Oh, Christ! Lawry thought. This guy’s gone wacko! But he kind of liked the idea of being a corporal. That sounded important. He turned away from the colonel and started hauling Kempka’s body again. A funny thought hit him, and he almost giggled, but he held it back. The king is dead! he thought. Long live the king! He hauled the corpse down the steps, and the trailer door shut. He saw several men standing around, attracted by all the ruckus, and he began barking orders at them to pick up Freddie Kempka’s corpse and carry it out to the edge of the dirtwart land. They obeyed him like automatons, and Judd Lawry figured he might grow to enjoy playing soldiers.
SEVEN
Thinking About Tomorrow
Heads will roll
The straitjacket game
Suicide mission
My people
A smoky old glass
Christian in a Cadillac
Green froth
41
“MY NAME IS ALVIN Mangrim. I’m Lord Alvin now. Welcome to my kingdom.” The young blond madman, sitting on his toilet-throne, motioned with a slender hand. “Do you like it?”
Josh was sickened by the smell of death and decay. He, Swan and Leona were sitting together on the floor of the K-Mart’s pet department at the rear of the store. In the small cages around them were dozens of dead canaries and parakeets, and dead fish lay moldering in their tanks. Beyond a glassed-in display area, a few kittens and puppies were drawing flies.
He longed to bash that grinning, blond-bearded face, but his wrists and ankles were chained and padlocked. Both Swan and Leona were bound by ropes. Around them stood the bald-headed Neanderthal, the man with bulging fish-eyes, and about six or seven others. The black-bearded man and the dwarf in the shopping cart lurked nearby, the dwarf clutching Swan’s dowsing rod in his stubby fingers.
“I fixed the juice,” Lord Alvin offered, reclining on his throne and eating grapes. “That’s why the lights are on.” His murky green eyes shifted from Josh to Swan and back again. Leona was still bleeding from the gash in her head, and her eyes fluttered as she fought off shock. “I hooked a couple of portable generators up to the electrical system. I’ve always been good with electricity. And I’m a very good carpenter, too. Jesus was a carpenter, you know.” He spat out seeds. “Do you believe in Jesus?”
“Yes,” Josh managed to croak.
“I do, too. I had a dog named Jesus once. I crucified him, but he didn’t come back to life. Before he died, he told me what to do to the people in the brick house. Off went their heads.”
Josh sat very still, looking up into those green, bottomless eyes.
Lord Alvin smiled, and for a moment he resembled a choirboy, all draped in purple and ready to sing. “I fixed the lights here so we’d attract plenty of fresh meat—like you folks. Plenty of play toys. See, everybody left us at Pathway. All the lights went out, and the doctors went home. But we found some of them, like Dr. Baylor. And then I baptized my disciples in the blood of Dr. Baylor and sent them out into the world, and the rest of us stayed here.” He cocked his head to one side, and his smile faded. “It’s dark outside,” he said. “It’s always dark, even in the daytime. What’s your name, friend?”
Josh told him. He could smell his own scared sweat over the odor of dead animals.
“Josh,” Lord Alvin repeated. He ate a grape. “Mighty Joshua. Blew those old walls of Jericho right fucking down, didn’t you?” He smiled again and motioned at a young man with slicked-back black hair and red paint circling his eyes and mouth. The young man came forward, holding a jar of something.
Swan heard some of the men giggle with excitement. Her heart was still pounding, but the tears were gone now, and so was the molasses that had been jamming up her brain gears. She knew these crazy men had escaped from the Pathway place, and she knew that death was before her, sitting on a toilet. She wondered what had happened to Mule, and since she’d bumped into the mannequins—she shoved that memory quickly aside—there’d been no sight or sound of the terrier.
The young man with red paint on his face knelt in front of Josh, unscrewed the lid of the jar and revealed white greasepaint. He got a dab of the stuff on his forefinger and reached toward Josh’s face; Josh jerked his head back, but the Neanderthal gripped Josh’s skull and held it steady as the greasepaint was applied.
“You’re going to look pretty, Josh,” Lord Alvin told him. “You’re going to enjoy this.”
Through the waves of pain in her legs and the numbing frost of shock, Leona watched the greasepaint going on. She realized the young man was painting Josh’s face to resemble a skull.
“I know a game,” Lord Alvin said. “A game called Straitjacket. I made it up. Know why? Dr. Baylor said, ‘Come on, Alvin! Come get your pill like a good boy,’ and I had to walk down that long, stinking corridor every day.” He held up two fingers. “Twice a day. I’m a very good carpenter, though.” He paused, blinking slowly as if trying to get his thoughts back in whack. “I used to build dog houses. Not just ordinary dog houses. I built mansions and castles for dogs. I built a replica of the Tower of London for Jesus. That’s where they chopped the heads of witches off.” The corner of his left eye began ticking. He was silent, staring into space as the finishing touches were put to the greasepaint skull that covered Josh’s face.
When the job was done, the Neanderthal released Josh’s head. Lord Alvin finished his grapes and licked his fingers. “In the Straitjacket game,” he said between licks, “you get taken to the front of the store. The lady and the kid stay here. Now, you get a choice—what do you want freed, your arms or your legs?”
“What’s the point of this shit?”
Lord Alvin waggled an admonishing finger. “Arms or legs, Josh?”
I need my legs free, Josh reasoned. Then: no, I can always hop or hobble. I’ve got to have my arms free. No, my legs! It was impossible to decide without knowing what was going to happen. He hesitated, trying to think clearly. He felt Swan watching him; he looked at her, but she shook her head, could offer no help. “My legs,” Josh finally said.
“Good. That didn’t hurt, did it?” Again, there was a giggle and rustle of excitement from the onlookers. “Okay, you get taken up to the front and your legs are freed. Then you get five minutes to make it all the way through the store back here.” He pulled up the right sleeve of his purple robe. On his arm were six wristwatches. “See, I can keep the time to the exact second. Five minutes from when I say go—and not one second more, Josh.”
Josh released a sigh of relief. Thank God he’d chosen his legs to be freed! He could see himself crawling and hobbling through the K-Mart in this ridiculous farce!
“Oh, yes,” Lord Alvin continued. “My subjects are going to try their best to kill you between the front of the store and here.” He smiled cheerfully. “They’ll be using knives, hammers, axes—everything except guns. See, guns wouldn’t be fair. Now, don’t worry too much: You can use the same things, if you find them—and if you can get your hands on them. Or you can use anything else to protect yourself with, but you won’t find any guns out there. Not even a pellet rifle. Isn’t that a fun game?”
Josh’s mouth tasted like sawdust. He was afraid to ask, but he had to: “What ... if I don’t get back here ... in five minutes?”
The dwarf jumped up and down in the shopping cart and pointed the dowsing rod at him like a jester’s scepter. “Death! Death! Death!” he yelled.
“Thank you, Imp,” Lord Alvin said. “Josh, you’ve seen my mannequins, haven’t you? Aren’t they pretty? So lifelike, too! Want to know how we make them?” He glanced up at someone behind Josh and nodded.
Immediately there was a guttural growl that ascended into a high-pitched whining. Josh smelled gasoline. He already knew what the sound was, and his gut clenched. He looked over his shoulder and saw the Neanderthal standing there holding a whirring chain-saw that was streaked and clumped with dried gore.
“If you don’t beat the clock, friend Josh,” Lord Alvin said, leaning forward, “the lady and the c
hild will join my mannequin collection. Their heads will, I mean.” He lifted a finger, and the chainsaw rattled to a halt.
“Heads will roll!” Imp jumped and grinned. “Heads will roll!”
“Of course,” the madman in the purple robe added, “if they kill you out there, it won’t matter very much, will it? We’d have to find a big body to go along with your head, wouldn’t we? Well? Are we ready?”
“Ready!” Imp shouted.
“Ready!” the black-bearded brute said.
“Ready!” the others hollered, dancing and capering. “Reaaaady!”
Lord Alvin reached over and took the dowsing rod from Imp. He tossed it to the floor about three feet away. “Cross that line, friend Josh, and you shall know wonders.”
He’ll kill us anyway, Josh knew. But he had no choice; his eyes met Swan’s. She stared at him calmly and resolutely, and she tried to send the thought “I believe in you” to him. He gritted his teeth. Protect the child. Yeah! I’ve done a damned fine job, haven’t I?
The black-bearded man and another of the lunatics hauled Josh to his feet.
“Kick ass,” Leona whispered, the pain in her skull all but blinding her.
Josh was half carried, half dragged out of the pet department, through the housewares, the sporting goods, and then out along the center aisle to the row of cash registers at the front. A third man was waiting, armed with a double-barreled shotgun and a ring of keys dangling from his belt. Josh was thrown to the floor, the breath whistling between his teeth. “Legs,” he heard the bearded man say, and the one with the keys bent down to unsnap the padlocks.
Josh was aware of a steady roaring noise, and he looked at the windows. A torrential rain was falling, some of it sweeping in through the broken glass. There was no sign of the horse, and Josh hoped it would find a dry place to die in. God help us all! he thought. Though he hadn’t seen any of the other maniacs when he was being brought to the front, he knew they were out there in the store—hiding, waiting, getting ready for the game to begin.
Protect the child. The rasping voice that had come from PawPaw’s throat was fresh in his mind. Protect the child. He had to get across that line in five minutes, no matter what the crazy shitters threw at him. He would have to use all the moves he remembered from his football days, have to make those rusty knees young again. Oh, Lord, he prayed, if You ever smiled on a dumb fool, show those pearly whites right now!
The last padlock was unsnapped, and the chains were removed from Josh’s legs. He was pulled to his feet, his wrists still shackled tightly together, the chain curled around his forearms and hands as well. He could open and close his left hand, but the right was balled shut and immobile. He looked toward the rear of the K-Mart, and his heart lurched; the damned place seemed as long as ten football fields.
In the pet department, Swan had laid her head on Leona’s shoulder. The woman was breathing erratically, fighting to keep her eyes open. Swan knew Josh was going to do all he could to reach them, but she knew also that he might fail. Lord Alvin was smiling at her beatifically, like a saint’s smile on a stained-glass window. He regarded the watches on his wrist, then pointed the electric bullhorn toward the front and blared, “Let the Straitjacket game start ... now! Five minutes, friend Josh!”
Swan flinched and waited for what would be.
42
JOSH JUMPED AT THE sound of the bullhorn. Before he could take one stride forward, an arm clamped around his neck from behind and started squeezing. It was old Blackbeard, he realized. Bastard’s trying to nail me right off!
Instinctively, Josh threw his head backward in what was known as a “Reverse Coconut Butt” in the ring—but this time he let it go full-throttle. His skull smacked into Blackbeard’s forehead, and suddenly the restraining arm was gone. Josh spun around to finish the job and found Blackbeard sitting on his ass, his eyes glazed and his forehead already purpling. The other lunatic swung the shotgun up. “Go,” he ordered, and he grinned with green teeth.
Josh had no time to waste; he turned and started running full-bore along the center aisle.
He’d taken six long strides when a baseball bat swung out along the floor and clipped his right ankle. He fell, hit the floor on his belly and slid another eight feet across the linoleum. Instantly he twisted to face his attacker, who’d been hiding behind a counter of socks and underwear. The man, who wore a red football helmet, rose up and rushed Josh, swinging the bat for a game-ending home run.
Josh drew his knees to his chest, kicked out and up and caught the maniac right in the stomach with both feet, lifting him about four feet in the air. The man came down on his tailbone, and Josh scrambled up to kick him in the groin as if he were making a fifty-yard field goal. As the man contorted into a shivering ball, Josh got his left hand around the bat and snatched it up; he worked his grip down to the handle, and though he had no real leverage, at least he had a weapon. He turned to continue along the aisle—and faced a skinny dude with an axe and another bastard with a blue-painted face who was carrying a sledgehammer.
No way! Josh thought, and he darted along one of the other aisles, intending to swing toward the pet department from a different angle. He skidded into a female mannequin, and the brown-haired head tumbled off the shoulders to the floor.
“Four minutes, friend Josh!” Lord Alvin’s voice announced.
A figure with an upraised butcher knife burst from amid a rack of dresses in Josh’s path. Can’t stop! Josh knew, unable to lock his knees in time. Instead, he plowed forward, threw himself off his feet in a body block that slammed into the knife wielder and drove him into the dress rack, which collapsed around them. The man struck with the knife, missed, struck again and snagged the blade in fabric. Josh got astride his chest and brought the bat’s shaft down on the man’s skull—once, twice and a third time. The body quivered as if plugged into an electric socket.
A stabbing pain hit Josh in the neck. He looked around and saw a dungareed, leering maniac holding a fishing rod. The line was taut between them, and Josh knew there was a hook in his skin. The lunatic fisherman wrenched on the rod as if he were landing a prize marlin, and the hook ripped out of Josh’s neck. The rod was snapped again, the hook flashing toward Josh’s face, but he ducked it and scrabbled out of the dresses, regaining his feet and running for the pet department again.
“Three minutes left, friend Josh!”
No! Josh thought. No! The bastard was cheating! Another minute couldn’t have passed yet!
He sprinted past a well-dressed mannequin in the men’s department—but suddenly the mannequin came to life and leaped on his back, fingers clawing at his eyes. He kept running as the man held on, the jagged fingernails carving Josh’s cheeks, and ahead of him stood a lean, bare-chested black man with a screwdriver in one hand and a garbage can lid in the other.
Josh ran full steam at the waiting assassin, then abruptly stopped, sliding across the floor. He hunched over and spun his shoulders. The man on his back lost his grip and hurtled through the air, but Josh’s aim was off. Instead of crashing into the black man, as Josh had hoped, the well-dressed lunatic sailed over a counter full of summer shirts and hit the floor.
The black man attacked, moving like a panther. Josh swung the bat, but the garbage can lid was there to deflect it. The screwdriver drove in at Josh’s stomach; he twisted away, and the weapon grazed his ribs. They fought at close quarters, Josh desperately avoiding the thrusts of the screwdriver and trying vainly to get a good strike with his bat. As they grappled, Josh caught movement on both sides—more of them, coming in for the kill. He knew he was finished if he couldn’t get away from this crazy bro, because a husky man with garden shears was almost upon him. The black man’s teeth snapped at Josh’s cheek; Josh saw his opening and dropped to his knees, scooting between the man’s legs like a greased pig. When the bro whirled around, he was met by a blow that crumpled his face and knocked teeth through the air. He took two wobbly steps and fell like a tree.
Josh kept go
ing, the breath wheezing in his lungs.
“Two minutes!” Lord Alvin crowed.
Faster! Josh urged himself. Faster, damn it! The pet department was still so far away, and the sonofabitch was rushing time! Protect the child! Got to protec—
A maniac with a white-powdered face rose up from behind a counter and slammed a tire iron across Josh’s left shoulder. Josh cried out in pain and tumbled into a display of Quaker State oil cans, agony shooting from his shoulder to his fingertips. He’d lost the baseball bat; it was rolling across the aisle, way out of reach. The white-faced madman attacked him, flailing wildly with the tire iron while Josh fought in a frenzy. The tire iron smashed down beside Josh’s head and burst one of the cans open, and then they were fighting like two animals, kill or be killed.
Josh caught the man in the ribs with a knee and drove him back, but he leaped in again. They rolled in motor oil across the floor, Josh’s opponent squirming like an eel. And then the man was up on his feet; he charged Josh, the tire iron upraised for a blow to the skull.
But his shoes slipped out from under him in the oil, and he crashed to the floor on his back. At once Josh got astride him, one knee trapping the tire iron and the other knee pressed to the man’s throat. He lifted both hands and heard himself bellow with fury as he brought the chain down, at the same time putting all his weight on the throat. He felt his knee break through something soft, and the scarlet imprint of the chain was left on the distorted face like a tattoo.
Josh struggled to his feet, his lungs heaving. His shoulder pounded with excruciating pain, but he couldn’t give in to it. Keep going! he told himself. Move, you fool! A hammer sailed past him, clattering into a display of hubcabs. He slipped, fell to his knees. Blood was in his mouth and crawling down his face, and the seconds were ticking. He thought of the roach on the barn floor, the survivor of insecticides and stomping boots and a nuclear holocaust. If such a thing as that had the will to live, then he damned well did, too.
Swan Song Page 41