Sunken Graves by Alan Lee (thriller book recommendations .txt) 📕

breath and held it before being crushed in the vice. Unlike poor Lewis, Jennings had experience enough not to panic. His arms pinned down, the maul useless in his left fist, he released it. Squirmed his hands between the bodies, rooting…

Got them.

Eyes widening in shock, Lynch felt a thrust between his thighs. A hard grip on his genitals through his pants. He tried to scoop his hips back but his testicles were caught. Squeezing, pulling, pain unimaginable, Jennings going after his most vulnerable spot. Harder yank. White spots in Lynch’s eyes, forgetting his bear hug, tasting vomit.

Jennings twisting free. Sweet oxygen.

Lynch doubling over. Sucking too much cold air, his lungs burning. In the black Jennings couldn’t find the maul, kicking mud.

Still bent, Lynch fighting through pain. He swung blindly, a mighty swipe, and he felled Jennings sideways. Landed in the slop close enough to his flashlight. Came up with the light but Lynch bulldozed him. Both men down again. Wrestling, groaning, desperate. Lynch heavier, stronger, Jennings trained in combat. Arms and legs writhing, jockeying for position.

Lynch’s lungs failed him. Out of shape, out of breath, he lost his steam, panting, sweating inside his rain jacket, and Jennings got on top. Reached for Lynch’s flashlight. Struck Lynch a sharp crack on the skull and the lightbulb inside broke.

Jennings ached everywhere. Lights winked in his periphery. He stood unsteadily, his prosthesis wrenched and loosened in the struggle, and collected his Maglite and the maul. Could barely grip them. Water and mud pulled at his clothes. He trudged back to Lynch, who tried to sit up at the edge of the trench.

“You lose, Peter.”

Lynch had to take deep breaths between the words. “I don’t lose. I can’t.”

“You just did.”

“You’ll have to kill me, Daniel. I won’t stop."

Jennings stood behind, spotlighting him. “Another difference between us. I don’t murder.”

“You’d like it.” Lynch turned at the waist to grin into the light. His face a mask of sludge. “Daniel. It’s better than you think. Try it.”

“I’m leaving. If you try to follow me, I’ll break your shin.”

“Did you know…” Lynch pulled his knees under him. Closed his eyes and grimaced. Tried to steady his breathing. “Human ears rip off with eight pounds of pressure.”

“Didn’t know that,” said Jennings. Lynch tried to rise so he walked behind him, closer to the trench, and pushed him over with the maul. “Don’t get up.”

“So instead of your ears…” Lynch wincing. “…I’ll put hooks through your armpits. And a third under your jaw, through the fleshy part, the sharp point into your mouth like a fish. String you up that way.”

“What hooks?”

“You’ll find out soon.”

Through the gasping and pain, Lynch was grinning. Jennings had the impression Lynch was changed somehow by the fight, by the loss. Different from the man he’d been mere minutes ago. What tenuous hold he had on himself was gone.

As both men would discover, Lynch’s breakdown would only worsen with time.

“You’re insane.”

“Kill me, Daniel, or it’ll happen.”

“No.”

“You don’t get it, teacher. One of us has to die. It’s always like that and it’s never me. One of us goes, kills the other. If you don’t, I will. Trust me. Winner gets the girl.” Panting, steady eye contact in the black. “Do it, try it. You’ll regret it if you don’t. This is pure fucking mercy I’m giving you. Do it now, with the maul, swing it like you mean it, little sergeant nobody.”

On some level Jennings knew Lynch was correct. He had the man. Had him cold, at his disposal. Alive, Lynch was rich and powerful and connected and a menace and impossible to beat in court. Dead he was…nothing. But Jennings’ homicidal rage had passed. Knew that spending a life in jail would mean Lynch won. Would mean looking at his mother through iron and apologizing. Killing him now meant he didn’t trust himself to find a better way.

“Not like this.”

Jennings stepped backward. Turned to go. Too tired, too weary, his left foot snagged onto the discarded shovel. The suspension liner inside his prosthesis was sodden and his leg twisted. The pin at the base of the socket had been strained during the fight, and now the pin snapped free. His weight descended, the prosthetic leg contorted, and the knee buckled. He staggered and the horrible mud rose up to greet him.

Landing with a splash. Sliding down the slope into the trench.

Lynch moved like a great ape. He jumped into the trench too, dropping his weight onto Jennings.

Ribs cracked. Hot breath smelled like blood. Fists pounding Jennings’ head.

“HAH! She’s mine, she’s mine, she’s MINE!”

The ditch wasn’t big enough for both. Jennings couldn’t move. Pinned beneath three hundred pounds of madman. Slop up to his mouth. He was being buried alive.

The maul now firmly in Lynch’s hands.

“That leg of yours.” A wild manic smile. “Keeps trying to KILL YOU, Daniel.”

Get off, get off, Jennings tried to say. Sinking deeper. No air. The trench walls closing, squeezing.

“The great Jennings military family, one-legged now and suffocating! Here’s how it’s going to happen, Daniel. I’m going to break your mouth. The story about the hooks is true, I already bought the hooks, but I bet some people know you’re here, don’t they? Don’t they, Daniel? So what I’ll do instead is break your mouth. So satisfying when it caves. Like breaking open a pumpkin. I’ll sit with you as you bleed out. Maybe even hold your hand. Then I’ll phone the police. Tell them the truth. That you surprised me on my own property. We fought, you beat the hell out of me, but I won. I beat a Jennings, a Green Beret. I beat the best the Army could throw my way and I stood my ground and you’re dead. Case closed.”

Can’t breathe, can’t breathe. Jennings’ heartbeat hurting his ears.

“You know the trouble with graves, Daniel? If you bury shallow, the dogs detect the bodies. But the deeper you dig, the deeper the depression as the dirt settles. A paradox, Daniel, do you know that word? Like