Vacation

Jack crawled to the far end of the table, deeper into the building. There was no point in escaping with these two alive.

He stood up, and clocked the position of the two of them. Dunphy holding some kind of gas-powered saw, something for chewing through bones, cutting up carcasses.

The cook’s helper held a cleaver in one hand and a long curved blade in the other.

“Just stop right there, buddy,” the cook said, “and nobody has to get fucking hurt.” Dunphy grinned, his bowling-ball face one leering smile. “After all, if we had wanted to hurt you, that would have happened hours ago, right?”

The helper had taken a few tentative steps closer to Jack.

Jack acted as though he didn’t notice.

There was no point talking to these two.

More steps from the helper.

Now the cook began to walk away from the far wall, the saw spitting out smoke, the chained blades grunting as they cut through the air. Dunphy’s massive arms held the saw with ease.

Obviously given it a lot of use.

Could Jack depend on his leg?

The two men had moved so each was at the limit of Jack’s peripheral vision.

Jack started to lower his knife.

Sharp enough to cut through rope, but how would it do with skin and bone?

He was about to find out.

Lower still.

The cook’s smile broadened even as he moved toward Jack, the saw held at chest height, blade pointing forward like the barrel of a bizarre gun.

Then Jack moved.

He turned to the helper. Smaller, he was probably faster. He looked scared, while the cook didn’t.

The smaller man immediately stuck out his two blades, a classic and bad move by someone who wasn’t used to fighting with a knife.

Jack held his blade close, maximizing his ability to send it jutting out and back.

Sticking it out … that just wasted seconds.

Jack took painful steps toward the man and when close enough, he did just that—jabbing his right hand with the blade out. He nailed the man’s arm holding the cleaver. The man screamed as he released it and it fell to the floor.

From the sound of the saw, Dunphy had started moving toward Jack.

Only seconds.

The helper now slashed wildly from left and right with the thin blade, a mini-sword ending in a fine pointy tip.

Jack tilted to the left, dodging one wild swing, then another dodge as it came swinging back. He held back on his second strike until that wild arc had been completed.

And when that had happened, the man’s midsection lay wide open to an attack.

Another jab, this one straight at the man’s guts, then a violent pull up. The whirr of the gas-powered saw right behind Jack.

He left the blade buried.

Saving a precious second or two.

He spun around, the move agony now. Dunphy marched toward him like a human tank, stepping on and over his partner.

Dunphy kept jabbing with the saw. A stupid grin still filled his face. He wasn’t scared. He was fucking enjoying this.

Blades all over the room, but Jack was cut off from them.

But the saw was heavy despite the strength in the cook’s meaty arms.

“Come on, you dumb bastard!” the cook yelled. His mouth a dark hole.

As much a Can Head as any Can Head Jack had ever faced.

Nothing human about this monster at all.

Close, and Jack was forced against the wall.

But there was a table right in front of him, covered in blood, bone, skin.

Jack did a diving roll onto the table, spinning around on the bone and flesh that had been left there. The smell of decay covering him.

The roll worked. Dunphy spun around, marching around to the other side, his saw sputtering. The smile had vanished.

But, Jack thought, I’m not going anywhere yet.

He backed against another table. A massive pot sat on it. Jack glanced into it. Filled with milky water and dotted with whitish chunks on the top.

Bones, boiled down.

He grabbed an edge of the pot with his right hand, ignoring the burn, and pushed it forward, sending the bones and the slimy water crashing to the floor. The slimy soup hit the spot where the cook took his next step.

He moved forward, oblivious.

That was a mistake. Because the fat cook wobbled, and the saw flew up as he struggled for balance.

Dunphy even looked wide-eyed at the saw as if it might angle around and bite into him.

Jack—now close to a wall of knives and cleavers and saws.

But he saw something on the table that looked like a gun. A butcher’s tool, with a barrel. Sitting right there.

He picked it up just as Dunphy regained his footing.

Jack came close to the cook now, and before the man even knew what was happening, Jack pressed the bolt gun against Dunphy’s side and pulled the trigger.

It made a dull thudding sound. No bullet inside. But the fat barrel had shot something out.

When Jack pulled away, he could see the smooth hole in the cook’s chest. What the hell was it—something to kill people before Dunphy started to work on them? A quick shot to the brain, and it would be all over?

Like steer in the slaughterhouse back in the old days.

This was a human slaughterhouse.

But Jack needed the cook alive.

Jack fired another, now at Dunphy’s throat. Another smooth hole opened. Blood gushed forth. The chain saw fell from his hands, and Jack had to step back to dodge it, coughing from the smoke, the chain spinning, still running.

Dunphy fell backward. A beached whale, shooting blood out of the blow hole in his throat.

Jack went to him, crouched down.

“Where are they?”

The cook shook his head. He grabbed at his throat as if he could close the hole.

“Where the hell is my family?”

He pressed the bolt gun against the cook’s head.

Dunphy shook his head again.

But he was spraying blood like a geyser. No way he could stay alive for long.

“Tell me. Tell me, you fat fuck, or I’ll fill your head with holes.”

The cook’s mouth opened. More blood dribbled out. There was no way he could talk, Jack could see.

But the lips moved.

Once, then repeating the same word, unintelligible.

Dunphy now had two hands around his neck, attempting to stem the flow. Jack pressed the bolt gun against his head, right behind the left eye, and pulled the trigger. A dull thud.

Dunphy’s hands fell away from his throat.

Jack let the bolt gun fall from his hands.