Bad Parts

by Brandon McNulty

  “Wait, Trent!”

  He stopped and turned toward her, his mouth an “O” of surprise. Blood glimmered on his cheek from a nasty cut beneath his eye. He could’ve gotten it from a tree branch or a screaming victim. The panicked look in his eyes was hard to read. She didn’t know whether to trust him.

  “How’d you get that cut?”

  “What?” He touched his cheek. Stared at his bloody fingers. “Shit.”

  “Trent.” She approached him, her fingers closing around her gun’s grip. “Where were you just now?”

  “Working undercover.” He met her eyes. “Snare’s controlling Mick. They have Jake.”

  “Berke said you brought creek water back to the house. Everyone who drank it lost their parts. Did you know that would happen?”

  “Ash, I’m trying to find Jake!”

  “Did you know the creek water was poison?”

  “Yes!” he snapped. “But Snare had taken Jake hostage. I had no choice.”

  “Do you have one now?” When he didn’t answer, she drew her gun. “Trent?”

  He gasped.

  “Answer me, Trent.”

  “For fuck’s sake, I ditched Mick and Candace.” He avoided her eyes. Whether he was hiding a malicious motive or merely embarrassed about his involvement, she couldn’t tell. “This is my chance to find Jake. Snare thinks I’m trying to kill you guys right now.”

  “Are you?”

  “You’re still breathing, right?”

  “Two people just screamed like they’d been attacked by somebody.”

  “That was probably Candace. Mick told us to kill everyone at the creek.”

  “Wait, so Snare’s afraid of us building a dam?”

  “I-I don’t know.”

  “Trent, give me a reason to trust you.”

  “I warned Berke back at Candace’s—took a huge risk to protect her. How’s that for a reason?” He glared at her. “Look, either help me find Jake or shoot me now and find him yourself.”

  “Fine.” Ash pocketed her pistol. “But you’re going the wrong way. His screams came from that way.”

  “No, they didn’t.”

  “Trent, I know what I heard.”

  “So do I.”

  “You’re going the wrong way. Why the hell should I trust you?”

  “Because it’s the right way,” he said, pushing past her.

  “Goddammit.” She hurried alongside him. The gun in her hand felt charged with electricity. Eager. “You’re wrong. Turn around and come with me now or—” She pointed the gun at his chest.

  Trent faced her. “Or what? You gonna shoot me? Because your concert-damaged ears heard something different?”

  Ash set her jaw. Her eyes darted from his face to his leg. If the “voodoo doll” theory was correct, she could shoot him below the knee to cripple Mick. There was no guarantee it would work, but she didn’t trust her brother. Snare was blackmailing him. The only thing keeping her finger off the trigger was that she didn’t want to cripple her brother for the second time in ten years. Not after everything she’d sacrificed to get him upright again.

  Behind them, a patch of thicket shook. Ash readied her gun, and Trent drew one of his own. A moment later Berke stumbled through the brush and fell to her knees, her foot tangled in a branch. They unsnarled her shoelace and helped her to her feet.

  “I could’ve shot you both just now, but I didn’t,” Trent said. He pocketed his gun. “I don’t care if you trust me or not, I’m going after Jake.”

  Ash pointed west. “I’m telling you, he’s that way.”

  But Trent was already running south.

  77

  Ash grabbed Berke’s arm and barreled into the western woods. Snow crashed from shaken branches, but Ash powered ahead, ignoring the chills and fighting the uneven terrain. She didn’t give a shit anymore—not about the elements or her brother’s strange behavior or her own personal fears. She was done being distracted. Jake needed her, and nothing else mattered.

  When the forest thinned, Ash released her grip on Berke’s arm. They stuck close together, flashlights off, trying to navigate by sound and the dim moonlight that glowed overhead. Soon Ash inhaled a wet, muddy smell. The creek. It was easy to forget that the creek flowed beyond its infamous bend, but the waters flushed deep through the woods.

  An arch of broken branches snagged Ash’s dreads, sending a shock along her scalp. With Berke’s help, she untangled herself. They entered a sparse stretch of rolling, snow-covered open land. Icy flakes nipped her cheeks. Without the woodland canopy, snow dropped freely, thrown against them by relentless winds.

  “Stick close.” Ash drew her handgun. “If I see Mick, I’m shooting.”

  “What if Jake’s with him?”

  “Let’s hope he’s not.”

  She clicked her flashlight. Ahead, the creek glimmered, rolling south toward town. Beyond it stood a twenty-foot rock cliff—bulging, misshapen, ominous.

  “I see something.” Berke pointed downstream. “Is that Mick?”

  Fog and snowfall obscured clarity; it was impossible to tell what they were seeing.

  They shuffled down a snowy incline, chasing the bulky, uneven shape. The creek rushed by. Ash matched its pace, running toward where Berke had pointed. Her heart sank when she realized it was a dead tree, the upper half split and mangled.

  “My bad,” Berke said.

  “It’s okay,” Ash said.

  Except it wasn’t. Nervous sweat dampened her scalp. Ash spun around, shining her light through the fog. Several dead trees were scattered nearby, but no living, breathing beings. Maybe Trent hadn’t been lying. Maybe she had misheard Jake’s screams in the thicket. The pines could’ve played tricks on her ears and led her to nothing—no Jake, no Mick, no trace.

  Across the creek something crunched overhead, maybe the snap of a tree limb. Berke must’ve heard it too, judging by her sudden gasp. Ash pointed her gun and flashlight toward the source, the rock cliff. Fog clouded its twenty-foot ledge, but she noticed movement. The branches of a short pine shifted. Something poked outward.

  Pale skin.

  A face.

  Jake’s face. He was upside down. As his shape emerged from the shadows, Ash’s stomach clenched.

  The kid was dangling two stories above the creek.

  And Mick held him by the ankle.

  78

  “Hellllppp!!” Jake screamed.

  Ash rushed ahead, eyes locked on her nephew. Her boot sank into the creek, and water flushed through a gash in the leather. The icy shock stopped her in her tracks, but her momentum sent her tumbling face-first toward the creek. She braced for frigid impact, but instead her jacket tugged backward.

  “I got you!” Berke said, dragging her back onto the bank.

  “Thanks,” Ash said, breathlessly.

  With solid ground beneath her, she aimed high, finger on the trigger.

  “Drop it, Ash,” Mick called. She heard his voice, though he was hidden among the pines and foggy shadows. The only visible part of him was the thick arm hoisting Jake, who twisted and sobbed.

  “Step out, Mick!” Ash steadied her aim. “Or should I say Snare?”

  “Drop the gun.”

  “Drop the kid.”

  “If I drop him from this height, he’ll hit the water hard. This section of the creek is shallow. His head will strike bottom. Is that what you want for him, a snapped neck?”

  “How can you do this? I thought you were a mother. What if someone dropped your boy?”

  “They did worse to my boy.”

  “Who did?”

  “Enough stalling. Drop the gun. Actually, wait—shoot Berke in the head first.”

  The order caught Ash off guard. Beside her, Berke stifled a gasp.

  “Not happening,” Ash said. “You don’t make the rules anymore.”

  “If you value Jake’s life, I do. Now, shoot Berke in the head. You’ve got five seconds.”

  “What if I shoot her in the spine?” Ash presse
d the gun to Berke’s back. The girl squirmed. “How about that?”

  “Four seconds… Three… Two…”

  “Wait!”

  “One.”

  Ash aimed high but couldn’t bring herself to squeeze the trigger. As the countdown expired, she watched as the hand gripping Jake’s ankle swung him skyward. The kid wailed as his foot was released. For a moment Jake disappeared into the upper darkness.

  Ash pointed her flashlight skyward. The beam caught him at his highest point. His legs pedaled and his arms swung, grabbing helplessly at empty air. His scream ripped through the foggy silence as if pumped through arena speakers. It seemed impossible for a boy his size to shriek so loudly.

  He flipped over in midair and began to drop, his kicking legs plummeting toward the water.

  His toes dipped past the ledge. Then his shins. Finally his waist.

  His body jerked to a horrible, shrieking stop as Mick snatched him by the wrist. Jake jerked violently, and his free-fall stopped. He moaned as his hip thumped against the rock cliff. His wounded sobs raked against Ash’s eardrums.

  Tears flooded Ash’s eyes. “You fucking bitch!” she shouted.

  Mick hoisted Jake above the ledge. “Berke or Jake. You pick who dies, Ash.”

  “Neither.” She pressed the cold barrel against her left palm. “Let him go or your hand’s fucked.”

  “You shoot your hand, I drop him.” Mick dangled the kid. “Let’s pretend he somehow survives the fall. Then what? You gonna swim after him with your hand all shot up?”

  “I’ll get him,” Berke said, unzipping her coat. “Do it, Ash.”

  Ash touched the barrel to her palm. She gazed up at Jake. The rocky wall beneath him jutted savagely in several places. She couldn’t risk him landing on anything harder than the creek. Even that worried her. A shallow bottom could break his little neck, like Mick said.

  “Shoot her right now!” Mick swung Jake skyward. The kid wailed. Ash waited for the right moment. For Jake to lift above the ledge. If she timed it right, he could land up there and start running.

  Her finger settled against the trigger. At the peak of Mick’s swing, she couldn’t tell if Jake was above land or water.

  She didn’t fire.

  Mick again released Jake. He rose, screamed, dropped, and was caught again, this time by a shoe.

  “You’re lucky,” Mick said. “Almost didn’t catch him this time.”

  “Goddammit, Snare! He’s eight!”

  “My child suffered worse at age five.”

  “Then show some fucking mercy!”

  “Kill Berke and I will.”

  Ash poked the barrel into her palm.

  Curled her finger around the trigger.

  Waited for the right moment.

  Waited.

  Waited.

  A shot crackled through the air. Ash flinched, confused. She hadn’t squeezed the trigger. Has Berke been hiding a gun of her own? But when Ash turned around, she saw a red hole in Berke’s forehead, like a second mouth had opened above her eye socket. Blood poured from the wound, painting the girl’s cheek as she tipped forward.

  With a gurgling moan, Berke dropped facedown into the snow.

  Behind her stood Trent, clutching the gun that had killed her.

  79

  Horrible didn’t begin to describe it. Ash fell to her knees beside Berke, the latest corpse on a pile that wouldn’t stop mounting. Here was a girl who’d been stuck in Hollow Hills since infancy, who only wanted to escape town, chase a lover, and make mistakes like any normal teenager. But there would be no escape. There would be nothing for her. Nothing at all, except for an exit wound above her left eyebrow.

  Behind the fallen corpse, Trent’s eyes flickered between his gun and Berke’s body. He squirmed, blinking, as if he couldn’t quite understand how a close-range bullet could have such an impact on a teenage girl. Trembling, he looked at Ash, his eyes pleading for redemption.

  “Trent, you idiot!”

  “I had no choice! What was I supposed to do?”

  What was he supposed to do? Anything other than what he did. Berke had been willing to dive into freezing water to help his son, and Trent thanked her with a bullet.

  It crushed Ash. Disgusted her. Enraged her.

  She aimed at his leg and fired.

  The gun kicked and Trent flinched. Roaring, he tumbled next to Berke’s corpse, wailing as he grabbed his shin. Blood darkened his pant leg and spread along his calf, the same one she had wrecked ten years ago, accidently. This time it was deliberate—but agonizingly necessary. If he were willing to murder Berke, Ash would undoubtedly be next, followed by the rest of the Traders.

  High above, Mick roared, sharing Trent’s agony. Ash spun around and saw him fall from the ledge, Jake’s foot still in his grasp. They plummeted, their cries intensifying as they approached the water. Halfway down, Mick bashed his shoulder off a jutting rock. The impact split them apart in midair. When they struck the creek, Ash heard two separate splashes.

  “Jaaake!” Ash ran along the muddy bank, shining her light across the surface. Ripples throbbed from both impact points. She didn’t see Jake anywhere. Though his absence horrified her at first, she realized the water here was deeper than Snare had threatened.

  To her left a splash sounded.

  “Help!” Jake yelled, gurgling. “Help!”

  She raced after him as the waters propelled him downstream. She closed in, her feet sliding in mud, but she realized he was beyond her reach.

  “Jake, swim to me!”

  “I can’t!”

  “You have to!”

  Bubbles swallowed his face. Took him under.

  Another splash sounded. Jake’s hands swatted air.

  “Hang on!” She scrambled, looking for a sturdy branch to extend out to him. All she found were busted twigs, neither long nor large.

  “Hellllpppp!”

  The current dragged him farther downstream. She shined her light ahead, hoping the creek might curve and bring him closer. Instead a ledge appeared. Her ringing ears could barely pick up the sound of the splashing waterfall, but the fact she heard it at all suggested it was a steep drop.

  “Jake, swim to me! Now!” She dropped to her knees in the mud. Leaning forward, she stretched as far out as she could without falling in. Vertigo swirled in her head as the surface clicked beneath her. She swiped at Jake’s hand, connecting for a second with a finger, but couldn’t grab him.

  He floated past, the ledge seconds away.

  I have to jump in. The thought made her skin crawl. She would then have to climb out, soaking wet, into the blizzard’s ripping gales. Somehow she would have to navigate this messy forest, find her way back to the dam, and finish it, all while soggy and freezing. And if she and Jake were both sopping wet, how was she supposed to get him dry and warm?

  No, she couldn’t jump in. There had to be another way.

  Checking nearby, she found a brittle stick, maybe a foot long. On her knees, she stretched it out to Jake, who struggled to stay in one place in the current. He caught it, but when she pulled, it snapped. She almost fell in; her dreads spilled across her face.

  That gave her an idea.

  She pulled her knife from her pocket. Touching the tip just above her scalp, she sawed through the root of a dreadlock. Her scalp ached as the blade sliced through. After her dread snapped loose, she cast it like a three-foot fishing line.

  “Jake, catch!”

  His hand swung but missed.

  She cast again.

  His hand swatted air, bubbles surrounding his desperate eyes.

  For a moment she felt a tug on her makeshift rope.

  Then he went under.

  “No!” Panic rocketed down her brainstem. This isn’t working. I have to dive in. Better that they both be wet and shivering than—

  The hair rope snapped taut in her fist.

  “Hang on!” She tugged, leaning backward, her shoulders aching and straining. She battled against the cree
k’s relentless tug. It fought back. She fought harder.

  But still Jake’s leg slid over the ledge.

  “Shit—hang on!”

  Cold mud slid beneath her knees. The toes of her boots skidded behind her. In near-total darkness, she saw his legs kick above the crest of the waterfall. Then they sank out of sight.

  She held tight with both hands, struggling to keep him topside. She could barely see the red sleeves of his Phillies jacket. Leaning backward, she struggled against Jake’s weight and the current.

  Do something good with that hand.

  Her father’s words pumped adrenaline down her arms. Gripping the dread with her right hand, she reached forward and pulled with the left. Her new strength surprised her. Jake seemed lighter. She reached forward with the right. Then the left again. Another strong pull and the boy was safely ashore.

  She hugged his shivering body against her. Through her gloves, she could feel his saturated hair and clothes. Something within her broke as he whimpered. She clutched him close, his wet clothes soaking her own.

  “C-Cold,” he said. “It h-hurts.”

  “I know.”

  “B-Burns…”

  “Hang on.” She started peeling her jacket from her arms. “Let’s warm you up. The hard part’s over, so—”

  Gunfire boomed upstream. Ash jumped, then rushed Jake behind the nearest tree trunk. It was barely wide enough to provide cover.

  She hugged him tight. The shots kept coming.

  80

  Karl chased the echoing gunshots. After getting left behind in the thicket, he finally knew where to run. Snow and twigs crunched underfoot as he cut across rolling, uneven terrain. He reached the creek and chased it, rushing deeper into the woods. The towel supporting his gashed, aching knee loosened with each step. He didn’t dare break his stride to stop and tighten the knot. Not until Jake, Trent, and Ashlee were safe.

  More gunshots echoed through darkness. Louder, clearer. The firefight must be close.

  A few feet from the creek’s edge, he noticed footprints in the snow. A single set. He followed them with his flashlight, hurrying as fast as his knee would allow.