4.08
No sudden movements.
June was in my hand. With my other hand, I reached out for Pauz. I hooked my fingers into the cords that bound the outside of the book, my thumb encircling the spine.
In other circumstances, I might have tried to make a circle like I did with the rabbit guts, but these were these circumstances. I needed to make this special delivery before midnight. I couldn’t stall.
Animals were faster than me. Couldn’t run.
Fighting them? If it came down to pure numbers, they won. A hatchet and a heavy book could only deal with so many at a time, and even a withered, diseased, half-dressed guy could catch one of my arms.
I glanced at Dowght, moving my head slowly so I didn’t provoke anything.
I saw him picking up a steak knife from the table. There was still food crusted on the blade.
Okay, he could do worse things than catch one of my arms.
“Dowght,” I spoke, my voice low, calm, soothing.
He didn’t respond. He didn’t seem certain about his grip on the knife, so he shifted position, holding it in two hands.
“It’s done. You’re free,” I said. “All the things that have been hurting you, the confusion, all the parts where you feel horrible, they can stop. Work with me, leave this house behind, get healthy again, stop being so cold and hungry…”
He was already shaking his head.
“I’ve been there,” I said. “I know what it’s like. The-”
“Mine,” he rasped. His expression was twisted in anger and fear.
I hadn’t really thought it would work. But I’d had to offer.
“I have to take care of them. You want me to leave?”
He transitioned to more fear than anger, from the point he started the sentence to the point he ended it.
“Hard to imagine, huh?” I asked. “I’ve been there too…”
The animals were creeping closer, where my back was turned. I shuffled around, changing position, so the animals were to my right, Dowght to my left, table behind me.
“…a shitty status quo seems awfully damn good, when life has conditioned you to think that nothing better might ever come your way.”
The new perspective didn’t help. I could hear papers rustling as things started approaching under the table.
“You want to take them away?” Dowght said. “They’re all I have. You… bastard.”
He sounded more plaintive than accusatory. His hands shook as he held the knife.
“I’m sorry, Dowght,” I said. “I don’t think there’s a way that this plays out, where it all works out okay.”
“I’ll kill you,” he said, unwittingly offering some truth my statement. “They can eat you and they’ll be happy and fat, and everything goes back to the way it was.”
There was no way he’d come back from this.
“You won’t be happy, if things go back to the way they were,” I said.
“I’ll have them,” he responded, his voice not even a whisper.
Which wasn’t a rebuttal.
I had nothing to say in response, and silence lingered in the ensuing moment of quiet.
Quiet? The rustling behind me had stopped.
I couldn’t shake the notion that something was poised, ready to pounce-
I threw myself backwards, onto the table, hauling my legs up and out of the way.
My coat, my nice coat, was mussed up by the leftover plates and garbage on the table. It was sticky, meaning I didn’t slide as much as I’d expected to. I was left with my legs in the air, nowhere to put them that didn’t mean dropping back to a standing position.
A rather large cat leaped onto the table, making a low snarling sound as it lunged straight for my face.
I hit it with the edge of the book. It had to weigh twenty pounds at most, but forward momentum on its part and an awkward angle on mine meant I wasn’t able to knock it from the table.
The animal went on the offensive, scratching, clawing at the book.
Bad. If it cut the twine-
I dropped the book, caught the far end of the table with my hand, and swung my legs around. With the leverage, I was able to stab the very end of the hatchet at it. No awkward angle there. I struck it, knocking it to the ground.
A cur of a dog lunged up at one corner of the table, but didn’t succeed in getting up. It stayed there, huffing out barks, snapping even though I was several feet away, two legs on the table’s surface, chest pressed against the side, with one leg coming up, failing to get high enough to find purchase.
I was so busy watching it that I nearly missed Dowght. The only hint that he’d moved was the shift in the light and shadow of the room.
I turned my head, to see him rounding the table. The dingy light from the sliding glass door lit him up, highlighting how pale he was, reflecting his pallid skin, the thin hair on his head, his open eyes focused solely on the knife and where he intended to stab it.
He didn’t bring down the knife in a two handed motion, nothing dramatic. Knife held in both hands, he simply pointed it at the side of my stomach and pushed out.
I still held the edge of the table, and I hauled on it, half-turning, half-rolling, to get away from Dowght and the knife.
My feet touched ground, my shoulder hit the sliding glass door, and my balance was thrown. I felt a delayed burst of pain as my body informed me that Dowght hadn’t missed. Not completely.
I was now, as it happened, on the same side of the table as the cur.
It dropped, all four legs on the ground, hackles up, pacing a little left, a little right-
Something under the table bit me. Just like Dowght had, subtle, no forewarning. Teeth sinking into my calf.
No protection from the outfit here.
I buckled, involuntary, and the cur took that as a cue to attack.
In my head, the course of action seemed simple. Swing down with the hatchet, to stop whatever was biting me, then a backhand swing to hit the dog.
One-two.
Except, as it turned out, a fatal blow to a squirrel that had its teeth buried deep in your leg made the head move, twisted head and jaw, shifted teeth.
I buckled more, gasping out a sound that might have been a swear if I’d had a full breath of air in my lungs. Reflex, or simply not having the strength in one leg to support myself, I bent over.
All it took was one impact to knock me over. The cur was on top of me, jaws on the space between my shoulder and neck. Crushing more than piercing. Leaving me on my back, without purchase on the trash-littered ground.