Blood Men: A Thriller

Now. Now! Now!

We step forward, my monster and me, only this time I don’t even need him, I’m so mad. I swing my arm upwards, entering Tattoo Man’s line of sight from below, the pencil pointing straight up. He must see it coming, but he can’t avoid it, can’t even scream. He snaps his head upward as the pencil drives deep through his eye and, like a sneeze, thick, clear residue splashes all over my hand. He stands up as straight as a board. One hand releases the shotgun, which hangs by his other side for a moment before hitting the floor. He stays standing, staring at me, one eye bright and wide, the other a liquid mess with half a pencil behind it and half of that same pencil out in front. He doesn’t fall while I wipe the eye juice and blood off my hand; he saves it until I crouch down and grab the shotgun. He falls the way a dead man falls, without a care in the world, without any conviction or fear, his face hitting the armrest of the couch and driving the pencil home before snapping it off. He ends up on his side, a jagged finger of wood in his eye, looking at me but not watching as I race toward the bathroom.





chapter thirty-nine


What are you doing?

I’m trying to save him.

Why?

I need him alive.

Why?

Shut up.

Only thing you should be doing right now is to enjoying the rush. God, that was a thing of beauty! Come on, Eddie, the way you drove that pencil home—sweet Jesus, that’s a real winner of a memory—a real keeper—much better than Fido. Bet you a hundred to one that’s the way your father felt when he took his knife and . . .

“I said shut up,” I say, then breathe more air into Schroder. His chest rises when I breathe in and drops when I take my mouth away. There is no pulse. His body is limp and heavy. I figure he’s been in the water three minutes tops.

I push at his chest. I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing. The last first-aid course I took was ten years ago and Schroder sure as hell feels a lot different from a dummy made of rubber and steel. I could be saving him, or I could be cracking his ribs and driving them into his lungs.

I breathe into him. Compress his chest ten times. Should it be ten? Twelve? Breathe into him again. How long do I give this? He’s been dead close to four minutes. What’s the cutoff before there’s a serious risk of brain damage? Isn’t it around four minutes? Only thing I can remember about the first-aid course was the instructor. She kept looking at me as though I were the reason the dummy wasn’t breathing anymore.

Schroder convulses under me and a low roaring comes from his lungs. He begins coughing, his body almost doubling up. I roll him onto his side and he coughs out mouthful after mouthful of bathwater. Then he collapses onto his front, his forehead on his arm, breathing heavily into the floor, his body rising and falling seemingly more than need be as though he’s putting on a show. Other than the show, he doesn’t do anything else. Doesn’t jump up to see if he’s still in danger. Nothing. I’ve removed the handcuffs from one wrist, but they’re still dangling from the other.

“Hessus,” he mutters, but can’t add anything else.

“I’m—”

“Hessus woo . . . ,” he says, and raises a hand up to his face and cups his eyes. He coughs again, then tries to sit himself up and lean against the bath but can’t make it.

“Come on,” I say, and help him. He pulls his knees up against his chest and rests his head on them. The bandage on my hand is loose. I pull it off and dump it on the floor.

“Wash,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate for a few seconds, until “Wash hash,” and then he begins coughing again.

“Wait here,” I say, and I leave him.

I check the bedrooms. It’s a three-bedroom house, built in the peak of the townhouse era and painted in showroom colors that are as boring as hell but managed to stay in style longer because of it. The first bedroom, the smallest of the three, has been set up for Sam. There’s a single bed and kit-set furniture and toys and posters and nobody fought for their life in there. The next bedroom has been turned into an office, with a desk and computer against one wall and a treadmill adjacent to the other.

It leaves one room unchecked, and I walk into it praying that it’ll be empty. I open the door. The air is warm and stale and feels like the room has been unearthed from the back of a very deep cave. Nat and Diana are both lying on the floor, their eyes wide open, staring right at me. I move over to them and crouch down and Nat lifts his head but can’t do much more because he’s been hog-tied, and so has Diana. I rush back down to the kitchen and grab a knife and a moment later they’re free and rubbing their wrists.

“Jesus, Eddie, what’s going on?” Nat asks. “Where’s Sam?”

“I don’t know. I think they have her.”

“They have her? Who? Who has her?”

“I don’t know. The men from the bank, I think.”