Devoted(62)
Freeman and his partner approached the Dodge with caution, but they also ceaselessly surveyed the eclipsed woods beyond the light provided by their car. That gloom seemed somehow different from any that Freeman had known before, like the fabled outer dark beyond all hope of Eden.
If the moment felt fraught with unnatural or even supernatural threat, then the attack came in harmony with the mood, the assailant dropping from a branch high above their line of sight, like a winged devil. He crashed hard into Walter Colt and drove him to the ground at the back of the Dodge. The deputy’s gun flew from his hand, hit spang on the bumper of the car, and spun away into the shuddering brush.
In shock, Freeman reeled back a step, two steps, as Colt heaved and rolled to get atop of—or cast off—his attacker. The deputy was the bigger of the two, but it was at once evident, from the snarling ferocity of his assailant, that size and combat training might not be enough to beat back the assault.
The tangled, thrashing bodies in a frantic struggle allowed Freeman no easy shot, in fact no shot at all. He stepped forward to join the fray, intending to club Nathan Palmer on the head with the barrel of his pistol. He halted when Walter Colt screamed. As long as he’d known the man, Colt had never shown fear, never issued a complaint about pain, remained always the definition of stoic. This wasn’t merely a scream of pain, but also of pure terror, and carried on it were words: “He’s biting, he’s biting!”
In the glare of the headlights, Colt’s left hand was gloved in blood—not just his left, both hands—blood on his face, too, the assailant snapping at his throat, Colt fending him off with bleeding hands, attacker slamming a knee into his victim’s crotch, slamming and slamming. Palmer glanced once at Freeman, and a slick mass of bloody saliva slid from his mouth, across a curve of grinning teeth, his fierce glare bright with animal eyeshine.
With no clear shot, in the clutches of fright, Freeman returned to the patrol car, grabbed the cattle prod, which would deliver a high-voltage low-amperage charge, enough to dissuade a bear or bull, maybe enough to kill a man if applied relentlessly. He was back at the scene in three seconds. Colt was still screaming. Department rules forbade the use of the prod on a human being. Fuck the rules. He jammed the copper prongs into Palmer’s back.
In contact with his attacker, Walter Colt would receive a hard but less disabling subsidiary shock, but there was no helping that. The maniac howled, and Freeman stung him again, and Palmer fell off his victim, facedown on the dirt track.
Gasping, groaning, Colt tried with only a little success to overcome the shock, to hitch away from his assailant.
Palmer should remain paralyzed for twenty to thirty seconds and be disoriented, largely helpless, for a minute or more after that.
Freeman slipped a thick plastic zip-tie handcuff from his utility belt. He dropped to one knee beside the prostrate attacker, intending to bind the bastard’s wrists tight together behind his back.
Palmer flailed, rolled over, tried to sit up, hissing with the fury of a taunted serpent.
Heart knocking so hard that it shook his arms, zip tie slipping from his sweat-slick fingers, Freeman scrambled backward, snatched up the cattle prod. He jammed the copper terminals into the maniac’s abdomen. Palmer clawed the hard-packed earth, scoring it as if his fingers were talons and the ground mere sand. Freeman shocked him again, again, and Palmer tossed his head, the cords in his neck standing out like steel cables, and Freeman gave him yet another jolt, a longer one. At last Palmer collapsed, unconscious or dead; Freeman didn’t care which.
He knelt and rolled Palmer facedown and zip tied the man’s hands behind his back. He drew the plastic straps tighter than regulations allowed, then used a second zip tie, even though he’d never heard tell of anyone breaking free of one. He tightened a zip tie around each of the man’s ankles and connected them with a third.
At last, he felt for a pulse in Palmer’s neck and regretted that he detected one.
During all of that, Walter Colt had managed to crawl to the patrol car and sit with his back against the front fender on the starboard side. He was bleeding from both hands, and the little finger on his left had been bitten off. The forefinger hung loose but was still attached by a shred of flesh. The ball of his chin had been bitten so severely that it wobbled as though it would fall off the bone. He was crying like a child, maybe in physiological shock.
Freeman Johnson hurried around to the driver’s door and got behind the wheel and grabbed the mic. He called for an ambulance—“officer down, critical wounds”—gave his position, and asked for backup—“as much damn backup as you can get me”—because the batteries in the prod must be nearly depleted. The plastic cuffs would hold; they always held. But someone was going to have to get a bite block in Palmer’s mouth before they transported him, and Freeman wasn’t going to do that without plenty of assistance.
He got out of the car, retrieved the emergency medical kit from the trunk, went around to Walter, and knelt at his side. The hands were bleeding but not so bad that a tourniquet was required before the EMTs got here. He gave Walter two spools of gauze to squeeze lightly in his fists, to apply pressure to the wounds in his palms. Nothing could be done about the chin.
“Ambulance in route, buddy. They’ll be here in a five minutes, not long, sooner than five.”
“Jesus God,” Walter said, his voice breaking.