by Ninie Hammon
That monster had stolen sweet Andi to trade for her.
She eased the kitchen door open again. This time, she moved the screen so slowly the spring didn’t squeak as it had earlier. The car was parked in the driveway. Becca hoped it had gas. She had no money to buy any. She hoped it had an automatic transmission, too. She hadn’t driven a car in twenty years and didn’t know if she could manage a clutch. She scored on both counts, backed slowly out of the driveway and drove away.
******
1985
Jack had tried, but it’d been hopeless almost from the very beginning. The Bad Kids had ridden a normal speed through the town streets, and even on his colossal wreck of a bike with the picka-nick basket strapped to the back, Jack was able to keep up with them, far enough behind that they wouldn’t notice. But as soon as the boys got out of the clusters of houses along the river, they pulled out the stops, and Jack watched them blow away out of sight so far in front of him there was no hope of ever catching up.
He’d lost them.
Think. Where could they have gone?
Jack knew that whatever they were planning, it was on this side of town since they’d gone to considerable trouble to create a diversion on the other side. But what or where it could be, he couldn’t imagine. There wasn’t much of anything here—subdivisions had snuggled up next to the Big Puddle as the town expanded south. There was a small marina and dock where the river widened out, a nursing home on the riverbank a couple of miles away, and beyond that a strip mall with a grocery store, a beauty parlor, and a branch of Kentucky State Bank. Could that be it—were they planning to rob the bank? What for?
Even though he’d lost sight of the Bad Kids, Jack kept going. What else could he do?
The nursing home finally appeared ahead on his right. It sat on a small hill. Jack was starting up the incline toward the building when the chain came off his bike, the back tire locked up and he went flying over the handlebars and landed in the road, peeling much of the skin off the palm of his right hand. The wreck also tore the right knee of his pants and bent the handlebar on the bike. He could fix the chain—it wouldn’t take very long—but he had already decided it was pointless to continue. He’d walk up to the nursing home and borrow a phone to call Bishop for a ride. Maybe they could drive around in Bishop’s truck until they spotted something—which he didn’t believe for a minute would do any good.
He dragged the bike—it wouldn’t roll with the back tire locked up—off the road into the edge of the woods and leaned it against a tree, didn’t bother to hide it. Who in their right mind would steal a battered-up old bike with a bent handlebar and a broken chain? It occurred to him for the first time that he was hungry, so he unstrapped the picka-nick basket and took it with him as he trudged up the hill toward the huge white building on the summit. Jack had never been inside the place. Daniel had been there dozens of times. On Saturdays, his father took communion to the nursing home residents, and Daniel often went along.
“There’s a fountain on the ground floor that I’m dying to put dishwashing soap in,” Daniel had said. “The bubbles would be epic!”
The banisters on the two curved staircases would probably provide a decent enough ride, he’d said, but there were always too many people around for him to try. And he’d found a “not exciting” crawl space under the floor one day when he spilled grape juice. No creepy cool basement, though, only a dirt hole with a coal chute for a furnace that wasn’t there anymore.
Jack got to the driveway leading to the nursing home from the road and found it blocked by a sawhorse and a sign that read “Danger!” in bright-red letters on the top. “Restricted Area, Natural Gas Leak,” was printed below next to the Bradford’s Ridge Gas and Electric Company logo. Jack looked around but saw no truck or G&E Company workers. He skirted the sign, crossed the parking lot and went up the steps to the main entrance—double doors flung wide today to admit the summer morning air. Each door had an oval-shaped pane of frosted glass in the middle with a single tree etched in the glass. When the doors were closed, the two trees side by side with entwined limbs formed the Twin Oaks logo.
An old man sat in a wheelchair beside the door, but when Jack asked him where he might locate a pay phone, the man sat with his head bent, looking at nothing. Then Jack saw a sign: “Administration.” There’d be a phone he could borrow in the office.
The office complex opened with a frosted glass door that matched the ones on the front. There was a broad reception counter, with an area behind it where women were working in individual cubicles. He approached the receptionist, who was absorbed in paperwork at a desk behind the counter, and set the picka-nick basket down on the floor beside him.
“Excuse me. My bike broke down on the road. May I please borrow a phone to call somebody to come pick me up?”
She didn't get up, but did drag her gaze away from her work long enough to give him a distracted glance. “I’d be glad for you to borrow a phone, son, but we have a line down somewhere, knocked out all the phones in the building.”
She noted Jack’s disappointed look. “I’m sure it’ll be fixed soon, and you’re welcome to wait.” She indicated the empty chairs in the reception area. Then she seemed to think of something. “My grandson is about your age and when he comes to visit me, he likes to take a comic book”—she pointed to a pile of tattered ones on the coffee table with equally worn copies of Reader’s Digest and National Geographic—"and read it back there.”
The receptionist gestured to a space between the wall of the room and the wall of the first cubicle. “This old building is full of interesting nooks and crannies, and Bobby has explored them all. Apparently, you can crawl in there and go around a corner, and there’s this nice open space where a window trains a beam of sunlight like a reading lamp—or so he says.” She bent her head back to her work.
Obviously, her grandson was not actually Jack’s age but several years younger. Crawling in tunnels was a little-kid thing to do, way too childish for a twelve-year-old. Still…he wanted to see the open space with the beam of sunlight—then he’d know something about the nursing home Daniel didn’t—and it’d be a cool place to eat a sandwich. So he knelt down and crawled into the cubby hole, which it turned out did, indeed, have a veritable sunroom about five feet by five feet. Jack leaned back against the wall in the sunshine, took a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich out of the picka-nick basket and began to eat.
CHAPTER 36
2011
After a couple of dozen calls, Theresa had a response down that shut up all but the most talkative callers.
“The reverend sure does appreciate your effort. Why don’t you send him an email and tell him all about it ’cause I got to keep this line clear for somebody who did find out somethin’.”
Soon’s they heard that, the person on the other end of the line hung up.
“On the other end of the line.” That didn’t make no sense anymore, either.
The phone in her hand rang.
“Is this the number you’re supposed to call if you found out something about the man the reverend Daniel is looking for?” a woman asked.
Theresa was instantly alert. Nobody’d asked that.
“Yes, it is. Did you find someone who’s seen him?”
“It just shows what kind of man our pastor is that he’s trying to help this poor family whose little girl is sick. I don’t believe a word about what they said he did. The reverend would never—”
Theresa heard a voice in the background.
“They don’t care what you believe about the reverend, Roberta. Tell them about the car.”
“Well, I think the reverend needs to know we support—”
There was a rustling sound and a man’s voice spoke. “Name’s Herbert Black, and we didn’t find anybody’d seen the man, but we did find somebody’d seen the car—a blue car with New Mexico plates, right?”
Theresa’s heart began to pound. “Yes, that’s right.”
“We had about given up, asked everybody
we could find in the store. And, by the way, they’re getting tired of being asked, said they’d already had almost a dozen people this morning come in to question them. Anyway, we were walking out to the car when we saw this boy in the parking lot pushing carts back into the store. Long blond hair—in a ponytail.” Theresa could hear the disapproval in his voice. “He said nobody’d asked him anything, and he definitely remembered the New Mexico plates. Said he plays a game with himself to see how many states he can find, and this is the first time he’d seen a car from New Mexico.”
“Where are you? Which BetterBuy?”
“The one on Barstow Avenue in Florence. One other thing—the store manager told us that one of the checkers who was working yesterday afternoon doesn’t come in until after lunch. So maybe she knows something.”
When Theresa touched Jack’s name on her favorites list, her hands were shaking.
“The BetterBuy on Barstow in Florence,” she said when he answered seconds after the first ring. “I been there. Take the Lakewood exit south right after you cross the river. Make a left on Fourth Street. Parking lot boy—long blond hair in a ponytail—seen the car. He’s sure of it.”
“Thanks!” Then the line went dead. Without no dial tone, did lines even “go dead” anymore?
The phone rang again, and she wondered if she needed to answer it now that they’d found what they was looking for. Probably should. But first things first. Time for another potty break. When she passed the front window on her way to the bathroom, she stopped and stared out, forgot all about how bad she needed to pee. Her car was no longer sitting in her driveway.
Who’d steal an old car sitting in a driveway in a quiet neighborhood? Musta needed a car real bad to do a thing like that in broad daylight.
Then her heart took up the rhythm in her chest her heart doctor said didn’t do her blood pressure no good at all. You don’t s’pose…
She hurried up the stairs as fast as an old fat woman could climb them. Her purse where she kept her keys was lying open on her bed.
That noise behind her. Becca had been here. She’d heard about Billy Ray and Andi.
******
1985
Jack heard the sound of Van Halen and his head snapped up. Who in a nursing home would play...? "Runnin' With the Devil." His heart slammed into a rhythm faster and harder than the beat of the music.
“What can I do for you boys?”
At the sound of the receptionist’s voice, Jack stopped breathing.
Boys?
“Is this everybody, the whole staff?”
Cole Stuart!
“I beg your pardon,” the receptionist was still only confused, not frightened.
“How many people work here? Total?”
“Son, I don’t think that’s any of your business. Why do—?”
Jack heard the swish of the half-doors in the counter that separated it from the waiting area. Then there was a clunking sound as something was knocked to the floor—a lamp or the lady’s purse—and a squeaking sound, an awful squeaking sound like somebody had stepped on the tail of a mouse.
“How many?”
“Twenty-five,” came a strangled response from the squeaking voice. The receptionist was scared now.
“They all here today?”
Apparently, she shook her head because Jack heard no reply.
“Where?”
“…in here, in the office—eight, no ten, I think. Yes, ten. Please, don’t hurt anybody. We’ll give you whatever you want, just let us—”
“Where else?”
“The kitchen, the laundry—Sylvia and Grace are doing sheets—physical therapy and the game room. And the caregivers, nurses and aides and orderlies on the floors with the residents.”
“How many?”
“I don’t—”
Cole hit her, you could hear the slap sound of his palm connecting with her face. She started crying then, trying to talk through her tears.
“There are…six or seven on each floor—I don’t know how many exactly.” He must have threatened to hit her again because she continued in a rush. “Thirteen! Yes, there are thirteen timecards—that’s all I know.”
“Nobody working outside?”
“No, today is the groundskeeper’s—it’s Tomás’s day off.”
“Lucky Tommy,” said another voice. Victor Alexander.
An ugly chuckle followed. Roger Willingham.
“That everybody?”
“Yes, that’s every—”
Her voice cut off with a choked noise. Jack heard a thump and the sound of things falling to the floor and knew Cole must have tossed her back into her chair or onto her desk.
The rest of the room erupted in screaming, the office workers at first responding to what had happened to the receptionist but quickly erupting in terror for what might be in store for them, too. Jack lay down and put his face to the floor and could see a small slice of the room from under the back panel of the cubicle.
From what little Jack could see under the wall, the Bad Kids tore into the crowd of women like a pack of attacking wolves. It sounded like a slaughter house. Women screamed, things were knocked over and crashed to the floor, hysterical voices cried out, begged for their lives.
“No, don’t! Please—”
“Why, what are you do—?”
“I have little children. They need—”
It did them no good to plead for mercy. What inhabited the bodies of those twelve-year-old boys was incapable of mercy.
The Bad Kids slammed bodies into walls, the workers’ cries cut off abruptly in mid-scream. He thought of what they’d heard the boys—the demons——say as they passed by the alcove beside the furniture store. “We’re gonna make them squeal.” Was this what they meant?
A woman’s voice nearby wailed.
“Don’t. I’ll pay you—please—”
There was a strangling sound, and she slammed into the partition Jack crouched behind. He could hear her feet kicking, thumping the wall uselessly, like maybe she was held up in the air. Then her body dropped down to the floor, blocking his view. The woman had blonde hair, and her face was only inches from his. Her clear blue eyes were looking right at him or would have been if the eyes had not been sightless. Her throat had been ripped out—with what? Bare hands? Fingernails? Teeth? Jack could see her spine through the gory hole in the front of her neck.
He felt his stomach begin to heave at the sight, but he clamped his jaw shut and forced himself to swallow. If they found him right now, while they were in this feeding frenzy of killing, they would literally rip him apart with their bare hands.
It didn’t take long for three twelve-year-old boys to murder ten women. Not long at all.
The room was finally quiet and Jack could hear the music again. Motley Crue blasting out "Shout at the Devil," singing about putting "the thrill back in death." He could hear the boys panting on the other side of the partition, barely three feet from him. The smell of blood was everywhere. Were the other Bad Kids inflicting similar carnage in other parts of the building?
Bishop had said the efreet intended to commit some heinous act. But who could have imagined anything like this? That woman had said there were twenty-five employees here. Had the Bad Kids killed all of them?
Twenty-five murders. And there were probably more than a hundred old people still in the building. Why would they kill the staff and—?
Jack exhaled shakily and then drew air back in slowly. No, he hadn’t been mistaken. He smelled gasoline.
******
2011
Daniel looked at his watch. Whitworth was late. Maybe he didn’t intend to show up at all. Daniel was instantly ashamed of the thrill of joy that thought shot through his body. Oh, how he did not want to do this.
Though Daniel understood in general terms the process of a Supreme Court nomination and confirmation, the senator outlined it briefly as they waited for Whitworth to arrive, speaking in the even tones of a college professor lecturing a class.
Daniel could see no sign of tension at all in the man, no hint of apprehension. But he was sure he displayed enough apprehension for the both of them. He was equally sure the senator was giving him the mini civics lesson to distract him, to keep him from winding tighter and tighter as the minutes ticked away.
“You do know that Whitworth’s nomination won’t be decided by this committee, don’t you,” LaHayne said, but didn’t wait for Daniel to answer before he continued. “All the committee will do is vote on whether or not to send the nomination to the full senate for confirmation. Only takes a simple majority vote of the committee.” The senator paused, then continued matter-of-factly. “I’ve counted my chicks, and on this committee, I don’t have enough votes to quash the nomination.”
“So, unless he’s willing to withdraw…?”
“The full senate has only rejected about a dozen candidates—the most recent was a long time ago, Robert Bork in 1987. But if you and I can’t get Whitworth to fold his hand here, I can filibuster his nomination once it hits the senate floor. I do have the guns to pull that off. I can delay the vote indefinitely if I have to.” He smiled a small smile. “Until Hell freezes over, if that’s how long it takes.”
“But that only puts it off, doesn’t change—”
“A lot of things can happen during a filibuster, son.”
LaHayne’s phone rang in decorously subdued tones and Daniel’s heart sank. Apparently, Whitworth had arrived and was waiting in the outer office.
LaHayne reached out a hand and placed it gently on Daniel’s shoulder. “Just remember…we’ve read the end of the book. We know how it all comes out.”
That’s what Clayton Abernathy had said.
The senator picked up the receiver, listened and said, “Send him in.”
As soon as Daniel looked into Whitworth’s cold, shark eyes, he knew theirs was a fool’s errand, that nobody could stop this man from getting whatever he wanted.
******