Most men can't make it through even five words of what I'm about to tell you (11 page)

neck. Falconer went to his knees but held onto the gun. He jammed it into Franky's gut and pulled the trigger. Exit holes

exploded out of the small of Franky's back, throwing bits of meat across the yard. Franky kept his feet.

I saw movement behind me, turned to see John's "new" orange 1978 Cadillac Coupe Devil e skid to a stop behind

Falconer's porsche. John flung himself out, sprinted toward me shouting, "YOUR KEY! I NEED YOUR SHED KEY!"

I didn't have a chance to answer him. Shed key? What was he doing? Borrowing my lawnmower?

Behind me I heard Falconer let out a frustrated, growling scream. I spun and saw Franky grab the detective around the

base of the skull. He forced Falconer's head down to waist level, then turned his body away from him. Holding Falconer's

face directly in front of his buttocks, Franky farted. Falconer collapsed to the leaves, as if dead.

I heard running feet behind me and then my front door banging shut. John. I decided to follow him but before I could get to

my feet, Franky was on me. He landed on me with all his weight, his legs straddling my chest.

I looked right into his eyes, and saw the gaping stare of a terrified young man. He was hissing something at me, a whisper

from deep in the throat. He leaned his face down close to mine, his hands clutching my shirt. I couldn't make out his

words, choking sounds like an old man on a respirator. He leaned closer. I could smell his breath.

"Help me! Help me! Nothing moves! Do you understand me?!?"

"Franky! Can you hear me? Get off me!"

"Listen, listen! Don't die! Don't die, man! Nothing moves! Don't ever die because nothing moves there!"

Franky screamed. A long, segmented
thing
came out from his mouth, out from the bug thing hiding within. It looked like a pale earthworm, but longer, with a little spike on the end like on a scorpion's tail. I was expecting the thing to come down

and sting me or something. Instead it curled up toward Franky's own eye. Franky screamed. The worm thing plunged into

his eyebal .

I heard a small engine rev to life, from around the house. I had the crazy thought that I'd see John racing around the

house with my lawnmower, screaming, "Thanks for letting me borrow this!" before throwing it in his car and driving off.

Blood dripped down on me from Franky's punctured eye. His hands found their way to my face and throat, clawing at me

mindlessly. The engine sound got closer, real close now. Something blocked the sun. A figure stood above us.

John. Something in his hands, something big.

The engine sound revved to a mechanical scream, then bogged down as if with effort. There was a sound like carrots in a

blender. Wetness rained down on me.

Blurred metal teeth of a chainsaw ripped through Franky's neck. John worked the machine down, rocking it back and forth

as it tore through spine and muscle and tendons, his hands streaked with red. Franky's head fell free from his shoulders,

his wet hair bonking me in the face.

His body held itself above me for a few seconds, then pounded down on me with dead weight that knocked the air from

my lungs.

The saw shut off and I could hear John yelling questions at me. His hand appeared on Franky's shoulder and together we

rolled the corpse off me. I sprang to my feet, looked down at my sweatshirt in disgust. It looked like the shirt an infant had

worn to all-you-can-eat rib night.

"PUT IT DOWN!"

Illustration b
y Nedroid

We both turned to see Falconer, on his knees and holding his gun on John, who was wielding a chainsaw over the

headless corpse of an ex-cop.

"You're back," I said. "I was afraid he had farted you to death."

"Set the chainsaw on the ground!"

John did. He pul ed out a cigarette and lit it. He asked, "What happened to the Stihl, Dave?"

"The what?"

"Your old chainsaw, it was a Stihl."

"Oh. It got stolen."

"I don't like this one. There's no weight, you can't control it."

"It's a Black and Decker."

"Well, whatever it is it sucks."

Falconer gained his feet and walked toward us. "Back off! Back away from him!"

John and I obeyed, watching Franky's body and head carefully to make sure there were no surprises. Neither one moved.

Where John cut it, I was pretty sure he had sawed the bug thing in half. I wasn't going to get close enough to inspect,

though. I had noticed earlier that Franky seemed to have gained weight and he had. His blood-splotched T-shirt was

stretched by a swollen abdomen. I wasn't sure why that particular thing disturbed me in the middle of al this, but it did.

Falconer stuffed his automatic into a shoulder holster and looked down at Franky in disgust. Then he turned his eyes on

John, and somehow looked even more disgusted.

"What the hell are you doin' here?"

"Savin' your sorry ass."

"When I ask you a question, you give me a real answer. Don't you ever answer me with an action movie one-liner, ever

again."

"I called Dave's house and didn't get an answer. I was afraid one of those bug things had gotten him. He don't answer his

cel unless it's his girlfriend, so..."

I said, "I really got to get cleaned up for work."

John said, "And I gotta get back home. I can't be seen out. I called in at the warehouse and told them I had to stay home

because I had gotten shot at the hospital."

Falconer looked like he was going to start shooting everybody within range.

"Neither one of you jerkoffs is going anywhere until I give you express written permission."

John looked down at Franky's corpse and said, "Okay, here's what we tel the cops..."

"He is the cops, John."

"Both of you shut the fuck up."

I said, "Go home, Detective Falconer. It's over. Or your part is, anyway."

"Wait," interjected John. "Are you Vance Falconer?"

"Shut up or I will shoot you in the face."

"You're the detective who caught the Father's Day killer, right? Didn't you throw him out of a helicopter?"

Falconer didn't answer. John turned to me. "He's famous. I saw this whole thing about him on A&E."

Falconer walked away, without a word. He produced a cell phone, paused to think of how he was going to call this in, and

dialed. He talked for thirty seconds, then stashed the phone and came back to us.

I said, "Look, it's gonna be a lot easier for you to explain what happened here without us. Because we're gonna tel them

about the guy farting on your head. Let us go, tell them whatever you want."

Falconer clenched his jaw, aimed a finger at us and said, "Don't leave town."

We walked inside the house, John mashing his cigarette into a flower pot on my porch. Inside, I said, "I'm thinking we

should leave town."

"Why? Things are just getting good. Hey, I might come back here after the cops are gone, stake the place out while you're

at work. See if one of those bug things show up."

"I'm serious, man. This town is cursed. And we're cursed because we live here."

"You ever think this town is cursed
because
we live here?"

"Maybe it's you. Maybe I'm cursed because I'm friends with you."

"I don't know, Dave. I'm just glad I bid on that speargun on ebay."

I left John in the living room and closed myself in the bathroom, stripping off my blood-soaked sweatshirt. I gave my

habitual nervous glance at the shower, resisting the urge to pul back the curtain and make sure the stall was empty.

I plugged the sink and ran water. I leaned down to splash my face, thought for a moment, then walked over to the shower.

I pushed aside the curtain and looked and did, in fact, find it empty.

I went back to the sink, splashing my face, watching my hands tremble all the way up. There was blood in my hair.

Disgusting.

I left the sink full of water and pushed my sweatshirt into it to let it soak. I couldn't throw it away, it was 40 bucks. I went to the shower and threw aside the curtain. A fist shot out and punched me in the face.

I fell on my ass, tasting blood in my mouth. I looked up to see a guy with a beer gut and a runaway goatee that grew down

his neck. He wore an orange vest and a white T-shirt. I noticed a tattoo of an eagle or some kind of bird was sort of visible

on his chest, through the thin shirt that was stretched against his gut.

It was the guy from the construction site, the one who disappeared into the shitter. He flung the shower curtain out of his

way and stepped out. He glanced down at me, spat on my floor, then delivered a sharp kick to my ribs.

He left the room and, with some effort, I got to my feet to follow.

My front door was open. People were shouting.

Shirtless, I ran out, clutching my ribs. I saw the construction worker throw Franky's body over his shoulder like a sack of

potatoes. Falconer had his gun out, shouting at the construction worker, wearing a look on his face that should be printed

in every dictionary next to the phrase, "Are you shitting me?"

John popped out of the door behind me, a half-eaten banana in his hand. He looked at me and said, "When did that guy

get he-"

Gunshots cut off his words, Falconer shooting at the construction worker's back. The big man stumbled back, almost lost

his dead weight load, then pressed on, lumbering toward my Bronco.

Falconer reloaded. Construction Worker threw Franky's headless corpse in my passenger seat and ran around to the

driver's side, back bleeding in half a dozen places. He planted himself in the driver's seat as Falconer fired again,

punching spiderweb patterns in my windshield. Blood splattered inside my truck.

Undisturbed, the construction worker fired up the engine - without the keys - and not only stole my Bronco but tore a

muddy skidmark in my yard as he peeled out.

Falconer stuffed his gun into a shoulder holster and sprinted off to his Porsche. John took off toward his Caddie, stil

chewing on banana. I stayed put, rubbing my ribs. I spat blood off my porch. John looked back over his shoulder and said,

"Dave! Car chase!"

I groaned and reached inside my door, grabbing my jacket off the coat tree. I put on the black leather jacket over my bare

chest and wished I had time to go put on five or six gold chains to complete the look. I ran out and jumped off my porch

and ran to the waiting passenger seat of John's Caddie. We were moving before I even had my foot al the way inside.

Up ahead, my Bronco vanished around a corner. Falconer's Porsche was right on its ass.

"Who was that guy?" asked John as he tossed a banana peel out of the driver's side window. I pictured a car behind us

running over it and spinning off the road.

"He was at the mall, at the construction site. He disappeared into a shitter."

I braced my hands on the dash as we rounded the corner. This was al I got done these days, racing around town and

shouting. What kind of life was this for a man?

We were heading North, away from the civilized part of town.

John said, "He took Franky's body! Did you see that!"

"Yes, John."

"What do you think he's gonna do with it?"

"I don't know but he apparently didn't need the head."

All three cars blew through the stop sign at a four-way intersection on the edge of town. John's stereo was playing rapid

banjo music. We took a curve and transitioned to a rural paved road with no painted lines.

We were fal ing behind. The Bronco was a speck on the horizon, the shiny little Porsche glimmering behind it like a drop

of mercury.

A minute later, up ahead we saw a little rooster tail of dust fly off the side of the road, to the left. The Bronco had cut off

onto a dirt road, heading toward a row of enormous, low, blue buildings.

"Oh, shit!" Yelled John, "it's the turkey factory!"

We hit the turn and took it so hard I thought we were going up on two wheels. The Caddie bumped and growled on the dirt

road, rear end fishtailing like we were on ice. We were driving through the dust cloud from both vehicles, bits of gravel

smacking the windshield with a sound like popcorn.

Ahead, my Bronco jumped off the road, drove across a patch of lawn and smashed into the wall of the first building.

Through
the wall.

Falconer's Porsche stopped on the grass, ass end skidding sideways. He jumped out, gun in hand, and ran toward the

ragged Bronco-sized hole the construction worker had punched in the wall with my truck. I could see another awkward

conversation with my insurance company in my future.

John and I stopped and dismounted. Falconer looked back and screamed for us to stay back. I stopped, John kept going.

I followed.