Henry’s pants were really soaked now. He felt consciousness draining out of him along with his strength, blood and all hopes of survival. The vision before him—of a monstrous hobo elbow-deep in his girlfriend’s guts—began to darken, his thoughts slipping away.
He let his body go limp. Let his eyes fall shut.
And the last thing he heard before he passed out was the shrill cry of his newborn son…
~
In the red glow of the ambulance’s tail-lights Lt. Teddy “Bear” Warner’s fat face looked like a hairy blood blister ready to pop. Training his gaze on Doctor Levine, holding out his hands and raising his eyebrows the way he’d learned at that ‘Assertiveness Training’ seminar, he said: “Now, I used to work Transit...”
“No,” the Doc interrupted, shaking his head. “Teddy, don’t even try...”
“Now hold on, just wait, just a sec,” Teddy said. “When I worked in Transit we saw stuff like this all the time. Hell!” He waved his hand at the carnage over his shoulder. “This ain’t even the craziest shit I ever saw. There was a time this suicidal fellah knelt down in front of a train and when they scraped his body off the tracks they couldn’t find the head. We had thirty men searching a mile of track for that head. Two full days and nights we were down there combing every last inch of it and we couldn’t find the damn thing. Finally we give up and then when the coroner’s cuttin’ this guy open—wouldn’t you know it—there it is. The guy got hit so hard, it pushed his head down through his neck and into his chest!”
“Teddy, this woman’s baby isn’t in her chest,” said the Doc. “Not in her stomach neither, nor anywhere else around here.”
“All I’m saying is that crazy stuff can happen in these kind of accidents. She’s going into labor, he’s speeding and who knows what happens after they hit the ice? And don’t you think something like what I’m suggesting is a little more likely than...”
“Teddy, please…” the Doc said, battling to control his temper. “Just presume I know my job for one moment, okay? The baby is gone. Taken. Cut out and taken.”
“Teddy!” Sgt Sam Bucksee emerged from the side of the ambulance, his pants marked from where he’d knelt in the snow. “I’ve got tracks over here, headed into the trees. Man and dog. Plus some blood, looks like.”
Dr. Levine held out his hand toward Bucksee and glowered at Teddy over his spectacles—a visual communication of the question ‘well?’
“You sure about that?” Teddy asked Bucksee.
“Yes sir,” the Sergeant answered. “Damn sure.”
Teddy sighed. “All right. I’ll have to call the Sheriff.”
“Call the Sheriff?” the Doc sputtered. “Teddy, we don’t have time!”
“It’ll take twenty minutes for him to get down here,” said Teddy. “An hour tops.”
“An hour might be all this kid has!”
“There’s a certain way to do things...”
“A certain way ain’t the fucking way, Teddy!”
“With respect, sir,” Bucksee interjected. “I wouldn’t wait around. There’s a fresh snow-front moving in from the east. Soon as it gets here the trail’s gone.”
Teddy looked up at the clear night sky, twinkling with stars, then back at Bucksee, wondering which of the Sergeant’s Native American senses had informed him of this meteorological bombshell. “You sure about that?” he repeated, more hysterical this time.
The answer came from over his shoulder, from Officer Pete McGavern, leaning against the open door of his truck. “He’s right,” he said, grinning sadistically beneath his gray mustache. “They’ve been saying the same thing on the radio.”
“Damn it,” Teddy muttered, casting a fearful eye to where the body of the woman lay, her abdomen splayed open like a burst balloon.
Dr. Levine took a step closer, lowering his voice. “A child ripped from its mother’s womb is the most vulnerable thing in the world,” he said. “It’s fifteen degrees below out here and gonna get a hell of a lot colder before the night is out. I can’t even tell you this kid’s odds if we don’t move now.”
“If it’s even still alive,” Teddy said.
“That’s right,” the Doc answered, his resolve unwavering. “If.”
~
Teddy gathered together what he could from the men and equipment available. Sam Bucksee was a given, leading the way into the woods. Doc Levine, too. The paramedics made a gift of whatever items he asked for, including a thermal absorbent blanket and head cover suitable for a newborn. Then there was Officer Pete McGavern, who elected to bring along the M4 carbine assault rifle from his truck, and Teddy’s young cousin Gale, driver of the auto-recovery vehicle that would be taking what was left of the Chevy away.
It was Gale, now with a shotgun slung over his shoulder, who did most of the talking on the trail. Kid never shut up.
“So, Bucksee, was it, like, your dad who taught you how to track ’n shit? One of the tribal elders or some such?”
“Jesus Christ, Gale,” Teddy exclaimed.
“That ain’t racist,” Gale protested. “He’s a Kickapoo Injun tracking for the Sheriff’s Office. Just showin’ interest in his heritage, is all!”
“’S all right,” Bucksee answered, his eyes on the ground ahead. “My dad was a store clerk, son. But he knew a thing or two. So you’re not so far wrong.”
“See?” said Gale, shooting a look of vindication to the others.
“Hey, I know where we are,” said Pete McGavern, changing the subject. “This ain’t a half mile from where the Arlen cabin used to be.”
“What are you talking about, Pete?” said Teddy.
“The Doc might know,” said McGavern. “Hey Doc!” he shouted, needlessly. “You ever hear of Skunk Arlen?”
“Jesus,” the Doc replied. “I haven’t heard that name in... maybe fifty years.”
“Yeah.” McGavern grinned. “See…Skunk Arlen and his pop Tick were a pair of poachers lived in a cabin just east of here along the Crick.”
“The what?” said Gale. “The creek?”
“Crick,” said McGavern. “With an I. Nobody calls it the ‘creek,’ boy. There used to be all kinds of colorful characters living on the Crick before the mine shut down. One such being Tick Arlen and another being Lynne Tavish, a widow who let Tick come’n shoot his load up inside her twice a month. Was a service she offered to a lot of lonely men on the Crick, and was popular too, on account of she only charged a couple bucks and didn’t make any of ’em wear a rubber. Whenever she had a pregnancy scare she just shot herself full of a douche of Coca-Cola ’n Ajax ’n that was that.”
“Christ,” Teddy moaned.
McGavern chuckled. “Except for one time it didn’t do the trick and she ended up giving birth to twins—boy and girl. She laid the blame square on Tick, who agreed to raise the boy, naming him Skunk ’cause…he was a fuckin’ retard or some shit.”
“’Cause he stank like a dead dog,” said the Doc. “Way I heard it.”
“Stink or no,” McGavern continued, “when he gets to be fifteen years old, Tick takes a paternal interest in the boy’s virginity, thinking it’s about time he had his cherry popped. And bein’ that Tick ain’t the imaginative sort—or just downright sick in the head—he takes the boy along the Crick to Lynne Tavish, who by now has got herself out of the cock-sucking racket, discovering she can make a lot more green by lettin’ the menfolk shoot their load up inside her little girl instead. Named her Peggy. And Skunk, not knowing she’s his sister—or not caring—fuckin’ falls in love. Gets it in his head he and Peggy are meant to be together, but knows the only way that can happen is if the folks are out the way. So he comes back after dark and sticks Momma Lynne through the eye with a tent peg. And not wanting his pop to try and chase after him, while he’s sleeping, he ties him to the bed with barbed wire. Dumb old Tick, when he wakes up, tries to wriggle free and slashes his stomach open. Poor son of a bitch dies of septicemia, while Skunk and Peggy disappear into the woods.”
“That’s a hell of a story, Pete,” said Levine. “Not exactly the way I heard it, but...”
“Oh, I got a hundred of ’em,” said McGavern. “Just as nasty.”
“Anyone ever catch Skunk and Peggy?” asked Gale.
“Nope.” McGavern grinned wider than ever. “No, they never did.”
“Hold up,” said Teddy, raising his hand. Bucksee had halted a few steps ahead, flashlight held low. “Everything all right, Sam?” Teddy hissed.
“Nope,” the Sergeant replied, grimly. “Can’t say it is.” He raised the flashlight, pointing it toward the nearest tree, just above eye level.
Teddy’s eyes followed the beam and saw what it revealed—a tiny human skull, fixed in place to the trunk by a nail through the eye socket. “Oh Jesus...”
“Is that what I think it is?” said McGavern.
“Is it... y’know...” Gale stammered. “Is it... the kid?”
“Doubt it,” Bucksee answered, and swung the flashlight around to the tree on his left, where a second small skull was secured.
“Oh Jesus,” Teddy repeated. His hand went instinctively to the pistol on his hip. “What the hell?”
“There’s another one,” said the Doc, stomping across to a third tree on the left, getting close enough to touch the toothless white ornament that adorned it. “Baby skulls,” he said, giving a careful examination to the specimen nearest him. “Can’t be from a kid more than eighteen months old. Not sure how long it’s been here, not an expert. But going on wear and tear... I’d reckon years.”
“I don’t like this,” said Gale. “What is it? A warning? I mean... who in the hell does this?”
“Five’ll get you ten... Skunk Arlen,” McGavern sniffed. “No other fucker’d be sick enough.”
“Oh shit-can the fairy tales, Pete,” Teddy snapped, turning back to Bucksee. “What do we do, Sam? This means we’ve got to be close, right?”
Bucksee nodded. “There’s a clearing. Just there. The trail leads us right into it, but...”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t feel right.”
Teddy cast a glance to the tiny baby skull over his shoulder. “Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean. Can we go around?”
Sam shrugged. “Maybe.” He pointed east. “I think if we—”
The next sound out of his mouth wasn’t a word. It was an involuntary expulsion of air and red froth, issuing forth as his jaw came free from his head. It spun away into the bracken along with the burst of blood, brain, and bone that escaped from his skull as the bullet from a Winchester rifle passed through at 2,900 feet per second. Taking the shot in the left side of his face, Bucksee fell hard to the right, hitting the ground even before Teddy.
And Teddy dropped fast. Blood in his beard and “fuck” issuing loudly and repeatedly from his lips, he dove for the snow like it was the deep end of an Olympic-size swimming pool and shoved his back up against the nearest tree trunk.
The others scrambled for cover of their own. Teddy couldn’t see them, but he could hear their cries of confusion and heels desperately kicking at frozen dirt, followed by a short, sharp blast from McGavern’s M4. “C’mon then, you murderin’ son of a bitch!” he yelled.
“Where’s he at, Pete?” Teddy hollered, casting a glance at the spreading pool of blood under Bucksee’s shattered head.
“Fuck if I know,” McGavern answered from the darkness. “Just lettin’ him know we’re out here.”
The crack of the Winchester echoed again through the trees as a flurry of snow not two feet from Teddy funneled into the air. “Shit!” Teddy cried. “I think he knows.” The same rifle sounded again, this time sending a bullet into the side of Teddy’s tree, showering him in splinters. “Shit!”
“Turn off your fuckin’ flashlight, Teddy!” McGavern yelled.
Teddy looked down to see the beaming light in his hand. Cursing himself for being a moron, he switched it off and drew his pistol. The darkness helped. The rifle fire ceased.
“Okay,” he said to himself, trying to will his heart not to explode. “Everyone all right?”
“We’re okay,” the Doc answered from the shadows. “Is Sam dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus...”
Teddy looked again to Bucksee’s body. The shooter was close. Real close to make a shot like that through the trees in the dark. Maybe within pistol range. Certainly close enough for McGavern to get him with the M4. If they could just pinpoint a little better where he was...
Keeping his back against the tree, he pushed himself up into a crouching position and leaned out as far as he dared. “Arlen?” he called, taking a chance. “Skunk Arlen?”
A few seconds passed in silence, then, “Yeah?”
“I don’t fuckin’ believe it,” McGavern muttered.
“Arlen, this is Lieutenant Teddy Warner of the Sheriff’s Office! I’ve got a whole lot of armed men with me, so I would advise you to drop any weapons and come walking out with your hands over your head!”
Skunk was quiet for a few moments more, then hollered: “What do y’all want?” He sounded high-pitched and hoarse. The voice of a ragged old man.
Teddy almost laughed. “The kid, Arlen! We’re here for the kid!”
“Keep him talking, Teddy,” McGavern hissed. Sounded like he was on his feet, his boots crunching away through the trees. “I’m going to get a bead on this fucker.”
“We know you cut it right out of its mother!” Teddy shouted. “You tell me now—is it still alive?”
“Sure he’s alive,” Skunk answered, quickly this time. “I wouldn’t hurt a helpless little baby.”
“That so? Cos there’s a shit-load of skulls nailed to trees out here that would seem to suggest otherwise!”
“Naw, naaww... Them’s my kids! I would never... We always wanted young ’uns of us own! We tried! We tried so many times, but all the little ones we had…they were just too weak! Either born dead or died soon after!”
“So you nailed their skulls to fuckin’ trees? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I do right by my own!” Skunk yelled. “In my own way! All I ever wanted—all I EVER wanted—was to give my Peggy the child she deserved! But this one? Little Skunk Junior? He’s strong! Strong like his Pop! You must’a seen what he survived! He’s a miracle! You must’a seen that! And the Good Lord sent him to us!”
“You’re not his pop, Arlen!” Teddy yelled back. “His pop’s in the emergency room right now fightin’ for his life! And the Good Lord sent us to take his kid back!”
Skunk didn’t say anything to that. Not for a few moments. When he next spoke he was quieter, less emotional. “Y’all can try,” he said, then whistled. Two long, shrill notes.
Teddy didn’t quite know what to make of that.
Officer Pete McGavern, meanwhile, had navigated his way around to the left of the clearing, and hoped he was coming up on Skunk’s flank. A shiver of movement in the bushes over his shoulder, however, made him think twice. Hunkering down, he raised the rifle, sweeping his eyes across the undergrowth, struggling to make out details in the dark.
This was okay. McGavern wasn’t the kind to get scared in these kind of situations. He was an experienced hunter, default position very still and very quiet. If it was too dark—which it was—he held his breath, closed his eyes and listened.
What he heard was the slow panting of a wolf. And it came from right behind him.
He turned, but not nearly fast enough. The animal barreled into him, paws knocking the rifle from his hand, its full weight shoving him to the ground, jaws snapping at his neck. By the time he got his hand on his sidearm it was already too late, the wolf’s teeth digging deep into his throat. When it pulled its head back most of his windpipe came with it, arterial spray painting the snow with his blood. The wolf spat the soggy chunk of flesh into the bushes and ran, taking off in the direction of Gale and the Doc. McGavern, abandoned, shot up onto his knees and fir
ed his pistol three times into the shadows where the beast had stood. His free hand grasped at his neck, touching only hot liquid and meat. Nothing to salvage, no way to survive, he sank down, wilting like a pin-stuck inflatable, and fell face forward into the snow.
Teddy heard the shots. Peeking out from the side of his tree he yelled: “McGavern? Pete?”
His answer was two more gunshots—a shotgun, this time—and a scream that sounded like Gale’s. Then came Doc Levine, running out of the trees and into the middle of the clearing, waving his arms over his head in mindless panic and shouting “Don’t shoot! I’m unarmed!” till SNAP! he stopped and dropped, his leg caught in the teeth of a bear trap.
“Damn it, Doc!” Teddy yelled, getting only screams of agony by way of reply, before another blast from Skunk’s rifle chipped away the bark an inch above his head.
Teddy ducked right, certain Skunk could see him, and tried to make a break for new cover. Another gunshot and flurry of snow sent him tripping backwards again, completely pinned. “Jesus FUCK!” he yelled.
“Teddy!” the Doc shouted. “I see him! He’s in the walnut tree! The walnut tree!”
Teddy took another glance, thinking Which one’s the fucking walnut tree? Then he saw it. A tall, thick trunk of pale wood, sprouting up into six long, bare branches, just a dozen yards from where Levine lay. Giving it a proper look for the first time, Teddy saw that pieces of wood had been hammered into the trunk, winding up around it like a spiral staircase and reinforced by a banister of rusted sheet metal. As he watched, up over the banister appeared a white-haired head and plastic-covered shoulders, bending a rifle toward the Doc who, sprawling, trapped and helpless, put his hands in front of his face and screamed: “No! Please! No, no, no! Don’t!”
Teddy popped out a knee, raised his pistol and let off four rounds. Too quick to be accurate, but it at least sent Skunk ducking back into cover.
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