After what seemed an eternity but was certainly only a minute or two, the door opened. He looked over at Cobb as he closed the motel room door behind him. He had the knife in his hand. It wasn’t bloody, but Cobb might have wiped it off after using it. He stood there, a dozen feet away. He looked beaten, defeated. He looked . . . sick, as though whatever pain he believed he felt truly was killing him from the inside. Jason wished it would get a move on and finish the job already.
“I hope you’re not thinking of trying to attack me,” Cobb said in a voice utterly without inflection. “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Jason had been thinking of doing exactly that. What stopped him was the thought of what could happen to Sophie and Max if he failed. And Ben, if he was still alive.
“Is he dead?” he asked a moment later.
“Ben? No, just sleeping a while longer. It took guts for you to walk out like that. How’d you know I wouldn’t kill him?”
“I didn’t. But there’s no way I would have reached you in time to stop you. And I wasn’t about to stay in the room while you did it. So I left.” And hoped like hell it wasn’t a tragic mistake. “Also, I know you need a willing audience.”
He knew that Cobb could have killed Ben anyway in an attempt to scratch his murderous itch. Or maybe to teach Jason a lesson. But he suspected that Cobb still hoped he might come around to his way of thinking, and he would have to know that if he killed Ben, there was no chance in hell of that ever happening. So he’d gambled—with Ben’s life—and, thank God, he won.
Cobb nodded thoughtfully but said nothing.
“What about Wheeler?” Jason asked.
“I did you a favor with him.”
“He’s alive?”
“What? No, I killed him. But I didn’t use the knife. I broke his neck instead.”
Jason closed his eyes and sighed. Oh, God . . .
“How is that a favor for me?”
“You’re a pretty smart guy. You’ll figure that out. But Jason, you have to admit . . . that one’s on you.”
He didn’t even try to deny it.
Cobb leaned against the railing and looked up at the night sky. He let the smallest of smiles, rueful and sad, creep onto his face. “You’re right. The stars are really out tonight.”
He looked back at Jason, sitting there with his back against the motel wall.
“God, you look so much like Johnny. He loved the stars, too.”
Jason knew that. And he knew that Cobb’s brother had liked photography. He’d read both things on the Internet in Johnny’s obituary and in his high-school yearbook. And Cobb himself had mentioned his brother’s pronounced limp.
Cobb was looking at him, and for the first time tonight, there was something in his eyes. Jason didn’t know what it was, but it was there. And now he seemed to be looking at Jason but also through him; though his eyes were on Jason’s face, they were focused on something—or someone—else.
“I wish you could have met him,” he finally said. “My brother. You would have liked him.”
“I might have.”
Cobb’s eyes refocused on Jason.
“We’re running out of time, Jason. We need closure soon. I wish you’d surrender to the thing inside you and give this a try. You know I’m not gonna stop what I’m doing whether you join me or not. I can’t. But there’s actually a chance I might kill less if you’re with me on this. If I get more out of it each time I do it, the more pain it takes away, the less often I’ll need it. You could actually be saving lives, Jason. So if you won’t do it for yourself, do it for the people I won’t kill because of you. Think about that, would you?”
Jason nodded, though he had no intention of giving the notion a nanosecond of consideration.
Cobb frowned and shook his head sadly. “I wish you hadn’t tried to have me killed, Jason, but there’s a silver lining in it. It seems like progress for you, don’t you think? My brother would have—”
“Stop it,” Jason snapped.
Cobb frowned.
“Just stop it, Cobb. I’m not your brother. I’m nothing like your brother.”
The instinct that moments ago had told him to appear to be more like Johnny to rattle Cobb, to increase his sympathy for Jason, was now screaming at him to shut his mouth. But he couldn’t. He’d had enough.
“I read about your brother. He was a geek in school. You say I would have liked him, but the truth is that if I’d known him, I probably would have ignored him.”
Cobb took an unsteady step backward, looking as though he’d been slapped.
“But your hair . . . your face—”
“Yeah, I admit it, we look a lot alike. But that’s where the similarities end.”
“The car accidents—”
“Which one? The one where your brother drove into a wall to kill himself? Or the one where your father killed your mother and youngest brother and turned himself into a vegetable? You think we have something in common because we both suffered catastrophes we didn’t deserve? Well, guess what? I did deserve mine. I wrecked my family.”
Cobb shook his head. “What? No, that’s not true. It was an accident. It wasn’t your fault.”
Jason had no intention of sharing the details of his family’s misfortunes with Cobb. He certainly wasn’t about to admit that Sophie might have seen the same monster inside Jason that Cobb believed he saw.
“Trust me, Cobb, it was my fault. So if you think that we have this bond, this connection, because forces beyond our control brought tragedy into our lives . . . well, you’re just wrong.”
Cobb backed up another step. He shook his head. He started to speak, then fell silent. Jason wondered if Cobb was finally starting to have doubts about him. Maybe he was wondering if the voice in his head was wrong. Jason wondered whether he should have listened to the voice in his own head imploring him not to say any of that, because if Cobb decided that Jason would never join him, he had no reason to keep him alive.
“I’m really tired,” Jason said quickly. “Can you just leave?”
Cobb looked at him with sad eyes for a long moment. “Okay. I’m tired, too.”
“Any chance you’ll take the body with you?”
“That’s your mess. You have to clean it up.”
Jason nodded. He understood that and even saw the justness in it. He’d brought Wheeler into it.
“I have some thinking to do, I guess,” Cobb said. “Can I give you a piece of advice, though? If you’re hiding out from a serial killer, don’t text your friend to tell him you’re staying at a local motel.”
Jason groaned inwardly. He thought he’d been so careful by not providing the name of the motel. He realized only now that there simply weren’t many motels in the area.
“I’ve been trying so hard not to kill you, Jason. I just don’t know how long I can keep trying.”
“Are we done here?”
“For now. I hope you realize, though, this was a one-time free pass for your pal Ben. I may still have to kill him. Or your family. Or you. Unless you all stay out of my way. There’s just no telling what I’ll do if you don’t.”
Suddenly, Cobb’s body snapped into motion as he lunged toward Jason, thrusting his arm as he came. The knife sliced the air beside Jason’s cheek before Cobb sank it an inch into the wooden doorframe beside Jason’s head. Jason hadn’t even had time to react.
Cobb walked away. As he did, he began to whistle “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” He’d left behind the knife in the wood. Perhaps it was a show of contempt. Or a taunt. Or maybe even a challenge.
In Jason’s opinion, though, it was a mistake.
Because Cobb was right. He could come after Jason or his loved ones at any time. Sophie and Max were safe at the moment, but they couldn’t stay in hiding forever.
Cobb was still whistling as he neared the top of the stairs that led down to the parking lot. The song was an ice pick in Jason’s ears. He hated Cobb’s whistling. He hated that song. He hated that it was the last
sound ever heard by Cobb’s victims.
Of which there would be more. Innocent people. Maybe even Sophie or Max. Or Ben.
Unless Jason ended it now. He might never get a better chance.
He stood, grasped the handle of the knife, and worked it back and forth until it pulled free of the wood.
Cobb had almost reached the stairs.
Jason gripped the knife tightly and broke into a run, staying on the balls of his feet to mask his approach for as long as possible.
And in that moment, for the first time, he almost hoped he had an Inside Dark of his own lurking within him after all. If he did, it ran with him, claws extended and fangs bared.
CHAPTER FIFTY
There were twenty feet between them at most, then only fifteen, and as he ran, Jason imagined where he would strike, exactly where he would plunge the blade into Cobb’s body. As the distance between them shrank, he kept his eyes on Cobb’s neck—the right side of it, actually, the place where he would sink the knife up to its hilt. He was flying now, nearly there, running as quietly as possible, and it didn’t seem as though Cobb heard him coming—
But he did hear him. Because he spun at precisely the right moment, blocking Jason’s strike with the cast on his right forearm. The knife flew from Jason’s hand and skittered away. Jason took a wild swing with his left and missed by a mile. Then Cobb’s hand was on his throat, squeezing, the sheer strength of it hard to believe. Jason thrashed his arms, and one of his elbows shattered a window. The crack was loud, the broken glass clattering and clinking to the cement surface of the walkway.
Cobb’s hand never left Jason’s throat as the killer pushed him back, slamming him into the railing, and still he pushed, bending Jason backward, crushing him against the railing, his upper body out over the parking lot now. Jason struggled, resisting as best he could, but Cobb was bigger and stronger, and Jason had spent far too many days in front of a computer instead of in a gym over the last few years. The pressure Cobb exerted was unrelenting, and one by one Jason’s vertebrae popped as though he were on a chiropractor’s table, nothing breaking but everything straining to its limit. Soon, though, Jason knew . . . soon something would break. Or Cobb would crush his windpipe. Or he would succeed in pitching him over the railing, which might not kill him but could sure as hell put him in a wheelchair beside Sophie.
Maybe the thought of his wife gave him clarity in that wild moment—or maybe something dark and feral inside him issued an order—but he suddenly knew what to do.
As Cobb leaned into him, bending him back, choking the life out of him, Jason stopped throwing wild, ineffective punches and instead gripped the railing pressing into his lower back as tightly as he could. Then, for one final moment, he resisted with as much of his remaining strength as he could muster, forcing Cobb to lean into him even harder, and suddenly—
He pushed off the floor of the landing with both legs, launching himself backward, adding his own momentum to Cobb’s, and they both tipped up and over the railing. Cobb slid headfirst past him as Jason hung on to the railing exactly as though his life depended on it. His left hand slipped but his right hung on. There was a painful, wrenching torque in his wrist and shoulder, but he didn’t fall. From below came a loud thud. As Jason struggled to grab the railing with his other hand, he wondered how Cobb had fared in his fall to the pavement below.
Was he lying below with a broken neck?
Was he thumping back up the stairs even now to where Jason hung helpless?
That thought was a kick in the ass. He took a deep breath and somehow, from somewhere, found the strength to pull himself up and back over the railing. He looked down into the parking lot below and saw Cobb rising to his feet from the pavement. There was a shallow dent in the hood of Jason’s Camry.
Cobb wasn’t dead. Nor was his neck or back broken. He didn’t look terribly hurt, in fact. He just looked . . . pissed off.
And he was heading for the stairs again. Jason looked around for the knife but didn’t see it.
“Hey,” someone called. “What the hell’s going on out here?”
The clerk with the sideburns was standing at the open door to the motel’s reception area. Jason watched Cobb stop in his tracks and turn to look at the guy.
“Get inside, fast,” Jason yelled. “And call 911.”
The clerk ducked back through the door.
Jason looked down at Cobb, who was staring back up at him now, the look in his eyes a messy blend of anger, confusion, hatred, and pain. He looked weary. And sick. Yet, to Jason, he still looked more than capable of unspeakable violence. Then Cobb’s eyes shifted over to the door where the clerk had disappeared. Jason watched as he seemed to be debating whether to try to kill the clerk before he called 911 . . . calculating the odds, how much time it would take, wondering whether the clerk would be able to identify him if he were allowed to live. After a moment, his eyes drifted back up to Jason.
“Interesting advice, Jason . . . telling him to call the cops while you’ve got two guys up in your room, one of them dead and the other unconscious.”
Oh, shit.
“Wonder how long until they get here. When they do, you’re gonna have some explaining to do. There are different ways you could go. You could decide you’ve finally had enough and try to convince them I was Crackerjack all along. Maybe they’ll keep their minds open about that. Maybe they’ll try to ignore the evidence they’ll definitely find against you, and the fact that there is none against me—and don’t think your pal Ben can help you because he was unconscious before he even saw me coming tonight. Yeah, maybe the cops will listen to your crazy story, at least enough to investigate me while they keep you behind bars. In the meantime, though, where will Sophie and Max be while you’re locked up? Will they be safe? I haven’t even tried to find them yet, Jason. And police investigations take time . . . there are stakeouts and search warrants and questioning and all sorts of hoops to jump through before an arrest warrant is issued. How long can your family hide out? Not long enough, I think. And the second I realize that the cops have taken the slightest interest in me, I will gut your family like fish. First, I’ll kill Max while Sophie watches helplessly from her wheelchair. I’ll slice him open, then skin him. When I’m done, I’ll do the same to her. Sure, the cops might catch me after, and you might even end up a hero after all for turning me in. But at what price?”
As Jason listened, he kept expecting to hear sirens at any moment.
“But there’s another option, Jason.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. You can refuse to say a thing. Or, hell, say anything you want, as long as you keep me out of it. You’ll go to prison for a long time, unless you find yourself one hell of a lawyer, but at least Sophie and Max will be alive. It’s your choice.”
He turned and started walking away across the parking lot, toward a panel truck parked in a remote corner, in the shadows of the trees bordering the motel on one side.
“Of course,” he added over his shoulder, “if you want to try, maybe you can get away before the cops even show up. But that’s your call.” He opened the door of the truck. Before he climbed in, he called, “I guess this was strike two. I don’t think you’ll get a third one.”
Jason sprinted back to his room.
How long did he have?
He ran to Ben first and knelt beside his chair. He put two fingers on his friend’s neck and felt a pulse, steady and strong. A quick visual once-over and hands-on examination made him believe that Ben was physically unharmed but for what appeared to be a couple of angry little welts at the base of his neck, where it met his shoulder, similar to marks Jason had on his chest when he first woke up in Wallace Barton’s stable. Stun-gun marks. Nothing serious.
A mere glance at the mostly naked body on the bed was enough to tell him that Wheeler hadn’t been as fortunate. He was sprawled across the bedspread, his eyes wide open, his head lying at an unnatural angle.
Cobb had been right. This death was on Jason.
God . . .
He had to get moving. In his mind, he heard a giant clock ticking. Soon, he would hear sirens, too, and they wouldn’t be only in his head. There was so much to do and only seconds to do it. But he suddenly couldn’t move.
Couldn’t think.
Couldn’t—
He took a deep breath. Then another. Then a third. Then he sprang into motion. He had to get Wheeler out of here. And Ben, too. He couldn’t let his friend wake up in a strange motel room with no idea what had happened to him. It wasn’t fair to Ben, and it would certainly raise some troublesome questions for both of them when the police arrived.
The dead body was the priority, though.
The ticking in Jason’s head was almost deafening.
He rushed to the window, listening for sirens, looking for flashing lights. Nothing yet. He stepped out of his room. His was one of only two cars in the lot. The other was probably the clerk’s. Thankfully, the Sleep Easy Motel was doing a slow business tonight.
Jason realized that the clerk might be looking out the window, waiting for the police. He couldn’t have that right now.
He hurried to the phone, snatched up the receiver, and punched the zero button. A moment later, the clerk answered.
“Yeah?”
“I’m the guy who was just attacked,” Jason said. “The guy who did it is still around here somewhere. If I were you, I’d hide until the cops get here. Do you have a back room?”
“There’s an office.”
“Get inside and lock it.”
“Okay. Should I—”
“Do it.”
He slammed the receiver into its cradle and hurried back to the dead man. Kneeling beside the bed, he dug his arms under the body and lifted, using his knees as much as possible. Then he swung the corpse onto his shoulder.
At the door, he snatched his car keys from the top of the dresser and paused, listening one last time for signs that the police were on the way. Nothing yet.
The Inside Dark Page 23