She leaned forward, following the boy’s movements. He was tall and slim, with a thick wad of black hair like the Bob’s Big Boy mascot. He moved with a natural athleticism, the crook of his arm uncoiling, his feet leaving the ground in near-perfect symmetry. The ball went up, clanged on the rim, fell. The boy snared it with his right hand. Long muscles stretched along his arm; more muscles studded his stomach. Tori bit her tongue.
She thought about Brian Lonzer. She wanted Brian to ask her out, but at the same time she’d spent the entire school year comforted by the knowledge that he wouldn’t. The last time she had a boyfriend—Danny Shapiro, in eighth grade—had been a disaster. He’d stepped into her path one day as she came out of the locker cage and asked her to go steady, just like that. They’d never spoken before except in social-studies class. When she said yes, he took her hand and walked her through the school to the parking lot. He waved when she got on the bus. It ended two weeks later with someone leaving a note in her locker that said, “Will you please die so we can all have some piece?” Tori assumed it was from another girl who also liked Danny, and that she had meant to write “peace,” but then she spent days wondering if the spelling was correct and the girl was talking about sharing Danny. After all, Danny knew everybody in school; he was one of those unusual kids who transcended cliques. He was in band and was also on the wrestling team. Maybe he could have two girlfriends in school—or three or four—and they’d never meet each other. She never got to ask him about the note because he never talked to her again.
Even from this distance she could tell that the basketball boy was better looking than Danny Shapiro—and even Brian Lonzer. He definitely had a better body. She could date someone who lived in Mammoth View, she thought. It was only a couple of hours from Bakersfield. Dad might let her take the car up on Saturdays. She noticed the gelatinous dampness on the inside arm of her sweat-suit top, where she’d wiped her nose. God—gross! She rubbed it with the other arm. She really wished she hadn’t bawled so much. Her eyes were probably swollen into little pellets. She could have a booger hanging out of her nose. She rubbed her face with her hands, sniffed her armpits. She smelled musty, like an old dog. Well, she thought, nothing she could do about it now. She shrugged off the top, dropped it on the ground, and pondered how to approach the boy. Hi, I’m Victoria Lane, she imagined herself saying. Come here often?
What was wrong with her? Why was she thinking like this, like everything was normal? And why would she say her last name, like it was a job interview? She had no idea how to handle the situation. She’d never approached a boy before, never even considered it. But these were extraordinary times. To calm herself, she ran through every stupid pick-up line she knew.
Do you have any raisins? No? Then how about a date?
I hope you know CPR, because you take my breath away.
Do you know karate? Because your body is really kickin’.
Is that a mirror in your pants, because I can see myself in them.
Excuse me, but I’m new in town. Can I have directions to your place?
That last one actually wasn’t bad. The boy’s parents would know how to reach her father, even if the phones weren’t working. There had to be a way. They’d give her something to eat and let her watch TV until her dad arrived.
Tori stood and adjusted her underwear through her shorts. She stretched her legs, listening to the joints pop, one by one, like buttons on a too-small shirt. Her knees ached; it had been a long walk from the camp, most of it downhill. She stepped out from behind the tree. As the sun hit her, a spot danced in her eye. She blinked it away but immediately found it again. It wasn’t a spot. It was two men—a tall one and a normal-sized one. They were running together toward the playground. She watched them bound through the school’s walkway and across the lawn. There was something about them, something . . . unsavory. Like the men who’d call on Dad late at night, whispering on the front step as Dad wrote in his little notebook.
Tori started to call out to the boy, but something stopped her. She didn’t know him. She knew only her fantasy of him, made up right here on the spot. Maybe he was related to the two men. The men had reached the hardtop and jumped the low fence that circled the playing area. The boy jerked around at the sound of the fence screeching. He stuck the ball in the crook of his arm and watched them approach. He looked confused—but Tori wasn’t. She understood exactly what was going to happen. Tori instinctively closed her eyes against the sight, but she couldn’t shut her ears. She heard the boy hit the pavement with a thwock, like a dropped cantaloupe. A groan followed, long and deep, an unmistakable sound of sudden, unexpected pain. Tori opened her eyes to see the men landing on top of him, their arms pumping.
Tori dove behind the tree, missed, and—out of control—rolled. Panicked, she scrambled on her hands and knees, ending up on her side, grimacing from the pain of something jagged—a hundred somethings—digging into her flesh. She righted herself and saw she was on a narrow road that led to a maintenance shed. A gravel road. She grabbed a rock, squeezed it tight in her hand, and rose. Should she do this? She watched the men pummeling the boy, who writhed on the ground like an eel. Yes, she told herself. She had to. They could kill him. She bent her left knee like Catfish Hunter and heaved her arm forward. The rock bounced and skittered, way off target. She grabbed up another rock. She squinted, really concentrating this time. She kicked and threw. It bounced about three feet short but otherwise was perfect. The rock caromed off the asphalt and thumped against the shorter man as he reached back to throw a punch. The man’s head popped up like a gopher. He spotted Tori standing on the maintenance road. Now the other man’s head jerked around and his eyes landed on her too.
Tori turned and ran.
Chapter Thirteen
Winnie Lloyd shook the doorknob at the police station. Locked. She pressed her nose to the window and peered inside. Usually one of them was in there during normal business hours, unless they were having lunch together at Benny’s.
Winnie headed toward Main Street and the diner. She could go for some eggs and bacon. The recognition of her hunger surprised her. It made her feel better, actually, to understand the queasy feeling she had. She stretched her arms above her head and blew out a blot of air, trying to expel her anxiety. She crossed the street, passed the travel office—not open yet—and the ski shop, which of course was closed for the summer. She examined last year’s skiwear in the window, and when she turned she spotted Toby Berenson jogging between buildings at the end of the street, disappearing into the narrow alley next to the five-and-dime.
She suddenly realized the real reason she was feeling weird. There was no one else around. Not even old Benny, who’d been lounging in the wooden chair outside the diner every time she’d ever been downtown in the daylight hours. Benny’s daughter Terry ran the diner now, and she served her father as if he were Henry the Eighth.
Hustling to catch up to Toby, Winnie came around the corner of the alley and bumped into a tall man, her head bouncing off his chest. The man’s shirt was damp, and he reeked of B.O. “Sorry, excuse me,” she said, reflexively throwing her hands up in apology and twirling to get around him. His fist caught her above the ear. She heard herself yelp in surprise. She landed on her shoulder and hip. A rushing sound—the ocean, as clear as if she were on the beach in Waikiki—filled her head. She grabbed at her right arm, the one she’d fallen on. It felt like she was squeezing rubber. She heard herself yell again, but it wasn’t because of the arm. The man had grabbed her hair and the back of her shirt and was dragging her into the street.
The day had started so well. Winnie had woken up feeling sexy—all those hormones jumping through her bloodstream had turned her into one big raw nerve. She liked it. She’d gotten Johnny going when he was still sound asleep, and she’d climbed aboard and reached the bursting point almost immediately. If this was what you could expect from pregnancy, she’d sign up for a dozen kids. She’d l
azed in bed for half an hour after Johnny left for work, then groaned to her feet and stepped into the shower. She had just thrown her wet towel on the bed in the front guest room and was admiring herself in the full-length mirror when she saw Margie Buchanan running down the street. Margie yelled something, seemingly to the heavens. Did she say “aliens”? Was it “mammalians”? Winnie peered out the window, first to the right—the direction Margie was running—and then to the left.
Realizing she was still naked, Winnie stepped back from the window, feeling her face flush, and returned to the mirror. But now she couldn’t concentrate. She looked out the window again, this time keeping her torso behind the curtain. Margie was a ditz, but surely she hadn’t taken up jogging. Something was up. Maybe a raccoon had scared her. Or her son had forgotten his science project about mammals and she couldn’t find the car keys. Winnie looked at her feet; her theories didn’t satisfy her. Something definitely was up. She crossed to the bedroom, pulled on a wrinkled blouse and Capri pants, slipped into a pair of Top-Siders, and walked outside to look around. She marched down to the Buchanan place. No one answered the door when she rang. She started back toward the house but then kept going. Before she realized it, she was downtown.
Winnie had never imagined she’d end up in a little town like Mammoth View. She’d figured she would be in Washington, D.C., during her twenties. She had been a poli-sci major at the University of Oregon, a member of the student senate. Her parents were befuddled when she brought Johnny home for Christmas during her senior year. She was dating a police officer? Winnie marched in demonstrations against the war, drove to San Francisco to campaign door to door for Shirley Chisholm. She was supposed to hate the fuzz—the pigs—whatever the kids were calling policemen these days. And, true enough, Winnie had tried to resist him. Johnny Lloyd never read novels. Guns and other weaponry fascinated him. But he was so much more than the cop cliché. He was kind and thoughtful. And, of course, he was gorgeous. A tall, powerful man with broad shoulders. She’d had her fill of pretentious, insecure little twerps in John Lennon glasses.
Winnie kicked out with both feet, but she managed only to pull a muscle in her side. She lay back, trying to will away this new ache. The blood on her face had dried by now; she felt the crust crackle when she moved her mouth. She touched her right cheekbone where the man had hit her; the sensation ripped through her, the touch of a scalding iron. Her head jerked involuntarily, the back of her skull banging against something hard. She blinked, and tears flushed out her eyes. She must look horrid, she thought, and then chastised herself. She loved the way men responded to her, she always had, and since learning she was pregnant she’d worried about how her looks would change. Now the shame she felt for having such feelings had proved justified. Now her vanity had found its dark side.
She tried to turn onto her side to wipe away what was happening. She could think about terrible things happening to her, but she couldn’t believe they actually would. She was twenty-seven years old, she thought. The prime of her life. The world shook, lifting her up and banging her down. She was in a car. In the trunk. She couldn’t deny it. She pushed her hands into her temples and squeezed her arms tight against herself as the car’s movement forced her into a roll. She didn’t want to think about what was going to happen when the vehicle reached its destination and the trunk opened. He—whoever he was—would kill her. There, she had thought it and believed it. Because it really was the only possibility. Another pretty young victim of the Zodiac Killer, or whoever this lunatic was. Her nose pulsed, and she worried it was going to start bleeding again. Her breathing sputtered. She gulped and sucked at the fug around her head. Heavenly Father, she prayed. O Heavenly Father, I call on you.
Johnny would find her, she told herself. This man in the plaid shirt was some ex-con Johnny had put away in Eugene, some psychopath. Had to be. And Johnny would know by now that the man was in town and looking for the cop who had sent him to prison. He’d know by now that the ex-con had grabbed his wife. Johnny was probably chasing him—that was why the car was going so fast; that was why she was being tossed around in the trunk like a pinball.
Winnie tried to sit up, and banged her head. She rolled onto her sore shoulder. The car had stopped. She listened: to a door slamming, to boots on gravel, to a key in a lock. She’d watched too many movies. Johnny wasn’t going to swoop in and save the day. She was going to be killed. She was going to die. She and her baby. She held her breath to stifle a scream as the trunk swung open. A hand grabbed her, turned her.
“I tell you, Melvin, I can pick ’em. She’s a stone fox.”
“Shut up”—an older, sharper voice.
“Come on, look at her . . .” The hand grabbed her wrists and yanked her arms away from her face. Winnie squinted into the sunlight. She could just make out two bearded faces. She knew who these men were.
“She’s pretty. You’ve got to say.”
“I told you to shut up. Get her out of there.”
The dumb one leaned in, pressed his hands into her spine, and hefted her onto his shoulder.
“No, no, no, no,” Winnie whined.
“Shut up,” Melvin said. His motto.
Fear ripped through Winnie’s body. Her extremities went cold, her knees locked. She had to do something. She had to act. She swung her right arm, hitting the man on the back of the head with the upswing. Clonk. He adjusted her on his shoulder. She swung again; this time she whacked her elbow feebly against his neck. The man squeezed her torso like a fresh sponge, forcing the air from her lungs. Desperate, she stuck a hand into her mouth. She felt him squeeze her again. She pushed her index and middle fingers to the base of her tongue, as far back as she could. Then further. Tears filled her eyes, the ocean returned to her ears. She couldn’t get it. The tickle stayed just out of reach, shimmering in her mind’s eye like a gold ring.
“Aww, shit!” the dumb one yelled. He dropped Winnie with a shrug, and in the same motion swiped at the vomit on his back. The ground knocked the wind out of her. Winnie struggled to her knees, heaving, gasping for air. Melvin kicked her, his new red running shoe catching just under the ribcage. She went fetal. She grabbed her stomach with both hands, tried to hold herself. The baby, she thought. Melvin seized the front of her blouse and lifted—a mistake. On her feet, her blouse halfway over her head, Winnie thrust her knee up as hard as she could. She felt the man’s nuts elongate against her kneecap like a dividing cell. Melvin buckled with only the tiniest ooof worming out of his mouth. The other man had no idea what was happening; he was inside the car, rooting around for something to clean himself off.
Winnie staggered in the opposite direction. A dirt path swirled and bounced amidst her flapping shoes. Trees soared into the sky on both sides. “Get after her, goddamn it,” she heard Melvin yell. She gagged on the remnants of her upchuck and twisted her head to take in a building that had suddenly cast her in shadow. It looked like a ski lodge. A grandiose porch wrapped around the entire second floor. Large windows stood behind it, shooting reflective lasers into the sky like beacons. But something was wrong with the building. The porch sagged in spots. The chimney above it leaned. Shingles along the ground floor had been peppered by what looked like gunshots. She spotted a door and tried to sprint.
Chapter Fourteen
Stepping down from the Bronco, Hicks noticed the postal box on its side. Scorch marks reached down the container like jungle vines.
“What the hell?” Lloyd said when Hicks pointed it out.
“Yeah,” Lundstrum piped up. “That’s when everything went to hell.”
Hicks and Lloyd turned to him, and Lundstrum returned the look, clearly stunned that the town’s cops really didn’t know what was going on. He started from the beginning: Toby Berenson and Eleanor Raskin coming into Benny’s within a minute of each other, both in a state, talking about half a dozen dead at the lake, Otis’s suicide, some Bakersfield reporter from KERO reporting live on the s
cene. Then the explosions started. The dumpster behind the travel office went first, later the post box here. There might have been another one in between. Somebody reported a fire out on Lake Road. “Downtown emptied out fast,” Lundstrum said. “People were crying—and not just the women, I can tell you. That’s about when the Johnson boys showed up.”
“Is that right?” Hicks said.
“Yeah, sure, ol’ Melvin was in high spirits. Whoopin’ and hollerin’ like he does.”
Hicks led them into the police-department office, Lundstrum still offering up tidbits: Terry cursing out her father for refusing to get out of his chair and into the car; Scott Lansing, the barber, organizing a convoy to Bakersfield. Hicks picked up the phone: still dead. He slammed it back into its cradle. “You got a CB radio?” he asked Lundstrum.
Lundstrum raised his hands. “Not me. Toby, probably.”
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