“No…”
Dez heard the word, but she could not tell if she spoke it, or Sheldon. It could not have been Strauss. That much was obvious. He had no lips left with which to speak. His mouth and cheeks had been torn away, and his eyes stared in terminal astonishment up at the roof of green leaves.
The sounds of the forest were gone, washed out of the moment by another sound. That of Andy Diviny chewing a mouthful of flesh.
“No!”
This time it was Sheldon who spoke—who almost sobbed the word—and then his sob turned into snarl as he rushed forward and swung the stock of his shotgun at Diviny’s jaw. Dez watched, unable to react. There was a terrific crack! Bone shattered, teeth flew, and the young cop’s head whipped around so fast that his whole body was spun into an awkward pirouette. Diviny crashed into the rhododendron and fell almost out of sight except for his twitching legs.
Sheldon looked down at him and then jerked his head around to look at Schneider and Strauss; then he spun toward Dez. His eyes were huge and wild and he was breathing in and out with alarming rapidity.
“Fucking no!” screamed Sheldon.
Dez shook her head in mute agreement and denial.
There were sounds behind her. Yells, bodies crashing through the brush, and, as she turned, JT was there, and the others were right behind him. They hit the edge of the clearing and jerked to a stop as if there were a force field. It was impossible to them as well.
Three officers down. Two dead. One battered and twitching. Everyone looked around wildly for the perps, for the maniacs who had done this; and gradually those eyes focused on Sheldon and Dez.
“It was Andy Diviny,” said Dez woodenly. “When we got here Strauss was down and Andy was … biting Schneider. I don’t … I don’t…” She shook her head, unable to construct a logical end to that sentence.
JT stood blinking at the dead officers, his eyelids fluttering as if they could brush away the image that he was seeing. Then he took a tentative step in, and another, and then he ran the rest of the way to Dez. He took her by the arms and stared at her, his gaze flicking up and down, looking for injuries.
“Dez! Are you hurt?”
She half laughed. That was what he had asked her before. The answer was clear. The answer was yes.
She said, “No. ”
He suddenly pulled her to him and gave her a fierce hug. Like a father would. Like a brother in arms would.
Chief Goss came waddling into the clearing, his face bright red and his uniform damp at the chest and armpits with fresh sweat. Dez pulled free of JT’s hug and turned toward him. She watched him as he tried to read the scene.
“It was Andy,” said Sheldon in a hoarse voice. “Andy Diviny … He … he…” He shook his head. Like Dez, he did not possess a vocabulary for this.
“He did what?” shouted Goss. “What are you trying to say?”
“It’s true,” croaked Dez. “Diviny, he … when we got here he was…”
“Hey!” yelled JT. “Sheldon … watch … He’s getting up?”
Everyone turned toward Diviny, who was struggling to get to his hands and knees in the dense tangle of the shrubbery. He snarled, exposing jagged rows of broken teeth. Then, with a savage growl, Sheldon Higdon stepped forward and grabbed him by the back of the belt and hauled him up, spun him violently around and then flung him face first onto the grass.
“Cuff that sick son of a bitch!”
The two closest officers hesitated. This was all so weird.
“Wait … what are you saying, Shel?” said the older of the two. “You’re all screwed up here. Andy got here the same time we did. He couldn’t have attacked Doc and—”
“Open your eyes! He just killed Mike Schneider and Jeff Strauss, goddamn it. We saw him do it,” yelled Sheldon, and he aimed a savage kick at Diviny’s backside, knocking the young cop down as he tried to get up. “Throw some cuffs on that motherfucker before I pop a cap in—”
Diviny twisted around on the ground. His eyes were wide and dark and empty. His shattered chin was bearded with blood, and his throat was a junkyard of torn flesh. His mouth was a feral snarl. With another unnatural hiss, he threw himself at the older cop, but the officer jerked away, backpedaling ten feet. Every gun swiveled around and pointed at Diviny.
As Diviny rushed at Sheldon, Dez stuck a leg out and tripped him. The deranged young cop fell hard, but again he began climbing to his feet, showing no signs of pain or fear.
“What the hell’s wrong with him?” demanded Goss.
Dez began moving around the edge of the circle of cops, waving them back. “I don’t know. He just went crazy. ” She grabbed Goss’s sleeve. “Chief, listen to me … Natalie Shanahan’s down, too. I think Andy killed her, too. ”