Page 57 of The End of the World As We Know It

Baker thought of the scars latticing the dik-dik’s hide. Dedaker gave her a rough shake, but the sounds persisted.

“Goddamn you,” Dedaker said and unhooked something from the belt of his jeans. Blond wood haft, blade like a miniature scythe. A linoleum knife, though the thing was so caked with gore you could barely identify it. He recalled what Wiggins said about the pet farm, the animals strung up and gutted.

“I saw you dragging the sheriff,” Baker said.

Dedaker eyed him with renewed interest. “You were in town? Hell, you should’ve let me know. I would’ve offered you a ride, too.”

At the memory of the sheriff’s glistening seaweed feet, Baker’s stomach lurched.

Dedaker showed his teeth. “Four.” At Baker’s look, he explained. “How many I’ve killed. At least, before Captain Trips. Now the total’s probably three times that. But before the outbreak, only four.” He stroked the animal. “Everyone liked to speculate, so I let ’em. Sookie, he’d jump a mile every time I appeared. Maybe that’s why he kept me around… because I scared the bejesus out of him.” He fixed Baker with a shrewd look. “And because he knew I’d do whatever was necessary to procure his precious animals.”

Dedaker tottered to his feet and stood swaying. The dik-dik continued to squeak and twist in his arms.

“You need medicine,” Baker said.

“What I need is to shut this bitch up,” Dedaker replied. He took a step toward the kitchen, but halted as a coughing fit seized him.

Baker strained against his ankle bindings.

The dik-dik squeaked: “Zeewuh!Zeewuh!”

“I said shut the fuck up!” Dedaker shouted into the animal’s face. She scrambled against him, hooves digging at his neck. Dedaker grappled with her. “Now hold—”

The dik-dik sprang into the air and crashed down on a kerosene lamp, the antique glass shattering and flooding the room with anacrid stench. The animal flailed amid the strew of shards. Dedaker snatched at her, but she bounded toward the kitchen. Coughing, Dedaker lurched after her.

Baker dug his elbows into the sofa and got his legs under him. Beneath Dedaker’s hacking, he could hear the dik-dik’s alarmed cries. He rose up, damn near toppled backward, and stood there a second, his equilibrium wonky.

“Get back here!” Dedaker growled. “You little”—cough—“fucking”—cough—“cunt!”

There was maybe an inch of give in the ankle binding, but it permitted Baker to rotate clumsily around. As Dedaker shambled toward the kitchen, Baker hopped over and grabbed the linoleum knife. The keen blade sheared through the ankle rope in three swipes.

Dedaker lumbered into the kitchen, where the dik-dik cowered, her cries pitiful and wheezy. As Baker started forward, his hamstrings cramping, Dedaker bent down, fumbled with his pant leg, and came up with a pistol. He leveled it at the animal.

“Squeak at this, you little—”

Baker slashed hard at Dedaker’s back. The knife ripped a diagonal swath through the jacket from shoulder to hip. The gun went off, and Dedaker roared, his arms splayed like a parishioner in the throes of holy ecstasy. Blood splurted from his back. Baker raised the blade again, but Dedaker’s flailing arm whacked him in the jaw. Baker tried to catch himself, but his bound wrists failed him, and he face-planted, half in, half out of the kitchen.

Dedaker’s mad eyes blazed down at him. “You stupid cockknocker!” He pointed the gun at Baker’s head.

The dik-dik launched herself at Dedaker. She rebounded off his knee, but it was enough to distract him. Dedaker pivoted and took aim at the animal.

Baker swiped the knife at Dedaker’s shin. The blade sliced through skin and bone with a meatyschlink. Dedaker howled and the gun cracked and searing pain sizzled through Baker’s left shoulder.Wincing, he craned his head around in time to see the dik-dik’s hind legs vanish through the doggy door.

Good, he thought.

Still squalling, Dedaker banged into the refrigerator and crumpled to the floor. Baker flopped over and army-crawled toward him. One of Dedaker’s veiny hands was clamped over his shin, the blood burbling between his fingers. His other hand still clutched the pistol.

Baker closed the distance. He pushed up between Dedaker’s spraddled work boots and raised the knife.

Dedaker’s eyes shot wide. “Don’t—” he started, but Baker whipped the blade sideways, cleaving the man’s stretched cheeks. Scarlet sprayed everywhere, but Baker blinked it away and plunged the knife into Dedaker’s larynx. Blood geysered over them both, and Dedaker slouched, fingers scrabbling at the embedded blade. Baker shoved away from the man’s scissoring legs and went to work on his wrist binding. Dedaker’s blood had lubed the fabric, so after some struggle he was able to slip his hands free. A wave of lightheadedness billowed through him. He rolled onto his belly. Dedaker’s death gurgles had ceased, but the slaughterhouse smells of blood and feces clogged Baker’s nostrils.

Jesus, he thought.Jesus.

The house was utterly silent. Evidently, the animal had run away for good.Smart girl, he decided. The farther she got from here, the better. He lay there a long time, so long he scarcely heard the doggy door bow inward. When he opened his eyes, the dik-dik stood before him. He watched, amazed, as her long snout dipped, hesitated, then brushed against his bloody fingers.

He dragged Dedaker’s carcass through the yard and made it a few feet past the tree line before dizziness overtook him. He staggered back to the house, took one look at the grisly bloodbath in his kitchen, and vomited into the sink.

The dik-dik attending his steps, he hobbled to the bathroom and showered. An inspection of his shoulder disclosed an inch-long trough where the bullet had grazed him, so he dumped half a bottle of peroxide on it and hissed as it bubbled white. That done, he drew a bath, wrestled the dik-dik into the tub, and with a considerable amount of fuss managed to scrub away the kerosene stink. The lamp glass had harrowed her hide, so after tweezing out several slivers, he drizzled the rest of the peroxide on her wounds, and this time she sprang right out of his grasp and clattered about the bathroom squeaking in pain. After she got it out of her system, he wrapped her in a towel and situated her in the kitchen doorway. It took him the better part of an hour to collect the broken glass and mop up Dedaker’s blood. The animal watched the whole process with interest.