Sandman

by William W. Johnstone

  “We ten-four, Tepehuanes PD. Are you requesting additional assistance in this matter?”

  “Ten-fifty. We can handle it.”

  “Ten-four. State police clear. Switching to tach frequency for our calls.”

  “Ten-four. Thirty-eight point two out and clear.”

  “What was all that about!” Dr. Fletcher yelled.

  “One-oh-three M is a mental case. Ten-fifty means negative, no assistance needed. The state police just switched to an alternate frequency. They’ll disregard any call that does not come from our base station.”

  “We’re going to have to survive this night!” Burt radioed.

  “Ten-four,” Leo replied. “I’m gone.”

  He laid the walkie-talkie on the seat and peeled around a corner. Screaming up the street where Linda lived, he tore into the drive and braked hard, just before wrecking the rental car. Jumping out, shotgun in hand, Leo ran across the yard and onto the small front porch.

  He could hear frantic and near-hysterical screaming coming from inside the lovely home. The sound of a blow, of a hand striking naked flesh, drifted out to him. Leo cursed the night and what it had brought.

  The front door was locked. And it was a steel security door. No way Leo could kick it in. He jumped off the porch and ran to peer through a front window. He cursed again, low. Linda was naked, pinned to the floor, her father attacking her.

  Leo smashed the window with the butt of the shotgun and crawled in, disregarding the shards of glass that cut his hands as he climbed into the living room.

  “Get away from her,” he yelled, his voice cold with rage.

  The wild-eyed man, a savage look on his broad face, turned from his daughter and faced Leo, snarling like a maddened, rabid animal.

  Linda scrambled away and frantically grabbed at her torn clothing.

  Leo leveled the shotgun and shot her father. The magnum-load buckshot caught the man in the lower belly and spun him around, knocking him backward. He fell over a couch and lay screaming on the floor. Even dying, his words praised Satan and damned Christians.

  The roaring of the shotgun had sounded enormous in the room. It had momentarily deafened Leo.

  Crying, but not hysterically, Linda had managed to tug on jeans and a shirt. Leo grabbed her by the hand and pulled her toward the front door.

  The small porch was filled with wild-eyed men and women, their hands claw-like, the fingers curved. They reached for Leo and Linda.

  Linda screamed in panic, and Leo leveled the shotgun, pulling and pumping, the slugs tearing into the bodies of those blocking the doorway. He cleared the porch of those who chose to devote what time they had left to the teachings of the Dark One.

  Then he and the teenager stepped over the moaning and the dead, and waded through the gore, to the car. Others had gathered in the street. Screaming hate and filth, they blocked the driveway with their bodies and poison-spewing mouths.

  Leo dropped the gears into reverse and backed over them, giving the car gas, slamming into them. He felt nothing as the tires crunched the life from those who refused to move out of his way.

  Linda closed her eyes and tried to keep from puking at the sounds of breaking bones and squashed flesh.

  She was successful at fighting back the hot bile, but just barely.

  A screaming woman held onto the door handle. Dragged along the street, she howled out her pain and rage, blood and bits of flesh and mangled clothing marking her trail.

  Leo pulled out the .38 he’d taken from Mark’s gun cabinet and shot her between the eyes.

  The screaming ended in a choking bubble.

  Linda finally found her voice. “What’s happening here?” she wailed, fear touching the words. “My father killed my mother and then attacked me. He knocked me down and jumped me.”

  “The boil has erupted.” Leo spoke through tight lips as he turned onto the street where Bing and Roy lived, close to each other.

  * * *

  Paul sat in the center of his bed and smiled. He looked at the heavy steel door to his room, locked from the outside. He blinked his eyes. The lock clicked, and the door swung open.

  “Thank you, Father,” the boy said.

  And he wasn’t speaking to Mark.

  A mist formed beside the bed.

  “Hello, brother.” Paul looked at the mist. “How do you feel?”

  The mist must have felt just fine. A grotesque laugh sprang from the yellow miasma.

  Paul rose and walked to the open door. It was time to have some high ol’ fun. Humor from the Dark Side.

  The devil-child looked up the corridor to the nurses’ station. Most of the women were with him, although he doubted they were aware of that. Yet.

  He saw one who wasn’t a part of his plan. She was, Paul recalled sourly, one of those rare “good” people. Not perfect, but trying to be. She had resisted his silent callings. She had also tried to comfort the boy she thought him to be, murmuring stupid things to him, stroking his hair.

  He stared at her for a moment, as she leaned up against the nurses’ station, attempting, without much success, to engage the other nurses in conversation. Her feet suddenly flew out from under her, and she sailed across the corridor to slam against the wall. Screaming in fear, she was bounced, on her behind, up and down on the floor, her head jerking back and forth like a rag doll. Her lips were cut by the impacting, and blood dribbled from them, staining the front of her white uniform.

  The other nurses sat and stared at her, their eyes shining with perverse pleasure.

  “Take her,” Paul ordered the mist.

  The mist became a creature born in the smoking pits. It grabbed the nurse by the hair and banged her head against the wall, again and again. Flesh split and blood squirted, and her cries became weak, small mewing sounds of helplessness.

  The other nurses looked on impassively.

  The demon released her, and she slumped over onto her side and died with her face pressed against the coolness of the tile.

  The demon, suddenly transformed back into a mist, slithered along the floor to gather at the feet of its earth-brother.

  Paul waved his hand at the nurses. “Go!” he ordered.

  They moved out in single file, walking up the corridor, vanishing around a corner.

  Paul walked to the nurses’ station and found the bank of switches, electrically controlled, that locked and unlocked all the doors to the psychiatric wing of Tepehuanes General.

  With a bark of laughter, he flipped switches and released the half-dozen mentally ill patients.

  “You’re free!” he shouted, his hollow voice echoing around the empty corridor. “Come! Give your miserable lives to the True Father.”

  The men and woman shuffled out of their rooms, some grinning, some slobbering.

  Paul walked away. Leaving them to whatever mischief they might decide to pull, he strode out of the wing, a smile on his evil face. The mist trailed him as he walked up the stairs to the first floor, then the second. He came face to face with Dr. Jack Thomas.

  “What are you doing out of your room?” Thomas yelled.

  Then his feet flew out from under him. He landed heavily, on his backside, on the floor, the breath knocked out of him. Paul waved his hand, and Jack Thomas began spinning on the floor like a human top, faster and faster, the seat of his trousers smoking from friction.

  Paul waved his hand again. Jack’s spinning stopped. He lay on the floor, confused and dazed. A force he could neither see nor comprehend jerked him to his feet and sent him sailing down the hall. Jack screamed as he crashed out a second-floor window. His screaming ended abruptly when he impacted on concrete at ground level.

  One of the mentally ill had followed Paul to the second floor. Grinning and slobbering, he grunted and pointed to the window.

  “You want to go, too?” Paul asked.

  Grunt.

  “All right.”

  Paul waved his hand and the man followed Jack Thomas to the concrete.

  Splat
.

  Paul looked out the smashed window at the broken and bloody bodies sprawled below.

  He rubbed his hands together. Grinned wickedly. It was going to be a fun night!

  TWO

  Those reporters who had elected to remain in town, snooping and prying and nosing about, had gathered in the lounge of their motel for a nightcap. One was a particularly odious fellow, Matt Maguire. Matt believed that he and he alone knew what was best for the country. Certainly no president ever had. Matt also believed that no one had any rights except members of the press.

  Not even his colleagues liked him.

  He was a pompous ass who would ruin anybody to get a story, and then loudly proclaim his right to do so under the first amendment.

  It amazed the other members of the press that Matt had managed to stay alive this long.

  Matt leaned back in his chair and shouted, “Another round, barkeep! Make it snappy, and put some booze in the drinks this time.”

  The bartender looked at Matt. His eyes were flat and shiny. “Stick it, man!” he called.

  Matt flushed. Balled his fists. Looked at his equally startled colleagues. What was going on in this crazy town? No one talked to Matt Maguire in such a manner.

  He didn’t have to take that kind of talk from some nobody.

  “Get your butt over here and wait on us!” Matt shouted.

  The bartender told Matt where he could shove his orders.

  Matt jumped up. “Do you know who you’re talking to, Bub?”

  The bartender did. Told him so. Using various, loosely strung together four-letter words. He ended his assessment of Matt by shouting, “All praise the Dark One.”

  “All praise who?” the lone female reporter in the group questioned. Marta. From Los Angeles.

  “The Dark One!” a cocktail waitress screamed. She then picked up a heavy ashtray and hurled it at Marta.

  Marta ducked just as the other waitresses and the bartender began throwing glasses and ashtrays, bottles of booze and cans of beer at the reporters.

  Marta decided that the place was dangerous, and split.

  Jeff, from San Francisco, ducked a bottle of beer and yelled at her. “Where are you going?”

  Marta waved, but didn’t stop.

  She ran right into the sweaty arms of a half-dozen wild-eyed men in the lobby. She didn’t even have time to scream when she saw the desk clerk sprawled over the counter, his belly sliced open.

  The men carried her, squalling and hollering and telling them that she’d sue them all, to a motel room, where they proceeded to physically abuse her.

  Matt and Jeff and Harrison, who was from New York City, had backed up and were engaged in throwing various articles at the bartender and the waitresses, who proceeded to toss them right back.

  None of the reporters really had any idea of what was going on, but when an ashtray hit Matt on the side of his face, splitting skin and drawing blood, they all decided to follow Marta’s lead and vacate the premises.

  “I’ll sue you!” Matt hollered over his shoulder as he loped out of the room. “I’ll sue this rat-trap motel and everybody connected with it!”

  The bartender pulled out a pistol, and began throwing lead in all directions. One slug just missed Matt as he rounded a corner and entered the lobby.

  “Good God!” Jeff hollered, spotting the bloody mess that was the desk clerk.

  They could hear screams coming from down the hall.

  “That sounds like Marta!” Harrison panted.

  “Everyone for himself,” Matt yelped. “I’m getting out of this crazy place.” He ran out into the hot and dangerous night.

  Jeff and Harrison ran toward Marta’s squallings.

  Matt looked up and down the street. People were milling about; most had chains and clubs and guns in their hands.

  “What is going on in this town?” he said to the dark night.

  But when he heard gunshots, journalistic inquisitiveness was overridden by cowardliness.

  Matt ran toward the motel parking lot, jumped into his car, and locked all the doors. He thought of the tape recorder, portable typewriter, and luggage back in his room.

  “Hell with them,” he said, cranking the car and dropping it into gear. “After I get through suing this place I’ll own the town.”

  He pulled out into the street.

  A milling crowd blocked his way.

  Matt honked his horn, but nobody paid any attention to the incessant blaring. He rolled down his window.

  “Get out of the way!”

  A rock smashed his rear window as a crowd gathered around his car, pushing and shoving and rocking the vehicle.

  The driver’s-side window was shattered with a club. Hands reached inside for him. Gripped by near-hysterical fear, Matt floorboarded the pedal and knocked a half-dozen people sprawling, the tires running over some of them. The agonized wailing of those hurt grated on his nerves like sandpaper being ground against raw flesh.

  He roared off wildly into the night, not knowing where he was going, just that he was going.

  Jeff and Harrison hit the motel-room door together, splintering it. They both pulled up short at the sight that greeted them.

  Marta, lying naked on the bed, was being attacked by three men. Jeff and Harrison battled briefly with the men while Marta grabbed a blanket to cover her nakedness. Then the three reporters ran to the rear exit of the motel and lit out into the night.

  Feeling safe for the moment, they paused to catch their breath and to assess their situation.

  “Whole town has gone nuts!” Harrison panted.

  “But why?” Jeff asked.

  “Write the story later,” Marta said, her voice trembly with fear. “Right now, let’s see if we can find some cops.”

  “Yeah,” both man agreed. “Let’s get to a police station.”

  “Good idea. We’ll be safe there.”

  * * *

  Leo backed up, took a deep breath, and kicked in the front door of Bing’s house.

  Even after years as a cop, seeing man’s inhumanity toward man, Leo was not prepared for the sight that greeted him.

  Bing and Roy were being abused by a group of men and women.

  Leo leveled the shotgun and began to fire indiscriminately.

  Howling and wailing filled the room as buckshot tore into flesh.

  “Run to the car, boys!” Leo shouted, shifting the shotgun to his left hand and pulling the .38 out of his waistband with his right.

  The boys ran past him, limping badly, blood streaking their legs as they ran into the night.

  Leo put two more shots into the floor, then backed out the door and jumped off the porch, heading for the car.

  He was tackled in the yard by one man, kicked in the side by another. Leo fought free, shoved the .38 into the belly of one of his assailants, and pulled the trigger. The man screamed as lead tore into his guts.

  The second man jumped onto Leo’s back and rode him to the ground, hitting him with his fists. Those left alive in the house ran out onto the porch, then leaped to the ground and headed toward Leo.

  The engine of Leo’s car roared as Linda scooted behind the wheel and dropped the car into gear. The rear tires smoked and squealed as she gave it gas and spun the wheel, angling toward the men and women who were now running across the front yard, toward Leo and the man he was fighting.

  The car knocked several men and women onto the grass. They sprawled there, their bodies mangled.

  Leo smashed his attacker’s face with the butt of the empty .38, then rolled free, reaching for and finding his shotgun. He jumped into the back seat of his car.

  “Go!” he yelled, as he frantically reloaded his weapons.

  The car bounced across the yard, jumped the sidewalk and curb, and screamed up the street.

  “Go where?” Linda shouted, above the roaring of the laboring engine.

  Strangely, Leo had to fight to suppress laughter. I’m losing my mind, he thought.

  He was jus
t about emotionally drained, momentarily on the verge of breaking. “Get thee to a nunnery,” he muttered.

  “What?” Linda shouted.

  Leo reached deep within himself to draw on his inner strength. “The church,” he told her. “We’re gathering at the church.”

  * * *

  Jeff, Harrison, and Marta were certain they were going to die that night. They had made it to the police station, but had been handcuffed to the steel bars of the windows, and stripped naked.

  When two policewomen grinned and got out knives, they knew they’d made a bad choice.

  * * *

  Matt guessed he had tried every street in town, and he’d hit some sort of blockade on every one. He was very close to the breaking point. Then he saw the sheriff’s department cars go screaming through an intersection.

  He followed them. Matt wasn’t crazy about cops, but they could be useful on rare occasions.

  He pulled in behind the cars as they slid to a stop in front of a church.

  Then he found himself looking down the muzzles of sawed-off shotguns.

  “It’s that loud-mouthed reporter,” Peter said, lowering his shotgun.

  “I just cover the news,” Matt said wearily. He knew most police officers despised him.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Fifteen said. “What do you want?”

  “To be safe,” Matt admitted. “I’m scared.”

  “Then go inside the church,” Peter told him.

  * * *

  Tepehuanes General began to stink like an unwashed and untended slaughterhouse. One of Carleson’s assistants had been strung up like a pig, gutted, and left to die slowly.

  Belline, Carleson, and Clineman had sought refuge in the basement, but they knew they must get away from the hospital, and soon. A search for them was underway.

  They were just about ready to make a run for it.

  “Find them!” Paul shouted from the second floor.

  The headless man stood beside him, holding his head in his hands.

  “We’ll look.” It was the head that spoke, peeling back its lips in a macabre grin as it did so.