Endurance - Jack Kilborn [49]
Hurrying to it, he grabbed a metal clothes hanger and stretched it in his hands, wincing as he bent back the hook on top. When the wire opened up, he tucked one end under John’s armpit. Then Felix brought the two ends together and began to twist the hanger around John’s biceps. It was easy at first. But once the wire began to meet with resistance, Felix didn’t have enough strength in his mangled fingers to make it tight.
Dammit, where’s Cam?
Felix picked up a broken chair leg and jammed that under the wire. He began to turn the leg, like a propeller, cinching the wire tight against John’s skin.
John moaned.
The wound still bled.
Gritting his teeth, Felix jammed the sock back into John’s mouth and twisted the leg even harder.
The hanger pressed deep into John’s flabby arm, then broke the skin. More blood poured out, covering the wire. Felix tried to twist the wire off, and the blood dripped out of the split flesh like a towel being wrung out.
No. No no no no…
“John. Listen to me.” Felix grabbed John’s cheeks, which had grown sickly pale. “You need to tell me where she is.”
“Help… me.”
“I’ll help you. But I need to you tell me.”
John’s eyes glazed over, and he seemed to be looking far away. “Help… me… Dwight…”
Dwight?
Felix felt the gun press against the back of his head. He knew who Dwight was. The Sheriff of Monk Creek had been of no help to Felix during his quest, refusing even the simplest of requests.
“Stand up. Hands over your head. Slow and easy, or I’ll have to use force, like I did with your friend outside.”
Felix felt his entire world crumbling. He lifted up his hands.
“This man tried to kill me, Sheriff. He’s got my fiancé. The one I told you about.”
“Is that so?”
The Sheriff grabbed Felix’s wrist, twisting his arm and forcing him face-first into the blood-soaked carpet. He felt the Sheriff put a foot on his back, and the handcuff go on.
“You have to believe me,” Felix said, his words blowing a bubble of John’s blood. “Please.”
“We’ll get to the truth of this whole situation.” The Sheriff gave his arm another rough twist, then slapped on the second cuff. “That’s for damn sure.”
“Help me, Dwight,” John said again. His voice had gotten very weak.
“You don’t look so good, Johnny. Where’s your styptic?”
“I dunno, Dwight. In my truck.”
“Shit lot of good it’s doin’ you there.”
Felix turned and looked up at the Sheriff. Though not as big as John, Dwight was a large, portly man, with a doughy face and a bald head. He was wearing a brown shirt and green slacks, his badge handing on his belt next to his gun. The Sheriff knelt next to John, and unwound the coat hanger.
“Don’t move, dummy. I got to open the wound for this to work.”
The Sheriff unclipped a knife from his belt and brought the blade next to John’s arm.
“Don’t… move.”
With a quick motion, the sheriff jammed the tip into the original wound and cut sideways. John howled, jerking his whole body sideways.
“Goddamn it, John! I almost nicked my finger!”
“It hurts! They broke my fingers, Dwight! They broke all my digits!”
“I gotta expose the goddamn artery.”
The blood was really gushing now, almost like a water fountain. Felix watched the Sheriff pull a tan package out of his breast pocket. It had QuikClot printed on the paper. He tore off a corner and poured white powder into John’s wound. John yelped.
“Shush, now. Stop being a baby.”
“It burns, Dwight. B-burns bad.”
“Hold still. I need to see if I got it all.”
John twitched. Felix stared at John’s arm. The powder indeed stopped all the bleeding. But there seemed to be another problem.
“Jesus, Dwight! Hurts even worse!”
Felix could see why. The hemostatic agent apparently had stopped the blood from leaking out, but it hadn’t stopped the internal bleeding. John’s triceps began to expand, like a balloon.
“I’m gonna have to open you up again, John. Hold on, I got more styptic in the car.”
“No! Please, Dwight!