The Coming had never been so clear.
He rose in a cold sweat into the darkness. Brought his hands to his temples. Let his fingers slip across the perfect lines of his scars.
Perhaps … just perhaps … he was insane.
~
He saw.
Saw Frank Wright, eyes lost and dead, that sickly skin darker and leaner. Saw that cigarette dangling from ghoulish lips, saw him finish it and flick the spent death-stick through the open window. Saw that crimson river stream from his nostril, saw it slip along his lips and his chin. Saw him draw the last of the whiskey, saw the pickup amble down the rails and into the sunset.
Saw Henry Roberts falter to his knees; saw him shove his trusty .30-.30 in his mouth.
Saw Jimmy Long, lying there on that dark road, his head beaten and bloodied.
Saw Lee—precious Lee—her frightened eyes so telling.
Saw the slow rise of the brim of Number 23’s ball cap; saw the cool determination of Ryan Bishop.
Saw Big Al Hembruff draw a pair of Schlitz from his barrel, crack one open and raise it in toast. Saw the big man smile with a playful wink.
Saw Brikker, that twisted evil; saw that black form stirring against the rising flames.
Saw the coming darkness; saw its hunger.
Saw it swallow him.
~ 27
Back then, he never aimed to hurt him. He aimed to kill him.
And when Ray Bishop, bearing the freakish scar that the half-breed’s old man had laid on him way back when—with his own knife, goddamnit—turned north down that dirt road toward Spirit Lake, he brought his hand up to his cheek. Let his fingers remember.
He remembered all too well.
The big Sioux had put up a good fight: sonofabitch must have been seven feet if he was a foot, had a reach like a monster. Fists like rock. Tough as nails, too, a goddamn oak. Even after Jake and Frankie had softened him up, the big bastard had managed to pile his sorry ass into his pickup and make it halfway to Spirit. Down this very road … not far from where he was right now. He could still see those taillights in his mind, how they’d burned like those big Sioux eyes. How they’d tortured him. Oh, yes. The crazy sonofabitch had had it coming, the second he’d stepped foot inside the bar. Had it coming.
He took a stiff one from the bottle he had crammed in between his legs. He remembered, all right.
Remembered ramming this very pickup into those lights, those eyes, like a fist. How the Sioux’s pickup had slammed into the ditch, how he’d dragged him from the cab and started pummeling him. How when he’d pulled out his switchblade the sonofabitch had somehow snatched it from him, sliced him clean across the side of his face, how he’d kicked the big Sioux’s face in until there was no face left … how he’d nearly thrown his back out trying to stuff that dead Indian back in the cab. Well … far from dead. The sonofabitch was still breathing, probably would have lived to be a hundred if he’d left him. Fucker was tough as nails.
He remembered how he’d fallen over bass-ackwards, stone drunk, blood gushing from his wound, bare breaths after stuffing his shirt inside the gas tank and lighting it up. How he’d laughed at that, just him and the trees and the stars and that dirt-stupid Indian, how he’d laughed at his genius.
How he’d crawled like a mad whore to get clear of the fireworks. It had been one helluva show. Nothing left of the sorry sonofabitch but charcoal.
And now, seeing these taillights just up ahead—different piece a shit truck, but same burning, big Sioux eyes—crazy Ray Bishop grinned.
He never aimed to hurt him. He aimed to kill him.
~
“Relax, Frankie. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Frank Wright put out his smoke in the ashtray. He stifled a hoarse cough. Slouched against the passenger door, he rocked slightly, his arms locked round his small chest. His face held the sickly color of olives, mostly from his jaundice, partly from the dim light of the console. He started to say something else, then didn’t. His stubborn upper lip twitched, and that was all.
Fact was, Frankie hadn’t said much of anything until now, and what he’d said was typical Frankie. He’s just a dumb Indian, Ray, just a dumb kid. All talk and no action this one, even though this was his idea to begin with. Fucking yellow, that’s what he was. Hell, he even looked it. Same old Frankie.
Jake Maxwell, stuffed in the middle of the cramped cab, adjusted his Texaco cap. His belly looked like a giant ball of lard, the lower half oily and exposed, that same sickly color of olives. “We’re just gonna rough him up a little, Frank. Show him what’s what.” He turned to the driver. “Right, Ray?”
Ray Bishop scarcely acknowledged him. The fat man stared at him a moment, as if expecting more than the cheap glance he’d been given.
Jake turned to face the road and nodded. “You bet,” he said, unconvincingly. “Gonna show the kid what’s what.”
As the Mercury up ahead disappeared round a curve and slipped into the darkness, Ray slowed. He took a long look at the ditch there. Grass and weeds had all grown wild around it. What was left of it, that was. After all, it had been damn near eight years.
The big Sioux’s half-ton looked like the charred remains of a skeleton. No one had cared enough to tow it to the scrap yards. Not even the cops. Not his own fucking kid.
He caught Frankie staring at it.
“You got somethin’ to say?”
The dying man could only cough.
Jake and Frank hadn’t been there for the fireworks; it had been just the two of them, him and the Sioux. A real-life, don’t-tell-no-one, dirty little secret. Not like the time they stole that mother of a ladder from the fire hall out on Route 2. Or that fine Sunday morn when they took some gasoline and torched that church—fucking holier-than-thou Pritchard Tate and his prohibitionist bullshit. No, that night was a whole lot worse. A whole lot heavier. And if those cops hadn’t bought his half-assed alibi, if they hadn’t found the downright humor, as he had, in the story of an Indian who blew up in his pickup—blew up so bad they could barely tell he was human—well, that would have got him the noose.
If only he’d kept his big trap shut that night at the Wild. If only he’d gone out to the river with the Banshee like he’d planned, instead of asking old Henry for another round.
Still … he’d always wondered who it was who had ratted him out.
Thing was, it could have been any one of a dozen rubes there at the bar. He’d really been shooting his mouth off about the Indian, loud and proud.
Henry? He owed Henry some, but not so much the old bastard would squeal. It wasn’t like he didn’t have anything on that crazy bag a sticks, what with half the shit that went on there.
Jake? That fuckwit wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouthful.
Frankie? Frankie was a cocksucker. A no-good weasel, always looking at his woman the way he did. Serve the sonofabitch right if he got the cancer … so long as he paid up before it took him. Before he fucked off to California. Yeah, Frankie was a cocksucker, all right. But even a cocksucker knows that keeping their dirty mouth shut keeps their cheeks nice and rosy, that it’s a helluva lot easier walking to work on two legs that aren’t broken in six places.
No, it wasn’t Jake, and it wasn’t Frank. Was it, Frankie.
“Didn’t think so,” Ray said, and he stepped on the gas. The headlamps cut through the night like a knife.
~
They rounded the curve and found the taillights of the Mercury rising, then dipping, over a hill. The road had turned from thin gravel and hard clay to just clay. The thick trees looked like ghosts.
“He’s gonna know it’s us.”
“Shut your trap, Frank.”
Ray Bishop sped up. The Mercury had gathered speed.
“He knows,” Frank said.
“He knows he’s fucked.”
They were gaining. Jake eyed the speedometer. They were up to seventy-eight now.
“Easy, Ray—”
Ray put it to the floor.
The Mercury’s taillights glowed suddenly, the driver braking for the sharp curve that had come out of nowhere. The pickup whipped into a fishtail. Ever the opportunist, Ray Bishop seized the moment and steered right into it, ramming its rear at full throttle.
“JESUS!” Frank Wright screamed, the vehicle rocking. “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?”
Jake Maxwell wet himself (he would later insist it was the whiskey, dammit, the fucking whiskey, and though the bottle did hit the floor, not a drop had reached him) and struck the dash hard. His big belly cushioned the blow, but the impact left a purple welt across his fat flesh that would last for a week.
The Mercury spun nearly ninety degrees and almost flipped. It came up far too dangerously on two wheels, hung there a moment as if frozen in time, then started to come back down. It crashed with a shriek of metal on metal on the front bumper of Ray Bishop’s pickup, the vehicles forming a nice neat T. Both vehicles rocked. Jake Maxwell screamed for the driver to back off. The Mercury teetered as if it might slip off, and when they looked up the side of the thing, they all saw the half-breed turned halfway round in his seat, his eyes big balls of terror. The kid was screaming, pounding a fist at the side window.
Ray pushed. He gave the pickup all he had, and the Mercury began to rock, falling back, back, back … and finally tipped onto its side. More metal screamed. Frank Wright screamed. Jake Maxwell made a girlish sound, and Ray Bishop, well, Ray Bishop took insanity to the next level.
He rammed the underbelly of the Mercury. The thing tipped full over, crashing onto its top, the light from its single headlamp zipping through the darkness. The sounds of scraping metal and shattering glass and roaring engines drowned Jimmy Long’s screams.
The right headlamp of Ray Bishop’s pickup went black as the vehicles skidded to a grinding stop. There were no explosions, no fancy fireworks; it had ended as quickly as it had come. Frank Wright peeled himself from the dash, his fingers dug in so hard they left permanent marks in it. Jake Maxwell had managed to wedge a leg between his belly and the dash and seemed none the worse for wear, save the piss between his legs. They stared at each other, and at the dying wreck in front of them, in disbelief. They stared at Ray. They almost said something. Almost.
Ray Bishop, his eyes as black and unfamiliar as the far side of the moon, was running a finger along his wormy scar. He seemed completely at peace. He was grinning.
~
“Jesus,” Frank Wright whispered. “Jesus Christ.” It had grown eerily quiet, save some soft hiss coming from the radiator. The lights from the Mercury had gone dark.
Ray got out. He took quick stock of the damage to his truck; nothing he couldn’t fix back at the shop. He looked back, and something caught his eye. He started walking down the road.
“Where the fuck’s he goin’?” Frank said, still whispering. “Where the fuck—”
“Shut up, wouldja?” Jake snapped.
Ray Bishop stopped. He stood brooding for the longest time, a dark figure on a dark road. And then, as if he were bending down to pick up a nickel, bent down and picked up the bat.
~
“Oh, shit.” Frank’s mouth dropped.
They watched as Ray passed them and made his way round the Mercury. There were no signs of life there, none at all.
Jake nudged Frank with an elbow. “Come on.”
They got out and hurried to the back of the pickup.
“Ray,” Frankie said. “Come on, I think—”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP.”
Ray slammed the bat against the door. The sound seemed to hang there a moment, and then it died among the thick trees that lined the road. Nobody heard. Nobody would hear a thing.
“You got five seconds, half-breed. Move that sorry ass outta there.”
Above the hiss of the radiator now, coming from the overturned cab: barely a groan.
And then a scream.
~
It wasn’t the half-breed. It wasn’t the fat man. And it wasn’t the cancer man.
But Ray Bishop was shouting all kinds of horrors. Sonofabitch this, fucking cocksucking half-breed that.
And when he couldn’t pull the knife out of his left foot that the fucking cocksucking half-breed had stuck him with, he dropped the bat and fell on his ass, still screaming. He grabbed at the handle, the thing cut of ivory or something equally slick, but the pain was unbearable and he had to let go.
“Christ, Frank! Help me!” Jake yelled. He had to scream at the man again before Frank Wright moved a muscle.
“I got it, Ray, hold on—”
“—sucking motherfucking half-”
Jake’s grip on the knife’s slim handle slipped; Ray Bishop was squirming like a fish out of water.
“Dammit Frank! HOLD HIM!”
Frank got to his knees and held Ray Bishop’s legs as best he could. “Hang on, Ray, hang on!”
Jake grabbed the knife and yanked it with all he could muster. Blood spewed from the boot like a small geyser. Ray Bishop let out the worst scream that the night seemed to carry for miles.
“—KING COCKSUCKER! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”
Jake and Frank backed away, scrambling to their feet in one big hurry. Jake was still holding the knife, looking as if he wasn’t sure if Ray had meant to kill him or the half-breed. He threw it down in an almost knee-jerk reaction, as if holding onto it meant bearing the man’s wrath if the crazy sonofabitch saw it in his hand.
Ray Bishop groaned; he could feel the warmth of his blood seeping through the top of his boot. He got to his feet and limped to the side of the road. He snatched up the bat and hobbled back to the Mercury. They couldn’t see his crazed eyes, but Jake Maxwell and Frank Wright didn’t have to. They stepped back without realizing they were doing so, something they’d done more times than either of them could count.
“Ray,” Frank lipped. The word came as one hollow void with no sound.
There was no sound from the Mercury.
WHACK.
Ray kept his distance, but bent down for a look. The stinking half-breed was there, all upside down and twisted in his seat. His eyes were shut. Blood dribbled from a gash on the bridge of his nose down his forehead. Ray poked him with the tip of the bat. Jimmy Long groaned.
He pulled him out, dragged him like a sack of meat, just as he’d dragged the half-breed’s old man from his pickup. He let out this odd-sounding chuckle as he did so—he had made a similar sound about eight years ago, on a stiflingly warm night just like this—and Jake and Frank eased off a little more.
He splayed the boy on the road as if he were already dead. Kicked him hard in the side. Jimmy Long came out of his stupor with a scream.
“Get up.”
The boy stirred.
“GET UP, HALF-BREED.”
Ray kicked him again. Laid him up with a good one to the ribs.
Jimmy Long coiled, rolling over in agony. “Fuck you.”
The mechanic spat on him. “Just like your old man,” he said. “Shit for brains.”
Without warning—and far too quickly for Frank Wright to call out, No, Ray, NO—the bat slipped back and came down like a hammer. There were three more strikes before Jimmy Long could catch a breath to hear his own screams.
Ray stepped back. You never knew what a fucking Indian could have up his sleeve. Sonofabitch probably had another knife tucked somewhere. That’s what they did.
“Gonna count to three, boy. You either get up and fight, or you can die like a dog.”
Jimmy Long groaned. He struggled to rise; struggled to stand. He cradled his arm, which had taken the brunt of the blows. Blood slipped over his lips. He peered beyond the scattered light, looked right at Jake Maxwell, then at Frank Wright. His dark, narrow eyes widened.
“You,” he said weakly. Frank Wright coughed.
Jimmy Long turned.
Ray Bishop looked him up and down. He was a big bastard. Not as big as that oak of an old man of his, but looking at those eyes, yeah, he could see the fire
there. Fucking crazy half-breed would fight to the end. Good. The kid had a debt to repay.
“Get it over with,” Jimmy Long dared all of them. He straightened as best he could. “But I won’t go quietly.”
Ray tilted his head just so and smiled. He opened his arms softly. Let the bat drop.
Jimmy Long stepped back as Jake Maxwell stepped up. Jake shot Frank a look, and Frank moved up. Ray moved in, and the three of them had the boy penned.
“Ain’t nowhere to go, boy,” Ray Bishop said, as the tall Sioux backed up against the Mercury.
“Nowhere,” Jake said. “You’re what we call fucked.”
“Fucked,” Frank Wright chimed.
“You first, boys,” Ray Bishop said. “Just like old times—”
Jimmy Long came out swinging. He took Frank Wright by surprise, Frank’s nose folding under Jimmy’s perfectly placed fist. It came like a bullet, like one of his slick, practiced fastballs, and Frank, thin as the rail he was, staggered. He was clearly dazed. Jake Maxwell barely had time to move before the big Sioux turned on him and laid him up in the balls with a solid boot. Jake grunted, his Texaco cap sliding to an odd tilt as he dropped his head. His big body started to list as his hands fell to the crotch of his piss-stained pants. Even in the bad light you could see his skin turn reddish. His cheeks ballooned, and when he looked up at the boy, it was too late. Jimmy Long drove a fist into his fat face and knocked him into next week. Jake tumbled onto his ass and lay there, groaning.
Jimmy Long turned and caught Frank Wright’s weak fist in the chin. He shook it off and leapt at the man, but Frank sidestepped him. The boy whirled round, ready to swing, and took the business end of his bat squarely in the side of the head. His eyes rolled, his head listed … and then he dropped like a rock.
“Get up, Jake,” Ray Bishop snorted. He motioned the bat toward the fat man. “Frank.”
Frank Wright struggled as he helped his heavy partner up. He kicked the boy half-heartedly, and then Jake had his due, nailing him with a swift one to the side of the head. Jake kept on him, cursing him with every strike.
“Enough,” Ray Bishop barked, and had to bark it again before Jake Maxwell stopped.
Velvet Rain - A Dark Thriller Page 38