Afterbirth by Belinda Frisch Page B

body twitched and when she grabbed at the man’s sleeve, she saw the crucifix tattoo that told her the man was Max Reid.

CHAPTER 25
     
    Frank lifted his knees and trudged through the foot-tall grass toward the crash site he’d seen from the upstairs bedroom window. The heels of his boots sunk in the mud and made it harder to walk. He gripped the pistol handle and tried not to fall.
    “What are the chances this thing runs?” John asked.
    Frank aimed the beam of the penlight at the ambulance fifty feet or so off the road. The words ‘Strandville EMS’ stuck out in bright red lettering against a white background. “I’d say good, considering where it is. Had I not been upstairs, I wouldn’t have seen it. Means no one else has, either.”
    “For our sakes, I hope you’re right.”
    Frank glanced at sunken back tires, caught in two rivets of partially dried mud. “Looks like it might be stuck, but at least the fuel door is closed. Means no one’s siphoned the gas.”
    “Now all we need are keys in the ignition and a working engine.”
    Frank cautiously approached the driver’s side. A spotty film of mud covered the window and made it impossible to see in. He felt a run of palpitations in his chest as his hand closed around the door handle. He threw it open and coughed.
    John bent over, his hands on his knees, and vomited the undigested remains of a sleeve of communion wafers and alcohol.
    Frank grimaced and looked over the dead body in the driver’s seat. “You were hoping for keys, right?” He jingled the keys in the ignition, keeping his eye on the emaciated body of a distantly familiar man in the driver’s seat. Dressed in the requisite blue jumpsuit and boots with the nametag that said Carl, the body of the once hefty man whom he’d only worked with for a couple of months before retirement, had deteriorated to little more than bones and spotty patches of tissue.
    “Help me get him out of here,” Frank said.
    “I…” John’s cheeks puffed out and he continued vomiting, unable to finish a sentence.
    “Never mind.” Frank opened the passenger’s side door and set his gun on the dash. His boot stuck in the mud and as he stepped up into the ambulance, his foot came out of it. His dingy, white sock dangled from the tip of his sweaty foot and he pulled it up before reaching for his shoe. “This is just great.” He took a long look at Carl’s remains, checking him for bite marks, and found none immediately visible. His eyes were closed, his pallor the ashen color of quick-dry cement mix. His left hand rested on the steering wheel and the flesh had all but disappeared, leaving his wedding ring circling the bone of his finger. “Poor son of a bitch.” Frank pulled on his boot and situated himself sideways in the passenger’s seat. He put his foot against Carl’s side and prepared to shove him out when his opaque, white eyes popped open. “Holy shit!” Frank fumbled for his pistol. “John, get the hell over here.”
    Carl’s near-skeletal right hand grabbed Frank’s leg, and before John could even try and help, Frank put three bullets into Carl’s head. Black blood dripped from the gaping holes in Carl’s right temple. Frank kicked, hard, and ejected the body onto the ground in front of where John was standing.
    “What the hell, Frank?” John wiped his chin and stepped back from the corpse at his feet.
    “Thanks for handling that one,” Frank said, sarcastically, and climbed in the driver’s seat. “Get in.” He closed the driver’s side door and turned the key in the ignition. The engine spat and sputtered a few times before finally turning over.
    John got into the passenger’s seat and immediately rolled down the window. “I don’t know how much more of this smell I can handle.”
    “The body’s out. It should dissipate.”
    “Think we can get this thing unstuck?”
    Frank slammed on the gas and spun the tires. The ambulance pulled forward and settled back into the rut. A cloud