The Book of Paul -- A Paranormal Thriller (26 page)

Clump, clump, clump
. Rose was having a hard time. Not only was Martin getting heavier with each step, but her thoughts weighed on her even more as she struggled to make sense of everything that had happened in the last fifteen minutes. She had been in a
gunfight
. Martin had been
shot
. He killed
four people.
She
helped
him
.
And now they were going up the stairs…not going to the cops…not going to the hospital…going up the stairs…so Martin could get some medical attention for that
exit
wound
from this wide-eyed maniac and his scraggly sidekick. What was she
thinking?

She was weird. No doubt about it. She looked weird, dressed weird, had a weird job, weird friends and a weird sex life. But this other guy was W-E-I-R-D. For one thing, he stank. She didn’t know which was worse, the smell of evaporating whiskey wafting off his skin or the moldy perspiration clinging beneath. The way he looked at her was even stranger. Did he know her from somewhere? Did he want to fuck her? Kill her? Both? And what was the deal with him and Martin?

As she struggled to support his increasingly sagging weight, it occurred to her that she didn’t know anything more about Martin than she did about his two creepy friends lagging behind, neither one lifting a finger to help or saying a single word to break the uneasy silence. Nothing about Martin made any sense. He was a walking (not talking) contradiction. He was older, late-thirties at least, though his body looked like a Calvin Klein underwear ad. He fought those punks like Bruce Lee, yet acted like a sullen teenager. What did she really know about him? He could fix a sink. He liked soft sheets. He fucked like a starved animal. And he was deadly. Deadly and
experienced
. Anyone capable of killing two armed men with such relative ease must have done something similar at least once before.

Fuck. Martin was a killer, like her father. Was he crazy too?

She thought of her dad again, remembering how people stared at her, whispering when she kissed him one last time before they took him away. She pictured the screaming headlines and his raving letters…the ones she couldn’t bear to open anymore.

Clump. Clump. Clump. Shit. Shit. Shit.
She’d been with plenty of bad boys. Now that she had one more flight of stairs to think about it, she wondered if her outlaw fetish had more to do with her father than she could comfortably admit. Bad dad. Bad boys. Bad men, actually. Almost all her boyfriends were quite a bit older and marginally criminal types. Drug dealers. Tattoo freaks. Rockers. Anything that looked good in leather. But the daddy parallel didn’t hold up so well when it came to her unfathomable feelings for this strange, childlike lug she was lugging up the stairs…and it didn’t give her a clue what to do about the completely insane situation she was embroiled in. Should she make some excuse and run down the stairs as fast as she could? Martin’s fucked-up friends would help him, right? She glanced at the smelly guy behind her and quickly looked away when she saw his angry stare. Then she looked at Martin and felt so protective she cursed herself again for being so foolish. She couldn’t leave him. Not now. Not with them. He needed her.

Maybe she was letting her imagination run away with her again. Martin wasn’t some cold-blooded murderer! He was acting in self-defense! So was she! He was probably an ex-soldier…maybe a marine with that buzz-cut. His big, stinky friend looked like a grizzled ’Nam vet…and the young one was wearing an army coat too.

Rose relaxed her shoulders and tightened her grip on Martin’s arm. Then she thought about the way Martin handled himself with those drug dealers again. Even though some of her old beaus seemed very tough indeed, she couldn’t imagine any of them doing what Martin had done. At least not with that kind of…flair.

He’s like James Bond or something,
she thought, recalling how he used that punk’s body as a shield while she clawed at the other guy’s eyes with her nail file.

I did pretty good myself,
she thought with a swell of pride. Then she realized the total insanity of her glorified recollection.
Jesus! What’s happening to me?
She searched for an answer but the echoing sound of boot steps on the staircase was all she heard in reply.

When they finally reached the landing, Rose assumed they would be continuing up the next flight of stairs to her own apartment. She began to steer Martin in that direction when he shook his head and nudged his chin toward his own door instead.

Paul wasn’t missing a thing, dissecting every nuance of their silent communication like a behavioral psychologist. She lives upstairs. He’s been there before. She hasn’t been inside his apartment. Doesn’t know what to expect. Interesting. Very interesting.

Martin saw Paul’s gears turning and lowered his head ruefully, wondering how much worse things would get now that Paul knew where she lived.

Michael crept up the stairs behind everyone else, not sure what he was supposed to be doing, trying not to think about it. Looking at Rose made it easier. His eyes were riveted to her tiny ass. As they climbed higher, he deliberately backed off a few more steps so he could sneak a peek up her tight black vinyl skirt.
No undies! Whoa! Check out those piercings!

He started counting the rings as he followed them up the stairs. One…two…three…

He banged his fist on the railing as they reached the landing and turned the corner.

Martin dug his good hand into his pocket, pulling out the thick ring of keys for his myriad combination of locks. He looked over his shoulder to gauge what Paul was thinking. He returned his glance with a sweaty grin and a leer at the back of Rose’s head.

Before he unbolted half the locks, Martin wished he were turning the key in the exact opposite direction. From the other side of the door.

Rose helped Martin lie down across the clean Formica kitchen table (with the two spare leaves added to give it three extra feet of length). She gingerly removed his shirt and had to cover her mouth to keep the horrified gasp inside. A thick chunk of flesh had been blown out, leaving a large piece of gore flimsily attached to a flap of skin. Blood was leaking out profusely.

Paul wasn’t fazed in the least. Martin let out a sigh of relief as he gauged Paul’s reaction. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea having him here after all.

“Where’s yer kit?” Paul asked gruffly.

“Under the sink,” Martin grunted. “Blood’s in the fridge.”

Rose’s mouth gaped in a “What the fuck?” pantomime.

Paul reached under the sink and pulled out a generic plastic toolbox. Inside was a full array of gauze, scalpels, needles, sutures, field dressings, antibiotics…everything he’d been taught by Paul to keep on hand for any emergency, like self-surgery. There were even four ampoules of morphine should a rare circumstance arise where the only way to keep a steady hand during the procedure was to take the edge off the pain.

Paul scoffed at the sight of it. “You won’t be needing this crap, will you, Martin?”

Even though Martin would have vastly preferred a quick shot in the ass, and would have done so himself if he’d been left to his own devices, he knew what the correct response was if he wanted to get the best care possible. “No.”

“Glad to hear it.” Paul nodded.

“Wait a second!” Rose piped up. “He’s in pain!” They were the first words she’d spoken in five minutes. She’d been trying to keep her mouth shut about these guys out of consideration for Martin, assuming that they must be his friends. But what kind of friend doesn’t let you take painkillers when you have a bullet hole through your torso?

“Just so’s ya know, little girl…Martin knows a lot more about pain than you ever will, even with all those nasty little pins stickin’ every which way out of your painted hide!”

Paul breathed hard and leaned over her like the Ghost of Christmas Future, daring her to say anything. She didn’t. Satisfied, Paul let out another “Hhmph!” and got back to work. He opened the fridge, took out a pint of whole blood and started slapping Martin’s veins below his bicep. Martin remained silent, knowing he needed every ounce of strength for the ordeal to follow. Talking wasn’t an option. Neither was screaming, even when Paul jammed the IV tube into a vein with enough force to drive a pencil through a two-by-four.

Paul closed the bullet entry wound with only three stitches. He did it with such quick facility that Martin barely let out a gasp as the needle and thread pulled his skin tautly together. When Paul bit off the excess suture, even Rose remained quiet, much to Martin’s added relief, watching the big man’s dexterous movements in awe. Being somewhat of a self-taught surgeon herself, she couldn’t help feel a kindred admiration when she witnessed someone with such obvious mastery
.
She also felt a tingle of longing as she saw the curved needle dip into Martin’s flesh again and again. As much as she wanted to cling to her protective feelings, it was hard for a pain junkie like herself to get too upset by what Paul was doing. Especially when it started looking good to her.

Martin, like herself, was indeed no stranger to pain, just as Paul had said. He breathed the same way she did when she was pierced (also without anesthesia, of course). She could feel the way he moved into the pain, not away from it. She could also see that he was even better at it than she was. That made her feel a little jealous, but she felt closer to him too.

See, we do have something in common,
she thought, adding another lame rationalization to her quickly lengthening list.

Michael was craning his neck to watch the operation with equal enthusiasm. “Cool,” he said with a grin, as Paul tugged at the final suture.

Rose looked at Bean oddly for a moment, then noticed how many piercings he had in his face.
Birds of a feather.

Paul watched the two of them and felt his desire surge even more than it had on the stoop.
I love this new generation.

“Okay, Martin, let’s flip over,” he said. Rose and Michael let out involuntary gasps as the flap of skin attached to Martin’s wound didn’t quite make the turn with him.

“It’s liable to get a bit noisy now,” Paul declared. “Michael, turn on the TV set. Loud.”

Bean zoomed over to the television, turned it on and cranked it up. He zoomed back just as quickly, not wanting to miss a second of this.

Rose was still prepared to make a fuss if Martin wasn’t able to cope without medication. At the same time, she found herself wondering how much pain he could take. She also found herself getting aroused, which elicited a wave of shame she hadn’t felt since her days at the Catholic school her foster parents made her attend. She stuffed it down quickly and readied herself for the second act.

Paul put on a pair of surgical gloves rather dramatically and poured half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide into the still bleeding wound. He followed with a thick index finger, making sure he worked the fluid into all the nooks and crannies. When the peroxide poured in, Martin felt like his eyeballs were turning inside out. When the finger followed, he almost passed out. But he didn’t scream, did he? Martin knew the less he screamed, the less chance there would be for Rose to say something fatally foolish to Paul in his defense.

Rose and Michael’s mouths hung open in disbelief when Martin clenched his teeth without uttering a sound. Paul nodded with respect and admiration right along with them. Michael was so impressed he couldn’t stop himself from adding some vocal commentary, “Whoa, dude! That is
badass!”

Paul chuckled. Martin was not amused. For the next ten minutes Paul worked feverishly, suturing or cauterizing every severed blood vessel, one by one. Then he began knitting the flap of flesh back into place with semi-concentric rings of dissolving sutures from the inside out. Martin let out about five low growls, two gasps and one mild shout throughout the whole ordeal. It made his performance with the nail earlier look like a game of touch football. Rose was so turned on with a combination of bloodlust and pride in her man that it was all she could do to not finger herself as the final exterior stitches were anchored in place.

When Paul threw the bloody instruments into the sink, Bean actually applauded. Paul took a slight bow and a bigger swig of whiskey from his silver flask. In the awkward silence that followed, the television sounded deafening by contrast. Martin was so out of it he didn’t notice. Paul moved uncomfortably close to Rose, then continued walking toward the TV.

The newscaster said that name: “Captain Hook.” Paul hadn’t heard it in a long time. He listened to the reporter for as long as he could bear her nasal whine, then turned off the set. The police had found one of his recent dipsty dumpster deposits. On any other night he would have relished all the fuss, but none of that mattered anymore. Time was running out. Not because of the murder, or the perfunctory investigation that would follow. Paul didn’t care about any of that. Time was running out because of Martin and the girl and the way they kept looking at each other. Yes, there was no doubt about it. He was losing him.