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Jahn thrashed in the safety netting. Still in his lap, the
woman was strangling and gnawing with razor teeth. She bit hard. He screamed a
shrill cry and tore free of the nets and her, both hands clutching at his
bleeding member.
“You pig,” he cried, weeping.
Gasping for air, she gave him a sweet smile.
“Got some more o’ the Red Zip, honey?” Her eyes blinked slow, and the dream of peace she lived in whispered the world was a
sweet and gentle place; it loved her because she was the best, the very best.
“I love you, Johnny. Make me love you more.” Her hands came up, the finger
waving slowly. In her dreams each wore a cheerful face, each shouted she was
wonderful and they all loved her, adored and worshipped her. Listening to them,
she giggled.
“Friggin rowho,” he said, weeping. “I ought to kill
you. I could, you know. My blood type is ‘O’, pure and perfect, and I was in
the Conservation Corp Youth Army in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.”
He bunched a fist, smashing her face until blood spurted from
a shattered nose and bleeding lips.
But she was smiling and dreaming, and the crack and herb-laced
Red Delight owned her now.
He saw the moon rising over New Jersey, full and white, the
shadows deep. Frowning, Jahn glanced around. Which way was the road and his
coat? He grimaced. The coat was toast, but there would be traffic. Some, at
least, as smugglers came down out of the meat-rich hills hauling anything that
would bring a dit or two to the cities on the coast.
He stumbled through the brush, with the girl still whispering
her love for him.
“Barbados,” he said, shivering in the chill wind. “The
Safehouse in Jamaica. Cuba’s south shore resorts and all those hungry peons.
Tobago. Cancun. And where do I head? The land of perpetual burnouts, the Pocono
Mountains. Am I dense, or what?”
He stumbled, dropping into a narrow crack in the rocks that
was filled with peat moss and cold, acidic water.
With a shout of pain for the ice scratching his leg, he
jumped away, fell, and then crawled up covered with black mud. A light snow
began to fall.
Close to weeping, he said, “What the freek is next? Shit
weasels?”
The owl called, the voice deep and strong.
Jahn started, staring through the barren branches of the
trees but it was silent.
“Lord?” he whispered. “Lord Owl?”
When nothing showed, he began to walk. A faint howl drifted
on the winds.
“Coyotes,” he said, but whispered it, his eyes darting
back and forth.
The howl was deep and hoarse, not the thin, sweet ululating
cry of a coyote or even a feral hound. A wolf’s would have been one long,
drawn out howl. Jahn staggered, falling against a tree, and a small whine started
in his chest.
Recognizing the fear as something members of the coven used
to drive a victim into a terror-stricken flight didn’t help.
Jahn fumbled through the growing dark. Snow whirled around
him on errant winds. He heard the whine of an engine and tried to run.
Grapevines looped around his arms, and roots caught at his feet. The owl called
again, stronger, demanding, and the howls were closing.
He broke through the brush, and a set of bright lights stung
him in the eyes. A machinegun chattered, the bullets chipping at the broken
pavement of the old turnpike.
Screaming for help, Jahn dived into the brush. The car
slowed, a window whining down.
A man said, “Think we got the yokel?”
A woman laughed. “The way you shoot? Where’s the other
bottle?”
Growling an answer, the man let the window close, and the car
screamed away.
Jahn crept from the brush to stare after the car. Staying
close to the edge and safety, he began to trudge up the road. A howl sounded
down the mountain from him, and he broke into a short dash that left him with
burning lungs and cramps in his legs.
Weeping, he hobbled up the mountain to the top of the cut. To
either side the brush was thick, almost invisible in the night and the softly
falling snow. Jahn glanced back, but there was nothing, only the snow and weak
pounding of his heart. A few miles farther, he came to a bridge and stopped,
staring at it.
Albrightsville was close. The gated village of Oakland. If he
could make it there, he had friends that would take him in.
On the opposite side of the bridge a dark figure stood,
watching, and Jahn muttered a low cry.
The figure moved, throwing something that bounced hard once
with a dull thud to land near Jahn’s feet. He had to stoop to see what it was.
The girl’s face stared up at him, the eyes still dreamy, the lips still
swollen and smiling.
The car moved away, and Benny took Sue by the arm.
“We got to get it gone, lady,” he said.
She glanced at the sky, then nodded. This was too close to
the Dead Zone. When they came to a rough fence of brick and chunks of cement,
she paused, peering over it. It wasn’t a wall surrounding some minor
warlord’s enclave, and Sue breathed a sigh of relief.
Helping him over the rubble, she stepped into a moonscape that
showed sign of hogs rooting in the scabby earth and dead brush. Sue took a
tentative step, then a second. With Benny leaning on her, she moved slowly
through the pasture. Nearing the center, they paused to let Benny catch his
breath
He gave her a crooked, apologetic, yet somehow angry grin.
His eyes widened. Benny stared down. At his feet was a human skull. Another
skull, cracked and broken, lay to his right. Scattered through the soil were the
bones of a half dozen or so human skeletons.
“Quick,” he blurted. “Run.”
“What?" On instinct, she started to, then grabbed
Benny. He shoved her away, shouting, “Run,
damn it.”
A boar screamed. Head down, weighing nearly a
half-ton, he charged with tusks raking the ground and tiny, red eyes staring
straight at them. He was a black and red tank, and the only thing that could stop
him would be a shotgun shell with an explosive tip. In this quarter acre he was
the god of hell.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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