by Brian Keene
“But what about police?”
“Fine,” I said, still not turning around. “Don’t find help. Hide. Do whatever. Just stay the hell out of the way. I’ve had it with this shit.”
Sondra didn’t respond. Neither did Whitey. He smiled at me, his crooked jaw making his cheek bulge. His head was tilted sideways and he struggled to lift it.
“Look at you,” I said. “You can’t even hold your head up right. You should be dead. Give it up, man. You take anymore damage and there won’t be anything left of you. Is that what you want?”
He didn’t answer me.
“Is she worth it?” I asked. “Is Sondra worth all this?”
“Ahshk yersehlf teh saym kwestuhn.”
Ask yourself the same question…
Whitey drew closer with each plodding, off-balance step, dripping pieces of himself in his wake. He left a trail of DNA behind him. I had the crazy notion that if we made him chase us long enough, he’d just fall apart in front of our eyes—disintegrate into a pool of jelly. I could smell him as he got nearer. He reeked—blood and shit and the seeds of infection. Walking road kill, out for revenge.
“Forget about it,” I said. “Even if you got the baby now, it would be too late. Wouldn’t it? Sure, maybe you can survive poisoning or a gunshot wound. But all this? No way you can regenerate all this damage, Whitey, no matter how many stem cells you eat. Not even Wolverine could heal this shit.”
“Eww wood be zurpryzed. Itsh nevar too layt.”
I stood my ground, disgusted by what approached me, but ultimately unafraid. Whitey was unarmed now. No guns or knives or mafia cronies. He couldn’t even kick me again. Maybe he was indestructible, but that no longer meant he was unstoppable. All he had left was the will to keep going, and I intended to take that option away from him. I sized him up, planning my attack. If I could take out his other leg—break it or cut the fucking thing off—there was no way he’d be able to follow us, unless he crawled along on his hands. So maybe I’d cut those off, too. And why stop there? Decapitation sounded like a great idea. The grand fucking finale. Immortal or not, nobody, not even Rasputin, could survive without a head.
Could they?
Whitey got nearer still, close enough for me to see the steam rising from his open wounds. Whatever his condition, his body temperature was still warm inside. His blood still flowed. How did he remain standing? The blood loss alone should have kept him down. Maybe his mutant genetics replenished that first.
Or maybe he was just driven. Determined.
“Hey,” somebody shouted. “Are you folks okay? What’s going on over there?”
I turned my head slightly and saw that it was one of the workers. They’d finally noticed us.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” the other worker said. “This is private property.”
“Please,” Sondra spoke up. “We are to be needing—”
Whitey darted forward with a speed that belied his injuries. I shouted in surprise. Despite the horrific damage to his body, he’d been faking. He was quicker—and stronger—than I’d thought possible.
“Motherfucker!”
I ducked my head, stuck my right shoulder out, and plowed into him. Our arms encircled each other, squeezing tight. It was like grabbing a butchered side of beef. Whitey was slippery and hot, and as we slammed together, my face sank into a gaping wound in his chest. Slick warmth smothered me, filling my nose and mouth. My hands slithered through the wetness. His blood ran down my throat. Stumbling, we both fell backwards, still holding on to each other. I hit the pavement first—and hard. Whitey’s full weight crashed down on me, crushing the air from my lungs. The impact brought back all of my temporarily forgotten pains.
“Hey,” one of the workers yelled. “We don’t want no trouble. Knock it off! This ain’t no boxing ring.”
“Jesus,” the other gasped. “Call an ambulance, Leon. Call the cops. I think these are those guys that were on the news.”
“Fuck me running. Let’s get them, Frank.”
“Screw that! You know how many people they killed?”
The two men ran towards us as they argued. I managed to get one arm free and I reached out, trying to wave them away. Whitey’s hands wrapped around my throat and squeezed, cutting off my windpipe. My eyes bulged from their sockets.
“Frank,” Leon said, “he’ll kill that guy if we don’t so something. Give me a hand, now.”
Ignoring my warning gestures, they approached us from each side and seized Whitey, pulling him off of me. His hands clawed at my throat, then were wrenched free. I gulped air. Leon and Frank gasped, their expressions a mixture of shock and disgust. Leon let go of Whitey and stared in horror at his bloodstained palms.
“An ambulance,” he choked. “Fuck that. Better call a goddamn hearse. This guy is dead.”
Grunting with rage, Whitey struggled in Frank’s grip. The worker shoved him back down and leaned on his chest with both knees. The Russian squirmed.
“But he’s dead,” Leon mumbled. “Look at him. He’s fucking dead. This shit ain’t right.”
“He’s not dead,” Frank shouted. “He should be, but he’s not. Help me hold him, Leon. He’s fighting like a greased monkey.”
Whitey tried to break free. His fingers clawed at Frank’s face. The workman punched Whitey in his already broken jaw. Whitey screamed, then went limp. His eyes rolled shut. He could still feel pain, even now.
“There,” Frank sighed. “That’ll teach him. “Call the cops, Leon.”
“Get out of the way,” I warned them. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”
“You stay put, buddy,” Frank said. “You know how many people you murdered today?”
“It wasn’t me,” I explained. “We were on the run. They were trying to kill us.”
“Bullshit! They said on the news that—”
Before he could finish, Whitey’s eyes flashed open. He grabbed a utility knife that was hanging from Frank’s tool belt. With one quick motion he thumbed the button, pushing the razorblade out of the hilt, and slashed the worker’s throat. Squealing, Frank tottered backward. At first, there was no blood—just a thin, even cut, barely noticeable. Then a few drops of crimson bubbled out of the wound. A second later, the slit grew wider. It looked like Frank had grown another mouth. Blood sprayed out of the gash, showering both Whitey and his victim.
Screaming, Leon abandoned his friend and turned, fleeing across the lot. So much for solidarity. Maybe they weren’t a union shop. He shouted for help, his voice hoarse and panicked. His hardhat fell off and rolled across the pavement as he ran. The forklift still beeped between the rows, its driver apparently oblivious to what was happening.
Whitey clambered to his feet, still clutching the bloody razor knife. I glanced around for Sondra, but she was gone.
It was just the two of us.
Last man standing.
Man—or whatever the hell Whitey was.
“Put the knife down,” I said, “and fight like the man you pretend to be.”
Whitey didn’t answer me. He couldn’t. The swelling in what was left of his face had tripled now. His mouth hung open. Frank’s punch had shattered his already broken jaw. But he didn’t have to speak. His eyes said it all. They promised death.
And then he lurched forward to deliver it.
Frank’s blood dripped from the razor. My bravery vanished. I backed away from him, colliding with a stack of two-by-fours. Whitey closed the distance between us, and there was nowhere for me to run. Sweat and blood ran into my eyes, but I was afraid to blink, afraid to look away, even for a moment. I stared at the blade, unable to focus on anything else.
Whitey moaned.
“Can’t speak anymore, can you?”
He grunted in response, and stepped closer to me. The flies I’d noticed circling him earlier had landed. I heard them buzzing inside the hole in his head. I wondered if Whitey could hear them too. Pressing back against the stack of lumber, I braced myself for his inevit
able attack.
The forklift’s engine revved louder. I wondered where Leon had gone, hoping that he’d called the police.
“Come on,” I rasped. My mouth was dry, my throat parched. “What are you waiting for?”
Whitey lunged, slashing at me with the knife. I side-stepped the attempt and grabbed his arm, trying to twist it behind his back. He yanked his arm away, breaking my grip, but doing so caused him to lean on his bad leg. Wailing unintelligibly, Whitey stumbled and sprawled on the ground. He managed to hold on to his weapon. I dashed past him, searching for something to even the odds.
Groaning, Whitey crawled after me, swinging the knife back and forth through the air. I spotted a length of two-by-four lying nearby and ran for it, intent on bashing the rest of his fucking head in. But before I could retrieve the club, the forklift rounded the corner. Luckily, it wasn’t carrying a load. If it had, the driver wouldn’t have seen me and I’d have been run over. Instead, he slammed on the brakes even as I skidded to a stop. The horn blared and the driver shouted something at me. I couldn’t hear him over the rumbling engine. A yellow, domed safety light turned atop the wire mesh roll cage.
I glanced back. Whitey clutched a skid with his free hand and slowly pulled himself to his feet. A glistening loop of intestine slipped from his belly. Whitey ignored it. I thought about his ancestor, fleeing his assassins while trailing his insides behind him. I ran around to the side of the forklift and leaned against the roll bar.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” the driver exclaimed. “What’s wrong with that guy?”
“Never mind that,” I said. “I need help. Have you seen a woman running around here?”
The driver stared at me like I was insane. Who knows? Maybe I was.
“Where’s Leon and Frank?” He put the forklift in neutral and swung around to face me. “What’s going on here? This looks like—”
“Frank’s dead,” I told him, “and Leon went for help. Have you seen a girl?”
“Jesus,” the driver repeated, his eyes not leaving Whitey. His face turned pale. “His guts are falling out. What happened? We need to call an ambulance right now. Get him to lie down. Keep him warm.”
I grabbed the driver by his shirt collar and balled it up in my fist.
“Hey—”
“Listen to me. What’s your name?”
“What is this? What are you—”
“Your name. Now!”
“R-Richard…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Whitey shuffle towards us. Richard grabbed my wrist, but his grip was weak. His attention was still focused on Whitey.
“Okay, Richard. We don’t have—”.
“Your friend,” he interrupted me. “He’s gonna die if we don’t get him some help. Don’t you understand that?”
“He ain’t my friend, Richard, and he won’t die. He can’t.”
Richard started to speak, but I yanked him out of the seat and flung him to the ground. He squawked in surprise and fright, and the impact knocked the air out of him. He lay on the pavement, gasping for breath and staring up at me, wide-eyed. When he started to speak. I shook my head.
“Stay there,” I shouted, swinging myself up into the driver’s seat.
I’d driven forklifts plenty of times before, both at GPS and other jobs I’d had. This one was pretty standard. Big front tires. Propane bottle strapped in behind me. Engine in the back. Hydraulic lift. The forks could be tilted up and down as well as side to side, so they’d fit easily under different sized skids. In addition to being adjustable, the forks were also tapered—wide at the back and narrower near the front. The whole thing was a piece of cake, really. The first thing that had gone easy all day long.
Richard scurried backward. There was a dark urine stain on the crotch of his jeans. Beads of sweat glistened on his upper lip and forehead, and ran down his cheeks.
With a garbled moan, loud enough to be heard over the engine, Whitey charged. I dropped the forklift into drive and raised the forks, drawing them close together at the same time so that there was no gap between them. Stopping in his tracks, Whitey gaped as I bore down on him. His eyes went wide. The utility knife slipped from his grasp and clattered onto the pavement. He started to turn, but I gunned it. The engine rumbled. Whitey threw his hands up in front of his face and screamed.
The forks speared him, punching through his abdomen and through the other side. Still rolling forward, I raised them higher, lifting the impaled Russian off the ground. I gave the throttle more gas and steered towards the stack of two-by-fours, tilting the forks up and backward so that Whitey wouldn’t slide off. I rammed into the lumber at full speed, jarring the forklift. Whitey slipped further down the forks. Blood gushed from his gaping mouth. His hands clawed at the gore-slicked steel thrusting from his body.
“Let’s see you get out of that, you son of a bitch!”
I slammed the forklift into reverse, backed up a few feet, and then crashed into the stack of lumber again. The metal strapping holding the two-by-fours onto the skid snapped, and the wood tumbled down. I turned the forklift around and tilted the forks even further. Whitey slid another few inches towards me. I stared into his eyes and what I saw there made me smile.
Fear.
For the first time since this whole mess had begun, Whitey was afraid.
That almost made things worth it, but then I remembered Darryl and Jesse and Yul.
“How does it feel?” I laughed. “How does it feel, you motherfucker? You’re gonna die!”
Whitey shook his head back and forth, spraying blood in all directions. His hands grasped the forks again, and this time they didn’t slip off. Slowly, incredibly, he began to push himself backward, trying to free himself from impalement. I spun the steering wheel and turned the forklift in a tight circle. The rear tires ran over a steaming pile of Whitey’s guts, flattening them across the pavement and squishing between the deep tread.
“You know, Whitey,” I taunted, “it’s too bad they didn’t have forklifts when Rasputin was around. He sure as shit wouldn’t have survived this either. Would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Instead, they had to drown the bastard.”
Defiant, Whitey continued pushing himself up the tilted forks, trying to reach the end. I was wrong. Even this—impalement by heavy machinery—hadn’t killed him. But I knew what would. Drowning had worked on his ancestor, so it was good enough for him, too. At last, I knew for sure how to kill Whitey. I knew how to succeed where bullets and fire and stabbings had failed.
“Sondra,” I hollered, “if you can hear me, stay put. I’ll be back. I promise. Just wait for me here.”
Stomping the throttle, I raced down the row, passing by skids of lumber and building materials, and headed for the main gate. In the rearview mirror, I glimpsed Richard kneeling in the wreckage and throwing up on the scattered two-by-fours. I passed the flatbed truck and continued towards the exit. As we sped by the guard shack, I spotted Leon through the window. He was shouting into the telephone. His face was haggard and white. When he looked up and saw us, the phone slipped from his hand. I resisted the crazy impulse to wave at him. Instead, I tilted the forks as far back as they would go, impeding Whitey’s progress. He slid towards me again, smashing into the hydraulics.
“Don’t worry,” I yelled. “Almost done here. We’re just gonna go for a quick little ride. I know just the place for you.”
Something black and round slid out of Whitey’s chest and plopped onto the pavement. I ignored it. I’d become immune to the gore and the violence, immune to the ever-increasing atrocities. Whitey was nothing more than meat, and it was time for the slaughter.
I forgot all about Sondra and the lumber yard employees and the cops and my dead friends and my cat, and focused instead on my destination.
The shores of Lake Pinchot waited for us as the sun climbed high into the sky.
Looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.
Then I saw the dark clouds on the horizon that spoke of the storm
to come.
twenty-three
The gate was one of those chain-link jobs—part of the fence surrounding the lumber yard. It stood wide open as we approached. I barreled out into the road and turned left, heading for the State Park. Whitey’s body and dangling limbs shook as we bounced along. Each time he moved, more blood spurted from his mouth and more pieces of his insides splattered onto the asphalt. He’d stopped struggling. Maybe he was too weak or maybe the jostling kept him from trying. He just hung there from the forks, wriggling and jittering like a butterfly beneath a collector’s pin.
The forklift’s top speed was around twenty miles per hour. I kept the throttle open, silently urging it to go faster. There was no doubt in my mind that Leon had succeeded in calling the cops. A few minutes ago, I’d wanted them to show up. Now I didn’t. Not until I was finished with Whitey, and Sondra and the baby were safe once and for all.
Not until I’d had my revenge.
My grin felt savage, as if it were twisting my face into something unrecognizable.
I checked the rearview mirrors as we cruised along, looking for police cars or other emergency vehicles, but the road was clear. Indeed, it was deserted except for one car that came up behind me, moving fast. I swerved over to the side of the road and the terrain grew bumpier, jostling Whitey even more. The car, a beige Ford Taurus, refused to pass me. Instead, the driver slowed down and blew his horn.
“Go around,” I shouted, not looking back.
The forklift rattled and shook, and I was worried that Whitey might slip off. The forks were still tilted, but he could shift suddenly to the side. If that happened, the forks would rip right through his torso. Maybe that in itself would be enough to kill him, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Not now, when I had him succumbed and trapped. We were too close.
The Taurus beeped again. Still not looking back, I waved the driver around. Instead of passing me, he followed along right behind, his front bumper nearly rear-ending the forklift. I glanced back. The forklift weaved. The car was close enough that I could see the occupants now. The driver was a middle-aged, balding white guy wearing glasses and a floppy-brimmed sunhat pulled down over his forehead. A woman who was probably his wife sat next to him, gesturing wildly and apparently screaming at him, judging by how wide her mouth was open and how quickly it was moving. In the backseat, two little heads that probably belonged to his kids bobbed up and down, jockeying for a better view of the crazy man on the forklift. The driver blew the horn again, leaning on it this time—long and loud. Then he flashed his headlights at me.
