Chương 24: Meet Mickey (Not The Mouse)

Deputy Rowe was a sack of wet cement between Isabel and me, making awful, gasping sounds as we dragged him away from the now-burning police station. We made it half a block before my adrenaline disappeared, and the numbness that kept me moving evaporated, as pain rushed in from every part of my body. My vision blurred. The burns that had been a distant ache now screamed for attention, the heat flaring into a white-hot agony that buckled my knees, causing my legs to wobble. I stumbled, my grip on Rowe failing.

"Nora?!" Isabel's voice sounded so far away. And I couldn't answer her anyway, as the air in my lungs was replaced with crushed glass, making every breath torture. I was going down, and if I went down, Rowe was coming with me. Isabel couldn't hold him alone; I could already see her struggling, her shoulder dipping under his full weight. The Salve. Use the Salve. My vision swam, the HUD's interface elements wavering with it. I focused on the pulsating Healing Salve, mentally grabbing it.

No pouch materialized this time. Just the phantom taste of sour apple on my tongue and a sensation of being dunked in freezing water. But the relief was instant, rolling down my body from the top of my head, healing everything along the way. The blistered skin on my cheeks loosened, and a cool tingling replaced the throbbing heat in my swollen lips. Finally, my legs steadied as the spots where denim had fused to my flesh slackened and healed, leaving holes in my jeans.

STATUS CLEARED: BURN (MINOR) My health bar ticked up to 88% in the corner of my vision. The air tasted clean compared to the smoke-filled hallway we'd just been in. But it was also freezing. Without the searing heat of the burns distracting me, the reality of being soaked to the bone in fifty-degree weather jolted me alert. My ruined, wet jeans became freezing compresses gripping my legs. Cold runoff leaked from my hair and traced a path down my neck; my teeth chattered before I could clench them shut.

"Nora!" Isabel's voice snapped.

"You with us?" She struggled under Rowe's dead weight, knees bent to keep him upright. Tre was a frightened barnacle stuck to the back of her jacket, vinyl face peering anxiously over her shoulder. I blinked, willing my quivering muscles to still.

"Uh huh." We adjusted our grip on the deputy and started moving again. Main Street was deserted. A few streetlights cast sickly sallow pools on the sidewalk, but all the storefronts were dark. The hum of the wind and buzz of insects sounded aggressively loud due to the lack of traffic and pedestrians. I couldn't hear the distant crackle of flames consuming the police station, which meant the sprinklers had done their job. Still, Main Street looked like nothing had happened. We dragged Rowe through a vacuum.

The town felt empty, and the lack of sirens didn't help lessen that eerie feeling.

"Where are the fire trucks?" I asked.

"Or other cops. Or ambulances?" The absence of emergency services racing past was unnatural; there should have been sirens screaming down Main Street by now.

"The fucked up part is the firehouse is a block over from the police station." Isabel hitched Rowe higher on her shoulder, but her voice had an alarmed edge to it that unsettled me.

"They're close enough that they should have heard the gunshots."

"Regardless of how quiet it is, we're still dragging around a half-dead cop," Tre said, clinging to my back. I shifted some of the deputy's unresponsive bulk around to lighten the strain on my back.

"Yeah. Where are we going? We can't carry him all the way back to my place."

"There." Isabel pointed down the block with her free arm.

"The diner?" Tre asked.

"Isn't that gonna leave us, like, pretty exposed?

""My parents own it," Isabel grunted, straining under Rowe's limp body.

"We'll be safe in the back."

"Won't they be suspicious? We look like we just crawled out of a war zone." If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"My parents are home by now. It's probably just Mickey in the kitchen and whatever server is on shift," Isabel said, already moving toward the alley.

"Trust me." She led us through a tapered alleyway to the restaurant's back entrance. It stank like rotting food, a rancid grease trap, and cigarette smoke. Just your typical behind-a-restaurant smells. The moment we rounded the corner, Isabel's face lit up, her whole posture opening. A single bare bulb harshly lit a heavyset guy in a stained apron standing by the door, smoking a cigarette.

A stack of sun-bleached milk crates sat beside him, arranged into a smoke break station complete with a coffee can balanced on top, overflowing with cigarette butts. He glanced up, took one look at our blood-soaked group, and his jaw dropped, leaving the cigarette dangling off his bottom lip.

"Mickey!" Isabel called out. The cigarette fell to the ground.

"Izz—What in da absolute-" He recoiled, hands up.

"What the hell is dat? Is it a… is he dead? Isabel, what did you do—""Mickey—""I'm a cook, Izzy! I make eggs. Pancakes! In da evenings, a nice pasta or meatloaf." He pointed at Rowe's sagging form with a shaking finger, voice climbing.

"Is dat a fuckin' bone stickin' outta him?"

"Mickey." Isabel let a layer of frost coat the words.

"Help." Tre hopped off her back, landing with a soft thud on the pavement. Mickey looked at Rowe. At me. At Tre. Finally landing on Isabel. He sighed." …Fine." Shooing me away, Mickey bent down to get under Rowe's shoulder.

"Jesus Christ, kids. What'd youse do?"

"Long story," Isabel said, opening the door.

"Better start talking!" He didn't even blink at the doll, laser-focused on hauling Rowe into the diner's kitchen with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd carried dead weight before. I caught a quick glimpse of the dark dining room through the pass-through window on the way inside. Chairs sat upturned on the tables, a graveyard of dead wooden roaches signaling the diner was closed.

"Prep station," Mickey said, clearing off the large stainless-steel surface in one swipe of his arm. Utensils and a couple of bowls clattered to the floor. The bright overhead lights glared off the polished steel counters, making me squint as we heaved Rowe onto the counter. He groaned, a raspy bubbling sound.

"Watch his shoulder," Isabel cried. The Sharpened Bone was still impaled through him, the point protruding from his back near the shoulder blade. He couldn't lie flat. Mickey grabbed a stack of towels and shoved them under Rowe's uninjured side, propping him up so the bone's tip hovered above the table. Blood seeped steadily around the embedded weapon, pooling beneath him.

"Dat was a first. Never carried somebody in like dat before," Mickey muttered, not really to anyone, tucking the towels in place with practiced hands.

"Although it is my second time dealing with a bone sticking outta somewhere it ain't supposed to be." That got everyone's attention.

"First time was a guy on the Q line, gets on three stops from Penn Station with a dog bone stuck in his eye socket."

"Eww."

"Yah, he was fine about it, Izzy. Nice guy." My disbelief must have been palpable, because Mickey shrugged.

"What? It's the Metro." Tre climbed up onto the prep station next to Rowe.

"Oh man, he's messed up bad." Rowe's injuries were extensive. His arms, legs, and face were horribly burnt and grotesquely swollen. But the damage to his shoulder was gnarly. The entry point was ragged (about the size of a tennis ball), and the white bone weapon disappeared into torn meat and shattered collarbone. An inch lower, and it would have pierced his lungs. He'd have died. Maybe that would have been better than the agony he was feeling now.

Horror movie gore never bothered me, but it hit different in real life. So much rawer and messier. I wanted to ease his pain as fast as possible. The Healing Salve appeared in my hand. I had no idea if it would help, but we needed to try something.

"Wait! Don't do it yet." I froze.

"He's dying, Tre!"

"It closed your wounds. If you use it now, the flesh will knit over the bone and fuse your weapon to his body."

"You want to pull it out?"

"He's right," Mickey said.

"Hold him." Isabel pressed her hands down on Rowe's chest to hold him steady.

"Get his legs." I moved to his legs, pinning them down with my body.

"On three? One…" Mickey slid the bone out. It came free with a shlurp, followed by a gush of dark blood. Rowe's eyes popped open, and he screamed a high, gurgling shriek that cut off abruptly when he passed out again from the pain.

"Heals," Tre said, with the inflection of a surgeon asking for his scalpel. I twisted the cap off the Salve, then pushed the nozzle into Rowe's mouth. The Salve worked, but not like it had on me. Where my burns had faded completely, Rowe's injuries only stabilized. The bleeding slowed to a trickle, the worst of the swelling went down, but the hole in his shoulder remained. His face was still badly burned, too, but he could talk now.

Although his barely audible "thank you" came out as a raspy whisper, every word seemed to cost him immense effort. His breathing was shallow and wet; when he inhaled, it sounded like blowing bubbles through a straw. Lifting his head was a chore, but he did it anyway, and looked down at his hands, skin bubbled and blackened from the burns. Rowe's head fell back, and he lifted his arm, hovering it near his face. He stared at the charred flesh on his hand.

When he tried to move his other arm, the one with the massive hole in his shoulder, he moaned, arching his back. He craned his neck to take in the wound, bug-eyed in disbelief at the damage.

"Rowe," I said, leaning close.

"Stay with me." I glanced at Isabel.

"Does this guy have a first name?"

"Nathan. Nate." Rowe's attention was riveted on the ceiling, eyes glassy with wonder.

"I know… what this is…" Wet cotton balls had collected in the corners of his mouth.

"Stay with us, Nate," I begged. Rowe turned his head toward me.

"'The god of the cannibal will be a cannibal...'""What? I don't understa—""I did it for Hardin," he confessed. Underneath the bumbling deputy was a sad little boy, desperate for Hardin's respect.

"What did you do?" His eyes fluttered, unfocused.

"Buried it…"

"Buried what? The tox report?" The cords in his neck stood out as he gave a nearly imperceptible nod. A cough wracked his body, blood flecking his lips.

"Why isn't the Salve working, Tre?"

"Maybe it works differently on NPCs?" One of the deputy's burned hands clawed at my sleeve.

"Had to… protect…"

"Protect who?" Isabel asked, moving closer.

"Protect who, Nathan?" But his eyes were already losing focus, staring past us at the lights again. His grip on my sleeve loosened, finger by finger.

"Who were you protecting?"

"I'm… sorry…" Then the air hissed out of him and never returned.

"Nate? Nathan?" Mickey reached past me, putting two fingers on the deputy's neck. He held them there for a moment, then shook his head.

"He's gone," Mickey said as he covered Rowe's face with a dish towel. Isabel turned away from the body, arms wrapped tightly around herself. No one knew what to say, so the hum of the walk-in cooler was the only sound left in the room.