The Mad and the MacAbre (13 page)

"Sure you do. Think back."

"I've never seen her."

"Never? You're saying that you recall
everybody you've ever seen in your entire life? People in line at
the grocery store? That's a pretty impressive talent. But you know
her. She made a lot of bad decisions, and she got herself hooked on
all kinds of shit, but she was the only thing I had. I kicked her
out of my place so she'd get clean. You took that chance away from
her."

"You have the wrong person."

"I do
not
have the wrong person. I made
damn sure I had the
right
person. The cops may not care about a homeless
junkie, but she was my goddamn sister and you murdered
her!"

At this point, Charlie didn't think that
lies were going to do him any good. He also didn't think that the
man would accept an apology. So he said nothing.

"What do you care about?" the man asked.
"Just that dog, right?"

"I have a girlfriend."

"Yeah, but that's nothing. You've got no
emotional investment there. I don't even have to hear what you're
saying to each other to know that. She'll dump you as soon as she
gets a better offer, and you'll mope for a week and move on. You
don't care about her."

"Okay."

"That dog, though. Man's best friend."

Charlie shoved his hand into his inside
jacket pocket.

"You packin'? What are you going to do,
shoot both of us and our dogs? You think you can do that before we
get you?"

Charlie fumbled with the gun inside his
pocket for a moment before he managed to pull it out and point it
at the man who did all the talking. The man did look a bit worried,
but not worried enough.

"Put the gun down," the man said. "You prey
on the helpless, like the sorry piece of crap that you are. Even
with a gun you're not going to stop big strong guys like us. You're
pathetic."

"I'm not pathetic."

"Yeah, I think you are."

Charlie wanted to put a bullet right between
the man's eyes. Unfortunately, even at this close range he wasn't
sure he could hit his target, and the man was absolutely right--two
men and two huge dogs were more than he could handle.

"Do you want money?" Charlie asked.

"Money? Are you kidding me? This isn't about
blackmail. At this very moment it's about your life, so why don't
you put the gun away so we can take it out of that area?"

Charlie had no idea what to
do. A bloody shootout wasn't going to end well for anybody. If
these men really meant to kill him, they would've done it sooner
instead of stalking him. He wasn't good at talking his way out of
situations, yet this might be one time that he
had
to.

He put the gun back in his inside jacket
pocket, then held up his hands to show that they were empty except
for the handle of Kutter's leash.

The man let out a loud
whistle that hurt Charlie's ears. "
Kill!
"

Both men released their dogs.

The dogs moved like a blur, and as the dogs
struck him Kutter let out a high-pitched yelp that was like a
shriek of pain and terror. The yelp didn't stop as Charlie reached
into the snarling mass of dogs, drops of blood spraying into the
air, screaming and trying to rescue his pet.

Jaws clamped down on his arm, but he
couldn't feel them.

Charlie kicked at the rottweiler as hard as
he could. He was off balance and panicked and the kick bounced
harmlessly off the dog's side. The rottweiler shook its head back
and forth rapidly, ripping away Kutter's skin and fur.

His second kick connected with the
rottweiler's snout and the dog let out a yelp of its own. The other
dog pulled its jaws away from Charlie's arm and bit down onto
Kutter's ear.

With a burst of adrenaline that he'd never
felt in his life, Charlie yanked the bloody mess of Kutter out of
the fray. Both dogs pounced on him, and at any other time Charlie
knew that they would've knocked him to the floor and probably
mauled him to death within minutes. But he held his footing. He had
to protect his best friend.

With Kutter clutched to his chest with both
arms, Charlie ran for the hallway, the dogs right behind him. He
raced down the hallway into the bathroom, spun around, and kicked
the rottweiler once again. This time he got it good, giving him
enough time to slam the bathroom door closed.

"Kutter...oh, God, Kutter..."

Tears streamed down Charlie's face as he
looked down at his pet. Kutter had been savaged--most of his left
ear was gone, and much of his fur was so soaked with blood that
Charlie couldn't immediately tell how deep the lacerations were.
More blood was flowing freely from several places.

There was no way Charlie could tend to these
injuries the way he had the wounds when he first found the dog.

He needed his hands free, so he set Kutter
on the floor. Kutter let out a whimper as his fur made contact with
the tile. Outside, the dogs barked and growled and clawed at the
bathroom door.

Charlie pulled out the gun that he never
should have put away. Stupid. A terrible decision. He couldn't wait
out the men and their dogs, not with Kutter dying on the floor, so
he flicked off the safety and fired a shot through the door so
they'd know he was serious.

He heard the men calling off the dogs, and
the scraping stopped. Charlie almost fired another shot, then
decided that he needed to conserve his bullets in case he didn't
successfully scare the men off. He opened the door, then scooped up
Kutter in his left arm and stepped out into the hallway.

The men were exiting through the front door.
Charlie shot at them and the bullet didn't even come close, putting
a hole in his wall instead. By the time he got outside, the men
were sprinting down the sidewalk with their murderous dogs.

Charlie bolted to his car and opened the
passenger side door. "I'm so sorry," he told Kutter as he set the
dog on the seat.

Towels. He needed towels. Not to protect his
car seat--he didn't care about that--but to wrap around Kutter and
hopefully slow the bleeding enough that he wouldn't die before
Charlie could get help. And he needed the car keys.

"I'll be right back," he promised Kutter as
he ran back inside. He grabbed a stack of towels, got the car keys
from where they rested on the kitchen table, and hurried back
outside. He wrapped Kutter tightly. Blood immediately soaked
through the first white towel, and he wrapped him in another.

He slammed the door and got in the driver's
side. "Don't die, don't die, please don't die," he whispered as he
started the car's engine and pulled out of his driveway.

Charlie realized that his arm really hurt
where the dog had bitten it, but he had much more important things
to worry about. As long as he didn't pass out from loss of blood
before he could get help for Kutter, he'd be fine.

Kutter whimpered softly as Charlie sped down
the road.

"You're going to be okay," Charlie promised.
"They'll fix you up. They'll make you stop bleeding and they'll sew
you up and we'll play Frisbee."

He wiped the tears from his eyes since they
were blurring his vision, and then scratched Kutter's chin. The dog
licked his fingers with a bloody tongue and whimpered again.

Charlie thought about his emergency cabin.
If he started driving to it right now, he might gain enough of a
lead on the police that they wouldn't know where he'd gone,
wouldn't be able to find him. He'd live in relative discomfort, but
it would be a hell of a lot better than prison or lethal
injection.

The men would tell the police that he'd
murdered the girl, and they'd connect him to the murders of
twenty-one other girls. Even if they never found out about the
others, even if they only got him for the one, he was screwed.

If he drove to the cabin, Kutter would
die.

If he didn't, he was going to prison.

If he left him somewhere, even someplace
that could fix him up, he'd never know if his dog lived or
died.

There was only one possible choice here.

"Just a few more minutes," he assured
Kutter. "Just a few and then I'll make everything okay."

* * *

Charlie burst into the hospital emergency
room with Kutter in his arms. "I need help!" he cried out. "He's
dying!"

Several people turned to stare at him, but
Charlie didn't care. He rushed over to the receptionist's window
and tapped on the glass. "Please, you need to save him."

The receptionist, a plump woman with too
much eye makeup, slid open the window. "Sir, you're at the
wrong--"

"I don't know any
twenty-four hour veterinarians," said Charlie. "Saving a dog is
easier than saving a person, right?
Please
."

"Sir, your arm--"

"I don't care about my arm. I care about my
dog."

A man in blue scrubs pushed through a pair
of swinging doors and looked startled as he saw Charlie and Kutter.
"What's going on here?" he asked, walking over to them.

"Please save him," Charlie begged. "His name
is Kutter and he loves Frisbee and this wasn't his fault."

The man in the scrubs looked at Kutter, then
at Charlie, and nodded. "Give him here."

* * *

Charlie sat in the waiting room with his arm
bandaged up. It had required eight stitches, but he wouldn't bleed
to death.

Two cops sat next to him, one on each side.
Charlie had promised to go peacefully if they let him wait until he
knew what had happened to Kutter.

* * *

"
Not
my usual patient," the doctor
said with a smile, as Kutter licked Charlie's palm. Kutter's entire
torso was covered in bandages, as was what remained of his left
ear, but his tail wagged happily. Charlie wished that there was
more unbandaged fur available to pet, and settled for petting
Kutter's legs.

"You're a good boy," Charlie said. "You're
the best dog ever." He wiped some tears from his eyes--much happier
ones than before--and turned to the doctor. "Thank you."

"Not a problem. It'll be a good story for
parties."

"He'll be okay, right?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine. The vet should be here
to pick him up any minute now. Don't worry about him."

Charlie spent a few more minutes with his
dog, until the police told him it was time to leave.

* * *

"I could ease into this, or I could just get
straight to the point," said the detective, leaning back in his
chair in the interrogation room. "As you'll soon discover, Charlie,
I'm a get-to-the-point kind of guy. Where are the bodies?"

"I can't tell you yet."

"The more you hold out on me, the worse
things are going to be for you. I recommend that you come clean
right now."

"I'm really stupid sometimes," said Charlie,
"but I know enough to know that things can't get worse for me. I
want to bargain."

"You have nothing to bargain with."

"I can save you a lot of time. I'll tell you
everything you want to know."

The detective raised an eyebrow and took a
sip from his cup of coffee. "What do you want?"

"I have a dog. He's hurt, but he's going to
be okay."

"Yeah, I know about your dog."

"Kutter."

"Kutter, right."

"I want you to make sure he gets taken care
of. His original owner is a good guy, he'll take him back, but I
want to make sure that Kutter gets everything he wants. I've got
some savings. I don't want to pay for a lawyer--I want that money
to go to Kutter. I want him to have steaks and bacon treats and a
nice dog bed and I don't want him going back to being named Duke
and I want him to come visit me sometimes." Charlie wiped his eyes.
"That's all I want."

The detective scratched his chin.
"Hmmmm."

Charlie wondered what Alicia and his other
co-workers were saying about him. They were probably totally
freaked out. Liz was definitely freaking out. She'd had sex with a
serial killer. He didn't think she'd ever come see him in prison,
except maybe to yell at him, but he didn't care as long as they
brought Kutter in every once in a while.

"I want it in writing," said Charlie.

The detective took another sip of his
coffee. He set the mug down and smiled. "You've got yourself a
deal, Charlie. If the original owner doesn't want him back, my
daughter has been wanting a dog. He'll get a good home. I promise
you."

"Thank you."

Charlie took a deep breath, closed his eyes,
and then told the detective everything he wanted to know.

REMAINS

On May 21st, 2008, seven graduate students
in Religious Studies set out from the University of Colorado in
Boulder in search of God. Armed with only their faith and the
scriptures, they rented a small cluster of cabins on the western
side of the Continental Divide, twenty-eight miles northwest of the
nearest town of Pine Springs. Their website allowed their friends
and family to track their progress via daily video blog updates,
the last of which was made on July 11th.

None of them were ever heard from again.

On July 14th, a forest ranger was dispatched
to check on the students at the urging of their concerned families.
He found the cabins abandoned, though all of their belongings
remained, as though they had simply walked away and never returned.
Forty-eight hours later a formal inquest was instigated. Rangers
and volunteers combed the surrounding National Forest beneath the
thunder of the Search & Rescue helicopter, while policemen tore
apart the cabins looking for clues. After ten days, only the
families remained to wander the woods in futility. A week later,
even they were gone.

On July 11th, 2009, a ten-foot cross was
erected on the summit of Mount Isolation. The bronze placard
affixed to its base listed seven names above the inscription: Seek
and ye shall find.