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milling about, shouts. I forced one eye open. ''What's going on?" |
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"They were attacked," B.C. shouted, trying to get through to me. |
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The other eye opened. "Attacked? Who?" |
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"The sweep team," Brenda sobbed. She pointed to the throng milling around a harried-looking Doc Ferris. |
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From there on it was automatic. The legs unhinged and I was upright, vaulting over that last two rows of rickety old bleachers and sprinting toward the mass of confusion. Doc, Jake and Kelto were at the core of the crowd, gathered around and hunched over a trembling form. It was elbowing, shouting and shoving, but I got in and got a look at him. He was hysterical, a matted, fear-ridden, terrorized human being with a missing arm. |
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Doc was twisting the bloodstained tourniquet first one way, then another, trying to stop the hemorrhage. |
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"What the hell happened?" Jake screamed. |
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That's when I saw the second one. He couldn't have been more than on the threshold of puberty. He was smeared with blood, trembling, his breath coming in spasmodic gulps. "It . . . it . . . it tore Luke's arm . . . arm off." |
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"Who tore it off?" Madden was near hysteria himself. |
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"The . . . the . . . the thing tore it off," the |
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