Nightwalk

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  “You are lying through your teeth.”

  “No,” I countered, and this time faced her square on. “No, I’m not. Casey, listen to me. Tommy only kills for specific reasons, and I’m not going to give him any of those reasons. I’ll be okay.”

  Okay, that part may have been a lie. For all I knew, Tommy killed for pretty much any reason, but I hoped having something he really wanted would give me some small advantage. For one thing, he wouldn’t dare attack me before getting his prize, while I would be under no such constraints. I might even get the opportunity for an ambush of my own.

  “I’ll be fine,” I insisted again. “I’ll just take him to what he wants, and we’ll go our separate ways. Simple as that.”

  “Simple as that, huh?”

  “Simple as that. Believe me on this, I know what I’m doing.”

  Casey appeared a whole lot less than convinced, but said nothing else. She simply glowered back with a look saying she would trust me, but if this turned out to be my burning hallway I would end up on a very exclusive shit list.

  I intended to do my best to see that didn’t happen, but I needed to get on with this before Tommy had time to come up with alternate schemes of his own. The faster she and Ed were out of here, the better.

  “So how about it, Tommy? What do you say?” I straightened and turned to face him again. “Just you annnnnnd…me...”

  Tommy didn’t answer.

  He didn’t need to.

  He simply stood there, staring back at me, with the strip from Ashlyn’s pajamas hanging from his hand.

  Well, shit.

  So much for that idea.

  If he had the scrap, then he must have killed Darla right after the goatman, and returned to the cell tower in order to stalk us afterward. He had probably intended to ambush us somewhere on Deer Ridge, but when he heard us offer to escort Allen to the playground he saw a chance to get ahead of us and set this whole scene up.

  None of which mattered right now.

  “So Mark?” Casey murmured, “What’s Plan B?”

  I looked over and locked eyes with Ed, who had been following this whole scene with laserlike intensity. The look in his eyes as he met mine told me all I needed to know. He got it. He realized what the stakes were, and where that left us. And he understood what had to happen next.

  “Plan B?” I sighed. “Plan B is we end this.”

  Then I whirled and charged Tommy, throwing my spear ahead of me with all my might.

  ###

  I knew I was about to die.

  I knew it even as Tommy easily sidestepped the spear and whipped the bow up and drew the arrow. I knew I had to take that arrow, and try to keep going long enough to tie up his bow so Ed and Casey could reach him. And if I survived long enough to accomplish that, he would have his knife out in the next second and I would be the first to absorb that as well.

  I knew all that, and had made the best peace with it I could.

  What I didn’t know, was Ed had something entirely different in mind…along with one last ace up his sleeve.

  I saw my executioner sight in, and tried to prepare myself for the shock of getting hit by a broadhead arrow, when he suddenly resighted to my right and fired past me. And right at that same time the blast of Ed’s pistol rocked the night.

  He had lied! He still had a bullet left!

  I don’t know what had prompted him to do it, but after the battle on Darla’s patio he had chosen to hide the fact he was still effectively armed. And now he’d simply been waiting for somebody to draw Tommy’s attention long enough to go for the gun. Even so, I had barely given him enough time.

  The slug and the arrow must have passed each in midflight.

  I swear, in that compressed instant of time I saw the bullet strike him, low on the left side of his chest. And it hit hard. He grunted, twisting with the impact, and staggered back a step as his bow hit the ground.

  But at the same time I heard Casey shriek Ed’s name in a way that told me it now came down to two against one. As it turned out, Ed had been the one to buy me a shot to reach Tommy. And I feared the price had been the same.

  But at least he’d managed to wound this hell-spawned bastard…so with a sudden upsurge of hope, I piled into him a split second later.

  My momentum drove the maniac back farther, and I followed with a furious barrage of punches to the head. I actually managed to keep him off balance long enough to push him up against the praying angel statue holding the torch. And I didn’t want to let up on him for a second. If I could keep it up, I might be able to overwhelm and drop the sick son-of-a-bitch before he ever had a chance to recover.

  Unfortunately, that hope didn’t last long.

  He suddenly straightened, stepped in and caught my next blow with a forearm block, before delivering a shot to my side that dug in with the force of a sledgehammer. My breath exploded from me and I think I actually felt a rib crack. But it was the vicious headbutt to the nose that caused the true crunch of bone. Stars blasted across my vision and I instinctively covered my face as he performed an expert shoulder toss and body slammed me to the ground.

  It felt like he rattled every bone in my body. The impact was stunning, the pain exquisite, and my vision barely cleared in time to see the praying angel tilt in my direction with Tommy’s shoulder against it.

  Oh shit!

  I barely managed to roll out of the way before it came off its base and buried itself into the ground.

  Fully recovered, Tommy moved with deliberate purpose. He stepped around the statue base as I tried to roll to my feet.

  A sharp kick to the same wounded ribs knocked me back to the ground, and then he calmly stepped over and straddled me as he grasped my throat with one hand. His grip was frighteningly strong. I felt the blood almost immediately begin to pound in my head, and I had no choice but to grab his wrist and pull in an effort to relieve the pressure.

  At the same time, I heard Casey scream in fury as she joined the fray. But that turned out to be a mistake as well.

  Tommy heard her coming and almost casually caught the hatchet she swung at his head. He barely spared her a glance before ripping it from her grasp and kicking her leg out from under her. He sent the hatchet spinning into the darkness, then reversed his arm motion and caught her just as she started to her feet with a thunderous backhand that spun her back to the ground.

  Christ. We were going to die.

  I knew he would be strong—and his pain tolerance didn’t come as much of a surprise either—but martial arts? What kind of unbelievable jackass teaches mental patients martial arts?!

  The pale eyes in that bloody mask returned their gaze to me, and he drew his free hand back with his fingers shaped into a tight spear. He definitely intended this next strike to do real damage.

  But there’s a funny thing about us writers. We research the damnedest things. For instance, if your most popular character is a hard-nosed private eye with a brutal, rules-free street-fighting reputation…

  …then it behooves you to learn a little of what that’s all about.

  And I needed to put it into practice fast because my vision had started going dark around the edges.

  I drove my thumb into the bullet hole Ed had so thoughtfully provided for me, and that changed his focus. He made a tight sound in his throat and used his “spear hand” to grab at my wrist instead. This created the opening I had been looking for, and I let go of his wrist in order to thrust my other thumb into his eye. That definitely caught his attention.

  He released the grip on my throat to claw at my other hand and I used the opportunity to roll him off to the side of me. I really wanted to get away from him, but didn’t dare with Casey struggling to her feet so close by. She bled from the nose and her eye had already started to swell shut.

  And she still knelt within his reach.

  So instead of getting separation from him, I went to the next best thing and separated him from her. He might be stronger than me, but I still had the str
ength to do this.

  Ducking my shoulder, I plowed into him like I was doing a football tackle. It counted as another direct shot on his bullet wound and had to hurt. Then I wrapped my arms around his torso, lifted him bodily from the ground, and drove him back across the narrow tract and up against the facing of a small, moss-stained mausoleum on the other side.

  I kept my shoulder against his chest and pounded away at his midsection. My own ribs howled in protest at the exertion and I feared it was actually taking more out of me than him.

  He confirmed that fear a second later with an elbow driven into my back, a brutal forearm smash upside the head, and finally by spinning us around and slamming me back against the door of the vault.

  Then he brought his expressionless, gore drenched face to within inches of mine.

  “I am not going to kill you, Mr. Garrett,” he whispered. “I have a better idea. I am going to leave you just alive enough to hear her screams when I make her mine, and then watch me walk away wearing her scalp. Because that way, from that point on, I will always own a piece of you as well.”

  I think the worst part was the utter lack of intensity in his voice. Just the same soft monotone, as if he were explaining an important point. He wasn’t even angry.

  Then he stepped back, and delivered a massive stepping-over-sidekick that smashed me completely through the weathered door behind me.

  Fortunately I saw it coming in time to twist and take the brunt of the impact on my shoulder. If I had taken that shot in the chest, the fight would have been over right then. He would have broken at least half my ribs. As it was, I crashed to the floor amid the wreckage of the door, wondering if my arm were broken as well.

  I now hurt worse than I thought possible. I couldn’t breathe through my nose, my ribs creaked with each breath, and my head had fiery cracks all through it due to the abuse it had taken tonight. My body screamed at me to stay down, but I didn’t have the option. I had to get back in the fight. Teeth gritted, I pushed myself to my hands and knees with a suppressed whimper.

  Then I looked up to see Tommy’s silhouette already stepping up to the doorway of the little building.

  And this time he drew his knife.

  Oh shit, here it came. Apparently he had decided to end our duel so he could move on to other things. I was a fool not to make a grab for his knife when I had been clinched with him a few seconds earlier. But I had been so focused on getting him away from Casey I had forgotten about it. Now I was reduced to trying to muster the strength for one last lunge in his direction.

  My only shot would be to go for the eyes. I couldn’t defend myself against that knife, but maybe…just maybe…I could blind the bastard as he drove the blade home. It was a shitty bargain, but the only one I had left.

  I think every bone in my body creaked as I gathered myself for one last leap.

  But then, right as Tommy stepped into the door, he gave another grunt of pain and came to a full stop. He staggered, caught himself against the doorframe, then looked down to see an arrow sticking through his knee.

  “You dropped your bow, asshole!” I heard Casey yell from somewhere outside.

  Tommy grimaced, and twisted himself to put his back against the doorframe, glaring back into the dark. His ghostly eyes blazed with hatred, and I got a firsthand view of what a true murderous expression really looked like. I will never forget it as long as I live. It was the blood drenched face of a genuine psychopath promising a death that would make the very demons of Hell faint in horror.

  And he didn’t waste a second in getting started.

  He flipped the knife in his hand to grasp it by the blade, and hurled it back in the direction of the arrow. I honestly didn’t think a hunting knife could be thrown like that, but the audible “thok!” and agonized cry from Casey’s direction put a quick end to that mistaken belief.

  No!

  A split second later I plowed back into that son-of-a-bitch with a whole new purpose in life.

  Fuck the pain. Fuck the exhaustion. And especially fuck the despair. This wasn’t a fight for survival anymore. Oh no, not now. Now I was going to kill this man. No, more than that, I would hand him his goddamned liver and spit in his face as the life left his eyes.

  Now effectively one-legged, Tommy had no way to brace against my charge and I powered him back out the door and planted him in the middle of the asphalt track. I landed right on top of him. Howling like a madmen, I grabbed him by the throat with one hand, then used the other to hit him with what were most likely the two hardest punches I had ever thrown in my life.

  His head snapped to the side from both, with bouncing off the asphalt action included. I felt skin tear under my knuckles and took savage joy in the knowledge some of the blood on his face would now be his.

  But he wasn’t out yet.

  His hand found my neck again, although I noticed his grip didn’t seem as powerful as before. But he had also been well trained, and somehow managed to shift his weight and reverse our positions. That put him on top again, with us both locked in a deathclinch.

  The maniac leaned his face close to mine once more, as if he wanted to savor this.

  “I think the time has come to finish this, Mr. Garrett.”

  Idiot.

  He was still the stronger of the two of us, and in this position that made the advantage his. Or so he thought.

  “You wish,” I snarled, then used my free hand to grab the arrow protruding from his knee and yanked the living shit out of it.

  This time the howl was his, and it came as music to my ears. He wasn’t invulnerable. He might be stronger than hell, skilled, and had an unbelievable pain tolerance, but he was still flesh and blood. And despite the way he appeared to shrug things off, in reality he had been shot, had the shit beat out of him, had an arrow lodged in a very vulnerable joint, and been steadily losing blood through the whole fight.

  The cry that ripped from his throat indicated he had finally reached his limits. I could actually feel his strength leaving him through his grip on my throat.

  And he had picked a bad time to do it, because I was just warming up. I now rode a rapturous red wave of bloodlust, and I looked forward to hearing him scream a lot more than that.

  He twisted himself off of me, while clawing at my hand holding the arrow. The pain must have been unbelievable. I gave it one final yank before letting go. Then I rolled in the opposite direction away from him.

  I had finished playing this scum’s game, and the rules were about to change.

  I climbed to my feet, and saw him trying to come to his. He made it to his hands and knees, but the pain from the arrow hampered his ability to go further. Too bad. I put a quick end to that effort with a savage stomp on his fingers.

  The kick to the head was pure bliss.

  I faked a second, but when he threw his arm up I changed angles and buried my foot into his side right next to the gunshot wound. Oh yeah, that was the stuff. It doubled him up and from that point it was “Game On.”

  I got three more free shots at his head, and each one connected with a soul satisfying thud. He made one last feeble attempt at a block, but another kick in the bullet hole reminded him he had more tender spots to protect. I think I actually heard him whimper after the next one.

  Aw, poor baby.

  I expressed my sympathy with two more thunderous kicks to the head.

  “Mark! Stop it!”

  He had now resorted to curling up with the bullet hole against the ground and covering his head with both arms. I slammed a foot into his kidney in hopes of uncurling him and getting another shot at his head.

  “Mark!”

  He didn’t uncurl, and I glanced around in frustration. I needed something that hit with more authority than my foot. Then I spotted it. My gaze alighted on something that filled my heart with joy.

  The blade of my spear glinted in the light of the fallen torch. It must have hit a tall gravestone behind Tommy when I threw it at him, and now leaned against the monument.


  I marched over, swept it up with one hand, and hefted the weapon. God, it was a thing of beauty, and its foot long blade promised lots of stabby goodness. Oh yeah, now we were cooking with gas!

  I turned to go back to the downed dirtball, and almost ran straight into Casey.

  “Mark! Stop it! What are you doing?”

  “Killing Tommy,” I announced happily as I tried to step around her. “Wanna watch?”

  “No!” She grabbed the spear handle and tried to block my way. “It’s over, Mark! Let’s get out of here. He can’t chase us anymore. He’s down!”

  “Not as down as he’s about to be.”

  “Dammit Mark, stop it!” She now jerked on my spear while somehow managing to stay in my way. “This isn’t you!”

  “Sure it’s me.”

  “No it’s not!” she shouted. “Now stop it! You’re scaring me!”

  I had to stop anyway, since she wouldn’t let go and approaching any closer would risk putting her in the squirming killer’s reach. At the same time, current events started to filter back in.

  “Wait,” I took her by the shoulders and held her out to arm’s length. “you’re okay? You’re not injured?”

  She nodded, watching me carefully. Her nose bled, and she would definitely be sporting a black eye soon, but the worst part was the oblong bruise forming on the side of her neck. It made a perfect match for the butt of Tommy’s hunting knife. It had been that close. The sight of it had my blood boiling and it took a real effort to stay focused.

  “But Ed? What about…” I gazed out to where the lantern sat on the asphalt, and saw his still form lying beside it. I tried to make out the arrow that should have protruded from him, then realized where Casey must have been forced to get her one shot from. All the rest of the arrows were in Tommy’s quiver. “Aw shit!”

  Oh well, back to Plan A.

  I started around her again with murder in my heart.

  “Mark, no!” She still wouldn’t let go of the freaking spear. “He wouldn’t want this!”

  “He owned a gun, Casey,” I growled. “He could kill.”

  “Yeah, if he had to!” she shouted back. “But not like this. Not…like…this! This isn’t who Ed was, don’t you see that?! This is Tommy!”