They didn’t say anything at first. They just went to work on me, methodically pumping their fists into my ribs. I tried to fight back but I didn’t have a chance against three of them at once. They knocked the wind out of me and I started to go down, but they pinned me up against the red brick wall of the church and kept hitting me again and again, in the face now and then back to the body and then to the face until I couldn’t do anything but try to roll myself into a ball, anything to cover myself. That’s when they finally started talking to me.
“How’s this, tough guy?” one of them said. “Little different than roughing up an old man, eh?”
“Stop,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “What are you talking about?”
I took another blow, then heard a voice that might have been the same or different-it was all just noise now, mixed in with the ringing in my ears. “We were gonna come find you, McKnight. Right after we buried him. Who’da thought you’d actually show up at the fucking funeral?”
“No,” I said.
“You’ve got some balls. I’ll say that much.”
“Stop,” I said. “You’re making a mistake.”
The voice came closer. “You think we’re making a mistake? That’s a good one.”
It wasn’t making any sense. I tried to say something else. I tried to breathe.
“We should kill you,” the voice said. “We should kill you right here.”
“Take it easy,” another voice said. “Come on, guys. Don’t do something stupid.”
“We should do it, man. We should kill him and dump him in the river.”
“Think about what you’re doing, guys. Come on.”
I felt someone grab me by the shoulders. His voice was hot in my face. “You bother my sister again, or my little brother, or my nephew, or anybody, man. My fucking next-door neighbor, and we will find you and we will fuck you up. You got that, man?”
The other man stepped in close to me. I ducked and heard him hit the brick wall just above my head. He let out a quick scream of pain and then another man was battering me with uppercuts one after the other, some hitting me in the elbows and others finding their mark until the last one cut me right in half.
I took one more shot. No protection now. No defense. One more shot and my head was snapping backward until it hit the cold bricks. Then everything turned upside-down.
“Come on, guys. Look at you. We gotta go bury your father, for God’s sake. You’re messing up your suits now.”
I heard those last words from somewhere far away. Then there was the sound of snow crunching under heavy footsteps. Then it was just me all by myself, leaning against the red bricks, going down inch by inch, until I finally touched the dead frozen ground.
Then there was nothing.
Chapter Seven
I woke up shivering. I don’t know how long I had been lying there. At that moment, I barely even knew what had happened. All I knew was that I was cold and I was in pain. Cold and pain, that’s all there was in the world.
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was red brick. I was lying curled up against a wall and there was a light layer of snow melting on the side of my face. I tried to get up. That wasn’t going to work. Very bad idea. I tried rolling over. Another very bad idea. I lifted my head. Worst idea yet.
This is it, I thought. I’m gonna freeze to death right here. Just like… somebody. I couldn’t think straight. Just like who?
Like Simon Grant. It all started to come back to me. The funeral, meeting the family, walking back here with Chris Woolsey’s father, then everything that happened after that.
Behind a church yet. I had gotten beaten within an inch of my life behind a church.
Okay, now what? I tried to think. My cell phone… Where was it? In the truck. I tried to roll over again. I just had to see…
Damn it, that hurt. God damn it. I saw another building, just beyond the plowed parking lot. It looked like a garage. Some trees. An empty swing set half buried in the snow. Beyond that, the backs of more buildings, over on Maple Street. Too far away.
I’ve gotta move, I thought. Move now or die here.
I rolled again. God, that hurt. I was on my hands and knees now. I was bleeding. The blood was getting in my eyes. Son of a bitch.
As I shook my head to clear my eyes, everything went out of focus and my ears rang like I was underwater. Okay, I thought, no more shaking my head.
I wiped my eyes, felt the cut above my left eyebrow. Not good. Not good at all. I tried to push myself up with my hands. My head started pounding again.
“Help,” I said. “I need some help here…”
But there was no sound except the wind.
I know somebody will come by eventually, I thought. If I can get around to the front of the church, somebody will see me. The street is busy enough, even in the dead of winter. I just have to… have to…
I wobbled and rolled back down to the ground.
“No,” I said. “Get up. Get up, Alex.” I pushed myself back up to my hands and knees. “Now move.”
I worked my way toward the corner of the building. I left a path in the snow as I moved, a jagged line of red running down the center. My jaw started to ache. My nose. My ribs. Then the bells went off in my head again. I stopped in my tracks and waited for it to pass. Then I started moving again. I fought inch by inch until finally I could see around the corner. The rest of the parking lot was empty now, everyone else gone. They had all left for the cemetery. No vehicles in sight, except for my truck. My truck, with the heater. And the cell phone. A hundred feet away.
I didn’t see any cars moving on Portage Avenue. But somebody would come eventually. I started moving. I had to get closer to the road. Or to my truck. That was closer. No, the road.
I kept crawling. A car came by, moving slowly.
“Help,” I said, too weakly for anyone to actually hear me. “Please stop.”
The car passed and was gone.
Get to your feet, I thought. Get up and walk. Go to the truck and call somebody. It’s the only way you’re gonna get out of here. Just get up and walk.
Okay, okay. Just have to catch my breath. Breathe, damn it. Breathe.
On the count of three, I’m gonna get up.
One.
Two.
Three. I pushed myself up, tried to move my weight back onto my legs. I fell forward, caught myself with my hands, leaned all the way forward this time, letting my legs catch up.
Just like that, Alex. Just like that. Now stand up.
I pushed up with one arm, then the other. I was crouching now, bleeding into the snow, the red drops free-falling now, making little red specks.
Stand. Up.
I tried to straighten out my body. Everything went into a whirl, all the colors spinning around me, all the sounds like instruments playing at once, the trombones and the tubas and the bass drums.
Get to the truck, Alex. Get to the truck. Where is it?
I saw it in one direction, then another. It was moving all around, taunting me. I took one step, another step, and then I was falling down a hill sideways, putting my hand down to keep from falling again.
The truck is there. It’s right there.
But I couldn’t walk straight. I pointed myself in one direction and moved in another, east instead of north. I tried to double back. God, my head. My aching head.
I didn’t know where I was going now. I was moving and everything kept turning around me and then there was nothing but sky above me and then snow all over the ground, wherever I looked. Nothing but white, white snow.
Then I heard something. One of the instruments in the band playing a long note, louder and louder. Something was coming for me. Something big. It got closer and closer until it was right on top of me and it was all I could see.
I reached out one hand to it.
“No more,” I said. “No more.”
I went down. All the way. I tasted the salt on the road.
“No more.”
There was a light shining into my eyes. It hurt like hell. I blinked and then I tried to sit up. I felt a hand on each shoulder, holding me down.