Last Days by Brian Evenson;Peter Straub Page A

waiting for him. He only needs to bring the cleaver down for it to begin.

LAST DAYS
You've only got one finger left,
And it's pointing toward the door.
    --Beck, "Lord Only Knows"

PART ONE
    The second time was worse than the first, both because he already knew how it would feel and because of how much thicker an elbow is than a wrist. Still, he managed it, left-handed, despite Borchert's pistol trained at his head. First he carefully tied a tourniquet around the upper arm and then brought the cleaver down hard, chopping all the way through on the first try, and then he thrust the stump against the burner. The stump sizzled and smoked, his vision starting to go. He shook his head and took two steps toward Borchert, and then collapsed.

    After that, it became more complicated. He came conscious to find Borchert kneeling beside him, still aiming the pistol, grinning eagerly down.
    "And what," Borchert asked, eyes glittering, "shall we cut off next?"
    He struck Borchert as hard as he could in the throat and the man fell back, gasping. Kline dragged his way on top of him, managing to get to Borchert's gun in time to jam a thumb into the guard behind its trigger. He bore down with his full weight, working his way slowly up Borchert's body while the latter kept squeezing the gun's trigger, trying to tear off his thumb. A moment later, Kline broke Borchert's nose with his forehead.
    It took a few more blows before the man was unconscious and Kline could wrest the gun away. Then he stuffed Borchert's mouth with the sash of his robe. Straddling the man's chest, he slapped him softly until his eyes opened.
    I feel fine , he tried to tell himself while it was going on, though he felt as though he were some distance from his body. I've never felt better . His missing arm didn't even hurt. He wondered idly how long it would be before he died of shock.
    "Hello, Borchert," he said, when the man's eyes focused, and then he reached out and strangled him with his single hand. It was hard to get a good grip, and hard to keep hold. At a certain moment, he began to feel dizzy, and was afraid he might pass out. But by the time that moment had passed, Borchert seemed mostly dead.
    After that, it became more complicated still.

I.
    Light, then dark, then light again. Something pressing into his cheek. Sounds dopplering toward him and away, cars maybe. The taste of blood in his mouth and then his mouth filling with blood and he had to make an effort to cough it up so as to breathe. Slowly his mouth filled with blood again. Almost certainly he was bleeding to death. He kept taking slow breaths and then coughing blood and then taking slower and slower breaths. After a while he stopped hearing anything and it was nothing but dark. He tried to keep breathing anyway.

    Once he'd stopped breathing, he opened his eyes. He was in a hospital bed, tubing running from an IV into his arm. He thought he should get up, but when he tried it felt like a knife was being driven hilt-deep into his eye. So he stopped trying.
    Instead, he lay there, staring first at the curtain screening the bed off from the rest of the room and then into the bank of fluorescent lights above him. When he closed his eyes, the lights were still there, gathered behind his eyelids, sharp and clear.
    Probably really a hospital , he thought, eyes still closed. Which could be good or bad. But never as bad as if it isn't really a hospital .

    It took him awhile to notice that the rest of his arm was now missing, lopped off at the shoulder joint. Awkwardly, he unwrapped the dressing, peeling the stained gauze away. Whoever had done it had done a professional job, the stump's end smooth and expertly blocked off, evenly cauterized, suppurating just slightly.
    When he flexed his shoulder, the absent arm throbbed and the stump seeped a little faster. His missing hand throbbed less, almost not at all. Worst of all was the stretch between wrist and elbow that he had cut off himself as Borchert watched.