Just One Bite

by Jack Heath

  The timeline is coming together in my head. Sindy quits her job with Warner. She knows how to seduce a man, but doesn’t like getting fucked. She discovers the giantess forums somehow—maybe via her deadbeat husband?—and asks She’s Alive! to make a giant doll she can pimp out. But they can’t, so Sindy hatches a plan to make men screw each other instead of her. She uses nTangle to target men with plenty of flesh and therefore plenty of skin, all the same shade. Her taxidermy skills are good enough to turn them into a doll. She buys Armana Black’s hair to make a wig for it, and one for herself. Black may not have been the only one who sold hair to her.

  Sindy uses the giantess forums to find clients. But one of them, Biggs, realizes what she’s done and flees in terror. He dies of a heart attack in the woods, and I take the body before she finds it. This leads to an FBI investigation, which she tries to derail by planting one of the bodies in my backyard.

  What happened to her husband? Maybe some of the oldest skin is his—or maybe he’s already been replaced by fresh grafts.

  The trapdoor opens.

  Sindy comes back down the stairs.

  She’s holding the hunting rifle.

  * * *

  I put my hands up immediately. “Whoa, hold on.”

  Sindy levels the gun at my head. “You want to tell me who you really are?”

  She’s dropped the soothing, sexy shtick. Now she’s just an angry, scared person with a gun. I’m close enough that she won’t miss, and far enough away that I can’t grab the rifle. Right in the danger zone.

  “I’m no one,” I say. “My name is Hank. I’m just a guy who wanted to bang a giant. A real one.”

  She cracks the stock open, showing me the shell casing inside. Then she snaps it closed and points it back at me.

  “No, you’re not,” she says. “If you were, you’d already be doing it. You’re a cop.”

  “I’m not a cop. A cop wouldn’t have paid you, right? That’s entrapment.”

  “Holy shit.” Her eyes widen. “You’re that fucking FBI agent. I thought you looked familiar.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady. I was good to go—but that’s not a giant. It’s a dead animal. A bunch of dead animals.”

  “You said it,” she says. “Animals. Sorry, asshole, but giants don’t exist in real life. Nor does Santa Claus, in case you were wondering. Now that you’ve brought the police to my doorstep—”

  Thistle’s here. I try not to look relieved. “Police?”

  “Drop the act. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’ll walk out of here. I’ll stay in the house, watching you through my scope. You’re going to convince your cop friends to leave. I don’t care how you do it. But if they’re not gone in five minutes, I’m going to start shooting. You first, then them. I reckon I can get all of them before one gets me.”

  I need to stall her. Give the cops some time to case the house. Give Thistle a chance to figure out how to save me.

  “Is that how you killed all these ‘animals’?” I ask.

  Sindy holds my gaze. “They died humanely.”

  “What kind of animals were they?”

  “Dangerous ones. They were hunting me as much as I was hunting them.”

  “I doubt that,” I say, thinking of Ruthven. “I think they were just lonely.”

  She jerks the gun upward. “Come with me,” she says, and backs slowly away up the stairs.

  I don’t follow her.

  “Just so you know,” she says, “I don’t think the people outside are even sure anyone’s home. My plan B is to lock you in the cellar and shoot the first person who approaches the front door. Then all the others. Once they’re dead, I can come back down and kill you.” She looks me up and down. “You have lovely skin, by the way.”

  I don’t, but it’s an effective threat. Two days ago I was a virgin. By next week I might be part of a sex doll.

  I slowly climb the stairs.

  When we get to the front door, Sindy stands behind it. I can see a van parked outside in the dark.

  “Remember,” she says. “Five minutes. I’ll be watching.”

  The cabin has two windows. I wonder which one she’s planning to shoot from.

  “Give me ten,” I say. “I don’t know what I’m going to say.”

  “You’ll think of something,” she says, and opens the door.

  I walk out of the house slowly, my hands up. The door creaks closed behind me, but doesn’t click. She’s keeping it ajar.

  At that moment, four people get out of the van—and I realize that they’re not my salvation.

  Charlie Warner hops down from the passenger seat. Sariklis and Tane—the guy who accosted me at the courthouse steps—clamber out of the back of the van, both holding guns.

  Maurice Vasquez gets out of the driver’s seat.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  What gets bigger the more you take away?

  My first thought is that Vasquez is a hostage. But the other explanation makes much more sense.

  “I told you not to take the case,” he tells me.

  “I remember,” I say. “It seemed suspicious at the time.”

  It didn’t. But I’m at a hell of a disadvantage. Sindy is pointing a gun at my back. The three men are pointing guns at my front. The only person not holding a gun is Warner. All I can do is bluff. Act like I knew this was coming.

  “I always liked you,” Vasquez says. “This is nothing personal.”

  Warner cuts him off. “For me it is,” she says. “You took advantage of my good nature, Blake.”

  “Is that right?” I say.

  “You said you were quitting, and I let you,” Warner says. “You said you wouldn’t tell the FBI what you knew. Immediately after that, I get a call from Vasquez, telling me that you’re looking for a blonde woman in her early forties. Later he calls again, and says you want a list of my old employees.”

  “He called you straightaway, huh?”

  Vasquez doesn’t look embarrassed. “You’re not in a position to criticize,” he says.

  “He did,” Warner says, ignoring him. “Because he understands loyalty.”

  The irony of a traitor being praised for loyalty seems to be lost on everyone.

  “I wasn’t after you,” I say, because it’s the truth, and I can’t see another way out of this. “I was pursuing a lead in the Crawdad Man case.”

  “That’s interesting,” Warner says. “Because you appear to be the Crawdad Man. My boys have had a look around your house, where they found two of his victims—victims I certainly didn’t give you. And even though Vasquez tells me that you never received the list of my ex-employees, he was able to trace your phone to where Indigo lives now. Sindy—the very stripper-turned-hooker-turned-liability I was telling you about a few days back.”

  Snowflakes fall through the beams of the van’s headlights. Clouds of condensation obscure the faces of Sariklis and Tane. I wonder how they got to my house before the cops did.

  “I’m not the Crawdad Man,” I say. “Sindy is. She planted evidence in my house. She’s—”

  “I’m sick of your bullshit, Blake,” Warner says. “It’s time for you to die. Painfully and publicly, so my other body-disposal guy will think twice about crossing me. But if I spread the word that you’re the Crawdad Man, the cops will think it’s a vigilante killing.”

  Spread the word? Apparently she hasn’t heard that the police already think I’m the Crawdad Man. Vasquez must not have told her—I’m sure Thistle called him.

  Warner shakes her head wearily. “Honestly,” she says, “you almost ruined everything. If that FBI agent hadn’t called Vasquez directly, we wouldn’t have been able to contain the story.”

  I’m not wanted by the police, after all. Vasquez intercepted the message. That explains why Dr. Norman acted so normal on the phone.
It takes me a second to work out what “contain” might mean.

  “Where’s Thistle?” I ask Vasquez.

  “That was a shame,” Vasquez says. “I always liked her, too.”

  It’s like a punch to the guts.

  I look at Vasquez’s face. There’s no comfort in it.

  “She’s dead?” I ask.

  “Not my fault,” he says.

  The shadows get darker even as the headlights go blinding. The blood roars in my ears like a hurricane. It feels as though the ground is sinking under my shoes. Like I’m in a slow-moving elevator.

  Thistle is dead. Thistle is dead. Thistle is dead.

  I want to kill someone. Maybe myself, maybe everyone else, maybe God himself. Thistle was the only person on this wretched planet worth saving, and now she’s gone. My heart is ripping itself in two. If I had a button that could end the world right now, I would push it.

  But I don’t. So I’m going to have to kill everybody one at a time, and Vasquez is closest.

  “You motherfucking son of a bitch!” I scream, charging toward him.

  He steps back, startled. I lunge at him, teeth first. I’m almost at his throat when he pistol-whips me in the side of the head. The world tilt-a-whirls and I go down like a bag of rocks. I try to grab his legs, but my vision is swimming. I’m going to throw up. Thistle is dead.

  “Oh.” Warner’s voice seems to come from a long way away. “He had a thing for her?”

  “Yeah, from day one,” Vasquez says. “She liked him, too. They both thought they were hiding it well, but they weren’t.”

  “What did she see in him, I wonder?”

  “Beats me. He sure isn’t my type.”

  I manage to roll over, looking up. Vasquez is pointing his gun at me.

  He looks at Warner. She nods.

  “Goodbye, Blake,” Vasquez says.

  “Hey, asshole,” I rasp. “You know what a dead man’s switch is?”

  He hesitates.

  I could have figured out that he worked for Warner. I could have written a letter detailing that, and all the other dangerous things I knew about her organization. I could have mailed it to myself over and over, so if I ever died, someone would eventually find it in my mailbox. I could have hidden something in my house or my car or a storage unit, so it might take years to surface.

  I didn’t do any of that. And I don’t really think the possibility will stop him from killing me. But it might make him uneasy for the rest of his life.

  “Nice try, Blake,” he says, and pulls the trigger.

  The gunshot splits the darkness.

  A cloud of pink mist explodes out of Vasquez’s head. He falls over like a bowling pin. Thud.

  Warner has the quickest instincts. She dives for cover behind the van.

  Sariklis and Tane are still staring at me, as though I might somehow have made Vasquez’s skull burst with telekinesis. Sariklis says, “What the f—” and then a rifle round punches through his heart. There’s a wet thunk as the bullet hits the side of the van. He staggers, gulping like a fish.

  That gets Tane moving. He ducks behind the van.

  I scramble sideways, getting out of the line of fire. Sindy hasn’t shot me yet, maybe because I’m on the ground and unarmed, but that could change at any moment. I manage to crawl over behind Sindy’s car as another shot rings out. Warner is screaming orders at Tane, but it doesn’t sound like he’s listening.

  I get to my feet, keeping my head low.

  “If you’re not gonna fucking fire, then give me your goddamn gun!” Warner roars. “Tane? Tane!”

  From here, I can see what Warner can’t—that Tane is facedown in a puddle of sleet and blood.

  I run into the forest, looking for better cover. I need to get a head start. Whoever survives this will be after me soon.

  What’s the point? says someone in my head. It’s not Thistle’s voice. She’s gone. This is all me. Just let them kill you. You’re cursed.

  Another gunshot. Nothing hits me, but the sound distracts me enough that I forget about the pit trap. I step into it for the second time this week, my foot plunging through the camouflage. This time I’m too dizzy to save myself. I tumble right into the foul-smelling hole.

  And keep falling. This trap is way deeper than it needs to be to snare a deer. My feet hit a layer of something sticky, and then the freezing water beneath. The pit has filled up in the recent rain. The water is clogged with debris, big mushy lumps. Maybe wood, gone spongy after soaking up the water. I stifle a scream as my whole body is swallowed. Soon my head is under. I can’t see. Can’t breathe.

  I thrash wildly around in the water. I can’t swim upward. The surface is completely covered by chunks of...something.

  Suddenly I realize what I’m drowning in. My whole brain shuts down. Don’t think about it. I try to find the edge of the pit, but everything I grab turns out to be a loose piece. Don’t think about Sindy flaying her victims. Finally I catch hold of something solid. Part of a tree root, connected to the wall. Don’t think about her dragging the skinless bodies to this pit.

  I haul myself up, lungs bursting, heart pounding, until my head is above the surface of the water—but that just means that it’s surrounded by floating flesh. I still can’t breathe. I keep climbing, shoving the mush aside.

  Insects are crawling all over my cheeks. A worm wriggles up my right nostril. And then, finally, air.

  I take a deep breath, and fight back an ocean of vomit. Then I keep climbing. My feet trample rotting muscle and bone. My fumbling hands find a sturdy piece of weedy dirt near the top. I drag myself up.

  Finally my legs are free. I scramble up and over. I’m covered in mud, blood and slime. I look like a golem. The earth itself, come to life.

  The worm is still in my nose, tickling my brain. I pinch the squirming end and pull it out, resisting the urge to sneeze.

  The voice is back. Not Thistle. I think she’s gone forever. Couldn’t you have just eaten your way out? it says.

  “I’m not hungry,” I mutter. When Thistle was alive, love pushed out the hunger. Now grief has replaced them both. It feels like I will never be hungry again.

  Through the trees, I can see Charlie Warner slumped against the side of the van. She’s taken a round through the stomach. The front of her shirt is soaked with blood. Her face is pale, twisted in pain. One of her hands spasms in her lap. The other is underneath her leg, maybe clamping a second injury.

  Sindy walks down the wooden steps into the clearing, wrapped in a heavy coat, cradling the hunting rifle. She’s a hell of a shot. By my count, it’s taken her only four rounds to kill three people and wound one more.

  She slowly approaches the van. She can’t see Warner from where she is. Probably wants to make sure everyone’s dead.

  She stalks around the edge of the van. Sees Warner.

  “Hey, boss,” she says. I can barely hear the words. My ears are still ringing from all the gunshots.

  “You ungrateful bitch,” Warner wheezes.

  “I always thought you might come looking for me.”

  “Wasn’t looking for you,” Warner says.

  “I always liked your hair,” Sindy says, and levels the gun at Warner’s heart.

  Warner shifts, freeing her hidden hand. I see the compact Springfield XD-S a split second before she shoots Sindy through the head.

  The rifle falls from Sindy’s grasp. She crumples to the ground. In the darkness, it looks as though she’s evaporated, leaving only a puddle of clothes. Like a Jedi.

  “Blake!” Warner shouts, her voice hoarse. “I know you’re there.”

  She doesn’t, so I stay silent. I want to kill her. But even if I had a weapon, that wouldn’t bring Thistle back. Maybe I should just run—except I have nowhere to go.

  Then she says something else.

  �
�If you get me to a hospital,” she says, “I’ll cancel the order. I’ll save the FBI agent.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  What goes up when rain comes down?

  If a doctor restarts your heart after a flatline, that means your heart never actually stopped. All the parts of it were just unfocused. Twitching all at different times, instead of one coordinated thump. Like the first time Thistle and I had sex, the rhythm wrong, our hips out of sync.

  Too long in that state, and you die. Your brain, starved of oxygenated blood, curdles in your skull. But if the defibrillator gets there first, it shocks the confused cells, forcing them into line. Uniting them to a common goal.

  “She’s not dead yet,” Warner continues. “At least, probably not. Vasquez told her to keep what she knew about you to herself, in case other people at the FBI were compromised. Then I sent Tyrrell to her house. But I can call him off. There might still be time.”

  A minute ago my heart wanted a dozen different things, but none of them very much. Now it’s desperate for just one thing.

  Save Thistle.

  “Make the call,” I yell.

  “Get me to the hospital first,” Warner says.

  I emerge from the shrubbery. If she shoots me, she shoots me.

  “Jesus,” she says, staring. Covered in mud, blood and scraps of flesh, I finally look like what I am. A demon.

  “Make the call,” I say.

  “Hospital first,” she says.

  Snarling, I grab her and drag her into the passenger seat of Sindy’s Buick. The van has too many bullet holes and smears of blood. The car is unlocked, but I don’t have the time or the tools to hot-wire it. I run over to Sindy’s corpse and dig through her pockets until I find her keys.

  By the time I get back to the car, Warner’s eyes are closed.

  “No!” I slap her. If she dies, so does Thistle.

  Warner’s eyelids flutter. She looks at me. “Jesus,” she says again.

  I dig her phone out of her pocket and press it into her hand. “Make the call,” I say. I turn the key, and the engine grumbles.