“You have some kinda GPS still?”
“Yep. You drive, I’ll navigate.”
He ran around to the driver’s side. “Freeport house.” He got in and brought the car to life after its brief sleep.
“On it!” She yelled as she ran to the passenger side and got in. “Start going the direction you are pointed.”
Al peeled out onto the road and started to run the gears. The car was sold boasting a top speed of 173 miles per hour. Al let the needle creep up and up. “He’ll be at his ‘normal house’ for now. I remember it being twenty-six or twenty-seven miles away. I think we can make it there in ten minutes if this car goes as fast as the specs say.” He saw out of the corner of his eye that her GPS screen was up and running. “If you want us to get there in one piece, do two things for me.”
“What?” She could feel her whole body clenching like a fist. She’d never gone over one hundred ten miles per hour. They were passing the one hundred twenty-mile mark. The fact that they were on a country road in the dark only added tension.
“Warn me about deviations in the road and pray there are no cows or deer. We hit a cow or a deer, we’ll be dead as hell.”
“Will do. I don’t think we’ll get cops. I had Sunny call the town of Malta to respond. They’ll be coming from the east. We’re well north of them now. Slight right coming up in about thirty seconds!”
“Copy that,” said Al, calmly. He downshifted and the car dramatically slowed. “You drive this thing on the highway much?” He asked in a casual tone as the speedometer climbed back up toward that mythical one hundred seventy-three miles per hour.
“No, not really. Slight left in a half a mile. I’m not long on speed.”
Al was driving on auto-pilot now. “It’s just bad for a car that’s built for speed to not flex its muscles once in a while. Any turns coming up?”
“It looks as straight as an arrow till we actually turn left just outside of Freeport. With the route we’ve taken, we’ll bypass Freeport entirely. If we kill the headlights and coast in, he won’t even know we’re there.”
“Like Ike and Mike…”
“…we think alike.” She finished and cackled. She didn’t like the sound. She knew she was stripped down right now. Stripped down to almost her essential self. It bothered her that at the essential core of her being, there was maniacal laughter and a need for adrenal stimulation. She looked over at Al and noticed he was wearing a big toothy smile. “Do you know how we play this, or is it a play it by ear thing.”
“I’ve been thinking.” They were holding a steady hundred and sixty miles per hour. Small rolling hills in the road made Edith’s stomach do a somersaults. “He thinks we’re all dead, right?”
“Yeah. I didn’t pull the camera until the car…you know.” She swallowed once hard thinking of Sheena and Gill. “I pulled it right after. It probably looked like it got somehow blown off the roof.”
“Yeah. Good plan he laid out. He has no idea we’re coming for him. He thinks everyone and everything pointing to him will be oblivious for twenty-four to forty-eight hours. I’m betting he’s too amped to sleep. It would be convenient as hell to find him in bed, but we won’t. He’ll be washing the fucking garage.”
“So we come in quiet?”
“This isn’t a macho thing, E. Hear me out. If you sit in front or circle the house at a safe distance, you can talk to me through the headset. Neither one of us is armed with a gun. I have a knife and you have…the power of positive thinking.”
“I am pretty positive, aren’t I?”
“You are. I’d give you a reassuring kiss if I wasn’t afraid we’d turn into human jelly. So you be my lookout. You have your night vision monocular thingy?”
Edith felt embarrassed. “Yeah. I forgot to bring it to the barn.”
“Nice. If you had to forget something. Too bad neither one of us remembered to leave a gun behind. How far?”
“Only about two miles. You can turn left, get up to about sixty, then turn off the headlights and put it in neutral.”
“‘Stock car flaming' with a loser and the cruise control.’”
“Beck, ‘Loser.’ Do I pass the music knowledge test? You asked me that the first night I met you.”
“Except for the word Cinema, you’re right. OK, take one of the phones we have left, hook it to my Bluetooth thingy, and call me. Then put the phone on silent, no vibration, and stick the earpiece in my ear. I’m slowing for the turn that should be coming up. This thing does zero to sixty in, what, four seconds?”
“Plus or minus,” said Edith, her finger sailing over a phone and earpiece. She had it in his ear and turned on before they got to the turn.
“Hang on. I’ll turn. I’m hitting gas and gears for four seconds then killing everything. I’m just hoping he’s back from the street. You remember what the house looks like?”
“Yeah.”
“Get your night vision on and tell me when you see it. Here’s the turn. Four seconds, silent with no lights, then another fifteen seconds max and we should be by or past.”
“Don’t worry about your brake lights or license plate. I left the gaffer’s tape on.”
“I’m not worried. I’m pissed. Hold on.”
Al swung into the turn, punching the gas pedal on the small sports car as they went past the forty-five-degree mark of the ninety-degree turn. He ran the gears and was at sixty in four seconds. He killed the lights and put it neutral. He killed the engine for good measure. He was driving a big expensive soap-box derby car now. They cruised for ten seconds in the dark, eleven, twelve…
“There it is, Al. Right fucking there.” She was pointing at a mostly dark ranch-style farm house. Ranch houses were rare for the Midwest, but the one before them sprawled out with a certain unique charm. The only part of the place that had any light on was the barn structure in the back. He stopped the car.
“OK. Keep your distance. I’m betting he’s in the barn. I’m following the light.”
“What if he has a gun?” She heard the worry in her voice and hated it like the betrayer it was.
Al pulled out his Bowie knife. “The buddy who gave me this said a man with a knife can beat a man with a gun at up to twenty feet. I may get to try that experiment. I wanted to check it out with Selly, but he got his arm blown off.”
“What? He didn’t have his knife?”
“It was in the arm that got blown off. In his defense, it was way more than twenty feet, and he tackled the guy.”
“How did he beat him into submission missing an arm?”
“He didn’t. They fell nine stories. Selly landed in the pool. The asshole landed on his head on the cement. He isn’t living anymore. No more talk. Kill your dome light. I’d hate to lose out stealth edge because of some German convenience light.” He was looking right at her. She turned to face him and he said, “I’ll see you in a little bit. Save a dance for me.”
“I will.” She kissed him, turned off the dome lights, and the two of them left the little sports car and plunged into the dark tunnel of night. The light at the end was Eric Bannerman’s workshop.
78
Al got to the door of the barn quietly. He’d lost track of Edith and was happy about it. He had visions of the guy with two semi-automatic pistols and deciding to see how many holes he could get into two people. Al sidled up to the door, took a quick peek, and whipped his head back. He stood for a moment trying to digest what he’d seen. It was a big bald guy, presumably Bannerman, dressed only in sweatpants and boots with a broadsword doing some sort of exercises with it. It was such a weird mental picture it was hard to reconcile with his view of reality. Then he remembered thinking that the only way someone could have killed Dirk was to have bested him with a broadsword.
Al decided to look again. His Bowie knife was held out in an “ice pick” grip. He turned and Eric Bannerman was standing, looking right at him with the sword in his right hand, breathing heavily. “You aren’t dead.”
“You’re a fu
cking genius.”
“You seem angry, Al. It wasn’t personal. Well, it was personal, but I saw you blow up. You, Gill, and Sheena. And I suspect Bud isn’t dead? What a fucking buzzkill!” Without warning, Eric charged Al. Al’s reaction was counter-intuitive. Against big weapons being swung, it’s best to close distance. It takes the power away from the person with the weapon. It works really well with baseball bats. It isn’t a perfect strategy for dealing with three feet of heavy, sharp steel, but it was a fight, and Al was in improv mode now.
Bannerman had the sword cocked back and to his right. It was how you would hold a baseball bat, but the blade was horizontal and came out parallel to the ground at Bannerman’s nipple-line. Al waited for the blade to start moving. He actually waited until he saw the muscles fire in Bannerman’s arms. As soon as the blade was moving, Al dropped into a feet-first slide aimed to Bannerman’s right side, where the blade had started. As Al slid untouched under the blade, he viciously sliced into the side of Bannerman’s leg. He was aiming for Bannerman’s knee, specifically the outside of the knee. There was a lot of nasty stuff in that area that, if cut, severely limited mobility. He slashed partway through Bannerman’s vastus lateralis, the big thigh muscle on the outside of each leg. He’d cut Bannerman’s deeply, but it wasn’t life-threatening, though it would slow him up a bit. Al was back up on his feet after the slide. He continued his momentum and grabbed the other broadsword off of the bench. “How’d that feel, you fuck?”
Bannerman was a good distance from Al. He crouched down, causing his leg to spit a little blood, not an arterial spray, but a good deal of blood. Bannerman grabbed the bandana out of his pocket and knotted it around his leg while talking with Al. His sword was in the ground in front of him. Rushing him would be a good way to get impaled. Al wondered if Dirk had fallen for that gambit and had been killed with a simple stop thrust.
“You killed him with a stop thrust, didn’t you?”
“Dirk?” Eric asked tying the second knot and straightening up. He tested his leg. It held weight fine. “Of course. How else was I going to get that kind of penetration with one of his rehearsal weapons?” He was closing distance to Al. Al reacted by circling and keeping the distance constant. Eric had gone to a one-handed grip. He wore heavy leather gloves that could be used to slap a blade off course. A smaller person without as much upper-body strength couldn’t have handled these monster blades one handed, but Bannerman had them made for his huge frame and strength. Al, stronger than Eric but a little shorter, was holding the blade one-handed and had the Bowie knife in his left hand to parry Eric’s large blade if the opportunity presented itself. “I was doing my Lenny act and asked if I could hold one of his swords. He humored me because I acted like he was someone. I pretended to attack him a couple times, poorly. He slapped me with the flat of his blade twice. The third time, I got in a ‘lucky’ block. He got a little miffed, so he attacked again. I started letting my training shine through. Soon, he was attacking wildly and I wasn’t even sweating. The whole time I was pulling the retarded Lenny act. I final got him mad enough to charge me. I stepped back at the last minute, wedged the pommel of my sword on the floor, and he ran onto my blade, effectively killing himself. He lived long enough to hear who I was and what they’d done. Easy.”
Eric was close enough to Al to touch him with his weapon. He tried a rapid thrust requiring amazing strength in the muscles in the back of the hand. Al had switched his knife to an overhand grip, the blade pointing up, and parried the thrust. He responded be taking a swing at Bannerman’s arm with his broadsword. Eric simply withdrew the target. They went back to circling. “So who do you have here, beside yourself?”
“The Chicago Bulls are right outside. I told them I’d come in and tire you out. I don’t know, Eric, you already look a little tired, and you’re bleeding like a stuck pig.” Al chuckled. “You still don’t know shit about real-life sword fighting. You spent all your time practicing theatrical swordplay and missed the fucking point.” Al flashed out with a triple attack, thrusting twice before trying a large circular attack. If it would have made contact, it would have cut Eric’s right arm off or cut him in half. Eric manage to parry the two thrusts with big circular parries, moving his blade like a propeller in front of his body. The slash he avoided by taking a step back, tapping the blade as it went by, then surprising Al by stepping in and doing a circular kick at Al’s knife hand. It sent the large knife spinning across the floor toward the large barn door. Al now had no way to parry with his left hand without potentially leaving fingers on the floor.
“I don’t know shit? Really, big man? You come in and swing your big penis and your manly attitude around and everyone jumps. I sent guys like you and worse on permanent vacation from Joliet. The funny thing about all that, Al? I was never once even suspected. ‘Quiet library Eric? No. He’d never do such a thing.’ Well, I did, and I’m gonna gut you like a fish.” He bent, put his sword in front of him again, and adjusted the bandage on his leg. He scooped the blade up with two hands, then switched to his right again.
“Why don’t you try it? I came to dance, and all you do is talk. So let’s fight proper. And Eric?”
“Yes, Al?” Eric sounded like he was talking to a very stupid three-year-old.
“This is to the death with no quarter.”
“But of course…” and before he finished his sentence, he moved forward with alarming speed. He attacked with his sword in his right hand to Al’s left side. Al couldn’t retreat. His back was to the bench and Eric was between him and the door. Al parried the cut, so Eric’s blade stopped and inch away from Al’s deltoid. Then before Al could counter, Eric threw a handful of dirt in Al’s eyes. He had picked it up when he picked his sword up from the ground two-handed. Al was blind. He pushed Eric’s blade off with his blade, the steel ringing loudly. He swung blindly, caught against the workbench. Al missed, and Eric sunk his blade deep into the flesh of Al’s side, below Al’s ribs. The blade was perpendicular to the ground and it sunk into Al’s abdomen, about four inches in from the outside of Al’s body.
Motherfucker! What is it with that spot? I think he stabbed the scar where I got shot. I just got stabbed. I’m gonna die, and this motherfucker is gonna find Edith. Fuck!
Eric had driven the blade deeply into Al. The cross piece of the blade was touching Al’s skin. Eric was so close Al could smell the garlic on his breath. “How does it feel, Al? You’re done.” He reached out and took Al’s blade. Al couldn’t summon the strength to hold onto it. “We’ll just talk until your eyes clear. I want you to see me before I cut off your head. I think that’s fitting.”
Al’s eyesight was beginning to clear. He could see the door behind Eric, the various tools on the tool bench, and his salvation, though he wouldn’t look directly at it lest Eric get curious. He thought it would be better to keep Eric’s attention. “You’re still a coward and a shitty sword fighter. I’m OK, and I should have seen that you would cheat. Being inferior all your life, you’ve probably gotten used to being a cheating piece of shit.”
“Shut up.”
“Did you cheat a lot in high school? Did you spy on girls, peep on them, jack off in bushes? Did the people at the workshop not like you because you were a creepy, soulless freak?”
“Shut up! I’m warning you…”
“I bet they could smell the cum drying on your skin after jacking off in your lonely basement one-room flat. Have you ever been with a girl? I mean, not with a man. I’m sure you got a bunch of that when you were a young, succulent thing. I bet you favorite food after a year in Joliet was cock.”
Eric grabbed Al by the face and got as close as he could. He looked like he was going to bite Al or kiss him. “They didn’t like me because they couldn’t accept that I was going to be better than them.”
“No, Eric. They played a prank that got out of control. If it hadn’t happened, you probably would have been working as an actor here in Chicago right now.” He could still see around Eric. “I bet it
was pride.” He nodded vigorously. “I bet that was your Achilles tendon.”
“You mean Achilles heel, dummy.”
Al grabbed Eric’s wrists. The one with the sword and the one still on the grip of the sword stuck in Al’s side. “No, asshole. I meant Achilles tendon. Now all the way through. Both if you can get them!”
Edith was behind Bannerman with the big Bowie knife, crouched by the big man’s feet. She swung the huge knife and with the power of a Valkyrie. Little Edith sliced the knife viciously through both of Eric’s Achilles tendons. His calves snapped up to rest just behind his knees. He started to collapse but was still holding the sword in Al’s side. “Cut his right arm. Anywhere! Just cut the fucker deep!”
Edith took two steps around and cut three of the four major tendons in the back of Bannerman’s right forearm. Al pushed him back. Bannerman was lying in a heap of agony. Al was holding the blade in his side with his left hand. Moving was a hitherto-unexplored tour of hell. He grabbed a large ball-peen hammer off the work table. “They may have deserved some kind of punishment, but it wasn’t yours to give.” Al dropped on his knees. Edith turned her back. There were two smacking sounds and silence.
The silence wound out for a full minute until Al said, “Hey, E? Can you call Sunny? Have the Freeport guys come out. I gotta leave this blade in me in case it’s sitting on an artery or he pierced my intestine, but I can’t sit in here with him. Take me outside, and call the cops and a bus. You can say meat wagon, it doesn’t bother me. Make sure you say officer down, but the area is secure. If you don’t, I may bleed out.”
Hog Butcher: 2nd Edition Page 42