by Dean Koontz
She sat down on the floor, with her back against the wall. “Let’s get it over with.”
By the time he finished tying her, night had fallen outside, and there were not even threads of light at the unraveling edges of the aging, splintered shutters.
“It’s time to make the phone call,” Colin said.
“I’m going to hate being alone in this place.”
“It’ll only be for a few minutes.”
“Can you leave both flashlights?” she asked.
He was moved by her fear; he knew what it was like. But he said, “Can’t. I’ll need one to get in and out of the house without breaking my neck in the dark.”
“I wish you’d brought three.”
“You’ll have enough light with one,” he said, knowing that it would be pathetically little comfort in this creepy place.
“Hurry back,” she said.
“I will.”
He stood up and walked away from her. At the doorway he turned and looked back. She was so vulnerable that he could hardly stand it. He knew he should return and take the ropes off her and send her home. But he had to trap Roy, get the truth on tape, and this was the easiest way to accomplish that.
He left the room and went down the stairs to the first floor, then out of the mansion by way of the front door.
The plan would work.
It had to work.
If something went wrong, his and Heather’s bloody heads might wind up on the mantel in the Kingman house.
41
Colin stepped into a telephone booth at a service station, four blocks from the Kingman mansion. He dialed the Borden number.
Roy answered. “Hello?”
“Is that you, blood brother?”
Roy didn’t respond.
“I was wrong,” Colin said.
Roy was silent.
“I called to say I was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Everything. About breaking our blood-brother oath.”
“What’re you after?” Roy asked.
“I want to be friends again.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I mean it. I really want to be friends again, Roy.”
“It isn’t possible.”
“You’re smarter than all of them,” Colin said. “You’re smarter and tougher. You’re right; they’re all a bunch of jerks. The grown-ups, too. It’s easy to manipulate them. I see that now. I’m not one of them. I never was. I’m like you. I want to be on your side.”
Roy was silent again.
“I’ll prove I’m on your side,” Colin said. “I’ll do what you wanted to do. I’ll help you kill someone.”
“Kill someone? Colin, have you been popping pills again? You aren’t making sense.”
“You think I’ve got someone listening in on this,” Colin said. “Well, I don’t. But if you’re worried about talking on the phone, then let’s talk face to face.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Where?”
“The Kingman house,” Colin said.
“Why there?”
“It’s the best place.”
“I can think of better.”
“Not for what we’re going to do. It’s private, and that’s what we need.”
“For what? What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to screw her and then kill her,” Colin said.
“Are you crazy? What kind of talk is that?”
“There’s no one listening in, Roy.”
“You’re a lunatic.”
“You’ll like her,” Colin said.
“You must be full of dope.”
“She’s foxy.”
“Who?”
“The girl I’ve got for us.”
“You lined up a girl?”
“She doesn’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s my peace offering to you,” Colin said.
“What girl? What’s her name?”
“Come and see.”
Roy didn’t respond.
“Are you scared of me?” Colin asked.
“Hell, no.”
“Then give me a chance. Let’s meet at the Kingman house.”
“You and your doper buddies are probably laying for me,” Roy said. “You planning to gang up on me?”
Colin laughed sourly. “You’re good, Roy. You’re real good. That’s why I want to be on your side. Nobody’s smarter than you are.”
“You’ve got to stop gobbling pills,” Roy said. “Colin, dope kills. You’re going to ruin yourself.”
“So come talk to me about it. Convince me to go straight.”
“I’ve got something to do for my father. I can’t get out of it. I won’t be able to get away from here for at least an hour.”
“Okay,” Colin said. “It’s almost a quarter past nine. We’ll meet at the Kingman place at ten-thirty.”
Colin hung up, opened the telephone-booth door, and ran like hell. He went back up the steep hill, fast as he could, arms tucked close to his sides.
He reached the Kingman house, went through the gate, up the walk. Inside, he climbed the creaking stairs and heard Heather hesitantly calling his name before he reached the second floor.
She was still in the first bedroom on the left, sitting as he had left her, roped, ravishing.
“I was afraid it was someone else,” she said.
“You okay?”
“One flashlight wasn’t enough,” she said. “It was too dark in here.”
“Sorry.”
“And I think this place has rats. I heard scratching noises in the walls.”
“We won’t have to stay here much longer,” he said. He bent over the cardboard box and snatched out the two long strips of dish towel that he had brought from home. “Things are moving fast now.”
“Did you talk to Roy?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s coming?”
“He says he’s got things to do for his father and can’t get out of the house right away. He says he can’t make it before ten-thirty.”
“Then it wasn’t necessary to tie me up before you made the call,” she said.
“Yes, it was,” he said. “Don’t pull the ropes apart. He’s on his way now.”
“I thought you said ten-thirty.”
“He was lying.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. He’s trying to get here ahead of me and set a trap. He thinks I’m as naive as I used to be.”
“Colin ... I’m scared.”
“It’ll be all right.”
“Will it?”
“I have the gun.”
“What if you have to use it?”
“I won’t have to.”
“He might force you to.”
“Then I will. I’ll use it if he forces me.”
“But then you’d be guilty—”
“Of self-defense,” Colin said.
“Can you use it?”
“In self-defense. Sure. Of course.”
“You aren’t a killer.”
“I’ll just wound him if I have to,” he said. “Now we’ve got to hurry. I’ve got to put the gag on you. It has to be tight if it’s going to look convincing, but tell me if I make it too tight for comfort.” He fashioned a gag from the two pieces of the dish towel, then said, “Okay?”
She made an unintelligible sound.
“Shake your head—yes or no. Is it too tight?”
She shook her head: no.
He could see that her doubts were growing by the second; she wished she’d never gotten into this. Genuine fear sparked in her eyes, but that was good; it made her look as if she really were the helpless victim that she was pretending to be. Roy, possessed of the instincts of a cunning, vicious animal, would instantly recognize her terror and would be convinced by it.
Colin went to the tape recorder, lifted a piece of trash that was covering it, switched it on, ca
refully replaced the camouflage, and looked at Heather again. “I’m going out to the head of the stairs to wait for him. Don’t worry.”
He left the room, taking the pistol, one flashlight, and the cardboard box that now contained only the squeeze bottle of ketchup. He put the ketchup and the box in another room, then went to the head of the stairs and switched off his light.
The house was very dark.
He tucked the pistol under his belt, against the small of his back, where Roy couldn’t see it. He wanted to appear unarmed, defenseless, in order to sucker Roy upstairs.
Colin was breathing noisily, virtually gasping, not because he was physically exhausted, but because he was afraid. He concentrated on breathing quietly, but it wasn’t easy.
Something crashed downstairs.
He held his breath, listened.
Another noise.
Roy had arrived.
Colin looked at his read-out watch. Exactly fifteen minutes had passed since he’d left the telephone booth.
It was exactly as Colin had told Heather: Roy had lied about not being able to make it until ten-thirty. He had just wanted to be sure he was the first person in the house. If a trap was going to be laid for him, he intended to be there in the shadows to watch it being set.
Colin had anticipated this development, and he felt good about that. Standing in the dark hall, he smiled.
Something moved in the wall beside him, and he jumped. A mouse. Nothing more than that. It wasn’t Roy. He could still hear Roy downstairs. just a mouse. Maybe a rat. At worst, a couple of rats. Nothing to worry about. But he knew he had better guard against overconfidence, because if he didn’t he would be nothing but food for those rats before the night was out.
Footsteps.
A flashlight, hooded by a hand.
The light moved to the foot of the stairs.
Roy was coming up.
Suddenly, Colin felt that the plan was childish, stupid, naive. It would never work. Not in a million years. He and Heather were going to die.
He swallowed hard and switched on his own light, shone it down the steps. “Hello, Roy.”
42
Roy stopped, pointed his flashlight at Colin.
For several seconds they stared at each other. Colin could see the hatred in Roy’s eyes and he wondered if his own fear was equally visible.
“You’re here already,” Roy said.
“The girl’s up here.”
“There isn’t any girl.”
“Come see.”
“Who is she?”
“Come see,” Colin said.
“What’s the trick?”
“There isn’t one. I told you on the phone. I want to be on your side. I’ve tried being on their side. It didn’t work. They don’t believe me. They don’t care about me. None of them. I hate them. All of them. My mother, too. You were right about her. She’s a fucking bitch. You were right about all of them. They’ll never help me. Never. They’re no good to me at all. And I don’t want to have to run from you forever. I don’t want to have to be looking over my shoulder, for the rest of my life. You can’t be beat. You’ll get me sooner or later. You’re a winner. You win at everything eventually. I see that now. I’m tired of being a loser. That’s why I want to be on your side. I want to win. I want to get even with them, all of them. I’ll do anything you want to do, Roy. Anything.”
“So you got a girl for us.”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you get her up there?”
“I saw her yesterday,” Colin said, trying to sound excited, as if he hadn’t carefully worked out every word of what he was about to say. “I was riding my bike, just cruising, thinking, trying to think of some way to make up with you. I passed here, and I saw her sitting on the front walk. She had a drawing tablet. She’s interested in art. She was sketching the mansion. I stopped and talked to her, and I found out she’d been working on sketches of the place for a few days. She said she was coming back this evening, so she could draw the place with late-afternoon shadows. I knew right away she was what I was looking for. I knew if I gave her to you that we’d be friends again. She’s foxy as hell, Roy. She’s really something. I set up a trap for her. Now she’s up here, in one of the bedrooms, tied and gagged.”
“Just like that?” Roy asked.
“Huh?”
“You just set a trap and single-handedly tied and gagged her. It was that easy?”
“Hell, no!” Colin said. “It wasn’t easy at all. I had to hit her. Knocked her out. Bloodied her up a little. But I got her. You’ll see.”
Roy stared up at him, thinking about it, making up his mind to either stay or leave. His icy eyes gleamed in the thin, cold light.
“Are you coming?” Colin asked. “Or are you afraid to really do it to her?”
Roy slowly climbed the steps.
Colin backed away from the head of the stairs to the open door of the room where Heather waited.
Roy stepped into the second-floor hallway.
The two boys were no more than fifteen feet apart.
“In here,” Colin said.
But Roy stayed against the far wall and moved toward the door of the room opposite the one where Colin wanted him to go.
“What are you doing?” Colin asked.
“I want to see who else is here,” Roy said.
“No one. I told you.”
“I want to see for myself.”
Keeping one eye on Colin, Roy shone his light into the room across the hall. Colin thought of the cardboard box he had left in there, and his heart began to pound furiously. He knew the trick would be exposed and the plan ruined if Roy saw the bottle of ketchup. But the box must not have looked out of place among the other trash that littered the floors of the rotting mansion, for Roy didn’t go into the room to investigate it. He moved on down the hall to see whether the rest of the second floor was deserted.
Colin waited in the doorway until Roy had looked in all the other rooms.
“No one,” Roy said.
“I’m being straight with you.”
Roy started toward him.
Colin backed into the bedroom and went quickly to Heather. He stood beside her.
She looked as if she might scream in spite of the gag in her mouth. Colin wanted to smile and reassure her, but he didn’t dare; Roy might step inside and see the exchange, and then he would realize they were in collusion.
Roy entered cautiously. Shadows danced out from his moving flashlight beam. When he saw the girl, he stopped, surprised. He was only fifteen feet away, and he was blocking the only exit; this was the moment of truth. “Is that ... ?”
“Yeah,” Colin said thickly. “You know her? Isn’t she something?”
Roy looked her over with growing interest. Colin saw the boy’s eyes lingering on the curve of her smooth, sleek calves, then her knees, then her taut thighs. For a minute Roy didn’t seem capable of lifting his gaze from those slender, shapely legs. Then he finally looked up at her ruined blouse, at the swell of breasts that were partly visible through the torn material. He looked at the ropes, at the gag in her mouth, and at her wide, frightened eyes. He saw that she was genuinely afraid, and her fear pleased him. He smiled and turned to Colin. “You did it.”
Colin knew the trick had worked. Roy couldn’t conceive of Colin and Heather setting a trap all by themselves, without adults to back them up. As soon as Roy had seen that they were alone in the mansion, that there were no reinforcements waiting in another room, he had been convinced. The Colin he knew was too much of a coward to try anything like that. But the Colin he knew no longer existed. The new Colin was a stranger to him.
“You really, really did it,” Roy said.
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“Is that blood on her head?”
“I had to hit her pretty hard. She was unconscious for a while,” Colin said.
“Jesus.”
“Now do you believe me?”
“You really want to fuck he
r?” Roy asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then kill her?”
“Yeah.”
Heather protested through her gag, but her voice was weak and unintelligible.
“How will we kill her?” Roy asked.
“You have your penknife with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Colin said, “I’ve got mine, too.”
“You mean—stab her?”
“Just like you did the cat.”
“With penknives, it’ll take a long time.”
“The longer the better—right?”
Roy grinned. “Right.”
“So are we friends again?”
“I guess we are.”
“Blood brothers?”
“Well ... all right. Sure. You’ve made up for what you did.”
“You’ll stop trying to kill me?”
“I’d never hurt a blood brother.”
“You tried to hurt me before.”
“Because you stopped acting like a blood brother.”
“You won’t throw me off a cliff like you did Steve Rose?”
“He wasn’t my blood brother,” Roy said.
“You won’t squirt lighter fluid on me and set me on fire like you did Phil Pacino?”
“He wasn’t my blood brother either,” Roy said impatiently.
“You tried to set me on fire.”
“Only when I thought you betrayed our oath. You didn’t want to be my blood brother any more, so you were fair game. But now you want to uphold the oath, so you’re safe. I won’t hurt you now. Not ever. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Don’t you see? You’re my blood brother. I’d die for you if I had to.”
“Okay,” Colin said.
“But don’t ever turn against me again like you did before,” Roy said. “I guess a blood brother ought to be given a second chance. But not a third.”
“Don’t worry,” Colin said. “We’re together from here on out. Just the two of us.”
Roy looked down at Heather again and licked his lips. He put one hand on his crotch and rubbed himself through his jeans. “We’re going to have fun,” Roy said, “and this little bitch is just the start of it. You’ll see, Colin. You understand now. You understand how it’s us against them. We’re going to have a barrel of laughs. It’ll be a real popper.”