by Mark All
David felt like his mind was racing through fog. The dots did not want to be connected.
“Whoa,” Nancy said. “I think—”
“Ben, my boss, he’s gone to your house,” Jessica said to David, interrupting Nancy. “To destroy the music files.”
“It could work,” David said, weighing the possibilities.
“There are copies of that first song on every server in the world,” Nancy said, “and probably a significant number of personal computers.”
“Phones and iPads too,” her husband said.
David noticed Alan and Nancy exchanging a meaningful look. His mind tagged it and filed it for later.
“We’ve got to help Ben,” Jessica said. “Vince has killed before, and he seemed to know I’d be showing up at John’s house—he may ambush Ben at your place.”
David frowned. Vince might have already killed Jessica’s boss. “Yeah, but how do we get there? My truck’s behind the club. So is Mike’s van.”
Alan held up his keys and jangled them. “I’m parked right over there. Left the car here at the store and rode over to your place in the van.”
David looked around and was relieved to see Alan’s Honda Civic a few cars down the lot from them.
A gunshot cracked from the far end of the parking lot, in the direction of the theater, but so close it sounded as if it had gone off in his ear.
Mike, Alan and Nancy ducked behind the SUV they’d been standing beside. David and Jessica were farther out in the lot and made a dash for the other side, toward the building. They crossed the few yards quickly, dove behind a Ford truck, and peered over the back panels.
Five men ran into the lot. Three had guns, and two of them began firing back the way they’d come. More reports sounded, and one of them was hit; he spun backward, fell on the pavement, and lay still. A small mob rounded the corner and converged on the group. Knives glinted under the streetlights.
David sank to his knees, pulling Jessica after him.
On the other side of the lot, the drummer, the singer, and his wife clambered into the Honda. Alan leaned low out of the driver’s door, gesturing wildly at David.
David considered running for it, but the gang fight was coming their way. Two more gunshots sounded, and another of the gunmen went down and fell beside David and Jessica. Others followed, their cries and screams filling the air. He and Jessica would never make it to the Honda through the melee. They’d have to escape the lot on the store side and take their chances on the streets.
Another idea occurred to him.
Shaking his head, David screamed at Alan. “Just go! Stop him!”
The singer hesitated, then another round was fired, and he slammed his door. He gunned the engine to life and the car shot backward, slamming into one of the combatants, knocking him out of its path. It reversed farther, the front wheels turned, then Alan hit the gas and took off, fast. The man he’d bumped brought his pistol to bear on them, firing three shots.
Jessica clutched David’s good arm. “David!”
A college-aged man with a shaved head appeared in the gap between the truck they were hiding behind and the next car. “Thought I heard something, motherfucker!” He brought up what looked like a hunting rifle, and David’s throat closed. He could only think to shove Jessica behind him and hope the bullet wouldn’t go through him and hit her.
As the kid braced the rifle with his left hand, his right on the stock, finger on the trigger, a figure flew through the air to land on the guy’s back. The newcomer wrapped his legs around the kid’s chest, hung onto his throat with one arm, and beat his head with the other.
The gun blasted a single shot that went into the side of the truck, then the kid dropped it and the pair went down, grunting and cursing.
David turned and pushed Jessica ahead of him, out onto the concrete apron before the natural food store. The long cut on his right arm stung with each motion. He moved her to the right, down the walkway, running and guiding her ahead of him with his hands on her hips. They made it past the corner of the building, crossed in front of Mike’s music store’s front, then around the next corner and down the alley on the other side.
At the end of the alley they came to the back entrance beside a loading dock. David fumbled in his pocket, found his key ring, and wrested it out. Another round of shots came from the lot on the other side of the building and he almost dropped the ring. He found the key to the shop’s back door. He shoved it home, twisted it, and banged the door open. Pushing Jessica inside, he shut it behind them and locked it.
They collapsed on the floor of the storeroom, out of breath, wheezing, trembling.
After a minute, David felt his legs might support him and got to his feet, gesturing for Jessica to stay where she was. He cautiously slipped through the storeroom’s inner door and into the short hallway with the lesson rooms, where he’d spent hundreds of hours. There was no sign of life. He eased down the hall and made his way into and through the store, crouching, to the rectangle of glass counters in the center of the floor that held the cash register and shelves of stomp boxes. He craned his neck over the counter and looked out the front window.
The vintage clothing consignment store on the other side of the street was burning. As he watched, almost afraid to breathe, the gang fight spilled out from the lot into the street. A car came into view from the left, horn blaring before the driver applied his brakes, and screeched briefly before running over two men hacking at each other with knives. It skidded and ran into the telephone pole at the corner of the lot.
David sank back down behind the counter.
Hell on Earth was breaking loose outside and they were trapped in a store with wide glass windows.
Chapter Forty
Saturday night
Jessica crept from the storeroom into the main room, feeling exposed as if she were in an aquarium that was hellishly lit by the conflagration across the street.
“David,” she whispered loudly. “Where are you?”
For a moment he didn’t answer and she became convinced that someone had been lurking in here and murdered him silently, then he called to her in a low voice from the center of the store.
“Get back. Don’t let anyone see you.”
Fuck that. She duckwalked to the central checkout counter and eased through the narrow opening to find David sitting under the cash register.
With a nervous last glance around at the ongoing riot outside, she sat beside him. “We can’t stay, we’ve got to get to your house. It’s probably not safe here anyway.”
“My car’s probably a burnt cinder by now, along with Mike’s van, behind the theater.” He smiled. “But.”
“What?” she asked.
He sat up straight, raised himself to a crouch, and peered over the counter, through the side window. “Freddy’s car,” he said enthusiastically. He looked around under the counters, saw a pegboard on the other side, went to it, and snatched a set of keys from a hook. “We’ve got wheels!”
“Hunh?”
“Mike grounded his son for drinking and driving. Here’s the keys. There’s the car.” David pointed at a decrepit-looking Mustang parked at the back corner of the lot where they’d entered it fleeing from the theater.
She scowled. “Does it even run?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, grinning. “Its cosmetic condition is deceptive. Let’s go.” He paused. “No, you stay here. I’ll go. It’s my mess to clean up. You can try calling 9-1-1, although I think the cops have their hands full. Just stay here and ride it out.”
Jessica looked at his wounded arm. It wasn’t bleeding heavily anymore, but his sleeve was soaked through. He’d need help—and she needed redemption as much as he did, if not more. She was the greedy record company rep. She shook her head. “No way. I’m just as responsible for all this as you are.”
“Not really.”
“I’m going.”
He must have seen the determination in her face and figured he might as well give i
n now rather than argue and give in precious minutes later.
“Okay. Come on.”
He led the way to the storeroom and out the back door, this time turning left and zipping along the narrow alley behind the store. At the far end, they stopped and David peeked out. “The lot’s clear. There are a few guys at the front entrance, near the street, but they’re occupied kicking the crap out of each other. I’ll go first. Give me time to unlock the passenger door, then come running.”
“Right. Do it.”
He moved out into the parking lot, running low. Hopefully no one would see him over the roofs of the cars. He fumbled with the keys in the door lock, then swung the door open, dropped into the driver’s seat, and unlocked the other door.
Jessica sprinted for the car, not caring if anyone spotted her. David gunned the engine to life as she jerked her door open and jumped in.
David slammed the gearshift into reverse and stomped the gas, spinning the steering wheel. He hit the brakes, turned the wheel again, and the car shot forward, veering toward the exit.
His mistake was slowing at the street to see if anyone was coming. A clump of rioters appeared from behind the corner of the store next door and slammed into Jessica’s side of the car. She hastily locked her door, but three of them took hold of the doorjamb at the roof and started rocking the car while another headed around the front.
“David!”
He revved the engine and let the clutch out a little, rocking the Mustang back and forth, but it didn’t phase them. The guy in front raised his arm. He held a red brick with chunks of concrete hanging from it.
“I’m truly sorry, dude!” David yelled, and stepped briefly but hard on the gas, then let off. The car hit the man, knocking him off his feet and mostly out of the way, but he’d sprawled with his legs still in front of the car.
The sound of glass shattering beside her startled a scream from Jessica and she turned to see a tire iron rebounding from her window, which had turned into a crazy map of spider web cracks. The attacking man pulled his arm back, preparing for another blow.
“Fuck it, run the bastard over!” she shouted.
David had seen her broken window and evidently come to the same conclusion, because she was suddenly forced back in her seat and then toward him as the car spurted out of the driveway. They whipped right onto the street, with two jarring bumps and a sickening scream as the front left wheel ran over Brick Guy’s legs. They accelerated up the street, passing an SUV that had run over the sidewalk and crashed through the plate glass window of a storefront. David dodged people spreading from the accident site and swerved to the right around the next corner, away from the theater, onto a less-traveled side street. He took the next left, which would lead across West Broad.
David stopped at the intersection with West Broad, where cruising traffic was heavier but moving, as well as light for this time on a Saturday night. At least some people must have gotten the idea that something nasty was up downtown and chosen to stay away. It still took a long minute for a gap to open for him to cross Broad Street. His palms sweated while he waited, expecting violence to spill down the street in this direction. When his opportunity came, he gunned it and shot across, clipping the rear bumper of a Jetta that didn’t clear the intersection as fast as he’d expected it to. David kept going, oblivious to the frantic horn honking behind him. They hurtled down the street, veered around a Chevy pulled to the curb to let somebody in or out, then turned right onto Pulaski Street, lucky that no one was coming when they pulled out.
David floored it again, but had to stop for the red light at Foundry Street, where traffic proceeded at a normal pace, as if nothing were happening a few blocks away. The light changed and he took a left, went under the bridge, then swerved right onto one of the side roads that threaded through a run-down part of town, passing shacks, shanties, and rusting parked trailers with sagging awnings in dirt yards.
“Okay, we’re on the back roads now. Hopefully it will be clear and we can bypass downtown and head for Watkinsville.”
Jessica’s stomach was tied in knots; her tension abated only slightly now that they’d left the worst of the chaos behind them. David drove fifty on streets posted for thirty-five, threatening to send them flying off the road on the curves to plunge down embankments and into the river. Moreover, she knew that what waited for them back at David’s house might be worse than what they were so rapidly leaving behind them.
Chapter Forty-One
Saturday night
Alan Dillehay hit the brakes and slung the Civic into David’s driveway, but took it too fast; the car threatened to roll on the curve at the bottom into the turnaround at the back of the house. There was a car there he should’ve expected, a Jaguar, but hadn’t. He swerved to miss it and screeched to a stop. He killed the engine, set the parking brake, and he, Nancy, and Mike spilled out of the car like it was on fire. They saw that sliding glass doors were open and the lights were on in the load out room.
“Jessica’s boss beat us here,” Mike said, starting for the house. “Probably broke in.”
Alan began to follow him, but hesitated when he experienced a rush of dread that threatened to wipe away the music even now still looping in his mind. The house reminded him of the lair of a trap door spider, as if something waited for them, hidden, inside. What was Nancy even doing here? They’d been so panicked, he hadn’t thought this through.
“Get back in the car,” Alan told his wife, starting after Mike.
“No fuckin’ way,” Nancy said, falling into step beside him.
Alan turned and put a hand on her chest to stop her. “Stay here. I should’ve dropped you off at home.”
She shrugged. “Wasn’t time. We gotta stop this shit.”
“Yeah, we don’t have time for this!” His fear turned into anger. “You’re not going in there.”
“The Hell I’m not!”
Mike went through the open doors, crossed the room, and disappeared into the hallway.
Nancy started for the house. Alan grabbed her arm, but she shook his hand off and turned on him. “Goddamn it, Alan. I’ve held my own when you guys played in biker bars, and this is a Hell of a lot more important than that. Come on!”
She whirled and jogged to the house. “I can help,” she added cryptically.
Alan growled. Fucking crazy bitch. This was why he loved her, though. He followed her at a trot as she entered and headed for the hallway.
When he got there, Nancy stood in the doorway to the control room, gasping.
“What?” Alan moved her aside and went in.
Mike moved out of the way so Alan could see the dead body, crumpled on the floor on its stomach before the mixing console. It was a man Alan didn’t recognize, undoubtedly Jessica’s boss. He lay on his side, a look of horror on his face. The head had been nearly cut off, along with most of the neck and a chunk of the shoulder. Blood covered a rack of equipment behind the corpse, spattered the mixing console and the computer beneath it, and had soaked into the carpet in a wide, irregular pattern, turning it a dark maroon. The gore ran in wriggling rivulets down the plate glass window separating the control room from the recording studio itself.
Alan backed out of the room and turned away. He managed not to throw up.
Beside him, Nancy leaned against the hallway wall. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then straightened, her expression resolute. As a programmer, the woman was logical and levelheaded. She returned to the control room and Alan followed her.
A dazed look on his pale face, Mike held an axe that dripped blood, clearly the murder weapon. “Maybe he already wiped the files,” he said, his voice quivering.
That was possible, but Alan didn’t think the guy would be lying dead on the floor if he’d been successful at destroying Oblivion. He eased past Nancy, moved to the mixing console, and shook the computer’s mouse to clear the screen saver.
A window displayed David’s project directory, containing a long list of folde
rs and files.
Vince had been here, and had killed Jessica’s boss before he could delete the music. Where was Vince now? It didn’t matter, all Alan had to do was delete everything on the computer and the backup drives, empty the Trash, and it would be done.
As he pressed Command-A to select all, the door from the darkened studio room beyond the window creaked.
Alan looked up to see it creep open.
Vince Buckley stepped through.
“Fuck,” Alan whispered to himself. He couldn't take his gaze from his former band mate, returned from the dead, long enough to drag the files to the Trash.
Mike had turned toward Vince at the sound of Alan's voice and now lifted the axe back over his shoulder—but too slowly. Before Mike could bring the axe to bear, Vince stepped forward, seized it, and tore it from the drummer’s grasp. Vince pulled the axe back to his side like a baseball player cocking the bat for a strike, banging the head into the wall beside the door, then swung it.
The axe hit Mike’s side below his raised arm, cutting through his ribs and plunging deeper into his body than Alan would have thought possible.
Mike screamed, loudly and high-pitched, and folded.
Vince put a boot against Mike’s sagging body and worked the axe free, then turned to face Alan.
That broke Alan’s paralysis.
The singer scuttled backward out of the room, nearly tripping on a chair.
“NANCY, RUN!”
He stumbled into her, grasped her shoulders and turned her around, and shoved her ahead of him, moving as fast as he could down the hall, through the load out room, out the door, and into the hot, damp night, thudding footsteps close behind him.
As soon as his feet hit the concrete, he gave Nancy another push, turned, and slid the glass door panel to the right, catching Vince in the doorway.
The madman yelled in pain and fury, he was real enough to be hurt, but banged the door back open with his shoulder and came through.
Alan whirled around and ran after Nancy, who was almost to their car. As she ran around to the driver’s side and fumbled with the door handle, Alan had a premonition before he heard the sound of the blade swinging through the air, and dodged to the side.