by J. Thorn
It had led him here, to the dark and the cold, with a gash in his stomach that was bleeding profusely and playing with his consciousness. Beside him, Finch had found peace, and for a moment Beau envied him so much that his eyes started to close, and he quickly shook his head, braced a hand on the ground and raised himself up. He cried out and stopped, but did not abandon the progress he'd made. With one hand clamped over his belly, he drew his legs beneath him, relying on their strength to help him up, and they did. He stood, shoulder pressed to the tree, gasping, his knees trembling, the front of his jeans soaked with blood. Beau was weak from blood loss, but he was not yet dead, and that was something. He took a moment to steady himself and looked down at Finch, who was little more than a long shadow with a pale smudge for a face. Beau made a silent promise that he would do everything he could to make sure Finch wasn't left here to rot or be picked apart by animals, even if it meant burying him himself. "No man left behind" was the motto for fallen soldiers on the battlefield, but Beau wasn't sure he'd ever really understood it. What lay at his feet was no longer anyone he knew. Whatever happened next would hardly bother Finch. He was gone. Only the body remained. Desecration, he thought. We leave no one behind to be desecrated by the enemy. Still, he wondered why it made such a difference to anyone. It was the soul and the spirit people mourned, not the body, so why should it matter what became of it?
He realized such musings were simply a way to stall, to avoid moving when he knew it was going to be agony to do so. It was also a means of trying to disseminate the guilt he already felt at the thought of leaving Finch here alone. But if he didn't, he too would die.
He pushed himself away from the tree and stumbled through the woods toward the cabin. He had been mistaken about the agony, he realized. There was no agony in his belly. It was utter torture.
The moonlight faded, and for one panicked moment, Beau thought it was unconsciousness coming to claim him and he stopped, leaned against a tree until the light silvered the woods once more. Breath pluming in the air before him, he focused on the murky yellow light from the cabin window up ahead and hurried on, the blood sticky between his fingers.
Keep goin', he told himself. Not far. Get there and you can sit and figure out what happens next. But keep movin'.
The light in the cabin window was a beacon, drawing his wounded form toward it. In his waistband, the gun, cold against his skin. In his pocket, the reassuring weight of his cell phone. He prayed there was a signal. There was only one call worth making now and he would do it even if his injury conspired to leave him dead on the forest floor. One call, and perhaps everything they'd done wouldn't have been in vain after all.
Keep m…
He was within hailing distance of the cabin when the world abruptly swept up and away and nausea gripped him.
The darkness came again.
This time it was not the moon.
*
Despite his injury, McKindrey's approach had up until this moment been confident, as if he knew without a doubt how this was going to play out. But now, with Claire backed up against the wall, he stopped and licked his lips. In the light through the windows, she could see perspiration beading his sallow skin. He did not look nervous, but wary, the gun pointed at her chest. His eyebrows were knitted, as if he'd suddenly forgotten the finer points of hostage taking.
"Just take 'er easy now," he mumbled, as if advising himself.
With no room to move, her hand bent behind her, Claire felt the wire she'd taken from the bedsprings poking her between the shoulder blades. She told herself to relax, that panic would get her nowhere, but then realized that was a lie. Stark panic had freed her the first time she'd found herself a captive in this charnel house. But would it do so again? And even if it did, did she really want to give herself over to such impulses a second time when she was still haunted by the guilt of the first?
"Don't do this," she said. "If you let me go, I won't say anything."
"Why not?" McKindrey asked.
There was no response to that. She shook her head dumbly.
"I would think it'd be the first thing you'd do, mad as you are at me."
"I'm not mad at you," Claire lied. "I'm mad that my friends are gone and I can't bring them back."
"But I had a hand in that."
"Not the worst one."
He smiled unevenly, appraised her anew, but the gun was steady in his hand. "You're a clever girl. I'm real sorry you're stuck in this, though I expect you won't believe that."
She closed her eye. "If you are sorry, then you might as well do me a favor and end it." The wisdom of the request eluded her, but whatever had motivated it, it suddenly felt absolutely right. With it came a calm similar to the one she had felt when McKindrey had mentioned the field with the dead tree. An end was coming, and though she did not know the form it would ultimately take, she welcomed the peace it promised.
"End it how?"
"Pull the trigger," she told him. "You've helped put a whole lot of people in their graves. Might as well help one more."
In the darkness, she relied only on her senses and the small voice that drifted up from somewhere deep inside her that whispered, There's no way out except his way. You fight and even if you escape him all you'll ever do is fight. Why not end it right here, right now? What do you even have that's worth fighting for?
She heard the raspy sound of his breathing.
The jingle of the keys on his belt.
The creak of leather.
But the sound she expected, feared, hoped for...didn't come.
She looked.
He was still standing there, still staring at her, the cruiser lights flickering behind him, the headlights painting one side of his face, the other mired in shadow. Frustrated, she asked, "What are you waiting for? You have me. I'm giving you what you want."
He nodded once. "So I see. Why?"
The void dissolved. Anger and the anguish that had plagued her since the day she'd fled this place coalesced inside her, surged upward on the crest of a red tide that made her whole body tremble.
"What difference does it make? You suddenly give a shit? Pull the fucking trigger, you hick bastard."
The uncertainty that had come over him did not evaporate under the brunt of her insult. Instead he stiffened, seemed to consider what she'd said and then looked down at the gun. To her disbelief, he gave a rueful shake of his head. "Real sorry for what they done to you. Better dead than be left—"
Before she knew she was going to do it, she rushed him, expecting the surprise of it to make his trigger finger spasm and send a bolt of hot fire into her chest, but instead he staggered backward, away from her, his mouth open in a dark circle. His wounded foot betrayed him and he stumbled, fell heavily to the left and landed on his side. Claire was on him. He quickly brought the gun up, even as she brought the wire down like a tribal Indian spearing a fish.
An odd roar accompanied the downward arc of the wire and the upward swing of the gun. The light through the windows changed, brightened, became the sun on a new morning though it was far too early.
As a cry of primeval rage burst from Claire's mouth, the wire found its target, piercing the side of Sheriff McKindrey's throat, his eyes widening in surprise. Dark blood spurted from the wound. Cursing, one hand flying to his neck, he pulled the trigger but the gun was now aimed upward and though the shot deafened her, the bullet plowed harmlessly into the ceiling.
Dust and splinters rained down.
Claire withdrew the wire and stabbed again. All she could hear now was a distant rumble and a low whistle in her ears, which worsened as McKindrey scrambled, his feet scrabbling against the bare wood as she straddled him, the wire held overhead in a two-hand grip. He flailed at her, the cold metal barrel of the gun smashing into her right temple once and again. She persisted despite the nauseating tilt of the world through her good eye, gouging his arms, his face, his chest with the rusted wire. She smelled old death and decay, new blood and sudden fear. It inspire
d her, and she doubled her assault on the man who was three times her weight and twice her height, empowered by rage to keep him down. Panic did not fuel her. There was no name for the impulse that pounded through her now.
McKindrey bucked. She held on, her free hand planted on his chest, the other incessantly perforating his bulk with the wire. He cried out as she punctured his jaw, punched his broken nose.
Then the wall and windows seemed to detonate as the light exploded into the room and they were enveloped in a storm of flying wood and glimmering glass.
*
Beau came to on a hard flat surface. Immediately he realized that he was no longer in the woods.
He was also bare-chested.
And he was not alone.
Instinctively he reached out a hand for his gun, driven by the unreasonable hope that whoever had brought him here had left it close by. Unsurprisingly, his trembling fingers found nothing but air.
Sudden scalding pain in his belly made him roar and ram his knuckles into his mouth, biting down to keep from chewing on his tongue, and he raised his head to identify the source of the agony through the tears in his eyes. He blinked furiously, struggling to clear his vision, but already he knew what he would see. The pain could not suffocate the dread that came at the thought of it.
They had him.
Leaning over Beau, who was lying on what he now realized was the kitchen table he'd seen earlier on his inspection of the cabin, was a giant, blocking out the strained light from a naked bulb, which reduced him to a wild-haired silhouette.
"Aw God," Beau moaned as another round of fierce pain blasted through him from his wound. He convulsed, began to scream and did not stop, even when the man's large hand covered his mouth and he tasted blood and dirt.
-40-
Claire lay on her stomach and waited.
She felt weight on her feet and wondered if she'd lost them, or at the very least broken them and tangled the nerves. But there was no pain, only heat. Beneath her face, the surface of the floor was rough like sandpaper, but she didn't move. Wasn't sure she was able. Any moment now McKindrey might rise up, shake off his discomfort and pump her body full of bullets. Even if he had been short on reasons to hurt her before, which he hadn't, she'd given him ample motive to hurt her now. She had attacked him like an animal, and though she did not mourn the passing of that peculiar, frightening impulse, nor did she regret it. It had served its purpose and again, though the dangerous resignation with which she was growing grimly familiar had swept her up in its calming embrace, she had fought for her life. The absence of reasons for it to continue had not been enough to drain whatever resolve existed in that untouchable, unseen reservoir inside her.
"Claire?"
She did not raise her head. Gradually, small campfires of pain registered across the dark landscape of her body. Cuts, lacerations, bruises. She didn't care. Superficial, the doctors would say, just as they had said at the hospital in Mason City and she had sneered at them. Nothing about what had been done to her had been superficial. Every incision they'd made with their dirty blades had branded her with the memory of the faces and intent of those who'd made them.
"Claire?"
She opened her eye. The room was filled with fog. The air was thick with dust. Nearby, through the haze she glimpsed an empty shoe. McKindrey's. A few feet away, a foot without a sock, the leg bent over the cast iron frame of the overturned bed. Three rivulets of blood ran down the ankle. Dark against pale.
Hands found her and she flinched, felt new pain erupt but dismissed it. She squinted up at the lithe shadow bent over her, thought for a moment she saw the sun behind it as she lay on the road in the heat of the day, but it lasted only a moment.
"Pete?" she asked, then coughed.
He knelt down next to her. "McKindrey's dead. Looks like he busted his neck. You all right?"
"I'm alive," she told him. "That's a start."
He helped her turn over and put a hand on her back as she sat up. She dabbed at blood on her face, probed a tender spot at the side of her skull and winced.
"I'm sorry," Pete said.
"You've nothing to be sorry for," she said, and blinked. Took in the chaos in the room. The wall with the padlocked door was gone, only splintered beams hanging like crooked teeth in a gaping mouth, the tongue a vehicle with its front end parked inside the room atop a mound of rubble, one light glaring up at the far wall, the other shattered on impact. The fender was gone, the hood buckled so she couldn't see the windshield. After taking out the wall, the car had plowed through the room, striking McKindrey. How it had missed Claire, who had been sitting astride him when the car had come through, was a mystery. Or maybe not. She recalled, in those now surreal and hazy seconds before the car plowed through the wall, McKindrey's hands on her chest, crushing her breasts, forcing her away. Perhaps it had only been self-defense. Perhaps he had simply been trying to get her off him so he could scamper out of the way himself. She didn't know, and never would, and thus found it easy to reject the repulsive notion that he had, in the final moments of his life, tried to save her.
"I was almost gone," Pete said as he assisted her in standing. Her ankle hurt and there was a nasty gash in her right thigh, but she thought of these as nothing more than reminders that she was not dead.
"I know."
"He lied to me," he continued. "Told me all sorts of awful things, none of 'em true." He guided her around the rubble, one hand braced on the buckled hood. "I believed him."
"You didn't have a reason not to."
He nodded, but looked troubled as she wrapped an arm around his shoulders for support. "I know, but I would've left if it hadn't come to me what he said. He kept sayin' the Doc kilt your friends, but before I left, he said 'the folks who done this to her are long gone.' Didn't realize it then because I guess I ain't too quick, but soon as I sat in the truck and thought it over, I knew he was lyin' and he said he ain't never lied to me. But he did, and I had to come back."
"It's all right, Pete," she said as they emerged into the cool night air. Above them, the stars shone bright and clear. Claire took a deep draw of the crisp air and felt it catch in her throat as the dust rolled around in her lungs. She coughed violently, then wiped her mouth and sighed. "Thank you for coming back."
He shrugged.
"I mean it, Pete. Thank you for saving me." She reached out a hand and touched his face, felt a slight peppering of stubble. "Again," she added, and smiled.
He started to say something then, but she drew him close, slowly, mindful of the pain in every joint, and kissed him softly on the lips. When it was over, he said nothing, though he seemed desperate to find the words. She didn't wait. Instead she leaned against him and let him put his arm around her this time.
"We need to burn it down," she said.
*
"Hush now, else they'll hear you," the giant advised him, and at first Beau assumed that meant anyone who might come to his rescue—Shut up, or you'll doom your friends too—but then he looked down at himself and realized the agony had come as a result of whiskey that had been splashed over the wound. Confused, he withheld further complaint until the man stomped off and returned a few moments later with an old-looking needle in one huge hand, a fistful of catgut in the other.
"What are you doin'?" Beau asked him.
"Puttin' your stuffin' back in," the giant said in a low gravelly voice. He pulled a chair up to the table and sat, then gently threaded the fishing line through the eye of the needle, which was as big as a pencil. He started to bend down close to the wound, eyes narrowed as if he was poor-sighted, but then stopped and glanced askance at Beau, the point of the needle raised. "'Less you prefer it hangin' out?"
Convinced now that he was delirious and imagining it all, Beau shook his head. "Naw. You go right ahead, as long as you're not fixin' to tie the wrong parts together."
The giant frowned, as if he didn't understand what that was supposed to mean, and went about his work, carefully easing the needl
e through Beau's flesh.
"Shiiiit." Beau bared his teeth, clenched his fists, but the pain, though it was severe, didn't last long. In what seemed like minutes, the worst of it was over, and this time when the wound was soaked with alcohol, Beau felt the burning, but considerably less agony. Afterward, he lay in silence for a long time, watching as the man lumbered about the cabin looking ill at ease, like a man unsure what to do next. Beau wanted to think of him as his savior, but other than the rudimentary stitch-job and the fact that he was still alive when he'd given the giant ample opportunity to kill him, it was too much of a stretch for the moment. He was, after all, still in enemy territory.