Slash, p.29
Slash, page 29
Todd hunkered down to his knees. The mound shifted and he worried it would open up like a sinkhole and drag them under. “You use that. I’ve got these.” He flashed his hands. “Don’t want you to break a nail.”
She jammed the board into the scrap and chucked it down the side of the mound. “Honey, it’ll take months to get these nails back in shape. Good thing people don’t pay to see my hands.”
They worked with their backs to one another. Todd scooped the refuse with both hands and lobbed it under his legs and away from them. At first, his wounded fingers would feel like they’d touched live wires, but eventually everything went numb. Fresh cuts opened on both hands like red, hungry mouths. He kept on digging, despite knowing it was like finding a needle in a haystack.
What if he found Jerry first? Would the sight of his friend’s broken body be the point of no return for him? He liked to think he wasn’t inured to death. Even the toughest, most jaded people had their limits.
“You know this is crazy, right?” Sharon said, huffing and coughing. “Normal people would already be on the road by now, heading home to a bottle of whatever will make the pain go away so they can sleep.”
“I don’t think we can ever call ourselves normal people again.”
“Not sure I did consider myself normal. At least since Sheri died.” She used the wood to scrape away the top layer, working her way down. “You think they know?”
Todd coughed and spit over his shoulder. “Who?”
“Sheri and Ash. You think they can see what we did tonight?”
His chest seized and he had to stop for a moment. “I really…I really don’t know. I’m not a religious person, so I don’t go for all that heaven and hell nonsense. But I like to think a part of us lives on.” More so since Ash’s death. Hope that she might be somewhere waiting for him was what kept him going.
“I used to. Believe, I mean. The year after Sheri died, I went to church every single day. I was so worried about her soul being trapped here, I prayed to God that he would take her under his wing. I know it sounds corny.”
Todd found a piece of rebar and pulled. A puff of dust exploded in his face as a hunk of drywall came up. He whipped his head away so as not to breathe it all in. “Actually, I think it’s kinda beautiful.”
Sharon hacked away with the wood. “I was all in for it. That’s until I found out a couple of my regulars were so-called men of the cloth.”
“Maybe they were there to convert you. Save your soul.”
Todd thought he detected sirens in the far distance. They’d made so little progress. It made him sick to think he’d be carted out of the Hayden without being able to confirm that Otto had been destroyed.
“The only thing they converted was dollars into dances.” Sharon made a half grin. Todd couldn’t help smiling back.
“The world’s a fucked-up place,” he said. “After tonight, I don’t think we’ll ever need further proof of that.”
“Amen, brother.”
The raw ends of his severed fingers scraped against something sharp and jagged. The pain cut through his deadened nerves, forcing him to dig with one hand, the other tucked under his armpit until it recovered.
Sharon stopped shoveling. “You hear that?”
“They’ll be here any minute.”
They stared down at the giant burial mound, looked at one another, and doubled up their efforts. The snow intensified, making it harder to grip things. It was getting harder to see their progress, any cleared gap filled by slick powder. Todd’s blood peppered the freshly fallen snow.
All sense of time was lost. Neither noticed the lightening of the skies, nor did they hear the sirens as they pulled up to the Hayden’s main gate. Todd didn’t realize he’d been crying until the salt of his tears slipped into his mouth. The despair that he wasn’t going to find Otto amidst the ruins nearly locked his muscles. He fought through it, but it was getting harder to stand on his own two feet.
He wanted to tell Sharon that yes, Ash and Sheri were with them at this very moment, giving them strength, just as he and Sharon had given them closure. Did closure matter to the dead? Or was it just a construct for the living, something to strive for when nothing made sense?
“Stop and put your hands above your head!”
Thinking the voice was something he imagined, Todd kept on digging. He heard the plunk of wood next to him, but didn’t turn around.
“I’m talking to you, asshole! Stop right now and do what I tell you!”
“Todd,” Sharon said.
He paused, looking over at her. Sharon’s eyes were fixed on something behind him, at the base of the mound.
He was shocked that he could see the pair of cops with their guns drawn. The snow beat at their faces, but they didn’t so much as blink. They looked mad enough to chew through a steel girder.
“Your hands up, now!” the other cop shouted with spittle flying out of his mouth.
“Better do what they say,” Sharon said. Her hands were held up as high as they could go over her head. “They look like they’re more than happy to have an excuse to shoot.”
Todd’s head slumped into his chest. Of course they would be. They had to have seen the bodies. Now here were two prime suspects, one of them appearing not to give a shit. He raised his arms, the muscles in his shoulders on fire.
“Now come down to us, slowly.”
Todd went first. If one of them got trigger-happy, he wanted to keep in front of Sharon.
“That’s it. Slower.”
Todd’s heel stepped on something that gave way and he fell, sliding most of the way down. The way the cops reacted, he thought for sure they were going to empty their guns in him. One of the cops rushed over, grabbed him by the collar and yanked him forward until his face was in the snow and a knee was in his back. He heard Sharon’s short squeal and knew the other one had done the same to her.
“Man, I really wish you’d tried to run,” the cop hissed in Todd’s ear. It was hard to breathe with the cop’s full weight on his back. His arms were jerked back and he yowled in agony as the cop tried to grab his wrist and got his wounded fingers instead. “Looks like someone got a piece of this one,” he said to his partner.
“Yeah, but not nearly enough.”
“We didn’t do it,” Sharon protested. Todd heard the rush of air expelled from her lungs as she was either punched or had the cop press her farther into the ground.
“Save it for your lawyer. Hope you can’t afford a good one and get some greenie right outta law school.”
Todd didn’t say anything because he knew there was nothing he could say that they would believe. Not that he could draw enough air to speak.
Handcuffs clinked behind him, the cold metal wrapping around his right wrist, cinching so tight he thought his bones might break.
With his face numb in the snow, lungs so constricted he was close to passing out, all he could think was, I’m sorry I failed, Ash. I’m so sorry.
He thought he could hear the unearthly rumble of Otto’s laughter from deep in the mound behind them.
Chapter Forty
“You’re making a mistake,” Sharon bleated. “Ow. You’re hurting me.”
“You’re lucky that’s all I’m doing.”
Todd drew what breath he could and shouted, “Leave her alone. It’s me you want.”
A punch to the back of his head was his only reply. The cop fought for control of Todd’s left arm. Todd’s vision swam. Sharon sounded like she was putting up a struggle.
Something shifted behind them. Todd felt it in his chest that was pressed to the snowy ground more than he heard it.
Dear God, no!
He tried to shift to his side and throw the cop off his back. It was like trying to move a mountain with a teaspoon. The cop hit him with a sharp jab to his ribs.
“You don’t understand,” Todd gasped.
“I think I do,” the cop said, wrestling with Todd’s free arm. “It’s you and your girlfriend who don’t have a fucking clue.”
“We didn’t kill them.”
“Which is what every killer has said to every cop when they got busted. Now shut the fuck up and stay still.” More pressure was applied to the small of Todd’s back and arm. It felt as if his shoulder was going to slip out of its socket.
“Gungh!”
Hot rain showered the back of Todd’s neck.
The heavy weight on his back instantly went away.
Todd looked at the snow around his head. It was red as Sunday gravy.
He managed to spin around, sit up and scrabble backward at the same time. A shard of wood poked out of the cop’s neck. Bloody froth bubbled from his lips as he gurgled his last, his hands prodding at the thick splinter protruding from his throat. He fell forward, the impact nearly driving the wood out the back of his neck.
Otto stood over Todd, his clothes in tatters, the general shape of him bent into impossible dents and angles. He defied the laws of physics just being able to stand, much less kill a man.
The other cop sprang off Sharon. He shot the golem.
Otto twisted around, his bent and broken arms swinging at his sides.
“What the fuck?” the cop muttered. He backed away from Sharon, firing round after round into Otto’s chest. The bullets were absorbed into his earthen flesh with no effect.
Sharon crawled out of Otto’s path as he lashed out at the cop, clipping his jaw and sending him reeling. His gun fell into the snow. Sharon grabbed it and ran to Todd.
Todd could barely stand. Fear was the only thing keeping him upright. Fear and a last chance to end Otto’s reign of terror.
“Get away from me,” the cop wailed.
Otto plucked two cinder blocks from the snow. The cop turned to run. Otto smashed his head between the blocks. His skull crunched and his brains exploded skyward. Todd and Sharon watched the cop’s body take several uneven steps before it collapsed, headless, into the blood and brain-soaked snow.
“The gun,” Sharon said, nodding toward the cop who had tried to cuff Todd. He unsnapped the holster and drew out the weapon.
Otto tossed the cinder blocks aside, turned and stared at them. No matter how misshapen his head, his facial features mashed and blurred, those onyx eyes still drove daggers of ice into their hearts. They were eyes colder than the grave.
Sharon also slipped the cop’s nightstick out.
“You know what to do,” Todd said, so close to Sharon, their shoulders touched.
“And I’m dying to do it.”
They pulled their triggers simultaneously. Otto’s head reared back, the bullets catching him square in the face. Twin runnels ran deep into the area where his mouth should be.
Otto’s shoulders heaved. He started to run toward them.
They opened fire again. Otto fell to his knees with his face in his hands.
“Don’t stop,” Todd said, stepping forward and shooting Otto’s hand, hoping the bullet passed through and buried itself in his face. Sharon did the same. Otto’s hands fell to his sides. This time, they had a clear shot at his mouth, and were only five feet away. Todd squeezed the trigger over and over. Sharon’s gun emptied first. Todd grew emboldened as chunks of Otto’s face blew away, revealing his horrid, yellow teeth, the top row shattering and his lower jaw coming unhinged.
Todd saw it first.
A tan slip of paper was jammed in the ruined mess of Otto’s mouth.
He pointed.
Sharon flew into the wounded golem, bashing at him with the nightstick. A step behind, Todd lunged at him as well, wrapping his arms around his foul-smelling midsection.
Using the nightstick as a tongue depressor, Sharon jammed it as far as it would go in the golem’s mouth. She reached in, fingers slipping in the muddy grime, the paper seeming to sink farther inside, like a vampire retracting from the sun.
Todd felt Otto’s weakening body stiffen. The golem’s arm lashed out, finding a curved wedge of metal, presumably a part of one of the destroyed theater seats. Otto drove the metal into Sharon’s side. She screamed in a mix of rage and agony, reaching deeper into his mouth.
Leaping to the other side of the golem, Todd grabbed hold of his arm, preventing him from driving the metal any deeper. Blood spurted from Sharon’s pierced side. Still, she fought, using both hands to tear at his face, the nightstick lodged firmly in his mouth.
“Give…it…to…me!” Sharon screeched.
Otto’s head suddenly reared back. He emitted a sound that was unlike anything Todd had ever heard. It was like the collective sound of every animal in a zoo being tortured at the same time.
Sharon fell backward, her hands steaming. Todd caught her before she hit the ground. The end of the metal shaft in her side pricked the raw stumps of his fingers.
Otto’s horrendous wailing stopped suddenly. His head craned forward, his evil eyes on them. Todd cradled Sharon in his lap. There was no way he could get her safely away from the unstoppable beast. The best he could do was wrap his arms around her chest and let her know she wouldn’t die alone.
The golem tried to stand and failed.
Sharon chuckled at the sight.
Todd said to her, “I won’t leave you.”
She looked up at him, her eyes glassing over. “That’s good.”
When she raised her hand to him, she smiled. Her fingers unfurled. The folded slip of paper, encrusted with dirt and other filth, sat in the palm of her hand. In her other was the Nazi iron cross. “Maybe Bill was right. The cross is cursed. Wherever it goes, so does Otto. We…we need to get rid of it. Throw it in the goddamn ocean.” It slipped from her fingers. When Todd picked up the cross, the tips of his fingers tingled. Was it just his imagination, or did it feel as if the hunk of metal was being drawn to the stunned golem?
They watched Otto begin to crumble apart. His head caved in, his chest breaking into pieces. When his neck exploded outward, Otto’s head fell into the disintegrating cavity that was his chest. His arms became worthless clods of dirt, his legs two lines of fetid soil.
It only took seconds for the Nazi beast to deteriorate entirely. When it was done, all that was left were the few scraps of clothing that had clung to his frame, the fabric disappearing in the squall of snow.
Sharon rested her head on Todd’s chest. Her breathing was wet and labored.
“Looks like you can give Ash a break now,” she said, her voice weak and thin.
He leaned over her to keep the snow from her face.
“What do you mean?”
She reached up and touched his chin, her fingers colder than icicles. “Looks like you’re the final guy now.”
Her eyes fluttered and closed.
Footsteps crunched in the snow behind them. Todd saw the police approaching. There were five in all, their guns at the ready. They saw their dead brothers first, and then Sharon. Todd laid her gently down and raised his hands. He didn’t have time to get to his feet before they opened fire.
A bullet hit the iron cross in his hand, sending it spinning into the darkness where it plowed into the newly fallen snow and was quickly covered up.
Todd’s world went from white to black an instant later.
Epilogue
No matter how many times she came here, she was always nervous. She couldn’t sleep the night before, tossing and turning until she decided to throw in the towel around three in the morning. She tried reading a book but couldn’t get past the first page, having to reread it so often she eventually tossed it aside. Everything on television was either an infomercial or a movie she’d seen a dozen times.
She passed the time until sunup rearranging her kitchen cabinets, pulling everything out, looking at expiration dates on the canned food and boxes of pasta and rice. She washed every glass and dish, tossing out a dusty mug she’d picked up on a trip to Cape May during the summer of her high school graduation. The radio was on low the entire time, more white noise than a needed distraction or entertainment.
By six she was in the shower, doing such a terrible job at shaving her legs she worried she might bleed to death. Her fingers lingered on the old scar on her side, slipping over the raised ridge of flesh. She refused to look at it in the mirror. Touching it was bad enough. Sometimes she caught its reflection in the mirror by accident – black, puckered and angry. Plastic surgery would make most of it disappear, but she wasn’t a Beverly Hills housewife with money to toss around on cosmetic procedures. It wasn’t a thing of life or death. It was simply something she preferred not to see. And it wasn’t as if she was going to give anyone else a chance to see it, anyway.
It was also a reminder.
When things felt like they were going to spiral out of control, or worry about bills and breaking cars and what her future would be would threaten to paralyze her, all she would have to do was reach under her shirt and feel it. The scar grounded her. It kept her sane.
She hit the road early, opting for the scenic route and bypassing the parkway. There was a diner that she would stop at from time to time and today she was hungry. The special was a short stack of pancakes, two links of sausage and eggs any way you liked them. It felt good to eat. To really eat. The days of starving herself to stop the march of cellulite or the slightest puffing of her belly were all behind her now. She tucked into the hot pancakes, drizzling them with soft butter and warm maple syrup. She dipped the sausages in her over easy eggs, washing it all down with strong black coffee.
Back in the car, she listened to talk radio because music didn’t seem appropriate. The day was chilly, the skies gray as slate, low clouds making the world seem so much smaller.
