Fresh Flesh (18 page)

"Oh, so now you forget?
Forgetful
Forenza?"

"My name is Richard Templin you crazy
bastard. RICHARD TEMPLIN. You are Bat Jackson. Your partner is
Butch Smith."

The red man Forenza called Butch Smith
chuckled.

"I don't care what your real name is when we
are in the ring. This is our stage. We don't use our real names
here." Jumping Bat moved even closer, circling within five feet.
The knife held by Forenza still played at the air. Danger.

"Let her go." Anger filled Forenza's eyes and
his face tightened. Forenza was ready to war over his tag-team
partner taken to the canvas.

It's time to go to work
, thought Bat,
time to finish him
.

"Ring the bell, Red Man," Bat Jackson
said.

The wind blew and tide waves crashed in the
distance.

The eyes of Forenza stared at Jumping Bat
like camera eyes.

"Ding-a-ling!"

"Now you're mine, Fearless Forenza, mine,
mine,
mine
," Bat howled and rushed Forenza.

They had thought they could keep Jumping Bat
Jackson nestled safely away, banned from the ring, the spectators
and mania. Yes, they could keep him from coming to it.

But they could not keep it from coming to
him.

Jessica wrongly believed she'd smelled life's
worst stenches. First the island: the overpowering fish-salt scent.
Secondly there was Richard, who by no fault of his own, smelled of
daily bathing in the island's foul scent. She tried to get used to
his body odor because she'd now had one of her own. Thirdly, there
was 'the bathroom' and the day after day, night after night build
up of human excrement trapped in a five foot square.

And then there was the smell of Butch Smith
pinning her to the ground.

As Smith trapped her body in the sand, his
rotten breath poisoned the surrounding air. His body odor, one best
described as uniquely disturbing, brought what little she'd eaten
out of the pit of her stomach.

But she didn't puke, not yet. The vomit
rested in her throat, gagging her, making her wonder if tasting her
vomit wasn't worse than Smith's odor.

Smith enjoyed watching the other man rush
Richard. Jessica tried to struggle free but her captor's strength
overwhelmed her.

She was trapped. If only she could free
herself enough to knee her captor in the groin.

Bat Jackson dodged Richard's knife swipes and
knocked the knife from his hand, tossing it several feet away.
Richard backed away, hands balled in fists. Jackson grabbed him,
picked his body up in the air and slammed him back-first to the
ground. Richard wheezed from the wind getting knocked out of
him.

"Richard!" Jessica reached out with a pinned
arm. Smith's laugh got louder.

"How do you like that real body slam,
FORENZA?" Jackson shouted a name that didn't belong to Richard.

Body slam?
Jessica realized that the
man's delusion was quite real to him. Bat Jackson believed they
were in a wrestling rematch.

Forenza.
She remembered the story.

She thought she'd seen the hulking Bat
Jackson somewhere before. At one time in a place that now seemed
far away, Bat Jackson the wrestler had been big news. Her
ex-husband Ron had been a huge wrestling fan and Edward enjoyed
watching too. He was Jumping Bat Jackson, a professional wrestler
who had gone on a crazy, murderous spree, pounding out multiple
human lives with his bare hands.

Forenza was the wrestler Jumping Bat Jackson
had crippled before the killing started. Jumping Bat Jackson's
final wrestling match.

But they must not have found him to be crazy,
just like Bobby and Kyle Roberts. Otherwise he wouldn't be here
fighting Richard, he'd be locked far away in a mental
institution.

And today Bat Jackson, vengeful psychotic,
believed he was in the ring again with the man he'd wrestled. She
shuddered, fully realizing the caliber of killers that were chasing
after them.

As Jessica kept struggling, and tried to
think of something to do, the show went on.

And if there had been a ringside announcer,
there would have been no question that Jumping Bat Jackson was
beating his opponent.

Jackson grabbed Richard like a plaything,
lifting him above his head and pounded him into the sand.

Another body slam
. Intense piercing
knives of pain shot through his body.

Jackson grabbed his hair and pulled him to
his feet. "Am I still dumb, Forenza?" Jackson pounded his chest
with a fist. "AM I?"

Every man has one vulnerable area.

Jackson grabbed Richard's aching arms.
Jackson's fingers spoke pain and Richards muscles and bones
listened.

Every man
. Richard's his head was
spinning like a top,
EVERY MAN
.

Jackson brought him closer, squeezing his
body together.

If you ever get into a fight that you know
you'll lose
, a voice called to Richard, a pleasant, parental
voice almost forgotten:
it's ok to lose dirty
.

Squeezing harder, squeezing, squeezing.

It's ok to lose dirty.

And so Richard did, bringing his foot up from
the sand with as much strength as he could muster, he kicked
Jumping Bat Jackson in the balls.

Squeezing. . .not squeezing. . .letting go. .
.letting go. . .letting go.

Jackson's eyes bulged. He staggered slowly
back, his hands went to his scrotum like burned hands to cold
water. "Cheap shot, foul. . .foul," Jackson's high-pitched moan
filled the area.

Richard saw his chance and went for the
knife.

"No!" Butch Smith yelled as he released
Jessica and climbed to his feet. He ripped through the sand,
unsheathing his knife.

This puny little man could not interfere with
his highway of death. Templin was supposed to die.

Butch was ten feet away and closed in on his
target.

From the corner of Smith's eyes, he saw
Jessica roll over and grab her knife. "Richard, look out!"

Richard dove for the knife lying in the sand.
He landed with a jolt to his ribs which re-aggravated Jackson's
blows. His hand touched the hilt of the knife.

Safety.

He turned, the knife in hand, only to see
that Butch Smith was also diving.

Except Smith wasn't diving for the knife in
his hands, he already had one.

And it was aimed at Richard's heart.

"RICHARD!" Jessica screamed again and started
forward.

Time slowed down so much it almost stopped.
Butch Jackson was flying through the air like the huge birds in his
dream. The knife was just one of its talons. The expression on
Butch Smith's face overflowed with fury.

The frame moved ahead. Butch Jackson flying
closer. The knife, closer. The impact, closer.

Richard brought his own knife around
attempting to create a stake for Butch Smith to impale himself
upon. At least then Richard wouldn't go down alone.

The frame moved ahead. Butch Smith closer,
knife closer, impact closer. Richard's knife was past his armpit,
sticking out like an evil extra limb.

The heart, cover the heart! THE HEART.

The frame moved once more and the impact
came. The sun briefly darkened and the sounds of the crashing tides
were replaced with the sound of Butch Smith's knife sticking into .
. .

Something.

Pain. Waiting for the pain.

The heart. Cover the heart. COVER THE FUCKING
HEART. It was too late.

It took a long second to register what flesh
Butch Smith's knife had violated. A long second for Richard and
Smith to realize what happened. Both of their hot, sticky breaths
followed the line of light the knife had carved to its destination;
the sunlight's shiny reflection on the silver blade.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Richard realized something
warm was dripping on him before he saw where Smith's knife had
struck. Something warm and slick. Something like blood. At last
they both saw where the knife had landed. Sixteen inches from its
intended destination. Sixteen inches from Richard's heart, over the
small hump of his left breast, and into—into—into—

Into the sand between Richard's arm and side.
Drip, drip, drip, drip. The warm drip became a warm ooze.

Both sets of eyes turned to register the path
of the other knife.

The other knife, the knife Richard had held,
had struck its target.

It had struck, pierced, and lodged itself
permanently in Butch Smith's right breast.

The warm oozing of Smith's blood started
flowing and then spurting. Butch Smith's surprise transformed to
shock.

Followed by horror.

A puddle of Smith's blood collected on
Richard before he found the ability to do anything. He pushed
Smith's shoulder. He shoved and rolled Smith's spurting bloody body
off him.

Helpless, Butch Smith laid in a puddle of his
own gore, blood running from the knife slot in his body.

He had failed the second crossing.

Or had he?

The second crossing had not been murder, it
had been truth, and now the truth was finally clear.

Butch would never see his wife and child
again because they had never disappeared. He saw them now,
appearing in the dimming light.

They had been the first ones he'd killed. As
the darkness seized him, they waved goodbye.

Richard's corpse. At first Jessica thought
Butch Smith's knife had kept to its path but then she realized that
it was Smith instead, who had become the corpse. Butch Smith had
been killed.

Frigid hands grabbed and forced her
around.

She stood staring at the picture-perfect face
of a thousand nightmare boogies.

Jumping Bat Jackson was back.

The Fearless Forenza had taken the coward's
cheap shot way, and then pinned his tag-team partner while Bat went
down from the foul.
The son of a bitch, cheating bastard.
The crowd was chanting Forenza's name. Why were they doing that?
The crowd sounded like a loud wind. Couldn't the crowd see who had
cheated? Were they that fucking blind?

And now he had the Fearless one's tag-team
partner. He had the woman between his hands like a plastic model.
He could snap her so easily.

The commissioner wants her alive. The
commissioner.

Bat Jackson's remaining mind began to crumble
and implode. The woman in front of him warped into a stranger.
Someone he felt like he knew from somewhere before. Not a stranger.
Someone he knew, not stranger, someone he knew, stranger, not
stranger, knew, stranger, knew stranger—

"Who
are
you?" he asked the woman.

She brought the knife from her side and
thrust it in his stomach.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!" He recoiled as she twisted the
knife into his stomach, ripping flesh and intestines. He watched,
astonished, too shocked to protect himself.

Blood started to pour from his innards, he
felt the sharpest blow he'd ever been dealt pinch every pain nerve
in his body. Incredible forces of pain from Forenza—

(
No, no, no! It wasn't Forenza
.)

It was Bat Jackson, this time, who howled in
pain.

He staggered away from her, wailing, grasping
at the knife with spasmodic hands, his blood making a dotted, red
trail through the sand as his intestines started to unravel from
his body.

He fell to his trembling knees, his blood
flowing out of the gaping, torn hole. He put his hands on the hilt
and tried to pull.

Wouldn't budge.

Bat looked down at his hands and saw they
were freshly-painted red. He felt burning sensations all over his
body. The white-hot pain of the knife was the center of the
inferno.

He tried to speak something intelligible, but
it came out as a garbled moan. A whimper filled with pain.

Jumping Bat Jackson's eyes darted in fear, as
reality returned to him.

His wrestling days were long over. He was
supposed to die, supposed to be killed by the government for his
flesh crimes. Instead they sent him to this island prison where he
could only wrestle in his mind.

He accepted the darkness. They'd been waiting
for each other too long.

Jessica watched Bat Jackson topple to the
beach, still holding his bleeding stomach. He looked up, sand
clinging to his sweaty brow, and moaned one last time.

She left Bat and found Richard, also lying in
pain, five feet from the Butch Smith's body. She knelt down and
took his hand.

"Richard?"

His eyes fluttered. "Jessica."

"Are you all right? Anything broken?"

He started to force himself to his feet.
Jessica guided him. He looked around, dizzy.

"I'm OK, bumps and bruises." He looked down
at Jackson, shaking his head. "I don't think anything is
broken."

"Jackson?" he asked. She led his eyes to the
spot ten feet away where Bat Jackson lay dead.

"Oh my, what about you? How are you?"

"Physically I'm ok but I—" She started
realizing what she had just done. It was at the corner of her mind
that she'd stuck a knife in another human being.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Richard
said.

Richard took her hand and pointed to the
ravine ahead.

She nodded, and they were on the run again.
Very soon the sun began to bake the blood on the two convicts like
some sinister batch of cookies.

"We can stop now."

They had run through the ravine for ten
minutes with Jessica failing to keep track which direction Richard
led her. It began to seem like they were running in circles, a maze
of green, brown, sand, rocks and dirt. She was comforted that
Richard's knowledge of the side of the island had them moving
somewhere with purpose.