The naked edge

36

"You cocksucker!" Wailing, dropping his flashlight, Carl stumbled backward, the stake in his thigh tearing flesh as it pulled free.

Cavanaugh rushed him, then dodged away as the flashlight on the ground glinted off the knife Carl swung at him.

Cavanaugh grabbed a thick limb from the ground, the size of a baseball bat. He braced himself to strike as Carl hobbled toward him, slashing his knife up and down and from side to side in a buzz-saw blur.

Cavanaugh swung the club. Carl dodged. Cavanaugh swung again, wincing from the wound in his side. Carl leapt back. Breathing heavily, facing one another, they turned in a circle, looking for an opening, ready to strike, the flashlight casting shadows across them.

At once, Cavanaugh realized that Carl had maneuvered so that his left hand now pulled back the branch with the stake. Lurching away as Carl released it, Cavanaugh struck a fallen bough and dropped backward, the stake zipping past him. Shouting, Carl charged, and all Cavanaugh could do was roll away from the light. Keeping his hand on the club but in no position to use it, he surged to his feet and raced from the trees.

The picnic table, he thought. Its dark shape was suddenly before him. He almost banged into it but managed to slow in time to drop to his knees and scurry under it, carefully avoiding where he'd secured the stake. He groaned as Carl's blade sliced across his back. But he forced himself to keep crawling, sensing Carl leaning fiercely under the table to stab him.

Something made a grotesque, liquid, popping sound. Carl's scream communicated sanity-threatening pain. Cavanaugh tightened his grip on the club. Rising beyond the table, he swung over it, aiming toward Carl, who twisted in a frenzy, his left hand clutching his left eye.

The club whistled past Carl, who now did an amazing thing, the one mistake an experienced knife fighter never makes. Don't throw your knife at your enemy. You might miss, and then you're without your weapon. But in this case, it wasn't a mistake. At so close a range that the sounds Cavanaugh made guided Carl's aim, relying on surprise, Carl threw the knife. Hurled it with all his might. Cavanaugh wailed from the pain of the knife striking his ribs, chipping bone. The only thing that saved him was that the blade was upright and didn't slip between ribs to puncture his ribs or his heart.

Nonetheless, he felt dizzy, in shock from blood loss. Gasping, he wavered. He fumbled, trying to find where the knife dropped, but Carl was suddenly on him, knocking him to the sand, his fingers around his throat, squeezing.

Blood dripped from Carl's missing eye onto Cavanaugh's face.

"Want to make a bet, Aaron?"

Wheezing, Cavanaugh grabbed a handful of dirt from under the table and threw it at Carl's bleeding eye socket.

Carl hissed as if the dirt were hot coals. But his hands remained firm on Cavanaugh's throat.

Flesh separating on his sliced back, Cavanaugh reached painfully up to shove a thumb into Carl's empty eye socket. He actually got it in, feeling blood stream down his thumb. But before he could probe, his hand sank, his mind swirling, Carl squeezing harder.

Carl's head jerked up, his remaining eye scanning the fog. Distant footsteps ran across the invisible soccer field.

"You still can't do this without help, huh?" He leaned down, so close that he breathed against Cavanaugh's left ear. "I bet your friends never find either of us."

As Cavanaugh's mind swirled faster, Carl's last words echoed and faded.