The Taint
Page 26
He did not move.
“I know what you’ve done.”
Her words hung in the air between them, unanswered. He was still.
She searched her mind for something to draw him in.
“They will find you,” she said then.
He took a single step closer, face still in darkness.
“They will destroy you.”
He laughed then, a wild, unbelieving laugh, and the three-quarter moon peeked over the treetops, bringing his face into view.
She didn’t know what she had expected but except for the eyes and the twisted smile, he looked like anyone else. He was wearing the ranger uniform and until you looked into the eyes, he was . . . normal.
She found that as frightening as anything else.
It meant that he could be anonymous. He could disappear in a crowd.
He took another step and the laughter stopped, his mouth straightening into a determined line. His eyes glinted in the moonglow.
She stared into his eyes, watching as he approached her.
Jon appeared from nowhere.
“Stop,” he commanded.
Hudson hesitated but kept on walking toward her, his eyes seeming to glow red.
Behind them, the caves rocked with an explosion, black smoke billowing from deep inside, fragments of stone hurtling through the air.
Hudson turned and directed his gaze at Jon.
“There are other places,” he said mildly.
Jon held up the metal dynamite case. “That was only part of it. I’m ready to kill us all to keep you from getting away.”
Hudson looked at Rachel and back at Jon.
“I think not.”
Jon knelt, keeping his eyes on Hudson and opened the case, extracting one of the sticks packed inside.
“Try me.” He flicked a cigarette lighter and held it six inches from the fuse. The flame moved with the night breeze.
Hudson took another step toward Rachel and Jon touched the flame to the fuse, which caught, sparking brightly in the silent clearing. Jon held it away from his body.
“It’s only a minute fuse,” he said. And he drew his gun, leveling it on Hudson who now turned toward him.
Rachel reached into her pocket and drew out the thin-bladed scalpel, moving quickly up behind Hudson. She grabbed around him, pulling his head back and exposing his neck, the scalpel slicing cleanly across the jugular vein.
Hudson’s eyes widened and he sank to his knees, watching as Jon tossed the burning stick a short distance away.
Then the phosphorus signal flare began to burn, its smell filling the air.
Hudson closed his bulging eyes and died.
The flare cast brilliant white light across the scene.
They hung him upside down and let the blood drain from his body, spilling into the earth.
Then Rachel shattered the clay figures and kicked the soil, covering the shape and symbols. She tossed the grass to the wind and ripped the pages out of the black book, handing them to Jon who burned them in a pile above the blood-dampened ground.
NINETY-NINE
They did not speak as they walked back through the forest, listening as the night came alive with sound. The crickets’ song filled the air.
He took her hand and brought it to his face and then stopped, pulling her to him and holding her tightly.
She listened to the beat of his heart and cherished the sound of it.
When they got, finally, to where they had parked she got without comment into the truck.
He stood for a moment, looking around the abandoned park and then climbed up into the truck and turned to her.
“It is over, isn’t it?”
“Soon. I may have to take Nathan for treatment, but I think he’s the last one.”
“What about Tyler?”
“It may never be over for him.”
He examined her face. “You took an awful chance out there tonight.”
“I couldn’t be sure whether he could control both of us at once. I didn’t know how long we could resist.”
“But you were right . . . I don’t think I could have pulled the trigger. I was . . . numb?”
She kissed him gently.
“I know,” she said.
He started the engine and turned around, the headlights casting shadows through the trees.
The town was dark, no lights visible anywhere. There were no cars on the roads and no one about.
Behind the locked doors they slept, lightly, ready to wake at the faintest sound, ready to shoot whoever would be so foolish to venture out in a town under siege.
But it was over, for here, for now.
EPILOGUE
(AP) San Francisco—A nineteen year old hemophiliac patient in Mercy General Hospital is being held in connection with the slayings of three nurses and one patient. Kurt Evans was removed to the county jail prison ward following what authorities termed “the worst carnage this city’s seen in twenty years.” A witness who requested anonymity reported that the victims were mutilated beyond recognition. Evans was hospitalized for a routine blood transfusion when the slayings occurred.
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