Fun and Games

34

My dream role would be some kind of tour de force

where the character goes through hell

and still comes out on the other side alive.

—Bruce Campbell in Cashiers du Cinemart

HARDIE LAY in the dry grass, bleeding, handcuffed to his demon girl. She’d stopped laughing, thankfully. It had started to creep him out.

“Now, if I can just wait until the cavalry arrives…,” he said, wondering if Mann would get the reference. If she did, she gave no indication.

The police arrived, along with a flotilla of EMTs. Somebody used a key on the cuffs and separated the two. Somebody else checked his neck, his vitals, shined a light in his eyes, and then he was loaded onto a gurney and carried through the Hunter home. Psycho Phil and his sister were still groaning—they would probably live. Same deal with the gunmen, which meant that Hardie was losing his touch. Either that, or nobody died in purgatory.

Of course, all of this was kinda sorta déjà vu–like in a bizarro universe kind of way. Being shot and beaten to the brink of death and then carried through some innocent family’s home. Just like when he was carried through Nate’s home, after all the shooting had stopped three years ago.

Maybe this was it, finally, at long last—the end credits that had been waiting three long years to crawl across the screen.

Please, God, let me just fade out and realize that the past three years have been an elaborate imagined fantasy sequence as my dying brain fired off its last few synapses. Please tell me I actually died at Nate’s house, and all of this has been some kind of fire I had to pass through before making it to the next life. Please tell me this was meant to purify my soul, and now I can rest in peace.

God—if listening—declined to respond.

Some time passed. Hardie wasn’t sure how long, exactly. A minute maybe. He felt his eyes go out of focus. His mind wandered, like he was on the edge of sleep. His life didn’t flash before his eyes. There were no last-minute revelations or epiphanies. Everything was just gray and soft and numb.

An EMT appeared next to him. He ripped open some plastic. Pulled out a syringe. Pried off the plastic top. Slid the needle into a glass bottle. Flicked the syringe with a finger. Drew back the plunger.

“Oh, they’re going to have fun with you,” the EMT said, then slid the needle into Hardie’s arm.