Backwoods (32 page)

“Jesus,” he whispered.

With a hissing spatter, antifreeze began
dribbling down in a frothy, steaming puddle from the truck’s
splintered radiator. Nearby, another fluid began peppering down,
slowly at first, then dripping more steadily—oil. He became dimly
aware of a loud, droning
BLAT;
the truck horn. It rang out
incessantly, as if someone had mashed their hand onto it and held
it fast.

Moving slowly, keeping his teeth clenched as
molten agony speared through his leg with every jostling movement
of his shattered ankle, Andrew crawled out from beneath the truck.
By the time he cleared the wreckage, the puddles of engine fluid
had widened in broad circumferences, making him slip and slop for
clumsy purchase against the slick floor.

“Dani,” he called out, his voice hoarse and
warbling. With a grunt, he pawed at the step leading up to the
driver’s side door, hauling himself up. Resting his weight on his
uninjured leg, he pulled with all of his might, catching the side
view mirror and door handle to support himself as he stood.

“Dani,” he gasped again, slapping at the
door. The horn hadn’t stopped honking, which meant whoever was
behind the wheel had slumped across it, either injured or worse.
And because there was no other
whoever
in the garage to have
been driving, that meant Dani had somehow managed to get into the
cab and run Prendick down.

Groaning, he hooked his fingertips into the
window frame and tried to drag himself upright enough to look
inside. “Dani,” he pleaded, hitting the window now, leaving palm
prints smeared against the glass in blood, antifreeze and grease.
“Dani, open up. Can…can you…?”

When he fell, he fell hard, losing both his
grip and tenuous footing simultaneously and crashing back to the
floor. He barked his chin first on the fender, then again on the
steel step, then crumpled into a heap beside the right front tire.
His mind slipped again into a murky haze of pain-induced
semi-lucidity, and when he heard the screech of door hinges from
the opposite side of the truck cab, Alice’s voice crying out his
name, frightened and tearful, he thought he was dreaming.

“Andrew!”

He came to being shaken, small hands
clutching at his shoulders. His vision swam into bleary view,
Alice’s face, her large eyes standing out in stark contrast to her
alabaster skin and dark hair, which clung to her forehead and
cheeks in messy, blood-smeared tangles.

“Andrew,” she pleaded, her voice choked and
strained. Tears spattered in warm, wet droplets from her eyelashes
and cheeks against his face.

“Alice?” he croaked.
Not right,
he
thought, dazed.
This isn’t right. You shouldn’t be here. You’re
supposed to be gone. Long gone. You and your dad both.

“Andrew, please,” she pleaded, coiling her
fingers in his shirt and tugging frantically. “I’m scared. Daddy’s
hurt. He won’t wake up. Please.”

He felt his mind fade again, his eyelids
droop, but when Alice shook him, it startled him awake again, and
with a grunt, he shoved his elbows beneath him and sat up.

“Help me,” he groaned. She was a child, half
his height and probably no more than a quarter of his weight, but
she did much of the work and bore most of the brunt as he hobbled
clumsily upright again. The moment he tried to step down onto his
maimed foot, he nearly toppled again, and had to balance himself
unsteadily between the truck and Alice until the pain subsided.

Beyond the crumpled front end of the truck,
which looked like the lips of a menacing dog turned back in a
snarl, he saw Prendick pinned at the midriff, his legs trapped
beneath the mangled grill, his upper torso folded over the hood.
Face-down, arms outstretched as if embracing the truck, he lay
motionless, his uniform soaked with blood.

Jesus,
Andrew thought. “Where’s your
dad?” he asked Alice.

“In the truck,” she said. “He won’t wake
up.”

Prendick had dropped his rifle when he’d been
struck, and Alice brought it to Andrew so he could use the stock as
a crutch. With Alice’s help, he managed to wrestle the door open
and looked up into the cab. Moore slumped forward in the driver’s
seat, his head turned to the side so he faced Andrew, his cheek
mashed against the steering wheel. When Andrew managed to shove him
back into the seat, the horn at last fell silent. Even without a
medical degree, Andrew could see Moore was in rough shape. His nose
had been broken, a swollen, misshapen mess. His lips were busted,
his scalp lacerated, his face and shirt soaked with blood.

“We have to get him out,” Alice whimpered,
tugging at Andrew’s arm, pleading.

How?
Andrew thought, at a dismayed
loss. The dash had collapsed around the steering column, trapping
Moore’s legs. “I thought you left,” he said to Alice. “I thought
your dad…he was going to get you out of here.”

“The door closed,” Alice said. “Daddy got it
open but then it rolled shut before we could get out.”

With another pained grunt, Andrew grabbed the
door and muffler stack pipe, hoisting himself on his good leg up
onto the step again. “Moore,” he said, keeping one hand on the
frame to keep his balance and using the other to reach beneath the
shelf of Moore’s chin, fumbling for a pulse. “Dr. Moore? Can you
hear me?”

Moore didn’t answer, but beneath Andrew’s
fingertips, he felt a faint, thready vibration. Moore uttered a
sigh, a moist, rattling, laborious sound. The steering wheel was
big, raised enough so when he’d crashed forward at the impact, he’d
caught it against his face and upper chest, probably crushing
ribs.

“He’s hurt,” Alice moaned and Andrew glanced
down at her. There would be no sparing her from this, no hiding or
disguising it. No sheltering her.

Because I’m not going to be able to get
him out of here,
Andrew thought.
Not without a hacksaw to
cut his legs off at the knees.

“Listen to me.” Biting back a pained gasp of
his own, he stepped down from the ruined cab of the truck. Sitting
against the stool was not only a blessed relief to his wounded leg,
but it put him down at the girl’s tearful eye level. “I need you to
help me,” he said, cupping his hand against her cheek. “Can you do
that, Alice?”

She nodded and he tried to smile, reassuring
and calm. “Good girl. Do you remember the little bathroom where we
made you a pallet to sleep? There’s a desk right beside it, Dani
Santoro’s desk.” God, it pained him to say her name at the moment,
because the last he’d seen, she’d fallen to the ground, having
taken at least one shot from Prendick’s M16, if not more. He didn’t
want to think about what that might mean.

“That’s where Daddy found the truck keys,”
Alice said.

“That’s right.” Andrew nodded, still forcing
bright nonchalance into his face and voice. It was working, he
could see it in Alice’s face. He was acting calm, so her own
anxiety was dissipating. “I need you to look around inside the
drawers and see if you can find any more keys. These trucks are too
smashed up to drive now. We’ll need to get another one.”

She glanced up at Moore, momentarily
hesitant, then back at Andrew and nodded. “Okay.”

“Good girl,” Andrew said again, with a smile
he didn’t feel.

He watched her scurry across the dark
landscape of the garage, hands outstretched, her feet whispering
against the smooth floor. Then he stood again, and, using the rifle
to balance himself clumsily, leaned back into the cab.

“Moore,” he said, giving the older man’s
shoulder a little shake. After two or three such attempts, Moore
groaned, his eyes opening. His gaze was unfocused, pain-filled and
dazed, settling in visible confusion on Andrew’s face.

“Alice,” he said in a warbling voice that
dissolved into a sudden, sodden stream of coughs. Blood peppered
his cheeks and chin with each forceful, painful exhalation, and in
the aftermath of the fit, he slumped back against the seat, eyes
closed, blood dribbling down his chin.

“She’s alright,” Andrew told him. “She’s not
hurt.”

He didn’t know if Moore had passed out again
or not, at least until the other man nodded once. “Good,” he
murmured, a faint croak. His hand flopped out, groping weakly at
the front of Andrew’s shirt. “Don’t…let her see me…like this.”

“I’m going to get you out of here,” Andrew
said.

Moore peeled back one eyelid and regarded
Andrew for a long, wheezing moment. “Son, you’re going to be doing
good to…get
yourself
out of here.”

The corner of his mouth hooked in a smile and
Andrew managed a hoarse laugh. “Don’t worry about me,” Moore said.
“Just…get Alice out.” When Andrew started to protest, he shook his
head. “My aorta is ruptured. I…can tell from my breathing…the pain
in my chest. I’m bleeding to death. Do you understand?”

Stricken, Andrew stared at him.

“You…can’t stop it,” Moore continued with a
grimace. “There’s nothing you can do. So promise me…please.” Again,
his hand hooked against Andrew’s shirt, pulling the younger man
near. “Take care of Alice,” he whispered. “Please.”

“Alright.” Andrew nodded, but it was too
late. Moore’s fingers uncurled, limp and loosening, his hand
drooping to dangle lifelessly in the open doorway. His breath
rattled to a moist, strained halt and his eyelids drooped to a
sleepy, eternal half-mast.

Oh, Jesus.
Andrew stumbled back from
the door, leaning against the barrel of the rifle, teetering
unsteadily. He cut his eyes around, but there was no sign of Alice.
He thought he could hear the soft sounds of rustling from somewhere
across the room, in the direction of Dani’s desk.

Then he heard another rustling, this one much
closer and when he turned, he realized that, contrary to popular
misconception, Major Prendick was alive and well. Or if not well,
then at least lifting his head from the wrinkled hood of the
truck.

“Oh, Jesus,” Andrew said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“
Glaaaggghhh.”

Prendick uttered a horrible cawing sound, his
mouth slack-jawed and agape, blood drooling down in thick streams
over the outer edge of his bottom lip. His eyes punched into
Andrew, round and wild, the cornea on his left side stained red
with hemorrhage. His hands moved against the hood of the cargo
truck, fingers splayed wide and outstretched, scrabbling and
slapping at the crimped metal.

He’s still alive.
Andrew shrank back
in horror, hopping on his good leg as he snatched the M16 between
his hands.
Oh, God, how can he still be alive?

“
Glllaaaaaggghhh,”
Prendick squawked,
his fingernails scraping the metal hood like a slate chalkboard:
Screeeeeech!
He began to shrug his shoulders and wriggle at
the waist, twisting from side to side slowly at first, then more
quickly, fervently, furiously.

He’s trying to get loose. Oh, Christ, he’s
trying to get to me.

What had Dani had told him about firing the
rifle?

Turn the safety off. There’s a switch on
the side panel. Turn it to
semi
.

“Major Prendick, you…you shouldn’t be
moving,” Andrew stammered helplessly, pawing at the rifle, thumbing
the toggle switch to arm it. “You’re pretty messed up.”

Prendick uttered a warbling croak, then
vomited blood, sending a thick torrent splashing against the
smashed front end of the truck, down into the steaming, exposed
engine components. Still, he thrashed against the grill, and Andrew
heard a moist grinding sound as flesh and bones, meat and guts
began to rind and rip.

“Stop,” he cried out, hoarsely, shouldering
the rifle. His hands were shaking, his balance unsteady, and the
barrel waggled erratically this way and that. “For God’s sake,
Prendick, stop it!”

With a sickening, wet tearing sound and even
more horrific
POP
as his spinal column snapped like a pencil
bent too far too fast, Prendick wrenched himself free. Or, more
specifically, the top half of him. His upper torso, head, shoulders
and arms all suddenly toppled to the floor in front of Andrew,
leaving the rest of him—everything from the navel up—pinned against
the side of the cargo truck. Blood immediately spurted in grisly
fountains from severed blood vessels, and a heaping pile of
entrails left exposed from his torn abdominal cavity spilled
out.

“
Jesus Christ!”
Andrew forgot himself
in his shock and horror, and stepped down onto his maimed heel in
recoil. Immediately, pain lanced through his entire right side, and
with another cry, he collapsed to the floor. The gun slipped from
his fingers. With a strained grimace, Andrew reached for it, arm
outstretched. His fingertips brushed the butt and he crawled
forward on his belly, mewling at fresh pain.

Just as he slapped his hand against the
stock, Prendick grabbed hold of the rifle by the barrel.

“
Glagggh,”
he said and Andrew screamed
again because there was no way Prendick could still be alive, no
way in hell Prendick could still be moving around, never mind
grabbing for a goddamn gun, not cut in two like he was, with half
of his guts on the garage floor behind him, the other half smeared
out across the front end of the cargo truck.

Andrew stared in terrified shock down the
short length of the muzzle and into Prendick’s face. His brows were
furrowed, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a blood-stained
smear. Again, he uttered that awful, cawing
sound—
“Glllaaaaagghh!”
—then Andrew pulled the trigger.

He’d inadvertently set the gun to
burst
again, not
semi,
and a wild stream of bullets
suddenly spewed from the barrel. The rounds ripped into Prendick,
punching baseball-sized craters where his left eye had been,
pulverizing his nose, shearing back the skin of his cheek and
splintering teeth beneath. Andrew screamed the whole time, even as
the gun jerked and shuddered in recoil, forcing him to lose his
grasp. As his finger slipped from the trigger, the gun fell still
and silent, leaving a thin film of acrid smoke lingering in the air
between him and Prendick.