Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(139)

Liv hit the tire iron with her foot. Scooped it up. By the time they got to the door, the room was choked with acrid smoke. The door was locked. Liv flung herself at it, yelling and pounding with the tire iron. The thing barely scratched the varnish. Cindy tugged at her arm.

“We need that guy’s body!” she coughed out. “We need his eye!”

“What?” Liv yelled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“His eye!” Cindy croaked, louder. “The door’s got one of those retina scan lock doohickeys. I think the card’s in his pocket.”

Cindy fell to her knees, took as deep a breath as she could, and scrambled over the floor. Flames roared against the back wall. The sicko doctor’s shoes were smoldering. She grabbed his arm. Liv blundered out of the smoke, and grabbed the other arm. Somehow, they got the corpse to the door. Cindy rummaged in his pockets for the key card.

“We gotta get him on his feet,” she panted. She and Liv hoisted up the dead weight of the guy’s bloody, neck lolling, head-flopping corpse up to eye level. “Ohmigod, this is sickening! I want to barf,” Cindy gasped.

“Later,” Liv sputtered, coughing. “Barf later.”

Cindy swiped the card. The machine beeped. She pried the doctor’s eyelid open. Put his clammy, scummy dead eyeball up to the scanner. A red light shot in, turned green. Click, the lock popped loose.

The doctor’s corpse pitched over the threshhold. They kicked him aside to make way to drag Sean. Stumbled towards the end of the smoky tunnel, hacking and spitting. They shoved open the door, tumbled out into sweet, fresh air. Smoke boiled out along with them.

Click. The sound of a bullet being chambered. They spun around.

“Just where do you ladies think you’re going?” Gordon rasped.



Miles’s shoe slipped on the branch. He grabbed the bough above his head. There was so much smoke in the air, he hoped that the leaves and twigs falling to the ground would go unnoticed.

He’d crawled off the roof of the underground building, and onto an overhanging branch. He was filthy from crawling on his belly through mud and leaves. His legs wobbled and shook. They could probably hear his heart thudding a half a mile away.

The grave digger’s taunting voice floated up from below. “…one of you shall I shoot first? Tough choice. I wanted to bang you both before I snuffed you, but it looks like I’m going to have to pick. Eenie, meenie, minie, moe. Did you take your pants off just for me?”

A low, hacking cough. “No, I didn’t.” Cindy’s voice was hoarse, but steady. “Fuck off and die, you sick *.”

Miles inched further out. The slender bough he crouched on was bowing under his weight, but he wasn’t over T-Rex’s head yet. He was only getting one chance at surprising this guy. It had better count.

“Ooh. Naughty girls who use bad words will get punished,” T-Rex crooned. “Turn around, sweet cheeks. Show me your ass.”

“Not,” Cindy said. Her voice shook.

“Let me restate that. Turn around or I’ll gut-shoot you.”

Miles took one more shuffling step. Another. Almost there…

Crack. The branch broke. Down he went, along with what felt like half the tree. He landed on top of the guy. Thuds, shrieks, shouts.

A gun went off. He was flung, like a toy. Concrete smacked him, conking his head. T-Rex came at him, screaming with rage.

Miles’s body jackknifed. His dress shoes slammed into the other man’s gut, lifting him, tossing him headlong. He rolled up onto his feet. So did the other guy. Miles’s leg whipped out at T-Rex’s gun hand, and he was astonished to make contact. Smack. The gun flipped, twirled. Miles lunged, but T-Rex jabbed in a frontal kick, right into his nose.

Blood squirted. Miles reeled back, saw stars. Crunch, he took another doozy to the ribs. He fell, saw the gun, reached for it—

T-Rex kicked it away, and stomped on Miles’s fingers with a huge booted foot. “I don’t think so, dickhead,” he snarled.

There was a crackling, popping noise. Miles screamed as the boot crushed all the bones in his hand. He grabbed Miles’s wrist, lifted his boot off. Wrenched the arm up, and violently back. Snap. Agony.

Then T-Rex stumbled back. Cindy was clinging to his back like a crazy monkey, clawing at his face with something sharp. He bellowed, and flung her off. She flew, legs flailing, hit the concrete. Lay very still.

Miles struggled up onto his knees, but knives were stabbing his lungs, and his arm, his hand, were a throbbing mass of fiery splinters.

He tried to get into guard. His legs wobbled crazily beneath him.

T-Rex wiped his bloody face. “Say goodbye to your face, pretty boy,” he snarled, winding up for a kick. “I’m going to cave it in for you.”

Thunk. A hollow, wet sound. T-Rex’s face took on a surprised look. He toppled forward. A ton of malodorous meat crashed down on Miles’s f*cked-up arm and hand, and sweet bleeding Christ, it hurt.

Liv stood there, clutching a tire iron in shaking hands. Barefoot, eyes blank and staring, in her clinging, blood-drenched red halter dress.



Liv waited until Miles had wriggled out from beneath T-Rex’s bulk before she staggered forward and prodded at the man’s head with the tire iron. No more surprises for this woman today, thank you.

There was a bloody, gaping hole in T-Rex’s skull. She stared at it, mouth dangling. She should feel proud. Triumphant. She felt nothing.