Chuck Logan - Absolute Zero

Shit.

Allen could tell by the tension on the tip that he’d missed the heart and hit the sternum and tangled into muscle.

Then the Colt exploded right in front of his face. Not aimed; reflex on the trigger.

Blam! And the cold shattered with the explosion because Allen’s ears stung and needles of cordite pincushioned his nose and cheeks.

Blood was all over, slippery black, coursing over his hand, steaming and freezing on his face. He must have nicked an artery. Reassured, he withdrew the knife. Earl staggered back, his knees wobbling, but he swung the gun.

Allen ducked, dodged, and sprinted to the dock, the only way open to him. His hope was that Earl couldn’t manage to turn, aim, and stay on his feet. And he was right, because Earl toppled over, falling heavily on his broken arm.

As Earl bellowed in pain, Allen’s shoes pounded a creaky tattoo down the frosted decking. Left and right, moonlight reflected on glassy planes of ice. Would it hold him? Skim across that ice, double back to shore, hide in the trees until Earl lost consciousness.

Blam!

Ha. Missed.

The second time, Allen didn’t hear the shot; he felt it rip into the back hollow of his left knee and tear out the side of the kneecap. In an air pocket of shock, he could clearly visualize the shattered bone, tendon, and torn muscle. Then the icy planks rushed up and smashed his face. He rolled over and saw Earl trying to get up. But Earl was so far away and Allen lost the sound. Time and space elongated. He didn’t know how long he coiled there, watching Earl rise in slow stages like a drunken elephant.

But finally, Earl did stagger to his feet and lumber forward, waving the pistol uncertainly in front of him.

Then a glare of headlights blinded Earl and threw his shadow huge against the trees. Somewhere in that glaring light, Allen heard Earl shout, “Fucker, you cut me.”

Allen giggled. Shock and now hysteria. Earl had fallen down again. Bleed out, bleed out. He marveled at the anesthetic virtues of physical shock; he felt no pain yet. So he scrambled crablike on two arms and one leg down the icy dock.

The lights went out. People were yelling. The dock planks shook under oncoming, trudging footsteps that were overtaking him.

“Okay, you,” Earl suddenly loomed over Allen, blocking out the stars. Somewhere in that black mass Earl was pointing the pistol.

Allen kicked frantically with his good leg, hooking one of Earl’s unsteady feet, and the gunshot jerked away. As Earl lost his balance, Allen kicked wildly again and slashed up with the scalpel, drove it into Earl’s inner thigh and butchered through denim and muscle for the femoral artery.

Thick arterial blood sprayed his face and as he lurched back he saw another shape racing toward him. A familiar lily scent came through the bloody taste of sticky copper pennies.

“Jolene?”

But she raised the clubbed stock of a shotgun and smashed it at Allen’s bloody face and knocked him into a whole new universe of suffering. Even as he reeled in pain, an airtight, rational pocket of his mind protested: Jolene, I–I lov-ve you, this-s isn’t fair. Look at all I-va-va da-done. I saved you. I set you up for life.

Earl had collapsed on him, drenching him with blood, but something else. Allen’s last kick had glanced up off Earl’s chest and passed under his armpit and tangled in the sling, and now that Earl had toppled over double, the tightly knotted trench-coat belt had twisted with the sling and trapped Allen’s leg and-oh, shit-the big klutz was falling off the dock.

“Jolene, help,” he shouted.

Earl’s dead weight was slipping toward the ice like entrails sliding from a gutted carcass. And he was pulling Allen with him.

“Jolene?”

She hit him again with the gun stock. No. Not hit. She figured out what was going on. She was pushing him with the gun, shoving him over the side. Prying him. Her eyeballs were focused tight-white neon.

“Bitch,” Allen screamed.

It was a long way to the ice. Earl’s body was heaped, facedown, piling up accordion-like three feet below the level of the dock. Allen’s hips were hung on the edge. He seized a steel pipe that served as a piling with his left hand, and he raised the knife in his right hand to menace Jolene.

They both paused to gather their strength, eyes inches apart, the thick clouds of their breath mingling.

Then, Allen heard a crash and bubbly wallowing sound. Earl’s weight cracked the thin ice and began to sink. Jolene swung the gun butt at Allen’s hand on the piling. Unsteady, her first stroke missed. Allen’s slashed back at her with his knife.

And he missed, too.

As she moved in to strike again, Allen instinctively let go of the piling and grabbed at her, clamped his fingers into the waistband of her jeans, jerking her forward, down on her knees.

They teetered on the edge of the dock, Jolene flailing with the shotgun, but feebly, in too close to do any damage.

Allen still had the dexterity in his hand to reverse the direction of the slim knife, twirling it daggerlike. He made a fist and swung overhand, throwing all his remaining strength in a powerful haymaker. She shoved the gun at his face, blinding him momentarily. Amid a confusing lurch of movement, he felt the blade plunge deep, through muscle. He wrenched it free and struck again, overhand, and felt it sink past the muscle into bone.

The closest phone was at the lodge.

Annie’s truck headlights streaked down the driveway and he barely heard the shot through the ringing in his ears as they turned into the parking lot. That’s when he saw Jolene bolt from the porch holding something in both hands. Trailing ragged jets of breath, she sprinted toward a hulking shape, and that was Earl staggering down the boat dock.

Broker couldn’t open the door handle with his frozen paws. All he felt was a numb jarring back up his arm.

“Help,” he yelled to Annie. “Open the open. OPEN THE DOOR!”

The truck was still moving as Annie leaned over and jerked the door handle. Broker rolled out and immediately collapsed as his numb feet failed. He yelled, “Get outa here. Somebody’s got a gun.”

He looked around. Where’s Amy?

Then-shit. He picked up motion at the end of the dock. Someone crawling. Earl was after her, had to be her. So that’s where Broker headed, following Jolene, but, Christ, his hands and feet were solid cubes and he toppled forward. He struggled up and tried to run on the wooden blocks. Fell again.

Get up. Save Amy.

BLAAM! Another gunshot whistled in the dark. He turned to Annie in the truck and shouted, “Annie, get out of here. Do it. Now .”

She didn’t need a second prodding. She floored it and reversed up the drive. And now he was alone and somebody had a gun.

Wonderful. He staggered on his square feet.

Voices now. But underwater voices. Slow, garbled.

Not just slow, frozen slow. Even more sluggish because ice cubes had replaced his brain. Each step required all his concentration.

Then he saw them outlined in silver moonlight, and the violent white smoke of their breath. Amy wasn’t there. Now Earl was down and Jolene and Allen Falken were fighting on the end of the dock.

Allen? What the fuck. .?

Earl was tangled up with Allen somehow. Make that Earl’s body, because it looked like Earl didn’t live there anymore. His body had slumped over and was dragging them both off the dock. Jolene was swinging a shotgun at Allen. Allen was swinging back.

Broker kept lurching down the dock, dragging his frozen feet like Boris Karloff.

Then Earl’s dead weight jerked Allen over the edge, which caused Allen to yank Jolene down in turn. Broker kept coming, slipping now in a lather of icy blood. When he saw the twinkle in Allen’s fist, reflex took over and he dived as the knife streaked overhand.