‘Jesus Christ,’ Tommy said, ‘that guy’s leaking claret!’
A man was stumbling along the narrow road towards the car park, emerging from behind the trees, and he seemed to be painted from head to foot in red. From this distance Jayne couldn’t be sure, but she thought he was bald and naked from the waist up, the dark red creases that might have been a pattern on a shirt looking more like terrible gashes across his shoulders and stomach.
‘Tommy,’ she said softly, and he turned to shield her from the sight, holding out his hands. ‘No,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to go and help. You still got that first-aid kit in the trunk?’
‘Yeah.’ His eyes were wide with shock, and she could see that he was struggling to hold it together.
‘Let’s go, then,’ she said. ‘Looks like that cellphone guy’s going to reach him first, and . . .’ She trailed off, because the blood-soaked man had fallen to his knees. He pitched forward just at the entrance to the car park, and there was an audible gasp from all observers when his head struck the ground.
The man with the cellphone reached the prone body, and he stood a couple of feet away with his hands held out from his sides. He looked around, as if searching for support, then knelt by the other man’s side.
The smell of burning filled the air now, and there was another thump as the unseen vehicle’s petrol tank went up. A billow of smoke rose beyond the trees, supported on a ball of flame.
‘Someone called the fire department and paramedics?’ Tommy shouted. He received a couple of positive responses, then he and Jayne reached the car park and ran to his old Toyota. She grimaced as she ran, the movements grinding pain into her hips and knees, but she was the lucky one here. She was not bleeding.
‘Tommy?’
‘I can look after him until the paramedics get here,’ he said, and she could see that he was shaking. It took three tries for him to slip his key into the lock, and when he glanced back at her she could see the shock in his expression. She nodded. He’d taken a basic first-aid course so he could look after her when she suffered her infrequent churu blackouts. Not quite comas, a doctor had told her, and she’d wanted to ask What the hell do you know?
The man was standing up. Jayne frowned, already seeing something wrong with the angle of his limbs as they pushed him upright, like a newborn deer just finding its legs, unfamiliar with gravity and light and everything in the world.
‘Tommy.’ She pointed.
The cellphone guy was still there, standing with the blood-soaked man. He reached out and not-quite-touched him, perhaps afraid of hurting him – he seemed to be covered with wounds, Jayne saw, slashed and holed and torn – or maybe afraid of what this meant. Because the man shouldn’t be standing like that. Even from a hundred feet away Jayne could see that the agony had slipped from his face, along with the open-mouthed panic. There was something else there now.
As she tried to identify it, he lurched against the cellphone man, slung one arm around the back of his neck, and bit into his scalp.
‘Shit!’ someone shouted, and Jayne thought, Yeah. A man shouted in shock. A woman screamed. A kid squealed for its mommy.
‘Jayne . . .’ Tommy said, his hand still on the car door. ‘Jayne . . .’
‘Someone help him!’ Jayne shouted. A car door slammed and a big guy with a long beard and long grey hair trotted past them. He was carrying a hunting rifle.
Cellphone guy screamed. It was a terrible sound in that tranquil place. The blood-drenched man pushed him away, ripping a chunk from his face and spraying the air with gore. It pattered down on the dry car park, but Jayne saw it painted on the air for ever, hanging there like a still from some horror movie. He chewed and spat, then turned to the car park.
Behind him the cellphone man had collapsed, and Jayne thought, If I was him I’d be running like hell.