by Ryan Harding
“We’re running out of time to get to the other side of the lake.” Suzanne squeezed his arm for emphasis. “He’s going to convince them to go next door.”
“Maybe we should go with it, see how it plays out. Orange already cleared it. He won’t go back.”
“And maybe he didn’t finish the first time.”
“What? You think he ran home ‘cause he left the stove on?”
“I don’t know what that was about, but I do know he can chase everyone if we all stick together. He can’t be everywhere at once. He’s gotta make a choice if we split up.”
“Yeah, that’s a great point…unless he chooses us.”
“Marcus, who do you think he’ll find first? Two people together or seven?”
“But baby, who has the better chance if he does find them? Two people with tree branches or the seven people with napalm? They could melt that motherfucker down to his boots. We’ll be lucky to give him poison ivy.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, a hidden conversation he suspected meant a lot more than his points about sticking with the group. Her body released the tension of the moment as she relented, though he knew she was far from convinced.
“Just don’t forget who makes up those seven people you’re counting on,” Suzanne said, a finger jabbed in his face.
“Uh uh. It’s ‘cause of them we’ll still be able to get away on our own if we have to.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on, before they leave us behind.”
Downstairs, Patrick, Gin, and Adam filled bottles with the napalm concoction. The gasoline smell overpowered the stale piss and dust downstairs. Orange would know they’d been here even if he had a mask over his snout.
“I think we should look for more weapons next door,” Patrick said. “This was a decent haul, but—”
“One of us needs to go for a Chicken Exit,” Ed said. “Maybe two. Is anyone with me?”
The sirens started anew.
“Fuck! This again?” Marcus threw up his arms. He meant Ed as much as the sirens. That dude was hooked on his Chicken Exit strategy.
Patrick stuffed the second bottle with a rag.
“What about you?” Ed looked at Eliza. “Will you go with me? Two sets of eyes are better than one. You’re a runner. If he shows up, you could get away, no problem.”
Eliza shook her head.
Good thing for you, Ed. She and Annette are a package deal.
“What was he wearing?” Gin asked. “A gas mask?”
Patrick answered, “Yes, a MacPherson gas mask. Useful invention for soldiers who didn’t want to breathe through a handkerchief soaked in urine.”
Of course he would know that.
Pam said, “Ed, don’t be like this. You’d get lost or run into him just as soon as you’d find one of those phones.”
Patrick picked up the bottles. “I’ve already got it on my hands,” he said to Gin.
Marcus had worked his way to the sliding glass door, Suzanne right behind him. He glanced outside where the boards were covered in layers of old fallen leaves just like the upper deck. With a light tug Marcus tried to slide the door to see if it was unlocked. It came loose with a loud groan.
The various conversations ceased and everyone looked his way in horror.
“My bad,” Marcus said.
“Better close the curtain over that, Marcus,” Patrick said. “If he—”
Annette screamed.
The glass pane screeched along the old rails. Marcus felt himself tugged by Suzanne and he lurched sideways off balance and fell, taking Suzanne down with him. He looked over his shoulder in time to see Agent Orange step through the doorway not two feet away.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Orange moved away from the sliding door, leaving them a sliver of hope. Marcus scrambled to his feet, only playing hero to Suzanne. He jerked her up and pushed her through the doorway, leaves crunching under the pounding steps as they broke into a run.
Even before he glimpsed the bow propped against the outside wall, Marcus knew Orange had come from the right side of the house. He would have seen his approach otherwise. Marcus swept up the bow as he and Suzanne ran toward an opening in the deck. He jumped and turned sideways, slamming himself between bushes and the wall.
“Go, go, go,” Suzanne said.
Marcus broke through the soft bushes and headed straight toward the water. He looked over his shoulder, saw Suzanne, saw no one else. Maybe Orange would worry with those in the house long enough to give them a good head start on the lake. It seemed like too much to hope for, but the guy came out of nowhere and bypassed them for other targets, so they had some luck on their side. Marcus would take that shit…and the bow.
Try launching arrows at our asses without this, you MacPherson-faced fuck!
In an adrenaline-fueled, bow-flinging freak-out, Marcus slung the thing toward the lake as hard as he could. His right foot caught something on the ground and he pitched forward, convinced he was about to plant his face into a bed of spikes. He struck the ground as the bow splashed into the lake twenty or thirty yards out.
“Marcus!”
Suzanne had hoisted herself onto the deck.
“Go, I’m okay.” He waved her on as he looked back. Still no Agent Orange. Through the trees he could see one person, then a second, hauling ass on the street. Between the brush and the trees, he couldn’t tell who it might be.
By the time he’d jumped atop the deck Suzanne had dislodged the canoe, which struck the dock with a hollow thump.
Did she even check it for a trap?
Nothing happened, though. He lifted the deceptively heavy thing. The shoulder he’d messed up in a wreck with Dewan didn’t care much for the effort. He hurried to the end of the dock. The left side curved toward the water and didn’t look stable.
“No oars,” Suzanne reported.
He’d paddle with his hands if he had to. Marcus stopped just before the dock started its lean and slid the boat over the edge. The prow hit the water and almost dipped beneath the surface as he let the rest of it slide over and jumped into the water beside it. His weight thrust his feet deep into the mud, like the ground wanted to suck him down below the lake. He pushed it back toward Suzanne so she could ease herself inside it from the shaky dock.
Marcus tried to free his feet from the mud. For a moment he had a horrifying image of himself anchored to this spot like he was encased in concrete while Agent Orange approached. He pulled against the hull of the canoe to give himself leverage. The suction of the mud dislodged his right shoe but he got his foot loose. His water-logged pants seemed to add an extra fifteen pounds to each leg.
“Come on, come on,” Suzanne urged. Her horrified eyes seemed a few notches below the terror they should hold if Orange appeared, so he didn’t need to look back.
The lake seemed to have a gradual slope, but with the water at chest-level he knew he was already too deep to climb into the canoe without tipping it. Lack of an oar was the least of their problems since he was so nautically challenged he hadn’t even known how to set sail in the first place. He’d been moving parallel to the dock and finally cleared it. His legs were tired already from straining against the mud and the weight of his pants.
“Get in,” Suzanne said, scooting toward the front of the canoe to give him a hand.
No good. Whenever he tried to pull himself up the thing tipped toward the water, threatening to capsize or dislodge Suzanne. Maybe Patrick had been right all along—better to keep nine fools who had no business around boats from seeking one as an escape method.
“Oh shit! Get in the boat! He’s coming!”
Marcus heard the thumping on the dock. He rolled to his back in the water, clasped the top of the canoe and paddled with his feet as hard as he could. They were only a few yards from the end of the dock and Marcus felt like he was kicking through a thick stew of molasses. The shoeless foot seemed to have slightly less resistance and now he wished he’d lost them both.
Orange ignored
the tilt of the dock, keeping himself toward the high end in a careful stride that seemed practiced, as if he’d walked to the dock’s edge a thousand times in rehearsal for a kill that may materialize someday. He didn’t need the bow to strike at them from a distance. He had the harpoon gun.
“Aim for the sunken boat!” Suzanne screamed. He heard her splashing in the water, paddling with a hand or both hands. It didn’t seem to add to the thrust but it did make the canoe buck in his fists.
“Left, left! Get it between us!”
Marcus couldn’t take his eyes off Orange, who took up a firing stance with the tip of his right boot hanging off the edge of the dock, left leg planted behind him. He had a cat-like agility, like a big fucking lion in his preserve where an obstacle for others—a dangerously tilting dock—became his advantage. It was clearly more durable than Marcus assumed and he couldn’t help but think things might be different if he’d carried the canoe to the edge and put it in further from shore. With a distance of only six or seven yards separating Marcus from Orange, the guy couldn’t miss. All Marcus could do was kick, kick, kick, as he propelled the canoe.
The harpoon snapped and the projectile closed the distance with the attached tether line unspooling from the roller. In a flash it punched Marcus in the gut.
“Marcus!”
Suzanne’s movement jerked the hull from his right hand—his left hand was already grabbing at the spear. His legs sank as he tilted upward. The pain bloomed like a bag of hot water burst inside him, heat washing in all directions at once, a searing pain that intensified when the projectile slid through his grip. Agent Orange wound the spool to get his harpoon back. Marcus could see it snaking through a cloud of blood just beneath the surface of the water, like an eel. The withdrawal of the spear left him with a lingering sense of being tugged, like he’d momentarily bonded with it and now its absence radiated shockwaves; phantom limb syndrome. On his tiptoes, head just above the surface, Marcus gasped for air and heard Suzanne calling his name.
“Go! Just go! I’ll catch up!” he screamed.
Sure I won’t.
The feedback sent to his brain from his hands didn’t make sense or maybe his brain had to deal with too much sensory input at once. It was like some small creature with tentacles had latched on to his wound to drain the cavity, creating a horrible stretching. Then the realization struck him—he was squeezing his intestines as the slippery entrails uncoiled and slipped through his fingers.
Marcus screamed.
The harpoon rose from the rippling lake surface a couple yards away, its tip fastened to what looked like a deflated purple snake. Both ends of the snake extended below the surface of the water as Orange reeled in more and more of the creature. In this case, the creature was Marcus.
He heard a splash behind him. Arms on his shoulders, hands pulling him in the opposite direction as Orange wound the harpoon back. Marcus felt faint…
“Marcus! Damn it, come on!”
His eyes opened wide and he saw the trail of intestines slithering through the water, buffeted by ripples, like the ropes sectioning off an Olympic swimming event. He grabbed and squeezed, tried to keep it from slipping away, but the amount of pressure he applied seemed directly proportional to his faintness. The harder he fought, the more it blurred all other sensory input.
And it occurred to him Suzanne may get herself killed playing hero by trying to save him.
She can still make it.
The thought was a white hot flash in his mind to match the one in his guts. He was doomed; she didn’t have to be.
“Go!” He shrugged her off and moved toward the dock lest he completely unravel.
Something shifted inside him, a painful re-sorting of his inner workings (re-organ-ization, he thought somewhere behind the pain) that filled his eyes with tears. On weak legs he shuffled forward, struggling to keep his head above water even as the excruciating pain tempted him to bend forward and suck a mouthful of water into his lungs because that couldn’t be as bad as this. Nothing could be as bad as this. Burning coals had replaced his intestines.
Orange had the harpoon back. Suzanne must have finally realized what happened to Marcus for she unleashed a scream so horrific it chilled him. Or maybe the chill was from something else. The water hadn’t been this cold a minute ago.
Rather than reload, Orange raised the harpoon and slammed it on the deck, lodging it between two boards. His intestines momentarily stretched taut, flinging water to the lake below, but Marcus tensed and more gushed through his fingers, slippery, increasing the slack.
“Go!” he yelled, his voice hoarse and without much power.
Agent Orange stepped from the dock and dropped into the water. Every move looked practiced.
Suzanne hit the water beside him and started to streak past to meet Orange head on. Marcus grabbed her ankle and jerked her back. The tensing of his abdomen strained more of the viscera in his other hand.
“Get to the other side or he will…kill…you,” Marcus warned. “You gotta go…now. I’m done.” He huffed. “…I’m done.”
Alongside Suzanne now, he shoved her back toward the boat. Her red eyes showed more fear than anger. On some level he knew this was the last look they would share. She had to get away to make this right, even if he never knew.
Marcus shuffled toward Orange, but he had a hard time feeling his legs and wanting to move didn’t make it happen. In fact, he wasn’t moving at all. Orange had no such trouble. He waded through the water with his arms in the air and for a split-second Marcus’s mind filled in the blank with the iconic imagery of a soldier wading through a Vietnamese swamp with his M-16 above his head. But it fell apart with a quickness. The M-16 became a machete, the camouflage-painted face a goggle-eyed, hose-mouthed motherfucker who’d turned him into William Wallace. He’d gladly yell “Mercy” if he could yell anything.
Marcus’s stomach heaved and he vomited into the water. The nausea didn’t abate. His mouth was full of blood. He spat.
In the splashing struggle to stay afloat, Marcus’s face dipped toward the water. Only the struggle wasn’t his—he wasn’t moving, he was just sinking. So the splashing was Suzanne. Somewhere Suzanne was still alive, escaping.
Marcus opened his eyes and he was in the lake house, staring through the window into the goggles of Agent Orange. Only…the killer was right here, right now. For a moment, Marcus saw his own eyes reflected in the goggles, but then, like the shifting of a lenticular image, he saw the eyes of Agent Orange.
Holy…oh, holy shit.
Through the lenses were the windows to this man’s soul where Marcus glimpsed the ultimate truth. Hell wouldn’t take this guy and that’s why he always came back; why he always would.
Orange’s left arm burst through the surface of the water, the machete glinting in the sunlight.
In the distance, the purple snake slapped against the dock.
Buy her time.
Marcus stumbled back, tried to whirl around. It was like slow motion in his sodden clothes. A gloved hand hauled a gastric coil across Marcus’s neck, looped it around a second time for good measure, and pulled it tight.
He thought of those mice at Dewan’s, squeezed to their deaths by…what was that snake’s name?
Marcus stumbled back against Orange, who yanked him back by the hair until he faced skyward. The machete appeared from his left, nudging the bottom of his throat like the tap of a fencing saber, followed by a sound like a heavy tree branch cracking as the blade punched through his skull.
Six
Suzanne couldn’t look back. As long as she didn’t, Marcus wasn’t truly dead. Any minute now, he’d tell her to return to the dock.
It’s over, baby…we won.
Maybe he already did and she missed it underwater.
Maybe, but I’m not going to look.
Ideally she would swim beneath the surface with Orange not sure where she was until she had a comfortable lead, but her tortured breath—like each one gathered only for a new
scream—sent her up sputtering. She heard a thump behind her from the canoe.
Marcus, of course, because he’s as dead as Nathan, Lawrence, and all those people outside the lodge with their heads on those poles. His blood was like a dye tab filling up the lake. Soon he’ll put Marcus’s head with the rest. And mine—
Suzanne glanced back, not looking directly at the dock. Orange had worked his way to the canoe and clambered onto it. Now he was crouched in the boat that promised her and Marcus transport across the lake to freedom. In her mind she saw the stark image of the leg blown off in the lake house, and realized the paddles for the canoe probably had been there once upon a time, perhaps laid down near the dock. And someone probably got blown out of their shoes like some cartoon character when he picked it up. She and Marcus were insane to take the risk on the canoe, though to say they were “lucky” half their limbs weren’t floating up in an asteroid belt was a bit of a stretch.
She whipped her head forward and launched into a freestyle stroke. It wouldn’t keep her underwater, but he couldn’t run her down in a boat without paddles anyway. She could also breathe with this technique. It didn’t take her long to find her rhythm, though she hadn’t swum at all since last year. She found it very easy to hang up after college, and a lot of people at the rehab center played racquetball anyway. She rarely got the chance and usually didn’t take it when she did.
Suzanne swung her arms through the lake as though pulling herself along an invisible rope, stealing deep lungfuls of air when her face lifted from the water. She lost her shoes as she pumped her arms and knifed her legs.
