When he was ready to move, he crawled out of the blow down and carefully looked around. Opening his bag, he removed the crossbow and began assembling it. “Adrian is in for a big surprise, and not a happy one,” he said out loud. Then he began laughing.
CHAPTER 23
April 2, early afternoon
W
hatever was moving toward him
was moving slowly. Adrian listened and waited. It could be Rex. It was moving slower than he would expect a hog or coyote to move. It was moving with such slowness that it was clear that it was trying to be stealthy. Sweat ran down his mosquito bite-ravaged face, setting up a fierce itching sensation. He carefully drew in a full mouthful of water and slowly swallowed it, then another one. Hunger had initially bothered him, but had receded to a dull sensation. He flexed and released all the muscle groups over and over. He wanted as much blood flow as possible, but he was careful to not move even a tiny bit otherwise.
The silent area was at the edge of his vision when he saw Rex—or part of Rex. He was moving with extreme care and slowness. When Rex reached the point where he could see the decoy body, he stopped. Rex didn’t move for over an hour, only turning his head slowly to scan around him. Twice, he looked directly to where Adrian lay, but displayed no sign of alarm or interest in the area. He was not in a spot where Adrian could move to shoot him without giving himself away too soon. Adrian was no longer aware of the itching or thirst or anything else. He was completely focused on Rex, and Rex was alone.
Rex stayed still for so long that the birds and squirrels had lost interest and had gone back to their normal movements and sounds. Rex began to move again, this time even more slowly than before. As he gradually came into full view, Adrian was surprised to see that Rex was carrying a crossbow, his rifle slung over his shoulder. Ever so slowly, Rex moved to a new position where he could see the body more clearly, but still he did not move into Adrian’s target area. He was within range, but wasn’t positioned at a good angle.
Rex stopped and pulled out a pair of binoculars and studied the body for a solid fifteen minutes without moving. Then he began to move back again, to Adrian’s right and further away. Rex disappeared. Adrian didn’t know if he had figured out it wasn’t his body or not. With the leaves strewn across it, the damage done by the hog, and the flesh swelling up, Adrian knew it would be damned hard for Rex to be certain. He hoped he wouldn’t leave the area without giving Adrian a shot.
Adrian closed his eyes and concentrated on listening again. He wondered why Rex would use a crossbow. It didn’t have the range of a rifle, and once the shooting started, noise would no longer matter. Rex would only get one shot with it, then he would either have to take the time to reload, or take off back into the woods and get his rifle off his back and into position. It didn’t make sense. Giving up trying to decipher Rex’s thinking, Adrian listened and waited.
Patience
, he kept thinking,
I’ll probably only get one clear shot. Patience, patience; make that one shot count.
April 2, mid afternoon
Rex was moving so slowly that it was difficult to tell where he was. There was a sudden flutter of wings, and the sounds of a squirrel running through the leaves and scurrying up a tree trunk gave Adrian a fairly precise idea of where Rex was. Adrian listened, catching an occasional clue. Rex was getting closer to Adrian, coming up behind him. Knowing the terrain, Adrian guessed where Rex was moving to for a different view of the body. Rex smelled a trap, no doubt of that. Adrian had known he would, but then again, it was just barely possible enough that it was Adrian’s body down there that Rex would have to take the time to thoroughly check it out—he couldn’t afford not to. Even if Rex moved away, Adrian would find him. He would slowly rise up from his position and become the hunter, and Rex the hunted. It would end this day, one way or another. Adrian was satisfied his trap had performed its function, even if Rex left the area without giving Adrian a shot.
Rex was moving closer again, toward the body. He was definitely angling for a better look. Adrian waited, and waited, and still had to wait. Slowly, parts of Rex became visible again to Adrian’s extreme right field of view. There was a break in the brush that Rex was headed for. It would be a spot where Adrian could take a shot, but he would have to rise up while twisting to get into alignment first. If Rex reached that spot and began backing away again, Adrian knew he would have take his best shot. He would have to move extremely fast, risking that his muscles weren’t too tight. He would have less than a second to move and fire.
Extremely slowly, Rex moved to the notch in the brush. He was extraordinarily cautious, slowly rotating his head from side to side, looking at everything with focus. He was clearly suspicious of a trap, but wasn’t sure of it. He reached the spot. Taking his binoculars out again in super slow motion, he studied the body. Adrian noticed a very slight tensing of Rex’s body. He knew this meant he had decided it wasn’t Adrian down there. If he had thought it was Adrian, he wouldn’t have tensed that little bit. Rex now knew it was a trap, and began moving back again. He was forty yards away. Adrian tensed all his muscles at the same time, relaxed them, and then rose up as quickly as he could to his knees while twisting his torso to bring the rifle to bear. His body screamed in protest, his muscles nearly locking up completely. Rex immediately saw him and twisted toward him, bringing up the crossbow at the same time Adrian brought up the rifle. They both fired at the same time.
Adrian’s muscles spasamed as he fired, his aim thrown off enough that he barely hit Rex’s shoulder, not a disabling wound. Rex’s snap shot with the crossbow was on target, hitting Adrian to the left of the center of his chest, the missile burying into Adrian.
Rex immediately disappeared back into the brush before Adrian could shoot again. Adrian looked down at his chest, expecting to see an arrow sticking out of it. He stared in disbelief for a full two seconds before it registered that he was looking at a serum dart—the type used to tranquilize large animals. He had no idea what had just been injected into him, whether it was poison or a tranquilizer. He realized he might only have seconds left to live and jerked out the dart, jumping to his feet and running as fast as he could toward the shotgun booby trap he had set earlier. His muscles were cramping and screaming after so long without motion. As he ran, he felt his legs shutting down. He could no longer feel his feet, and his legs were wildly out of control. Adrian staggered and fell next to the trip line, falling on his back. His last hope was that Rex would trip the line and get hit by the buckshot when he came to investigate Adrian’s condition. Rex had the upper hand now; he could shoot him from a distance or walk up close and shoot him from close range. Adrian’s hoped the paralysis would be temporary, and that Rex would come closer to gloat and in the process trip the wire. It wasn’t much of a hope. Even if Rex tripped the wire, the odds of him being in line with the shotgun and getting hit were at best 50/50.
He was completely paralyzed now; he couldn’t even blink. He lay staring up at the sky, conscious and aware of his surroundings. He lay there for what seemed like hours but was, in fact, only minutes. He was still breathing, but shallowly. He heard Rex walking toward him, not trying to conceal the sound of his footsteps in the dry leaves. Then Rex’s face loomed over him, looking down at him with the cruelest rictus of a smile that Adrian had ever seen. Rex was jubilant in his victory. He looked as if he had just received the absolute greatest gift that could ever have come his way. His eyes were malignant, evil.
Rex said, “You can’t possibly imagine how much I have dreamed of this moment. How often I have pictured it. How absolutely driven I have been to have you like this. I have plans for you, Adrian, really big plans. Guess what? I’m not going to kill you…but when I’m finished with you, you’ll pray for death every second of every day that you live, and I think you’re going to live for a long, long time, thanks to your hospital. How’s that for irony? And guess what else? You won’t be able to kill yourself, no matter how badly you’re going to want to. Oh, this is perfect, just fucking wonderfully perfect!”
“I’ve dreamed of this, planned for this, and the plan is brilliant—absolutely brilliant. At first, I intended to amputate your arms and legs and then sew them up. But I was afraid that that amount of trauma would kill you, or that you would get an infection and die. So I worked it out to do the same thing in another way. I brought these plumber’s hose clamps, see?” Rex held a clamp over Adrian’s face. Adrian saw a metal strap with little slots cut in it and a screw mechanism to tighten it, like on a car’s radiator hose, only larger. “I’m going to put these on your arms and legs, way up high on each one, then tighten the hell out of them. It will cut off the blood to your limbs, and by the time you’re found, they’ll have to be amputated. The amputation will be done by your doctor at your hospital to save your life. Oh, he’ll hate to do it, but he will do it. You know how doctors are—got to save that life, right?
“The rest is quick and simple: I’ll cut out your tongue and cauterize it with a hot knife to stop the bleeding. You’ll enjoy that, won’t you? Then a screwdriver, driven into each ear to burst the eardrums so you won’t be able to hear. Oh, I’ll heat it up until it’s red-hot first so there won’t be any bacteria to infect you—beautiful, eh? The screwdriver that tightens the clamp serves three purposes. Last but most certainly not least, I push the red-hot screwdriver slowly into your eyes, blinding you in a most exquisite way.
“You see what will be left? No arms, no legs, can’t talk, can’t hear, and can’t see—oh, and bonus! You won’t be able to taste the baby food they feed you. You’ll be able to feel sensations in your body, and think, oh you’ll think a lot. You’ll have Itches you can’t scratch, and pains that you can’t do anything about except endure. Your mind will be locked into a dark place with no input except pain. You’ll go insane, and best of all, you’ll stay insane and won’t be able to do a damn thing about it except hate me, hate knowing that I am still alive and whole. You’ll spend the rest of your life in impotent rage and hate. I’ll enjoy that; I’ll think about it all the time. For as long as you live, I will be laughing my ass off at you. But wait, there’s more! As they said on TV. When I know you’re dead, I’m going to come back and kill your family, one at a vicious time.
“You can ponder on that and try to stay alive as long as possible, hoping I die before you do.” Rex started laughing, a wild, cacophonous laughter. Then suddenly, he stopped laughing and just leered at Adrian.
Adrian watched Rex’s insane face, listened to his insane plan, and knew Rex would do exactly what he said. He knew Rex was right: trapped inside his brain like that, he would go insane and suffer agonies he could never imagine in his worst nightmares. Adrian couldn’t close his eyes to stop looking up into that leering face above him. He realized that once Rex began putting the clamp on his right arm, he was done for, there would be nothing left he could do. There was only one thing he could try to do, a once normally inconsequential movement, and the odds were so stacked against him that it was a forlorn hope at best. But since it was the one and only thing that he could try to do, he would put everything he had into doing it.
Rex hadn’t tripped the tripwire. He apparently hadn’t seen it, either. Rex was squatted down more or less in line with the shotgun. If he would only move his arm two inches, he’d release the trip wire. Two tiny inches. If Rex picked that arm up to put on the clamp, it would be impossible to do it. It had to be now, while he was in full gloating mode, before he began to actually put the clamp on. Rex sounded like he would go on talking for a long time, but then again, Rex was aware of how long the paralysis would last, and Adrian wasn’t. Adrian began by mentally closing his eyes. He couldn’t physically close his eyes, but he could pretend they were closed and try to quit seeing that hate filled face. He didn’t need that distraction. He also turned Rex’s words into a buzzing noise—much less irritating. Then he began focusing his full consciousness on one thing and one thing only: moving that right arm onto the trip wire. A small movement under normal circumstances. A herculean task now.
Adrian couldn’t feel his body. If he moved his arm, he wouldn’t know it. He couldn’t turn his head to see it. If his arm started to move, he wouldn’t be aware of it. He knew that any doctor would have told him it was physically impossible. As Adrian considered all this in the span of a few seconds, he considered that the serum must be at least three years old and might have weakened over time. Although Rex couldn’t tell it, Adrian was no longer paying him any attention. Rex might as well not have been there.
Adrian began concentrating on his right elbow. He intensely imagined bending that elbow up and to his right, and then letting the arm fall. Such a small thing. He focused, really focused every bit of his mind on that small action. He visualized it, saw it in his mind’s eye as happening, put every fiber of his being into making it happen. He made himself believe, really truly believe that his arm was up and over the tripwire, made himself believe it with every shred of his being, and then he visualized letting go, letting the arm drop.
As he did, he heard a rustle of leaves immediately to his right, then a huge booming sound. Rex made a startled noise. Then there was silence for a second, and Rex said, “Damn you to hell! Damn—” followed by gurgling sounds. Adrian couldn’t see Rex; he was out of his cone of vision. He heard what sounded like a body falling, then a short period of thrashing. Then silence. Complete, blessed silence.
Adrian lay immobile, paralyzed and numb. He watched leaves fall, clouds move across the sky, the light disappear as the sun set. After a while, he could see stars moving across the sky through the tree limbs. He didn’t know if he would ever move again, but he was content with whatever fate brought him now. Even if a wild hog found him and ate him alive, it would be better than what Rex had planned and almost succeeded at.