Paint it Black

Chapter 12: After the Credits Roll

His back was plastered to the wall, his shirt plastered to his skin. Heels had dug into the softness beneath as if he could force himself right through the damp wood and to safety beyond.

“Help...” His voice cracked – thin from the earlier throttling. He wasn't going to save himself, all that remained was the desperate hope there was somebody close enough and willing enough to play hero. His right hand clamped over the split skin at the base of his throat. What he could only assume was a broken bottle had gashed just shy of fatal from the amount of blood pattering between his fingers.

“Help me!” He was bringing Rollins right to him. If Rollins didn't already know where he was. He didn't know what else to do. He was running out of time in too many ways. Time was seeping down the front of his shirt.

He crammed himself into the space created between the wall and the support beam. Hardly enough room for his body but the tight space was a security he could lie himself into believing he had. He was trembling. Cold and terror were a double whammy misfiring nerves and raising pebbled flesh. He wasn't used to fear like this. He wasn't used to not having a plan – even if the plan was created on the fly. He always had a plan.

Feet pulled in close and bent his legs against his body. His right hand remained around his throat – his left sandwiched between his thighs and belly. He barely felt his shoulder, the wound numb. The numb was starting to work through his limbs. Maybe... maybe it wouldn't even hurt when Rollins killed him.

Tugging his left arm free, Shawn dug through the sand around him. There had to be something! A rock or a pointy shell or a rusty piece of fishing tackle. Sand. Just more sand. He rapped his head back against the wall and immediately winced. There wasn't near enough hair on his scalp to create a buffer between the wood and his cracked skull.

“I seeee youuu...”

Shawn swallowed hard and dug harder. Any sort of weapon! Anything, anything, anything...

0o0o0o0

Both of them were packing flashlights. Carlton lit the underside of the pier with a brilliant white glow while Henry's yellow beam focused on the tracks at their feet. Then both of them spun at the soft play of a voice – the plosives lost within the echo chamber they occupied.

Pinpointing location would have been tricky enough without the lack of sunlight. Their focused light made hard black shadows where they struck the supports, making them jump and dance when they panned between them.

Carlton pointed a direction to Henry, glad to see the man didn't fight him on splitting up. Angling up to the left while Henry went right, he moved from beam to beam as he closed in on where he thought the voice might have come from. He was almost to the base of the pier, his light spanning out across the broad wall before him. A scrape of sound and he whirled, weapon at the ready as his flashlight caught on a figure crouched behind one of the last beams. Face bone pale and covered in scratches. “God, Spencer...”

“Lassie?” The voice that squeezed free was mostly breath. Something struck Carlton as very wrong, more than the wheeze of his name, but he had no time to discover what before Spencer's head cocked. Then, suddenly, his face twisted in high panic.

“Lassie, look out!” Eyes going wide as he lifted a foot to turn, Carlton's body was slammed against the post he'd been facing. He lost the flashlight but was able to keep the gun. The bright beam from the lost light shot up from the ground and sliced the space in half.

Elbow snapping back into midsection, Carlton wrestled with his attacker who seemed to be going for a choke hold, though the grip was wrong. It wasn't until he flashed on the murky brown glass and sharp sour stink of beer that he realized what Rollins was attempting. And as he grabbed at the wrist wielding the broken bottle, he finally realized what was wrong with Spencer. The jagged edges trembled near his eyes. Though blurred in close proximity, he could make out the droplets of blood still wet along the broken points.