P Deutermann - Darkside

“She wasn’t thinking at all if you gave her Rohypnol, Booth. That how you get your girls? A little better living through chemistry? Couldn’t get any on your own?”

“Dad, don’t,” Julie murmured, but it was too late, as Dyle stopped his movements in the water and settled back down until only his face and the muzzle of the gun were above water.

“Tough talk from an old has-been who’s ten feet from the business end of this,” he said, waggling the. 45 and once again drooping the nose to make sure the barrel was dry. “You were Navy once. You do understand I can drop you both in under a second, right?”

“What the fuck do you want here, Booth?” Ev demanded again, getting angrier by the second. “They know what you did. They know what you are.”

“What I am? What I am? And just what’s that mean, Professor? You have no idea of what I am.”

Ev had been trying to think of what to do, but now he just let his brain ride, his old pilot instincts kicking in. He moved ever so slightly to get closer to Julie. “What you are is a piece of shit, Booth,” he said. “A highly polished turd that got by the treatment plant and into the drinking water. You’re a technogeek, right, Booth? A whiz with the computers?” He moved again, not picking up his feet but just willing his body to ooze its way closer to Julie. He didn’t really know what he was going to do, but he was going to do something. Almost there, arm’s length. He felt his leg come up against his scull, which was lying upside down on the dock. “You know what Gee-Go means in computer talk, right, asshole?”

Booth’s face tightened into a furious rictus. Those huge teeth dominated his entire face. Teeth and burning, clearly insane eyes. Ev was almost to the point of being able to touch Julie, inside of arm’s length now, except the damned boat was in the way. “Gee-go, Booth. You’re the personification of gee-go. G-I-G-O. Garbage in, garbage out. The academy let the barriers down and you slipped over the rim of the bowl like the stinking piece of shit you are, Booth.”

“Dad, stop it,” Julie wailed. “He means it.”

“You tell him, TC,” Booth said softly, dipping again into the black water while his other arm oared his body back into position to keep facing them directly. The boat, Ev thought. Use the boat. Booth dipped down into the water again for just an instant, and Ev backhanded Julie with all his might, a sudden blast of adrenaline pumping him so hard that he knocked her off her feet even as he bent down, grabbed the boat, and in one surprisingly smooth thrust slid it directly at the evil face in the water. Booth fired once, a huge, booming shot that slashed the air where Julie’s head had been an instant before, and then, a split second before the prow of the boat hit him in the face, he fired again, and this one caught Ev in the left side of his chest, spinning him around like a dog under a bus. Ev was conscious of being down on his side, down on the edge of the dock, as Julie scrabbled on hands and knees back up the dock, screaming something at Dyle and then for someone to help them. The gun went off again, this round tearing through the decking, splitting one board into pointed fragments that lashed Ev’s face and hands. Ev lifted his head to look back down into the water, but his neck muscles betrayed him and his face sank back down onto the shards of wood.

Have to get up, he told himself, must get up. He heaved again, trying hard for more air. Something wrong with my lungs. But he managed to get up on his hands and knees, turning deliberately to face the water and ladder, but then Dyle’s glaring face was rising over the edge of the dock. He heard dogs barking somewhere in the background, the sounds of voices, Julie still yelling. He thought he saw lights coming on, but his eyes were focused on Dyle as he came up the ladder. One of Dyle’s eyes was swollen shut and he was bleeding from his nose, where the boat’s sharp prow had hit him squarely, but he was grinning that terrible grin, his open eye focused right on Ev’s face. He stepped up onto the dock, out of the cone of light from the spots, his huge body gleaming, and suddenly he was bending over Ev, grabbing him by the hair and jerking him upward so he could look into Ev’s eyes. Ev grunted as a huge wave of pain washed through his chest, and he heard himself making a gargling noise in his throat.

“She warned you, old man,” Dyle said softly, struggling to hold Ev up so he could push the nose of the. 45 under Ev’s rib cage. Ev couldn’t do anything except try to breathe. He was having trouble focusing his eyes, and he couldn’t even look up into Dyle’s grinning face because Dyle’s forearm was in the way. He felt Dyle glance sideways up the pier, where Julie was still yelling for help.

“Goddamn you. We had a deal, bitch, ” he hissed, but Ev didn’t think she could hear him. He felt Dyle pull the hammer back. “Not here to do Julie, you stupid fuck, but you? You don’t count, see?”

Ev felt his body sagging, and Dyle had to pull harder on his hair to keep his face up.

“Look at me,” Dyle growled, and Ev tried again to focus. All he could see was a mouthful of teeth, and then he felt his fingers close around a big piece of the shattered dock planking.

“That’s the Look, Pops. Hold still now, don’t move-don’t want to get anything on me, do we?-and then everything’s gonna be all right.”

Ev suddenly felt footsteps running back down the pier, and he heard Julie screaming, “No, no. What are you doing?” as Dyle looked over at her and grinned again. Summoning every ounce of strength he had left, Ev stabbed upward with that stiletto-sized splinter, catching Dyle in the belly and, because of the angle, driving all eighteen inches of it right up into Dyle’s heart. For a terrible instant, nothing happened, and he realized he could feel Dyle’s beating heart pulsing through the piece of wood. Then he felt the stub end of the. 45 barrel that had been pressed to his own side fall away, and then Dyle, cross-eyed now, let out a long, wet sigh and collapsed like a huge sack of potatoes, a fountain of blood welling up out of his mouth, past all those devil teeth, until his entire weight was pressing down on top of Ev.

Goddamn, he thought. I was having enough trouble breathing without this shit. Then there were people, hands, lights, and lots of noise. He heard other voices, familiar voices, more feet pounding down the dock. He thought he heard Julie sobbing. Tried to lift his head, tried to tell her it was okay, that Booth was all done, but from the sounds of it, Julie had clearly lost it. He couldn’t get himself upright because the dock was slippery with all the blood. He even thought he heard Agent Branner yelling something.

So do something, Ev, a voice in his head was saying. Take charge here. Talk to her. Call her name. Hell, call any name.

But which name? he wondered dreamily. Julie. Liz. Joanne. Branner? Branner didn’t have a name, now that he thought of it. All these women around him. His own voice was echoing maddeningly in his head. You ought to call one of them, Ev. You really should. This is not time to lose control, not after everything that’s happened. Just say a name. Pick one, Ev. Because if you don’t, you may have to go with Booth.

“Liz,” he croaked.

“Don’t talk; just be still,” a woman’s voice was whispering in his ear, her soft, cool hands on his cheek. Amazingly, he detected a splinter in his other cheek, the cheek that was sticking to the pier. He felt the weight of Booth’s body move farther sideways. “You’ll be okay,” she said. “The EMTs are coming. Just hang on. Stay awake. Keep breathing.”

Keep breathing. Right, he thought. He tried to say something, anything, but he just couldn’t get enough good air down into his lungs, where the pain was, terrible, suffocating pain now. Yet in a way, he wanted to laugh. Here was yet another woman telling him what to do. It figured. Even so, he thought he’d picked the right name. He tried it again, but nothing came out this time but a big red bubble. Then all the noise seemed to withdraw into a rush of darkening echoes. His ears filled with the sound of wind rushing through trees, a veritable roaring, and he decided, Okay, enough’s enough. Just go with it.