Dismember

For a moment, Trevor simply stood there, not moving, maybe in shock, maybe confused, certainly scared.

The footsteps came to the door and stopped just outside.

“Trevor, please.” Mike reached out a hand and prodded his son in the back.

After one last second of uncertainty, Trevor looked back at Mike and ran.

Behind Mike, the door burst open.

Zach considered letting the dog go. If he did, at least the animal would have the chance to return home, to run back to the girl whose nose the crazy guy had ruined. But Zach had no way of knowing what the dog would do. What if it ran into the house instead? And what if Crazy Dave realized something was going on before Zach could sneak up behind him? He couldn’t risk that, so he tied the dog’s leash to the porch railing with a good strong knot, promising him it wouldn’t be for long.

“We’ll get you home,” he said. “Just be quiet for me, okay?”

He didn’t expect the dog to understand, fully prepared himself for a barrage of barking the second he’d gone out of sight, but the dog almost seemed to comprehend the situation. At any rate, he didn’t bark, and Zach scrambled onto the porch and into the kitchen through the broken window still owning the element of surprise.

The kitchen smelled like popcorn, and Zach’s stomach growled against his will. He’d hardly eaten all day, couldn’t remember what, if anything, he’d had for lunch. He resisted the urge to open the microwave door, though the popcorn smell was obviously coming from inside, and it wouldn’t have taken him long to swallow a couple of mouthfuls. He had a chance to end this, to save himself and possibly others. He looked away from the microwave.

He moved as quietly as he could, for the most part dodging the scattered chunks of glass underfoot.

When he’d taken the knife from the girl’s kitchen, he’d tucked it into the waistband of his pants with the handle jammed between his buttocks and the wide blade flush against his spine. Now, walking through this second kitchen, he could have kicked himself.

A mile through the dark woods, a butcher knife centimeters away from shredding his innards, and for what? He could have grabbed a knife from one of these drawers just as easily .

But, of course, he’d had no way of knowing that. At the time, grabbing the knife had been a last-ditch effort at some kind of backup plan. For all he knew, it might have been the last time the psycho left him alone for days, or weeks, or ever.

If only someone would have picked up the dang phone. I was so close to getting real help.

He pulled up his shirt far enough to remove the concealed weapon, pulled the knife free and held it out in front of him with both hands like it was some sort of huge, heavy sword rather than a simple kitchen utensil. Where was everyone?

He stepped into the living room. The coffee table was pushed away from where it should have been. A couple of envelopes lay crinkled on the floor, a dirty shoe print on one and what could have been bright blood on the other.

He heard a loud bang from the other end of the house and thought, gunshot. At this point, he was pretty sure Davy didn’t have a gun, but maybe this Pullman guy had surprised Davy with both barrels of a shotgun. Could his abductor be lying gut shot right now against a hallway wall?

Probably not.

Zach’s sweaty hands slid around the knife’s handle, so slippery he was sure he’d drop the thing before he could ever use it. He moved from the living room to the narrow hallway leading off it. Splintered wood littered the floor ahead.

“Ggaahhhhh.”

Somehow, although it was just a strange sound that could have come from anyone, Zach knew it had not come from Davy. Screwing up what courage he had left, he ran for the doorway, holding the knife out in front of him, screaming a war cry and not even realizing it.

Dave’s foot tingled as the door flew open, and he had enough time to wonder if maybe he’d broken a toe.

The man at the window turned to face him, his eyes wide and his whole body trembling.

The boy was gone.

Dave saw the open window and rolled his eyes. Didn’t anybody ever just give up?

“Where’d he go?” he asked and advanced on the man with the knives pointed out from his hips like a pair of revolvers.

Pullman said nothing, but when Dave came close enough, the man threw a wild punch that hit Dave right in the space between his eye and his ear. Light flashed in Dave’s head, and for a second he thought he was back out on the porch. He shook himself and growled. Then, before anything worse could happen, he growled and plunged one of the knives into Pullman.

The blade ripped into Mike’s side just above his left hipbone. He felt heat and electricity, as if he’d been wounded not by a hunting knife but with some futuristic ray gun. The intruder pulled the knife back, grinning. It dripped Mike’s blood.

He tried to stay on his feet, but the combination of shock and agonizing pain brought him to his knees.

So this was it. The man swung the second knife into view, and Mike wondered how many cuts it took before you stopped sensing the pain.

When the slender young boy came running through the door with his own gleaming blade poked out in front of him, Mike wanted to scream, No. Get away, Trevor.

Except he wasn’t Trevor. He wasn’t his son. Mike didn’t know who in the hell he was.

Zach felt the butcher knife glance off Davy’s rib and knew he’d screwed it up.

Davy still screamed, but when Zach tried sticking the man with the knife again, Davy knocked the knife out of Zach’s hand and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.

Mike screamed.

Dave screamed.

Zach screamed.

And that’s when things got really crazy.

TWENTY-ONE

Libby wasn’t exactly petite, but Marshall still had an inch or two on her and at least twenty-five pounds. Unfortunately for him, what he also had was a weak spot, the same weak spot every man had, a weak spot that didn’t currently realize it was weak and jutted into her hip instead of retreating turtle-like into Marshall’s pelvis like it should have.

Libby rammed her thigh into the man’s crotch so hard it hurt her; the ensuing crunch sounded very much like what you get when you stomp a cockroach.

Given the way Marshall had pawed at her breasts and dry-humped her leg, someone who’d missed the blow to his testicles might almost have confused the look on his face for one of orgasmic pleasure. His mouth opened into a wet, perfectly round O, and his eyes rolled up into his head as if looking for his own brain.