Joe vs Rudy

“Hey, Rude. I had a weird night,” I said. “I keep thinking I’m dreaming. It’s freaking me out.”

Rudy raised his cane and laid the heavy silver head over one shoulder as he studied me. “Do you think you’re dreaming now?”

“I … I thought I was. I mean, until you came in.”

“But now you believe you’re awake?”

“God, I hope so.” I laughed. “I can’t tell which way’s up.”

He nodded. “That makes sense. It takes at least minimal intelligence to understand what’s happening.”

I grinned. Rudy seldom makes jokes at my expense, but he got in a good one every once in a while.

“I am awake, though,” I asked him. “Right?”

He canted his head to one side, appraising me. “Do you know why things went wrong down at Gateway?”

“I—”

“It’s because the Deacon sent the wrong man down there,” said Rudy.

“He should have sent the best, but instead he sent you.”

“What—?”

“Instead he sent his pet thug.”

I sat up, frowning, not understanding what was happening here. “Hey … Rude … what the hell—?”

And Rudy Sanchez swung his cane at my head.

He swung hard and fast but it was the surprise that nearly got me killed.

“Rudy—no!”

I flung a hand up to save my face, but I was slow and the heavy lump of silver punched into my hand and slammed it back against my face. He growled like a dog and whipped the cane back and chopped down again. I bashed it aside and rolled away from him as he tried for a third hit. The cane chunked into the pillow hard enough to make the bed jump, but this time I was out of range, rolling off the far side, dropping down, trying to land on my feet, failing, falling hard. His shoes clacked on the linoleum as he raced around the end of the bed. I grabbed the corner of the wheeled bedside table and shoved it toward him, jolting him so that his next swing missed, too. But it was a near thing. The cane whistled down past my ear and thumped against the edge of the mattress.

“Rudy!” I yelled. “Stop it. What the fuck are you doing?”

Rudy laughed. A brutal, vicious laugh. It was his face, his voice, but that laugh did not belong to my friend. And it occurred to me that his accent was wrong. American without the cultured edge of the Mexico City in which he was raised.

“You’re a piece of shit, Ledger,” he said, spitting the words as he fought to push the cart out of the way so he could get to me.

I was so weak, so clumsy, that I couldn’t rise to fight him. My knees wouldn’t hold me and I collapsed down as I tried to rise, but I used the momentum of that to kick out and ram the table into his thighs. He staggered back and then grabbed at the lip of the table to wrench it out of his way.

Was this a nightmare? If so, then I was free to act, to fight, to destroy this distorted version of my best friend.

Or was it real and was Rudy the victim of some kind of psychic fracture? Had he been doped? And … how could I save myself without hurting him?

I yelled for help as loud as I could.

The table went crashing onto its side as Rudy forced himself past it to get to me. The cane rose again and this time I had nowhere else to go. There wasn’t enough clearance for me to roll under the cumbersome hospital bed. I was in a narrow chute formed by the bed and the wall, with the night table behind me and nothing to use as a shield.

“Fucking die!” bellowed Rudy as he brought the cane down again.

What choice did I have?

Really, what choice?

The heavy silver wolf flashed toward me, driven by Rudy’s strength and his rage.And I kicked him in his bad leg.

I kicked him hard.

There was a sound like a gunshot. Brittle, huge, terrible.

His leg buckled backward, folding in a sickening way. The cane cracked me on the bunched muscles of my shoulder. Rudy fell, his face twisted—not with the agony he had to feel, but with hate. Raw, unfiltered hate. He crashed against the window, striking the heavy glass with one elbow and the side of his head. I rose up to one knee and tore the cane out of his hand, flung it across the room, tried to catch him as he fell.

Rudy lunged forward and tried to bite me.

Bite. Me.

His teeth snapped shut an inch from my Adam’s apple as I reeled backward.

“Stop it,” I begged. He punched me in the chest, the ribs, the face. He grabbed my hair and tried to pull me toward his snapping white teeth.

I ducked forward, dropping my chin, and head-butted him, smashing his nose, hearing the cartilage snap, feeling blood burst against my skin. Rudy sagged backward and I whipped a flat palm across his jaw that snapped his head around. His eyes flared once as the extreme angle stretched his brain stem and short-circuited the electrical conduction from brain to body. It happens to boxers and martial artists. It happens with whiplash victims. It’s happened to me.

His body slumped immediately, sagging atop me in a boneless sprawl. I caught him, wrapped my arms around him, hugged him to me to prevent him from forcing this fight any further.

But he was done.

Out.

-Kill Switch pg. 222-225, Kindle Edition.