The Rules

by Nancy Holder

  “Hello?” Robin said into the mouthpiece. She stared at Beth and Thea, who both shook their heads at the absence of amplification. “Oh no.”

  “I think the generators have shut off,” Thea said.

  There was more pounding on the door, and Thea shrieked, throwing her arms around Beth. It crashed open, and Kyle and Mick rushed in.

  “Robin,” Kyle said. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “Where did you go?” she asked him. “I looked everywhere for you!”

  “What do you mean?” he asked her. “I thought you were right in front of me.”

  “I lost track of August and Hiro,” Mick announced. “I was moving fast. I looked back and I realized I’d outpaced them. I don’t know where they are.”

  Then Robin realized that something else was missing. “Kyle, where’s the bat?”

  He grimaced. “I dropped it when I fell. I felt for it everywhere. I figured we could go back—”

  “Later, guys, okay?” Mick cut in. “Did you hear a car horn?”

  “Yes,” Robin, Thea, and Beth said in unison.

  “Let’s go!” Mick cried.

  “I’m not just running out there,” Robin said.

  “If we get on the mike—” Kyle said, and Robin shook her head.

  “It’s not working. The generators are out.”

  Mick looked up sharply. “Someone turned them off?”

  Kyle looked just as shocked.

  “Then let’s yell,” Mick said. “On the count of three.”

  BETH’S RULE #4: Don’t drink, because alcohol makes you stupid.

  “Look!” Larson said, pointing from his place on the floor.

  Yellow light glinted above the Anchor Steam beer cake: it was a window Beth hadn’t even realized was there. A shape in the fog was lurching toward them. A yellow ball of light—flashlight—accompanied it. Beth stiffened and began to back away, but Thea broke into wild shrieks of what had to be joy. She obviously recognized the figure.

  “It’s Jackson!” Thea cried. And then she went dead white, and Beth knew why: Jackson was a psycho. And Thea had dumped him.

  “It’s Thea’s ex,” she announced, to put him in context for anyone who wouldn’t know who Jackson was. Her mind was going on overdrive. She didn’t know what to think. Was this good news or bad? She picked up the knife.

  “Thea’s ex with a car,” Kyle said pointedly.

  “Right, right!” Thea said, regaining her composure. “He’s got a car. He’ll get us out of here!”

  Thea spun to the right, heading for the door, when Beth caught her arm.

  “Let’s take it a little slow,” Beth said. “Make sure it’s okay.”

  “Are you kidding?” said Kyle. “We’ll take him down and steal his keys if we have to.”

  “Jackson! Baby!” Thea called. Her voice was shaking and anyone could see that she was about to leap out of her skin. That she was both petrified and ecstatic at the sight of Jackson White.

  Jackson stomped closer to the window. The fog billowed around him like smoke.

  “You slut!” Jackson roared, his voice thick; he was weaving, as though he had been drinking. “You bitch! I am going to gut you!”

  “Oh my God.” Praveen staggered to her feet and climbed onto the stage. “My God, he’s the killer!”

  She could be right, Beth thought. She swayed and stumbled backward, watching as Jackson yelled at Thea, swearing to cut out her eyes and stab her and kick her to death. She had never heard anyone talk like that. Telling her that if he didn’t do those things, his friends would. Her life was his. And it was over.

  He stuttered to a halt. Now she was sure he’d been drinking, and that meant anything could happen.

  “Thea, get to the other side of the room,” she said.

  But before she could get out another word, before anyone could do anything, a figure stepped directly behind Jackson. For a minute, Beth was confused because the person seemed to be made of shadow, and then she realized he was wearing a hood down over his face. He had on a long coat and was wearing gloves. A knife poised in his hand. Ready to strike.

  He’s the figure I saw on the beach.

  “Jackson! Look out!” she shouted.

  The others were shouting, too. Kyle went flying to the door. Breaking into a run, Mick threw a chair at the window, shattering glass everywhere. Beth jumped backward and covered her face with her arms.

  When she lowered them, blood was spraying from Jackson’s neck. Thea’s ex stood for a moment staring at them all, hovering as if suspended from the sky by a string. The killer stood behind him, then yanked him backward with a flourish. Jackson collapsed onto his back, the blood gushing out of him like a geyser.

  The killer bolted.

  Kyle was outside; he raced after the figure and both of them disappeared into the fog to a chorus of shouting, Robin pleading for Kyle to come back. Everyone was yelling. Thea struggled in Mick’s arms, trying to leap through the window, but he was holding on to her, fighting her, shouting. Adrenaline must have been fueling Thea, because she almost threw Mick off.

  Beth watched as Robin ran outside to Jackson and fell down beside him. Robin threw her hands over Jackson’s neck and pressed down hard. It was incredible how much blood was spilling out.

  Mick let go of Thea and pushed her into Beth’s arms; then he raced outside and knelt beside Robin as Beth dragged Thea away from the window.

  A minute later, the door slammed open and Mick stumbled in with Robin in his arms. Her body was drenched in blood, and her hands dribbled scarlet droplets all over the floor.

  “It’s horrible. It’s so deep,” Mick babbled. “His neck’s been cut all the way through.”

  Beth met Robin’s agonized gaze: And Kyle is out there with the killer.

  NO ONE’S COMING

  LARSON’S RULE #4: Pioneers are the ones with the arrows in their backs.

  Robin scrabbled out of Mick’s arms. “I’m going back out there,” she said.

  But as she grabbed the knife, Mick blocked the door. Larson stood beside him, though the effort to get there and stay upright had cost him a world of hurt.

  “For all we know, a second guy is standing right outside this door, ready to mow us down if we go outside,” Larson said.

  “They might have guns, Robin,” Mick said.

  She seized Mick’s arm and tried to yank him aside. Mick stood firm, though he did glance nervously at the knife. Larson took a few cautious sidesteps, trying to keep from being reinjured.

  “Robin, listen, we should get Jackson’s car keys,” Beth said. “And his phone. Now. We should find his car and get the hell out of here.”

  “Kyle’s coming! Here he comes!” Thea shouted as she looked out the window.

  Robin left the door and flew to the window and Mick followed after. The thought of moving pained Larson too much and he decided to stay. Kyle waved but then knelt beside Jackson’s corpse, quickly going through his pockets, holding up a cell phone and a fat leather wallet attached to a set of car keys with a big, thick chain.

  “Oh thank God, thank God,” Beth cried.

  In a few seconds, Kyle was back in the warehouse. Robin threw herself into his arms and kissed him hard, then took the phone to turn it on.

  Nothing happened.

  “Battery’s dead,” Robin said.

  Everyone groaned.

  “We still have the keys,” said Robin, holding them up. “So let’s get out of here now.”

  “Did you see him?” Mick asked Kyle as Thea and Beth helped Praveen to her feet. She looked seriously Carrie as she stared straight ahead, like she was going to rip them apart with her mind.

  Kyle grimaced. “No. I thought I could outrun him with that long coat, but he hauled ass.”

  “What about Hiro and August?” Beth said.

  Interesting. They’re missing and someone gets killed right in front of us again, Larson thought. And no one’s even talking about Morgan anymore.

  “Let’s hope
we run into them,” Mick said.

  “We could leave them a note.” Thea sounded hopeful.

  “And say what? ‘Dear Killer, if you read this instead of our friends…’ ”

  “Larson’s right,” Robin said. “Grab a flashlight and let’s go. We’ll take the back way and keep our flashlights off as much as we can.”

  They scurried down a hallway and left the factory. The sodden air clung to Larson’s face as if someone had thrown cold, spoiled milk at him. Robin had taken the lead and Kyle tried scooting around her but she wasn’t having it. They were heading for the main parking area first, hoping Jackson had parked where they all had and they could find his car before the killer could disable it, too.

  Does this guy know what I did? Does August? Larson wondered. He looked over guiltily at Robin. For so long, he had told himself it wouldn’t have changed the outcome if he had turned himself in for hitting her father. But tonight, he was being proven wrong. If he had told the police, the killer would have no reason to punish him.

  Hadn’t he punished himself enough?

  ROBIN’S RULE #10: Look before you leap.

  Robin half ran as they began to cover territory. Larson was limping beside her, barely making it. She grabbed his arm to pull him along as much as she could. He sucked in his breath but kept pace with her. Kyle had moved to the back of the group to make the stragglers go faster. They were just sitting ducks out here. Creeping ducks. It hadn’t really sunk in before how large the cannery compound was. And if there was another road in that Jackson had taken, Robin had no idea where it—

  Billboard, she thought. The sign with the pail above the building must have been planted along a road. But it wasn’t on the main highway; it was slightly lower, indicating a road behind the factory. Which made sense. When this had been a working cannery, they would have needed to transport whatever they made inside that building to the main road.

  “Oh my God,” Thea whispered loudly. “I swear I just heard somebody calling for help.”

  Robin stopped walking and the caravan jumbled to a halt. She listened but didn’t hear words exactly, maybe a rustling.

  “Are you sure that’s what it was?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Thea was firm.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” said Beth.

  “It was help. Robin, it was,” Thea said.

  “It could be a trick,” Larson said. “Or wishful thinking.”

  Then she heard a noise, too. Almost tinny, strange. A sharp wind cleared some layers of fog away.

  A few feet away from them, a black Chevy lowrider appeared like one of the magic tricks Kyle had been talking about. Robin bit back a squeal and jerked Thea’s hand hard as Thea began to bolt toward it.

  “Everyone be careful,” Robin said. “Let’s just take a minute.”

  “It’s Jackson’s car,” Thea said, trying to shake free of Robin’s hold. “It’s what we’ve been looking for.”

  “A lowrider? Are you kidding?” Mick muttered. He sounded very, very nervous.

  “You can see why I made her break up with him,” Beth said to Robin.

  “Shhh, guys.” Robin counted several good reasons to be nervous:

  The killer might be inside it.

  The killer might be waiting for them to get near it, and then he would pick them off, one by one by one.

  The killer might have done something to make it explode or something like that.

  Maybe she watched too many movies. But the killer probably watched the same movies. Searched how to do things on the Internet. It wasn’t crazy to think that a deranged maniac other than Jackson could have wired Jackson’s car to blow if they opened the door.

  But not in the short time since the car horn had honked.

  But maybe the killer had honked it, not Jackson. To lure them here. And when they hadn’t come, he had led Jackson to them, killed him in front of them….

  There was another tinny sound and Robin cocked her head. It sounded like…barking.

  “What the heck,” Kyle muttered beside her. He put a hand in front of her the way Robin’s mom did when they were in the car and she had to brake suddenly. Then he took a step toward the car and Robin clutched his hand. “We have to do this,” he said. He held out his hand. “Keys.”

  Robin wanted to be the one to do it. But somehow she was in charge of watching over the group. She nodded, fishing in her pocket and handing the keys to Kyle. When he took them, she wrapped her hand around his and squeezed. She couldn’t let go of him.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Beth chanted. “Please, please, please, please, please.”

  Kyle gently eased himself loose. Stepping up to the car, he draped his hand over the old-fashioned door latch and looked at her over his shoulder as if for luck. Then he yanked the door open and the tinny barking grew louder and more frantic.

  He sat down and put the key in the ignition. Robin was shaking. They might be saved. They could leave—

  There was a click, and then nothing. Kyle shut his eyes and laid his forehead on the steering wheel. He tried again.

  “No!” Thea wailed, and she collapsed onto the ground.

  At the same time a tiny black dog scrabbled around Kyle’s feet and hopped out of the car. It was a Chihuahua, and as it stared up at the line of people, it began to bark wildly, taking mincing steps forward and then skittishly backing up.

  “Inky!” Thea whispered. “That’s his dog!”

  “Shut it up!” Larson said.

  Robin bent down and tried to scoop up the little dog, but it hopped out of reach and ran to Thea. Mick strode up to the hood, felt around for the release, and lifted it. Turning on his flashlight, he looked under the hood, then swore and pounded the car with his fist.

  “Easy, Inky,” Thea said, gently putting her hand around his muzzle as she joined the others crowding around Mick. Inky squirmed and growled.

  Robin didn’t know very much about cars, but she could see that the battery was gone. Which meant that even if there was a charger in the car, it, too, was useless, just like the phone.

  Shocked silence fell over the group. Their killer had thought of everything.

  “Okay. Then we have to move on,” Robin said as steadily as she could. She was fighting not to lose it. “Put Inky back in the car.”

  “No,” Thea keened. “He’s scared.”

  “We have to leave Inky in the car or wring Inky’s neck,” Larson said under his breath.

  Pale faces, all disbelieving: everyone had pinned their hopes on Jackson’s ride. Mick and Kyle had opened up the trunk and were rummaging around. Kyle said, “So Jackson was in a gang, right? There must be a gun in here.”

  “No,” Thea said. “He was on probation. And—and Macho—the leader of the Free Souls—he said that it would be better if he didn’t have one anyway, because of his temper….” She winced and trailed off, as if she knew just how bad that sounded. And it did sound bad. Robin was appalled.

  Kyle held up a tire iron and Robin nodded. A potential weapon. Yes. A blanket. She shook her head. They had to travel light.

  “No, please, please don’t leave him in there,” Thea begged as Robin placed Inky back in the car and closed the door. Tears and snot were running down her face. “He’ll run out of air. He’ll get too cold. Please don’t let him die.”

  “It’s May, Thea,” Robin said gently. “It’s cold, but it’s not that cold. He’ll be okay. This is the safest place for him.”

  “Robin. Look what I found.” Mick held up a phone charger. “If we could start one of the generators back up…”

  “Yes,” she said, and then, a bit less emphatically, “Maybe. We’ll have to check it out.”

  “No, Robin,” Mick said. “Time to play the game his way. Let there be light. Now.”

  LET THERE BE LIGHT

  MICK’S RULE #3: Do what you know how to do.

  “I went out there with August to inspect the generators after I got zapped,” Mick reminded the group. “I know how they work.
I can get the phone to charge using one of the power strips in the warehouse. And we can turn on the lights and work on his next clue.”

  “Which would mean going back into the warehouse,” Beth said.

  Everyone stood around Jackson’s car. Inside, Inky was going berserk, hopping up and down on the seat and yipping at the interlopers. Thin moonlight trickled through the clouds, the stars twinkling as if nothing were wrong. But Thea brought them right back to reality. She wept with big heavy gulps like a little kid; she was getting scarier than Praveen, who had checked out emotionally and was utterly silent.

  “Making the killer happy and getting our butts saved,” Mick said slowly, as if he had to lay it out for her. “And we can all go together.”

  “Yeah,” Larson said excitedly. “That works.”

  “That does not work,” Beth said.

  “Hey, we shouldn’t discuss this out here,” Larson cut in. “We should move. We’re easy targets.”

  “We’re targets anywhere we go,” Mick retorted.

  “I think you’re right about the generators,” Kyle said, trying to keep everyone focused. “I think that’s what the killers want us to do, but what if it’s a trick?”

  “The generators might have simply run out of gas,” Beth said as they all formed in a huddle next to the car. “August probably didn’t think we’d be out here this long.”

  “August thought we’d never leave,” Mick retorted.

  “We need gas for this to work,” Kyle said.

  Mick made a fist and gently pounded on the car. “This baby has gas.”

  “Right. Good. We need to figure out a siphon,” Larson said. “And then we’re in business.”

  There was silence save for Thea’s weeping as everyone contemplated taking the next step. Then Thea wiped her nose and said, “Fish guts.”

  “What?” Mick asked.

  “In the…the factory. I saw hoses in a room.” Her voice was quaking. “I don’t want to go in there. I don’t know which room they were in. I don’t remember anything.” Her voice rose to a shrill wail and Mick winced. They had to calm her down. She was making more noise than the dog.