Chris Holm - Dead Harvest

The police cruiser slammed into our car with a spray of glass and the sickening crunch of metal on metal. His front end connected with our back-left fender, and we one-eightied. The car rocked hard on its shocks as we slammed into the curb, but it could have been worse. Had we slowed to take the turn, he'd have caught us dead to rights, and we'd have rolled for sure.

The cop was out of his car — which had beached itself on the hospital's now-ruined sign — in a flash. His gun was drawn, and he was running toward us, closing the gap between his wreck and ours with lightning speed. Our driver looked stunned, confused, but I wasn't — not anymore. It was clear now why he'd pursued us alone, why he'd never called for backup: this guy was no more a cop than I was. It was Bishop, back to finish what he'd started.

The bastard was good — I'd give him that. I'd hoped Pinch's death had at least bought us some time. I'd hoped we'd lost him — that he was strapped to a bed in some old folks' home in Dubai or something, never to be seen again. I'd hoped that maybe, just maybe, we'd catch a little break. Turns out, I'd barely even slowed him down.

Shows what hoping will get you.

Bishop must've been waiting for us. Listening. He knew we couldn't flee the park without causing a scene, so he camped out in the nearest cop and waited for the calls to come rolling in. If I had to guess, I'd say his meat-suit's partner was standing outside Dunkin Donuts with a handful of coffee and crullers, wondering where the hell his buddy and their cruiser went.

I looked our driver in the eye. She looked at me, and then at Bishop, clearly registering the hate and anger that strained the features of his borrowed face. "Listen, lady, we need to move."

"What?" she asked. Her voice seemed small and faraway.

"That guy's not friendly. There's no time to explain — you're just gonna hafta trust me."

"Trust you? How could I, when you hurt that boy…"

"I just told you that so you'd do as I said. It was him," I said, gesturing toward the approaching cop. "You hear me, it was him!"

Whether it was my words or her own instincts, something got through. She slammed the car into gear, and lurched forward, jerking the wheel toward Bishop as he raised his gun to fire. The movement caught him off-guard, and he squeezed off a few wild shots. Two slammed through the front end of the car, and the engine quit, but we just kept on rolling. The third punched through the windshield, and our driver screamed in pain.

I barely took a moment to register her injury — a spray of blood against the driver's side window, a hand clutching the meat of her shoulder — before I leapt out of the moving car and sprinted toward Bishop. He'd fallen backward onto the pavement, dodging the surging Volvo, and I threw myself atop him as he struggled to bring the gun to bear.

Cold steel pressed against my cheek. A deafening blast rocked the night. I clenched shut my eyes in anticipation of the expulsion to come. I was sure that this was curtains. Instead, a sudden warmth trickled down my ear, and the world went quiet. My face was stippled with burns from the particulates, but I was otherwise OK.

The bastard had missed.

Again, Bishop tried to aim the barrel toward me, but the report of the last shot had weakened his tenuous grip. I grabbed his wrist and slammed his hand to the ground. The gun clattered to the pavement, just out of reach. Bishop lay pinned beneath me, and I swung wildly, again and again, connecting with his cheek, his jaw, his nose. My damaged eardrum throbbed in time with the thudding of my heart, with the rhythm of my flailing blows. I forced myself to hold back — just a touch — and remember the innocent within. The last thing I needed was another death on my conscience, and anyway, unconscious would do just fine.

At some point, he stopped fighting. I thought it was a ploy. Then I caught his fearful gaze, leveled not at me, but at the Volvo. A feint? Maybe. But I bit, nonetheless. I hazarded a glance, and was glad I did.

The car had finally stopped rolling, coming to a rest against the far curb. As I watched, our driver pushed open her door, and doubled over, retching in the gutter.

I leapt up off of the pavement, or as near to leapt as my weary bones could manage. Our driver rose, leaning heavily on her open door as she wiped absently at her mouth with the back of her hand. She turned toward the rear door of the car, an oblivious Kate behind it, still struggling to keep pressure on Anders' wound. Lucky for me, the driver was so focused on Kate that she never glanced back.

I sprinted toward the Volvo, desperate to stop our driver from reaching Kate. At the last moment, the woman wheeled toward me. I kicked the open driver's side door with all I had. It slammed shut hard on her, bouncing back open as she crumpled to the ground. I lay a moment, winded, willing my battered limbs to move.

The knife was a surprise. Not the happy cake-andballoons kind, either. More like the gut-wrenching, excruciating, hope-you-don't-black-out kind. I must've left it in the cab of the car when I'd gone after the cop. Wherever I'd left the knife, driver-lady/Bishop had found it, and was kind enough to return it to me, by which I mean she planted it a good three inches into the meat of my thigh. Blade scraped bone, and for a second, everything went dark.

When the lights came back on, the nice driver-lady was standing over me, the knife — blade down — raised high above her head. A wicked smile warped her otherwise kind features. I tried to move. My legs weren't listening. Kate watched helpless through the car window — I willed her to run, but she just sat there, frozen.

The blade dropped. Actually, the whole damn woman dropped. Just collapsed atop me like so much rubble. I rolled her off of me. The knife fell from her hand, coming to rest in the grass just beyond the curb.

Standing just behind her former perch above me was the cop — his face swollen and bloodied, his sidearm in one hand, a small tuft of blood and hair dotting the barrel from where he'd pistol-whipped the woman. He extended his free hand to help me up. I took it.

"That thing," he said, "is it unconscious, too? Or will it just grab hold of someone else?"

I could barely hear him over the ringing in my ears. I looked down at the woman. She was out cold. "Yeah," I replied, "it's out, too — but probably not for long."

"It was in my head. I mean, I was just sittin' in my cruiser, and next thing I knew, I was puking my guts out, and I wasn't in control. That's fucking nuts, right? I mean, I must be fucking nuts."

"No," I said. "You're not nuts."

"It wanted to kill you."

"It was after the girl. I was in the way."

"The girl — she's the one from the news? The one we've been looking for?"

"Yeah."

"She didn't do it, did she? Kill her family, I mean."

"No, I don't believe she did."

The cop glanced back toward the hospital. The entrance was a few hundred yards away; it looked like a crowd was gathering. I thought I heard sirens, although that could've been the ringing in my ears. As I stood shakily between the wrecks of the cruiser and the Volvo, our unconscious driver at my feet, it was hard to believe this whole fucking mess had gone down in a matter of seconds.

The cop caught my glance, and no doubt he heard the sirens better than I. "They'll be here soon," he said. "The paramedics. The cops. You should go — just take the girl and leave. I'll clean up this mess."

"There's a boy in the car. He's hurt."

"I know. I… remember, I guess. I'll see to him. What about her?" He nodded toward the woman at our feet.

"Long as we're gone when she wakes up, Bishop's got no reason to stick around."

"Bishop," the cop repeated. "Is that its name?"