Cut to the Bone

by Shane Gericke

  Annie smiled. He wasn’t the least bit intimidated by her. Most men ran away when they found out what she did for a living. He ran toward. “Em can’t stand down from red alert,” she said. “That’s why I took her drinking. I wanted her wasted enough to sleep.”

  “Rum will do that.”

  “Yep,” Annie said, moving away to catch the AC vent. As a self-admitted heat wimp, even small body contact made her sweat. “Maybe she is fine. The things I see are extraordinarily subtle. No one else would notice.”

  “But you do, since she’s your best friend.”

  “Second-best,” Annie said.

  “Flattery will get you everywhere, Mrs. Bates,” he said. “I feel bad for Em. How can we make her feel better?”

  “Catch the son of a bitch.”

  “Until then?”

  Annie answered by covering his mouth with hers.

  “The sacrifices we make for our friends,” hubby murmured, pulling her on top.

  Still no cars.

  The Executioner trotted to the fuel truck, unreeled the hose up the driveway and across the porch. Pulled the nozzle to the mail slot.

  A half-inch too big to fit.

  He sawed off the nozzle with a folding knife. Pinched the rubber between thumb and forefinger, threaded it through the slot. Pushed till the end touched the floor.

  Emily moaned, her rummy nightmare turning bizarre. The blank-faced killer sunk his spurs into a charging pickup truck, trying to run her over. She hurled lightning bolts at his neck. Dead beagles sang show tunes. The blood-red sky opened up, hurling babies onto the Riverwalk. She kicked the blanket to the floor, twisting side to side.

  The Executioner started the pump. Unleaded premium lumped the braided hose, like a hamster through a python.

  “I am so bored,” Viking muttered as he broke the first of the six dozen eggs he’d scramble later for headquarters’ breakfast. Ham was baking, and bread was rising - he prided himself on fresh country cookin’. “Only fun I had all day was showering those losers.”

  “Speaking of which,” said his buddy who headed the bagpipe band, “I heard they complained to both chiefs.”

  “Ours and Ken, right,” Viking said.

  “Any repercussions?”

  “Yep. I have to take remedial training. Learn how to judge wind better.”

  “Aw, man, that’s bogus-”

  Viking held up a finger. “Said remediation will take place at Our Neighbors. I’ll learn to gauge wind speed and direction by tossing beer at my mouth. If said beer hits, I’m remediated.” He winked. “Since it’s a training mission, Ken said he’s buying.”

  “That guy’s almost as cool as a fireman,” his buddy said, scrubbing the refrigerator.

  “Nobody’s as cool as a fireman,” Viking said. “But he’s pretty close.”

  “Where am I?” Marty groaned, blinking awake.

  He looked across the bed. Saw Emily.

  Figured it out.

  Apparently, his nap turned into an all-nighter. She came home, decided to stay. He was so tired he didn’t hear a thing. Some watchdog. Sweet of her to not wake him, though.

  He admired her legs against the navy blue sheets. Settled for kissing the top of her head. The rest would wait till after they talked.

  That they would seemed settled.

  He was just about asleep when something dripped in his belly.

  His eyes popped open. What was it? Nothing in the room but him, Em, and furniture. No sound except the ever-scraping tree limb. No smell. Then again, for him, there never was.

  He could taste it, though. Heavy and damp. Sour and viscous. Faintly metallic.

  Sewer gas?

  Possible, he supposed. Maybe the toilet shifted during installation. Or the wax seal cracked. Whatever. Easy enough to fix. He’d do it now so Em didn’t get nauseous. He had a wrench on the Leatherman tool on his belt, and a spare seal under the sink.

  He headed for the bathroom.

  Time to go, the Executioner decided. The house contained enough gasoline to redefine “crematorium,” and his heart was beating risk-risk-risk. He loved it. He was never so alive as when he froze the world then broke it into pieces . . .

  The starter ground. It wouldn’t catch.

  “Come on,” he said. “Come on . . .”

  Maybe I was dreaming about the taste, Marty thought as he opened the bathroom door.

  “No, no, no, no,” he heard Emily moan.

  He walked over, concerned. She was twisting and kicking, muttering “mama,” “beagles,” and “truck.” He peered at her eyelids. They jumped like bass to bait.

  Deep REM sleep, he decided.

  He picked up the blanket and spread it across her. Then paced the bedroom, tasting the air like a bomb dog. Definitely no dream - the metallic was more palpable now. Emily surely needed the sleep, but if he didn’t find the source in ten minutes, he’d wake her and get out. No sense taking chances. Let Hazmat figure out what it was.

  Passing the window, he wondered if it was external. Riding the breeze from elsewhere and seeping through the cracks. He lifted the sash, gulped air.

  Not outside.

  He continued his patrol.

  * * *

  The hose tip retreated off the porch and down the driveway. It unlooped the curbside mailbox, straightened out behind the truck. Twenty seconds later it was even with the VFW.

  The Executioner hopped out, shut down the pump, stored the hose, moved the truck another twenty yards, trotted back to the start of his long, stinky fuse.

  Pulled the box of matches.

  Marty padded to the first floor, awash in moonglow from the huge skylight. Emily installed it to bathe the stairs and landing in natural light. He’d been leery when she explained what she had in mind - skylights leaked when not installed perfectly - but it turned into one of his favorite features. Didn’t leak a drop in even the heaviest storm-

  His bare feet plunged into something cold. Some splashed up on his face.

  His eyes bulged at the raw-steel taste. He knew exactly what it was.

  “Run!” he screamed.

  “Buh-bye,” the Executioner whispered, scraping two matches and tossing them into the gasoline. Soon as it whoomped, he sprinted to the truck.

  “Get out of the house!” Marty roared as he wheeled away from the high-test ponding across the first floor. “Now! Out! Run for your life!”

  Marty invaded her nightmare, shouting like doom. The pickup morphed into a mushroom cloud. She thrashed like a gaffed marlin.

  * * *

  Flames licked west on Jackson. Rounded south around Emily’s mailbox, gathering speed as the fuel supply grew richer. Flashed up the driveway, across the porch, and through the mail slot, smelling the mother lode.

  The Executioner raced the other way.

  Marty pounded up the stairs. He had to stay alive long enough to throw Emily out the window. The concrete frame was so dense no explosion could blow it apart. The fireball would stay inside, pressure-cooking them like-

  Detour.

  He slammed into a wall to stop his momentum. Ripped open the closet door. Yanked the tommy gun from the violin case. Locked in the ammo drum, worked the bolt, jammed the butt in his shoulder, and ripped hellfire into Heaven.

  The buzz-cloud of .45s shattered the skylight into razor rain.

  He tossed the empty tommy and charged into the bedroom.

  Emily’s head bongo’d as she sprang from bed. “Marty! What are you-”

  “Bomb!” he roared as the fire-breathing dragon below inhaled walls, floors, ceilings, furniture, tiles, tools, grout, toilets, and whipped cream, then blew its bowels in superheated fury.

  Eggs splattered as something primeval kicked the firehouse. Viking turned off the gas, then ran for his turnout gear. He knew from the sound they wouldn’t even make lunch.

  * * *

  The dragon blew through the house, up the stairs, and into the bedroom, knocking Emily into the master bath. “Marty, where are you?�
� she screamed as he disappeared in fire and smoke.

  “This is Naperville 911,” the dispatcher said coolly as all lines rang at once. “I can’t hear you, slow down and tell me . . . Jackson Avenue . . . near the VFW post . . .”

  She typed a series of response codes, setting off bells and Klaxons at fire stations across the city. “Explosion and fire downtown, end of Jackson Avenue, near the VFW,” she broadcast. “All units respond Code Three.” Lights, sirens, no speed limits.

  The mapping software flashed names and addresses of nearby residents.

  Biting her lip, she rang for a supervisor.

  “All units, Code Thirteen,” she said, switching to police frequencies. Thirteen meant a cop was under attack and death was imminent. “Jackson Avenue, Code Thirteen . . .”

  3:17 a.m.

  “Marty!” Emily screamed as she kicked her way through the bedroom. “Where are you?”

  Fire licked walls and baseboards, wormed through drawers and closets. Her wedding gown was a cone of glowing cinders, her mounted deer antlers, charred. Her little black dress, the one she’d dieted into so relentlessly for her first real date with Marty, was ash on a hanger. Windows were shattered, walls scorched. She saw stars through collapse-holes. Their bed was reduced to wires, wheels, and the “Do Not Remove” mattress tag.

  Mayday! her head warned. Abandon ship!

  Instead, she stepped into her work boots.

  “Where are you?” she repeated, kicking aside embers. “Are you here? Talk to me!”

  Still no reply.

  She crunched her way to the landing.

  The first floor was a lava lamp of orange and red. The stairs were gone. Tarry black smoke chimneyed up and out of the house through what used to be the skylight. She blinked at the roaring heat as her toes smacked a pile of soft.

  The pile groaned.

  “Sweet Jesus,” she whispered, raking the haystack of concrete shards off Marty’s unmoving body. Neither burned nor bleeding, she saw. Still breathing.

  “Wake up, wake up!” she yelled directly into his ear. Nothing. She slapped his face, twice, hard. He moaned, but didn’t awaken.

  The dragon belched on her back.

  “We need to get out of here,” she said, contorting in pain. “You have to get up.”

  No dice.

  She grabbed his ankles and heaved. It was brutal - he outweighed her by a hundred pounds. She heaved and stopped, heaved and stopped, dragging him across smolders and flares, bending occasionally to slap flames out of his hair.

  The dragon munched at the landing.

  “The block’s on fire,” the battalion chief reported as his command SUV screamed down Jackson. “Raise the response level to catastrophic, tell PD to evacuate downtown.”

  Emergency pagers sounded across four counties.

  One was atop Cross’s bed stand.

  He dialed his direct line to the watch commander. His face hardened as he listened.

  “On my way,” he said.

  Emily dragged Marty the final inches to the bedroom window. She pushed her head through the empty frame, hyperventilating.

  No help in sight.

  That would change quickly, she knew. With a blast this titanic, every fire truck in ten miles was en route. She and Marty could breathe right here till rescue-

  A thousand hinges squealed outside the door. She turned to see the landing shudder, liquidate, and disappear. Flames sloshed over the threshold to ignite what was left of her Oriental rug.

  FD wouldn’t make it in time.

  “Suck it up!” she shouted, trying to quell her panic. “You’ll escape!” Easier said than done, she knew. Her escape ladder was warped useless under the fried mattress. Her sheets and blankets were gone. She didn’t have any rope. Not even duct tape . . .

  “Hutch,” she said.

  She ran to the built-in, praying her gun belt wasn’t melted. She reached between two steaming piles of socks, yanked it free. A burning cinder fell on her neck. She slapped it away and raced back to Marty.

  She buckled the belt around her waist. Locked one set of handcuffs to Marty’s wrists. Skin steamed where steel touched flesh. She took the second set, clicked one cuff around the chain that connected his wrist cuffs, clicked the other to her belt. They would live - or die - together.

  A blowtorch raked her calves.

  She twisted around, yelping. Orange flames bubbled through a new sinkhole in the floor.

  If they didn’t get out right now . . .

  She squatted, grabbed his neck and knees. Visualized setting a new Olympic record. Tensed her abdomen, back, and legs, said a final prayer, and power-lifted him onto the window-sill, gutting it out, going for gold.

  Yessss!

  Panting so hard the sill blurred, she pushed Marty to the very outer edge. She climbed over, leaned out as far as possible, wrapped her arms around the huge tree limb - Thank you for being here! I’ll never prune you again! - then swung like Tarzan, tugging Marty till gravity took over.

  The bedroom exploded.

  “Mush!” Viking cried, plunging into the vortex. The hose team followed, blasting everything in sight with hydrant pressure. The water vaporized on impact.

  Another hose team appeared. Then another. The foyer swirled black, red, wet, dry, flamed, and steamy as dragon fought knights for domination.

  “Why aren’t they out yet?” Cross demanded as he ran up. Both Annie and Branch called in on the Thirteen, saying Emily and Marty were inside the house.

  The fire boss looked at him in exasperation. “The heat’s monstrous. I got three teams humping hose, four more breaking walls. They’re searching as fast as they can.”

  Cross took off for the back of the house.

  3:22 a.m.

  The Executioner whistled “Ring of Fire” as he drove back to Morris. He’d dump the fuel truck in the abandoned barn near the nursery, recover his Land Rover, and head home. Bowie would laugh with delight when he heard about this brilliant maneuver.

  3:28 a.m.

  Emily gripped so tightly the bark flayed her palms. If they fell from this height, they might as well have died in the blast.

  “We’re going to make it, Marty,” she said, glancing down for signs of life. All she saw were his fingers, bloated like jellyfish from his weight on the handcuffs. “I won’t let you die.”

  The dragon snickered.

  She inched them across the limb as the tip leaves ignited. Her boots fell off, then her nightgown. The gun belt sagged where the handcuff attached. Her hips screamed with each tick of the Marty pendulum.

  Six feet to the main trunk . . .

  Five . . .

  Four . . .

  Her right hand thwacked into a V-crotch.

  Her certainty crumbled.

  She’d have to let go to clear the obstacle. Put an inhuman strain on her remaining hand. Marty’s life would come down to five numb fingers. It had to be enough.

  She let go.

  3:29 a.m.

  “Mr. Sanders?” the chirpy voice said.

  “Speaking,” Johnny mumbled, patting around for the clock.

  “This is Shonda Qualmann, a production assistant with The Oprah Winfrey Show. Sorry for the early hour, but I need to let you know . . .”

  3:30 a.m.

  “Hang on, Emily!” she heard Cross bellow as her right hand cleared the V-crotch and grabbed the other side. Ladders slammed the limb on both sides. The strain on her hips disappeared, and fireproof gloves encircled her waist.

  “Got you now,” a firefighter said. “Let go of the tree.”

  “I can’t,” she gasped.

  “You won’t fall, I promise.”

  “It’s not that. My hands are frozen.”

  He reached up and pried her fingers loose.

  She sprawled over another firefighter’s shoulder. She vaguely knew she was naked. She didn’t have the energy to care. Nor did she have the foggiest clue how she’d managed to pull off this inhuman feat. Even as she uncovered Marty, an
d dragged him, and chained him to her waist, and swung from the house and inched across the burning tree, she knew death was a foregone conclusion. She was going through the motions for the dragon’s amusement. Staying alive in Kelvin-scale heat was utterly impossible. Yet here they were. Her and Marty.

  Alive.

  Alive . . .

  She slipped down the ladder and out of harm’s way.

  “God bless the Fire Department,” she mumbled, sprawled on the crunchy grass with a blanket and air mask. She patted around to grab Marty’s hand, but it was too far away-

  “It’s not done with us yet!” someone yelled.

  She lifted her head. The dragon was blasting through the roof, spitting cinders into the Riverwalk trees. Fires erupted like road flares.

  “I think that’s your cue, fellas,” Cross said.

  Paramedics strapped Emily and Marty onto gurneys and loaded them into ambulances as fresh hose teams attacked the woods.

  The last thing she saw was her tree crackling with fire.

  She wept.

  8:42 a.m.

  Johnny Sanders picked up the next document. Might as well work, now that his fifteen minutes of fame had vanished. The call was Team Oprah. They’d found a soap opera actor who’d been struck by lightning and lived to tell People, “so we won’t need your services today. Thanks awfully for understanding.”

  Sanders wasn’t surprised. Even C-list celebrities beat crash test dummies. At least they agreed to pick up his breakfast.

  He called his boss, then his wife. She was furious, vowed never to watch “that woman” again. It was sweet. He wished again he’d had the wherewithal for that tennis bracelet.

  They talked awhile on Oprah’s dime. Then he showered, checked out of the hotel, and parked his car a block past Union Station.

  He ate at Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant whenever he visited Chicago. The food was marvelous, the atmosphere lively. The place appealed to his inner historian - the 1923 coffee shop was the iconic start of Route 66.

  “More java?” the waitress asked, even as she refilled.

  Sanders dripped in cream. Sighed as black turned caramel, then beige. Until the phone rang, he honestly didn’t think he’d cared about appearing on national TV. Who knew he could be as starstruck as a teenager? Oh, well. Time to take off the Superman shirt and go back to Johnny Sanders, Ordinary Guy. A superhero only to his wife and, occasionally, their kids.