The Reapers

by John Connolly

  Hogs. Now Angel could hear them snuffling and grunting somewhere behind the house.

  “You helped them make their movie,” he said.

  Thomas shifted uneasily. “I don’t know nothing about that.”

  “How did they do it? A model? They get someone to lie in the mud and pretend to be eaten, fix it all up later in an editing suite. You tell us: how did they do it?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” said Thomas. “I got nothing against you personally, and I don’t want to have to kill you here. Mr. Leehagen wouldn’t like it. He’s got other plans for you, I guess. Go on, now. You get away from here, and you don’t come back. Your guns can stay with me. I don’t trust you to keep your word when I let you go.”

  Louis spoke: “Without weapons, we don’t stand a chance.”

  “You didn’t stand a chance anyway.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it.”

  The old man smiled. It wasn’t a malicious smile. Instead, there was a measure of pity in it.

  “You came up here all primed to cause some hurt, and now the tables have been turned on you. What did you think would happen? That there’d be some old man in a big house and you’d kill him without anyone even raising a finger to stop you? You listen to me: I got no love for that sonofabitch, and I think the world would have been a better place if he’d never been born into it, but you made a mistake coming up here, and you’ll live or die by that mistake. Like I said, you’ll reap what you’ve sown.” He gestured with the shotgun, indicating the woods through which they had come. “That way lies the road, and maybe your way out of here. Don’t come back here. You do, and we’ll kill you. I have my family to consider, Leehagen or no Leehagen.”

  “I believe you,” said Louis.

  “Good.”

  The two men stepped back as Angel and Louis moved away, the barrels of the guns never wavering. When they were almost out of sight, the old man called out.

  “Hey,” he said.

  They stopped.

  “You said that I knew a lot about this. I don’t. I heard someone shoot his mouth off in a bar two nights ago, and then we was warned to keep an eye out for strangers. I figured what was coming. Those men out there, they don’t want to kill you. They’re saving you for someone else.”

  “Who?” asked Angel.

  The old man shrugged. “Something about happiness,” he said. “That’s what they said.”

  “Happiness?”

  “No, not happiness,” said Thomas. His brow furrowed as the tried to remember the right word. “Bliss. That was it. They said bliss was coming your way.”

  Louis did not speak as they walked away. His arrogance, his anger, had brought them to this. Bliss. He looked at Angel trudging alongside him, lost in his own pain. The shorter man glanced up, and their eyes met. There seemed to be no blame in them, no wrath. This was what Louis had needed to do, and Angel had stood alongside him, despite his own reservations. If that was not love, what was? Suddenly Louis’s feelings of warmth toward his partner were dispelled.

  “You’re an asshole,” said Angel. “You know that?”

  “Yeah, I know it.”

  “Good. I’m cold and I’m wet and I’m going to be killed by a man who collects other killers like scalps, and it’s all your fault.”

  “I was just thinking that you hadn’t blamed me for this. I was thinking how much I admired you for it.”

  “Are you out of your mind? Of course I blame you. And you can keep your admiration. I’d write that on your tombstone, but I’ll be too dead to do it.” Angel sneezed loudly. “Great. This is just great.”

  Louis looked at the sky. “Maybe it will stop raining.”

  “It’s something to look forward to, I guess.”

  “We need guns.”

  “We’ll have to kill someone to get them.”

  “We could go back and take them from the old man.”

  For a second or two, they considered it. They knew how it would play out. For all of the old man’s bluster and the guns in their hands, he and his family would be no match for them. But there was a child in the house, and there had been something in Thomas’s eyes that told Louis he would fight if they returned. There would be injuries, maybe even deaths. No, they would not go back there.

  “They expect us to run, to try and break out of the cordon,” said Louis. “They won’t expect us to do what we came here to do.”

  “We try for Leehagen’s house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “In the absence of anything better, it sounds like a plan.” Angel wrung rainwater from his jacket. “What are we going to do, drown him?”

  “In the absence of anything better…”

  They walked on.

  “You really blame me for all this?” asked Louis, after a few minutes of silence had gone by.

  Angel thought. “I blame myself.”

  Louis paused. “Is that true?”

  “No,” said Angel as he sneezed again. “I do blame you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  WILLIE BREW AND THE Detective crossed the bridge and followed the road for a hundred yards or so until they came to an intersection. Well, you could call it an intersection, but as far as Willie was concerned it was two roads going exactly nowhere, one heading east to west, the other continuing south. Neither of them looked too inviting, but then any strip that didn’t have a convenience store, a couple of fast-food outlets, and maybe a bar or two barely qualified as a road in Willie’s book.

  “Who are these guys, exactly?” asked Willie. The question had been troubling him since they had reached the bridge. He’d only been up in this godforsaken part of the world for an hour, and already he’d seen two dead bodies and, according to the Detective, the dead men had probably been on their side, which suggested to Willie that the odds in their favor had started to shrink. Now the rest of what passed for a rescue mission had disappeared, and the Detective had appeared more disappointed than surprised at their absence. None of this was making Willie feel any more at ease, and he began to wonder if Arno hadn’t been wise to stay where he was, and if he shouldn’t have stayed right there with him.

  At that moment, the biggest truck Willie had ever seen in his life appeared from the west. It was jet black, and its tires were so huge that even to stand on them and use them as a means of jumping to the ground was to risk breaking an ankle on impact. As it drew closer, Willie could see that the truck also seemed to be without its windshield, and both of its headlights were busted. The bench seats in the cab were big enough to seat four adults comfortably, but currently they seemed to be seating three men uncomfortably, especially since two of those men were wide enough to qualify as illegal structures if they stayed in the same place for too long. The man squashed between them, who was no Slim Jim himself, wore a look of beatific calm, as if this situation was not only familiar to him, but entirely welcome, despite the rain.

  “Shit,” said Willie, involuntarily. Suddenly, the Browning looked very small in his hand. The gun didn’t look like it would have enough stopping power to make any of these men pause in their tracks. It would be like firing marshmallows at a trio of charging elephants.

  “Relax,” said the Detective. “They’re with us.”

  He didn’t sound particularly happy about it.

  The truck came to a halt barely five feet from where they were. Until that point, it had been traveling so fast that Willie wasn’t sure it was going to stop at all. Seen from up close, the two big guys looked mad as hell, and it seemed for a few crucial seconds that they were just going to drive right over the Mustang, crushing it beneath the wheels of their truck as they proceeded in the direction of whomever had incurred their wrath. Willie rated that particular individual’s chances of survival at somewhere between minimal and extinct.

  The Detective got out of the Mustang. Willie did likewise. The two big men climbed out of either side of the cab, using a footplate behind the wheels to jump down. Willie couldn’t be certain,
but he thought he felt the ground shake when they landed.

  “Meet Tony and Paulie Fulci,” said the Detective softly. “The guy in the middle is Jackie Garner. He’s the sane one, although it’s a relative term.”

  Willie hadn’t heard of Jackie Garner, but he’d heard of the Fulcis. Angel had spoken of them in the tones usually reserved for forces of nature like hurricanes or earthquakes, the message being that, in common with such meteorological and seismic events, it was a pretty good idea to stay as far away from them as possible. As things stood, Willie was not far away from the Fulcis at all, and therefore had somehow entered a mobile disaster zone.

  “What happened to your truck?” asked the Detective.

  “Some guys happened,” said Paulie. He jerked a thumb in Jackie’s direction. “He didn’t help, though.”

  “We’ve been through all this,” said Jackie. “It was a misunderstanding.”

  “Yeah, well…” said Paulie. Clearly, the whole affair still rankled.

  “Where are the guys in question?” asked the Detective.

  There was some awkward shuffling of feet.

  “One of them ain’t doing so good,” said Tony.

  “How not good?”

  “He’s out cold. I ain’t so sure he’s going to wake up again either. I hit him kind of hard.”

  “And the others?”

  “Other,” corrected Jackie. “There were two of them.”

  “He ain’t doing so good either,” said Tony. His embarrassment deepened. “Actually, he ain’t never going to do good again. It was kind of an accident,” he concluded lamely.

  To his credit, Willie thought, the Detective maintained an impassive façade.

  “Did you find out anything useful from them before they started not doing so good?” he asked.

  Tony shook his head and stared at the ground.

  “We know how they’re staying in contact, though,” said Jackie Garner. “They got radios in their trucks.” He thought for a moment. “There’s some bad news there, too, though,” he continued.

  “Yeah?” said the Detective wearily.

  “I answered one of their calls.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I thought I could find stuff out.”

  “And did you?”

  “I found out that I’m not a mimic.”

  “Funny, Jackie.”

  “Sorry, man. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “So they know we’re here.”

  “I guess so.”

  The Detective turned away from the three men. Willie said nothing. It was like being back in Nam. This was another fuck-up, playing out right before his eyes. He was starting to feel weary now, and he was drenched. He also assumed that things were going to get worse before they got better.

  Then they heard it, the noise breaking the awkward silence. There was a vehicle approaching. Instantly, the Detective began to move.

  “Willie, get the Mustang out of sight,” he said. “Take it toward the bridge. Paulie, get in the cab of the truck. Head east, but slowly. Let them see you. Jackie, Tony, into the trees with me. If it looks like they’re on their way to church, don’t shoot.”

  Nobody argued with him or questioned him. They did exactly as they were told. Willie got into the Mustang, turned it in a tight circle, and headed back the way he had come, pausing only when the intersection was out of sight. Then he killed the engine and waited. He was struggling to breathe, even though he hadn’t exerted himself physically. He wondered if he was having a heart attack. He flexed his left arm to make sure that it wasn’t going numb. He was sure that was one of the signs. The arm seemed to be moving okay. He adjusted the rearview mirror and kept his eyes on the road behind him. The Browning now lay on the passenger seat. He had one hand on the ignition key, the other hand on the stick. Anyone came around that corner that he didn’t recognize and he was out of there. He would make a run for it. There would be nothing else for it.

  Then the shooting started.

  The Detective had taken up a position to the west of the road, Tony Fulci and Jackie to the east. A Bronco came into view, and the three men aimed their weapons. At the sight of Paulie pulling away in the big truck, the driver of the Bronco increased his speed. There was a man beside him in the passenger seat, a shotgun held across his body. A third man stood in the bed of the truck, leaning on the roof of the cab with a rifle in his hands as he tried to draw a bead on Paulie’s rear window.

  There was no warning. Two holes appeared almost simultaneously in the Bronco’s windshield and the driver slumped over the wheel, his head striking the glass and smearing the blood that had splashed upon it. Instantly the truck began to swerve to the right. The passenger leaned over to try to arrest the turn, while the shooter in the bed held on to the crash bar for dear life. More shots came, pockmarking the windshield, and the truck veered off the road and crashed down the eastern slope. It struck a pine tree, the bull bars on the front minimizing the damage even as the rifleman was flung from the bed and landed heavily on the grass. He lay there, unmoving.

  The Detective emerged from the cover of the trees first. Already, Tony and Jackie were running across the road to join him. He kept his gun fixed on the two men in the cab, but it was clear that both were already dead. The driver had been hit in the neck and chest. The passenger might have survived the initial gunfire, but he hadn’t been wearing a belt when the truck hit the tree. He had been a big man, and the force of his head and body hitting the damaged windshield at speed had broken the glass, so that his upper body now lay on the hood of the truck while his right leg was tangled in the same belt that might have saved him.

  The Detective walked to where Tony and Jackie were standing over the man on the ground. Jackie picked up the rifle and tossed it into the trees. The injured man was now moaning softly, and holding on to the top of his right leg. It was twisted at the knee, and his foot stood at a unnatural angle to the joint. The Detective winced at the sight. He knelt on the grass and leaned close to the man’s ear.

  “Hey,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

  The man nodded. His teeth were bared in agony.

  “My leg-” he said.

  “Your leg’s broken. There’s nothing we can do about it, not here.”

  “Hurts.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  By now, Paulie had turned the truck around and was pulling up on the road above. The Detective indicated that he should stay where he was to watch the road, and Paulie acknowledged with a wave.

  “You got anything in your truck you can give him for the pain?” the Detective asked Tony.

  “There’s some Jacks,” said Tony. He thought for a moment. “And some pills and stuff. Doctors keep giving us so much, it’s hard to keep track of it all. I’ll go take a look in the glove compartment.”

  He lumbered off. The Detective returned his attention to the injured man.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Fry.” The man managed to gasp the word out. “Eddie Fry.”

  “Okay, Eddie, I want you to listen to me carefully. You’re going to tell me exactly what’s going on here, and then I’m going to give you something for the pain. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, then one of these big men is going to stand on your leg. Do you understand?”

  Fry nodded.

  “We’re looking for our friends. Two men, one black and one white. Where are they?”

  Eddie Fry’s upper body rocked back and forward, as if by doing so he could pump some of the pain from his leg. “They’re in the woods,” he said. “Last we heard, they were west of the inner road. We didn’t see them. Our job was just to provide backup in case they made it through.”

  “They brought people with them. Two of them are dead at the bridge over there. What happened to the others?”

  Fry was clearly reluctant to answer. The Detective turned to Jackie. “Jackie, step lightly on his foot.”

  “No!” Eddie Fry’s hands were raised in supplication. “N
o, don’t. They’re dead. We didn’t do it, but they’re dead. I just work for Mr. Leehagen. I used to look after his cattle. I’m not a killer.”

  “You’re trying to kill our friends, though.”

  Fry shook his head.

  “We were told to keep them from leaving, but we weren’t to hurt them. Please, my leg.”

  “We’ll take care of it in a minute. Why weren’t you supposed to kill them?”

  Fry started to drift. The Detective slapped him sharply on the cheek.

  “Answer me.”

  “Someone else.” Fry’s face was now contorted in agony, and sweat and rainwater mingled on his face. “It was someone else’s job to kill them. That was the agreement.”

  “Whose job?”

  “Bliss. Bliss is going to kill them.”

  “Who is Bliss?”

  “I don’t know! I swear to God I don’t. I never even met him. He’s in there, somewhere. He’s going to hunt them down. Please, please, my leg…”

  Willie Brew had joined them. He stood to one side, listening to what was being said, his face very white. Tony Fulci returned, carrying two Ziploc bags jammed with pharmaceuticals. He put them on the ground and began going through the blister packs and plastic bottles, examining the generic names and tossing aside those that he deemed of no use in the current situation.

  “Bupirone: antianxiety,” he said. “They never worked. Clozapine: antipsychotic. I don’t even remember us taking those. Trazodone: antidepressant. Ziprasidone: ’nother antipsychotic. Loxapine: antipsychotic. Man, it’s like you can see a pattern…”

  “You know, we don’t have all day,” said the Detective.

  “I don’t want to give him something that won’t work,” said Tony. He seemed, thought Willie, to be taking a certain amount of pride in his pharmaceutical knowledge.

  “Tony, as far as I can tell, none of these things worked.”

  “Yeah, on us. He could be different. Here: flurazepam. That’s a sedative, and there’s some eszopiclone, too. Cocktail those.” He produced a fifth of Jack Daniel’s from his jacket pocket and handed it to the Detective along with four pills.