Blister

by Strand, Jeff

  He picked up the blowtorch.

  I picked up the razor.

  I started to saw through the cords that were binding my chest, but the razor wasn't doing a very good job. It would be easier to drop the razor and just reach behind me and unhook the cords by hand...except that right now I needed a weapon.

  Allen turned on the blowtorch, spewing a constant stream of curses under his breath. It looked like some blood was getting into his mouth.

  I lashed out with the razor. He was too far away for me to actually hit him; I just wanted to make it clear that he shouldn't come too close to me.

  He watched me for a moment, and then apparently decided that since I was still mostly strapped to an overturned chair, the danger was minimal. He crouched down just out of range.

  "I'll make you a deal," he said, though I could barely understand him. "Give that to me and I won't burn you to death."

  I tugged down the gag. "Try to take it."

  "I'll set your hair on fire."

  "I'll still kill you," I said, with way more confidence than I felt, especially because if Allen took a moment to evaluate the entire situation, he'd remember that he had a perfectly good gun. Hopefully he remained committed to the idea of inflicting slow agony upon me.

  Allen seemed unsure of how to proceed. Clearly, he still had the advantage, but I had two free hands and a weapon.

  Would this be a good time to scream for help? Probably not. I wasn't sure if anybody would even hear me, and it was crucial that Allen not decide to simply cut his losses and murder me.

  He stood back up. Walked backwards a few steps, not taking his eyes off me. I couldn't figure out what he was doing, until suddenly I realized that he was making room to get a running start. He was going to rush at me and kick me.

  Shit.

  He ran at me.

  I was going to have to absorb the kick, and hope to get in a really vicious slash with the razor while he was there.

  I assumed he was going to try to kick me in the head, possibly snapping my neck, or in the chest, possibly shattering a few ribs. Instead, he went for my hand, kicking at me as I swung at him. I aimed for his ankle. Missed. The blade struck the bottom of his shoe as he kicked it out of my hand.

  The razor slid across the room, far out of my reach.

  I grabbed Allen's other ankle with my free hand—which still hurt like hell from Allen stepping on it the last time I tried this trick, but apparently still worked—and yanked him off-balance. He fell backwards onto the floor, smacking his head. The blowtorch landed on his chest, but sadly, the flame had already gone out.

  He didn't immediately move.

  I quickly reached behind my back and began to unfasten the bungee cords. Allen was still conscious, but dazed, so if my hand continued to work and I didn't waste any time...

  He groaned. He said something that I believe was an expression of how much he hated me, but I really couldn't understand enough of his words to say for sure.

  The cords were there to keep me in place while he mutilated me; they weren't intended to be something inescapable if I were left alone. (At least I didn't think so. Allen was no criminal genius but he seemed smarter than that.) So I was able to unfasten them, one after the other, until my torso was free. From there, I could contort my body well enough to begin working on the cords that bound my legs.

  Holy crap, I was going to get out of this alive and mostly unmangled!

  Allen sat up. His nose was hideously swollen, and his face was covered in blood, tears, and a generous stream of mucus. He let out a scream of frustration and rage that made me think the poor son of a bitch had legitimately gone feral.

  He turned the blowtorch back on and began to crawl toward me, leaving a black streak across the wooden floor as the flame dragged across it.

  My legs were almost free.

  Allen said something else. I literally could not understand a single word of it, nor could I figure anything out from context clues except that it was negative in tone.

  He lunged at me with the blowtorch. I screamed in pain as the flame touched my shoulder, but fortunately my shirt hadn't—no, shit, my shirt had caught on fire.

  I punched Allen square in the nose.

  He didn't make a damn sound. Not a scream, not a gasp, not a grunt, nothing.

  It was only a candle-sized flame on my shirt and I quickly patted it out. Then I unfastened the last couple of cords and, free at last, crawled toward the razor. The gun would have been a better choice, but Allen was between me and that most useful of weapons.

  As I crawled, I realized that Allen was not the only one making poor decisions. The chair would've been a better weapon than the razor. Oh well. Too late now.

  I picked up the razor and spun around. Allen had stood up yet again. The guy looked utterly pitiful, though not enough to make me feel sorry for him.

  I stood up as well. He held up the blowtorch, and I held up the razor, as if we were going to have a damn swordfight.

  He rushed at me, and I rushed at him, and, yes, our weapons connected as if we were pirates or knights, except really awful ones. We parried twice more, and then I slashed him across the lower arm, cutting deep.

  He almost dropped the blowtorch. His hands were so slick with blood that I'm surprised he was able to hold onto it at all, but somehow he sustained his grip.

  I lunged with the razor, jabbing him in the chest.

  Allen bellowed with fury and then threw the blowtorch at me. I dodged enough that it bounced off my ear instead of striking me in the forehead, which still hurt like hell.

  He pointed at me, eyes wide. When he shouted, this time I got his meaning: "Blister's dead, you son of a bitch!"

  And with that, apparently he'd had enough of our little fight. Allen turned and ran. He threw open the cabin door and raced outside toward the truck.

  I would've been delighted to see him go if he hadn't threatened Rachel. As he climbed into the truck, I ran over and picked up the gun that he really shouldn't have left behind.

  He started the engine.

  I took aim at his grotesquely swollen, bloody face.

  I pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, because I'm not a gun expert and I'd left the safety on. I wasn't even immediately sure how to turn it off. I fumbled with the gun for a moment as Allen backed away from the cabin.

  Fortunately, he either had to turn around, or make his escape in reverse. I took aim again, pulled the trigger, and this time the gun fired. It also recoiled far more than I'd expected. I hit the front windshield but missed Allen by a good two feet.

  He sped off, apparently indeed planning to do this in reverse.

  I lowered my aim. Better to shoot for the tires or the engine or something that would stop the truck. Anything in the lower half.

  I fired, hitting the front left tire, which was not the tire I was aiming for, but I'd take it.

  I fired again, missing completely.

  My fourth shot also missed completely. The fifth shot, however, got the front right tire, which was the one I was aiming for.

  The truck stopped.

  Allen wasn't getting away in that thing. And, if this was a six-shooter (I wasn't sure) and had been fully loaded (I assumed it had been), I had one more shot to take him out.

  He got out of the truck and ran for the woods.

  I took very careful aim, trying to point the barrel at the center of his back.

  I squeezed the trigger.

  Missed.

  Was it close? No idea. I couldn't tell what I'd hit, if anything, but no gout of blood spurted from Allen, and he hurried out of the clearing.

  I squeezed the trigger again, hoping for bonus bullets, but no, this had been a six-shooter.

  Dammit.

  I kept myself fit, but still, I had the body of a cartoonist, and Allen was fifteen years younger. In a race through the woods, he was going to win, even if he was gushing more blood than I was.

  Was there a shortcut to Rachel's home through the woods? The dirt
road had swerved quite a bit, so I had no idea if Allen was headed in the right general direction, but he'd walked out to the cabin a lot as a kid, so he'd know the area. That didn't mean he knew how to get to Rachel's place from here.

  Instead of following him through the woods, my best bet was to run along the road. Once I got off the small dirt road and made it to the bigger dirt road, I might be able to flag down a car, and get there ahead of him.

  Maybe Allen would change his mind. Or conveniently bleed out before he made it there.

  I tossed the gun away. It wasn't any good to me without bullets, and a Good Samaritan would be more likely to pick me up if I weren't carrying a firearm.

  Then I ran.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Though I got winded pretty quickly, I forced myself to push through it. I couldn't let Allen get to Rachel before me. Not that I'd do more good against the psychopath than Rachel herself; she would, most likely, simply blow his head off. I just needed to take away his element of surprise.

  I flexed my hand as I ran. It was sore and swollen, and I didn't think I'd be drawing Zep the Beetle for at least a couple of weeks. As soon as it was healed, I'd draw a picture of Zep taking a dump on Allen's head. He could put it up on the wall of his prison cell.

  I was scared to touch the side of my face, which still felt like it was burning. I'd have given anything for an ice pack. In a world where Rachel had received the same treatment times a hundred, I felt terrible worrying about the cosmetic aspect, but...I now had a giant scar running down the side of my face. I wondered how bad it looked. Probably not as awful as I was imagining.

  If Rachel and I ended up together, I could tell her that I'd done it in an act of solidarity.

  I was completely out of breath, but refused to stop, until gravity made the decision for me and I tripped. I slammed onto the ground and lay there for about half a minute, giving my lungs a chance to catch up with my sense of resolve. Then I got back up and resumed the run.

  What if Allen had a really good shortcut? What if he'd taken Rachel by surprise, and right now was making the rest of her body match her face?

  He wasn't. He didn't have the blowtorch anymore.

  He still could be hurting her.

  She still could be dead.

  I made it to the wider dirt road about ten minutes after I left the cabin. I couldn't remember how far the nearest home had been. This whole area had seemed pretty desolate. There'd been several other small dirt roads along the way, but I wasn't sure if they led to anybody's houses or not.

  Maybe Allen would run into a tree and completely splatter his face. In his current condition, he wouldn't have to hit the tree very hard.

  I supposed he could have looped around and was following me, or was ready to leap out into the road in front of me. I wasn't really worried about that. Bring it on. I'd actually feel much better if he attacked me again. I'd leave him lying on the ground with a dozen broken bones, and he wouldn't get the chance to mess with Rachel.

  Was that the sound of a car?

  I stopped running for a second, unable to believe my good luck. The way things were going, I'd expected to have to run all the way to Rachel's before somebody picked me up.

  Yes, it was a car! A beat-up gray sedan came into view, moving in the opposite direction that I was running. I moved into the middle of the road and waved my arms over my head, and the car stopped right in front of me.

  I hurried over to the passenger-side door and threw it open. The driver, a girl who was probably about sixteen, looked at me in wide-eyed horror, and I realized that from her perspective a frantic-looking stranger with blood on his clothes and a fresh scar was inviting himself into her vehicle.

  "I swear I'm not a killer," I said. "I need a ride really bad."

  The girl looked like she desperately wanted to floor the accelerator and speed off, but feared that it was already too late.

  I went ahead and got into the car. "I'm not going to hurt you."

  "Do you need me to take you to the hospital?" she asked in a small, scared voice.

  "Yes," I said, because it sounded more credible than, "I need you to drive me to my girlfriend's house before a homicidal maniac gets to her."

  I shut the door and she drove off, not going as quickly as I'd like.

  "What happened to you?" she asked.

  "A welding accident."

  "Did you fall on your blowtorch?"

  "Yeah."

  "It looks like it hurts."

  "It does."

  I wasn't prepared to look at myself quite yet, but I couldn't stop myself from lowering the visor and glancing in the mirror. In truth, my crazed eyes were a little more disturbing than the wound...but it was a pretty goddamn awful wound. Nobody would be locking me in a shed, but until I got this patched up, I'd be scaring kids and teenaged girls.

  "You should be more careful," the girl said.

  "I will. Could you drive faster?"

  "I just got my license."

  "That's okay. I trust you not to crash."

  "I don't trust myself. And it's my mom's car. I promised her I'd be careful."

  "If you get in a wreck, I'll pay for the damages. Have you heard of the comic strip Off Balance?"

  "No."

  "I draw it. It's pretty successful. So you don't have to worry about the car."

  "I don't want to hit somebody, though."

  "You're right, I don't want you to hit somebody either."

  She turned onto the paved road, and I realized that we were going to pass Doug's Booze Wasteland in about a minute.

  "Change of plans," I said. "I'm going to have you drop me off at my car. After you do, I need you to call the sheriff. Tell them to send a car out to Malcolm Kramer's house. It's an emergency."

  "Malcolm Kramer?"

  "Yes."

  "The one with the deformed daughter?"

  "Yeah. Tell them to hurry."

  "Did she break loose or something?"

  "Yes, she's on a rampage."

  "For real?"

  "No. Pull in here."

  She pulled into the parking lot, and I opened the door before she'd even come to a complete stop. "Thank you," I said, waiting until she'd come to a complete stop before I actually exited the vehicle.

  I ran over to my car and got inside. Ignatz barked happily. "Hi, buddy," I said, starting the engine. "You would've bitten the crap out of him if you'd been there, wouldn't you? Good doggie."

  I sped away from Doug's Booze Wasteland. I'd definitely make it to Rachel's before Allen got there. No way would he beat me. Not a chance. That loser was probably stuck in a bear trap right now, trying to gnaw off his own foot.

  It would take about ten minutes to make it to Rachel's if I drove at a safe, legal speed, so I figured I could make it there in about six. I did slow down a bit before cruising through the red light.

  Rachel would be fine. Perhaps she'd meet me with a great big grin and announce that Malcolm had given us his blessing.

  I wished my face would stop hurting. I was probably doing serious damage to it by not putting ice or something on it, but obviously intercepting the psychopath going after Rachel had to take priority.

  Does your face hurt? No. Well, it's killing me. Ha ha ha.

  Was I losing it? Maybe a bit. But hey, right now I was only the second most insane person in Lake Gladys, so at least I had that going for me.

  I didn't try to swerve around the squirrel that ran into the road. Fortunately for my squirrel karma, I missed it anyway.

  When I finally pulled into Malcolm's driveway, he was sitting on the porch in his rocking chair, shotgun on his lap, looking pretty freaking mad.

  He stood up as I got out of my car, but as he saw my condition his expression changed from anger to confusion. I hurried onto the porch.

  "What the hell happened to you?" he asked.

  "Has the sheriff called you?"

  "No."

  "Is Rachel inside?"

  Malcolm shook his head. "We had a f
ight. She left."

  "Left? Where'd she go?"

  "No, I didn't mean 'left' left." He pointed to the shed. "She's in there, blasting her damn music." I could actually hear the music all the way up here. Apparently Rachel used hard rock to blow off steam after a family spat.

  "She could be in serious danger."

  "From who? What happened to your face?"

  There wasn't time to give a full explanation of the wacky misunderstandings that had led to our current predicament, so I just blurted out: "Allen's the one who hurt Rachel!"

  "What?"

  "It was him. He was in a costume. He's the one who did that to Rachel's face, and he tried to do the same thing to me, and now he's on his way to hurt her again."

  Malcolm gaped at me as if a giant erect penis had suddenly sprouted from my forehead.

  "I know, it's a lot to take in," I said. "We need to get Rachel in here."

  "I want you to pretend for a moment that I'm mentally retarded," said Malcolm. "What exactly are you saying?"

  "You. Killed. The. Wrong. Guy."

  Malcolm looked like he was going to puke.

  "Don't get me wrong, Brandon was still a piece of shit," I said. "But he was mostly innocent. Allen, meanwhile, is acting like he's off every one of his meds."

  "You stay here," Malcolm told me. "If you move, I'll shoot you."

  I decided to take him at his word and didn't move as he walked off the porch and went over to Rachel's shed. He knocked on the door and said something that I couldn't hear. A moment later, he returned to the porch.

  "She told me to go fuck myself, so that's good," he said. "Let's go inside."

  "We can't! You have to bring her over here!"

  "You can see her door and her window from inside. Unless he breaks through her back wall, we'll see him." He pointed the shotgun at me. "Get inside."

  I went inside and hurried into the kitchen so I could watch through the window. Malcolm followed, leaving his front door open, presumably in case we needed to rush out there to blow Allen away.

  "How could I have known?" Malcolm asked. "Who else would it have been? It doesn't make any sense."

  "I'm not here to point fingers," I said. "This isn't about what you did five years ago. This is about what's happening right now."