Dismember

THIRTY-EIGHT

Mike had crawled halfway along the front of the house, dragging himself with his good arm and trying to ignore the pain just about everywhere else.

He coughed once and tasted blood sliding over his teeth.

The monster had taken his family, had loaded them into the car and stolen them away.

Mike crawled another foot. There was a truck in the back yard. He’d seen its rear bumper when they arrived. If he could get to it, and if the keys were inside, he could go after them, rescue them.

He coughed again, and something thick flowed across his tongue. Maybe vomit, maybe more blood, or maybe some of his internal organs, cut loose and floating freely through his insides. He didn’t know. He spit out the wad and dragged himself farther.

He’d gotten almost to the corner of the house when everything blurred. He tried to shake his head to clear it but only made the dizziness worse. He closed his eyes, tried taking deep breaths, then coughed and dropped flat to the ground, still at least fifty feet from the truck and the chance to be the hero.

When he heard the siren, his eyes opened, and he didn’t know how long he’d been out. He hadn’t died, though he thought he must be only a few breaths away. The man standing over him wasn’t Deputy Willis, nor was it the thinner man who’d been with him at the house.

Mike tried to gesture to him, point in the direction the Honda had gone, but he could move only his pinky finger. Still, he did what he could, pointed with the tip off his littlest digit and blinked at the looming lawman.

“—try to stay still,” the man said, and Mike found that pretty funny.

Against the man’s ridiculous suggestion, he used the last of his strength to lift his hand and point after the missing car.

The deputy grabbed Mike’s hand like he thought he wanted to shake. “Hold on, buddy. We’ve got paramedics on the way.”

But Mike couldn’t hold on. He felt the breath coming out of him like air from a punctured tire. He tried to suck in a little more but didn’t think it got much farther than the back of his mouth.

Family, he tried to say, but it came out as a soft groan. It was the best he could do. He dropped his head to the ground but let the deputy hold on to his hand. It felt good to be touched. He didn’t want to die alone.

Deputy Ben Moore leaned close to the bloody man and let go of his hand. He touched the man’s neck. Nothing.

He wasn’t sure if this was the guy they were looking for or another one of his victims, hadn’t actually been sure they were at the right house until he stumbled across the crawling mess of a guy and the trail of blood behind him. He shone a flashlight back along the streaked gore and found a sword lying in the grass beside the house’s foundation.

I’ll be hanged, he thought. He didn’t guess he’d ever seen a sword like that before. Not in real life.

He moved away from the body and back to the patrol car, where Hollis Breckmore was yakking into the radio. He opened the door and said, “We’re looking at a DB here. Better call in for some backup. I’m gonna take a look around.”

Breckmore nodded, and Moore shut the door. He’d made it halfway around the house, hand on his holstered pistol, when the patrol car’s headlights shut off and he heard the passenger’s door slam. He looked back. Breckmore hustled after him, his flashlight and his gut both bobbing.

Breckmore paused at the corner of the house to have a look at the corpse before hurrying to catch up with his partner.

“That’s a mess,” Breckmore said.

Moore nodded and told him it sure was, and then the two of them walked around the back of the house together.