JACK KILBORN ~ AFRAID (30 page)

He stuck his fingers in the teeth, tried to pull it apart. It gave—an inch, two, three—and then snapped closed again, prompting another horrific scream.

Streng’s mind, insane with pain, struggled to form a lucid thought. He needed something to pry the trap open. Maybe a branch. His hands scoured the ground around him, finding nothing.

The Ka-Bar knife? Streng groped for the fanny pack, finding the Warthog, wedging it into the mechanism and trying to force it open.

No good. The handle was too short. No leverage.

Goddamn you, Wiley.

Streng hated his brother then, hated him more than anyone he’d ever known. He was the cause of this entire mess. And now Streng would be captured, and the pain would get even worse. They’d make him talk. Streng was tough, but Santiago would only have to gently nudge the trap with his foot and Streng would be aching to tell him where Wiley lived. Wiley would die. Fran and Duncan would die. And he would die.

Better if it were only him.

Streng sobbed, coughed, spat, and then raised the knife to his own throat, wishing it was Wiley’s.
A bear trap.
That son of a bitch. How could he? Especially knowing what their father went through, his leg trapped under that tree …

The sheriff paused. Maybe he didn’t have to die. Maybe he still could get away.

He tugged off his belt and cinched it under his knee.

Don’t think about it,
Streng told himself
. Dad did it. You can do it, too. And if you do, the pain will stop. You’re an old fart, anyway. Three weeks away from retirement. What do you need two legs for?

Streng brought the knife down. And he began.

The jaws of the trap had already done most of the work. Streng stuck the blade in where the teeth were already embedded, following an imaginary line around the circumference of the calf.

Almost like carving the meat off a ham hock,
Streng thought.

The pain was still there, but he felt a curious detachment from what was happening.
Detachment.
Streng laughed at the double meaning of the word, but it wasn’t a laugh at all, it was a tortured sob, but he had to keep quiet, keep so quiet so they didn’t find him, and then the knife was through the flesh and the muscle and the tissue and he pulled and then screamed again because the leg was still caught.

The bone.

He recalled Dad’s story, how he used a rock to break his leg bone.

Streng didn’t have a rock. But the Ka-Bar Warthog was a heavy blade, razor sharp.

He began to chop.

The belt tourniquet wasn’t helping much. Streng’s fingers were slick with blood, and he’d become so dizzy it was a struggle to stay awake. He alternated knife blows with manually checking to see if the bone had been severed yet; the pain had become so all encompassing he couldn’t tell without touching.

Hack.

Feel.

Hack.

Feel.

Hack.

Feel.

Cut! The bone was cut!

Streng let out a strangled grunt of triumph, put his hands behind him, and tried to pull his leg away again—

—and screamed.

He was still caught.

He palpated the area with muddy fingers. The bone was severed. The flesh was severed. Why was he still—

Son of a gun,
Streng thought.
Another bone.

In all of Dad’s stories, he’d never mentioned that a leg had two bones in it.

Streng sought out his fanny pack, located the box of Magnum rounds. He broke it open, selected one, and wedged it in the hinge of his mouth, between two molars.

Bite the bullet, old man.

Moaning deep in his throat, Streng raised the Ka-Bar and hacked as fast as he could, not stopping to feel, not wanting to drag it out any longer.

He knew he had to keep quiet, but he couldn’t anymore. The scream came from deep within and went on and on like a foghorn. Streng hacked and hacked and screamed and hacked.

On the eighth hack his leg came free.

Streng didn’t pause to celebrate. He dropped the knife, grabbed two handfuls of dirt, and began to drag himself away from the trap. The pain had reached a point where it seemed like it wasn’t even happening to him anymore. It had become another entity, a doppelgänger of himself, a creature of pure suffering. He crawled alongside his pain, down on his belly, pushing himself forward with his remaining leg, determined to get away.

Noise, to his right. Streng squinted.

Ajax.

Streng considered his next move, and realized he only had one—release the belt on his leg and bleed to death.

He reached down, seeking the buckle.

“Aren’t you a big one?”

The voice came from the left. Streng stared, saw Wiley in his ghillie suit, holding a shotgun.

“Body armor,” Streng managed to say.

Wiley aimed at Ajax and squeezed the trigger.

Streng knew he was hallucinating, because it looked and sounded like Wiley fired eight shots within two seconds.

Ajax crumpled like a demoed building, spraying arterial blood so far that some of it hit Streng in the face.

“Body armor my ass,” Wiley said. He reached down and Streng felt himself being dragged.

Abruptly—and absurdly, considering the circumstance—everything became clear to Streng. He had always looked up to Wiley. Put his older brother on a pedestal. Through the haze of pain, Streng realized that he wasted thirty years trying to analyze why Wiley didn’t measure up to his standards, when he should have simply accepted him. Family shouldn’t judge. Family should forgive.

“I’m sorry,” Streng mumbled, hoping his brother heard him.

The sheriff was sure he heard Wiley say, “I’m sorry, too, Ace,” right before the pain reached a crescendo and he passed out.

F
ran huddled close to Duncan and waited in the strange purple room for her father to come back.

My father.
Fran still couldn’t get her mind around that.

Two minutes earlier she and Duncan had been running through the woods and were stopped by what appeared to be a swamp monster, vines and sticks hanging from its body.

“I’m Warren,” it said. “Follow me.”

Fran followed. She’d just seen the sheriff get shot, and much as she mistrusted the man in front of her, she had to protect Duncan. Warren Streng led them to a dead deer, pressed some sort of button, and the ground opened up.

“Slide down. I’ll be right back.”

Fran clutched her son and they went down the ramp on their butts, Fran using the rubber grips on the bottom of her sandals to slow their descent. When they reached bottom they were in a room illuminated by black lights. The decals on her sweatshirt and Duncan’s white shoelaces and socks glowed purple.

Above them the hatch closed. Fran startled at the sound. They’d escaped the Red-ops, yet again, but she still felt a long way from safe.

“Is Sheriff Streng okay?” Duncan asked.

“I don’t know, baby.”

“Is that guy really your dad?”

“I think so.”

“So he’s my grandpa?”

“Unfortunately.”

Duncan pulled away from her, trying to stand.

“Stay close to me, baby.”

“I’m not a baby, Mom.”

Fran rubbed his back, like she did when he was an infant and wouldn’t go to sleep. “You’ll always be my baby, Duncan.”

“Can I get lights like this? They’re cool.”

“We’ll see.”

The seconds ticked by. Fran wondered what they would do if Warren didn’t come back. She guessed this place had more rooms. There was probably food, water, weapons. And so far the Red-ops hadn’t been able to find it. Maybe they could stay here for a while, wait for them to leave. Maybe—

A clanging sound, coming from the corner of the room. Fran noticed that some tools on the pegboard were wobbling and a wrench had fallen on the floor.

She stood up, forcing Duncan behind her.

“What is it, Mom?” her son whispered.

“I don’t know, Duncan. Someone else is in here.”

Movement, to their right, followed by a piercing shriek. Fran flinched, putting her hands up to protect her face as something flew at her. It landed on her chest and hugged her neck.

The monkey.

“Mathison!” Mathison jumped from Fran to her son, giving him a hug, as well. “He must have snuck in when Grandpa opened the secret door!”

She didn’t like Duncan calling Warren
Grandpa,
but she didn’t press the issue.

Instead she walked away from the monkey and child reunion and approached the pegboard, looking for weapons. Fran selected an awl and a hammer with a straight claw.

A clang, from the surface, echoed through the room.

“Mom?” Duncan whispered. “There’s someone coming.”

“Come here, Duncan. Quick.”

Duncan stood at her side, Mathison on his shoulder. Fran held the awl in one hand, the claw hammer in the other, and waited for the person to come down the slide.

There was a noise from above. It got louder. Closer.

“What if it’s
them?
” Duncan asked.

Fran had weapons. She would fight to the death. They wouldn’t get her son. She held her breath and raised the hammer, watching as two booted feet came down the ramp.

Warren.
And he had Sheriff Streng.

“Fran, Duncan, I need some help.”

Warren hit a switch on the wall that closed the above hatch, then hauled the sheriff across the floor, leaving a streak of blood. In the black light it looked like motor oil.

“Get the door,” Warren ordered.

Duncan opened the only door in the room, which led into a bright hallway.

“First door on the right. Fran, grab the first-aid box.”

Fran stepped over Streng and hurried into the room. She found herself in a large storage area, filled with ranks and files of shelves. Food, paper products, boxes of all types, and on the rear wall—racks of guns.

“Second aisle, a white footlocker, bottom shelf.”

Fran spied it, a metal box with a suitcase handle on it, so heavy it took both hands to carry.

“Duncan,” Warren said, his hands on the sheriff’s bleeding leg, “get some jugs of water. Last row, second shelf. Fran, pull this suit off me. And the shotgun.”

Warren wore a camouflage holster on his back, which housed a shotgun that nestled against his spine. Fran removed both holster and gun, then located the snaps on the swamp-monster outfit and tugged it off. Warren’s eyes met hers, and Fran was stricken by how much they looked like Duncan’s. Like her own.

“In the box, get me a scalpel.”

Fran opened up the footlocker and shelves folded out like a tackle box. She found a scalpel in a slot and handed it to Warren.

“I got the water, Grandpa.”

“Pour it on the sheriff’s leg, Duncan.”

Warren cut away Streng’s pants. Fran glanced down, saw the gory stump where the calf used to be, and had to turn away.

“Duncan,” she said. “Leave the room.”

“Like hell he’s leaving the room,” Warren barked.

“He’s a child.”

“He’s got hands. I need those hands. Pour the water, Duncan. And keep pouring until I say quit.”

“It’s okay, Mom. I can help.”

Duncan pulled the cap off a water container and sprinkled some out.

“Faster, son, dump it on there.”

Duncan upended the jug, and Fran stared, mortified, as it flushed away the blood, exposing several wormy blood vessels and two pink bones.

“Fran, give me some clamps.”

Fran didn’t move, paralyzed by the spectacle before her.

“Clamps, Frannie! They look like scissors.”

Frannie. Her mom used to call her Frannie.

Fran found a clamp and handed it to Warren.

“Keep pouring, Duncan. Right here, where my fingers are. Good job.”

Warren locked the clamp around one of the slimy purple worms.

“Another one, Fran. And give me the big silver syringe, the one with two tubes coming out the sides.”

Fran searched the box. Warren clamped off another artery. She heard a chittering sound, saw Mathison sitting on a shelf, watching the proceedings with a worried expression.

“I’m out of water, Grandpa.”

“Get more.”

“I got it,” Fran held the strange-looking syringe out to Warren. The plunger had a loop on the end, and instead of a conventional tip it boasted a valve with two plastic tubes, each ending in a catheter. He took it, rolled up his sleeve, and shoved a needle into his wrist.

“Pull the plunger to take blood from my artery,” Warren said.

Fran did as instructed, tugging on the loop and staring as the syringe filled with blood. Warren searched for one of the sheriff’s veins. He located one in the crook of Streng’s elbow.

“Pour some water on my hands, Duncan. They’re too slippery.”

Duncan complied. Warren found the vein on the third try, and Fran gently pressed the plunger without being told. Warren’s blood flowed into Streng.

“His leg, Duncan, keep going. And more clamps, Fran. And a package of gauze. Hand over the blood tranfuser.”

Warren pulled and pushed on the plunger, sucking and pumping faster than Fran had dared to try. Streng moaned, his head shaking.

“There’s a glass bottle, Fran, bottom of the box, called
pethidine.
Find it, and fill up one of those small syringes. Duncan, see what I’m doing with this syringe? You do the same.”

Duncan took over the blood transfusion. Warren tied off two more blood vessels while Fran found the bottle and syringes.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Shoot him in the leg.”

Fran squirted a few drops of liquid from the needle and plunged it into the sheriff’s thigh.

“Good. Now I need to see if I got them all. Undo the belt, slowly. Get ready to put it back on if I say so.”

Fran scooted closer, kneeling in the widening pool of red. It soaked into her pants, warming her cold legs.

“Ready … go!”

She unbuckled the belt and a small stream of blood squirted out of Streng’s stump, in time with his heartbeat. Warren pinched the artery closed and applied a clamp.

“Hand me the transfuser, Duncan, and pour more water on him.”

The water ran off mostly clear.