He looked tired.
“Looks like you’re getting your wish, Frank.”
I tried to answer. Couldn’t get the breath up.
“Dying on your fucking shithole Koolaroo.”
“Fuck you,” I growled.
He stood and picked up the duffel. His boots turned. But he didn’t walk to the cave mouth. He turned the other way.
Toward the bats.
Toward the back exit.
No!
I tried to lift my head, but couldn’t. I got a slice of him as he passed under the wheeling bats, the duffel swinging at his hip. He didn’t stop. Didn’t hesitate. He walked straight toward the back exit.
He’d known it was there.
How? When?
That bastard was three steps ahead of me again. Same as every fucking time.
The bats stirred wilder as Bob ducked into the fissure.
“Kill me, you gutless fucking prick.” The words came out of me as a wet wheeze.
He didn’t stop.
I dragged in a breath, but it burned like hell. Something inside me was punctured. Air was getting somewhere it shouldn’t.
“Finish me off, Bob,” I barked as loud as I could. “Don’t leave me like this. Finish it.”
He didn’t break stride, and then he was gone.
The cave went quiet.
The bats wheeled to their roost, folded their wings, and went back to hanging in the dark like dirty washing. Same as they had the night we’d put Kat in the dirt and lit the fire in the drum. Same as they had every other time we’d buried bodies and bits in this cave. The bats didn’t give a shit.
The pain came in waves. Each one bigger than the last. My kidneys were on fire, my chest was packing it in, and my shoulder didn’t feel like a shoulder anymore, just a hole where one used to be. Every breath I took was wrong. Wet. Bubbling.
I thought I knew what dying felt like. For months I’d been at it. Waiting for it. Counting the days.
I didn’t know shit.
Just fuckin’ take me already.
I’d never begged for anything in my life. Not from God. Not from any man.
I begged for it now. Whatever was running this show needed to hurry the fuck up.
Time went soft and stupid.
I tried to move to see my shoulder. But the pain paralyzed me.
I couldn’t crawl, couldn’t sit up, couldn’t roll.
