So she drove.
The Nevada sky was overcast, dark with rain clouds. The wind had picked up, blowing through the open windows. It blew Lisa's hair back over her face. She licked her cracked lips, ignoring the nausea in her belly, the pain in her lower right abdomen, and concentrated on driving. Zigzagging between boulders and rocks. Steering the vehicle around cacti. Homing in on her target, her goal. The road that she could dimly see in front of her, now a good five hundred yards away. If she could make that road, she would try the cell phone again.
She should have killed Animal outright. Her mind raced over that now as she struggled along, one hand holding her guts inside herself, the other clutching the steering wheel. Animal had been weakened by her initial attack on him and he'd charged at her, swinging the knife wildly. His left hand had been covering his wounded eye, and it was obvious he was half-blinded. She'd taken advantage of his handicap by ducking and charging him, barreling into his exposed midsection, knocking him down. She'd still been clutching the rock she'd used to bash Tim Murray's skull in, and she'd swung the rock down on the sadist's head. She'd knocked him out cold first time out.
Her first instinct had been to flee, and she'd almost started running blindly, when she realized that she could probably get the keys to one of the vehicles from either Tim or Animal, who were both lying on the desert floor. She'd gone back, heart thudding in her chest, her nerves aware and jumping, anticipating the slightest twitch. She'd knelt by Tim Murray, noted the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the blood congealing out of his ears, and begun rummaging through his pockets, turning up a wallet, a cellular phone, and a set of keys, including one attached to a ring from a car-rental agency in Las Vegas.
Ecstatic, she'd started heading toward the SW, when she'd realized the cellular phone was still by Tim. She'd doubled back for the phone, got it turned on, and tried dialing 911. She'd put the phone to her ear and started screaming for help, hoping that whoever heard her was recording her frantic cries for help. She thought she could hear somebody, but she couldn't be sure if what she was hearing was a person or static from the rising wind. Frustrated, she'd hung up and tried again. And again. Each time, she got nothing.
Then she heard a voice. A thin, reedy voice, floating from over the incline, coming from the other side. "Tim? Animal? What's going on?" The old woman.
Lisa didn't know why she did it, but she started trudging up the incline, clutching the cellular phone. She hit a button that displayed a series of phone numbers and she hit the first one, not knowing whom she would get, just trying to get a connection to the outside world. She was as surprised as shit when somebody picked up on the other end and his voice came through loud and clear.
"Hello?" She thought she'd heard him reply, but the connection disintegrated into static again. She kept say- ing" hello" a few times, thought she heard the man on the other end asking for Tim, and then a sudden inspiration seized her. A flare of hatred and anger erupted from deep within her and she screamed. "You motherfucker… you want to talk to your pervert buddy. Tim? Listen to this!" And she held the phone up toward where rim's prone body lay, then brought the phone back to her ears. "Hear that? The reason you didn't hear anything is because Tim's close to being dead. I just bashed his fucking brains in, motherfucker! How do you like that?'
She didn't know how much of what she said got through, but some of it must have; the man's response was immediate. "What's going on? Tim?"
Lisa had reached the pinnacle of the incline now, and this time she saw the old woman on the other side, standing up and looking around. When the old woman saw Lisa, she let out a wail of despair. "Listen to this, asshole!" Lisa yelled into the phone, and held it out toward the old woman. Were you go granny!Let 'er rip!"
"The eyes! Rick said I could have the eyes!"
Lisa brought the receiver back to her ear as she started back down toward the SUV "Your two buddies are dead, and I'm leaving the old woman here for dead too, motherfucker. Now you're fucked! You hear me!"
This time the man heard her. "Who the fuck are you, bitch? Where's Tim? Where's"
She'd hung up on him, and when she got to the bottom of the incline she stopped, feeling a burst of triumph and pride rise within her.
I've fucking got 'em, she thought. Whoever he is, he's on the run. Lisa didn't know who the man was, but she had a gut feeling that whoever it was he had something to do with the illegal hardcore industry that Tim and Animal worked in. The cellular phone Tim was carrying was a cheap Minolta, and there were only three phone numbers programmed into it, which told Lisa it was a pickup job, procured probably for the weekend. She had heard of the practice in her law office, of people getting cellular phones for brief periods of time and then ditching them when they weren't needed anymore. Perhaps the guy who commissioned this particular snuff film was the person she'd talked to. If that was the case, she was keeping the cell phone. And once she got to a point where she received better reception from a cellular tower, she'd try 911 again.
She had approached the SW and was trying to dial 911 again when she'd seen something out of the corner of her eye. She had looked up and seen Animal's twisted visage reflected in the SW's windows a moment before she felt cold steel slide into her right side, spilling warm blood down her belly and thighs.
She didn't even know she was fighting him until she heard him scream and lean forward, clamping his jaws on her left shoulder. She screamed, trying to knee him in the groin again. She felt the knife slide into her again and she fell back against the vehicle, his bulk bearing her down. Her right fist rose and fell over his left eye, pulping it as he loosened his jaws from her shoulder to scream. The knife slid out of her and adrenaline burst through her system, propelling her fight instinct to a level that was beyond fury. She felt his grip on her weaken slightly, and she took advantage of it by driving her fist into his exposed throat. He'd fallen back, gagging, left hand clutched at his throat. He'd dropped the knife and she had pounced on it, grabbing it by the blade, feeling it slice through her hand and fingers. She'd grabbed at the blade with her right hand and lunged, driving it into Animal's midsection to the hilt. His eyes bugged out and he'd gasped suddenly, as if he'd been shocked. Then he'd fallen backward, the knife sticking out of his solar plexus, his one open eye glazing over in death.
She didn't remember how she got into the SUV, but the next thing she remembered she was backing the vehicle along the terrain. She realized what she was doing, realized she was driving backward, then stopped. The incline they had parked at was a good hundred yards away, and she could dimly make out Animal's and Tim's bodies lying there. That's when the pain reeled in, bringing the stunning reality to everything into clear, sharp focus.
Shed risked only one glance down at her midsection. That had been enough to tell her that she'd lost a lot of blood. And that she might not last long.
Somehow she'd grabbed the cell phone when she had climbed back into the SUV She had tried it again, her fingers slipping on the keypad as she dialed 911. She could feel herself panicking, and she closed her eyes, repeating to herself you will not faint, you will not faint, you will not faint. She'd taken deep, even breaths until she felt herself calm down. Then she'd placed the phone in the cup holder above the gearshift, clamped her left hand over the wound in her side in an attempt to stop the bleeding (and keep my insides in, she had reasoned. I feel something trying to slide out and I've got to keep them in…), shifted into drive with her left hand, then steered the vehicle around so that it was facing in a direction she felt safe to go in.
Now she was rolling along, not even sure how far she should go, knowing only that she had to put some miles between herself and the fiends she had left behind. And try to find a spot where she could receive decent reception for the cell phone.