Free Spiked by Mark Arsenault

sliver of the room. There, on a knee-high pile of newspaper by the door, was a pair of red mittens.
    Edging closer, he peered from darkness into the red light.
    The Cambodian woman stood with her back to Eddie, in front of a round kitchen table draped in newspaper. The chanting continued from deeper in the room, out of Eddie’s view. Above the table, strung on a wire, hung two small battery lanterns. They were wrapped in red plastic tape. To the right of the table stood an easel. It displayed a large black-and-white photograph Eddie had never seen before, but recognized in an instant.
    It was a picture of Danny Nowlin.
    The photo measured about fourteen inches diagonally, and was of poor quality. The pixels were too big, like it had been enlarged from a smaller print without the negative. Danny sat alone in the picture, a posed smile on his face.
    The chanting stopped and the woman stepped aside. On a square of white handkerchief at the center of the table rested Nowlin’s reddish ponytail. She had stolen it, stolen it from the wake in front of everyone. Stunned, Eddie fixated on the lock of hair.
    When he glanced to the woman again, she was staring back at him.
    That’s when Fear nestled up behind him and raked her razor red nails over his Adam’s apple. Eddie tried to swallow the lump in his throat. It went down like a fistful of bobby pins.
    The woman was still. Her expression said nothing. They both waited, waited.
Good God, she’s beautiful—
    Bzzzzzzz.
    â€œHey!” Eddie yelped. The telephone in his fist was ringing.
Not now Gordie!
    A man’s voice called out.
    Eddie spun and ran with abandon, thundering down the hall.
    The man yelled again. The language was a mystery to Eddie, but he understood the angry tone. Heavy footsteps pounded after him. Running seemed like a fine plan after all. Nobody could catch him, not with the lead he had.
    Shadows flickered on the wall above the stairs. He thought he smelled smoke.
    Then he heard a piercing crack, and the squeal of old eight-penny nails tearing from place. The floor rushed up at him and Eddie fought for balance. His right foot plunged through a broken floorboard, straight through thin ceiling slats and plaster, and then into space. His chest crashed to the floor and there was another loud crack.
    The blow knocked the wind out of him. Pain crackled up his spine like electricity along a ragged wire. A scream stuck fast inside the vacuum of his empty lungs. Eddie clawed wildly at the floorboards, and then fell through them. He thrashed in the air, grabbing for something solid in the debris, and then instinctively wrapped his arms around his head and waited for the parlor floor.

Chapter 8
    Eddie woke to purring.
    He listened a while and decided this was not a cat’s purr, which goes in and out like a man sawing wood. This purr held steady. A motor, he thought. Powerful, and in perfect tune. He felt a swaying, like being below decks on the ferry to Nantucket, but not so predictable.
    He thought to open his eyes. And then realized they were open and everything was black. He was on his right side. His knees were pulled up to his chin. Eddie’s hip ached and his head felt magnetized to the floor. His cheek pressed into scratchy carpeting, and he tasted blood. His left hand was sticky and there was grit between the fingers. He reached up and felt the ceiling, very cold, just above his head.
    His concussed brain correctly reasoned that this was the trunk of a car. But it could not decide if this was where he should be. And then the world phased back out.
    A low grunt came next. It was a self-satisfied noise after a tough job done well.
    Eddie was weightless, floating in space, arms stretched out like Superman.
    It was so quiet out here.
    The crash rattled back some of his senses. A low crack echoed once, and an icy shock bit into his flesh. Eddie lifted his head from water and silently gasped. He had landed face-down on milky ice. A section