Chuck Logan - After the Rain

All gone.

Must be something, somewhere. Trembling. Arched up. Making the tripod. Squirting sweat. Then in one last surge…

Had Kit by C-section. Broker’s mom said I’d missed life’s main rite of pain. Tap into it now. Bear down. Push.

Her whole right arm began to tremble violently, spasm, overload, maybe torn ligaments.

But the hand was free.

Tears smeared her face, mucus, spittle. Blinking through the blur, gasping, hyperventilating…then… holy shit! She’d been so distracted by her ordeal that she didn’t realize the camper had stopped moving. Christ, not yet. But she heard their voices. Heard the door opening.

No, please…

Immediately, she hauled her right arm in tight, tested her fingers. Christ, her shoulder was burning, feeling loose and disconnected.

The curtain swept aside; Dale swiveled his seat and stared at her. “Aw, jeez, George, lookit this. She broke the bed.”

“First things first. Let me show you something,” George said as he glanced at her, unconcerned. Nina watched him raise the satellite phone in his left hand. He held a clear plastic cup in his right hand that was half-full of water. He placed the cup carefully on the dashboard and motioned for Dale to turn around. “Now watch the water in that cup,” George said. “When I set it off we should see the water level jump, huh?”

“Cool,” Dale said, spinning to the front. George eased behind the driver’s seat, extending his left arm over Dale’s shoulder so the phone was to the left of Dale’s head. Nina, way past horror, watched George’s right hand slip into the pocket of his shorts and remove a small automatic pistol. It looked like a.32-caliber. A hideout gun. He kept the pistol low against his right thigh. “Here we go,” George said as he started thumbing in the numbers.

No, goddammit. No. Nina lurched up and tried to reach for them with her right hand but she was tethered by her left hand. She flung her hand to the left and clawed at the bungee, broke her fingernails.

She heard Dale’s awed voice: “No shit. Look…”

Then she saw George sweep the pistol up smoothly, stick it pointed up under Dale’s chin, and pull the trigger. The gunshot rolled inside the confined camper, knifed her eardrums, as Dale’s shoulders and head jerked once and he slumped forward. A spray of red dotted the inside of the windshield.

Efficiently, George withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the gun down. Then he placed it in Dale’s limp fingers. For a moment he cocked his head, looking out the driver’s side window. As he listened he mopped sweat from his brow with the hanky, then put it back in his pocket.

Then he turned to Nina. She glared back at him, pulled herself up by yanking on her fastened left arm; sitting now on the slanting bed, she cocked her right hand.

George grimaced at her. “It’s done. I could hear it, you know. Just a faint bump. And the water in the glass did jump a little bit.” He bent over the passenger seat, and when he straightened up, he was holding one of Dale’s Epipens in his right hand like a dagger. He stared at her for a moment. “Look at you, you’re all covered with blood. I’ll make this easy on you,” he said.

Nina’s breathing was still ragged from exertion. No time to think about anything else. She concentrated on his left eye. C’mon, just bring it closer.

He twisted the injector, exposing the needle. Then he gestured. “So where do you want it?” His left hand snaked out and pinched at her right inner thigh. “How about somewhere nice?”

“No!” Nina screamed, rearing up, bringing up her free hand.

George laughed, ducked back, and feinted to the right, then changed direction and jabbed the needle into her right calf muscle. As the dose of ketamine entered her bloodstream, Nina started counting, hoarding her strength. C’mon, you fucker, don’t just stand there.

But he did, he just stood watching. And Nina could feel the first wave of coldness like icy gloves and slippers on her hands and feet. But then he leaned forward and extended his hands, palms out toward her face. “This won’t hurt,” he said, “I promise.”

When he was within her reach she launched her right hand at his face. But the damaged muscles failed, the bloody, rigidly extended forefinger merely slapped his temple weakly and fell away.

George laughed. “See? It was a mistake to send a woman.”

As he leaned forward to smother her she put everything into one last explosive surge. She missed again but on the way down, her fingers snagged in the chain around his neck.

The muscles that extended her arm were shot, but she discovered that the contracting muscles still worked. Her bloody fingers found purchase on a medal attached to the end of chain, clamped tight, and yanked. George pitched forward. Immediately, she whipped her bloody arm around his neck, locked her elbow, and jerked him down.

Her biceps and parts of her forearm still worked. George wasn’t laughing anymore. Methodically, then desperately, his strong hands clawed to break the hold.

Nina tasted salt and copper and bile as she reached down deep to where the lizard lived. Pure primal instinct now, she embraced him, smelling his minty Binaca breath, the Vitalis in his sleek hair. Their faces almost touched. His dark brown eyes were no longer amused, or even angry.

Fucker’s scared.

Good.

Sobbing with exertion, she tightened her arm and drew him close enough for her parted lips to press against his throat. Almost erotic, she hunted for the pulse. Found it. Gauged the depth and bared her teeth.

She relished his scream, the frantic spasm as he tried to pull away. After the powerful bite, with the last of her strength, she tried to rip and gnaw. But her jaw went slack. The ketamine…

George’s scream ended in a wet slobber as he clamped one hand on his ragged neck. Triumphantly, Nina saw the blood pumping through his fingers. Spurts of it. Streams. But he still had the strength to grab at her encircling arm with the other hand. She was on empty and he stripped her arm away. His stiff hand came down on her throat and she tried to lower her chin, raise her shoulders.

But he was too strong. He shoved the powerful arc formed by his thumb and first finger down into her throat.

Cold bubbles filled her body with floaty pressure. She lost air. She lost light. Her extremities went numb as her chest filled with ice water. She was choking outside, drowning inside. Distinctly, she looked down on a last image of her own body locked in a death hug with George Khari.

Far away.

Broker woke up in the process of being bodily thrown into the backseat of the Red Wing cop car. His head throbbed, a knee slammed down on his chest as the car’s rear tires threw dirt, accelerating. He looked up. Yeager. Scrambling in on top of him.

“Sorry,” Yeager gasped. He was goggle-eyed, panting, shutting the door, looking out the rear window. Broker winced and felt the lump on the back of his head. Yeager held up an old-fashioned braided leather sap. “Me and Holly did a number on you to get you outta there.”

There.

Broker lurched up. The cop was hunched over the wheel, flooring it. Broker twisted. His vision spun, frantic activity to the front, the Black Hawk was airborne, gaining altitude. Everybody had their mouths open, one long yell. Him, too. He looked out the rear window as they fishtailed through the cyclone fence perimeter. Screened by the silver mesh, Broker saw the deserted site: the black billowing smoke of the dozer, Holly standing at the edge of the excavation pit, vigorously waving his arm next to the Deere and the bigger dozer. The gray domes loomed over the struggling yellow machines, dwarfing them.