‘The bullet’s probably in my bone.’
‘In your bone,’ he said, and I half expected a quip. He didn’t come out with one, though. Instead, he took a folded handkerchief out of his pocket. ‘Don’t worry, it’s clean.’ He pressed it against the hole in my thigh. ‘Hold it there,’ he said. ‘I’ll wrap my belt—’
‘Help,’ Randy murmured. ‘Help me. Please.’
In the dimming light, I saw him raise his head.
‘Not dead yet?’ Kirkus asked. ‘Give it time.’
‘Please,’ Randy murmured again.
‘I’ll help him,’ Casey offered.
She came hobbling toward us, a lighted candle in each hand. Behind her, the room was in darkness. These were apparently the last two burning candles.
Naked and bloody in the glow of the candles she carried. Casey looked like a teenaged savage girl playing her part in some sort of pagan ritual.
She stopped beside Randy and looked down at him.
‘We’d better stop the bleeding,’ she said, her voice soft and husky.
‘Let him die,’ Eileen said.
‘I concur,’ said Kirkus.
‘I have to do what I can,’ Casey said. She sank to her knees, next to Randy’s bleeding wrist but not very far from me. In the fluttery light, I saw semen trickling down through the blood on her thighs. ‘These wounds need to be cauterized,’ she said. ‘Let’s see if candles will do the trick.’
A soft chuckle came from Eileen.
‘I say,’ said Kirkus.
Then came the screams from Randy. And the stench.
Chapter Seventy-two
Later, we lit more candles. We were careful to keep them away from the quilt.
Kirkus used his belt to secure the handkerchief over my wound. I didn’t complain about the way he sometimes just happened to touch me; after all, he’d saved our bacon.
While Casey and I put on our clothes, Kirkus ran downstairs. He returned a few minutes later with Eileen’s gown. A while after that, the three of us were dressed and ready to go.
I put Randy’s pistol in my pocket, figuring I would probably tell the authorities (doctors are required to report gunshot wounds) that it was my own weapon and I’d shot myself in the leg by accident. This might work, at least if the gouge across my side from Randy’s first bullet went undetected - somewhat more difficult to explain away two gunshot wounds.
‘I guess that’s about it,’ I said.
‘What’ll we do about all this?’ Eileen asked. ‘The crime scene?’
‘We simply tell the truth,’ Kirkus pointed out. ‘Eileen was kidnapped and brutalized by this horrid man and we came to the rescue. Voilà. It was all quite justifiable.’
‘Only one problem with that,’ Casey said.
‘And that is?’
‘No way in hell,’ she said. ‘You try bringing the cops into this, I’m gone. They’re not gonna find out what happened to me tonight. Or what I did to him. Or who I am. Or anything.’
‘I’m with Casey,’ Eileen said. ‘Even if I thought she was wrong, I’d be with her. She almost got killed for me. But this bastard ... the things he did to us ... I don’t want to be telling cops about it or have it show up in the news and be all over campus.’
‘I’m not exactly eager, myself,’ said Kirkus. ‘After all, I’m the chap who lopped off his hand.’
‘For which I’m forever grateful,’ I told him.
‘Same here,’ said Eileen.
‘You bet,’ said Casey.
‘Thank you,’ Kirkus said, and I heard a choke in his voice. ‘Sorry I wasn’t in time to stop him from ... violating you.’
‘You saved my life,’ she said. Then she handed her candles to me and hugged Kirkus and kissed him.
When she stopped, he said, ‘I say. Glad I could help.’
After that, we stood around in the candlelight, silent for a while, looking down at Randy.
Eileen broke the silence. ‘We’ve got to do something about him ... about all this. We can’t just walk away. Must be all kinds of evidence they’d be able to use against us.’
‘We might torch the place,’ Kirkus suggested.
‘No,’ Casey said. ‘Even if Randy did work here, I’m pretty sure someone else owns the shop. Besides, a fire might spread to other stores ...’
‘Wouldn’t wanta burn down Dandi Donuts,’ Eileen said. I couldn’t tell whether she meant it sarcastically.
‘And somebody might get hurt if we start a fire,’ Casey added. ‘A fireman or an innocent bystander.’
‘We have to do something,’ I said. ‘We’ve all bled up here.’
‘Not me,’ said Kirkus.
‘Your fingerprints are on the sword,’ I pointed out.
‘Won’t be.’ he said, and wandered off with a candle.
‘What we need to do,’ Casey said, ‘is get Randy out of here. Take him out to the car. Clutter this room up so it looks pretty much like normal, then drop Randy off somewhere.’
‘Like at a hospital?’ Eileen asked. Again, I wasn’t sure whether she was being sarcastic.
Casey said, ‘That’s not exactly what I have in mind.’
Chapter Seventy-three
Because of my leg wound, I missed out on the cleanup and heavy lifting.
Kirkus helped me downstairs and out to the car. I sat in the back seat and waited, once in a while ducking out of sight when a car or pedestrian came along.
After about half an hour, the shop’s front door opened and Casey came out. She looked around, then walked over to the car and opened its trunk.
Out of the shop rushed Kirkus carrying a big, rolled rug over his shoulder.
Nice touch, I thought.
Eileen came out after Kirkus. She had a large coil of rope hanging from her shoulder.
When Kirkus flung the rug into the trunk, the whole car shook.
Eileen sat up front with Kirkus. Casey sat in back with me.
As Kirkus swung away from the curb, Casey squeezed my hand. ‘How are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Not bad. How about you?’
‘I think everything’ll be all right.’
I squeezed her hand and said, ‘Hey, Rudy, who you got in the rug?’
‘Not Cleopatra.’
‘I thought not,’ I said.
Kirkus stopped his car halfway across the Fairmont Street bridge - the same bridge where he had almost jumped/fallen and I’d saved him and smacked my head on the street.
We all climbed out, even me. With Casey and Eileen holding me up, I made it to the parapet. I leaned against it and they let go of me.
They all hurried over to the trunk of Kirkus’s car.
I kept watch. So far, no traffic was approaching from either direction. I saw no people, either, except my friends.
The rug stayed in the trunk.
Randy didn’t.
Nobody had bothered to put clothes on him. But his thigh was still bandaged and there were white rags tied around both his stumps like two peculiar, blood-stained flags of surrender.
Kirkus wrapped one end of the rope around Randy’s waist and knotted it. Then all three picked him up.
Randy regained consciousness while they were hauling him over to the parapet. He started whimpering and mumbling.
‘What’s ... going on?’ he asked.
Nobody answered him.
‘I need help,’ he said.
No response.
‘Where are we?’ he asked.
They put him over the low concrete wall of the bridge.
‘No!’ he squealed. ‘What’re you doing?’
My leg had been shot, but there was nothing much wrong with my arms. I took hold of the rope, along with Kirkus and Eileen and Casey, and helped to lower Randy slowly toward the Old Mill Stream.
‘Hey, no!’ he cried out. ‘What’re you doing?’
We lowered him slowly. He squirmed and bucked on the rope. It felt like having a very large fish on the line.
Near the top, the structur
e of the bridge held him fairly steady. Lower, clear of the bridge, he began to spin and swing.
‘What’re you doing!’ he called out again.
‘This seems about right,’ Kirkus said.
The glow of the bridge’s single functioning lamp didn’t reach down far enough to light Randy. Peering over the parapet, however, I was able to see him in the moonlight - hovering four or five feet above the surface of the stream. ‘Looks good to me,’ I said.
We tied off our end of the rope to the base of the nearest lamppost.
Still, no traffic was in sight.
We all leaned over the parapet and looked down. Randy was slowly swinging and twirling above the water.
‘What if nobody’s down there?’ Eileen asked.
‘It’ll be fine,’ said Casey.
A couple of dim shapes waded slowly out from under the bridge.
‘See?’ said Casey.
‘Dear God,’ Kirkus muttered.
Randy didn’t seem to be aware, yet, of the approaching trolls.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said.
The girls were helping me back to Kirkus’s car when Randy’s very frightened voice said, ‘Hey, who’re you? What’re you guys—’
Then Randy let out a scream I’ll never forget.
We all looked at each other. I had goosebumps. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, too.
Eileen muttered, ‘Holy shit.’
The next day, while I stayed in bed, Kirkus drove over to the bridge. He came back and reported that even the rope was gone.
Chapter Seventy-four
It wasn’t my own bed, by the way.
After disposing of Randy, we had a discussion about where to go and Casey suggested Lois’s house. ‘She’s probably home by now. She’ll take care of us.’
By the time we reached her house, Lois had been home for more than an hour. She seemed overjoyed to see us ... though upset by our condition.
As it turned out, I didn’t need any excuses for my gunshot wounds. Around dawn, Casey showed up in the bedroom with a doctor. He was one of her special friends, one of those souls she’d drawn to her during the night roaming. A friendly, elderly man, he removed the bullet from my leg and patched me up. He also bandaged Eileen’s dart wounds. He injected both of us with tetanus boosters and gave us antibiotics.
I missed a week of classes because of my leg wound, but Eileen and Kirkus continued on as if nothing had happened, and kept me up to date on various assignments.
I had lots of time for reading and writing.
‘If you’re writing about us,’ the one I call Eileen said when she caught me at it, ‘make sure you change the names.’
To which I responded, ‘Never fear. They’re changed already.’
‘What’re you calling me?’ she asked.
‘Hillary.’
‘You lookin’ to die?’
‘Just kidding. I’m calling you Eileen.’
She frowned and nodded, thinking about it Then she said, ‘Not bad. Not bad at all. What about the others?’
I told her.
She laughed about one of them.
“Think I should change it?’
‘Oh, hell no. It suits him.’
After I’d been at the house for a few days, Lois asked me to stay on as sort of a permanent guest. I explained that her house was too far from campus, but she offered to let me use her new car. So I moved out of my apartment building (pleased to leave the Fishers behind) and into Lois’s house.
Kirkus moved into my old apartment.
It is all fairly strange, really.
I’d gone out for a walk through the streets of town on a night in early October, the most lonesome night of my life ... heartbroken, bitter and desolate. Within a week, three women had entered my life and taken away the loneliness and I found myself happier than I’d ever been.
I still am.
As for Lois, Eileen and Casey, we’re taking things a step at a time. Lois and I, sharing the same house, have grown to be very close. Eileen often comes over, and sometimes we go out together. Casey sleeps in my bed. When I wake up late at night and discover that she’s gone, I don’t mind ... but I worry about her.
I don’t know where it all may lead, but I do love the journey.
As for Kirkus ... Well, Kirkus is Kirkus. He’s an emotional wreck with the hots for me. Sometimes, we get along fine. Every so often, I have to fight him off. We really need to find him a new boyfriend.
As for Holly, who dumped me for the summer camp counselor - fuck her.
RICHARD LAYMON
Richard Laymon is the author of over 30 novels and 65 short stories. Though a native of Illinois and a long-time Californian, his name is more familiar to readers in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, as well as much of the rest of the world, where he is published in fifteen foreign languages. He has written such acclaimed novels as To Wake the Dead. No Sanctuanary, Island, Among the Missing, One Rainy Night. In the Dark, and Bite. The Traveling Vampire Show won a Bram Stoker Award for Novel of the Year in 2001. Two of his earlier novels (Flesh and Funland) and a short story collection (A Good, Secret Place) previously had been nominated for Bram Stoker Awards as well.
Check out the Richard Lavmon Kills! website at www.rlk.cjb.net.
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