Daryl's stubbly chin was thrust before him in a manner of confrontation but there was no other sign of aggression, though Rick couldn't see his eyes. The thin-lipped mouth was clamped shut – even though Daryl should have been surprised, shocked even, by Johnny's sudden appearance – and Daryl's hair, a thick thatch of wheat that was graying slightly around the ears, was unkempt and hanging over his forehead.
"Daryl, what's goin–"
Jesman's Bend's brawny odd-jobber cut off the pleading question with a two-handed swipe of the hat stand into Johnny's shoulder that sent him staggering backwards through the doorway. Daryl swung the hat stand back and stepped forward. Elsie Weebershand, fourteen years old and, Johnny knew, sporting a silver brace behind that cold and tight-lipped half-smile, sidled through at the same time, brandishing what the dazed Johnny quickly recognized as a chair leg from the studio. The leg came down on Johnny's shin and he heard rather than felt a dull crack: the pain came a few seconds later, washing up his leg like flood water.
Melanie grabbed a shovel from the wall, dislodging a metal watering can which rattled onto the floor nearly deafening her. She leapt forward as the small girl, very small for her years, was pulling back for another swipe. The metal end of the shovel struck Elsie full in the chest, momentarily pinning her against the door jamb before Melanie's forward momentum sent her back through the doorway. Melanie swung around and hit Daryl in the cheek but it was only a glancing blow. Daryl hefted the hat stand forward, an over-the-head thrust like he was hammering stakes into the ground. The hat stand hit the top of the doorway and he lost grip with one hand which flew forward clenched into a half-fist.
Johnny groaned from the floor. "Oh, Jesus Christ!"
From somewhere behind them – maybe in another county or an alternative universe, Melanie thought – the familiar clunk of the garage door opening joined the confusion and then stopped.
Melanie tried to ignore the fact that–
Oh, great, now they're coming in behind us.
–the garage door was opening. She swung the shovel back and slapped it onto the top of Daryl's head but it barely caught his skull and, instead, raked the side of his head and thudded ineffectively on the big man's shoulder. When she pulled the shovel back to try again, Melanie saw that Daryl's right ear was partly severed, blood dripping down the side of his head onto his pale blue collarless shirt.
As Daryl staggered, losing hold of the hat stand which clattered to the floor, Jimmy James Poskett powered through and swung Geoff's baseball bat, the tip connecting with Melanie's elbow and continuing until it reached little Elsie Weebershand's face. Blood and bits of what could only be bone – plus Elsie's teeth brace – skittered across the floor and sprayed the door jamb and a cabinet containing screws and nails, all in neat little jars, which Geoff kept just inside the garage. Elsie dropped her chair leg and fell backwards, arms pinwheeling, until she hit the floor.
Melanie jabbed the shovel forward, grunting, and smiled when it sank into Jimmy James's neck. The shovel took him back, pushing Daryl back fully into the station even as he tried to reach the hat stand. Melanie pulled back and jabbed forward again, the curve of the shovel lodging itself in Jimmy James's eyes snapping the intricate and expensive-looking shades. The glasses fell to the floor and Jimmy James dropped the baseball bat and threw up his hands, trying to cover his eyes, but catching a shard of thick, black glass that was lodged at the bridge of his nose and pushing it deep into the left socket.
Melanie closed her own eyes and held back the bile.
The garage door started to move again.
She span around. "Johnny… the door!"
"I– I know," Johnny grunted. "Can't move. My leg…"
Melanie turned back and, grunting, swung the shovel at Daryl who was pushing his way into the garage. The shovel caught him fully in the stomach. The big man staggered backwards, turning in an attempt to remain upright, and fell over the crouched figure of Jimmy James – still fumbling with his ruined eye socket – who, in turn, tottered over the prone body of little Elsie Weebershand.
There was a loud crack, like a car backfiring and someone was screaming but Melanie ignored the noise, only distantly aware in another part of herself that it was coming from her own mouth.
She stepped forward and brought the shovel down on the back of Daryl's head, lifted it, and swung it across and at an angle, catching the back of Daryl's neck. The blade of the shovel dug into the flesh and jarred on the spinal column. Daryl's dark glasses tumbled from his face onto the floor and, although seemingly oblivious to the damage, exposed tendons and cartilage in his neck, he lifted his hands to his face even as it connected with the floor.
From behind her came another crack, but it wasn't a car backfiring. She knew that now. It was a gunshot. Then another. And another.
She shifted the shovel to her right hand and picked up her husband's baseball bat with the left. Then she dropped the shovel and hefted the bat in both hands. It felt good. It had been a long time since she and Geoff had played softball but it was coming back to her. She took a few practice swings, keeping an eye on the trio twitching on the floor in front of her. Daryl lifted himself up and turned his head towards her, and blinked.
The two red blobs where pupil and iris should be were not like anything she had ever seen before – at least nothing that didn't appear in a movie theater. Daryl shifted himself to one side, with no grunt or sign of exertion, and he started to pull off one of his gloves. Jimmy James lay where he had fallen, moving his head from side to side. Little Elsie Weebershand didn't appear to be moving at all.
"Mel…"
Ignoring Johnny's call she took an image of exactly where Daryl's head was, closed her eyes and swung the bat as hard as she could. In her imagination, she heard a pumpkin split open, pieces of it hitting the corridor walls. Seconds later came the unmistakable sound of something falling to the floor. She turned around and opened her eyes.
Johnny was pointing at the door.
"I know… it moved. I heard it. Gunshots. The cavalry must be on its way." She moved over to where Johnny lay on the floor next to the Dodge and crouched down beside him. "You OK?"
He shook his head. "Leg… hurts like hell."
"Can you move?"
He laughed without humor. "Well, there's no way I'm staying here."
"Melanie!" a voice screamed from outside. "I'm coming!"
The door started to move upwards.
Melanie turned to watch it, a smile breaking out on her face. She ran to the door, holding her hands on the metal as it slid upwards. "Geoff? Geoff, I'm OK."
Outside the garage, Rick stopped dead in his tracks.
Melanie's voice… he 'd heard it. But she was shouting for Geoff. How was he going to tell her? Grace Sheffield ambled from side to side, moving her legs up and down like pistons, her gloves on the floor by her feet. She raised her arms and opened them towards him.
Over to Rick's right, Sammy Lescombe was still moving forward with just a few yards to cover before those welcoming arms and hands would reach him.
Rick tilted his head and listened to the wind. There was a sound on it – no, more than one sound – there were several sounds riding the breeze. Engines.
He looked up and saw the sky lightening to the east.
He looked back at the road that wound down first to the bridge and then on into town. Engines were coming but they weren't coming up the road. He lifted his head and watched the treetops. They were coming up there.
There wasn't much time.
Rick turned to Sammy Lescombe – the same Sammy Lescombe that he'd bought provisions from and talked baseball statistics and chewed the fat about the weather – steadied his hands and aimed for his chest. The bullet took off the right side of Sammy's head, his dark glasses with it. Sammy shuddered, took a step or two back, and then three wavering steps to the side, his right leg buckling as though about to give way. Then he fell forward, stiff as a board, arms still outstretched, and didn't move.
"Grace… back up now," Rick shouted. He slipped the gun into his pants pocket and waved the branch with his right hand. "I don't want to use this but I will if I have to. Now just let me by."
He trained the remote at the garage and pressed.
The door moved upwards, clanking.
The sound of engines was getting louder.
Melanie emerged from beneath the door, a baseball bat in her hands. She looked left and right and then across at Rick.
Rick saw the smile falter a little and then return, but when it returned it was a false smile. "Geoff?" She craned her head to look behind Rick and took a step forward, following Grace who still doggedly closed the gap between herself and Rick. "Where's Geoff?"
Rick sighed, both at the fact that he was going to have to deal with Grace and the fact that he was going to have to deal with Melanie. He wasn't sure which one he was looking forward to the least.
"Rick, where's Geoff?"
"Back up, Grace," Rick snapped. "I mean it."
"Rick!"
"He didn't make it, Mel." He waited for a few seconds, watched Melanie's face take on a quizzical expression. Didn't make it? What kind of shit was that?
"How do you–"
"He's dead, Mel. Geoff's dead."
Melanie dropped the bat.
Grace staggered another couple of steps, just a few feet away now. Rick shook his head. He waited for her to take another step, braced himself and swung the branch, clipping the side of her head and knocking the dark glasses across the concrete. Grace staggered, partially bent forward, and then straightened up. When she turned to look at him she lifted her hands to her face, but not before Rick saw the woman's eyes. They looked like coals, hot coals, red and black. She rubbed her face, swiveled around, clawing at her eyes.
"Grace…"
Melanie had retrieved the bat. She walked calmly forward until she was standing in front of Grace Sheffield. Then she brought the bat down on top of the woman's head with all of her might. Even with the sound of the engines, Rick could hear her sobbing. Melanie lifted her arms back behind her head to take another swing but Grace had fallen face forward, a thick black pool forming beneath her head.
"Mel, she's finished."
As Melanie brought the bat down and pulverized the back of Grace's head, Jack DiChapperlain's Camaro appeared over the trees. Behind the Camaro was Suzie Mendohlson's open-sided Jeepster, with Roy Clubb hanging out of the passenger side. There was something in Roy's hand.
A loud report echoed and a thick cloud of brick and dust exploded from the side of the station.
Rick dived forward, dropping the branch, and grabbed Melanie.
"Shit, now they've got firepower."
Another shot rang out but Rick didn't see where it went.
"Inside," he shouted over the roar of the engines. Another one was coming up from the bridge road but Rick wasn't about to waste time by turning around to see what it was.
Melanie was sobbing, the bat still clutched in her hands, repeating Geoff's name over and over again.
Roy Clubb's rifle snapped at the night again and a piece of masonry bounced inches from Rick's foot as he dragged Melanie across to the garage, all but throwing her inside.
"Where's Johnny?"
"GeoffGeoffGeoff… oh my god… he can't be–"
Rick slapped her and grabbed her shoulders before she could fall over.
Craaack!
One of the old paint cans leapt into the air, bounced against the Dodge's windshield and rolled down the hood.
"Over here," Johnny said, his voice weak.
Rick pulled open the Dodge's left-hand rear door and pushed Melanie inside. He slammed the door and edged his way around to the back of the car to where Johnny was laid out, almost unconscious.
"What is it? Bullet?" He searched Johnny's shirt-front for signs of blood. "Knife?"
Johnny shook his head. "Broke my leg. Daryl–"
"Doesn't matter who did it, Johnny." He looked around. One of the cars was landing – he could see dust billowing up just outside the garage door.
Craaaack!
Melanie screamed.
When Rick looked through the back window he saw the windshield was a mosaic of tiny lines.
"Shit," Rick said. "We have to move."
Another shot rang out, followed by another.
"Rick… I don't think I'm gonna be–"
"I know. I'm gonna have to do it."
(29)
Sally watched the departing car and breathed a sigh of relief. She looked back, carefully avoiding repeating the nose-collision, and was delighted to see no activity around her old window. She turned around again and shuffled to the corner, pausing to sneak a quick glance around it just to make sure there was nobody heading her way, and then moved around. It proved to be more difficult that she had imagined, mainly because there was a time when the only point of wall contact was the ninety degree sharp edge that travelled the full length of her body, occupying a knifeedge line down between her breasts and to between her legs: the rest of her – aside from her hands and knees, all of which she used to keep as tight a grasp on the hotel as possible – seemed to be abandoned out in space. But it didn't last long before she was around the corner and resting her face on the brick.
This was a side street, lacking in the grandeur of the main drag she had just left. A quick glance down revealed cars parked in bays, a collection of large trash dumpsters huddled in an alcove. But best of all – joy of joys! – there was a fire escape ladder that appeared to run down to the second floor where it would then have to be released in order to drop the final few yards to the ground. Sally sighed and closed her eyes. But she didn't want to hang around too long: the people (were they people?) out in the hallway – and latterly, in her private suite, for Chrissakes – were slow but she wasn't sure how slow they would be when they got back onto the luggage trolley and hightailed it back to the elevators to head downstairs. They may not have figured out where she had gone – though she couldn't figure that out at all – but they sure as shooting knew she was around someplace. It figured that the place to set up camp to catch her would be the lobby, but then that assumed a whole lot of understanding that Sally wasn't sure they possessed.
After a few seconds, she edged along the ledge, pleased to see that she seemed to have gotten the hang of it. She reached the fire escape without incident and started down, trying to keep the noise down as much as possible. Releasing the final section from the holding clips, however, did prove to be a noisy affair and, as soon as she reached the ground – feeling decidedly shaky – Sally ran across the street and back up onto the main drag. She stopped at the corner and glanced up at the ledge: what she had just achieved looked an impossible feat. But she had done it. Now she needed to find somewhere to hide.
Looking around, worrying that any moment one of those airborne cabs would come scooting around one of the buildings, flashing its headlights all over the ground and–
Hey, look! There she is! Now let's just nip on down there and–
–she figured it would be curtains.
All the stores were closed so getting inside would involve breaking in, and that required something to smash glass with plus, most important of all, making noise.
We shouldn't make any noise, should we mommy?
"No," she said to the silent street. "No noise."
Somewhere far away, the sound of an engine could be heard, but it didn't seem to be getting any louder – maybe it was just moving cross-streets.
Then she saw it.
24 Hour, it said, in bold purple and green neons.
Movies! it said, in flashing yellow bulbs that ran like a wave, falling in on itself only to return to the beginning and start again.
"Perfect," she
whispered. "A movie theater."
And after a final quick glance around, Sally Davis removed her pumps and set off at a trot, heading for – she now saw – the rather quaintly named Bijou Theater. She just hoped the movies were not art house or – even worse – porn.
What's porn, mommy?
Don't ask her that, answered another voice.
It worried Sally sometimes that she could not always identify the owners of some of her internal voices.
She reached the multiple-doored entrance just as what sounded like a helicopter came over the roof above her, Sally stepping through the doors and diving behind a stand-up cardboard advertisement for a Woody Allen Season as a pair of independently operated light beams played across the street like living things.
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