Tuesday
Early Afternoon
Keri saw the lead pipe in Pachanga's hands on the monitor. He was holding it overhead, preparing to swing it down toward her gun hand, hoping to knock the weapon loose and shatter her forearm in the process.
She spun quickly to her right. The pipe came down hard where her hand used to be but now it was her left shoulder there. She felt a crunch as her collarbone gave way. She fell backward to the ground, screaming in pain, temporarily blinded by bright white flashes of agony.
As her vision cleared, she saw Pachanga bearing down on her, only steps away. She raised her right hand and fired. His howl told her she'd hit him but she wasn't sure where. He collapsed on top of her and rolled to the floor beside her. For half a second she thought he was dead.
But he wasn't. She saw him clutching at his right leg and realized she'd hit him in the upper thigh. She pulled the gun across her body to take a second shot. But he saw her move, grabbed the pipe, and swung it at her, knocking it out of her hand along with the pipe. Both went flying off across the silo floor and stopped under the table Ashley was lying on.
Pachanga leapt at her. Before Keri could stop him, the man had grabbed her arms, pinned them to the ground, and was climbing on top of her. He was unbelievably strong.
"Nice to meet you, ma'am. Sorry it's under less than preferable circumstances," he said before punching her in the face.
Keri felt her eye socket crack and once again a shower of light exploded in her brain. She prepared for a second punch but it didn't come. Another scream from the corner of the room told Keri that Ashley's limbs had been pulled another half inch apart. She looked up through watery eyes to see Pachanga smiling down at her.
"You know, you're real pretty for a lady of your advanced years. I was supposed to keep the specimen over there unsullied for negotiating purposes. I could only do limited experiments. But I don't have any such limitations with you. I think I may have to make you my special experiment, if you know what I mean. Do you know what I mean?"
Amazingly, he was smiling warmly, as if he'd just asked her out for a cup of coffee. Keri didn't respond, which seemed to make him unhappy. His wide grin twisted into an ugly grimace. Without warning he reared back and punched Keri in the rib, the very same one that was already throbbing from her struggle with Johnnie Cotton.
If it wasn't broken before, it definitely was now. Keri gasped for air, so shot through with pain that she didn't know where to focus. She could hear Pachanga talking but his words were drowned out by the roar of anguish in her own head.
"…gonna get to see my True Self. Not many specimens have had the privilege. But I can tell you're special. You found my Home Base all on your own. That must mean you chose to be here with me. I'm flattered."
Keri feared she was going to pass out. If that happened, it was over. She had to do something fast to change the dynamic. Pachanga was prattling on in some kind of delusional ecstasy, talking about home bases and true selves. She didn't have a clue what he was talking about. His eyes were bright with madness and he was drooling slightly. He seemed oblivious to his leg wound, which was bleeding profusely. The wound-she had an idea.
"Hey," she said, interrupting his speech. "Why don't you shut it, you pathetic little loser."
The rapturous fervor in his eyes disappeared, replaced by fury.
He raised his fist above his head again, ready to pummel her once more. But this time when he did, Keri dug her thumb hard into his bullet wound. He fell off her to the ground. Keri was prepared for that and rolled with him, keeping her thumb in the hole in his flesh, digging hard, rooting around, refusing to break contact. With her left hand, she pulled the pickup truck keys from her pocket, bunched them together and, ignoring the lightning bolt of pain that rocked her from shoulder to fingertip, jabbed down hard at Pachanga's face. She got him once in the cheek, ripping a gaping hole in it, and once in the left eye before he managed to break free and scramble away.
As he did, Keri used the table to pull herself to her feet. She looked at her assailant. He was curled up in a ball, his hands to his face, blood pouring through his fingers. She started to make a move toward the gun but as she did, Pachanga dropped his hands and stared at her with his one working eye. He knew what she was after and he wasn't going to let her get to it. Ashley screamed again as the machine stretched her limbs once more.
There were no good choices here so Keri made the only one she could. She turned and ran out the silo door.
*
She waited until she'd made it about fifty yards before glancing back at the silo. She knew she'd never be able to reach the gun. Her only chance to save Ashley and herself was to draw Pachanga away from the girl; to keep his focus on her.
When she looked around, he was nowhere in sight.
Oh God, it didn't work. He's staying with her. He's going to kill her.
She had to do something.
"Hey, Alan," she yelled, "what's wrong? You giving up? Can't handle a real woman? Don't know what to do unless they're tied down? I guess we're seeing your True Self now. And it looks like he's a wuss."
She stood there, waiting for some response, praying for some kind of reaction. Nothing. He wasn't biting.
And then he was in the doorway. He leaned against it for support. He'd taken off his T-shirt and tied it around his leg wound. There was nothing he could do about his face, which was a mask of blood on the left side and mostly clean on the right. He looked like Halloween come to life.
He stumbled after her, lumbering slowly but with purpose. She staggered ahead of him toward the barn, ignoring her shoulder and her ribs and her face, all of which throbbed remorselessly. When she reached the barn she turned around again.
"Come on, lover," she shouted, "don't you want me? You can't make me scream if you can't catch me. I thought you were supposed to be in charge, big boy. But you seem like a little weakling to me."
Pachanga stopped for second beside an old sedan, resting his arm on it to keep from falling. Keri thought he was going to say something. Instead, he pulled a gun-her gun-out from the back of his waistband and aimed it at her.
That must have been what took him so long to come out of the silo. He'd gone back for her gun. He aimed it at her and fired. She darted safely behind the side of the barn and rushed inside. She got into the pickup truck and fumbled for the key before finally managing to shove it in the ignition. She turned it and felt a wave of relief as it roared to life.
Her left arm was mostly useless so she had to reach across her body to close the door. She put the car in drive, hit the accelerator, and smashed thought the back wall of the barn in the direction she'd last seen Pachanga.
She'd hoped he was close enough that she could just run him over. But he was moving slowly and was still a good thirty yards away. She steered directly at him and punched the gas hard.
Pachanga lifted her gun and started firing. The first shot shattered the windshield. Keri ducked but kept driving. She heard more shots but couldn't tell where they went. Then there was a loud pop and she knew a bullet had hit one of the tires. She felt the truck careen to the right toward the creek bed, then roll over. She lost track of how many times it rolled before coming to a stop.
Keri tried to orient herself. Eventually she figured out that the truck had landed on the driver's side and Keri was lying on the door. She could see the blue sky through the passenger window.
She had no idea if the pain she felt was from new injuries she'd sustained in the crash or old ones. It all blended together. She pulled herself up so that she was upright, standing on the driver's side door. She reached for the passenger window but something yanked her back. She looked down and saw her foot was trapped under the brake pedal. She tried to wriggle herself free but without the use of her left arm, it was impossible. She was trapped.
Suddenly Pachanga's face appeared in the open passenger window. Before Keri could react, he swung a chain around her neck, twisted, and yanked it tight. Keri gasped for breath. She tried to slump down but he yanked her up again.
"I thought about using the gun but decided this would be more fun," he said, unconcerned about the loose chunk of his cheek that flapped when he spoke.
Keri tried to speak, hoping that if she could bait him, he'd drop the chain and try to come in the truck after her. But no words came out.
"You're done talking, ma'am," Pachanga growled, all pretense of charm now gone. "You'll be unconscious in a few more seconds. And then I'm taking you back to Home Base where I'm going to do things to you that will make you wish you were dead."
Keri tried to get her fingers under the chain but it was too tight. She could feel blackness starting to envelop her. In one futile effort to fight back, she pressed her knee against the steering wheel horn, hoping the blaring would startle him. It didn't. Still, she pressed on it, her last little bit of rebellion.
The blue sky turned gray and everything went tingly. The light faded. Keri's eyelids fluttered. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the shadow of a bird pass overhead. She heard a grunt. And then there was only blackness.
*
When Keri came to, she realized she must have only been out very briefly. Her knee was still on the horn. The pressure on her neck was gone. In fact, the chain hung loosely and she was able to pull it off. She heard noises above but couldn't identify them.
And then suddenly two bodies slammed onto the truck above her. Pachanga was on the bottom, squirming to get free. But someone was top of him, pinning him down and repeatedly punching him with blows to the face, the body, the face again.
It was Ray.
He continued to punch until Pachanga lay still. His head slumped to the side and smushed against the truck's rear window. He was unconscious.
Ray stood up, stared at the man below him, then kicked him in the stomach. Pachanga remained silent.
Ray looked down into the cab of the truck at Keri.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I've been better," she replied, her voice raw and raspy.
"I told you to wait for me," he said sternly but with a smile playing at his lips. Keri was about to respond when a loud scream pierced the air.
"It's Ashley. She's tied to some kind of rack in that silo. It's going to rip her limbs off. You've got to get to her now!"
"What about this guy?" he asked, nodding at Pachanga.
"I don't think he's going to be much trouble. Just get to Ashley. Now! I'm okay here."
Ray nodded and disappeared from view.
Keri slumped to the bottom of the cab and closed her eyes.
A few minutes later, Ashley's screams finally stopped. Ray had gotten to her.
Keri slowly opened her eyes. The world rushed back in and with it, all the pain. She tried to shut it out by focusing her attention on getting her foot free from under the car brake. It took a minute but she was able to ease it out. She pulled herself up, preparing for the next big task-climbing out of the truck. She looked up, searching for the best handholds to grab. Immediately she saw that something was wrong.
Pachanga was gone.
Trying to stay calm, Keri wedged her body against the back window of the cab and put her feet on the dashboard, creating enough tension to inch her way up. Eventually, she got high enough to hook her right arm around the passenger side view mirror. Her left arm still lay limp at her side so she stepped onto the steering wheel and pushed off while she yanked on the mirror. The combined force got the upper half of her body out of the truck. She looked around.
In the distance she saw Pachanga limping clumsily toward the silo. He was almost to the door. In his right hand was Keri's gun.
She tried to shout out but her voice was still hoarse from being strangled.
He disappeared inside. Five endless seconds later, a gunshot rang through the air.
Keri wriggled her lower half out of the truck and got to her feet. She ran toward the silo, ignoring every throbbing part of her body, ignoring the fact that even breathing was difficult.
As she ran by the sedan that Pachanga had stopped to lean on, she saw a crowbar in the brown grass by the trunk. She bent down, clutched it in her working right hand, and continued toward the silo.
When she approached the open door, she wanted to burst in but forced herself to take it slow. Remembering the security camera, she looked around and saw it perched on an exposed beam, facing away from her location.
She hurried around behind the silo, hoping that the back door Pachanga had left open earlier was still ajar. It was. She stole a quick look inside.
It was bad.
Ray sat slumped against the wall, blood seeping from a wound in his gut. She couldn't tell if he was alive or dead.
He had clearly freed Ashley but now Pachanga was strapping her back onto the table. She was fighting desperately but losing the battle. He had all her limbs but her right leg strapped down. The gun was nestled in his waistband.
Keri stepped forward, crowbar in hand. Ashley noticed and glanced involuntarily in her direction. Pachanga saw it too and knew something was wrong.
He spun around and pulled the gun out. Keri was still four feet away, too far to lunge at him. He grinned, making the same calculation.
"You are just full of surprises," he muttered, a ghastly smile spreading across his ruined face. "We are going to have so much fun toge-"
With her free leg, Ashley kicked Pachanga directly where he'd been shot in the thigh. He gasped and bent over in pain.
Keri stepped forward immediately, pulled the crowbar back above her head, and then brought the curved end down fast and hard on the top of Alan Jack Pachanga's skull.
He dropped to his knees.
In that moment, Keri knew she could stop, that he would pass out. That it was over.
But she couldn't stop.
She thought of Evie. Of all the monsters like this in the world. Of the scumbag lawyers. Of this man getting out somehow, someday.
And she could not allow that to happen.
She raised the crowbar high, and he looked up at her and grinned, blood seeping from his mouth.
"You won't do it," he muttered.
She brought it down with every ounce of strength she had left-and it lodged in his skull.
Pachanga remained there motionless for several seconds, then collapsed to the floor. Keri's gun fell from his hand and rested at Keri's feet. She picked it up and kept it aimed at him as she rolled him over with her foot. He stared up at her with his one empty azure blue eye.
Alan Jack Pachanga was dead.
Keri heard the soft crying from across the room and she realized something even more startling.
Ashley Penn was alive.
It was over.
