The Jigsaw Man (33 page)

"Not really. My parents, I guess. Be nice to see them

again. Maybe a few old firemen buddies. W h o knows?

How about you?"

"My wife and little boy. Car accident. I don't know

much about this stuff, Red, but if there
is
a Heaven,

and they'll consider letting a fool like me in, I'm look¬

ing forward to seeing them soon too. It's crazy to think

about, but it helps, you know?"

Red Beard nodded, tears flowing down his cheeks al¬

most as much as mine. "Let's do this, Mike. I'm ready"

I waUted over beside him, kissed him on the forehead

too, and was about to put the pillow on his smiling face

when I saw his eyes open wide in surprise. There was

fear in those eyes as well. W h e n I turned to follow his

gaze, I understood why.

Drake was standing in the doorway.

Too long, Mike. You took too long.

The head of security looked astonished to see me.

He was still sweaty and breathing, hard from his search

in the forest, and finding me standing here in the castle

had him at a temporary loss for words. He got over it,

though, quickly.

"Are you out of your fucking mind, Mike?"

I didn't say anything.

"You somehow get the j u m p on Jackson, and instead

of hightailing it away from here, you. decide to come

back to say good-bye to y o u r friends?"

Then he took a few steps into the room and a closer

look at the men lying in their beds, then down at the

pillow still clasped tightly in my hands, and he started

laughing. Laughing hard, the thought of me killing the

Bleeders somehow hilarious to him.

"You
are
crazy I knew it. Hot damn! This is one for

the record books. We're out r u n n i n g around in the

damn forest, and here you are playing Kiss-the-Pillow

with your old buddies. Dr. Marshall's gonna love this."

"How'd you find m e ? " I asked, stalling for time.

"Nurse Harper," he answered. "She mentioned some¬

one delivering a message up here for me and I knew it

was bullshit. Tell you the truth, though, I thought it was

one of my guards slacking off. I came up here to rip him

a new asshole for not helping us look for you, I damn

near fainted when I saw you standing there. You're full

of surprises; I'll give you that. It's almost a shame to kill

someone like you, but I gotta—"

"Leave him alone, Drake, you bastard!" Red Beard

shouted, his voice seemingly far too loud and powerful

to have come from such a small, wasted body.

Drake laughed again. "Fuckyou, Torso Boy. Shut your

mouth or I'll cut your eyes out next."

To add legitimacy to his threat, Drake withdrew a

short-bladed, nasty-looking knife and drew circles in

the air in Red Beard's direction. My friend groaned,

closed his eyes and started praying in whispers, which

pleased Drake immensely. W i t h Red Beard put back in

his place, the hulking guard turned his attention to m e ,

pointing the knife in my direction and licking his Hps.

He started walking toward me.

"Be a good boy, Mike, and I'll make this quick and

painless for you. I'm too tired to keep fucking around

with an irritating turd like you. Your choice. Either

way, you're going down."

Don't be so sure of that, big boy.

Drake had a sharp knife, but I had Jackson's gun.

W i t h no time to spare, I tossed the pillow and dug in

my jacket pocket. As quickly as I could, I pulled out the

shiny silver gun, more than happy to p u m p some bullets

into this big mouthy cocksucker, fill him with enough

lead to make him magnetic, then spit in his face as he

dropped at my feet. Wishful thinking.

Drake was damn quick for a brute, and by the time I

transferred the gun to my shooting hand and tried to

pull the trigger, he was already in my face. He grabbed

my left wrist in his right hand, making sure he pointed

the gun away, and then started squeezing. My skinny

wrist bones were like matchsticks in his vicelike grip

and I screamed as something in my lower arm went

SNAP!
Fire engulfed my hand for a moment, and then

everything went n u m b . My fingers spasmed and the

gun fell to the floor between us. Drake kicked it away,

across the room, smiling at me like a hungry carnivore.

"Good effort, Mike, j u s t not good enough," Drake

said, keeping a hold of my shattered wrist as he thrust

his knife toward my belly.

Instinctively, I twisted my body to the right to avoid

his deadly blow and Drake's knife tore a long gash in

my jacket, scratching me along my left ribcage, draw¬

ing blood but not incapacitating me. I swung my right

fist as hard as
I
could at Drake's throat, hoping to catch

him in the Adam's apple but he saw the punch coming

and ducked. My fist connected solidly with his chin, but

I
didn't have enough strength to do much damage.

Drake shook it off easily, his arrogant smile still in

place, and came at me with the knife again.

I tried a second time to twist away, this time to the

left, but Drake wasn't being fooled again. He antici¬

pated my move and drove the short-bladed knife into

my right side, below the ribcage. The knife sticking out

of me, Drake finally let go of my wrist and let me drop

to my knees on the floor.

Time stood still for a moment.

I held my breath, waiting to die.

Drake was triumphantly standing over m e , laughing,

and I could j u s t make out Red Beard crying on the

other side of the room, but I wasn't paying much atten¬

tion to either one of them. All I could think about was

one crystal clear thought.

Why doesn't it hurt?

A knife in the belly is supposed to hurt, right? Death

by stabbing is supposed to be a horrible, painful thing,

right? Then why wasn't it?

I couldn't feel anything. In fact, the first cut across

my ribs hurt. more. Maybe adrenaline and my hatred

for Drake were blocking the pain, but even if that were

true, they wouldn't do much to stop the blood.

And there was no blood.

I looked down, saw the knife sticking out of the ripped

hole its entry had made in my coat, and wondered what

was happening,
I
doubled over so I could yank the knife

out of me with my right hand without Drake seeing me,

and was shocked to see a round rubber disk come out

stuck on the end of the knife. The short blade had

speared it almost dead center, but not penetrating

enough that it was sticking out the backside.

Son of a bitch! Puckman!

It was the crazy Mexican's silly puck. The one I'd

stolen all those m o n t h s ago, hoping to bean him in the

kisser with it before the train ran me over. It had been

sitting in my coat pocket all this t i m e , forgotten and of

no use to anyone—except to save my life!

Or j u s t prolong it.

I was still in big trouble here. Before I lost the only

chance I was likely to get, I faked a pain-filled groan

and collapsed even further to the ground, hiding my

uninjured belly from Drake's view and using my left

forearm to pry the puck off the knife blade. The numb¬

ness was going away and my wrist was starting to hurt

like a bitch, but that only helped make my groans all

the more realistic. Drake was still laughing at me when

I looked up into his ugly face. He was really enjoying

my death, getting off on my pain and suffering.

That was when I shoved the knife up into his groin,

rammed it into his balls as hard as I could. Then I twisted

it, first to the left, then the right, then back to the left

again, just for the hell of it. Blood was pouring down

onto my hand by this time, and Drake wasn't laughing

anymore. N o , he was screaming like a girl, high-pitched

and really, really loud.

Perfect!

Let the bastard scream. It was sweet music to my ears

and something I'd waited an awfully long time to hear.

Part of me wished Drake's suffering could last for hours,

days, weeks maybe, and everyone in this room was still

alive to see it, but that wasn't going to happen. The big

man dropped to his knees beside me, a look of sheer

disbelief on his face. He tried to speak, but I wasn't in

the mood to listen to anymore of his bullshit so I drove

the knife deep into his chest-I think I lucked out and

stuck it in his heart first try. Blood gushed out of his nose

and mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he top¬

pled over backward never to move again.

Just like that, big bad Drake was dead.

C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - E I G H T

Part of me wanted to j u m p to my feet and dance a j i g

over Drake's dead body. In my humble opinion, the

world was far better off without the sick perverted fuck.

I wanted to get up and kick the muscle-headed ignora¬

mus about a hundred times, then kiss him on the lips

j u s t to thank him for the sheer pleasure his death had

given me. I was giddy with joy, for sure, but.another

part of me was too hurt, too exhausted, too damn bone

weary to bother doing any of those silly macho things.

So I j u s t sat there quietly on the floor, covered in sticky

blood, not sure what to do next. I might have been in

shock.

My mind went away for a while.

Someplace quiet.

N e x t thing I knew, I was standing at the foot of Red

Beard's bed, looking down at my friend without the

slightest clue how I'd gotten there. One quick glance

behind me confirmed Drake was still lying in a rather

large red puddle—which was a relief because for a sec

ond I thought I might have hallucinated the entire con¬

frontation with Dr. Marshall's security chief.

"You okay, Mike?" Red asked, his bigpuppy dog eyes

red from crying.

I was covered in Drake's blood, and my wrist, ribs

and knee Kurt like hell, but for the most part I was d o

ing all right. Better than Drake, that was for sure.

"Yeah, Red, I'm fine. H o w about y o u ? "

Red j u s t nodded, a small smile touching the corners

of his mouth. "You had me worried there. Thought you

were in over your head with Drake, but damned if you

didn't give him what he deserved. Good for you, buddy.

Couldn't have happened to a bigger asshole, you ask

me. Hope he's already b u r n i n g in Hell."

"You and me both," I said, unzipping my soiled coat

and tossing it on the floor.

My coat had taken the brunt of Drake's bleeding,

and, fond memories aside, it was a sloppy mess and I

wasn't keeping the damn thing on another second. I

spent a few minutes wiping my hands off on Red's bedsheet, more to prepare for what was coming next than

any real need to clean my hands. I also tore a strip off

the sheet to wrap around my damaged left wrist, using

my teeth to help cinch the knot tight. Again, I suppose

I was stalling, but I was starting to feel really good

about all this. My plan was holding up. Killing Drake

was surely a good sign things were meant to work out.

I'd help Red move on, then blow this charnel house as

close to Heaven as all the spreading gas would get me

once it ignited.

"Okay," I said, walking over and grabbing another

pillow, "Let's finish this thing. You ready?"

I wasn't expecting Red to be happy about what was

going to happen, but I never expected him to look at me

with such fear. The first time I'd approached with the

pillow he hadn't looked like this. W h a t had changed?

"What's the matter, man? I thought you wanted

this?"

"You've got m y . . . my ... " Red began, but then he

started to shake, what was left of his body trembling

beneath his thin blanket. He wasn't looking into my

eyes; wasn't looking at my face at all, but lower, at my

left arm. I looked down, saw what was giving him such

grief and nearly screamed. There on my bicep was a

tattoo of a bright red fireman's helmet, with a yellow

ladder and an axe crisscrossing in front of it. The words

N . F . S T A T I O N # 5
were boldly writte n below.

Holy shit!

"Is that
mine?"
Red asked m e , his strong voice break¬

ing on the last word.

How was I supposed to answer? W h a t could I say to

justify and explain why I was wearing his fucking arm?

How could I have been such an idiot not to have no¬

ticed this before? Sure, I remembered him showing ail

of us how proud he'd been of this tattoo, but I'd been so

busy whining about how ugly my patched-together

body looked, I'd never made the connection. I hadn't

stopped to wonder if I knew any of the donors or what

might happen if they ever found out I'd received their

stolen body parts. I hadn't been the one to take their

limbs from them, but standing in front of Red Beard, I

couldn't help but feel like a thief. Worse, actually, be¬

cause not only was I wearing an arm that didn't belong