Jagger

by Kristopher Rufty

  “Stay there,” she said. “Janice is…over here.”

  Carlos didn’t respond.

  Amy walked a short distance and squatted, keeping her body angled away from Janice so she wouldn’t have to see her again.

  Her fingers curled around the handle of the cast iron pan. Gripping the heavy object, she felt a tad better. She started jogging, the wound on her calf jabbing her as she made her way back to Carlos.

  He looked at her weapon, puckered out his bottom lip and nodded.

  Now she was ready.

  Chapter Forty

  Amy saw Mark’s cruiser and gasped. She stopped walking. Carlos paused beside her. She lowered the pan by her leg.

  My God Almighty…

  The door was open, pushed toward the front of the car and flat against the front tire. She saw torn shreds of metal poking through the gap between the door and car like sharp jagged leaves. There was a large blob of a dark stain on the ground beside the car. It looked like a puddle that was quickly drying in the heat.

  “What happened here?” she heard Carlos ask. It sounded as if he’d spoken more to himself than to her.

  “Mark?” Amy called, her voice reverberating around them.

  Though her voice had come out flat and very afraid, Carlos shushed. She listened. All she heard were her heaving breaths and Carlos’s slow heavy huffs through his nose.

  A breeze gently shook leaves on the trees near them.

  “A…Amy?”

  “Mark!”

  She took a step forward and her arm was gripped. She was snapped back. Carlos stepped beside her.

  “Wait,” he said in an angry whisper. He held up his chain-wrapped fist.

  “Carlos, it’s…”

  “Hush.”

  Amy listened. Her mouth hung open a moment before slowly closing. She saw the intensity in Carlos’s expression as he leered at the cop car.

  “It came from over there,” he whispered. He gave his chin a quick thrust toward the car.

  Amy turned her head. She looked past the damaged door, to the left overhang of the bumper. She could see the tire, angled slightly inward.

  And then a hand came down on the loose dirt.

  The fingers, arched and trembling, dug in. The sleeve around the arm that flexed and pulled was tattered and torn. Blood slicked the skin in crimson through the threadbare rags.

  “Mark?” she said, her voice low.

  A deputy clambered out from the other side of the car, pulling himself with his left arm. She only knew it was a member of the law by the color of his uniform and the belt around his waist.

  The face on the bobbing head was a monstrous ruin. An eye dangled from the pulpy mask like a plucked radish. The other eye was a narrow white slit through the red and brown mush.

  Amy’s muscles turned soggy. She started to drop, but Carlos still had a grip on her arm and held her up.

  “My God,” she said, “No, Mark, no!” She tried to pull away from Carlos. Couldn’t. His grip was firm and strong, but not painful.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “But it’s Mark, he…”

  Mark rolled over, dropping to his back. From the chest down was a mess. His stomach had been torn open, intestines reaching out of the flaps of bloody skin like tentacles. They hung in brown coils on his thighs, hanging over the edges and dragging the ground. His right shoulder looked flat and rumpled compared to the left. And it was easy to see his arm had been broken, how it laid in odd angles to the side of him.

  “Amy…” said Mark. His voice was jittery and filled with phlegm.

  Amy tried to go to him, and again Carlos wouldn’t allow it.

  “Stop,” he said.

  “I have to help him!”

  “It’s a trick.”

  “A what?”

  “A trick.” Carlos looked around, his eyebrows lowered into a patchwork of concern. “He’s drawing you out.”

  “My dog?”

  Carlos slowly nodded. “He wants you to go to the cop, so he can attack…”

  Amy turned to Mark. He lay several feet away, on his back, body trembling. A soft quacking sound came from the back of his throat.

  So close to death and Jagger hadn’t finished him off. Why?

  Because he’s using him as bait. For me.

  No way in hell could that be real.

  But it was. Now she could clearly see the workings of a trap.

  But she couldn’t let Mark just lay there, in so much pain. He was…dying.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Carlos added, “He won’t make it, anyway.”

  Tears filled Amy’s eyes. She felt a cold space open up inside.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Carlos.

  “We can’t just leave him there!”

  Carlos jerked her closer by her wrist. “We’re going. There’s nothing we can do for him.”

  Through her wet lenses, she looked back to Mark. Though blurry, she could tell he was still alive and in a lot of pain. More pain than she could imagine.

  “G…go…” she heard Mark say.

  “Mark…”

  “Goooo!” His voice sounded strained and filled with agony.

  She felt Carlos pulling her back, toward the driveway.

  “No,” she said.

  “I said we’re leaving.”

  “We can’t go back that way. There’ll be nowhere to go if he comes after us!”

  Carlos seemed to consider this. He looked around.

  “It’s too risky to go for your house,” he said. He gnawed at his bottom lip. “The car. We’ll drive out of here.”

  The car was awfully close to Mark. And the door was broken. She didn’t feel much safer being in there with such a wide open space for Jagger to come through.

  But it was their best option. Better than going for the house. And a lot more secure than walking in the open.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Carlos pulled her as he ran for the car. She tried to avoid looking at Mark lying at angle in the front, but it was impossible not to see him.

  He no longer trembled. It was hard to tell if he was even breathing.

  Amy hated how she’d acted the last time she’d seen him. She’d been so awful, and it would be their final encounter. She wished she’d never hit him, or slapped him.

  “Mark,” she heard herself whisper.

  Then she turned frontward, facing the car. Her arm stretched in front of her, hand clasped in Carlos’s sweaty hold. Carlos turned toward the maw of the car’s damaged ingress.

  All units! All units!

  Carlos and Amy gasped. The stocky man stepped in front of her as if to shield her from harm.

  Report to Eagle’s Nest Mobile Home Park, right away!

  Amy sighed with relief. Jose had come through. Help was coming.

  The feral dog has attacked again. Report to Amy Snider’s residence at 111 Eagle’s Nest Circle!

  “The cavalry’s on their way,” said Carlos. He turned toward her, smiling. “God bless, Jose.”

  I have been trying to reach Deputy Varner and have been unsuccessful. Proceed with caution!

  “This’ll be the first time I’m glad to see the cops,” he said.

  Repeat! Calling all units to respond to a call from Eagle’s Nest Mobile Home Park!

  Amy felt herself laugh at Carlos’s statement.

  Laughing, he turned toward the police car.

  And Jagger sprang from inside, as if he were a giant, furry missile being launched.

  Carlos had no time to react. He barely uttered a scream before Jagger slammed into him. She felt Carlos’s hold on her arm tear away as he dropped with Jagger on top of him. The chain clanged when his hand bashed Amy’s knee on its way down.

  She felt a wild blast of pain in her leg as it shot out to the side, twisting her around. Her back pounded the ground a short distance from Carlos.

  She could hear his screams, the juicy tears of Jagger devouring him.

  Amy propped herself up on her elbow
s. Through the V of her legs, she saw Jagger had straddled Carlos with all four legs. His snout was buried in Carlos’s stomach, tearing and ripping stringy stretches of flesh away.

  No! Not him, too!

  He’d come to her aid, had saved Nathan.

  He tried to help.

  She wouldn’t let Jagger do this, not to Carlos. She’d been too late to help Mark, but she wouldn’t let Jagger do this.

  Amy tried to stand, but quickly dropped back down when her hurt knee folded. The hard ground scraped her skin as she wiggled to her side.

  The pan was there.

  She grabbed it, and fell back onto her back.

  Carlos had stopped screaming.

  “Jagger!” screamed Amy.

  The dog ignored her as he tore out thick chunks of Carlos’s innards. Sinewy strips hung from the corners of his mouth like bloody jerky.

  “Jagger!”

  The dog stopped his riotous chewing. Snout deep into Carlos’s stomach, Jagger’s eyes shifted to Amy. The left eye was nearly white, thick and gloppy like vanilla pudding. The other was swollen and the yellow bulb was encircled by a crusty, red halo. Damage had been done to his eyes since she’d seen him last.

  Good job, Mark…

  He didn’t go without some kind of fight.

  But he’s dead. Carlos is dead. Janice is dead. Teresa is dead. Jagger killed them all…

  The one she’d considered her world had destroyed what world she’d truly had.

  And she was going to kill him. If she died doing so, that was fine.

  “It’s me you want!” she shrieked.

  Jagger lifted his head, slowly chewing what was in his mouth. Blood spilled from his jowls. He stepped over Carlos, dodging the dead body with his paws.

  He stood on the other side of Carlos, facing Amy. Only a short span of space separated him from her feet. If he went after legs, her plan wouldn’t work.

  Plan? I have a plan?

  The heavy firmness of the pan reminded her she did.

  A terrible plan. But it was…something.

  Slowly, she turned the cast iron pan in her hands. The handle jutted out, the angled tip pointing high.

  “Come on, you bastard!”

  Jagger snarled, snapping his jaws. Bloody spit shot forward.

  “It’s just us now! Isn’t that what you wanted!?! Huh? We’re all alone!”

  Far in the distance, Amy heard the whine of sirens. She figured they were heading this way.

  Jagger lifted his head, turning his ear to the sky. He listened. He took a step back. It looked as if he was preparing to run away from Amy, not toward her.

  “Jagger!”

  The dog stopped. He looked back to her.

  She slapped her bare thigh, hard, causing her swelling knee to throb. The smack echoed.

  Jagger flinched.

  “Get over here, now!”

  His lip curled, baring teeth. The gaping slit running up his head seemed to tremble.

  Now it’s working.

  “I said, now!”

  She slapped her leg again. It stung around the ruddy handprint on her thigh. Her skin felt as if it was tightening.

  Jagger’s snarl spread across his mouth, the growl rising in his throat.

  Another slap on her leg triggered a quick, angry bark. Foamy strings hung from his upper teeth and stuck to his lower set.

  “You want me? Here I am!”

  She slapped her leg again. Jagger hopped in place, hunkering down. His upper body lowered as his tail rose higher.

  They used to play like this. She’d smack her thighs to get him worked up, then they would run around the yard. Amy would laugh and Jagger would let out quick happy barks.

  There was no playing this time. This was foreplay to a fight.

  “Come on, you bastard! Come and get me!”

  Jagger shot forward. Ignoring her legs, he ran between their spread. A heavy paw slammed down on her groin, her stomach, her chest.

  She couldn’t breathe with his abundance of weight on top of her. His head dipped, mouth opening.

  And she rammed the handle of the cast iron pot into the yawning chasm of his mouth. It met some resistance and probably wouldn’t have kept burrowing if Jagger wasn’t already bringing himself down. His own momentum made it easy for the handle to crunch through his skull.

  A sharp whine tore from Jagger as he hurtled down onto Amy. She kept her grip on the ring of the pan, pushing it further into his mouth. The thin stiff edges of iron dug ruts into her palms, lubing the pan with her blood, making it slippery.

  Gritting her teeth and growling, she gave one final shove with all her strength.

  The handle burst through the back of Jagger’s skull, glazed in blood under the skin that lay like a pitched roof over its tip.

  Jagger went limp on top of her, burying her underneath his furry mass. His jowls were distended around the pan, forming a wide disk of iron that forced his mouth wide.

  She quickly jerked her head sideways, dodging his face as it came down. The pan clamored softly when it hit the ground.

  He didn’t move.

  The full force of his weight pushed her down into the dehydrated soil.

  Underneath Jagger like this reminded her of her last morning spent with him. She’d hugged him, wrapped her legs around him as if he were a boyfriend who’d woken her with kisses. Just as she’d done every morning leading up to the final one.

  She hugged him now, though she couldn’t lift her legs. One was trapped under him, and the other had a hurt knee that felt hardened like a rock.

  Amy squeezed his neck, holding her hulk of dog tightly. Though the light hurt her teary eyes, she gazed up at the flat blue sky. It was cloudless and vast, a gorgeous color that reminded her of swimming pools.

  And she cried.

  The tears made her face wet and itchy, as did the foul hair rubbing her cheeks. Jagger smelled terrible, a combination of infection and rot. She didn’t care. This was her final moment with him. And she wanted it to matter.

  “I’m so sorry…” She cried harder.

  The sirens grew steadily louder until they chiseled through her brain like a spike. She heard the crunching of tires coming up her driveway.

  The sirens were all over her now, vibrating her clothes, pounding her brain. She winced against the shrilly howl.

  A car grinded to a halt. The siren died. She heard a door open and rapid footfalls on gravel as they hurried to her.

  “My God, what is this?”

  A man’s deep voice.

  “Jesus Christ!” A female, most likely his partner.

  “Shit, Deputy Varner’s down!”

  She heard footsteps running away, the car squeaked slightly.

  “We have an officer down at the Snider residence! Deputy Varner is down. Send an ambulance immediately!”

  A shadow fell over Amy, shielding her from the brightness of the sky. She couldn’t see a face, but from the strands of hair curling out above the shoulders and the slightly bowed waist, she could tell it was a female.

  “Amy Snider?” The voice was hesitant, and a little frightened.

  “Yuh-yeah…”

  “Are you all right?”

  Amy didn’t know why, but she laughed. Nothing was funny about this situation. Knowing this did nothing to stop the wild guffaw that shook her underneath Jagger’s immense bulk. Couldn’t this cop see that nothing was all right?

  As quick as Amy’s laughter had come about, it was replaced by sobs that she doubted would ever quit.

  Kristopher Rufty

  Kristopher Rufty is the author of The Lurkers, Pillowface, A Dark Autumn, and Prank Night. He has also written and directed the independent horror films Psycho Holo­caust, Rags, and Wicked Wood.

  But what he’s best at is being married to his high school sweetheart and the father of two crazy children who he loves dearly. Together, they reside in North Carolina with their hulk-like dog,Thor, and numerous cats.

  For more about Kristopher Rufty,
please visit his Website www.lastkristontheleft.blogspot.com

  He can be found on Facebook and Twitter as well.