He checked the clouds again to make sure they would cover him, then scrambled, low and spiderlike, across the road and into the underbrush on the far side.
He rolled to his feet, his ears perked like parabolic mikes, sweeping the darkness around him. There had been a footstep nearby but now there was no sound at all.
Listen.
There was something . . . breathing. Quick and raspy, either nervous or emphysemic or rattling through a shot-up windpipe. Did vampires actually breathe? He’d never thought about it. Alex was dead and he didn’t, but then again, since when did ghosts and vampires have to play by the same rules?
The breather took a step.
The bushes directly ahead parted. A hunched figure stepped past just as the clouds broke up and let the moon’s stunted glow spill through.
The soldier’s two quick steps crunched in the crepe-paper leaves as loud as gunshots. The stalker whirled about just as Stiles left the ground and the edge of his foot pistoned into its unprotected cheekbone with merciless force. The figure sprawled backward with a groan and the soldier was right on top of it, sweeping the Uzi across the prostrate form with a controlled, almost surgical burst.
But at the last instant, he turned his hand. The spitting machine pistol ripped up the soil instead, but it was close enough for Charlie Bean to throw down his revolver, cover his head, and yell, “I give up! Jesus, don’t shoot!”
Stiles stood over him, glaring. “Goddamn you,” he fumed, visibly shaken himself. He’d barely averted the fire in time. “What the hell are you doing out here? I could’ve blown your fucking head off!”
The deputy sat up and cradled his aching face in his hands. “Mr. Binford . . . lives out yonder . . . stopped me in town, said he saw somebody parked back in the trees out here. I came out to . . . hey, you sonuvabitch! I should be asking the questions here!” He crawled toward the gun he’d dropped but Stiles was already past him and picked it up instead.
Bean watched him hesitantly. “What’re you gonna do?”
“I don’t know. Yet.”
He motioned to the Uzi. “Full auto, huh? That’s illegal. I hope you know that.”
“I do.”
Bean fidgeted. What did he have on his hands here, some kind of psycho? A terrorist even? “Wha . . .” He cleared his throat. “What do you need something like that for?”
“It’s just a tool,” Stiles said evasively, but the more he stood there facing the law, the more he realized he would have to tell the deputy something, anything, any kind of explanation. It was either that or get sent up for illegal weaponry and assault on a police officer.
Or he could kill him.
He weighed all his options.
“I’m going to confide in you, Charlie,” he said simply. “I’m a hunter.”
“With that kind of armament?” Bean laughed, but then it dawned on him. “Oh. You mean a bounty hunter?”
“Of sorts. I’m after somebody right now, and I’m waiting for him to return to the scene of the crime.”
Bean looked around him. “Crime? What crime?”
Stiles was blunt. “Murder. There are three bodies stuffed into that culvert over there. And I have a feeling their killer will be back.”
The deputy stared at him blankly before inching his way toward the culvert, though never taking his eyes off Stiles or turning his back. He took the police light from his belt and stooped to look into the concrete tube. Stiles prepared for the retching sounds to come. Even a seasoned officer like Bean would never have seen anything like that.
“Mr. Stiles?”
“What?”
“There are no bodies here.”
Stiles scrambled across the road and dropped into the culvert beside Bean. The tube was indeed empty save for the trickling of backed-up water. There were no twisted limbs, no grinning throats, no gaping, pained faces. No blood to stain the water or the concrete walls.
Nothing.
“I repeat,” Bean said from right beside him, wondering whether he should try jumping the guy and wrestling for his gun, “where are the bodies?”
Stiles stood up and laid the Uzi muzzle against Bean’s lapel. It was not a threatening gesture, though it did make the deputy swallow very hard. Stiles was just motioning to him, for his mind was on other matters. “Quick,” he said, “where’s your car?”
“Just down the road,” Bean stammered, pushing the barrel gently away.
“Well c’mon then,” Stiles nudged him in that direction, “we’ve got to get back to town.”
“Now hold on just a damn minute here. I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers—”
“Look!” Stiles barked, and his intensity backed the burly officer up a step or two. “They’re probably heading back toward town now, cross-country. That means they’ll beat us there, and they’ll probably . . . oh, God, Del and Bart! They could be after the boys!” He hurried down the road, all but dragging the deputy behind him.
The squad car squealed into reverse and did a one-eighty in the middle of the road and raced back toward Isherwood. It was 8:50 p.m. The night had just begun.
Chapter Ten
Del was still in front of the television, as he had been for several hours, quiet, watching but not seeing. Once every fifteen or twenty minutes, when his mother wasn’t looking, he would run to the window and peer outside, looking first to the driveway for a white van and then into the darkness for something else, something altogether different. He came back, scooted over near the couch where his brother lay with an X-Men comic book draped over his face, half-snoring. Del didn’t say anything, just sat there, but his presence was enough to rouse Bart. “Cap,” he sighed through the comic book, “would you settle down? There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to worry about?” the boy snapped, lowering his voice so it wouldn’t carry into the kitchen to their mother. “This is two nights in a row. There’s trouble, admit it.”
“You’re your own worst enemy, Delbert. If there was anything wrong, Chris would’ve told us. So just settle down. He probably had something to do or someone to see. Maybe he hooked up with another woman—I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Nope,” Del was adamant. “He was going to look for Danner, he promised me, and now there’s something wrong. I know it.”
“Stop borrowing trouble. Everything’s gonna be fine. You just need to think about something else for a while, get your mind off it. Isn’t there anything on television you could watch?” The younger boy shrugged. “Well, how about a game or something? Anything to shut you up.”
Del brightened. “How about Dungeons and Dragons?”
The older boy frowned. “Hasn’t your imagination been satisfied for the next couple of centuries? Pick something a little tamer.”
The boy thought. “Stratego? Trouble? Life, chess, backgammon, crazy eights, euchre, Battleship, Monopoly . . .”
“Hey, Monopoly. I haven’t played that in a coon’s age.” He yelled, still without moving the comic book, “Hey, Mom. You want in on some Monopoly?”
Billie’s voice called back, “No thanks. Somebody’s gotta do dishes around here. Besides, you can only play a short game. Tomorrow’s school, remember?”
“Aw, Mom,” they groaned in unison. As children, they were obligated to do so.
“You heard me.” Her tone was no-nonsense.
“I think it’s in my closet.” Del said as he went out of the living room and down the hall, almost to the back door before turning into the last bedroom.
The boy’s room was just that; a boy’s room. The mere identification encompassed not only its condition but its contents. Dirty clothes were puddled everywhere except in the hamper they’d been thrown at. Magazines and comic books were spread liberally about—Popular Science and National Geographic (gift subscriptions from Grandma and Grandpa), National Lampoon, a
Mad magazine or two, an amalgam of superheroes, from the Teen Titans to the Thundercats to The Savage Sword of Conan. Absent were Fangoria and Famous Monsters and his other horror books. Those were stashed by the closet door with a blanket thrown over them.
He crossed the mine field he called a floor and dug into the closet, stepping around the covered stack as if it were a basket of snakes. The Monopoly game was buried at the very bottom of his game stack. With patient prying he got it loose without tipping the rest of them, then went back into the hall.
What was that? He heard something and turned automatically toward the back door. It was coming from the backyard. He listened for a second . . . A dog barking. Bruiser, the pit bull next door. But what’s he carrying on about? Then a knock came to the back door, not six feet away. Delbert jumped, and the scarred old game box came open and sent deeds and tokens and a rainbow of money scattering across the rug. He ignored it all and took a step toward the door. Through the small porthole window he could see that the screen door was open and someone was standing out there, just out of view.
The knock came again, insistently.
“Wh . . .” He swallowed. “Who is it?”
“C’mon, honey,” Billie’s voice called. “Open the door, will ya?”
The boy’s sigh of relief was so pronounced he almost wet his pants. “Jeez-o’-Pete,” he laughed, “you scared me half to death. I didn’t know who it might be.” He went over to the door and reached for the knob but realized at a glance that the button on the handle was not depressed. “Hey, it’s not locked, lazy. Open it yourself. I gotta pick up this game you made me drop.” He went, to his hands and knees and scooped money into a pile.
Billie became terse. “I can’t open it, Del. My hands are full. C’mon, let me in.”
“Full of what?”
“Clothes. From the clothesline, all right? Now let me in.”
“Clothesline?” he said, rising slowly. “What’s wrong with the dryer?”
“Delbert,” her voice was sharp and angry. “You open this door for me right now or you will regret it, young man. I’m going to count to three. . . .”
“Why can’t you let yourself in?” he wanted to know. Panic was rising in him.
“One.”
It’s just your mother, stupid. You don’t want her standing out there in the night, not when something might be out there too, ready to grab her . . .
He took a step toward it.
“Two.”
No, don’t open it, because Mom hasn’t used the clothesline, not since we got the dryer and sure as hell not when it’s getting cold outside and she’s scared of Bruiser getting loose, but there’s no fear in this voice none at all and none of this is making any sense . . .
He stepped backward, away from the door.
“Three!”
Someone grabbed him from behind. Delbert yelled and swung his fist so hard that Bart felt the wind as it missed his jaw. He shoved the boy into the wall and doubled his own fist but the frantic look in his brother’s eyes brought him up cold. “What the hell is it?” he said, his sudden anger giving way to an icy dread. “What is it?”
Del stammered and pointed. “Someone’s at the door. It sounds like Mom, but . . .” He shook his head.
The older boy stared at the door and crept over to it and started to raise up to look through the small window but stopped himself. What if it isn’t Mom? What if you don’t like what you see?
He turned, went back down the hall. “Mom?” he yelled through the living room to the kitchen beyond. “You sure you don’t want to play?”
There was no answer.
He looked at Del, then stepped closer to the corner and the foot of the staircase to get a view of the kitchen door. “Mom? I said do you want to—”
“I heard you, Bart,” Billie said from so close that the teenager all but jumped out of his skin. She was coming down the stairs and almost beside him now. “Sorry about that, sport,” she grinned. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Bart was relieved and worried at the same time. He looked from her to the back door. “How did you get up the stairs without me knowing it?”
“You were half-asleep under a comic book, remember?” she laughed and swatted his nose. “I walked right past you, honey.” She turned to Del, expecting him to start needling his brother as he did incessantly, but the boy was not laughing or barely paying attention. He was standing amid the guts of the Monopoly game and staring at the back door. “Del, is that where you found that game? Now, start picking that up, young man, before I . . . Del? Are you listening to me?”
He looked at her, wide-eyed, his face drained of color.
She knelt beside him to feel his forehead, but then she heard Bruiser barking and her eyes strayed to where his had been and she saw through the little window that the screen door was standing open. “Is somebody out there? Who is that?” She started for the door.
“No!” the boys shrieked in unison. “Don’t open it!”
She looked at them suspiciously. “And why not?”
Del stammered. “Well . . . because. Just because.”
There was a knock.
Del and Bart exchanged glances full of dread. Billie took another step toward the door but the boys’ hesitancy had infected her and she stopped her hand just short of the knob. She rose onto her toes and peered through the porthole. “Can’t see . . . Who is that out there?” She called out louder. “Who is it?” There was a pause, then, “It’s me, Billie.” The tone was familiar. “Mrs. Schloesser, from down the street? Our phone’s out. Could I use yours?”
The boys whispered to her urgently. “Say no, Mom. Say no.” This was ridiculous she thought, it was just that kind lady from a few doors down who was always bringing cookies over for the boys and who canned her own preserves and brought some for her neighbors every Sunday when she sat in the front row at services and sang hymns the loudest and the most off-key. So why couldn’t she invite her in?
She reached for the knob but stopped. Why can’t I invite her in?
The knock came again, insistently. “Billie? Can I come in?”
Billie reached again for the knob. And pushed the button in to lock it. “I’m sorry. Our phone’s out too.”
The knock came even harder. “Let me in,” the voice said, only now Mrs. Schloesser’s voice was much deeper, angrier. Billie stepped back with the boys. The knob was turning, back and forth, jiggling.
“Who are you!” Billie yelled.
Then the whoop of a siren erupted out front like a sudden storm. It drowned out the creak of hinges as the screen door swung shut. Flashing lights stabbed through the living room drapes and painted the walls red. The boys took their mother by the arms and pulled her along with them, away from the back door.
Del ran to the window. “It’s Charlie and . . . Chris!” He ran to the door and out onto the porch just as the two men were climbing from the patrol car parked half on the curb and half off. “Chris! There’s something in the backyard!”
Stiles flew up the walk with long strides, his face set, the Uzi held close to his side. He was past Delbert in an instant and through the house, jerking open the back door without hesitation. The others hurried to catch up.
They found him standing in the backyard, shining his small flashlight into the shadows where the porch light didn’t reach. There was no one else in sight. Even the neighbors’ unseen pit bull had settled down behind the tall shrubs and was just growling deep in his throat. Stiles walked to the big shade tree near the back of the lot where the tire-swing still turned in slow, dizzy spirals. He reached out and stopped it. “There’s no one here now.” He motioned them all back inside.
Billie was exasperated. “Would someone tell me what the hell is going on here?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie Bean told her, “but we’re damn sure gonna find out.” He point
ed at Stiles, forgetting momentarily that the latter still carried the only guns between them. “You stay right here, mister. You’ve got some talking to do.” Then the deputy went back out to his car to shut off the lights and assure the gathering crowd of neighbors that it was all just a false alarm.
Stiles sighed and hung his head, letting the tension ease from his shoulders and neck. He’d been so afraid . . . He smiled to reassure Billie, reached out for her. “I’m glad you’re okay—” he started, but the words stuck in his throat. Billie was backing away from him. Her eyes were on the Uzi. “Chris?” she stammered as if unsure if he were really there in front of her. “Chris, what’s going on? Why are you carrying a machine gun?”
Bart stood nearby, dancing anxiously as if he had to pee. “Was it him, Mr. Stiles? Was it Danner, do you think?”
Del hugged Stiles’s leg and started to cry. “It talked to me, it tried to get me to let it in. But you said it was over. You said it was over!”
Billie came over and drew Delbert away from him. “What’s he talking about, Chris?” Her tone was losing its surprise and gaining in anger, growing maternal and protective. “Just what is this all about?”
“Yes, Mr. Stiles,” Deputy Bean said from the doorway. He shut the door and locked it. “Tell us what’s going on here, and don’t leave out anything. Understand?”
“Is that a threat, Deputy?”
Bean didn’t flinch. “If that’s what it takes.”
Stiles regarded him coldly, like a shark, and in that moment Bean would not have been surprised to see the man raise his weapon and fire. Instead he looked from the officer to the woman in front of him and then to the boys, one in his mother’s arms and the other standing at his side. Finally he said to Bart, softly, “Tell them.”
“Everything? You sure?”
He sat down on the couch and laid the Uzi on his lap. “Everything.”
Bart started slowly. “Well, first off, we didn’t get beat up by out-of-town guys the other night, and we didn’t go over to Jay’s either. We had a bet with some guys from Seymour that Del and me could stay all night Friday in the old Danner place.”
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