Chapter 19

Finn brought the wrecker to a halt, crawled over Liv and looked out her window. "You must've hit your head harder than you thought ... but I guess I did too. Looks like headlights or something. Wonder what the hell anyone's doing down there?" He turned off the engine, grabbed the flashlight from behind the seat and opened the door.

"Probably some high school kids having a kegger." He clicked on the light. "Hey, you wanna go scare the shit out of them? I'll run down yelling about zombies and tell them to run for their lives. Then you pop out of nowhere."

"Hey, why do I have to be the zombie?" Liv protested.

"Because you're already in costume!" Finn braced for the shoulder punch Liv promptly delivered.

"Here, this will keep your zombie flesh warm." He tossed Liv a pair of long sleeved work overalls from the toolbox on the back of the truck.

"Better be glad I'm not a zombie, your brains would probably look delicious," Liv said as she put on the warm clothes.

"A zombie would starve eating my brains. You wanna check this out or not?"

Liv stared off into the darkness. Her nerves were still badly shaken from her earlier ordeal, but she wasn't quite ready to deal with reality. The longer she could put off explaining to the authorities what had happened to her, the better. Besides, with Finn at her side she was feeling less skittish. But just in case they ran into any nasty surprises, she tucked the Steyr into the side pocket of the overalls. "Ah what the hell, I was really hoping this day would get stranger. Besides, I could really use a beer. Hope they brought extras." She smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Shit, speaking of beer. I totally missed Cal's wedding! Grannie's gonna kill me! Now I really need a drink." The look on her face conveyed that she was going to catch hell for missing the biggest social event in Eagles Landing since the church's annual Chili Cookoff.

Determinedly, Liv grabbed her Surefire and followed Finn into the darkness. Their beams illuminated the gravelly slope as they carefully made their way to the bottom. About halfway to the headlights, the clouds parted and the harvest moon lit their path.

"Holy crap!" Finn gulped. "Hey, was the guy chasing you an Irish looking dude with red hair and a really squishy head?"

"Um, that's a weird question. He might have been Irish, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was kind of running for my life. How come?"

"Cause I think I found him." Finn's beam settled on a figure curled in an unnatural position on the rocky slope.

Liv traced the beam with her eyes. She puked the moment she spotted the corpse.

Liv had only seen one other dead body up close. Her Grandfather died of cancer when she was twelve and there had been an open casket at the funeral home. In his suit and carefully arranged pose, he looked dignified in death, unlike the carcass sprawled on the cold rocks in front of her.

The body of her tormenter was mangled. It looked as if a chainsaw wielding monkey had attacked it. A horrible coppery stench wafted from the body. Much of the skin on the head was missing and white bone shone through. The skull was cocked to the side and crushed as if pounded by a sledgehammer. Each limb was bent at an unnatural angle, like a discarded rag doll. A white femur poked through the man's leg.

Liv suppressed another round of puking and examined the body with a mixture of revulsion and curiosity. She was thrilled her attacker was dead, but the manner of death was gruesome. O'Donnell's shirt had been torn off as he scraped across the rocky terrain, revealing the bulletproof vest. "No wonder the f$%ker wouldn't die. He was wearing a goddamn vest! I knew I hit him!"

"Must've been his lucky day!" Finn commented wryly.

"Mess with the bull, get the horns, pal," Liv said with a bravado she didn't feel. She managed not to throw up while Finn searched the mangled body for anything that might indicate who he was or why he had chased after Liv. After checking each pocket, he stood and shrugged his shoulders. There wasn't even a tag on the clothing.

Liv quickly turned from the grotesque scene and continued the journey to the nearby headlights. Now, she really needed a beer. After walking in silence for a few minutes, she turned and asked, "Hey Finn, how come you didn't even gag when you saw that guy? I mean the smell alone was enough to make a skunk lose its lunch."

"Saw worse in Iraq," he said in a soft voice, head held low. "There's nothing like an improvised explosive device to f$%k your buddies up beyond recognition. I saw way too much of that. Once, we came by just a couple minutes after a suicide bomber hit a market. It was horrible- kids, parents, police, didn't matter. Found a hand with a wedding ring on it. Really terrible shit. Makes you hope there's a special hell for people who would do that."

After a moment of silence Liv reached over and put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm really sorry. It must have been terrible."

"Hey, it wasn't all bad. I think we did something good over there. But once you see the f$%ked up remains of a person, it never leaves you ... but it stops getting to you as much after you see it a few times."

They walked further down the rocky slope, neither making a sound until Finn blurted out, "Holy crap, it's a freaking SRT-8!" The vehicle sitting in the running water was unmistakable. "Jesus, I thought you were making this thing up to make your story better. I figured it was probably just a regular Grand Cherokee," he teased as he ran to the SUV. "Must've rolled into the stream and stopped. I guess the automatic headlights kicked on when it got dark." He listened, then exclaimed, "It's still running!"

"Sweet! Those bastards owe me a car," Liv said as she ran after him. She opened the driver door and jumped in. "Ah crap, it's almost out of gas." She noticed the yellow warning light. "And the car salesman promised he would fill it up before I took delivery. What a liar!"

Finn looked at Liv and couldn't help smiling as he climbed in on the passenger side. Despite her previous ordeal, she was grinning like an idiot as she caressed the leather wrapped steering wheel. Even with her disheveled hair and clothes, Liv was a stunning figure in the glow cast by the interior lights.