Free The Cove by Rick Hautala Page B

snapped like a string of exploding firecrackers. Swirling flashes of white light filled his vision like a flurry of fireflies. Then the sky and earth were swallowed up by darkness. A loud whooshing sound filled his ears. He didn’t recognize his own heartbeat.
    “You got it?” the voice said from somewhere far, far away.
    Ben tried to nod, but his neck was too stiff to move.
    “Yeah … yeah,” he said. “I got it.”
    His voice was little more than a croak. He sagged forward and spread his hands out to clasp the cool, rough surface of the wood, hugging the piling like a lover. He was grateful for its support. It was the only thing keeping him on his feet.
    “You fuckin ’-A better get it,” the voice snarled, and then something sledge hammer hard slammed into his back above his left kidney.
    Ben’s breath gushed out in an explosive gasp that ended with a high wheezing sound as the night collapsed around him. His knees stiffened, and he took a few jolting sideways steps, but finally his legs gave out, and he crumpled to the ground in a slow pirouette.
    He never even noticed the pain when the back of his head hit the sandy patch of gravel and crushed seashells.

Chapter Four
     
    The Crowbar
     
    “O h, my God! You look terrible. What happened?”
    “Would you believe me if I said I walked into a tree last night? Never even saw it coming.”
    Julia didn’t laugh at his attempted humor. Standing in her doorway, she looked at Ben with the most amazing sympathy in her dark eyes. It pained him to see his pain reflected in her face.
    “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t. Are you going to tell me about it?”
    Ben winced when he raised a hand and touched the swelling under his left eye.
    “I had a little too much to drink last night, is all,” he said.
    “It looks to me as though you were in a fight.”
    “Maybe.” Ben chuckled. “A little one.” He and Julia exchanged glances, and he added, “But you should see the other guy.”
    He hoped that would end the discussion, and it did … at least for now. Besides the bruise on his cheek, the bump on the back of his head and — especially — the pain in his lower back above the kidney hurt like hell. The tiny cuts on his hands from the barnacles stung as if he’d dipped the open wounds in lime juice.
    But it was a gorgeous morning, and Ben wasn’t going to let what had happened last night ruin the day. He had been awake long before dawn with another one of the dreams.
    The dust swirled in burning, red-brown clouds around him. 30mm bursts from the Apache helicopter overhead fired into the group of insurgents running down the street in front of him. Ben led his platoon in pursuit, making their way through the dust. They passed men with their heads blown to pulp, men with their torsos opened from neck to groin. Suddenly a little Iraqi girl, no more than six years old, walked out of the cloud of dust into a shaft of light. She was crying, and her intestines were spilling onto the ground from her shot-up belly.
    Ben bent down to pick her up and take her to a hospital, but her guts coiled tightly around his chest, like an octopus, making it impossible to breathe. She looked at him, staring deeply into his eyes, and then she sank her teeth into his neck. His blood started spurting everywhere, but he had no breath to scream …
    Ben had awakened with a roaring shout and leaped out of bed in a cold, sweaty panic. After that, sleep was impossible.
    As expected, his father had stumbled home sometime in the early morning hours. Ben wasn’t positive, but he thought he’d heard a woman’s voice, too. He had no idea if his father or Pete had brought a woman home. He hoped Pete had lucked out after all and caught up with Bunny Dawkins, but Ben didn’t bother to check.
    In spite of the warning he’d gotten last night, right after he finished with breakfast, he called Julia and asked her out for lunch. To be on the safe side, he decided to pick her up at her house and drive