She spoke. “No, please don’t—”
“Jesus Christ!” Gray dropped her and pulled a gun out of his jacket.
“Please…take me back to Jake…”
He shot her twice.
She was almost grateful for the warmth when the bullets punched through her chest and belly. She heard a loud hissing she thought was her lungs deflating, but Gray had shot through her and ruined the spare tire under her hastily dressed body.
Cursing, Gray took hold of her again and dragged her out, dumped her onto a tarp, in which he rolled her up, and kicked into a shallow grave.
As he shoveled the broken sandstone and gravel into her hole, she wished she could scream that she was, even now, still alive. But she knew better than to speak up.
Perhaps, in the grave, the magic of Jake’s touch would wear off, and she would escape this life, and go where she belonged.
And in the fullness of time, she did go where she belonged.
Right back to Jake.
And there they were, the two of them. Doomed, and doomed, and doomed.
Two foolish girls. Two stupid whores.
Two lost souls, sharing a common fate.
At the hands of the same master.
But there was no denying that the ugly walls of the holding cell receded with every scrape of fingernail on flesh, the itch giving way to scratch.
And the wetter it got, the easier it became…
Part X
At The End Of The Night Of Judgment Day
Chapter Forty-five
Somewhere, a dog barked. Only a few miles to the north, lightning flashed and thunder like a vault door slamming, but no sounds of alarm from the surrounding homesteads. One thing you could say for desert folk—they minded their own business.
Gray ushered Esther and Eddie back inside. Jake strolled back up the path with a jaunty spring in his rigor-palsied step, smiling up at the moon as if someone up there couldn’t get enough of him.
Praying and spitting tobacco juice, LeGrange dragged Peet’s body toward the cruiser by the collar of her uniform and started loading her into the backseat. Normally, the sheriff kept a close watch on his emotions, but he let slip a barking laugh, every now and then, among the grunting and “God bless its” that passed for curses when Deputy Peet’s dead weight slipped out of his blood-slick, arthritic hands.
Mad, rampaging joy knocked down the last barriers in Bill LeGrange. He was done enforcing man’s laws. He’d been anointed to serve a higher power.
When Millie died, leaving him alone with their barnyard exhibit of a daughter, Bill LeGrange turned to drink. Not so anyone in the department noticed, but he drank himself sick before lunchtime, more days than not.
He knew he was chasing death, and sure to catch hell. No one else could understand. None could grant the kind of absolution he needed. None but Eternal Life could strike the bottle from his hand, and assure him that he’d be with Millie again on earth.
In short: he had taken confession, too.
He arranged Peet’s hands across the blasted ruin of her bosom in a serene tableau. She might only have nodded off in the backseat of the cruiser on a long, third watch. She might just tell herself that, LeGrange thought, if she woke up—
When she wakes up, he told himself. The pastor had come back. Tomorrow, the whole world would wake up.
One by one, if need be—
Jake finally reached the front door, looked around with that satisfied leer distorting even his silhouette, and went inside.
Still huddled in the shadows just beyond the reach of the porch light, Emmy slowly came to realize that she’d gone unnoticed. Her dark hair hung down in her eyes, plastered to her face by snot and tears. Lucky I decided to wear black, ha ha—
Her mind still wallowed in a quicksand of panic, but she gathered herself up and crawled away, with nowhere to run. She left her shoes in the studio. Her purse was in the living room. Mathias’s keys must have been in his pocket—
She bit her fingers, hard, making her whine, but clearing her head.
To see her now, to hold her again, almost undid him.
Eddie would have jumped Gray, if she were not here. He could face the gun, and maybe even take him, with no fear for himself. He doubted Jake needed any more improvements on the house, and he knew there’d be a settling of accounts before Jake played with his women. He’d talked himself down to a silent, permanent present, awaiting only the opening.
Gray barely covered them, for pacing and staring down the door. Probably nursing a king-size case of blue balls because he didn’t get to hurt anybody.
Softly, Eddie pulled Esther close and whispered, “I won’t let him hurt you anymore. I swear.”
She wanted to believe him. She nodded against his neck, sniffling and balling her hands up against his chest like she was looking for a secret door inside him. Her eyes kept kicking fretfully back to the door.
He took both of her shaking hands in his and said, “You don’t belong to him. Not anymore…”
She jumped back when Jake barged in, still waxing a big shit-eating grin that flickered not a wink as he sized them up. “I gotta say, that worked out pretty good!”
Gray uncorked like cheap beer in a paint shaker. “Are you out of your mind? I hate that motherfucker!” Waving the gun. “Worse, that motherfucker hates me!”
“He’s one of us now. A righteous apostle. You better get used to it…”
A man of destiny never looks down. Jake tripped over the toolbox, launching hammers, screws, and drill-bit cases pinging across the floor. “Oh, God DAMN it!” he howled.
A long Phillips-head screwdriver skidded against Eddie’s feet. He stepped sideways to cover it without looking down.
“Fuck that!” Gray got up in Jake’s face. “Jake, this shit is out of control, and you know it!”
Neither Gray nor Jake paid any attention to Eddie, who gave Esther a look and nudged her toward the back door.
“You want to settle up accounts and off these pigs, I’m only too happy to help. But…what the hell are we trying to do here, Jake?”
Gray’s back was to Eddie, as Eddie picked up the screwdriver…
“What the fuck are we waiting for?”
…and buried it in Gray’s back.
The blunt nose of the screwdriver punched through Gray’s blazer, but skidded down his shoulder blade, till Eddie drove it home with his whole weight. Abruptly, the seven-inch steel shaft punched through and slid in to the hilt in his right lung.
Gray screeched: a high, sharp, almost feline sound, cut off by his gun going off in his spasming hand.
Esther turned to look as she ran, screamed, nearly tripping over the end table.
Eddie twisted the screwdriver in Gray’s back, ripped it free and jumped back.
Gray dropped onto his side, roaring as loud as one lung allows. He squeezed off two more wild shots in the direction of the kitchen. Esther screamed, ducking down, unsure of which quavering way to go.
Jake smiled and popped his knuckles. Finally, the party would really get started.
Eddie rushed at Jake, stepping on Gray and leaping off the moaning gunman with the screwdriver upraised in both hands like a sword.
“RUN!” he screamed.
Jake threw wide his arms, grinning like a demonic date rapist, welcoming Eddie into his embrace.
It was exactly the opening Eddie was praying for: ridiculously overconfident, completely underplayed.
Eddie aimed for the right eye socket, the brain behind it, throwing his whole body into the thrust.
Then Jake whipped one arm around and caught him by the throat in midair.
The screwdriver whickered down, raked Jake across the cheekbone, chipping off mortuary putty and makeup, nothing more. Eddie’s legs kicked out, catching Jake in the shins. The monster yelped, sagging forward under Eddie’s weight.
Then Eddie fell backward, straight for the floor.
And Jake came down on top of him.
Hitting the
floor was bad enough. Then Jake landed, pinning him on his back, knocking the wind out of him, and straddled him hard.
Grunting, noxious fumes belched out of Jake, but he was not breathing, either. Just choking Eddie with one hand, holding Eddie’s right arm down with the other.
The talon on his throat crushed his windpipe, pinched off his carotid artery. Eddie almost instantly began to see spots. Heavy leaden waters closed over his head. He could barely see Jake’s snarling white-green face hovering over his own.
Groping blindly around with his free hand, trying to find something useful, Eddie caught the rubber grip of a claw hammer and seized it, striking Jake a glancing blow upside the head.
“OW! SONOFABITCH…!” Jake howled, while the flesh at his temple tore like moldy paper, but the only damage Jake felt was to his vanity.
The fist clamped around his throat winched down tighter, until Eddie’s neck bones creaked, then jerked his head off the floor and drummed it back down.
Eddie swung again, weak, wild, but the claw end first. Jake released Eddie’s throat to block the swing. It wasn’t that hard; Eddie’s strength was waning fast.
He gasped, bucking under Jake, wracked by painful coughing fits and an even deeper sense of loss. Jake scooched up, held down his arms, hunched over to bring his face right up to Eddie’s.
Jake roared. No words would begin to capture it. None were necessary.
Eddie screamed, staring up into hell.
The sight seemed to please Jake, the way a lion must be pleased when its prey has been downed: drunk on bloodlust, ready to feed. He smiled down, baring teeth, then looked quickly around at the glistening tools scattered all around them.
Jake let go of the hammer-hand, went to snatch something off the floor to his right. Eddie swung again, one last burst of desperation. Jake easily blocked it with his forearm.
And came up with something shiny, which he waggled in front of Eddie’s eyes.
It was the handsaw: just a steel grip with a ten-inch tapering blade. Jake angled it like a malformed mirror, reflecting Eddie’s terror back at him in warped-out funhouse form.
He saw himself; but even worse, he saw Esther reflected behind him. She was still standing there—SHE WAS STILL STANDING THERE—mesmerized by the horror, too frightened to move.
It was as if he were dying for nothing.
“RUN!” Eddie shrieked. It was the last word he had in him.
Then the blade came down, began sawing through his windpipe.
The pain was instantaneous, the damage irreparable. Eddie still struggled, but it was just a formality now. Jerking and bucking only made the hole wider. The rusty, serrated teeth peeled back his stubbly skin and sent geysers of blue venous and bright red arterial blood up into his eyes, both in and out of his mouth.
Eddie’s screams went up an octave, but soon turned to burble and spray, as Jake kept hacking through the tough sheath of the larynx.
Somewhere behind him, Esther screamed with all her heart. But now it was just background drone. He couldn’t feel her anymore. Couldn’t feel anything but his own throat rasping open.
And a strange, urgent tugging at the back of his soul.
Something was calling, but it wasn’t Jake. Wasn’t the endless plummet. Was something else.
He felt it, and the fear began to drain away.
He looked up at Jake, and Jake began to fade. The world began to fade, or at least Eddie’s handle on it. The pain. The meat. The bottomless terror and failure. All receding.
It wasn’t light that enveloped him now. But it wasn’t darkness, either. It was bigger than both. And it was upon him.
He gave himself over, and the struggling ceased.
For Jake, listening to Esther scream was just like opera, only way more fun, and he was beside himself with righteous glee. Her anguish made it like two lives, swirling down the drain and straight into him. Double the flavor, double the fun.
“Let’s see YOU come back from the dead, motherfucker!” he howled at the twitching sad sack beneath him. “Let’s see YOU try…!”
Eddie stopped jerking and gave up the ghost; his breath came in bubbles, then not at all, and his eyes glazed over. Deader than mud.
Jake wiped his hands off on Eddie’s shirt. His face was a mask of arterial war paint.
“I didn’t think so. Bitch.”
Only then did Esther finally run.
And, as if in afterthought, Gray finally stopped screaming long enough to get up on one elbow and take a shot at her. It missed, but spooked her away from the back door, and on down the hall.
Jake laughed as he watched her.
“NEXT!” he said.
Chapter Forty-six
Too scared to go anywhere, Emmy drifted across the backyard. Through the living room window, she saw the men fighting again, and made it across without being seen.
Emmy ran up to the holding cell window. “I’m gonna get you out of there!”
Evangeline looked up at Emmy, stunned and sleepy and guilty somehow. She waved a dismissive hand, as if to say come back later.
Her fingers were gloved in blood.
Natalya was beside her, whispering a desperate blizzard in her ear, loud enough that she couldn’t hear anything Emmy said.
“It’s too late for you. Keep going.”
She was right, and she should know. Nobody ever really got away from Jake, not even in death. On the other side, there was the consolation of final and total surrender.
Evangeline’s wrists were scratched and torn: she had been trying to tear them open with her fingernails, but the skin was tough with scars from her experimental period, and her nails were cracked and broken from trying to escape.
Why didn’t she do it right the last time? Or any of the times before?
The answer struck her so hard and sudden that it felt like being yanked out of ice water by the hair.
She had friends, that was why. She had friends who gave a shit about her, and wanted nothing from her but to know she was okay. They weren’t out to fuck her. They weren’t out to make a buck off her.
And they sure as shit weren’t some dead Russian hooker, trolling for company in the great beyond.
She had friends, and one of them was dead; but maybe, just maybe, the other one wasn’t.
And here was this stranger, this dumb little Jezoid, offering to help her from outside the door. Somebody who didn’t even like her—probably hated her—taking the time to try and save her. And why?
Because that’s what good Christians do, she thought to herself. They try to help other people.
At that point, the spell was broken.
The moment she stopped digging, the cold euphoria wore off. The shameful pain rolled up her arms and shocked the breath out of her. Her fingers tingled with blood loss, the pins and needles of death setting up shop.
Coming out of the shadowy corner of the cell, alone, she tucked her wrists into her armpits.
“Is Christian still alive?”
Emmy tugged at the locked door, hyperventilating. “I don’t know!”
“Well, get me out of here,” she said, “and let’s find out.”
Chapter Forty-seven
Out front, LeGrange sat behind the wheel of his cruiser with the door hanging open. He was on the radio, checking in. Screams and shooting came from the house. Another heathen converted.
“Yeah, Sandy. The wife’s in shock,” he said. “Needs some Valium and a shrink, not the cops.”
“Copy that,” said Sandy, the dispatcher. Jewish, but he forgave her to night. They would all awaken to the same faith. “It’s a hell of a thing, after losing her husband like that…” Her menthol-scratchy voice went vague, like it always did when someone talked in her other ear.
“Sheriff, we got a 911 call…need you and Peet to go check out Joey’s Cabaret on Kearny, ASAP…There’s a man down…”
At the sound of her name, LeGrange looked back at Peet.
Still dead.
Agnostic, of
lapsed Catholic parents. Strict vegetarian. Never could get his head around it.
Damned, though, if the stink of the shit in her britches didn’t stink a mite less than the average death-dump.
LeGrange wanted to tell Sandy to round up the boys, have them load up all the prisoners in the holding cells in the bus, and bring them here to share in the miracle, but he was getting ahead of himself.
Surely, the Lord must have new orders for him. And he would serve…unto death, and beyond.
Halfway down the strobe-lit corridor, Esther tried the laundry room door, threw it open…
…and a voluptuous, used-up demon-whore reached out for her, cackling as she beckoned from just within a throat of swirling blackness, stuffed to choking with wailing, damned souls.
Esther screamed, kept running, the laughter pursuing her.
Gray hawked and spat out a gob of dark, half-congealed blood. Jake got up, pulled his friend up by one hand, ignoring his tremors and curses, and started down the hall. Gray was almost delirious with pain, but he could walk.
“Come on. You can do this.”
Gray limped down the hall, trying to light a cigarette. “Augh! Fuck!”
Esther reached the end of the corridor, and Jake’s door. She balked at touching it, then raced into her own bedroom, slammed the door and threw herself against it, turning the flimsy lock in the knob that he’d broken half a dozen times before…
Breathe. Breathe. You’re alive.
But you’re not very bright, are you?
The only windows were narrow slits, ten feet above the floor.
She looked at her bed, her closet, her pretty things, her refuge from Jake. The only other door led to her bathroom.
Behind her, the footsteps, the hyena-barks of pain and insane anger, were coming closer.
Esther retreated into the bathroom and locked the door, turned on the flickering light.
Again, no escape but those narrow windows, far above. So stupid, so helpless. He tried to save her, told her to run…
She whimpered, trapped, spinning round and round.
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