Kevin Guilfoile - Cast Of Shadows

Sensing an opportunity, Coyne backed off a few steps and reached for the shovel, which had fallen behind the tire of one of the trucks. Barwick’s avatar had regained enough strength to wobble to her feet, and she circled around Justin in the opposite direction, testing Coyne. He didn’t make a move for her. Justin was his concern. The boy was twenty years younger and could no doubt take him in a fair fight. Coyne needed a weapon. Justin bobbed his head toward the sound of the older man’s breathing, trying not to reveal his handicap.

Sally walked backward, toward the dead blonde. Coyne knelt slowly by the giant tire, feeling for the shovel. Justin began throwing uncertain taunts in Coyne’s direction, trying to appear cocky.

“Sally, a little help!” Justin shouted.

When Coyne had walked from the car to the door of the Jungle, Justin said he was wearing a long black overcoat. It must be around here somewhere, Barwick thought. She saw no clothes around the body, however. Coyne must have thrown anything that had become bloody during the attack into the back of one of these trucks. She kept searching. She heard the first blow strike Justin in the side. Another crunched bone and she hoped it was an arm. She saw his avatar slump. On the back of one truck, camouflaged by the vehicle’s blue paint, sat a tarp of the same color. It was covering an open bed full of waste that hadn’t yet made it to the landfill. She jumped up and grabbed the edge, but the tarp slipped out of her hand. She tried again and this time got a better handle, but it was stuck.

“Help!” Justin called as Coyne swung the shovel again with a thud.

She leaped a third time, looping a thin finger inside a metal grommet, and pulled down with all her weight. The tarp came loose and brought several pounds of rotting meat and fruit down with it. Wet, Shadow Sally dragged the tarp over to the lifeless blonde avatar and tossed it on top of her, covering her naked body.

“Justin! Look!”

His screen blinked to life just as Coyne was bringing the shovel down on the crown of his head. Responding to Justin’s expert keystrokes, his avatar ducked and rolled, and the blade clanged against the concrete. Standing, he got a glimpse of Sally pointing to his left, in the direction away from Coyne, who was recovering from the stinger shuddering through the wooden handle.

What the hell is she pointing at?

He waited to be sure Coyne was after him, not Sally, and he dashed off in the direction of her gesturing. Coyne followed between the rows of vehicles.

“Under the truck!” Barwick yelled. What was she talking about? Justin thought. Why wouldn’t she just come out and say it? The trucks were parked nearly bumper to bumper and in the narrow space between them, Justin couldn’t put any distance between him and Coyne. He heard the man gaining behind him. He heard Coyne breathing. Close. Coyne lifted the shovel over his head, and it made a whooshing sound past Justin’s ear.

Under the truck! Duh!

Justin dove forward on his belly and slid on some sort of greasy sludge, which propelled him beneath the carriage of the truck in front of him. The shovel came down, just missing his foot.

“Bastard!” Coyne shouted.

All right, Justin thought. Now it really is personal. Mother. Fucker.

On his belly he slithered away from Coyne, using the trucks as cover. Coyne hadn’t followed him. Justin could see his feet circling around the perimeter of the trucks, trying to cut him off. Justin backed up and changed direction. Sensing his motion, Coyne retraced his steps. Dammit. He had to find a way back to Sally.

“Little ‹ AGE INAPPROPRIATE›, where are you?” Coyne shouted. He was practically jovial about it. Laughing between taunts. Sally and Justin hadn’t foiled his plans, they’d just made the game more challenging for him. More fun. Justin wondered if the extra energy Coyne spent killing him and Sally might actually save a real girl’s life. He hoped he wasn’t doing this for nothing.

Then he understood what Sally had been warning him about. Under the trucks.

Three vehicles to his right he saw the blade of the knife wink at him in the reflected light. Beautiful. That was his way out of here.

“Why don’t you come under here and get me?” Justin answered as he made his way toward the weapon.

Coyne snickered. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just back you up into the lot until there’s no place for you to go, and then double back to your girlfriend there.”

Justin took the knife in his right hand and crawled until he was inches away from the aisle where Coyne was standing. Justin waited a second, then bent his right knee, kicking a gas tank with his boot. To Coyne, the noise was loud and close. He ran toward it.

“Gotcha!” He bent down and swung the shovel under the truck. Justin stopped it with his left hand, the blade making a gash in his palm, and pulled the shovel toward him. Coyne refused to let go, fighting with Justin for control of the tool. In an effort to break it free, Coyne pushed the shovel further under the truck, exposing his hands at the end of the handle. Justin saw and struck.

“‹ AGE INAPPROPRIATE ›!” Coyne yelled. When Justin slashed unexpectedly into Coyne’s arm, the game created an involuntary response to the pain, causing Coyne to drop the shovel and recoil. Justin pushed himself out from under the truck and went after Coyne again. Sitting on the ground, the older man could do little but try to defend himself. He rolled onto his back and started kicking at Justin’s hands. Justin swatted the man’s shoes away and made a few crazed stabs at his legs.

Barwick called out, “Justin, what’s happening?” Her voice stopped Justin in the middle of his assault. The most important thing was to protect her. She was the one putting her online life at risk. Cocky again, Justin grabbed the shovel and retreated between the trucks, back toward her voice. “Fuck you, Coyne!” Justin called out over his shoulder, for no reason but to make the lunatic aware they knew his name. “Go to hell!”

On the blue tarp, blood beginning to ooze from underneath it, Barwick looked up with a start when she heard Justin approach. He knelt beside her and took her hands in his, and she turned his left one over and started at the open wound.

“We need to get to a hospital,” she said.

Justin shook his wrist. “Naw, I’m fine. It’s just a game.”

“I mean for me,” she said. She pointed to the shovel in his hands. “While you were blinded, he smacked me with that thing.” Sally lifted her hair and on her finely rendered temple Justin could see a large bruise growing toward her eye.

“All right,” he said. “We should get out of here now. I lost sight of him, but he could try to cut us off.” He held out the knife. “Can you hold this? Or wave it around, anyway? Look menacing?” She wanted to stab Justin with it, to tell the truth. Justin had saved her with that blind tackle, but it was his insane scheming that had put her in danger in the first place. What the hell had she been thinking? And they weren’t out of it yet. She tapped her bruise with the handle of the knife and the pain meter shot to life. She might have a concussion.

Practically hanging from his shoulder with one hand and making a conspicuous presentation with the blade in the other, Sally and Justin walked out of the garage the way they’d come in. Neither mentioned to the other how relieved and disturbed they were that Coyne didn’t show himself again.

Joan felt Davis come to bed late, after midnight, and he settled inertly and heavily into the left side, his side, as if eased there by a dockside crane. She recognized the sigh, the murmur, the groan, and knew he wasn’t coming to sleep, but only to seek refuge from being tired, from the thing that was causing him stress and unhappiness. Oddly, even though the place he chose to hide was only inches away – was, in fact, the very spot on which they had made love countless times before and since their wedding day – she was convinced the thing he no longer wanted to face was their marriage.