The Listener

by Robert R. McCammon

  Donnie gave a sound that was not a shriek or a scream, but rather a gasp of surprise.

  His eyes blinked as he stared at Hartley.

  Then the blood sprayed out in a fan-shaped arc from the cut carotid artery, leaping higher with the beats of Donnie’s heart. He dropped the knife and clutched at his throat, the fingers working as if to seal the wound with pressure alone. His eyes were wide with terror in his gory face. The blood was fountaining out. Donnie whimpered and spun around like a wild beast trying to find a way out of a trap. He tripped over Nilla and crashed against the wall, leaving there his scrawled crimson signature. In his panicked madness he had lost his bearings, though the door was only eight feet behind him. He staggered past Little Jack, who was huddled on the floor still gasping for breath. His bloody hands scrabbled at the walls as if trying to claw himself out, as he threw gruesome plumes in every direction.

  ****

  As Ginger ran to the end of the pier with Pearly behind her, a streak of lightning shot past so close they could hear the air sizzle, and then with the next earth-shattering crack of thunder the heavens opened up, the rain slamming them in their faces as the storm came off the lake with a moan of wind and crash of waves against the pilings.

  They were drenched in a matter of seconds. Ginger was probing the churning water around the pier’s end with her light. Pearly swept the bull’s-eye lantern’s beam across the waves.

  “There!” she shouted, and she fired a fourth bullet into the lake but Pearly couldn’t see what she was shooting at. The money box was at their feet. “We’ve got the cash!” he shouted at her through the wind’s roar, though she stood right at his side. “Let’s go!”

  “I hit him!” she shouted back, streams of rain running through her hair and down her face. “I know I hit that sonofabitch!”

  “Okay, okay! Let’s go!”

  She seemed to Pearly hesitant to just take the money and leave, which made the most sense to him; she was still scanning the water with her light, the pistol outstretched to find a target. He set his lantern down atop the box and picked it up. “Ginger, let’s get out of here!” he urged. “Now!”

  At last she lowered the gun and the light. Silently she turned toward the two cars parked at the foot of the pier, and Pearly followed her through the blowing rain. At the Oldsmobile he put the box into the backseat, told her he was driving, and was surprised when she got into the passenger side without a word. He started the engine, switched on the windshield wipers, backed the car up to find a place to turn around, and then headed again toward Sawmill Road.

  “Damn!” he said. “I’m wet to the bone!”

  She didn’t answer. She held the gun in her lap, nearly cradling it as one would hold an infant.

  “Two hundred and fifteen fuckin’ thousand!” Pearly crowed. “He didn’t short us, I know it! He wanted the kids, he didn’t give a shit about the money.” He drove on for another moment without speaking, and then he had to voice something that had occurred to him when the first shot had gone off. “You wanted to shoot him, didn’t you? To kill him, if you could?”

  There was no answer.

  “I figure…that’s why you didn’t just have him drop the box off and leave. You wanted him there so you could shoot him. Sure, he gave you an excuse by rushin’ you, but…was that what this was really about? Shootin’ a rich man whose name got in the papers? And the toppin’ on that cake was that he had two kids?”

  “Maybe that was part of it,” she said, staring straight ahead. “But it was most about takin’ the prize. And we did.”

  “Yeah, we sure as hell did.” He frowned, because through his nearly-intoxicated elation at being rich and about to head south of the border to a new life something else had jabbed him in the brain. “I heard that nigger say somethin’ about Little Jack just before Ludenmere went crazy. Did you hear what—”

  “Oh…shit!” she said. “I remember what I forgot! The prize. In the Cracker Jack box. Donnie got me so fouled up…I forgot to take the prize out of that fuckin’ box!”

  “So what?”

  “It could’ve been a little fork or scissors…somethin’ metal, somethin’ with a sharp edge. Shit!”

  “Hold on, now! So what if it was? You think they can use—”

  “I think Donnie’s too stupid not to go in that room and taunt ’em. There’s no tellin’. Hit the gas, Pearly, get us there fast!”

  ****

  As the Olds pulled away, two figures who clung to each other staggered out of the waves and through the rain upon the muddy shore. Curtis was no master of swimming but knew enough to keep himself from drowning, even in the turbulent water and with his arm around Ludenmere; he figured it had been a blessing that the lake off the end of the pier was only about five feet deep and his long legs had found a purchase. He helped Ludenmere up into the relative shelter of the woods, and there in the pelting rain and under the windswept branches he eased the other man down against the trunk of a willow tree.

  “Oh my God,” Ludenmere said feebly. “Oh Jesus…oh my God.”

  The lightning kept flickering and by its illumination Curtis saw all the blood on the front of Ludenmere’s shirt, up on the right at the collarbone. Another shot must’ve grazed Ludenmere’s head on the right side because there was blood trickling down his forehead and, mixing with the rain, streaking out to make the man’s face a tormented mask.

  Curtis had to take a few breaths before he could speak. His heart was racing and he had started to shiver, not from the lake or the rain but from the terrifying experience of being shot at. He could still hear that bullet going past his head. All he could think to say was, “Are you hurt bad?”

  Ludenmere gave the worst curse that Curtis had ever heard in his life. The man probed at his collarbone with his left hand and uttered a second foul oath, but he sounded nearly worn-out. “Think the bone’s busted,” he said. “Can’t do much with my right arm. Damn it to Hell. That Parr…set me up. Bastard walked in my office and set me up.”

  “We’ve got to get on out of here,” Curtis said. “Get you to a doctor.”

  “My children.” For an instant Ludenmere’s voice cracked and became almost a sob. “What happened to Little Jack? Is he all right? Please…ask her.”

  “I will.” But Curtis found it was easier said than done. His mind was jangled and full of the noise of gunshots and the sizzle of his own hot coals of anger. He could not concentrate past the bad man’s evil declaration of He gets it now. :Nilla,: Curtis sent out, but he wasn’t sure if it was reaching her for all the static in his brain. :Nilla, what happened to Little Jack?:

  There was no reply. Curtis could not feel her on the other end of the mental radio; the tubes were not glowing.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he told Ludenmere. “I can’t get to her right now.”

  “Oh Jesus…you say…you don’t know how to drive?”

  “No, sir, I don’t.” Curtis paused to wipe the rain out of his eyes. “I’ll get up to the road and find help. Find a house…somebody to help us. There’s got to be somebody livin’ in one of those cabins up there.”

  “Right. Yeah…I don’t think…I’d better move from here…damn…don’t think I can move. Near passin’ out, Curtis…”

  Curtis had no idea if Ludenmere was going to die or not; he had no way of knowing how bad the injury was, but he figured the least—and maybe the most—he could do was go for help.

  “I’ll find somebody,” he said. “You hang on, I’ll be back directly.”

  When Ludenmere didn’t reply, Curtis knew it was time to get going. He stood up in the driving rain and began half-running and half-staggering in his soggy Redcap’s uniform and his waterlogged shoes the three-hundred-yard distance to Sawmill Road.

  ****

  Donnie had fallen to his knees. He was facing Nilla, Little Jack and Hartley, and even as the blood spouted from the cut a
rtery and his wounded face began to bleach to gray the black cinders of his eyes still said he would kill them if he could. He let out a bellow that might have had words in it, or might have been a warning to the spirit realm that Donnie Baines was on his way and he could lick any phantom in the house.

  He drew a tremendous breath, as if that would give him a few more seconds of life, and maybe it did. Then he shuddered like a dog that had been hit by a dump truck and he fell forward on his face with his eyes still open but staring no longer at anything of value to a corpse. He landed in the mess of his own gore, and caused it to ripple across the floor like a small tidal wave.

  “Out,” Hartley said. “Got to get out.” His own face had grayed. The blood was filling up his shirt at the belly. “Jack…can you pick up the lamp?” The boy was in shock, staring numbly at the dead man. “Jack!” Hartley tried to shout, but it was more of a painful wheeze. The boy jumped; tears sprang to his eyes and a thread of saliva drooled down from his lower lip.

  “I can get it,” Nilla said. She got her hands under the lantern’s wire handle and let it slide down to her wrists, then lifted it off the floor that way. Though the outer glass was cracked, the flame was still strong.

  “Got to get out,” Hartley repeated. “They come back and find this, they’ll kill us.” He pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning against and Nilla saw both the terrible pain and the awesome willpower in his single-eyed face. “Come on, Jack,” he urged. “Steady up now, hear me?”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy answered, but his eyes were still swollen with shock and his voice sounded hollow.

  “Lead us out of here,” Hartley told Nilla.

  Rain was hammering madly down on the tin roof. Nilla’s light showed that Donnie had opened the back door to let the air circulate. Out on the porch they found the screened door was latched, but Hartley solved that problem by kicking the whole thing off its hinges. Then he gave a gasp and doubled over, and Nilla saw that not only was he bleeding badly from his wounds but he was also bleeding from the mouth, which she did not have to be a nurse or a doctor to figure was a very bad sign.

  In the driving rain, the two steps down to the muddy earth were too many for Hartley. He took a fall that put him on his injured side and slammed from him a harsh grunt of pain. As Nilla was leaning down to try to help him, she heard something in her mind that sounded like a distant garble of words. Maybe there was a question in it, but if it was Curtis speaking he wasn’t making any sense. She had neither the time nor the concentration to answer; right now the only thing she could think about was getting her brother and herself as far away from the kidnappers as possible, and she was aware that Mr. Hartley could be dying in front of her eyes.

  She was unable to do anything to help him to his feet. “I can get up,” he said, priming himself to try. With a supreme effort he struggled to his knees and stayed there for a moment, as lightning streaked overhead and the thunder spoke and the rain came down upon all. Then he did stand up, slowly, fighting not only his injuries but the weight of the storm. He hunched over and pressed his elbows into his belly as if to hold his insides from sliding out.

  Headlights came through the rain up at the front of the cabin. The car stopped. Nilla heard two doors open and shut.

  “Let’s go!” Hartley said, and motioned with a lift of his chin toward the woods to the left.

  “Jack!” She hit him on the shoulder with an elbow, because he was standing there open-mouthed and seemingly as dumb as a rock. “Go!” she said, and hit him again to get him moving. His first couple of steps were made like he was sludging through glue, but then he started running into the woods without care that everything was dark ahead of him, and he was gone like a jackrabbit. Nilla held the lantern up for Hartley to see his way. They hadn’t gotten but about twenty feet when he fell again, even harder than before.

  A flashlight shone from the cabin’s back porch, searching for the runaways.

  “Get!” Hartley said. “I’m finished, Nilla.” Now a pair of lights were working from the porch, and when one found them the other did too.

  “I can’t—”

  “Take care of your brother,” he told her. “That’s what you have to—” His gaze shifted, his eyes squinting in the glare of the two combined lights. “They’re comin’. Get while you can.”

  She had no choice. She ran, following Little Jack into the unknown.

  ****

  “Looky here,” said Ginger as she walked to Hartley and put the light in his pallid face. “What I found…a one-eyed dead man.”

  Behind her, Pearly shone his bull’s-eye lantern into the woods. In the last minute the rain had eased from a hard downpour to a steady fall, and through it he could see the light of their lantern, moving away.

  “They won’t get far,” Ginger said, but she had not moved her attention from Hartley. “All this mud and the thicket out there…not far at all. Likely break their legs and we’ll hear ’em cryin’.” She knelt down a safe distance from Hartley, and it was then he saw the gun in her other hand. “You made a mess. How’d you do it?”

  “Ask Donnie,” said Hartley, with a grim smile that showed his bloody teeth.

  “Now here’s a brave man, Pearly. You say he was in the war? Oh yeah, that scar and all. Well, looks to me like he’s gonna be dead here real quick. We brought you the knife you killed Donnie with. Give it here, Pearly.” She put the flashlight aside, moved the pistol to her left hand and took the gory knife from Pearly’s hand in her right. “Looks like he stuck you a few times, too. You used this, or did you make yourself a blade somehow?”

  “Ginger,” Pearly said. “We’ve got two hundred and fifteen thousand fuckin’ dollars split two ways!” He had barely been able to suppress his delight at seeing the third split dead on the floor back there, at the same time realizing the chauffeur and the kids had gotten out, but now his bloodlust was up and it was all a matter of taking care of business. “Let’s finish him off and cut out! We don’t need the brats!”

  “Yes,” she answered, still staring fixedly at Hartley, “we do. Think on this, Pearly: if Bonnie and Clyde had had two kids with ’em in that car, would the lawmen have shot them to pieces? Hell, no. We’re gettin’ those brats and takin’ ’em with us. They’re gonna be our insurance policy against bein’ shot up on the road.”

  “I get that,” he said. “But we’re dumpin’ ’em somewhere, right? Soon as we’re in the clear?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Ginger slowly wiped the knife’s blade on Hartley’s trouser leg. “We’ll dump ’em…somewhere. By the by,” she said to Hartley, “I think I might’ve killed your master. Now…I’m not gonna waste a bullet on you, ’cause I can tell you’re sinkin’. We’re gonna go fetch those kiddies back, and if you’re not dead by the time we do…you’ll wish you were.” With that, she drove the knife with ferocious strength into the calf of Hartley’s left leg, and she twisted the blade.

  ****

  Nilla had caught up to Little Jack in the dripping woods. They both heard the ragged wail from behind them that made them stop in their tracks and stare at each other, their eyes wide and glistening in the lantern’s yellow light.

  Nilla broke the silence that followed. “We’ve got to keep moving. We’ll find a road or another cabin, or somebody.”

  “Yeah,” her brother said. Then: “What do you think they’ll do to Mr. Hartley?”

  “I think they’ve already done it. We can’t help him, Jack. He would want us to keep going.”

  “Yeah.” It was delivered gruffly, in a voice that might have belonged to their father at that age, yet in it was also a note of terrible pain that was all the father’s son.

  There was no time or energy to waste, and they both knew that. Nilla didn’t know if those two would come after them or not, but she couldn’t risk slowing down to find out.

  They went on into the thicket, their feet sinking through weeds
and mud as the rain continued to steadily fall, and beyond the lantern’s flame was nothing but a world of dark upon dark.

  Twenty-Two.

  It was raining in fits and starts when Curtis found the first cabin. He had turned west on the darkened stretch of Sawmill Road and was running in the direction of town. He banged on the cabin’s door…once…again, and a third time, but there were no lights and no one answered. He gave a shout of “Help me, please!” and hit the door twice again. There was still no reply from what must’ve been an abandoned place, and Curtis ran on.

  The next cabin was about eighty yards away and on the left side of the road, and he’d almost gone past it before he’d realized it was there. Beside the cabin, nearly hidden in the brush, was the battered frame of a car sitting on cinderblocks. Curtis crossed the road, ran through the weeds and up a pair of cinderblock steps to the door. He hammered on the weathered wood and shouted, “Help me! Somebody, quick!”

  Nothing.

  “Please!” he tried once more. “Help me!” He balled up his fist and hammered again…and suddenly he saw a faint light moving beyond a front window. Did a face peer out from the dirty glass? He couldn’t tell. He was about to shout and beat at the door a third time when he heard a bolt being thrown back.