With an explosive clang, the two weapons collided in mid air, accompanied by angry screams and cracking handles. Then, either because the ax was heavier, or because of what I knew couldn’t possibly be in the hall with us, Skinny Man fell backwards and toppled down the stairs, the shovel arcing through the air with him. My momentum carried me forward and I fell down on top of him, losing the ax as I tumbled.
Still holding the knife, I rolled past him and into the wall at the bottom, spilling into the living room like dirty laundry. Pain erupted throughout my back, my vision blurred. My shoulders seemed to swell up before my eyes, and I was pretty sure my spine was sticking out the top of my head. The dog bite on my shin was gushing like a geyser. I looked up and found Skinny Man lying on the stairs, upside down, with his leg caught in the railing. Above him, the ax peeked out over the top stair, out of my reach. He swung the shovel at me but he was a couple feet too far away to hit me. I braced myself for it to come flying at me next, but he held on to it instead. Watching him watching me, I noticed one of the railing spokes had stabbed through his calf muscle, pinning him there like a fish on a hook.
He yelled, “You are in a heap of shit now. Only people who leave here are the ones marked paid in full, and I don’t see a receipt on your toe, now do I?”
And with that he punched through the spoke and broke it off from the railing. Standing up with the thin piece of wood impaling him, he reached down and took hold of the shortest end and proceeded to pull it all the way through and out the other side of his leg, grinning the whole while. Once the spoke was out, blood began to pool on the stairs and run down toward me. He took a step and winced, sweat flowing from his brow, and his face twisted in surprise. I guess he didn’t think his little trick would hurt that much, but from the way he was breathing through his clenched teeth, and the way he was now afraid to walk, he had obviously misjudged his own threshold for pain. Still, I was in no shape to make for the ax above him so I turned and limped toward the front door.
“Where you going, mama’s boy? You still have to atone for your crime. Hey, Butch!”
A loud bark came from behind me and I spun with my fists raised and ready. Butch came charging through the living room like a runaway train and slammed me into the door. Sharp teeth bit down on my hip and sank into my flesh, thrusting me into the door repeatedly. In excruciating pain, I wrapped my arm around his head and tried to shove the knife in his throat.
From the stairs, Skinny Man yelled, “No! Don’t you hurt him! I’ll kill you!”
But Butch was thrashing, and the knife missed its target and sank into his shoulder instead. With a yelp he burst back into the kitchen and disappeared, the knife still protruding from his body. My hip was filled with red hot gravel. Blood was seeping down my groin. Realizing I had to get out now, I reached up to undo the latch on the front door. From behind me I heard the Frankenstein clomp of Skinny Man shuffling down the steps, and a second later a shovel swooped over my head and took a chunk out of the lintel. I grabbed the handle before he could pull it back and wrenched it from his hands, swung it back at him with all my might. But I was hurt and beyond fatigued, and I misjudged the swing and hit the banister instead. The reverberation sent a shock wave up my arm and I dropped it on the floor. In an instant Skinny Man was on top of me.
“I’m gonna cut you up nice and fine,” he whispered in my ear as we struggled. I saw him go for the ax on his belt. “Hell, I didn’t ask you to come here, you did that on yer own. So many people always trying to come through my property, hike through my hills, drive through my woods. Nobody ever learns, do they?”
My shoulders felt like cornmeal and my punches had little effect. Getting a thumb up to his eye, I jabbed it in but it was a weak attempt. He pulled his head away and put me in a headlock and squeezed, still trying to undo the ax. Spots jumped before me; I was losing my breath. In a way, it felt good, like I would soon be asleep and in a better place. Again, I could see random images before me, the ever-present image of California that had lodged into my subconscious, a quick flash of Jamie when she was younger, holding her teddy bear, my father yelling at me for watching too many horror films. Then I saw another vision: Tooth, standing in the corner of the room. He was saying something to me. “Go for the leg, he’s hurt in the leg.”
Kicking back, I hit the gaping wound on Skinny Man’s calf, rubbed the heel of my shoe down it and ripped it open wider. At the same time I scratched at his face and tore open the flesh under his eye. He lost his grip on me and I dropped straight to the floor, out of his hands. Groggy and gasping for breath, I lifted myself up as quickly as I could manage and kicked him in the chest, sent him into the bottom stair, which he tripped backwards on. Before he even hit the ground, he was pulling the hand ax free from its loop.
Knowing I was outnumbered two to one at that point, I unfastened the latch on the door and threw myself into the sunlight. I burst through the overgrown front lawn and made for the trees across the street.
CHAPTER 24
I was halfway across the lawn when I looked back and saw Skinny Man coming at me with the hand ax. With the wound in my leg I wasn’t able to run as fast as I needed to and he was gaining on me, either used to the pain in his leg or so afraid of what would happen if I got away he didn’t care. By the time I reached the street he was nearly on top of me, swinging the bloodstained blade at my head. I fell to the cement and rolled out of the way, rolling myself back onto my feet and swinging my fists at him. Again, he tried to play whack-a-mole with my brain, but I managed to get my arms up under his and deflect the blow, our forearms smashing into each other. I kicked at him and he jumped back, putting his weight on his bad leg, which stopped him for a second.
“Stop that crying,” he told me. “If you’re going to act like some fucking superhero least you could do is play the part.”
I hadn’t even realized I was crying; I was too intent on not dying to notice what was going on physically. But as soon as he said it I realized my face was awash in tears. My body was shaking and my legs felt deflated. In front of me, the shirtless, bloodied madman was smiling like he’d released the frightened child inside of me.
Frightened yes, child no.
“Where you gonna go?” he asked. “Nowhere you can run I can’t find you. Butch is a good tracker; he’ll find you in a heartbeat. Best if you just came back over here and took your medicine like a man. In case you forgot, I know where you live, mama’s boy.”
I had forgotten that he still had my driver’s license, that he knew where I lived. Could I make it to Bobtail before he drove to my parent’s house and killed them? Or would he pack up and disappear for a long time, only to resurface ten years from now on my front porch, his little ax in his belt, a new pair of dogs at his heels?
It was driving me mad. He had all his angles covered, knew all the ways to defeat his victim even when he wasn’t around.
“You gonna kill my family like you killed yours!” I screamed.
He stayed back and replied, “Wasn’t me, mama’s boy, I just follow directions, and besides, they were bad. Always snooping in my stuff, nosing around where they shouldn’t be, trying to steal things. That little bitch was trying to steal my soul, sell it to the highest bidder. Kids are the devil’s minions, ya know. But she learned right from wrong when I dragged her behind my truck till her face came off. Yeah, she knew not to do bad things then, with her eyes smeared on the road.”
“You’re fucking crazy!’
“Get back here! Don’t make me drive and pick up yer mama, ’cause I will. I’ll fuck her rotten on top of yer corpse. I’ll fuck her with yer severed limbs. You want that? Either one works for me, as long as somebody is keeping them happy.”
Again with the
As I reached the trees across the street, Skinny Man followed with the ax at the ready. Behind him loomed his house where I could only guess how many hikers and travelers had met their untimely ends in ungodly painful ways. It was almost as if I could look through the walls and see the ghosts of the unfortunate, Jamie’s dismembered torso on the ground in the dark, the empty chains where Tooth had suffered unthinkable pain.
“What’s it gonna be, superhero?”
Suddenly, I stopped. With an early afternoon breeze kissing my blood-streaked, tear-covered face, I watched him come at me a little slower, as if he was wondering what my plan was. There was no plan though, just that I
