The Riverrain pounced at Anthony, the quickness of it all made Anthony believe these attacks were regularly performed; the attacker's body seemed to explode like a coiled spring. Anthony's windpipe was crushed by the sheer force of his attacker's strike. They fell to the barn floor, the sound of the Riverrain's seashell necklace ringing in Anthony's ears.
The surprised vagrant felt the Riverrain mount his chest and stomach. Anthony was skinny and underweight; he felt supressed by the riverrain's proportioned mass, toned and solid. More deadly strikes followed. Anthony felt the force of his attacker's sharp elbows trying to break into his skull. His temples flushed with heat, but every time his arms went up to defend, they were broken away like carrots sticks at the most malicious time in a child's development, recess. The Riverrain's boney attacks practically broke his arms.
In an instant, Anthony saw his cigarette butt still lit. Using his left hand to defend again as a distraction, he brought it up. The Riverrain crushed it again, but this time Anthony brought the cigarette to the Riverrain's eye and dug it in deep, anything to buy him some time..
The Riverrain jumped up, but made no noise. He held one arm to his eye. He knocked Anthony again and moved away silently to nurse his wound. Air filled Anthony's lungs again with the pressure off his chest, and Anthony's mind raced. It told his his body to move: Get up. Yet his arms hung limply at his sides, shivering with bruises.
Suddenly, Anthony thought of Joan coming down the river, her hair wetted and black like seaweed. She looked like an apparition, an angel, and a demon. She was everything he wasn't. Was she here to save him again? Maybe another recurring dream. Even baby Moses was in her arms. He realized then that he felt more alive than he had ever felt in the past year, despite everything, Dr. Denman, the fighting, the running, the guns, the killing, and all the drugs, all the drugs that had helped him lose his capacity to grow. Was it really her?
Anthony sputtered, still on his back, "Joan?"
The Riverrain's shadow answered. Two of its long arms arched over Anthony's head. Between those hands, a cradle-sized rock eclipsed the moon up above. In slow motion, Anthony blinked up at the rock right before it came down. It had tiny holes in it and came screaming down through the Minnesota air. Anthony heard its whistle.
"Whoo-sa!"
It fell directly into the front of Anthony's skull. His head bounced off the ground and the rivets in the wooden boards became soaked, deeply filled with his blood.
And then he died.
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