by Anthony Izzo
Before opening the box, he held it up to his ear. He had set it on the seat in the car on the way here, and it didn’t sound like it was ticking, but you could never be sure. Better to be safe than to get blown to bits.
Satisfied it wasn’t a bomb, he used the pen point to split the tape, then pulled the flaps open.
There were wads of balled-up newspaper inside, and Matt pulled them out and tossed them on the floor. Underneath the paper was a small white box and a sealed envelope.
“Anyone want to do the honors?” he said.
“Let’s see the box,” Harry said, picking it up.
Matt tore open the envelope, while Harry opened the small box.
Harry took the lid off, sucked in air in a heaving gasp and backpedaled, sitting on the bed hard. The box landed on the table, remaining upright.
Harry’s face had gone dead pale.
“What is it?” Jill said.
Harry clamped his hand over his mouth.
“Look in the box,” he said.
Matt picked up the box and Jill peered over his shoulder.
It took him a second to realize what he was looking at, that what he was seeing was real, and not some grisly Halloween prop.
It was a severed finger, slightly crooked, sitting on a bed of wadded cotton. The skin was liver-spotted; and a gold wedding band rested below the knuckle.
Matt wanted to fling the package across the room, but he stopped himself. It was Liza’s finger, and to do that would be disrespectful, like walking on a grave. Instead he set it gently on the dresser and closed the lid.
Behind him, he heard Jill whisper, “Oh, my God. Matt, is she ... ?”
“She has to be alive. Rafferty said if I didn’t come back in an hour he would kill her. He needs her for leverage.”
“Read the note,” Jill said.
Matt removed the paper from the envelope and unfolded it.
Nice touch, don’t you think? Took me a while to get her to hold still, but once I started cutting, she lost some fight. The three of you turn yourselves in to me in one week. The place of surrender is St. Mark’s Catholic School, twelve midnight. I’ll expect Harry and Jill to show up. If they don’t, I’ll chop up Crowe and the old woman piece by piece and send them to you. If you surrender, I’ll let the old woman go.
Sincerely,
Ed Rafferty, Chief of Police
“We have to stop him and free you and Liza,” Jill said.
“I can work on getting the two of us out. Harry’s wife brought a gun into the jail,” Matt said.
“We’ll show up there, but we’re not gonna come in quietly,” Harry said.
“You’ve got guns?”
“Liza brought them,” Jill replied.
“Can we put together a quick plan?”
“Why don’t we just take these weapons and blow them to hell, get Liza out now?” Harry said.
“That won’t stop the Harvest. And if Rafferty senses something’s up he might kill her before we could bust her out,” Jill said.
“I suppose you’re right. I don’t like it, but I suppose you’re right. Now what’s your plan, Matt?”
“This is what we should do.”
Ten minutes planning to stop an army of devils. If they were going to succeed, they would need an angel on their collective shoulders. Better yet, a whole legion of them.
CHAPTER 31
Matt pulled into the parking lot to find Clarence standing with his arms crossed outside the garage doors. He reminded Matt of a cigar store Indian, big and ugly.
Matt hit the brakes in front of the garage door, and the cop waved him out of the car.
“Slowly!” he said.
Once he was out, the cop instructed him to turn around, put his hands on the hood and spread his legs. He patted Matt down, giving him a little jab in the crotch when he reached Matt’s inner thighs.
“How’d that feel?”
“Piss off.”
He escorted Matt into the cell block, where Liza lay on her cot, motionless. At first he though she was dead and Rafferty had left her body there as a surprise for him. Her arm was draped across her forehead, as if she had a bad headache and was resting on her couch at home.
A piece of gauze was taped over the spot where her ring finger used to be. It was brown with dried blood.
Her chest rose and fell, the only sign she was still alive.
Clarence, the red-haired cop, unlocked Matt’s cell door and pushed him in. Did these guys think that you got in the cell quicker if they shoved you? It seemed to be the norm around here. Maybe they could start an Olympic event: the inmate shove and toss.
The first thing he did after Clarence was gone was slide his hand under the mattress and feel for the revolver. He had a tense moment when he couldn’t find it, but then he felt it. He had expected to turn and see Rafferty on the other side of the bars, dangling the gun, mocking him with it. But the cell hadn’t been searched, and their get-out-of-jail card was still tucked safely away.
Matt said, “How are you holding up?”
“Ugh.”
“That bad? Did the bleeding stop?”
“Yeah. The dear Chief of Police cauterized it for me with a propane torch,” she said. “But not before he jammed it in that toilet in your cell. I think I’m getting an infection.”
“Painkillers?”
“None. I think it might be infected,” she repeated.
She must be in incredible pain, pain beyond his comprehension.
He lowered his voice and said, “We’ve gotta get out of here. You bringing that gun in was a small miracle.”
“Thank heavens for them,” she said.
“We’ve got a plan. Just try and hold on.”
“I’ll do my best,” she croaked.
The door from the squad room opened and somebody approached the cells.
It was Rafferty; he leaned against Matt’s cell door and held onto the bars.
“They agreed to surrender. But you have to promise not to hurt Liza anymore.”
“What did the fat one say when he saw his old lady’s finger?”
“That he wanted to tear your guts out.”
“How quaint. They really agreed to turn themselves in?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Matt jerked his head in Liza’s direction. “And we’ll see if you let her go.”
“If everyone cooperates, I see no problems.”
“Uh-huh.”
Rafferty let go of the bars and walked away. Matt trusted him about as much as he would an angry rattlesnake.
Harry sat in a chair facing the hotel room door, his head bobbing, fighting the tight grip of sleep that wanted to pull him under. One of the shotguns was draped across his lap.
Jill rested on one of the twin beds, fingers twined behind her head on the pillow. She had a wonderful view of the ceiling tiles, and she’d resorted to counting the tiny dots in the panels to try and make herself sleepy. It hadn’t worked. The alarm clock read 2:15 A.M.
She felt like she had downed a pot of coffee; every few minutes she twitched or rolled over, and her skin felt itchy. The pillow had lost its coolness and felt as if it were stuffed with knotted-up sweat socks.
Resigned to the fact that she wasn’t going to get much sleep, she kicked the covers off and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
They had moved from the Best Western to the Adam’s Mark. Since Rafferty knew where they were staying, the switch would keep him off balance.
She stood up and looked out at the city lights, most notably City Hall’s top floors. They were kept lit at night, making her think of a king with a giant red electric crown.
She tiptoed over to Harry and shook him gently. His head jerked back and a snort erupted from his mouth. Jill had managed to talk him into staying in the same room for the sole reason that there was safety in numbers.
They’d had a long day, going shopping at the Main Place Mall, Jill buying sweatshirts and jeans,
Harry flannel shirts. They also stocked up on toiletries: soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant. The whole time they had constantly peered back over their shoulders, trying to look at everyone and no one at the same time.
Rafferty was miles away, but that didn’t make her feel any safer.
They had agreed to take turns standing guard, and Harry’s shift was over. He had dozed off, but she cut him some slack because she knew he must be incredibly worried about his wife.
Harry had been pretty quiet since getting Rafferty’s package, choosing to slip the ring off the severed finger and throw the remains in the Dumpster behind the Best Western. She could almost see the stress carving fresh wrinkles into his face.
“Hey,” he said, coming out of his doze.
“Go to bed and get some real sleep, Harry.”
“Every time I close my eyes I have nightmares.”
“You should get some rest anyway.”
“I’ll try.”
He rose slowly from the chair, handed Jill the gun and lumbered across the room, looking like a woolly mammoth slogging through a tar pit.
Jill took his place in the chair, trying not to think about the size of the task ahead of them. What if we can’t get Liza and Matt out? Can we destroy a small army of nightmare creatures and get out alive?
Their lives were not the only ones at stake, for entire families would be slaughtered. Never in a million years had she bargained for this when she took the job at Lincoln Mercy Hospital.
She had the same numb feeling that she’d had when she found out her father had been killed. Was this really happening?
Unfortunately, yes.
For the hell of it, she picked up the phone off the nightstand and dialed her number, punching in the code for her answering machine when it picked up. While the tape rewound, she looked over at Harry. He jerked his head back and forth on the pillow and murmured in his sleep.
The first voice on the machine was her mother’s, whining that Jill wouldn’t call her back. Then her mother again, this time in tears.
The third message was from Dorothy Gaines, telling her not to bother coming into work, that she found a real nurse to do the job. If only that new nurse knew what she was getting into.
Her mother again, threatening to call the police, then a beep and no more messages. She hung up the phone and set it back on the nightstand.
Too bad, Mom. She couldn’t possibly explain what was happening to her mother; she would tell Jill to seek help from a psychologist and say something like the job was getting to her.
She returned to the chair, propped the shotgun against the wall and waited for the night to pass.
In the week leading up to the Harvest, Jill and Harry had hit the Mobil Station downtown, filling five-gallon cans with gasoline. Harry had stopped at Home Depot, picking up rags and a pair of tin snips. The two of them had also stopped at Tops Markets and purchased a case of Mason jars.
Harry rented a van from Avis so they could drive around with the supplies in the back and not draw attention to their cargo. The van also allowed them to work in relative privacy.
After they rented the van, they stopped and bought four Zippo lighters. Harry said they were the most reliable things ever made.
They had caught a news report about the fire at the cabin. It seemed the state police had cordoned off thirty acres of land around the site of the fire. Channel 2 reported a host of government vehicles, some of them military, driving in and out. A Humvee remained parked at the entrance to the cabin road. Not the civilian kind, either. This one had camouflage paint and a machine gun on the roof. Upon seeing the report, Jill reflected that maybe Rafferty and his followers would finally be exposed.
Harry had called St. Mark’s School to see if any events were scheduled for September 3, and they caught a break because the Fall Fair and Craft Show was scheduled for the day before the Harvest Meeting. That gave them the opportunity to sneak in their supplies without breaking into the joint.
Harry had the weapons resting on the bed, looking black, shiny and deadly. He had checked them again and again, cleaning, inspecting barrels and chambers, making sure they were ready to fire.
“I’d feel better if I could test a few rounds.”
“I don’t think hotel management would appreciate bullet holes in the walls,” Jill said.
“I’m worried about the van,” he said.
They had parked the van in a parking garage across the street.
“Most people will probably ignore it. And a six-dollar-an-hour security guard isn’t going to give it a second glance.”
“Pretty sad,” Harry grunted.
“Where will we park in proximity to the school?”
“I figure on the same street.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
She twirled her hair around her finger, thinking.
“Too suspicious. One of us is going to have to bring the van around the back and unload the supplies. If we do it on the street, someone might see us and call the cops.”
“You’re right. One of us will wait in the school. There’s a side door near the cafeteria and gym that we can use. We’ll pull the truck up there and unload. I think we’ll be safe because there’s nothing else on that side of the building. It’s a red door,” he added.
“What about a security system?”
“None. At least there wasn’t when I worked there.”
“You worked there?”
“After I got back from the war things were slow at the shop. So I took a part-time maintenance job at the school. Besides, the school will be open when we go in, with the craft fair going on and all.”
The supplies were ready to go. They had cut holes in the lids of the Mason jars with tin snips to allow a rag to be stuffed in. The two of them took turns in the van, fifteen minutes at a time, creating Molotov cocktails.
When they were done, they had two dozen Molotovs, two full gas cans, two shotguns, the M-16 and Harry’s forty-four magnum. Harry also had his fireworks ready to go; the plastic explosive, cord, blasting caps and the radio transmitters for detonation went into the bag. Would they be able to get out of the building before the Fourth of July show started? Jill wondered.
Jill thought about how she’d gone from hating guns, blaming them for the death of her father, to thinking of them as the reason she was alive right now. She had established an uneasy truce with them, not entirely comfortable, but able to fire one if needed.
Everything still felt dreamy, as if they were getting ready to go on a deer-hunting trip rather than fight monsters. If it was possible, she felt tired, battered, confused and jumpy at the same time.
Picking up on this, Harry said, “You’d better get some rest. Tomorrow’s the start of it.”
She took Harry’s advice and stretched out on the bed.
Matt’s back throbbed from sleeping on the lump in his mattress, but it was the only way to keep the gun concealed. If it meant getting out of here, then a sore back was a small price to pay.
The week had been uneventful, most of it spent running a film in his mind, rewinding it and playing it again. When he would make his move, how he would get Liza out, and how to hook up with Jill and Harry once they were out of here. Things might go as smooth as a Hollywood action flick in his mind, but real life was never like that. Guns jammed, ammunition misfired and no one ever got knocked out with one punch.
He had to prepare himself for any eventuality, because if he didn’t plan for the unexpected, they would be dead in a hurry.
Tension seeped into his head, a dull pounding sensation. He massaged his temples, hoping for relief and getting none.
Liza’s condition had grown steadily worse; she had become delirious, babbling about going back to the farm from time to time and moaning loudly. Matt feared she had gone septic from the infected wound. If they didn’t get her out of here soon, she would end up dead.
He had appealed to Rafferty to bring a doctor in and look at
Liza, and he had gotten the middle finger for his trouble. That man was a real sweetheart, all right.
“Liza, how are you?”
“Okay,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Cut my arm off.”
“Can’t help you there. Just hang on as long as you can, okay?”
“Yup.”
He felt like pounding the bars with his fists until they bled. If he paced any more, he would wear a hole in the concrete floor. Anything was preferable to sitting here, especially while he knew Liza was suffering so badly.
He wanted Rafferty to come for him so he could use the revolver and get the show on the road. The timing needed to be perfect, and he wasn’t sure if he should wait until they came right up to the cell or blast them as they came down the hall.
He decided to wait for them to come close, then have them open Liza’s cell door first. If they took Liza out first, he could shoot one of them and have her grab the keys for him.
“Liza.”
“Uh?”
“Can you get up?”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
She looked like a pile of rags, lying on her side with her knees curled into her body.
She rolled over slowly until she was on her back.
Matt tapped a steady beat on the floor with his foot, worried that Rafferty would come waltzing in while they were talking. This part of the plan was crucial, and he didn’t want Rafferty to hear any part of it.
Besides, the less Rafferty suspected, the better. Let him think he had a couple of lambs, ready to be led to slaughter.
After more groaning, Liza stood up and leaned against the bars. Heat radiated from her skin and sweat dripped down her face. She had to be running a pretty high fever.
“When they take us out, I’m assuming to the school, do whatever you can to get them to let you out first.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I’m gonna use the gun then. I need you to get the jailer’s keys. If they come to get me first, they’ll put cuffs on me and then the gun will be useless,” he explained. “Besides, I’ll need someone to let me out of my cell.”