Joe Lansdale - Lost Echoes

Not easy, but shit, it’s what I got.

It beats sitting here watching Pale’s brains drip off the upholstery.

The chief got out of the car, looked at Tad’s body.

Who is this guy? What’s his story? What’s with the darts? What is he, a freelance dart master hiding in the woods, ready to try out victims?

What do I do with him?

Okay. I can put him in the car with Pale. That would work. I could put his fingers on the gun, make it look like he shot Pale. Yeah, that would work.

When everyone gets a look at this, it’ll be a big mystery. But there’s nothing to connect me. Just some cop gone bad had a deal of some kind going down, and it didn’t work out. Maybe it’ll look like he picked this guy up for a blow job, and the guy turned on him, shot him.

Oh, wait. How did this guy die? He’ll have marks on him from the limb. So that won’t work. Not unless they want to believe he beat himself with a stick.

Okay. I could fire a round into his head, and it could look like they had a fight maybe, and the guy on the ground, he got in the car as Pale was trying to get away, shot him, then for some godforsaken reason, shot himself.

Not so good.

The chief’s head was starting to hurt.

Okay, let’s go at it again….

Fuck it.

I’ll make sure those kids are done for, leave everything as it is. No way anyone is going to figure out this goddamn mess. I made the mess, and I’m not sure what’s going on, so how’s anyone else gonna figure it?

Come to think of it, this is good. It’s like the Gordian knot of crime, so interwoven and messed-up it’s impossible to figure out.

Now, if a UFO would just crash into the side of the hill, it would be a perfect night.

The chief checked his watch.

Okay. I buy the DVD.

The chief felt pressure on his ankle.

He looked down, tried to move his foot, couldn’t.

It was the guy on the ground, the one he had batted with the stick like a tetherball.

He had grabbed his ankle, and now the man’s other hand shot out, his forearm striking the inside of his leg, working a nerve there, knocking him backward and down.

The chief had stuck the gun in his belt, and he pulled it out, tried to shoot the bastard. A hand slapped up, got hold of the chief’s wrist. It hurt. He dropped the gun. He kicked with his other foot, knocking the guy off of him, scrambled to his feet.

But now the man was up, on his feet, wobbling from all those blows from the limb, but, goddamn it, he was standing.

They both looked at the gun lying on the ground, wet-black in the starlight.

Harry came over the lip of the overhang and looked up to see Tad and the chief struggling on the ground. A moment later the chief rose up with something in his hand.

A gun.

Tad, like some kind of jet-propelled shadow, shot across the ground, extended a palm, hit the chief in the chest, knocked him up and onto the car hood, and caused him to do a flip and go over to the other side.

Tad limped around the front of the car, trying to get to him.

The chief, looking as if he might need a winch to get him up, grabbed hold of the car’s tire, made it to his knees. He still had the gun. Tad came around the front of the car and Harry yelled, “Look out, Tad. He’s still got the gun.”

Tad shifted as the chief fired. The shot hit Tad high in the left shoulder and spun him around and knocked him on the ground.

Harry was on his feet now, on the cliff’s edge, seemed to have some of his balance back. He ran toward the chief screaming.

The chief took careful aim at Harry.

Fired.

Harry, when he saw the gun point in his direction, held it a beat, the way he thought Tad would, then dropped so low he was running on hands as well as feet, like a big ape—a spotted-ass ape. There was a burst of light from the automatic and the bullet sang by his head, and now he was almost on the chief, and there was no way the bastard was gonna miss from there, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t do it, was mad as a pig that had just found out sausage was his cousin, was through being afraid. He kept coming and the chief, still on his knees, rose up so that one knee was lifted, took careful aim, and then—

Just before he fired, Tad, lying on the ground, seeing almost double, the night spinning black and star-pricked in his head, managed to grab a handful of dirt and throw it, hitting the chief in the face. The chief, jerked, fired—

—and it was a miss, and Harry was on him.

Tad lay down on the cold ground and rolled onto his back and looked up at the night and all the stars, and they did a milky spin up there, around and around, and he found that he could not feel the ground anymore. All he felt was cold, and as if he were falling, one moment down a bottomless pit, the next, upward into the star-specked eternity of space. Then he didn’t feel anything.

Harry and the chief rolled over and over, and when the roll ended, the chief’s gun was gone. The chief wobbled to his feet. The chief threw a right as Harry came into range, and Harry remembered what Tad had once told him. What they do doesn’t matter. Be like the monkey. Be selfish. Don’t care. Do your thing.

And he relaxed, not worrying about the punch. He did his thing. The punch hit him and knocked him on his ass.

Goddamn, Harry thought. That hurt. Maybe what they do does matter. He rolled to his hands and knees and the chief kicked at him. Harry took the kick, grunted, rolled into the chief’s leg, pushing at it with his body, dropping him to the ground.

Harry scurried on top of him. The chief tried to put his thumbs in Harry’s eyes, but Harry twisted away and dropped between the chief’s arms, letting his elbow fall into the chief’s face.

The chief barked like a dog, was suddenly possessed of tremendous strength, tossed Harry off of him. He got to his feet. Harry could see he was looking for the gun.

Harry rolled up and started to lunge, hit the chief with a tackle, knocked him to the ground. As he got up, the chief got up. Harry spotted the gun, and so did the chief.

And the chief was closer.

Harry ran full-out. He and the chief collided, knocked each other down. Harry was up first, and he kicked at the gun with all his might. It went skidding along the ground to the cliff’s edge, stopped there.

Damn it.

The chief was running for it.

Harry darted toward the ledge as the chief neared it, and then he put on another burst of speed as he felt the wind whistling around him, the dry leaves spinning, and he was one with them, moving fast, not worried, no, sir, he was the monkey, and he was selfish, and he was coming, baby. Batten down the hatches, motherfucker, or hide in the barn, or mix any goddamn metaphor you want, because I am coming.

But it was all a little too late. The chief took hold of the automatic.

Harry leaped. Just threw his body sideways, hit the chief as he lifted the automatic, and it went off right by Harry’s ear, the evil ear, the one that had already been numbed, and over went the chief with a groan.

And Harry went too.

But this time it was Harry who grabbed a root, hung onto it, looked down quickly, saw the chief sail way out, hit a high point, bounce.

Harry took a deep breath. He could feel something warm running out of his injured ear.

Blood.

And there was a kind of hollow buzzing sound inside, as if a magnificent seashell had been plastered over his ear and what he was hearing was not the sea, but all the roars of all the waters that existed, oceans, rivers, creeks, and runny taps.

It hurt.

Kayla, now awake and in pain, heard something tumbling. She tried to twist a bit to see, but it hurt too much.

A body bounced over her, landed just below her feet, then whirled with a twist off the slope and was sucked into the darkness by gravity. Leaves and dust that had enveloped him spun in the night air and drifted down on her like dirty snow.