The Summer I Died: A Thriller (11 page)

The gag on the woman’s mouth slid to the side and she wailed with all the energy of someone whose last attempt to live depended on it. It was deafening.

She was almost to the edge of the yard, maybe ten feet from where we stood, when the man swung the ax down on her, wedged it into her skull with a loud crunch. Blood spit out like a fountain. Her body went into spasms but she kept running, bolting into the trees beside us.

There was a loud bang.

The gunshot shook me out of my trance and I pissed myself, screamed, and ran into the woods. I didn’t know where Tooth was, or who or what he’d shot at, and I didn’t care. I was pure adrenaline. I ducked low limbs and hopped boulders and ran right into the makeshift fence, which I’d forgotten about. I jumped up and grabbed the top of it when something plowed into me like a battering ram.

It was the woman.

Together, we fell to the ground, and I landed on top of her. She was out of her mind, mouth wide open, blood
spurtin
g from the ax in her head. Her eyes spun about like a robot’s with broken servos. She wailed, I screamed, she grabbed for me
—
I lost it. This wasn’t happening. I jumped off her. Screaming like a lunatic, I went for the fence again.

Out of nowhere, one of the rottweilers clamped down on my leg and sank his fangs into my flesh, piercing my shinbone. I screamed for God to save me, to pull me from this blizzard of mayhem. I saw the trees go whizzing by my face, felt flesh tearing off my leg, saw the woman
flip-flopping
on the ground like a fish out of water, felt my head smack against the fence, saw the dog’s fangs snap near my throat, saw more trees whiz by, the dog again, the woman.

A searing fire raced up my leg.

The dog was thrashing me like a rag doll.

I punched it as hard as I could in the face. I punched it again and again until I heard something crack. With a yelp it let go and dashed back toward the house. I reached down to my leg and ran my hand thr
ough the wetness running out of it
,
struggling to see
anything
through
my own blinding tears
. It didn’t matter;
there was no way in hell I was
going to look
at it until I was safely
away. If I saw my bones sticking out I’d have to stop to throw up.

Thump thump
went the woman on the ground. I stood up, scared so fucking senseless I couldn’t make a noise, white-hot pain blazing in my calf muscle
. I wiped the tears away and
looked around so fast I could barely make ou
t anything. I kept expecting a h
and saw to slice across my throat at any moment. Back toward the house, I spotted Tooth and the shirtless man swinging at each other, rolling on the ground. Next to them one of the rottweilers lay on the brown grass as still as a statue, a river of red running out of its neck.

Like a jack in the box, the woman sprang upright in front of me and I fell down screaming
nothingness
. She had one hand on the ax and was trying to pull it out of her skull but it was stuck fast. I had this crazy image of her lifting herself off the ground with it, like in a cartoon. Her hair was coated in
syrupy
blood and little white bits that were either bone or brain. I kicked her in the stomach, sent her tumbling to the ground away from me. I never realized how fast I could run when I was scared to death, but I leapt up and scaled the fence so quick I d
oubt
my hands even touched it.

When I landed on the other side, my leg gave out and pitched me to the ground. Back from the yard, I heard a sickening thwack, followed by a grunt
,
and I knew Tooth had gone down for the count. I peered through the split logs that formed the fence and saw him on the ground, rolling ever so slightly. He put a hand to his head and moaned. The skinny guy was holding the gun,
triumphantly,
and I could tell he’d just beat Tooth with it. I lay still, watching, not believing this was happening. The man went and picked up his
hand
saw and gave Tooth a once over.

I didn’t know what to do. I was lame, scared shitless, and I was about to watch my best friend get hacked to pieces by some sick fuck. And worst of all, I knew if I made a noise I’d be next. There was nothing I could do. I wanted to scream, to run, to take that saw and cut that fucker’s head off and slice him into tiny bits. I wanted to kill him, his family, his dogs, everything in this world that was even remotely related to him. Instead, I closed my eyes.

I would not watch my friend get hacked up. That would not be the last image I had of Tooth. And yet, I had to know. Swallowing my fear, I opened my eyes and looked again.

The skinny man didn’t shoot Tooth. Instead, he kicked him in the gut and once more in the head until Tooth went still. Then he kicked him again just to be sure. Satisfied with his work, he bent over the dog that was lying on the ground nearby and put a hand on its head.

“
Motherfucker,
”
he said, looking back at Tooth,
“
I’ll kill you so slowly it’ll feel like an eternity. Shoot my dog. You fucking piece of shit.
”
He kicked Tooth again, whose unresponsive body took the blow with a dull thud.

He pulled the clip out of the gun, and seeing it still had bullets, slid it back in and started walking into the trees, straight toward me. I lay down as flat as I could, pushed some leaves over my legs and in front of my face. I had on dark brown shorts and my black Silver Surfer shirt, enough to camouflage me, but certainly not eno
ugh to save me. On top of that
, I could smell the piss on myself, and it was making me want to puke. I was a dead man and I knew it. As he walked toward me, I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes, I didn’t think of my parents or the comics I’d never
draw
. I just thought, please let it
be fast, please let me not feel it. Then I started crying some more.

He stopped a few feet from the fence, bent down, and picked up the woman he’d tried to behead. She was still alive, though I doubted she knew her name or what day of the week it was. She reached up to grab the ax and he swatted her hand away.

“
No no, my dear,
”
he said with a grin,
“
if you pull that out you’re likely to lose all your brains. You’d probably die pretty quick and we wouldn’t want that. We haven’t even started having fun with you yet.
”

I don’t know if she understood his words or not, but she frantically reached for the ax again, got hold of it and started to yank it out. He grabbed her hand, and
in two swift motions, ran the h
and saw across her wrist and lopped it off. It fell to the ground with a light thump.

She
wailed
.
All I could do was
bur
y
my face against the fence rung. When she stopped, I risked a look back up and could tell she was in another place. Not dead, just far away, farther than she’d been before, somewhere out past Mars. The man picked up the hand and waved it around.
“
Here
,
Butch, here boy.
”

Through the woods, the remaining rottweiler, the one with my blood smeared all over its mouth like clown makeup, trotted over and took the hand from its master. Carrying it in its
teeth
, it went back to the yard and lay on its belly, put the hand between its two front paws, and began eating it. Vomit raced up my throat but I forced myself to swallow it. Oh, God, please, I pleaded, I don’t want to die like this. Please. Please.

Through the
fence I saw the man’s feet step
toward me, slowly, and my heart went wild. Did he see me? Did he know where I was? Would he pass by me and go
looking for me? I gave in to tiny convulsions, shaking the leaves off me, my teeth chattering like a rattlesnake.

A foot slid into the open space in the fence near my face and I realized he was climbing over. If I didn’t move he would land right on top of me, put his heels through my teeth.

Breathe slower, Roger. For fuck’s sake breathe slower.

I felt the fence move from his body weight, expecting a foot in my face any second. But nothing fell on me. Instead, he said,
“
What the hell are you two doing on my property? Don’t you know it’s against the law to trespass? I got the legal right to shoot you, you know. Hey, I’m talking to you. Least you could do is look at me.
”

It was as if my body was under some magical spell; I couldn’t
not
respond. I rolled over and looked up. His upper body was bent over the fence so that his face was only a foot away from mine. His breath was acrid, hot. His unshaven black beard was peppered with bits of gray, and his dirty face was cracked and spotted with blood that I doubted was his own.

The gun was pointed at my eye.

“
You should have kept running,
”
he continued.
“
Lot of places to hide in these woods. Probably could have hidden from me. Then again, that leg looks pretty bad. Butch would have sniffed you out in no time. He’s good with tracking, and better at catching. I trained him myself. Yer friend back there, I’m gonna make him pay for shooting my dog. And seeing as how I got his gun, too, you can either come back over here quietly, or I can just shoot you now. Don’t make a whole bit of difference to me.
”

For the first time I looked at my leg. The muscle was ripped open and I could see
the
muscle
striations
inside. A small chunk of
flesh was torn off and the blood was starting to coagulate just a little. It was so dark it looked like oil.

“
Well, what you gonna do, boy?
”

His eyes were wild in his gaunt face, his teeth dark yellow, the prison tattoo on his neck was faded but looked like Jesus on the cross pissing on a woman. Mary, it was Mary. And it wasn’t piss. He was insane, sick, and two seconds away from splattering my brains all over the ground. What’s worse, he was enjoying himself.

“
Please
.
.
.
please
.
.
.
”
was all I could manage.

“
Please nothing. You should have minded yer own business and stayed away. No one to blame but yerself now.
”

I was a piss-drenched child looking at the boogey man.
“
I won’t tell. I swear to fucking God I won’t tell.
”

“
Boy, if you don’t shut up and get over this fence you won’t be able to tell because yer mouth will be hanging from that tree over there. Now get up! And stop crying!
”

I stood up, sobbing like a girl. I should have let him shoot me, should have taken it fast and clean. But it’s not that easy. You don’t just concede defeat in these circumstances. You take every second you can find and use it to pray for another few seconds. Hope is a cruel bitch.

I climbed over the fence, smearing my blood all over it, and trembled as I stood next to this demon with a gun. On the ground, the now handless woman with the ax in her skull lay staring into oblivion. I envied her.

“
Turn around,
”
he said.

I turned around, half expecting a bullet in the back.

“
Now march.
”

Struggling against my shock, I put one foot in front of the other and started walking toward the house, dimly aware of the crunching sounds coming from the dog as
it
gnawed on the hand
and bit through the small finger bones
. The last thing I remember was feeling a slight sting on the back of my head.

Blackness.

CHAPTER 11

As I swam into existence, I smelled wet cement and mold, heard rain falling outside. My leg was throbbing and my head hurt like
Nomar
had used it for batting practice. I went to put my hand against it to feel for a lump, but my arm wouldn’t move. I flexed my fingers to make sure it hadn’t fallen asleep and it was working just fine. Slowly, my vision cleared and I took in my surroundings, which consisted mainly of shadows and cement walls. Something cold and hard ringed my neck and I shook my head to free myself from whatever it was.

Excruciating pain exploded inside my skull, s
o intense I didn’t dare scream.
I stayed still until my eyes stopped watering, and the pain ebbed, and then I glanced down to see what the hell I’d tried to shake off and noticed the chains.

Chains?

Have
you ever play
ed
dodgeball
,
and
had
someone hurl the ball at you at mach 5,
knowing
no matter how fast you move
you’
re
still going to take it head on? That’s how I felt as the very recent past came back to me like a line drive to the nose. When it hit me, and I realized where I was, my body went into a f
rantic, yet restrained, dance—r
estrained because the chains that were binding me offered little in the way of movement.