One rainy night, p.25
One Rainy Night, page 25
He hesitated. ‘I guess not.’
They strode down to the sidewalk and started back.
‘Those asswipes were probably lying about the guns, too,’ Buddy said. ‘But just in case, we’re gonna go in careful. Find ourselves some windows.’
Lou nodded. He wasn’t sure how going in carefully would solve the problem of being met by firearms. It wasn’t likely, after all, that windows had been left unlocked. Glass would have to be broken. The noise would ruin any chance of taking them by surprise.
Lou didn’t want to get shot.
But Lisa had to be killed, that was for sure.
And Denise was in the house. Denise Gunderson.
We’re going back. Oh yeah, we’re going back!
He’d missed his chance for Maureen, but Denise . . . whenever he saw her in school, he ached with strange feelings of desire and sadness. She was more than just beautiful. There was something fresh and innocent about her that made him hollow inside.
Lou remembered the empty feelings of loss that she always stirred in him. But they weren’t here, now.
’Cause I’m going to get her, after all. Tonight.
He pictured her tied spread-eagle to a bed. He saw himself ripping her clothes off. Pushing the tines of his barbecue fork against one of her breasts. Watching the skin dent as she writhed and screamed. Seeing the points break through her skin and slide in. And that would just be the start.
Lou’s heart pounded like a hammer. His breath came in shaky gasps. His penis strained against the front of his pants and he wanted to let it out but the guys would laugh at him.
Buddy halted in front of the house next door to the one where Denise waited. ‘Let’s go around the back,’ he said. ‘Find us some windows.’
‘All right!’ Doug said.
Lou grinned, and winced with pain from his torn lip. Then he slid the barbecue fork out of his belt. ‘I want Denise,’ he said.
‘You get who you get,’ Buddy told him.
9
Trev knew they weren’t making good time. It slowed him down, lugging Francine around on his shoulder. And it slowed him down, keeping the others covered in front of him.
Without the women, he would’ve been at the Chidi house by now. But he couldn’t leave Francine to die from her wound or be killed by any of the crazies he sometimes glimpsed in the distance. Nor could he allow the other three to run wild and maybe kill innocent people.
For one reason or another, all four women were here because of him. They were in his care. They were his responsibility. He planned to make sure they lived through the night.
No matter how much they slowed him down.
Only a couple more blocks to go, he told himself.
Lisa was the worst. She kept walking backward, staring at him and Francine. Trev was sure that his gun was the only thing that kept her from attacking.
The girl from the trunk behaved herself. She walked beside Sandy, her head low. Trev supposed that her injuries must’ve taken her spunk out.
Sandy hadn’t caused much trouble, so far. She’d thrown Maureen’s trench coat to the pavement soon after they began their journey, and Trev had told her to put it back on. She’d drawled, ‘You aim to plug me if I don’t?’ and kept on walking. He had decided it wasn’t worth fighting about. And he found that he didn’t mind watching her stride along, naked except for her socks and sneakers. Sometimes, she turned around, grinning and rubbing herself. Trev wasn’t sure whether she was trying to be seductive in hopes of getting close so she could put her teeth into him, or whether she was simply aroused by the feel of the rain.
‘Why don’t you turn around before you trip?’ he told Lisa.
Instead of obeying, she halted, crouched, spread her arms and growled.
Trev aimed his gun at her face. ‘Keep moving.’
The girl from the trunk continued walking forward, but Sandy pranced up behind Lisa and slapped the side of her head. ‘Do like he tells you,’ she said.
Lisa whirled around. ‘You bitch!’ she snapped. ‘We can take him!’
‘You’re dumber than a dead dog’s butt, girl. He’d put holes in us sure.’
‘He won’t shoot us.’ Lisa bared her teeth at him. ‘You like us, don’t you.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘You want to save us, don’t you.’
‘My own skin comes first, Lisa,’ he told her.
She lurched toward Sandy and grabbed the woman’s arm. ‘Come on. Help me.’
‘Not on your life, gal.’ Sandy tugged her arm from Lisa’s grip and the blast of a gunshot crashed in Trev’s ears and Lisa’s head jerked sideways as if it had been kicked. A mess flew out from her left temple.
‘Down!’ Trev shouted.
He dropped to a crouch as Lisa toppled to the pavement. Sandy threw herself flat by the curb. The girl from the trunk turned around slowly as if confused.
‘Get down!’ Trev yelled at her.
Another shot. A bullet kicked sparks off the hood of a parked car. The way the girl leaped backward, it must’ve just missed her. She squatted quickly beside the car.
Trev dumped Francine off his shoulder. He spread himself out flat on the street.
A slug whined off the pavement near his face.
He twisted his head to the left. Lost his eyeholes. With one hand, he turned the bag until he could see again.
A man in plain sight. An old, bald guy in a plaid shirt, standing some fifty feet away under the shelter of his porch roof. The porch was lighted. Even as Trev spotted him, the geezer levered his rifle and put another shot through the screen. The bullet chopped the curb near Sandy.
He’s not wet!
He killed Lisa and he’s not even fucking wet!
‘Hold your fire, damn it!’ Trev yelled. ‘I’m a police officer!’
‘Whoop-de-doo, fella!’ He swung the barrel in Trev’s direction and fired again. The bullet struck the street somewhere behind Trev’s head.
‘Stop it! Just let us pass. We’ve got no business with you.’ Except you killed Lisa, Trev thought.
‘I got business with you!’ the man called. He levered another round into the chamber as Trev shoved himself up to his knees and the bag blinded him and he threw it off along with Patterson’s hat and he could see again and the rain felt good on his head and he braced his aiming hand and the man sighted in on him and fired. Something stung Trev’s thigh. Something else slopped against it, and Trev snapped off four shots as fast as he could pull the trigger. The old man jerked, staggered backward and fell out of sight.
Trev looked down. A mess clung to the leg of his jeans. A chunk of skull, hair still clinging to its patch of scalp, slid down the denim. It had come from Francine’s head. There was a cavity above her right ear.
He set his revolver on the pavement and tugged the plastic bags off his hands.
There was a slash at the side of his jeans just above the knee.
Like one of the cuts in Lisa’s jeans.
I’m a fashion plate, he thought, and chuckled softly.
His skin under the slash felt burnt. The bullet must’ve nicked him.
I’ll live, he thought.
He touched the glop that had splashed the leg of his jeans. It felt spongy and warm. He scooped some off and stuffed it into his mouth. Moaning at the good taste of it, he shoved his fingers into Francine’s head and started to dig out more.
‘Trevor!’
Sandy stood in front of him. He took his fingers out of Francine’s head and reached for her. He wrapped his slippery hands around her buttocks and drew her closer. When he pressed his mouth between her legs, she grabbed his hair. She yanked his head backward. He gazed up between her breasts at her frowning black face.
‘Grandpa Chidi,’ she said. ‘Remember him?’
Trev nodded. He remembered. But he didn’t care. He strained against Sandy’s grip, trying to get his mouth on her again, but she jerked his hair so hard that tears filled his eyes. He cried out.
‘I reckon we gotta finish what we started,’ she said.
‘OK, OK.’
She released his hair and stepped back.
Trev reached down for his gun.
She stepped on his hand. Her knee crashed against his forehead. The blow knocked him backward. His hand pulled out from under her shoe. But without the gun.
He pushed himself up.
Sandy had the gun. It was aimed at his face. ‘Get up off the street,’ she said. ‘We got us a job to do.’
10
Of those from outside the restaurant who’d been taken-alive, the kid with the Mohawk haircut remained unconscious and one man had broken arms. There was no point in washing either of them.
Four others were in good enough shape to help defend the place: Bill the parking attendant; a kid of about sixteen wearing only a T-shirt; a young woman dressed in a nightgown; and the old fellow who’d tried to strike John with his golf club.
Bound and struggling, they were carried into the kitchen and placed on the floor near the wash tubs.
The tubs were about two feet deep. Each looked large enough to permit someone to sit down or kneel. John stoppered the drain of one, and turned on the water.
‘Let’s do-Bill first,’ Cassy suggested.
Roscoe the chef dragged the young man to his feet. John held a knife on him while Roscoe removed the belts lashed around his arms and legs. Lynn and Cassy held onto his arms. He struggled against them until John pressed the blade to his throat. ‘Calm down, pal.’ Bill glared, but stopped resisting.
Steve and Carol kept watch on the other three as Roscoe, Lynn and Cassy stripped Bill down to his underwear. He was mostly black to his neck. From his shoulders to his feet, he looked clean except for his hands. Apparently, he hadn’t been under the rain long enough for it to penetrate his clothes to the skin.
‘I don’t think we’ll have to put him in,’ Cassy said.
‘Yeah,’ John agreed. ‘Just dunk his head and hands.’
Roscoe shoved Bill against the sink and pushed his head down into the water. Lynn and Cassy plunged his hands in. The three of them held him under, Roscoe rubbing his hair. The water turned murky gray. Then they let him up. He lurched out of the water, gasping. His hair was blond, his face red. He looked around, blinking.
Cassy gave him a dish towel. He frowned at her.
‘How are you?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘OK. I guess it worked, huh?’
‘Did it?’ Cassy asked him.
‘I guess I hurt you, huh? When I came in?’
‘Yeah.’
His face flushed to a deeper shade of red. ‘Jeez, I’m really sorry.’
Cassy met John’s eyes. She smiled. ‘It really did work,’ she said. ‘This is great.’
‘Let’s do the rest,’ John said. ‘Bill, you can get your clothes back on and go out to help the others.’
He scowled down at his wet, stained clothes.
‘It’s all right,’ John told him. ‘Secondary contact doesn’t seem to bother anyone.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘It means the rain actually has to get you,’ Cassy explained. ‘You can touch someone who’s black, or you can touch their clothes, and it doesn’t make you weird.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ Bill said.
‘Maybe not,’ Cassy told him. ‘But it’s true.’
Bill wrinkled his nose, then crouched and picked up his clothes and moved out of the way.
‘OK,’ Lynn said. ‘Who’s next?’
‘Her,’ Roscoe said. He pulled the woman up by her arms, stepped behind her and began to remove the belts while Lynn and Cassy held her.
Unlike Bill, she looked as if she’d been out in the rain for a long time. Her hair was black, matted down and stringy. Her nightgown was a sodden, clinging rag. The women peeled it up and dropped it to the floor. John saw that the rain had seeped right through it. She was black from head to toe.
Steve gave the chef a hand and they lifted her into the sink. She sat down in the water, knees up.
John stepped aside to make room for the women. They went to work with dish rags, starting at her head. In seconds, her hair was blonde again. Water streamed down, sluicing through the black, leaving strips of pale skin. They scrubbed her face, her neck, her shoulders. John watched rivulets run down her breasts, drops fall from her nipples. Then Lynn blocked his view and he looked away.
Do the kid next, he thought. Probably a better fighter than the old man.
‘That should just about do it,’ Lynn said.
‘Missed some on her shin,’ Roscoe told her.
The woman in the tub began to weep.
The boom of a gunshot made John jump. Lynn’s head snapped around. Her eyes were suddenly frantic.
Faint shouts of alarm came from somewhere beyond the kitchen. Screams. Another explosion.
John raced for the kitchen doors.
‘No!’ Lynn yelled.
‘Stay here!’ He slammed through a door and burst into the dining room. Men and women rushed by, some hunched low, others glancing back in panic. A few ducked under tables. Dr Goodman hurled a chair through a window. As the glass shattered, he dived out into the rain.
‘My God!’ It was Steve. Behind him.
‘What’s happening?’ Carol’s voice. She must’ve come out with Steve.
Another blast.
John ran toward the foyer, but stopped abruptly when he saw that the doors stood wide open. Crazies were already in, throwing themselves onto those who’d stayed to fight. In their midst stood a man with a short-barreled shotgun. A gunbelt laden with equipment hung around his waist. On the chest of his drenched shirt, a shield gleamed. A police badge.
As John watched, the cop shoved the muzzle of his shotgun into the belly of a waitress – Peggy – and pulled the trigger. The blast folded her in half and lifted her feet off the floor.
She was still in the air when John whirled around. He glimpsed Steve and Carol dashing for the broken window.
Planning to take their chances with the rain.
Better that, maybe, than staying to be slaughtered in the restaurant.
John rammed through the door into the kitchen. He saw Roscoe running for the alley exit, pulling the naked woman from the tub along behind him.
Lynn and Cassy were still by the tub. They both held knives. They both stared at John with terrified eyes.
‘This is it,’ he gasped. ‘We’re being overrun.’
Overrun. Like his firebase.
He’d survived that. He would survive this. The same way. But with Lynn and Cassy. This time, he wouldn’t be the only one to make it.
‘What’ll we do?’ Lynn asked.
‘Get invisible,’ he said.
They looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.
‘Strip,’ he said. He snatched the clump of black nightgown off the floor and tossed it to Lynn. ‘Put it on.’
As she caught the gown, John saw the look in Cassy’s eyes. She seemed to understand what he had in mind. And to understand that there was only one black nightgown, and he’d given it to his wife. She looked like a kid who hadn’t been picked for a game, and was trying not to show her letdown.
She flinched at the sound of a gunshot. This blast had a hard, flat sound. Not the shotgun. A revolver.
‘Get your clothes off,’ John told her.
Two more shots.
In the wake of the blasts, John heard screams and shouts and wailing and giggles. Sounds of a madhouse where slaughter was in full swing.
Dropping to his knees, he cut through the belt that bound the teenaged boy’s hands together. The kid started to fight him. John slashed his throat. Clamping the knife between his teeth, he tugged off the boy’s wet T-shirt. It had been all black a moment ago. Now the black was mixed with red. He threw the shirt to Cassy.
She looked stunned by what he’d done. But she pulled the shirt over her head. It came down halfway to her knees.
Lynn already wore the nightgown.
Both women looked sickly pale where they weren’t covered by the garments.
‘Come here,’ he snapped. ‘Quick.’
They rushed up close to him.
John flung blood at their bare legs from the pumping throat of the boy.
‘Get plenty on you. Quick!’
Crouching, they cupped blood and spread it over their hair and faces. Lynn washed her shoulders with it. John painted their legs.
Then he got up. ‘The freezer!’
‘Where?’Lynn asked.
He pointed at the freezer door. ‘Hurry,’ he gasped. ‘Get in there and play dead.’
‘What about you?’ Lynn blurted.
‘I’ll be all right. Go!’
The women ran for the freezer, Lynn glancing back, her face dripping crimson, a look in her eyes as if she thought she might never see him again.
John crouched beside the body of the boy he’d killed. When he heard the heavy thud of the shutting door, he clamped the knife between his teeth and lifted the body.
11
They sat on the sofa, Kara watching while Denise and Tom fashioned their weapons.
Tom had broken off the ends of a broom and a mop they’d found by the water heater, leaving each shaft with a jagged point. Kara had fetched a ball of twine from a kitchen drawer. They’d gathered more knives and returned to the living room.
The living room, Denise thought. The heart of the house. Its center.
She supposed this wasn’t precisely the center, but it was close enough. From here, they should be able to hear anyone attempting to break in, and get to the trouble spot fast.
She worked quickly, lashing the handle of a long, serrated carving knife to the blunt end of her broom handle.
Tom finished making his spear and offered it to Kara.
‘Can’t I just use my poker?’ she asked. ‘I’m pretty good at bonking people.’
Grinning, Tom rubbed the lump on his head. ‘Yeah, I noticed.’
‘Keep your poker,’ Denise told her. ‘But I want you to have a knife, too.’
‘OK.’
‘We’ll wipe ’em out with these things,’ Tom said.
‘Maybe they won’t show up,’ Denise said. She gripped the bound handle of the knife and put some pressure on it. The twine made quiet creaky sounds. The knife didn’t wobble at all. ‘Decent,’ she muttered.
