M A R A N A T H A
   
   
    © Osfer, November 2004
   
   
    All rights reserved.
   
    May only be distributed for free.
   
    May not be altered in any way.
   
    Contains material of an erotic and homosexual nature which may be illegal to read in your country, state, province or region.
   
    The author takes no responsibility for transgressions on the part of the reader
   
    Comments welcome at osfer.kesh@gmail.com.
   

Available on paperback in 2005

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    ~ Enjoy. ~

Chapter VIII – As Told By Reiner Kierkegaard
       
       

I fucking bolt, man. As soon as I see Hector flying streetward with a hole in his chest I dodge the hell sideways. Too bad for Sharpish he’s on a side with a blank wall; I’ve got an alley to duck into and I fucking leg it. I cut my wrists on the cuffs when I try to swing my arms but I don’t stop, I hear a gunshot – I’m so goddamn out of it I can’t tell if it’s a gun or a shotgun – and I don’t stop.
    It’s dark, there’s hardly any lights on the grimy walls of the narrow alleys I’m running through and the cobbles are slick from the rain. Hell, it’s not even rain, it’s just fog that’s thick enough to drizzle, but it’s enough to soak you right through in seconds once you start moving. My shoes skitter on the cobblestones and I bang into a wall, turn a corner. I trip and fall and I land on the ground, knock my head hard on the ground but I scramble back up to my feet and run.
    You know what I realize?
    I’m fucking scared.
    I ain’t been scared in fucking years. I wasn’t scared in Kosovo, I wasn’t scared in the slam, I wasn’t scared when the Shep got shot and we got cuffed and hooded. But I’m scared now. That dog… I know he’s just a guy. I’ve been up against guys like him before – totally spazzed on adrenaline. They don’t last long, not usually and I fucking know that but my brain, see, it’s got other ideas.
    Run, says the old brain.
    God only knows where my feet take me. The alleys all look the same and I wonder what kind of demented architect would put so many crappy buildings so close together – I mean, where are these poor people supposed to dump their trash? Then again, there don’t seem to be very many people living here. Cock it, I wish I knew this part of town better, or at all, then I’d know where to go!
    Somebody bumps my shoulder as I turn a corner and the alley is narrow enough and his body is heavy enough that we’re both knocked off balance. I put my hands out to break my fall and sparks fly, burning the sleeves of my coat as the cuffs scrape off the brick wall, I put my foot out to catch m balance but I step on something soft, I hear a crunch and it gives way and I fall over on something – somebody.
    I roll over and look at the guy I bumped into first. He’s a buck, though you couldn’t tell it from the antlers, which seem to have been sawn off. He’s pulling his pants up, tucking away a floppy cock that’d look more at home on a stallion than on this skanky wretch, who looks at me in confusion for a second, then scowls and runs off, his hooves clopping loudly on the cobbles. Amazing how much grip those hoofers seem to have when they need to scamper. I turn my back to one wall, bracing my shoulders against it so I can start pushing myself upright again, and then I see what I fell on top of.
    A wolverine. Sleeveless shirt, ripped jeans, workman’s boots… Zipper pulled down, dick hanging out, tongue lolling between his slack jaws… His neck’s at a weird angle, so’s his torso. One hand looks like it was smashed – guess I must have stepped on it. Murder.
    I have to laugh. How could I not? I was so busy concentrating on the plots and schemes that Ferrum sent me into I forgot that there were ordinary, honest-to-goodness criminals out there who didn’t care about any of that. And here I am, bumping shoulders with a simple, honest-to-goodness murderer. Really puts things in perspective.
    “To-morrow the fox will come to town…”
    I start and push back so hard my head knocks against the wall. I see black stars for a few seconds, then there’s two wolverines lying on the floor, and then I’m focused again. I feel the warm trickle of blood down the back of my neck, making my collar sticky.
    “Keep, keep, keep, keep…”
    That voice! First I thought the wolverine spoke and that freaked me out. Spoke? No, sang. It’s some fucking children’s song and It seems to be coming from everywhere. I look back down the way I came, hold my breath, brace for flight.
    “To-morrow the fox will come to town, to keep you all well there…”
    It is coming from all directions. This is insane! I start in the direction I was running, past the wolverine, change my mind, turn back, change my mind again and this time keep running, holding my cuffed hands out in front of me to keep me from hitting any walls.
    “Oh, I must desire you neighbors, all…”
    Where the fuck is that voice coming from? It’s like it’s inside my head, coming out of my ears and echoing back through the walls. Maybe it’s the concussion or maybe it’s really happening, but the alleys are changing, man. I’ll double back on myself and end up someplace completely different, I’ll be running down one alley and turn back only to find a dead end. This is fucking insane! I can hear breathing coming from all directions – wait, that’s just me – and the lights are flickering and, fuck it, Reiner, run!
    “To holler the fox out of the hole…”
    There! I see the street! Oh, fucking Christ thank you! I make like a goddamn hurricane and run. There’s acid in my lungs and breathing doesn’t do me any good, my shoulders bump and scrape against the walls on either side of me, my ankles hurt from stumbling – almost there, just a few more seconds and I’ll be out of this warren and in the open streets, just past that dumpster, past that gate, past that door!
    “And cry as loud as you can–”
    The Doberman appears out of thin goddamn air, he’s just suddenly there , at the mouth of the alley, crouched and he lunges for me, swings the shotgun he’s holding and catches me across the muzzle with the butt. My head snaps sideways and glances off the wall, I feel more blood dripping from God knows where and my shoulders hit the rim of the dumpster with a metallic clang.
    I feel so goddamn fucked up.
    But you wanna know something?
    There’s worse to come.
    I blink my eyes open and I see red; not anger-red but blood-in-the-eyes red. It stings, it’s sticky and I try to blink it away. The Doberman’s holding the shotgun In both hands, pounding the butt of it against the lock of a green door in the wall of the alley. I wonder why he doesn’t just blast the door open. I wonder why I don’t seize the opportunity, now he’s facing way from me, to go at him and snap his neck. I just can’t fucking move.
    He finally kicks the door open, walks inside. He just leaves me in this alley. Some weird childish part of me hopes he’ll stay gone, that he’ll just forget about me and I can walk out of the alley. I can see it now, me scampering past the open doorway without looking, holding my breath until I reach the street. Then there’d be one of the black Shadow vans waiting for me and I’d get in and my buddies would uncuff me, and Hector would be there and we’d take him to hospital and report back to Mister Ferrum.
    Nope, he hasn’t forgotten me. He clocks me with the shotgun’s stock again, just a little tap to the chest this time. Something hits my teeth and splits my lip, and I realize that it’s the broken handcuff, swinging on a chain on the handcuff on Malloy’s other wrist. Ow.
    I get the hint and I want to stand up but my legs won’t move, so he grabs me by the scruff of my jacket – fuck, that dog’s strong – and pushes me in through the door. The light hurts, it’s so white and I turn my head away, lean back against the Doberman’s hard body – fuck, that dog’s warm – and he pushes me forward again. I stagger over a table and slump forward and I hear him laugh behind me as he slams the door shut. I must look like a right slut, bent over the table, wrists cuffed… I try to growl, but a whine comes out. Guess I won’t be trying that again.
    Breathe, Reiner. Breathe. Okay. I guess I can handle that. Breathe, then figure out what to do. I need to get out of here. I need to get my hands free so I can reach behind me and pull my phone from the holster on my belt and call Ferrum, or backup, or the police or whatever.
    And then there’s a sharp pain and the white room turns even whiter and then purple and green and yellow and then it starts vibrating… and then it stays still. And as I lay there, belly-down on the table like some fucking slut, I get a good look of where I am.
    The walls are white, the light’s white. The worktops are white. There’s shelves on all the walls, some glass cabinets, and lots and lots of jars and tubes and bottles, all labeled. I’m in a pharmacy – apothecary, as Mister Ferrum likes to say for some reason – and the sharp pain came from my neck. I feel warm and my jaw sort of feels loose and rubbery and my head doesn’t hurt so bad any more. In fact… Everything feels kind of groovy, and I’ve got a big dumb smile on my face as Malloy walks away from me, holding an empty, big-ass syringe that’s dripping some blue stuff from the tip and some red blood from the needle. He tosses it against one of the worktops where it shatters next to a teensy little blender, that’s still got a rim of blue translucent stuff at the bottom, with some chunks floating in it.
    It looks kinda pretty.
    “I just pumped you full of a mixture of medicines that’s going to kill you in, at most, an hour, judging by your body size. Congratulations,” he tells me matter-of-factly. His voice sounds tinny, like it’s echoing through a metal tube in my ear and into the giant metal cauldron inside my skull. Weird. “I know what I put into you and I know what kind of antidote you need. Even if you go to the best hospital in the world they still won’t be able to figure out what to mix together that’ll cure you without killing you, not in the time you’ve got left. So you see that you’d better do as I tell you, yeah?”
    Lucidity hits me like a brick in the face. His voice sounds normal again and the room stops wobbling, my head hurts properly and so do my wrists. I stand up, trying to straighten myself. “What the fuck do you want? Ferrum’s gonna have your balls for breakfast,” I snarl. I sound pretty ferocious, considering the state I’m in.
    “First your liver’s going to flip and start pumping mad crazy toxins into your blood. You’ll lose bladder and bowel control and then suffer the equivalent of high-speed Korsakov or Creutzfeldt-Jakob, your brain’s going to turn to mush. It’s going to take days, and unless you get the antidote in an hour, nobody can save you.” He’s walking around the room, not even keeping an eye on me and it’s his callous disregard for the threat that I pose to him that convinces me that, fucking hell, this guy ain’t kidding. If he were, he’d be more nervous around me, but I recognize the look on his face. I’ve had it often enough myself: the kind of look you get when you realize there’s no reason, no reason at all, to fear a dead man.
    “You goddamn–”
    “I understand what your boss is doing, I really do,” he continues so calmly that I shut right the fuck up. He’s got something, like a gym bag or something and he’s taking bottles of pills and things and stuffing them in there, packets of syringes, all sortsa crap. Fuck, my neck’s starting to hurt… “I challenged him when I stole his money, and he’s challenging me back. I imagine he’s trying to see if I can take on Sharpish, to see if maybe I’m worth doing business with more than that ferret it. What he doesn’t understand,” the dog says, closing the bag and slinging it over his shoulder, turning to face me. Christ, this guy’s a mess. His wrist is dripping blood, his eye’s still swollen and there’s – there’s a fucking bullet-wound on his leg, a gash down the side where it scraped him. But he doesn’t look like any of it bothers him, he doesn’t even seem to notice. Nobody’s that hard. Something’s fishy. I giggle at the thought, for some reason.
    “What he doesn’t understand,” the dog continues, stepping toward me. I try to resist the urge to step back, but, dammit, I do it anyway and I almost fall over the table. “Is that I don’t care about Sharpish. I don’t care about McIlwain. I don’t care about Tiber fucking Ferrum, but Reiner, let me tell you, I care about Owen.”
    He’s right in my face, almost lip-to-lip. I could grab him by the nuts or punch him in the throat with the chain of my cuffs, and he knows it, and he doesn’t care and that’s why I don’t do it. Those eyes, though. I thought the ferret had freakish eyes, but these? They’re black. Dogs have big pupils to begin with, but I never noticed anything about Malloy. Now his pupils are so wide I can’t see the iris, just pure blackness on either side of that genetically threatening snout Dobermans have.
    He makes the gesture of checking his watch, but he isn’t wearing one and he doesn’t look at his wrist. Blood drips from it. “Before your hour is up, you will have removed Owen from his current captivity and ensure his safety. You will then make a call to your own telephone,” he says and shows me my phone. How the fuck did he get that from my belt? “You will inform me of your success, tell me where you are, I’ll tell you where we’ll meet and when I have Owen, alive and well, I will give you your antidote. Do you understand?”
    It’s amazing, but I do. I understand that I’ll do all these things. It’s like somebody threw a switch and when I now look at this dog, with his black eyes and his ragged wrist, injured leg and the tooth missing from his jaw, I see a boss. “Yes,” I say and it totally doesn’t occur to me to try and weasel my way out of this. I don’t want to backstab this dog, because – well, God’s honest, I do want to backstab him, it’s just that I can’t figure out how and I know I ain’t gonna figure it out in the hour I’ve got.
    Sharp dog, this Malloy.
    “How the fuck do you expect me to do that?” I growl, looking him right in those black, scary eyes. “I can hear the fucking police sirens. And I’m still cuffed!” I add, emphasizing the point by holding up my hands. For some reason that feels normal and not at all childish, and right now I can’t understand why that Doberman chuckles at me.
    “I got out of mine,” he says and licks his fangs as he holds his wrist up. It’s raw and bloody, in fact, there’s still a little blood dripping from it, while the broken cuff that once bound it dangles loosely from the chain on his other wrist. “You’re a clever boy, you figure it out. Anything you need to do, you do it, just get Owen out of there alive, safe, and call me when you’re done. By the by,” he adds, turning to me as he’s about to head out the door with his bag slung over his shoulder, like he’s going on holiday, “when you call, let it ring twice, then hang up, then call again. That way I’ll know It’s you. If you don’t do that, I won’t pick up – in case your boss calls, or something similar.”
    And with that, Malloy leaves me alone. He walks out the door and for all intents and purposes he might as well vanish into the thin air he came from – I’ve seen him do enough weird shit lately to believe he can do anything. How does a beat-up, handcuffed Doberman go from fucking some poor drugged-up wolfbitch to turning into death-with-a-gun? I’ve known spec-ops commandoes who couldn’t clean out a hallway full of thugs that quickly.
    I hear noises, now. Dull thumps that grow louder – shit, somebody’s in the building! I shake my head to clear the fuzzies and make for the exit, stopping as I remember something. I turn around in the doorway and, right there on the countertop is the shotgun that Malloy either forgot or didn’t bother with. I’m poised to run and grab it when the door next to the worktop creaks slowly open and I decide not to bother. Whoever’s coming through the door could be the pharmacy’s owner, or his wife, or the landlord. Or a clown, or Grandfather, or Malloy. In a split second all these options pass through my thoughts and they all seem perfectly reasonable. From my current state-of-head I deduce that I probably shouldn’t carry a gun right now, and I certainly shouldn’t interact with a scared or angry civilian.
    I’m out the door and the air is cool and the drizzle of microdroplets that soaked me before now feels so nice on my face. I open my mouth, letting the dewdrops catch on my teeth and lips and I lick the cool moisture from them as I stagger away, out the alley, into the street.
    It’s a seedy neighborhood, this. You can easily tell because I’m walking very slowly and whoever came down the stairs to check on the noises they heard in the pharmacy’s storeroom hasn’t ventured out after me. It’s quiet, too. None too many cars parked on the curbs, and those that are don’t look like they’re very streetworthy.
    I check my watch, but it doesn’t make sense to me. I see the numbers and I know I’m supposed to recognize them, but I don’t, so I look at the dial and where the long arm is and where the short arm is, but that doesn’t make sense to me either. And then I just try to memories what it looks like, because in one hour the long arm will be in the same place and the short arm will have moved up a notch, and I’ll start dying.
    It occurs to me, as I dazedly walk through the city, that I’d rather not die.
    Weird things happen as I walk. Lights streak and remain in my vision when I move or look away, like paint being smeared out over my retina and it takes a long while for the images to fade when I close my eyes. I lean against a lamp-post, or a tree or maybe it’s a giant pencil, I can’t really tell, and when my vision’s nice and neutral again I open my eyes and walk, very slowly, not moving my head at all.
    Sounds do the same. They enter my skull through my ears and teeth and slosh around the inside like thick oil with chunks, mingling and molding. The only sound that’s still pure is my own breathing and even that sounds hasty and ragged – but then, that’s probably how I’m breathing, so it’s not really that fucked up.
    “Sir?”
    Without thinking I turn on my heel and swing my arms. I catch the guy behind me right on the chin and as his snout snaps upward I twist my body toward him, pushing him with the side of my body and before I know it, before anyone knows it, I’ve got the chain of my cuffs looped around his neck.
    I’m lucid, now. The little jolt of adrenaline cleaned me up a little. I see I’m in a street, a street with police. No less than four black-and-whites with their lights on, two ambulances as far as I can tell. I’ve never seen cops arriving this fast, even with my cocked-up sense of time… Maybe they were waiting to pounce on this place for something else, before the gunning started? Probably. Some dope sting or something. I wonder if they have any idea what they’ve got on their hands?
    No, wait, obviously they don’t. There’s cops in the alley where the rabbit and the jackal are being photographed, their outlines traced on the ground in wax chalk. White Suit’s bent over a cop-car in cuffs, screaming for a lawyer while the bunny chick’s being comforted by two cops. They seem to be very nice to her and she’s apparently appreciating it, drying her tears and… Wait, those aren’t tears! The bitch is putting the moves on the cops – what a conniving bitch.
    You go, girl!
    Something that was straining relaxes and I realize that the cop I was strangling has finally passed out. I drop him to the ground and he starts doing that twitching thing people do after a blood choke; he’s going to be out for a few minutes. I kneel down beside him and if I were in my right mind I might have thought what a fucking lucky jackal I’ve been so far, standing here in the middle of the road, strangling a cop and now stealing his keys.
    I walk to the nearest cop-car, check that it’s empty, and step inside, calm as can be. See, cops notice when somebody’s trying to be inconspicuous or sneaky. So the trick to not being noticed is to simply act like you’re where you’re supposed to be, doing what you’re supposed to be doing. And with a nondescript camelhair jacket and jeans like mine, who’s to say I’m not just an off-duty detective? Not fucking likely, with my cuffs. First thing I do when I sit down and close the door is flick through the keys in search of one of those universal cop cuff-keys, gambling that mine are of the same specs. I find the weird little key and try to stuff it into the funny-shaped hole at the base of one of my cuffs, but it’s no good, my hands are shaking too much.
    Rather than risk damaging the key by stabbing it at the metal of my cuff I give up and look for the car key instead. Thank God for obvious, big-ass car-keys. In the ignition, turn – shit, this car sounds ugly. In need of a serious tune-up, I’ll tell you. I’ve half a mind to get out of the car, pop the hood and grab some tools out of thin air with which to start working while boy cheerleaders dance on and around the car and sing “I Want Candy” and…
    I shake my head until I’m a little bit sane again. What the hell did that dog dose me with? I’m getting buffeted with waves of hallucination, torrents of depression, storms of elation and every now and again a rumbling thunderclap of sanity that slowly tapers out leaving me lost at sea once more.
    As I ease the car out of its position in front of the nightclub, careful not to run over the cop I knocked out, which still nobody’s noticed, I see the Devil sitting in the passenger seat. I turn my head to look at him, without concern, just curiosity really, but he’s not there. When I look out the window again, there he is. Red and gnarled, speaking in a crackly whisper. I decide to let him be, and focus on driving, ignoring the weird words he’s whispering.
    Why don’t I go in the nightclub to see that wolf’s there? I kind of wonder that myself while I’m driving, even though the rational part of my brain knows the answer. That part of the brain is also wondering why I assume that the ‘Owen’ that Malloy talked about was the tied-up fuckwolf in the cellar, but that’s a question that the duller part of my mind doesn’t have a problem with, so it balances out in the end.
    Of course. If the bondage bitch had been left behind the police would have found him and he’d be strapped to one of the ambulance stretchers. So enough of the bad guys must have survived to take that weird fucking frame the wolf was strapped to and cart him off someplace else.
    Someplace else.
    Where?
    I roll down the empty street at a lazy pace, following the sounds of traffic to a busier part of town. The asphalt is black as the ocean, the pale streetlights casting a dull glimmer over it. The lane stripes flash past like tracer rounds, the rumble of the other traffic turns into the steady throb of distant suppressing fire. A truck roaring by becomes a bomber flying overhead and the cop-car’s radio chatter becomes the feed from the radio scanner monitoring Serbian frequencies.
    The sky overhead’s streaked with smoke, lit occasionally by a flash of light after the shrill whistle and deep boom of another bomb dropped on another target. I can see the sky because the humvee’s roof has blown off. Milos, the rat sitting next to me, is clutching his wounded shoulder, giving me a running translation of the radio chatter and the news isn’t good. The truck we were following was diverted; they’re now deliberately transporting the hostages into the hot zone to convince our team to stop bombing – which’d give them time to move their anti-aircraft weapons in position. So we can’t let that happen.
    “Fork in the road coming up! Left or right?” I bark.
    Milos leans forward, listening intently to the radio. I can’t tell if it’s pain on his face, or concentration, whether he’s gripping the dashboard just so he can keep his ear still or because he might fall over otherwise. “There’s two installations being bombed concurrently. One industrial complex, five miles east, one village, two miles west – I had an uncle who lived there, before the evacu–”
    “Milos!”
    “All right, all right,” the rat says. His accent is almost Arabic, it’s so sharp and throaty. “The village is closer, but it has already a civilian profile and if your people are bombing it, they won’t change their minds over hostages. So they’d take the hostages east.”
    I overtake a school bus and turn on my indicator as I drive up the ramp onto the Maranatha ring road, settle in the middle lane, then turn to Milos and ask, “Are you sure?”
    The rat’s gaunt face is silhouetted against a flash of light on the horizon behind him. “No,” he says, and grins. “Now turn left! We’re going east!”
    As I drive the tattered, groaning humvee unto a road that’s now more gravel than asphalt, pitted with craters and spent shells of all sizes, trying to dodge the larger pits while Milos groans with every fresh bump and jostle, the thought hits me that if I were the kidnappers and I wanted to move that wolf really quickly, I’d head for the ringroad and drive a few loops until I knew for sure where to bring him.
    The steering-wheel whips from side to side in my grip and it’s a damn chore to keep the car going straight, let alone in the direction I want it to go. The road’s straight, straight for the horizon. The road’s curved, circling around the City to allow the smoothly navigating traffic to enter the city at the point of their choice. My vehicle is on its last legs, threatening to give out at any moment. My vehicle groans in a typhoid kind of way but goes on with the indomitable durability these cop cars have. My passenger is a civilian, a hairdresser who offered his services as a Serbian translator and a guide in exchange for the safe relocation of his family. My passenger… my passenger side is empty.
    The two realities blur, overlay, mix with each other. I’m driving along the ring road, obeying all the traffic rules and I’m driving along that dirt path in desperate pursuit of a truck with four hostages.
    Or one hostage.
    A truck?
    I remember a truck parked on the other side of the street from the alley where Hector got shot. It wasn’t there when I stole the cop-car. What did it look like? Broad, military truck with poor suspension, covered with a tarp – no, no. It was a modern one. Silver. Sliding door on the side. I wonder, can I see one on the road? Can I be that lucky?
    I see nothing on the road but rubble and the occasional car wreck. No bodies, although the Yugoslavs swept through here a week ago and nobody’s been in this area to clean up the bodies yet. There is, however, a gas station and I’m feeling mighty puckish. But it wasn’t a gas station after all, it was a farmhouse and there’s a big-ass hole in it now, so I pass right on by.
    “Milos, I swear, if they’re not on this road I’ll–” Just then, two roads converge and a loud horn Dopplers past as the truck – and the silver van – screech out of the side road and end up right in front of me. Right in front of me! “Milos, you fucking genius!” I whoop and clap the rat on the shoulder, and even though it’s his wounded shoulder he still yells back in victory, already pulling his gun out of its holster. I can’t believe he was just a hairdresser. Must have been in a rough neighborhood. I wonder what sort of hairstyles they wore?
    No, wait. I know where this is going. As I look at the van driving next to me I see that damned ferret in the passenger seat, I hear his voice through the half-open window saying “He asked if he could have his tooth back and you let him?” – but more importantly, in the window’s reflection I see a ball of white light approaching – malfunctioning ordnance, way off course, already half-igniting its fuel. It’s going to hit the ground in front of us. The hostages will go up in flames right away. The truck will roll off the road. Fire will fill the humvee’s tarp-less cabin and I’ll keep driving. When we’re out of the pyre, flames still cling to Milos, but I don’t stop to help him put them out. I keep driving and by the time I pay attention, there’s a blaze going on next to me, desperately scrambling to open the door, trapped by a seatbelt that won’t burn–
    I have to get out of here, away from that. I don’t want to see that memory again. I give the wheel a sharp tug and screech away, away from the truck, from Milos and the fire, from Sharpish and Owen, hear the roar of an engine and the blare of two horns as I blindly drive up an on-ramp. The traffic’s sparse, but I’m still driving in the wrong direction. I dodge cars – they might be cars, all I can see is headlights – while behind me I hear the bang, and the screams, but they quiet down as I get further away from them, and when I’ve taken so many side roads that there’s no more traffic and I’m lost and Sharpish could have taken Owen anywhere, the noise is finally gone, and I stop.
    The car gurgles as I stagger out of it, roll into the ditch and try to throw up, but my stomach’s empty. The indicator lights flash so everything turns orange-white, orange-white and it’s dizzying…
    Footsteps, and I roll back onto my feet. I’m lucid again, for however long that might last. I try not to think about what just happened, about the fact that I was just three feet and two car-doors away from my target and that I drove away. One problem at a time. There’s footsteps, quick ones, light ones. There’s someone running down the road, right toward me. Waving at me. Who the hell?
    It’s a boy. A teenager, maybe nineteen, with that odd angularity so common with boys who are big for their age. He’s a – good God, those ears! He’s a rabbit? Thank you, God – hvala, as Milos taught me to say. The memory threatens to resurface and from behind the boy I can see the fireball in the sky, streaking right toward my cop-car, my humvee, and I have to do something.
    “Hey, mister, please, you gots ta help me,” the rabbit yells at me as I launch from my crouch and start running toward him, trying to get to him before the bomb hits him. He’s pretty, too, in that beach bum sort of way. Tousled hair, slightly darker brown than his fur. Wifebeater that’s obviously too short for him clings to his chest, the hem flaps loosely over his belly and the wide, baggy pants are held up by an elastic waistband that slides just a little bit lower as he’s running. “I need a ride back into town. I’ll put out, if you bring me, promise! I already gave a couple other guys some fun, but then they just drove off and left me, ain’t that rude? Anyway–”
    But I’m faster. I’ve closed the distance. I can feel the burning bomb’s heat on my face so I close my eyes, stretch my arms out forward and dive at the kid. My hands catch him to either side of his waist, the chain of my cuffs draws taut along his belly. He lets out an “Oof!” and doubles forward onto my shoulder and my momentum carries us both back, into the dusty ditch and onto his back. The ditch slopes quite steeply and I soon roll off him, but I’m holding him firmly enough that I can pull him with me as I hear that terrible hollow sound of a firebomb exploding nearby, in one second sucking half the oxygen from the air to feed its flames, leaving none to carry the sound of the impact convincingly.
    The dull rocks and packed sand of the ditch bruise me as I roll with the rabbit – no, a hare. Well, good enough. His lean young body knocks against mine and he lets out these cute little yelps when he’s bruised as well, as the dried-up branches of God knows which plants scrape his bare arms and the side of his face.
    We land with a thump and I can hear the distant sound of burning and screaming and I need to get away from that, to lose myself in something and as I look beneath me I see that the young hare has landed on his belly, that tufted tail pressing against my abdomen… and I realize I’m hard as a rock. And that I’ve been this hard since Malloy doped me up. And maybe, if I take care of that, the memories will fade and I can find Owen.
    So I sit up quickly, grab the boy by the waist and pull his hips back. “Hey!” he yells in surprise as he’s hoisted into the doggy position, looking back at me scornfully. “All ya had ta do was ask, mister,” he says reproachfully, pulling his pants down while I fumble with my zipper. I’m so desperate for relief that I don’t even realize my luck at finding this kid and finding him so willing to help a stranger out. “Here, let me,” he says, arching his back and leaning back to deftly unfasten my pants with one hand – am I dreaming this kid, I wonder? If I am, let me sleep a little longer, because he’s grabbed my dick out of my fly as if he’s handled hundreds and guides it under that cotton tail and an inch or two into the warmth inside him, then winks at me and gives my balls a squeeze before he turns back to brace his hands on the ground. “Have fun, mister!”
    Fun? Okay. Maybe. I throw my hands over his head and link the cuffs’ chain around his neck, but gentler than with the cop. He makes a gurgling, choking sound and arches his back as I slide inside him – warm, warm, tight, that’s the ticket – and brings one hand up to grab at the chain, tugging it away from his throat but he makes no objection. He’s used to being treated like this, and with an ass as fine as this, that’s hardly surprising. I groan and lay down on top of him, starting a good, decent, doggystyle breeding, my hips pumping as he does that ‘bunny hop’ thing where he rolls his ass up on the in-stroke and back down on the out-stroke as if he were fucking somebody himself. My nutsack slaps against his, nearly-black silk against creamy down.
    “You’ll give me a ride, though, right? I mean, after this,” the hare says with a giggle, sitting upright so he can smooth back his ears for a second, his other hand still keeping the chain from crushing his throat. “I need to get back in the city. I was supposed to be at the Dive an hour ago, but I got raped again and instead o’ just leaving me by the roadside with the hood he’d put over my head the guy drove me all the way to the beach and dumped me there. Say, mister, you got a nice dick on you. I could suck it for ya while you’re driving, if you like. If you can still get it up after cumming in me, that is. Most guys, they can get it up a second time just fine but they don’t want me touching it. Say they’re disgusted that they fucked me – Hell, they don’t look so disgusted while they’re humping me, I can tell ya that!”
    This kid just won’t stop talking, but that’s fine with me. Bunnies were made for fucking, it’s proved once again and I know he’s a hare and not a rabbit but it doesn’t matter, close enough. Nice and tight on the in-stroke, easy to enter as deep as you like and never loosens no matter how many times you thrust into him. God, I could keep this up for hours…
    “Jeez, mister, go easy on me. You musta not gotten laid in a week, huh?” he asks, still struggling not to get choked, looking back at me with soft, hazel eyes and a smile that would melt my heart if I had one. Then there’s a buzzing sound, which I ignore, but which makes the hare’s ears prick up. “Oh, crap, I need to take this call,” he says clumsily, pushing back against my doggy-humps so he can straighten up enough to feel down the wide pockets of his pants and pull out a cellphone. His body is jostled by my thrusts – it’s not that I can’t stop myself, it’s just that I see no reason to. I’ll take my jollies from this kid and then leave him or kill him or whatever. And what jollies they are…
    “Yeah, hel– wait, hold on,” the boy says stupidly and turns the phone around, putting the receiver to one of his tall ears. Giggling, yelping at a particularly deep thrust that has my knot knocking at his entrance. “Hey, don’t tie with me, okay? You can knotfuck me but when it swells too big you gotta pull out or we’ll e stuck!” h says and then brings the phone to his ear, leaning his butt back against me, rhythmically humping back at my thrusts. God, what a feeling… “Yeah, hi! No, I’m not at the hospital yet. I know it’s important, but I got – what? Yeah, some guy, but it’s cool, he’s gonna give me a ride and – right, mister? Uh, well, he ain’t sayin’ much but he’ll be done in about a minute.”
    He just won’t stop fucking talking – it makes me want to pull out and bone him in that pretty mouth for a while, but he’s right – I’m too close for that right now. I lean against him and clamp my jaws over his shoulder. He squeals so adorably and almost drops the phone, giving me a pleading, slightly angry look. “Y-yeah,” he squeaks into the phone, speeding his bunny-hop to the rhythm of my thrusts. Whoever’s on the phone must surely hear my breathing, the growl escaping my throat as I sink my fangs into the kid’s shoulder and taste a little blood, feel some soaking into his wifebeater.
    His body is such a delight to hold on to, tall enough to make for a comfortable doggyfuck, muscular enough to be able to hold his own balance when getting plowed under that cottontail but slim and lean enough to make for something warm, pliable, and easy to hold down when you’re fucking. God, I’m going to enjoy cumming in him, though half of me still wants to pull out and let him swallow my load and maybe I’ll do that, maybe I’ll sit back and have him blow me – the kid’s docile and stupid enough to do that, I’m sure of it as sure as I am that the Shep was the dobie’s bitch and as that thought crosses my mind, two things happen. Three, actually.
    First, and most importantly right now, I feel my balls draw up and as much as the kid begged me not to, I shove my knot in there nice and deep, groaning as I start to spray his insides and Jesus, does it feel good. I press my groin so hard against his firm buns that the zipper’s no doubt going to leave a mark, I can feel him stiffen under me, sucking in a breath at the ache of each fresh stinging spurt of semen up his tailhole. But he endures it, accustomed to nothing else.
    The second thing that happens, is I look at my watch. It still makes no sense to me but the long arm’s on the other side of the clock from where I saw it last, so that’s no good.
    And as I’m shooting my wad up this slut-hare’s tailhole and noticing that the clock on my life is running a little low I pay attention to what the boy’s saying for just one second and I hear him say “Okay, bye Mister Sharpish!” and I cum a second time, hugging him, not just squeezing him but actually hugging this boy.
   
    A few minutes pass. They’re precious, I know, but I need to recuperate. “I asked you not to tie with me,” the boy says, pouting and, to make it up to him, I grab his fluffy tail and pull out. He screams for a second, but it’s just a second, the pain forgotten as soon as it’s over and the slut actually says, “Thanks, mister!” as I’m pulling the rest of my dick out. Clean as a whistle, not spec of cum, all if it stayed behind inside that made-for-fucking harebutt. But still, when I pull my teeth out of the kid’s shoulder, to his obvious relief, he turns around and pulls his pants up with one hand while he grabs my nuts with the other and gently, carefully goes down on me.
    I consider humping his mouth. He seems so comfortable, on all fours, bobbing his head over my groin. I could go for another load, too. “You… know Sharpish?” I ask, as much to remind myself that I’ve got things to do as to get the actual information. The boy nods as he bobs his head, murring mm-hmm around his mouthful. I want to ask him some more questions he can answer with ‘yes’. “Do you know where he asked you to meet him?” Yes, he indicates, rolling my balls in his hand, tilting his head from side to side. I don’t know if he intended to seduce me, or if he just forgot that he was cleaning my dick and, once he had it in his mouth, just did what came natural. I’m about to ask, “Would you like me to take you there?” when I check my watch again and see the hand creeping. “Let’s go,” I say and stand up, dragging my dick out of his mouth. I walk back to the still rumbling cop-car, my dick still dripping the kid’s saliva, jutting from my groin and I open the door, closing it when I’m seated.
    I lay my still-cuffed hands on the wheel and look to the side. There’s the devil in the passenger seat again, except now he’s smiling at me and I recognize him. This red figure, under the burned and charred flesh; I recognize him. He smiles at me, and I smile back.
    “Hvala, Milos. Hvala lepa,” I say to him. This vision, this hallucination, this ghost of my absent friend.
    He nods to me and whispers “Do videnja,” then opens the door and gets out of the car, passing right by the hare who slips into the passenger-side seat and shuts the door.
    He wipes his lips and smiles at me. Actually smiles, like he likes me. Like he doesn’t understand that I just mistreated him, that I sank my fangs into his shoulder so deep that there’s still little rivulets of blood soaking into his wife-beater. That I used him as a fucktoy, like everybody probably does or that I’m now using him to save my own life. Okay, so that last part he probably couldn’t know, but the rest of it… This kid’s seriously stupid.
    “It’s totally cool you’re giving me a ride, mister,” he says, hopping in the chair, pulling his pants up comfortably and pulls on his safety belt, struggling to get the diagonal chest-strap behind him as he clips it in place. “We need to go to St. Claudia’s hospital on the corner of Fifth and Matherson’s. You know where that is? Oh, by the way, people call me Cannit,” he says with that same blank smile, leans over, hugs my waist and puts his mouth on my cock without me asking for it.
    It looks… sort of appropriate, when I look down at my groin and see the hare’s head bobbing, feel his lips sliding up and down my member slowly enough that I could last for half an hour. If I last another half an hour, I think wryly. I’d rather have a bunny sucking me right now, but it’s somehow appropriate for this kid to be second choice. Dispensable. The kind of kid that even the best, most warm-hearted trucker would pick up at the side of the road and then kick out of the cabin after a few rides in the back seat at the truck stop, without feeling guilty or sinful.
    It feels good, to have him sucking me, to listen to the soft wet noises, the happy little murring sounds he makes. The car pulls out easily, reverses into a three-point turn. Milos is standing by the roadside. His burns are gone, now, and he waves. I pull up next to him and roll down the window; the hare never once comments on this, just keeps bobbing his head. The rat looks in and smiles, nodding approvingly. I’m about to thank him again, but Milos holds his hands up and takes a step away.
    “Good night,” I say as he takes another step. “Do vidanje.” He salutes me, turns and when I look back after gently leaning my foot on the gas pedal, he’s gone, of course.
    I really have to find out what Malloy dosed me with. This shit is weird. Ah well. St. Claudia’s hospital, then, and… twenty whole minutes to get everything done in. Hey, I can read my clock again. Awesome.
    I think I’ll keep this kid around for a while. He was a lucky find, and I could use that kind of luck around me right now. Plus, if all goes bad and I don’t get that wolf back in time, I’ve got a fine slut-hare to spend my last hours in. So that’s all good.
    Still, I think with a grim determination that overshadows even the lazy joy of getting my dick sucked while I’m speeding back to the Maranatha ring road, I’d rather not die. I push the gas a little harder, and cum in Cannit’s mouth as if it was an afterthought.
 
         

    To be continued.

Available on paperback in 2005

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