Free The Truth Collector by Corey Pemberton Page A

kinds of pointy things without slowing down or making any effort to avoid them. Towards the water he rushed, like a surfer about to catch a wave to remember.
    Except there were no waves to speak of. There was only sludge and a thin man with a garbage bag in his hand.
    Malcolm and Paul ran after him.

 
    CHAPTER NINE
    Paul grabbed him by the ankles just before he made it to the water.
    He snapped back at his captors, teeth bared like a crocodile caught in a trap. His limbs flailed with a wiry strength that outsized his frame. He snarled and lashed out without ever taking a hand off his garbage bag. He clutched it against his chest and screamed when Malcolm began to pry at his fingers.
    “Craig,” Paul said, holding his ankles. “Cut it out. We just want to talk.”
    Craig grunted a reply. He cried out when Malcolm grabbed his wrists. He writhed in their grip, splashing them with oil-slicked water and spit. There wasn't a man in there but an animal, backed into a corner and fighting desperately for its life. He jerked again and water nearly splashed onto the tape recorder in Malcolm's coat pocket. Then Malcolm picked up a rock and slammed it down on the back of Craig's head.
    His body went limp in their arms. Blood splashed onto the riverbank when they dragged him away from the water. Paul was berating him for beating the poor guy over the head and Malcolm was ignoring him, looking for a half-decent place where they could get some privacy on a beach teeming with hobos on the edge of civilization. “There,” he said. He pointed at a stack of half-burned tires near a pile of trash. “Let's take him there.” Eyes followed them, but they paid little enough attention. Violence and someone in the throes of a drug withdrawal – or whatever was going on with the unconscious dude – were about as ordinary as river birds flying and shitting above them.
    They got to the tires and dropped his unconscious body on the dirt. His cut wasn't too deep, but it still bled freely. Malcolm grabbed a piece of an old t-shirt and wrapped it around Fielder's head.
    “Now what?” Paul said. “What happens when he comes to?”
    Malcolm pointed to the garbage bag on Craig's chest. “Go through that. Whatever's in there matters to him. Maybe it matters to us too.”
    Paul grabbed the bag and dumped its contents onto the ground. Clothes fell out – a dress shirt and slacks and shoes – all wrapped up together in a careless ball.
    All of them covered in blood.
    Paul separated them and laid them out on the ground. “Holy shit...” There was nothing else to add. The bloody clothes told the story well, and Malcolm and Paul had already seen how it ended: two corpses returned to life.
    “He did it,” Paul said, staring at the clothes. “He must have.”
    Craig's eyes fluttered open.
    Malcolm pressed his shoe onto the man's chest, increasing the pressure as an adrenaline shot of energy flowed through Craig's limbs. His eyes flashed down to his torso. The bag – his precious secrets – was gone. He screamed and writhed and snapped his teeth. Malcolm held the bloody rock above his head, but that only spurred Craig on. He looked up at it and sneered, daring Malcolm to drop it right between his eyes and end it all right there.
    Malcolm put the rock down instead. He reached for the rag around Craig's head and ripped it off inches away from his gnashing teeth. Paul piled tires on Craig's legs. Then Malcolm stuffed the rag into Craig's mouth and held it there. “Shut up,” he said. “Just shut up if you want your precious bag back.”
    Craig thrashed around, trying all of his limbs. But there were tires and arms and shoes pressing down from every direction. Finally he went limp and looked up at the moon.
    “Will you stay quiet if I take this rag out?” Malcolm said.
    Craig nodded – not at Malcolm, but past him. He stared at the sky or into other worlds with all the awareness of a hospital patient under anesthesia. When Malcolm removed the rag