ANWell this is my second ditty. Other than my Saints story. I hope I can do justice to the story. Please read and review. Thank you much. And as far as a disclaimer goes: I don't own the movie or the lovely Norman reedus though Lord knows I wish I did...
"For fuck's sake, Sheriff!" Mark shouted grabbing the pudgy man by the collar and shaking him until his teeth rattled. "It's been a week already! Do you understand?! Seven whole fuckin days!"
Sheriff Pratt calmly grasped the shaking hands of the younger man and plucked them from his clothing.
"Son," he said calmly, pointing a thick digit at Mark's chest, " I have been at this job for 17 years. I understand the frustration. I really do, but throttling one of the few law men in town is not the thing to do."
Mark slumped in a chair that sat before the desk. The fight drained from his body, pulling with it all the energy he had left. He hadn't slept for days, and it wore heavily on his face. His handsome features sagging under stress. Succumbing to his own self loathing, he dropped his head into his hands.
"We're doing all we can," Pratt said as sympathetically as possible. Painful squeaky leaked from behind Mark's fingers. He rocked himself back and forth, his jerky motions tossing about his short light brown mohawk.
"You don't understand," he gasped, still behind a wall of his fingers. "I just left her there! Hoe could I have left her there?"
Soft hands cupped the sides of his face, half covering his own fingers. He pulled his fingers from his eyes, tears spilling from their corners. A young woman stood before him, bent slightly at the waist. Her short brown hair curled around her face, framing a pair of soft brown eyes and a wide mouth.
"She told us to go, baby," her voice was soothing but firm in it's conviction. "She did it to save our lives."
Mark fell forward, tucking his head into the crook of her neck. Against the warmth of her skin and steady beat of her heart, he let loose the sobs he'd tried do hard to bind. Sobs of a breaking heart. Whimper of a fearful helplessness. His dear friend had been left behind. His once time lover sacrificed herself, so that he and his girlfriend could make a break for it. Mark clung to Ava, the last memory of his beloved friend flashing in his mind.
"No, no, no! Kari are you fuckin crazy?! There's two of them! And..."
"And shut the hell up," Kari whispered angrily. She pointed the bloody hunting knife at Mark's nose. "You are wasting time. I can run faster than either of you. Get your asses on the mother fuckin bike and go get help!" Mark looked desperately at the grim resolve in her eyes. Her short blue-black hair stuck to patches of sticky blood that splattered her pale face. He couldn't change her mind. He knew that. Once her difficultly practical logic started, there was no reasoning with her. His leg throbbed with every beat of his speeding heart. The bullet had ripped clean through his calf muscle. Ava hung from his side, drifting in and out of consciousness. Blood was oozing from a gash at the side of her head. Kari was right, of course. Too many zombie movies had sent her into a cardio frenzy. She could leave them in the dust. There was only the one dirt bike laying ib the dust. Sometimes math just sucked. It was a cruel truth Mark didn't want to admit.
"I'm not gonna die," Kari whispered, her voice crackling on that ominous word. "I've still got shit to do." A half-smile broke along her dry lips. Mark nodded finally, and dragged Ava to the bike. With Kari's help, he managed to set himself on the bike, and tuck the petite woman in his arms.
"I'll be back soon," he croaked. Kari nodded at him, her arms shaking at her sides. As he took off down through the canyons, his heart slammed into his throat.
Please God, don't let that be the last thing I say to her.
Ava smoothed back Mark's hair, while he poured his tearful agony into her neck. The rapid popping of footsteps curved the corner.
"Sheriff?" Pratt turned to face the newcomer in the hall.
"Yea, Harley," he asked, sipping a cup of coffee.
"We found her."
Sheriff Pratt's car roared down the dirt road, sirens wailing through the evening air. Mark sat anxiously popping his knuckles in the passenger seat. His lips moved in a repeated silent whisper.
Please. Please. Please.
Pratt pulled the car to a stop next to a rundown looking house. A couple of cars were already parked around the house. Mark yanked the door handle tumbling out of the car. He crashed into the dust piled up at the base of a wire fence. Pushing up from his sprawled state, he came face to face with a snarling toothy grin. A huge black dog snapped viciously front behind the increasingly fragile looking fence. Mark scrambled away from the lunging beast of a critter.
"Fuck," he gasped, surging to his feet and dusting himself off. As he turned he noticed a man sitting in the back if one of the cop cars. He couldn't quite make out the man's features other than dark messy hair and a somewhat slender face. Although mostly in shadow, he knew the man's stare was drilling into the house.
Mark rushed to the front door, the sheriff hard on his heels. A deputy was holding open the screen door for the pair. If the outside of the shack of a home was on it's last leg, the inside was without limbs entirely. It greeted them with the stench of bleach and rot. The offensive smell filled Mark's nose, wrenching forth a succession of gags he struggled to swallow down. Dirt encrusted everything in a blackened murk. Stapled to the wall were dozens of sketches, mostly of spiders. They weren't detailed sketches, more the intense, passionate scribbles of a disturbed mind. The deputy led them towards the back of the house. As the distance increased, the atmosphere thickened. Instead of the bitter rot, a warm copper tang filled the air. They came to a halt in an open door way, just inside the bedroom. An EMT wad crouched over something in the closet. Rope swung from the ceiling of the closet, it's lower half stained a brownish red. Mark looked desperately over the man, trying to catch a glimpse of that which he was hovering over. Finally the EMT moved. Mark fell to his knees, clutching his gut. His lungs seized behind his breast bone, followed swiftly by his heart. There lieing in a pool of blood, lay a tattered naked Kari.
"You're in a lot of trouble, Mac," Pratt spat out at the pacing figure in the cell. He was holding an ice pack to his swollen shoulder. The second that kid saw throttling girl lieing in the closet, he'd run out of the house tearing at the car holding Mac. It had taken three of them, himself included, to bring the thrashing boy down. Funny thing was, Mac paid him no mind, while he screamed all sorts of profanity at him. He'd just kept on staring at the house, a strange expression on his scruffy face.
"Do ya hear me boy?"
Mac stopped pacing. He walked towards the bars of his cell, glaring at the sheriff with the full force of those piercing blues. His tongue flicked out over his lower lip, revealing his meth rotted teeth.
"How's that, Pratt," his voice ripe with defiance despite it's surprising softness. Sheriff Pratt looked at him dumbfounded. He threw the ice pack to the floor.
"We got a tied up, naked, bloody, half dead girl in your closet. What the hell do you think?"
P"That's kidnapping, assault, attempted murder. Hell that's only the tip of the iceberg!" Anger rattled through the old man. "And judging by what the EMT said, we'll be able to tack on rape as well."
A low chuckle seeped from the cell. Pratt dug his nails into his palms, holding onto the pain to keep him grounded.
"What's so fuckin funny