Chapter 47
A FACE FULL OF FLOOR
The dull sound of those choppers coming in sent shivers through me, the bad kind. But I’m not here to reminisce about my death. I tune back into this stick-up-his-ass Gregory’s speech on what he will give us.
“Clay Skinner will be employed somewhere far away at a base we run in the Arctic, for a minimum of six years, and after that he will be reassessed and placed somewhere appropriate.”
“Six fucking years in a job not even a jail?” Hailey mutters. “That sucks, and by sucks I mean that is just wrong.” She inhales raggedly.
I want to massage her shoulders and hold her, but I can’t. I bend low to say to her only, “I’m sorry. Clay needs hanging or electrocuting.”
“Or a wasabi injection.”
I chuckle at that one, while watching the second asshole, Gregory.
He drones on, “The town will remain under military control until we have ensured nothing incriminating can or has spread. Records will be expunged or altered. You and your friends, Hailey, will be under extra scrutiny, and any original records must be surrendered, if they are relevant. That includes your father’s material and notes. I am sorry.”
Clay has migrated in our direction, moving from the imagined safety zone of his desk. Or perhaps he is considering jumping out that window.
“I don’t want us to be kept under lock and key in Revenant while he goes free.” Her voice rises. “The Arctic? Really?”
“You won’t be. As soon as possible, you’ll be free to leave. One of the stipulated clauses apart from nondisclosure, will be…”
My hands are still trapped in cuffs, but I test them repeatedly, to give my muscles something to do.
“…that Kail is available for testing, personally, as well as any research studies relating to this possible alternate-timeline world that the institute deems worth following up.”
“What?” I frown at him. “You want me to be your guinea pig?”
“Yes. And no. We will regard you as equivalent to a human. Your record as a serial killer in our world will be altered. You will be asked for consent for each study. You can travel outside Revenant if not needed at specific times, so long as we can track you.”
“Fuck. That sounds restrictive.” And Hailey didn’t even wince when he said that I was a serial killer. She already knew. I bet Clay told her.
“It is generous. You are a weapon, Kail Stone. One that we don’t quite understand. We are being generous. The contract has more clauses but will be given to you to read and sign, before you leave this building.”
Before we will be allowed to leave. That’s the subtext.
“Hailey? We can read the fine print first.” I peer around her so I can see her face.
“But my father?”
The bewilderment evident in the shaking of her head and her trembling mouth slays me. How did I forget her father?
“We don’t have much choice, Kail, but the murders…” She raises her voice. “I just don’t see how you can simply wave your wand and say the deaths of Esau and this Niamh and my father… My father was murdered by him! How can that mean nothing. Sir.” That sir drips with loathing.
Gregory sighs and tucks his hands into his pants pockets. “I understand. I do. I can cover up the murders. It’s within my purview, but Clay Skinner is not on the agenda. He has some sway. You understand where I am going, Miss Tarrant?”
“I understand that Clay needs to watch his back. One day, karma will happen.”
Gregory only arches an eyebrow.
Smug assurance reasserts itself on Clay. He lets out a long breath, and nods at his desk. “Shall I tidy up here and get my things?”
“Fuck no, Clay. You’re still an idiot. Wait over there.” Gregory goes to the desk as he says this, indicating the door with one arm. His bodyguards follow him like weaponized sheep.
The smugness has dropped a notch, but as Clay wanders to the door, he deliberately curves our way after passing the bodyguards. He pauses before us to say quietly, “Keep that pussy warm for me.”
As he turns away, I strain and again feel the ungiving steel around my wrists. “Don’t go anywhere, Hailey.”
I take a long stride and hear Gregory shout, “Don’t!”
Skinner spins and backpedals. “I will get you if you—” His back hits the wall. “Priority two! Priority two!”
Does he think I’m going to headbutt him?
I heave and force my muscles past the point where flesh will tear.
Steel rips through wrist muscle, bone, and cartilage.
Chunks splatter onto the floor as I drive my freed arm forward.
A riot of pain follows, screaming into my shoulder and beyond.
Too late, for I’ve punched into this prick’s chest, spearing through ribs, chest, and heart with the fractured ends of my arm bones.
The wall shudders then cracks. I wrench loose from the wall and start to retrieve my arm, smiling as he gapes at me.
“Priority two? You thought that would work? You will never touch Hailey, you wanking great excuse for a prick.” A little flowery, but it will do.
His flesh clings to my forearm as I suck it from the huge wound. I have to shake my arm to get free of him.
“That was also for Esau and Simon and Niamh.”
Blood gushes from the hole as Skinner slides down the wall to die blubbering and wheezing. He gasps a final moist sigh before toppling sideways and getting a face full of floor.
The cuff still hanging off my other arm bumps against my thigh.
I turn to Gregory, and find his guards are a couple of feet behind me, their guns trained on me. “That is justice, sir. Fixed your last problem, Mister Gregory. You said you can do the others easily. Cover up this killing too.”
His shoulders drop and he frowns, eyerolls. “Put away those guns. Well, this job is already a pain in the ass. Sign the damn papers, you two.”
“Thanks.” I remember to pick up my lost hand from the floor and squash it onto the stump, which hurts, but I needed to try.
I can sense my flesh trying to latch onto what used to be a part of me, as if little microscopic feelers are making grabby fingers, but it unsticks.
No surprises there. As usual, I’m bleeding as much as an anemic ant. “Got any of that duct tape, Hailey?”
“We can find some. His desk, maybe?”
I tuck the hand into my tracksuit pocket.
When I reach her, she smiles up at me, and this is how I know, absolutely, that she is the one for me. “Forever, babe.” And I kiss her on the lips and feel her ass with only one hand, since the severed one is misbehaving.
This day has picked up immensely since I woke from the sedation, but I feel I’ve missed something vital. Some unknown unfinished business is poking me. After fastening my hand to my wrist stump using duct tape found in the receptionist’s desk, we exit to the outside corridor together.
People carry past us a stretcher bearing Clay’s body.
“Put him on ice?” someone says.
This is it. The unfinished business.
I don’t hit anyone or scream out no, and I think Hailey missed those words. Count our blessings? We are both alive, and though I may regret some of our actions in the future, it is unknowable.
Sheriff Baxter is out here, too, backed into the opposite wall a few yards further along.
He also watches as the stretcher goes by.
His head swivels then he locks his gaze on us like some heat-seeking missile launcher.
Abruptly, he switches to Clay and paces after the stretcher.
He reminds me of a man at a funeral ready to help lift the coffin or dig the grave.
“Does the sheriff strike you as strange?” I realize I have stopped dead.
“Yeah, he does.”
Did he hear us, for he turns and smiles and takes off his hat. That birthmark on his temple must be why he loves wearing headgear. Then he gives a small bow before continuing.
A bow? “Fucking strange. Man, this town has some odd people in it.”
Hailey’s mouth has dropped open.
Two soldiers who came with the choppers beckon us. Another two arrive at our rear. The girl needs some TLC, so I scoop her up and aim for the room in the other direction, where these papers await us. I guess we’ll be signing them.
Before I walk onward, I lean over to kiss her.
As before, she smiles up at me. “What was that for?”
“Just figured you needed it.”
I can’t deny that’s me, too.
My heart needs her. I need her more than I ever thought I could.
Running away isn’t the answer. I’m going to have to face the demon that lives in the back of my head.
The sheriff paces along, following the stretcher carrying this enemy of their friend, Hailey.
It knows there is a possibility the humans will resurrect him because of the thinking matter inside his head.
This would be a mistake and might lead to harm to its friends. In this world, friends are few, so far.
The stretcher bearers deviate into a box with doors that open.
An elevator it recalls is the name. The humans raise their limbs and make noises to stop the sheriff from entering with them.
And so, as the stretcher passes, it brushes its own limb endings along the rim of the stretcher to transfer a squiggle, then it waves and makes a smile.
The hungry black squiggle slips under the stretcher and splays itself out until it is thinner than a whisper and as noticeable as a shadow.
It waits and waits as the box descends, and when it judges the moment is right, it slips over the edge and goes swiftly to the slain man’s head.
There it slips into his earhole and burrows deep into the soft filling of his skull.
Later, when things are quiet, it will exit, feeding some more as it does so, and making a few more convenient holes.
We sign the documents, of course.
Once outside the room, Hailey and I lean on the wall.
“There was enough legal word-vomit in there…” Slowly I shake my head. “I hope this is above board.”
“It isn’t. How can it be? He’s already confessed to being able to cover up murders and whoever he works for can ask for military intervention. We should’ve had a lawyer.”
“Yeah. I know. Whatever happens from now on, I’m sticking to you like glue.”
She bumps her head into my shoulder even as I find her hand and hold it.
Which is when her phone buzzes. They gave it back to her after we signed.
She retrieves it from a slim pants pocket and taps into a text message that she reads out, “What did we do to the corpse? Huh? I don’t get it.” Then the phone rings with an incoming call. “How did he get this number?”
She puts it on speaker.
“Yes?”
“The corpse has been interfered with in a way that suggests someone exploded a small explosive in Clay’s head.
There are multiple exit holes. We are unhappy.
” That’s Gregory’s voice. “Do you have any insights, any at all? Bear in mind, if I find you’re already making chaos and interfering, that contract is void. ”
“Uhhh. No, sir? We’ve been up here signing things.” She’s smiling though and I’m puzzled as to why. “How could we have done anything?”
Gregory’s loud sigh comes through. “Keep it that way.”
He disconnects.
“Hailey?”
She puts a finger to her lips, meaning shhh.
A second later facts pile in like jigsaw pieces finding a home.
The Not-Cat Squiggle has the same marking on its head as the sheriff, and I’m certain he didn’t have the mark that night outside the warehouse.
The dead deer with the holes in its head and neck.
Clay has new holes. More than I gave him. Poor man.
“Come. We should leave. I’m going to have to find some thread to sew up your hand.”
I follow her lead, let her tow me for a few steps, before I venture to say, “Told you this town had some odd people in it.”
“Yup. Hole in one.”
“The irony in that cliché. Clay would not appreciate it.”
She giggles and I don’t know if I have ever heard her giggle before.
Squiggle Cat is some kind of alien creature.
And so is the damn sheriff.