he caught the popping of handguns: the gunfight was yet underway. As he rose up, he reached for his dropped knife, and clutched it, before he probed the wound on his forehead. Blood poured down his features, but all he discovered was a ragged cut in his skin: beneath it the bone hadn’t been compromised, and his brains weren’t leaking out. He’d been hit not by the ricocheting bullet, but a piece of shrapnel torn from the cab on its way through. The sudden impact had been enough to briefly turn out his lights, but he wasn’t dead yet.

  He pulled himself upright, leaning on the edge of the cab while he found his bearings. The blood in his eyes, the billowing steam, thwarted him for seconds. He dashed his sleeve across his face, smearing the blood, but getting enough off his eyelids that the world was no longer tinged red. Through the cloud of steam he spotted the panel van lying on its side, and to its left another abandoned truck. A huge Dodge Ram pickup was backing away, sans lights, and he pictured the collision it would have made on the van moments ago to knock it off its wheels. It must have been the terrific impact between the Dodge and van that had snapped him out of dreamland. The Dodge was the one belonging to Francis Chatard, but it wasn’t the tall figure of a man that skirted round the rear of the van and began kicking around in the dirt.

  What the hell was Tess doing?

  He lowered himself over the side of the pickup, and had to hold onto it as his knees threatened to buckle. His thighs were leaden from his earlier beating, and his ribs felt two sizes too small for his lungs. One eye was swollen almost shut. When he called to Tess his voice was barely a wheeze. Yet she froze, knees bent, hands flexing, as if she was preparing to leap aside.

  ‘Po … is that you?’ she finally said.

  He slapped his way to the front of the pickup, inhaling deeply, and by the time he emerged from the swirling steam cloud, could walk without assistance. The more he moved, the easier it got. He went towards Tess, and she rushed to meet him. She got to within a couple of feet and stopped, her face stricken at the state of him.

  He touched the wound in his forehead. ‘Looks worse than it is.’

  ‘My God! What happened to you?’

  ‘It’s only a nick. Bit of shrapnel got me. But don’t worry, I’m hard-headed.’

  ‘Hard-headed and wooden-headed are two different things,’ she chastised him. ‘How is it every time you go off on your own you turn up bloodied?’

  ‘All I was doing was hitching a ride,’ he told her.

  She hugged him briefly. And in a few short sentences told him what had happened in the last few minutes.

  ‘Where’s Pinky?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.

  ‘The Menons?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Emilia?’

  She shook her head, but held up a hand at his sudden alarm. ‘She broke free from her captors and ran. From the sound of things she’s still on the loose.’

  ‘Good. C’mon. Let’s go kick the pig.’

  The Louisianan term was a new one to Tess, but she got the gist.

  ‘Hold up a second,’ she said, ‘Darius’s gun’s around here someplace.’

  ‘No time to find it. Take mine instead.’ Po pulled the Glock he’d been given by Pinky, and handed it over.

  ‘You’ll need it,’ she said.

  He held up his knife. Flicked a mirthless grin. ‘I always bring the wrong weapon to a gunfight.’

  ‘That’s because you’re such a wooden-head,’ she reminded him, but accepted the Glock 20. It came fully loaded with fifteen x 10mm rounds, and knowing Po he wouldn’t have used any of them yet. It was a more formidable weapon than the one she was hunting in the muck for. ‘Let’s go find those Menon pigs,’ she said, ‘I want to kick them fifteen times.’

  FORTY-THREE

  Voices called for Emilia, but her new-found protector wouldn’t let her go towards them, even though she assured him they were the voices of her brother and cousin. To approach them would mean re-entering the warren of aisles formed by the fleet of trucks and excavators, and the chance of running into some of the bad guys was too high. Every now and then a brief gunfight broke out between the Chatards and those assisting the Menon brothers. Pinky wasn’t going to allow her to catch a stray bullet when their safest option was to keep to the edge of the action where nobody could sneak up on them from behind. He had a car waiting for them, hidden up among the trees beyond the service trail.

  ‘I can’t leave them out there fighting for me when I’m already safe from harm,’ she told him.

  ‘Worry not, little Emilia, we won’t be running off and leaving them. I’ve friends out there fighting for you too. I’ve no intention of abandoning them, me. Soon as you’re out of harm’s way, I’ll make sure they get the message.’

  Reluctant, but seeing his logic, Emilia stuck closely to Pinky’s side. He kept between her and the action, and once they were parallel with the pumping station, he led her at a run across the barren earth towards where he’d left the car. As they ran, they could both see that much had happened since Emilia had first broken free. For a start the panel van she’d twice been imprisoned inside was now lying on its side, and another truck was belching steam. The Dodge Ram was in motion, and Pinky assumed that Tess was at the wheel, but he’d no easy way to hail her without relying on a phone, which he had no time for yet. The Dodge drove off towards the fleet of excavators. Pinky caught Emilia by an elbow. ‘There’s still a car up there, a Toyota. We’ll head for it, us. Soon as we’re there we’ll call my friends and get them back there, your kin too.’

  A crackle of gunfire sounded, but it was distant, on the far edge of the pumping station. It galvanized Emilia, who ran alongside Pinky over the rough terrain, through a boggy trough that bore the deep tire tracks of the Dodge, and up and towards the trees. Emilia could barely breathe by the time Pinky escorted her through waist-high underbrush and into the forest. Just beyond the first rows of trees a glade opened up, alongside the narrow road she’d recently been brought down and hemmed in on the other side by stagnant water. The silver Toyota Camry was familiar, and she realized that it belonged to her cousin Jean. Its familiarity gave her hope that everything from there on would be fine. It also earned Pinky some trust, because she finally accepted that he was working with her family to rescue her.

  Pinky pulled open a rear door, and indicated she clamber inside. She refused, but not out of stubbornn
ess. She leaned over, bracing her palms on her thighs as she sucked in oxygen. She still trailed duct tape from her wrists, and a heavy necklace of twisted tape below her chin. She began tugging at the remnants of her gag.

  ‘Forget that for now,’ Pinky counselled, ‘and get out of sight, you.’

  The bits of duct tape were symbols to her, and until she was free of them she’d never feel safe. She stood, resting her backside against the body of the Toyota while she clawed at each wrist. ‘I will but …’

  ‘Emilia. You can do that inside.’

  ‘Just give me a second …’ Emilia, throughout her abduction, the time she’d been held hostage, escaping and subsequently being chased almost to ground again, had never felt the panic so acutely. It overwhelmed her. Crying with frustration she tore at the offending duct tape, and even resorted to using her teeth to rip chunks free.

  Pinky stood alongside her, allowing her to vent. He held his gun in both hands, staring towards the construction site, alert to approaching danger. The howl that broke loose came from behind him.

  Pinky whirled around, his gun tracking for the source of the noise, but he hadn’t completed his turn before a massive weight slammed into him and knocked him backwards. His gun went off. The muzzle flash lit up glaring eyes and clenched teeth. He tried to bring around the muzzle, to aim at those targets, but huge fingers were squeezing his hands. He fought Cleary Menon for control, but the gun was remorselessly shoved aside. He was also being pushed further away from the getaway car, and Emilia.

  Pinky was no slouch in a fight, and his physical appearance belied his strength. But he was overwhelmed by the man-mountain who scooped him off the ground and flung him bodily down. The breath blasted from his lungs, and his head smacked on the earth. It was as if a bell tolled, his ears ringing loudly, and a scarlet flash of agony forced cognizance from his brain. His discombobulation was acute, but thankfully brief. He brought around his weapon, which throughout his brutal manhandling he’d never relinquished. He fired. But at that instant Cleary kicked at his hands, and the Glock 20 tumbled into the undergrowth. Cleary stamped on Pinky’s abdomen. The giant howled again, the ear-splitting call of a triumphant beast on its prey. But that wasn’t it: Pinky wasn’t his prey; he was only interested in Emilia. Cleary immediately turned, seeking his prize.

  ‘Run!’ Pinky croaked. ‘Run, Emilia!’

  Since Cleary’s arrival and Pinky’s defeat mere seconds had passed. Emilia was stricken by shock, and hadn’t yet as much as reacted. She was still before the open door of the Toyota, a single lunge away from Cleary’s grasping hands. She stepped forward, knew she had no way of avoiding his clutches, so threw herself backwards inside the car, pulling the door shut with her. Cleary almost caught the door before it could slam, but his forward momentum was his foil. He crashed against the door, his weight slamming it shut. Emilia slapped blindly at the central locking, and all four doors made a satisfying clunk as the mechanism did its work. Emilia backed away across the seat as Cleary pressed his face against the glass and growled at her. He slammed his palms on the glass. Then backed up a step, but only to gain leverage as he threw his shoulder against the car. The Toyota was shunted a full yard in the air, before Cleary again backed off. The car slammed down again, rocking on its suspension. Emilia was thrown around.

  Cleary kicked at the window, but his muddy boot squealed off the glass. The window wouldn’t thwart him long, though. He charged in again, throwing his weight against the car. This time the Toyota skidded in the wet earth, the back end sweeping in a tight arch. Cleary hammered down on the roof with both meaty forearms. The ceiling buckled a couple of inches towards Emilia.

  Emilia had once been fearful of attracting the rougarou’s wrath: an illogical fear because she didn’t give the Louisiana werewolf legend much credence, but now, under the enraged assault of Cleary Menon, she was fully engaged in the dark fantasy. What else was he but for a monstrous beast intent on rending her limb from limb? She could believe the shaggy-haired brute was some kind of mythological or cryptozoological creature, or indeed a supernatural thing loosed from the bowels of hell to bring terror to its victims. She screamed.

  Momentarily defeated by the shell of the car, Cleary cast around, looking for a boulder he could use as a hammer. There was nothing in reaching distance, so he changed tack. He rammed the point of his left elbow repeatedly against the windshield until the glass shattered. With his bare hands, Cleary tore chunks of broken windshield aside, opening a gap large enough to lean through. He lunged in, mindless of the crystals of glass catching in his hair and beard, and clawed for Emilia. She scrunched down in the back seat. Cleary grasped the headrest on the front passenger seat, yanked it wildly, and the entire seat broke clear of its moorings. Enraged that his prey continued to defy him, Cleary slammed the seat back and forward, hoping to force Emilia from her hidey-hole.

  He was still in that position, wedged in the opening in the broken windshield, when Pinky charged in and similarly employed an elbow to the giant’s liver. He struck the giant twice more in the lower spine. But Cleary reared from the broken screen, trailing nuggets of broken safety glass that tinkled on the car’s hood. He rounded on Pinky with a vicious swat of his left arm. This time Pinky dodged, but Cleary was after him in a second, charging like a grizzly bear with a taste for human flesh.

  Backpedalling rapidly, Pinky swung his fists in a flurry, and clipped the giant’s forehead. Cleary brushed off the punch as if it were a gnat’s bite. His right fist hammered Pinky’s chest. Pinky snagged his fingers in Cleary’s shaggy beard. He used the leverage to pull his own weight forward, and he slammed his forehead into the bigger man’s nose. As huge and powerful as Cleary was, the cartilage in his nose was no match for Pinky’s skull. The nose was deformed and spraying blood when Pinky reared back to butt him a second time. Before he could strike again, Cleary grabbed him around his middle, the giant’s arms equal to Pinky’s girth. He hauled him off the ground, and began to squeeze. With his fingers entangled in hair, Pinky couldn’t immediately let go. Cleary roared as he wrenched on Pinky’s spine, attempting to shatter it. Cleary’s blood sprayed Pinky’s face, and he emitted a roar of his own; sadly his was tinged with agony. In desperation, he wormed his fingers upwards and sank his thumbs in Cleary’s eyes but Cleary had anticipated the attack and screwed his lids shut. When he couldn’t blind him, Pinky transferred his thumbs to the flaring nostrils and forced up on the already broken nose.

  This time Cleary’s vocalization was of pain as he hurled Pinky away. Pinky hit the dirt, rolled through undergrowth. He felt as if his spine had been separated, but when he came to his knees he could push up on his palms and his back worked fine. He searched for his opponent, couldn’t immediately see him, but the giant was making enough noise to alert somebody a mile away. Pinky spotted his silhouette as he reared back and howled at the sky in premature victory.

  ‘Is that all you’ve got, you Bigfoot-looking fool?’ Pinky snapped as he pushed up to his feet. ‘C’mon, I haven’t finished with you yet!’

  Cleary snapped off his howl and stared back at Pinky. His shoulders dropped a few inches, a sign of his disappointment. But his reaction was momentary. He began to lumber forward, picking up speed with each step. Pinky braced himself for impact, his bare hands flexing, as he wondered why the hell he didn’t just stay down and keep his big mouth shut. Hopefully Emilia would put his sacrifice to good use and make her escape.

  The sounds of Cleary’s footfalls and the swish of his legs through the undergrowth were disconcerting. There was a discernible rumble. Pinky felt as if he faced a charging bull. He was nimble, but he was no toreador. He chose to meet force with force.

  Lights flashed to life, as bright as a magnesium flare.

  They bathed Cleary’s charging figure from directly behind and his shadow loomed tall over Pinky. Cleary halted in realization, and turned to peer over his shoulder.

  His decision to meet force head on was wrong. Pinky hurled himself out of the way as
the rocketing Toyota Camry battered into Cleary from behind. He didn’t pinwheel up and over the hood. The car had caught him square behind his thighs, buckling him, his feet dragged beneath the chassis, bearing him forward like the ugliest hood ornament in existence. The Toyota had shuddered at the impact, but it ploughed on, to smash into the trees at the edge of the glade a few seconds later.

  Stunned by the turn of events, Pinky sat up and peered at the wreckage. The front end of the Toyota had folded around the trunk of an ancient oak tree. The engine had died. Steam billowed in the glare of the one working headlight. It writhed around Cleary’s form, mingling with the wet heat released from his body. Emilia had certainly taken advantage of Pinky’s sacrifice. He only hoped that by coming to his rescue she hadn’t paid the ultimate price. He staggered up and went to the wreck. Emilia was sitting behind the wheel, the deflated airbag now drooping in her lap. She turned and blinked at Pinky, her face slack, eyes not quite focused.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Her voice was barely audible.

  Cleary was wedged between the buckled hood and the tree. His upper body had flopped backwards at an unnatural angle towards the shattered windshield. A vestige of life remained in him: he groped his fingers across the warped dash, his neck craning, his gaze zeroing in on Emilia. ‘Prize,’ he wheezed. But then his features slackened and he sunk low on the hood, blood pouring from between his lips.

  ‘He is now,’ said Pinky.

  Shuddering, Emilia placed her face in her hands and was wracked by a chest-deep sob.

  ‘Don’t blame yourself for this, Little Emilia,’ Pinky said.

  ‘I’m not: that monster needed killing.’

  FORTY-FOUR

  Searching for their main quarry, Tess and Po instead came upon Rory and Harry where they’d taken cover under a dumper truck, crawling in the darkness beneath it. Out of ammunition, and nerve, they actually hailed the two as they approached, and surrendered. They tossed out their empty guns and crawled out from hiding. Po’s expression was thunderous, and his features were painted with dried blood from his head wound, as if he’d donned war paint. When Harry spotted Po, his face collapsed around his swollen lips and he wept, expecting a similar beating he’d suffered last time they met.