herself hooked on all kinds of shit, but she was the only thing I had. I kicked her out of my place so she'd get clean. You took that chance away from her.'

'You have the wrong person.'

'I do not have the wrong person. I made damn sure I had the right person. The cops may not care about a homeless junkie, but she was my goddamn sister and you murdered her!'

At this point, Charlie didn't think that lies were going to do him any good. He also didn't think that the man would accept an apology. So he said nothing.

'What do you care about?' the man asked. 'Just that dog, right?'

'I have a girlfriend.'

'Yeah, but that's nothing. You've got no emotional investment there. I don't even have to hear what you're saying to each other to know that. She'll dump you as soon as she gets a better offer, and you'll mope for a week and move on. You don't care about her.'

'Okay.'

'That dog, though. Man's best friend.'

Charlie shoved his hand into his inside jacket pocket.

'You packin'? What are you going to do, shoot both of us and our dogs? You think you can do that before we get you?'

Charlie fumbled with the gun inside his pocket for a moment before he managed to pull it out and point it at the man who did all the talking. The man did look a bit worried, but not worried enough.

'Put the gun down,' the man said. 'You prey on the helpless, like the sorry piece of crap that you are. Even with a gun you're not going to stop big strong guys like us. You're pathetic.'

'I'm not pathetic.'

'Yeah, I think you are.'

Charlie wanted to put a bullet right between the man's eyes. Unfortunately, even at this close range he wasn't sure he could hit his target, and the man was absolutely right--two men and two huge dogs were more than he could handle.

'Do you want money?' Charlie asked.

'Money? Are you kidding me? This isn't about blackmail. At this very moment it's about your life, so why don't you put the gun away so we can take it out of that area?'

Charlie had no idea what to do. A bloody shootout wasn't going to end well for anybody. If these men really meant to kill him, they would've done it sooner instead of stalking him. He wasn't good at talking his way out of situations, yet this might be one time that he had to.

He put the gun back in his inside jacket pocket, then held up his hands to show that they were empty except for the handle of Kutter's leash.

The man let out a loud whistle that hurt Charlie's ears. 'Kill!'

Both men released their dogs.

The dogs moved like a blur, and as the dogs struck him Kutter let out a high-pitched yelp that was like a shriek of pain and terror. The yelp didn't stop as Charlie reached into the snarling mass of dogs, drops of blood spraying into the air, screaming and trying to rescue his pet.

Jaws clamped down on his arm, but he couldn't feel them.

Charlie kicked at the rottweiler as hard as he could. He was off balance and panicked and the kick bounced harmlessly off the dog's side. The rottweiler shook its head back and forth rapidly, ripping away Kutter's skin and fur.

His second kick connected with the rottweiler's snout and the dog let out a yelp of its own. The other dog pulled its jaws away from Charlie's arm and bit down onto Kutter's ear.

With a burst of adrenaline that he'd never felt in his life, Charlie yanked the bloody mess of Kutter out of the fray. Both dogs pounced on him, and at any other time Charlie knew that they would've knocked him to the floor and probably mauled him to death within minutes. But he held his footing. He had to protect his best friend.

With Kutter clutched to his chest with both arms, Charlie ran for the hallway, the dogs right behind him. He raced down the hallway into the bathroom, spun around, and kicked the rottweiler once again. This time he got it good, giving him enough time to slam the bathroom door closed.

'Kutter...oh, God, Kutter...'

Tears streamed down Charlie's face as he looked down at his pet. Kutter had been savaged--most of his left ear was gone, and much of his fur was so soaked with blood that Charlie couldn't immediately tell how deep the lacerations were. More blood was flowing freely from several places.

There was no way Charlie could tend to these injuries the way he had the wounds when he first found the dog.

He needed his hands free, so he set Kutter on the floor. Kutter let out a whimper as his fur made contact with the tile. Outside, the dogs barked and growled and clawed at the bathroom door.

Charlie pulled out the gun that he never should have put away. Stupid. A terrible decision. He couldn't wait out the men and their dogs, not with Kutter dying on the floor, so he flicked off the safety and fired a shot through the door so they'd know he was serious.

He heard the men calling off the dogs, and the scraping stopped. Charlie almost fired another shot, then decided that he needed to conserve his bullets in case he didn't successfully scare the men off. He opened the door, then scooped up Kutter in his left arm and stepped out into the hallway.

The men were exiting through the front door. Charlie shot at them and the bullet didn't even come close, putting a hole in his wall instead. By the time he got outside, the men were sprinting down the sidewalk with their murderous dogs.

Charlie bolted to his car and opened the passenger side door. 'I'm so sorry,' he told Kutter as he set the dog on the seat.

Towels. He needed towels. Not to protect his car seat--he didn't care about that--but to wrap around Kutter and hopefully slow the bleeding enough that he wouldn't die before Charlie could get help. And he needed the car keys.

'I'll be right back,' he promised Kutter as he ran back inside. He grabbed a stack of towels, got the car keys from where they rested on the kitchen table, and hurried back outside. He wrapped Kutter tightly. Blood immediately soaked through the first white towel, and he wrapped him in another.

He slammed the door and got in the driver's side. 'Don't die, don't die, please don't die,' he whispered as he started the car's engine and pulled out of his driveway.

Charlie realized that his arm really hurt where the dog had bitten it, but he had much more important things to worry about. As long as he didn't pass out from loss of blood before he could get help for Kutter, he'd be fine.

Kutter whimpered softly as Charlie sped down the road.

'You're going to be okay,' Charlie promised. 'They'll fix you up. They'll make you stop bleeding and they'll sew you up and we'll play Frisbee.'

He wiped the tears from his eyes since they were blurring his vision, and then scratched Kutter's chin. The dog licked his fingers with a bloody tongue and whimpered again.

Charlie thought about his emergency cabin. If he started driving to it right now, he might gain enough of a lead on the police that they wouldn't know where he'd gone, wouldn't be able to find him. He'd live in relative discomfort, but it would be a hell of a lot better than prison or lethal injection.

The men would tell the police that he'd murdered the girl, and they'd connect him to the murders of twenty- one other girls. Even if they never found out about the others, even if they only got him for the one, he was screwed.

If he drove to the cabin, Kutter would die.

If he didn't, he was going to prison.

If he left him somewhere, even someplace that could fix him up, he'd never know if his dog lived or died.

There was only one possible choice here.

'Just a few more minutes,' he assured Kutter. 'Just a few and then I'll make everything okay.'

Вы читаете The Mad and the MacAbre
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