Bad Games

65



Amy was conscious. The pain along the right side of her chest was like a deep burn. It was excruciatingly acute at the bullet’s entry, then radiated throughout the entire right side of her body. Her breathing was labored and her vision blurry, but she was still able to get to her feet using the back of the recliner as support. Once upright she spotted her son. He hadn’t moved from where she’d last seen him. His eyes were impossibly wide and fixed on something to his right. Something else was different. Arty was no longer behind him. Where was Arty, and what was her son looking at?

Amy followed her son’s gaze and she saw.

Patrick was free. He was free and mounted on top of Arty, driving a knife into their captor’s chest repeatedly.

The sensation came back to her. The dreaming sensation. Was her husband really coming to her rescue?

She had to speak. It was the only way to break through her haze and establish some form of solidarity to the moment. If she called out, heard her own voice, and her husband responded, she would know it was real.

Her first attempt came out as a cough. Her second, a whisper. Her third was a weak shout that made Caleb turn but did nothing to penetrate Patrick’s deaf rage. Her fourth shout was as loud as she could manage and it made her husband stop.

Patrick’s head turned whip-quick in Amy’s direction. His manner, the scene, Patrick appeared a ravenous animal startled from its meal. His good eye was huge and bulging. His mouth hung open in a deep pant like a wild dog’s, chest heaving with each breath. His skin tone was pale, heightening the contrast of wet red that flecked his face and neck.

She had his full attention, but Amy called his name a fifth time in an attempt to bring her husband all the way back—she needed this savage to vanish, her lucid protector to emerge. She needed help. Amy could feel herself fading.