by Ronald Malfi
Cooper stood directly in front of David, the handgun pivoting between him and Ellie. David wanted to spring up from the couch and clobber the asshole. He still might; if it came down to Ellie’s safety, he’d tackle the son of a bitch and hope for the best. It was all he could do.
“Don’t point that thing at my daughter.”
Smirking, Cooper let the gun hang on Ellie. Yet his eyes stayed with David.
Turk dug something out of his pants pocket as he stepped up beside Cooper. He looked down at David, his eyes full and brown and creased at the corners. A film of sweat glistened across the saddle of his nose.
“Roll it,” Turk said, extending his hand to David. Pinched between Turk’s thumb and forefinger was a die.
David shook his head.
“Don’t be a fool,” Turk said. “Do as I say and you’ve got a fifty-fifty chance the girl lives. Best odds in the house.”
Against the far wall, Bronwyn tittered laughter again. She had her cowboy hat perched back far enough on her head so that David could see her sunburned scalp where her hair was parted.
“Take it,” Turk said. He held the die three inches from David’s face, pinched now between thumb and forefinger.
David took the die. It felt almost nonexistent as he closed his hand around it.
There was a scuffed coffee table beside the couch. Turk pointed to it now and said, “Roll it, David.”
David didn’t bother to shake it; he simple tossed the plastic die across the table, where it tap-danced along the lacquered surface and ultimately fell to the carpet.
“A six,” both Bronwyn and Cooper said at the same time.
“Evens,” Pauline said. She held her son against her, her hands draped like a harness over Sam’s meaty chest. “He’s evens.” She began to pray softly under her breath.
“Which means you, little miss,” Cooper said, cocking his head at Ellie, “are odds.”
“You’re odd,” Ellie said.
“Nice.” Cooper’s cadaverous grin widened. “Real nice. Some mouth on this kid.”
Turk clapped his hands, causing David to jump. “So,” Turk said. “Let’s meet Solomon, shall we?”
At first, it seemed like no one moved. But then David noticed Tre at the back of the room sliding the backpack strap from his shoulder. He stepped between Cooper and Turk and set the backpack down on the coffee table. When he unzipped it, David could see fireworks packaged in cellophane inside, along with a slender bottle of whiskey and what looked like a propane torch. David’s eyes cut back toward Cooper, who was still staring down at him. The mouth of Cooper’s gun looked about as big as the Harbor Tunnel.
Tre lifted something out of the backpack—grayish-yellow, somewhat circular, approximately the size of a bowling ball. It wasn’t until Tre set it down on the table that David saw it for what it was . . . and even then, his mind was slow to compute what his eyes were seeing. He processed it in pieces rather than a single whole—the twin hollows of its eye sockets, the dual rows of yellowed teeth, the triangular nasal cavity. It was a skull. Printed in block letters just above its empty eye sockets in brownish-red was the name SOLOMON.
“Jesus,” David breathed.
“We’re all just pawns,” Turk announced. “It’s Solomon who decides who must be sacrificed.”
“Sacrificed for what?” David managed. He looked to Ellie, who stared without emotion at the grinning skull on the coffee table.
“For the sake of my son,” Turk said. “For Jimmy. It’s why we’ve been able to keep him with us for so long, despite his worsening condition.”
“Amen,” Pauline said.
“Amen,” murmured the rest of them.
“You’re insane,” David said. He reached over and grabbed Ellie’s hand. Her skin was cool to the touch. “All of you.”
“It’s what we must do to keep my boy alive,” Turk said.
It was then that the ultimate horror dawned on David—a blood sacrifice to appease a vengeful god. How many innocents had fallen victim to this archaic ritual already? What had really happened to those who ignored the evacuation and stayed behind in Goodwin? Undesirables . . .
As if in response to these unasked questions, two resounding thumps echoed from the floor above. Everyone glanced up at the ceiling. A second later, a pained sob filtered down through the air ducts and filled the room.
“Jimmy,” Pauline said, her voice reverent.
Turk stepped up to the coffee table. He picked up the skull, then bent down and gathered the die up off the floor. When he stood again, he looked like a man who had suddenly realized he held the power of the whole world in his hands.
“Now Solomon will decide who lives and who dies,” Turk said. He upended the skull so that it faced the ceiling. Then he dropped the die into the right eye socket. David heard a muted click as it dropped into the hollow cranium. Turk shook the skull gently, both of his big hands on either side of it as if to protect it from hearing something inappropriate. Then he extended his arms and rotated the skull so that those sightless eyeholes now faced the grubby carpet of the Powells’ living room. David registered a single thought—Whose skull is that, anyway?—just moments before the die dropped from the eye socket and bounced to the carpet.
It tumbled, finally coming to rest against the leg of the coffee table.
Four black dots faced the ceiling.
“Evens,” Turks said.
“Evens,” Cooper echoed. He grinned around the room, though everyone else’s face was somber.
“Amen,” said Pauline.
“Amen,” said the others.
Turk slipped his thumbs into the pockets of his pants and looked almost sympathetically down at David. “It’s you, old hoss. Good news is, your daughter’s safe. We’ll keep her here with us for a time. No worries about that at all. Seems like she and Sam get along just fine, way I see it. And you’re a big fella. Should hold us off for a while.”
Bronwyn cleared her throat and said, “Should we—”
But she was cut off as another series of loud thumps—much more agitated than the previous two—reverberated down through the ceiling. This was followed by a piercing shriek that caused Turk’s son, Sam, to slam both meaty hands over his ears.
“Jesus,” Tre whispered, staring at the ceiling. It was the first thing David had heard him utter.
Jimmy’s agonized howls funneled through the vents.
“He’s worse, Turk,” Pauline said, obviously concerned. Turk held a hand up, silencing her. He cocked his head, as if to listen for the faintest sound, but there was no need to strain himself: Jimmy’s cries came again, the wails of a banshee, causing Pauline’s eyes to moisten and Sam to groan as if in pain himself.
Ellie’s grip tightened around David’s hand. She was staring at the vent in the ceiling directly above her head. Motes of dust spiraled down and powdered her hair. She didn’t even blink her eyes.
Then—whump! The sound of a sledgehammer whacking against the trunk of a large tree. It came over and over again, steady as a heartbeat—whump! whump! whump!
“He’ll hurt himself,” Pauline said. Her voice was low and hardly audible over the sickening sound emanating from upstairs. Then she shouted it at Turk: “He’s hurting himself!”
“Goddamn it,” Turk growled. He spun around, charged out of the living room, and bounded up the stairs. Momentarily, his heavy footfalls competed with the throbbing heartbeat that shook the walls.
“What’s he doing?” Bronwyn said. She stepped partway out into the hall and peered up the stairwell.
“He’s slamming his head against the wall up there,” David said. “If I had to guess, anyway, that’s where I’d put my money.”
Pauline glared at him, teeth clenched. “You don’t know nothing,” she growled at him.
“Probably smashing his face to pieces,” David continued. His mouth was dry; his tongue felt like a fat sponge sticking to the roof of his mouth.
“You cut it out!” Pauline shouted. She pointed a
t Cooper. “You shut him up!”
“Mama!” Sam bawled. He still had his hands clamped to his ears.
“You shut your mouth, buddy,” Cooper said, threatening David with the muzzle of the gun.
“Or what?” David said. “I’m dead anyway, right?”
“Just shut it.” Flecks of spit sprang from Cooper’s lips.
The banging upstairs reached a steady fever pitch—
whumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhump
—until Pauline shrieked and covered her own ears. Bronwyn made a high-pitched whimpering that sounded like air hissing from a deflating car tire. The gun in Cooper’s hand began to shake.
And then the banging stopped. The silence that followed was as loud as an explosion. Sam was sobbing against his mother while Pauline, fists still balled against her own ears, stared at the ceiling, wet tracks sliding down her cheeks.
“They’re okay,” Cooper said. He was staring right at David now. So was the gun. “They’re okay, Pauline. Just relax.”
“That sound,” Pauline moaned. She dropped her hands and hugged her boy.
Bronwyn stepped over to the foot of the stairs; David could see her terrified expression from the living room doorway. She called, “Turk? Turk?” Then her face appeared to collapse. She brought a hand up to her mouth, which seemed to have come unhinged. A high-pitched whine escaped her.
Turk descended the stairs. Cradled in his arms was the limp body of his son Jimmy. When Turk reached the bottom of the stairs, he staggered into the doorway of the living room just as Pauline began to cry. The look on Turk’s face was one of utter shock. The look on Jimmy’s was worse—a slack, pale face, juxtaposed by streamers of dark red gore smeared across his nose and mouth. The boy’s eyelids were open, but the eyes themselves were bright red Christmas balls filled with blood.
Turk surveyed them all, helpless and lost. There was a sound like cloth being slowly torn in half, which David realized was actually the sound of blood spilling from some orifice of the boy and pattering to the floor.
Pauline rushed to her husband, tried to wrangle the lifeless body from his arms. But Turk wouldn’t let the boy go. Pauline wailed and pressed her face to Jimmy’s, soaking her hair in his blood.
Only Cooper seemed fully aware of the situation; his stare kept volleying between the terrible scene in the doorway and David’s face, which was still only inches from the barrel of the gun. “What do I do here, Turk?” he asked.
Turk said nothing; he only gazed down at the dead child in his arms. Pauline had dropped to her knees and was sobbing against her husband’s leg. She clutched at one of Jimmy’s small, limp hands like someone groping for something in the dark.
Cooper cleared his throat and, more agitated, said, “Turk? What you want me to do here, man?”
Turk lifted his gaze. He surveyed the room with dead eyes, resting momentarily on David.
The gun shook in Cooper’s hand.
“Kill them both,” Turk said, turning back toward the stairs.
David sprang up from the couch, but Tre grabbed him and wrapped him in a bear hug. He was impossibly strong. From the couch, Ellie looked at him, then turned to Cooper. Cooper leveled the gun at her face.
“You motherfuckers!” David screamed.
Cooper eased the muzzle of the gun toward Ellie’s forehead. The gun was nearly touching—
(touching)
—Ellie’s forehead now. David struggled within Tre’s grasp, but it was a futile attempt.
“I’ll kill you!” he shouted at Cooper—at all of them. “I’ll kill you all!”
Ellie glanced at him, then turned back to look at Cooper. She brought up a hand—slowly, so slowly—and let her fingers dance along the barrel of the gun. Cooper watched, mesmerized by the strangeness of it. Those lithe little fingers danced along the edge of the gun until they came to rest along the top side of Cooper’s hand.
“Whatever you’re trying to do, sweetheart,” Cooper said, “it ain’t gonna do you no good.”
Ellie’s hand closed around Cooper’s wrist.
David stopped struggling.
Cooper grinned. Then his head cocked slightly to one side, the bewildered look of a dog overcoming his features, and the grin fell away from his face. A vertical crease appeared between Cooper’s eyebrows. Cooper’s lower lip began to tremble, to quiver, and it was soon obvious that he was muttering something just barely audible, like someone reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Then he screamed. It was a shrill, womanlike sound, raw enough to rupture his throat. His eyes grew wide, fearful, terrified, and his cheeks began to quiver. But not just his cheeks—his whole face began to quiver, his head shaking rapidly as if possessed by some force that was overtaxing his brain. And David wondered if that was exactly what was happening. . .
“Coop?” Tre said, his voice small and seemingly far away.
David felt Tre’s arms loosen around his chest. He seized the opportunity, throwing Tre’s arms off him and driving himself into Cooper’s chest while simultaneously clutching at the hand that held the gun. Sharp pain blossomed in his nose and radiated along the contours of his skull. There was a deafening explosion as the gun went off. David drove Cooper back against the wall; he felt the air gust out of Cooper’s lungs in one giant expulsion; a second after that, Cooper’s legs went rubbery and they both crashed to the floor.
Someone screamed.
David was quick to his feet, and had already administered a swift kick to the side of Cooper’s head before he realized he now held the gun in his hands. Cooper’s head rebounded off the wall and his eyes went foggy. His mouth worked silently, like a fish hauled out of the water gasping for air.
When David glanced up, he saw Tre’s thick, blocky silhouette rushing toward him, though seemingly in slow motion. It was as if the gun redirected itself and pulled its own trigger. The second gunshot seemed to suck all the air out of the room. Tre twisted in midleap; he spun away and crashed through the coffee table. In that millisecond, David was able to make out the look of utter shock on Tre’s tanned face; he could see the tats on his forearms and biceps in stark and terrible clarity; he could see the shimmering beads of sweat spring from Tre’s forehead and arc like cannon fire through the air in slow motion.
A moment later, the world caught up with itself. A grayish mist hung in the room, tangible as a spiderweb. David took a deep breath, and the acrid stench of gunpowder burned his sinuses. He tasted blood at the back of his throat, and when he touched his nose, he found his fingertips bloody. On the floor, Tre rolled over on the broken bits of the coffee table and moaned.
Turk reappeared in the doorway. He still held his son, but the look of shock had been wiped from his face. He now looked like a bull prepared to charge.
“Don’t move,” David said, swiveling the gun in Turk’s direction. “I’ll blow your goddamn head off.”
No one moved.
“Ellie,” he said, and motioned for her to get up off the couch. She did, but kept her eyes on Tre, who was clutching his abdomen as a dark, wet stain spread across the front of his shirt. David snared her around the wrist and pulled her close to him. Then he pointed the gun at Turk. “Get in here. Up against the wall with the others.”
“You’re a poison.” Turk’s voice was a low rumble. “You’ve come here and infected us all.”
“Do it now or I’ll shoot you in the face. Your wife, too.”
Pauline sobbed into her hands. She was still kneeling on the floor, her hair, face, and arms slick with Jimmy’s blood.
“I’ll put a bullet in her head, Turk. I swear it.”
Still cradling his dead son in his arms, Turk looked down at Pauline. “Get up,” he told her. “Stop crying and get up. Do what he says.”
She used Turk’s leg as support, hoisting herself off the floor. Blood from Jimmy’s mouth continued to spill onto the floor, black as oil. Blood had soaked Turk’s pants legs.
Once they were all in the living room, David backed toward the front door. He clut
ched the gun in two hands, yet still it shook. His breath whistled up the stovepipe of his throat. Ellie clung to his hip. When his foot thumped against something, he glanced down and saw it was the skull. Solomon. It spun slowly on the carpet like a top winding down.
“Don’t move and don’t follow us.” David opened the front door without taking his eyes from the roomful of people.
“Poison,” Turk said.
And then they were outside, he and Ellie, wincing against the harsh white sunlight of late afternoon. He paused midway down the driveway and pulled Ellie against him, covering one of her ears with the palm of his sweaty hand. He fired the gun at one of the Silverado’s tires, the gun bucking, the report like a whip crack. Then he shot out a second tire, hearing a faint metallic zing! as the bullet presumably rebounded off the rim.
“Run,” David said, and shoved Ellie forward.
The girl stumbled, then righted herself before breaking into a full gallop. They were on the other side of the street when a shotgun blast sheared the limb off a nearby tree. Ellie screamed. Brown leaves and splinters of wood rained down on them. David shouted for her to keep going.
27
He wasn’t sure whether they were being followed or not, but he wasn’t taking any chances. They didn’t slow down until they reached the main thoroughfare of town, and even then it was just to catch their bearings before taking off again. Ellie spotted the surplus store first, and they both sprinted across the street and around back, where the Olds was still tucked into its parking space. The car keys were in David’s pocket, so the urge to just jump in and speed off was powerful, but he knew he’d regret not grabbing his phone and whatever else he could manage from inside the store, so he darted through the partially opened door and raced across the store, knocking over a display rack as he went, until he nearly tripped over one of their sleeping bags. He gathered their bags in his arms while Ellie grabbed the shoe box of bird eggs, then together they ran back outside.
He kept anticipating a second sonorous blast from the shotgun, or perhaps for his pursuers to appear around the next street corner. But neither of those things happened. He jammed the key in the ignition, revved the Oldsmobile’s engine, and sped out onto the vacant street. Tires squealed as he gunned it toward the town limit.