Michael Langlois - Bad Radio

I let go of his wrist, leaned forward, and drove my fist into his left thigh. Thigh bones are far thicker than any of the bones in your hand. For anyone else, this would have resulted in one shattered hand and one bruised thigh.

But I’m not anyone else. His thigh snapped with an ugly crunching sound and the leg collapsed, dumping him onto the ground. I knelt fast and clamped the hand that wasn’t on my wound over his mouth to muffle the screaming. His face was red and his eyes wild where they showed over the top of my hand.

It hurt like hell and one of my knuckles was already swelling up, but at least I hadn’t killed him.

When the screaming stopped, I pulled my hand back and dug the phone out of his jacket. He was breathing hard and blinking tears out of his eyes.

“Call now. Say you’re hurt and you need help up on the roof.”

He grabbed the phone out of my hand and dialed with his thumb. It took a minute, since his good hand was attached to a broken wrist and his other hand was trembling. I could hear it ringing faintly, and then quit as someone picked up.

“It’s me. I’m hurt. You need to get out of here right now and …” I slapped the phone out of his hand, but it was too late. I could already hear a car starting down in the parking lot.

“No!” If the man in the car got away, Leon and Henry were dead.

I let go of my stomach, grabbed elevator guy with both hands, and ran to the edge of the roof. Five stories down, I saw headlights flick on.

The third man was parked right next to my car, about fifteen yards away from the side of the building. A white flash flickered through the wash of red brake lights as he threw the gear selector past reverse into drive.

I no longer cared about the lives of the two hit men. I lifted Elevator Guy over my head with an inarticulate roar and hurled him downward with everything I had.

His terrified shout stopped abruptly when he impacted the windshield in an explosion of safety glass. Small glittery pebbles rained down through the car’s headlights as the nose dove down on its springs.

The car idled slowly forward until it bumped into the rear of the car across the parking lot aisle.

My heartbeat pounded in my ears. I clamped my teeth together to keep from screaming out in triumph over my kill. Laughter bubbled out instead. It took long seconds for me to calm down and realize how wrong that was. How wrong I was. I dropped to my knees and concentrated on my breathing until I could think clearly again.

I rode down the elevator and hurried out of the building to check the car. One nurse stopped me before I left the main lobby, concerned about the mess on my clothes, but I just smiled and lied that it wasn’t my blood. She gave me a sympathetic nod and walked off.

I walked around the side of the building to the now demolished car. Both men were dead.

From the looks of it, the man in the car died from a broken neck when the roof caved in on him. The side windows in the front of the car had blown out when the roof had partially collapsed, so it was easy to reach in and grab Car Guy’s wallet.

I then wiped down the guns I had taken as best I could and tossed them into the car. There was no way I wanted to be caught with the guns of professional killers in my possession.

I moved my car to a spot across the lot so that it wouldn’t get caught in the inevitable police cordon, grabbed my clothes bag from the trunk, and went back up to Henry’s room.

Before I went inside I tried to collect myself and shake off the giddy sense of euphoria that was still with me. I tried to concentrate on the pain from my wound. That helped.

I entered the room and closed the door behind me, then tossed my bag of clothes on the floor. “There were three of them, but we’re clear now.”

Henry fixed me with a cold stare, taking in my blood soaked shirt. “You killed them.”

“The first one is fine. I left him in the stairwell with nothing a little first aid and some traction won’t fix.”

Anne frowned at me. “Traction? He’s in the stairwell with broken bones?”

“He’s alive.”

“What about the second one?” asked Henry.

“He was fine until he stabbed me and tipped off his buddy in the parking lot.”

“And then?”

“He stabbed me!”

“And?”

“And then I had to throw him off the roof.”

“And the third guy?”

“Second guy landed on him.”

“Of course he did.”

“I had no choice, he was getting away.”

Anne crossed her arms and looked sick. My friends seemed to care a lot more about three hired killers than they did about me. I tried to remind myself that they were just worried about my state of mind, but it still stung.

“Henry, I swear to you that I didn’t kill them because I wanted to. I tried to be reasonable.”

“I believe that you tried. I also believe that you couldn’t help yourself and you failed. Everyone told you to let them go if it came down to it.”

“They were going to kill you and Leon both. I avoided any killing until they forced me into it. I wasn’t even going to kill the guy that stabbed me. Speaking of, are there any bandages or anything in here? You know, for where I got stabbed trying to save everyone’s lives?”

Anne rummaged through the drawers in the room and found a plastic tray wrapped in plastic full of supplies. Among the other items inside the package were a box of Steri-Strips used to close wounds and some antiseptic swab sticks. She brought them over to me and said, “Take off your shirt.” When she spoke to me, she avoided looking me in the eyes.

My hand was stuck to my stomach and shirt by congealing blood, but I managed to pull it away without too much pain. Peeling the shirt off was much worse, as the fabric wanted to tug at the wound as it came free of my skin.

The top of my pants were soaked with fresh blood by the time we got my shirt off. She took the gruesome article of clothing without reaction, wadded it up, and dropped it in the red bin in the corner of the room marked “Biohazard.”

“You’re a mess. Hold still and put two fingers over the puncture.” Setting the medical supplies on the bed, she pulled out a fistful of paper towels from the dispenser and wet them, squeezing out the extra water until they were just damp. Then she carefully cleaned the blood off of my stomach, working around my fingers. Then she knelt down in front of me.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m unbuckling your pants so that I can get the blood off of your waist. The wound is right over your belt, and I need it to be clean for several inches all around so that the Steri-Strips have a clean area to stick to. These pants are going to have come off.”

I grinned down at her. “I should get stabbed more often.”

“Just stop it. You just killed two people, not to mention seriously injuring a third, and you’re making jokes. It’s not funny, it’s creepy.”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to control it. This isn’t how I normally am.”

“I know.”

She finished cleaning around the wound and had me take my fingers off of it. The edges were pretty clean and the whole thing was only about an inch and a half wide. It was barely seeping blood at this point. I wondered how deep the blade had gotten.

I didn’t know if I could survive having my guts punctured. Sepsis from a gut wound was far more likely to kill you than the bullet itself, back in the war. I was in a hospital, but seeking treatment would mean sticking around for the cops, as well as losing time. I decided to trust in my altered physiology.

Anne swabbed the area, leaving yellow-orange smears on and around the wound, and then taped it shut with the Steri-Strips.

“Not bad. Ever work as a nurse?”