Slash, p.28
Slash, page 28
“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for,” he said. His fingers grazed Otto’s back molars. He pressed on, hoping to find a jaw hinge. Maybe he could find a way to break it and unlock Otto’s mouth.
He wasn’t so lucky.
“They teach you anything about golem anatomy?” Todd asked her. As flippant as it sounded, he was looking for anything that could help. He felt like he was running out of time. His head swam from the funk as much as his fraying nerves.
“Let me help you,” she said.
“No, stay there. I have an idea.”
He pulled his hand out and looked at Otto’s face. It was even more of a disaster, thanks to Todd’s rooting around.
There has to be a weak spot, he thought. He pictured Ash standing beside him, puzzling out the best way to gain entry in the golem’s vault-like mouth.
Otto’s neck was thick as a bridge cable. His head was tilted back slightly, the ruin of his chin pointing up.
Go under.
It was as if Ash had whispered in his ear.
Todd angled Otto’s head as far back as it would go, exposing his neck and the soft spot under his chin.
A flash of the movie The Great Escape – one of his mother’s favorites because she loved Charles Bronson – flashed through his mind. Just like Bronson, Todd was going to dig.
Gritting his teeth, he steepled his fingers into a point and jammed both hands in as far as they would go.
To his shock, they pushed easily through the icy matter of the golem’s lower jaw. The Nazi had an Achille’s throat!
His hands separated within the muck. The fingers of his left hand brushed against something that didn’t feel like anything else he’d touched so far.
Otto’s eyes opened.
The twin charcoal orbs locked onto Todd. There was no way not to feel the pure animus radiating from that stare.
Todd’s left hand punched through the back of the golem’s teeth and his mouth sprang open.
Struggling to reclaim the thing his left hand had touched, Todd wasn’t fast enough to pull his right hand out before Otto clamped his jaw shut.
The pain skyrocketed up Todd’s arm as he watched the tips of two of his fingers roll down the side of Otto’s hideous face.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Todd yanked his hand free from Otto’s mouth with a loud slurp. His blood splattered over the golem’s face. Otto, in turn, opened his mouth wide. Todd wasn’t sure whether it was to try for his hand again or drink his blood.
“Get the fuck outta there!” Jerry shouted. He reached down for Todd.
Otto was trying to wriggle free, his eyes a conflagration of hate.
Todd cupped his bloody hand.
My fingers!
He reached down to grab the severed tips but they rolled off Otto’s twisting face, hitting the floor and rolling under his head.
“You son of a bitch!” Todd slammed the heel of his boot into Otto’s face. For a terrifying moment, he thought he wouldn’t be able to pull his foot free. It was like stepping in quicksand. He twisted his leg and it slid out of the newly formed crater.
“Come on, come on!” Sharon screamed. Four hands flailed above him.
Todd’s original plan was to pull himself back up, but with only one hand now, it would be too difficult. He reached up for Jerry with his good hand.
“I’ve got you, buddy,” Jerry said, his voice strained as he pulled.
Sharon blurted, “Faster!” She grabbed hold of Todd’s bad hand, the pressure opening the floodgates for the pain. The wound on his back from earlier felt as if it had opened, fresh blood warming his flesh. Todd raised a cry that shredded his throat as they attempted to pull him up. Sharon freaked out and let him go. His body sank a few inches back toward the floor.
When he looked down, he saw Otto shedding the light rigging off his body.
“Don’t let go of me,” Todd said to Jerry.
Jerry was too busy straining to speak. He shot a quick look at Sharon and she recovered, this time getting her hands on the collar of Todd’s coat.
Todd heard the clang of metal beneath him. Otto would be rising to his feet so he could rip Todd from their hands. After that, Todd didn’t want to contemplate what would happen.
Something hit his feet. Todd kicked furiously.
“Ease up,” Jerry said. “I’m losing my grip.”
How the hell could he ease up when an undead monster was inches from breaking him in half and tearing him to pieces?
Todd’s collar cinched around his neck so tight, it was hard to breathe.
His eyes flicked upward to see Sharon on her feet and in a squat. He ascended rapidly as she tugged on his jacket, and he landed on his stomach on the stage. Suddenly, he felt himself being dragged across the floor. He had to turn his head to avoid having his face shredded from the splintered wood. Jerry and Sharon pulled him off the stage. They landed in an unceremonious lump on the hard ground.
The trio lay in a heap intertwined with one another, panting desperately.
There was no time to recover.
Otto burst from the stage, sending planks of jagged wood in every direction.
A hunk of timber clipped Sharon’s shoulder, knocking her down so her face bounced off the ground. Todd covered her with his body while the rest cascaded around them.
A fist punched his back.
“Get her and fucking run!” Jerry said. He was on his knees, facing Otto across the stage.
Todd tried to help Sharon up but his hand slipped free, leaving a swath of fresh blood on her coat. He looked down at his hand and got woozy.
“You’re coming with us,” Todd said.
Jerry shook his head. “We both know I can’t run. Now get out of here while you still can. I’ll do what I can to hold him off.” He plucked a metal seat leg from the ground. It wouldn’t be enough to fend off an angry dog, much less Otto.
“We’ll help you,” Sharon said. Her eyes were on Otto. Blood trickled from her nose. The freed golem glared at them but didn’t move. It was as if Otto was feeding on their terror, reveling in their pleas to save Jerry’s life.
Jerry moaned in pain as he got to his feet. “Todd, I love you, brother.”
Todd blinked away tears. “Please.”
“You’re one tough bitch,” Jerry said to Sharon. “You take care of my boy and get his ass home.” Sharon sucked in her lower lip and nodded. “Now go!”
Sharon jerked Todd’s arm. Jerry turned away from them. He said to Otto, “Just you and me, you fugly lump of toe jam. Let’s see how you do when you take on someone who’s not afraid of you.”
Todd’s legs stumbled away from Jerry at Sharon’s insistence. He kept looking back, his friend in a stare-down with the golem.
Otto hadn’t looked their way. His full attention was on Jerry.
“Shalom, you kraut piece of shit!” Jerry taunted. “Fuck the führer!” He gave a Nazi salute, followed by flipping him the bird with both hands.
The stage rumbled as Otto extricated himself from the hole. His intense weight made the wood sag.
“Jerry! No!”
Jerry looked back at Todd and winked.
“We need to run,” Sharon hissed.
But Todd couldn’t turn away from his friend. He awkwardly walked backward, expecting Sharon to leave him. And he wouldn’t blame her.
Otto stomped across the stage. Todd saw what was left of the structure begin to quake.
“Let’s go, you Nazi pussy!” Jerry urged him on. The whole thing was about to collapse on top of Otto.
But only if the golem remained on the stage.
Todd cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Stop, Jerry! Stop!”
Jerry spun around. Todd pointed at the swaying walls and ceiling.
Otto came to the lip of the stage.
Jerry threw the hunk of metal at the golem. It plinked off Otto’s chest. The crumbling foundation of the theater wailed.
Before Otto could jump off the stage, Jerry started running toward him, his limp momentarily gone. Otto spread his arms wide, waiting to gobble him up and crush him to death. Jerry stepped onto the seat closest to the stage, using it to propel himself right into those arms. His weight knocked Otto backward. They tumbled onto the stage. Todd heard Jerry cry out, and then there was a loud snap that might have been his spine or the cracking of the walls and ceiling.
Todd stared open-mouthed and numb as the remains of the Cosmos Theater rocked to the left, raining dust and debris, before collapsing on top of Jerry and Otto. A cloud of detritus engulfed the ruined mess, boiling across the empty, rusted seats, heading toward Sharon and Todd.
“Get down,” Sharon said, pulling him down. They lay on the ground, covering their faces as the cloud of dust washed over them like an incoming wave. The sound of the collapsing theater reminded Todd of old monster movies he loved as a kid, an atomized or prehistoric beast roaring as it fell down a steep valley.
After waiting for the choking dust to pass, Todd picked himself up, coughing into his fist. His eyes stung and his nostrils burned. For all he knew, they were breathing in tiny shredded bits of asbestos and other toxic chemicals that were commonly used in construction back when the Hayden was first built.
“Sweet Jesus.”
All the remained upright of the Cosmos Theater was a single jagged shaft of the left wall. It looked like an enormous stalagmite, pointing at the heavens. It was as if a bomb had landed in the center of the stage. The mound of rubble, or what he could make of it behind the dust and darkness, resembled the earthworks seen in an active quarry.
Underneath it all was Jerry.
Todd felt the ground slip out from underneath his feet. He was about to fall when Sharon grabbed hold of his arm and his belt.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
Todd wiped the grit from his eyes.
“We have to go,” Sharon said. “Otto’s not coming back from that.”
“I’ve lost…everyone.”
She stepped in front of him so they were eye to eye. “Yes, but you’re still here. And I’m here. And that murdering thing is buried for good. It’s not going to bring any of them back, but at least they’ll be the last. That has to count for something.”
A lone tear sprang from Sharon’s eye.
She said, “Ash and Sheri would be proud of us.”
Todd pulled Sharon close and hugged her, his cheek resting on the top of her head, but his eyes were on Otto’s burial mound.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
They stood there for a while, holding one another, watching the pile of debris shift and settle. The wind picked up, biting through their clothes and stabbing their marrow, but they were too exhausted to even shiver.
“Everyone in town had to hear that,” Sharon said.
“I know.”
“They’ll be coming soon.”
“I know.”
“Do we meet them at the gate?”
Todd stepped away and brushed the dirt off Sharon’s shoulders. “No. You go find my car and get home.” He handed her his keys. “I’ll take it from here.”
“You want me to just walk away?”
The wind blew her hair into her face.
“You have to. There’s going to be a lot of questions after this. Whoever’s left behind will be a suspect. Those are my friends out there. Even if I went with you, it would all point back to me. I might as well face the music now.”
Sharon stuffed her hands in her coat pockets. “But what will you say to them?” She took out a glove. “Give me your hand.”
Through it all, Todd had forgotten about his missing fingertips. His hand throbbed, but the sharp pain had ebbed. She wrapped her glove around the two fingers, the white fabric instantly reddening.
Todd shrugged. “I don’t know. The truth? That would land me in the nut house for sure. Not that it would be such a bad thing.” He tried to think of his future and could only see darkness and regret. Maybe a life on Thorazine would help him forget.
Forget it all.
But not Ash! I wouldn’t want to live if I couldn’t have my memories of Ash.
He cupped Sharon’s face. “I’ll think of something.”
“You’re in no condition to spell your name right now.”
“True. Maybe I’ll just give them the shocked silent treatment until I come up with a story that doesn’t sound like science fiction. Honestly, I’m too damn tired to talk, so that won’t be so hard.”
Dawn would be breaking very soon. Something cold and wet landed on his cheek. He would have ignored it if it wasn’t followed by more on his head, face and neck. He shone his flashlight into the sky.
“Snow,” he said. “Winter was always Ash’s favorite season. We used to talk about moving to Vermont someday. She really wanted to learn how to ski.”
Fat flakes lazily drifted from the clouds.
Sharon pulled up her collar. “My sister was a total beach bum. She wouldn’t even wear sunscreen in the summer, like she thought just because she was black, she couldn’t get skin cancer. I remember learning about skin cancer in sixth grade health class and crying my eyes out when Sheri refused to protect herself.”
Todd tilted his face into the snow. “That’s the problem with loving someone. Sooner or later, you realize that no matter what you do, you can’t protect them. Not all the time. And it only takes that one time to tear your heart in two.”
He told her how to get to his car, but she only seemed to be half listening. Part of him knew that Sharon was right in that he should be waiting at the front gate for the next round of responders to arrive. But he couldn’t bring himself to walk through that field of severed heads. So they would just have to come to him. It was better that way. He wasn’t sure if he could depend on his weary legs to get him anywhere at this point. Maybe, if he was lucky, there’d be enough time to simply sit down and freeze to death, like Nicholson in The Shining. There were far worse ways to go. Otto had shown him that in horrifying Technicolor.
“I really don’t think I should leave you,” Sharon said. “If you have to try to explain this alone, they’re not going to buy it.”
“I’ll tell them the Wraith came back. Or he never left. It isn’t the first time he’s killed.”
She grabbed onto his upper arms and shook him. “Yes, but what if they decide you were the Wraith all along? You did know everyone that’s been murdered here five years ago and tonight. Pinning the blame on you will be a lot easier than digging up Otto and trying to explain that.”
An electric shock ran down Todd’s spine. “They can’t dig him up.”
“So you’re just going to leave Jerry down there? Otto will either be in pieces or squashed flat. Todd, he’s not coming back from that. I promise.”
He took a few tentative steps toward the remains of the theater. “But we didn’t get that thing from his mouth.”
“In a head that’s flatter than a dollar bill. Not to mention, we don’t know if I was talking out of my ass.”
“I felt something in there. I think you were right.”
Jerry’s sarcastic voice floated through his brain, several comebacks about strippers and dollar bills on his ethereal lips. It almost made Todd smile.
“But we don’t really know that, do we? I mean, we can’t be sure at all.”
Sharon was about to respond, but then closed her mouth and thought for a bit. “After everything we’ve seen tonight, we’d be foolish to think that the normal rules apply here. I’ll give you that. But my money is on that Nazi fucker never getting out of there. And someday, he’ll be carted up with the rest of the trash and thrown in a landfill or sent out to sea where he belongs. With or without the thing that was placed in his mouth and gave him life. You know what I’m saying?”
Logically, he fully understood her.
But logic had no place in the Hayden.
“I have to know.”
He headed for the mound.
“Are you crazy? Todd, get back here!”
“I have to know. Just go!”
Reinforcements should be there soon. He wondered how much time he’d have to dig for Otto’s remains. Of course, they would be preoccupied with the slain cops and firemen at the entrance. That would buy him some time. This whole night seemed to be about buying time – time that was never properly given to them. As he got closer to the still-smoking heap, he realized there might never be enough time to get through the giant pile with nothing but his bare hands.
Not that it would stop him from trying.
If he walked away without knowing, it would be like Ash setting aside a crossword without finishing it. The mystery would still be unsolved. They might never know Otto’s origins, but Todd would settle for knowing the golem would never have a future, other than living in his and Sharon’s tortured memories.
He scrabbled up the small mountain of detritus, grabbed hold of a hunk of wood and tossed it over his shoulder.
“Hey, you almost hit me!”
“I thought I told you to leave.”
Sharon crossed her arms over her chest. “Do I come across as someone who takes orders from anyone?”
Todd sighed and shook his head. “What little strength I have left I need to dig. I don’t have it in me to fight you.”
She carefully climbed through the uneven debris, her arms outstretched to keep her balance. “Good. Because I’m not in the mood to fight.”
There were a thousand things he could have said, should have said, but it wouldn’t have mattered. They were in this together. They had been for over five years and just hadn’t realized it.
“If they’re anywhere, I think it’s here,” Todd said, surveying the damage. He couldn’t stop coughing. His lungs felt like they were filled with tiny tacks.
Sharon kicked a hunk of brick. “I hope you’re right.” She worked at the spot by her feet with her boot, her heel coming in contact with a board that had been sheared in half. “Looks like this is the closest thing we’ll have to a shovel.”
