“Over there,” Don shouted, and angled left toward a short bluff choked with weeds.
They nearly passed by McKay and his dead partner. It was Don who tripped over the corpses and nearly fell on his face.
They squinted at the ground under the weak moonlight. It wasn’t hard to tell—or smell—what had happened.
“Jesus Christ,” Don gasped, turning one body over with a foot. “Jesus Christ in heaven.”
Headlights snapped on to their left. A motor was gunned to life. In an instant it was roaring past them, a white van with the Pinker logo on its sides, careening wildly down the alley. A mad cackle of laughter trailed it.
“Back to the car!” Don shouted, and they both wheeled in unison to spring the other way. They passed the building, their shoes slapping rapidly on the rutted and potholed street. Jonathan glanced sideways as they passed the tin hut; it was still full of blue light.
Don skidded to a stop, nearly falling again. Jonathan heard him suck in a loud, horrified breath.
A uniformed cop was splayed across the windshield of Don’s car, the radio mike still in one hand. The cord had been cut and wrapped around his neck. His dead eyes reflected moonlight like two small mirrors set in his dead face.
All of the tires on the car were flat, as if they had been punctured or … slashed.
Jonathan looked to the other two cars, the black-and-whites. Both were sitting on dead tires. The radio mikes had been cut and tossed onto the street.
“Holy shit!” Don shouted. “That monster killed them all!”
Panting, Jonathan nodded. “Maybe if I can—”
Don spun around, his face taut with anger. “You stay out of this! This is police business—my business! That maniac killed four of my men, and you think you can mess with him because of one lousy dream! I hate to say this, Jon, but keep your nose where it belongs!”
He turned and ran back to the hut, muttering something about finding a phone. Jonathan watched him go, his jaw hanging open in surprise. He had brought Don here, convinced him against all odds that the dream was real. And now he was being told to stay out of it. It was absurd and it was wrong.
Jonathan began to walk home. Stay out of police business? No way. No way in hell. The terror had just begun.
Chapter •
Four
At eight o’clock the following morning, Alison was awakened by the clanging of Jonathan’s ancient alarm clock. She opened her eyes long enough to see him lean over the side of the bed and sling the clock against the nearest wall. It thumped to the floor and died with a dismal rattle. He fell back onto the bed, yawning.
Alison joined him, arching her back and listening to the pleasant crackling of her spine. It looked like a glorious morning outside.
“Copycat,” he quipped, smiling at her. He leaned over for a good-morning kiss. Alison pushed him away.
“No one is allowed to smell my breath before I get a chance to brush my teeth. That includes you most of all.”
He laughed. “Good. I’ve always hated those TV shows where they wake up and start drooling all over each other.” He licked his lips, grimacing. “Last one to the bathroom is a human hairball.”
Alison sat up, ready to race. Jonathan leaned over and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Give me another peek at those itty-bitty titties before you go.”
She slapped him lightly on the head. “Let me go, you pervert. And they aren’t itty-bitty, either.”
He kissed her on the back while his hands sneaked up to cup her breasts. Alison slapped at them, too. “You’re hurting me, you octopus. Let go of me.”
He gave her one parting squeeze, then let go. “You can be first to the bathroom, baby. That way I get to sneak a peek at those luscious buns.”
She stood up, dragging a sheet from the bed and wrapping herself in it. “Nothing’s free in this life, Jonny-boy. You’ll have to get your kicks on the Playboy Channel.”
His eyes narrowed suddenly. “Crank on the TV, will you? I want to see the guy in the wig tell the world how botched up things were last night. Can you believe it? Four cops dead. They’re going to need the FBI to find that bastard now. He’s probably two states away and still cruising.”
Alison took a step toward the television. Her right foot came down hard on something. “Oops,” she said. “I think your remote control just bought the farm.” She bent down and picked it up. “Did it used to work?”
“Far as I know. Punch the power button.”
She did. The television crackled a bit before the picture came on, but when it did there were the familiar face and wig of Walker Stevens, ace reporter who generally tossed his lunch at the sight of blood. He looked positively ill.
“Crank the sound up,” Jonathan said. “The button on the bottom.”
She did as ordered, not really wanting to hear anything more about the slasher, wishing he would just go away and never come back. Hopefully he was two states away, as Jonathan said, tooling along I-70 in Illinois, headed for the West Coast, California or something, where mass murders were not uncommon.
The sound came up, too loud. She backed it down.
“… storm clouds are moving in once more, although today might provide a temporary respite from the rain. But it doesn’t help for the sun to come out for a city afraid to unlock its windows. Last night a man thought to be the long-sought-after slasher was surrounded by police, only to escape in a burst of new killing that left four officers dead and a police department in shock.”
Jonathan ran both hands through his hair. “God, what a mess. You should have seen it.”
Alison shook her head. “No thanks.”
“… His name is Horace Pinker. A virtual phantom until yesterday, he was identified at last through a most unusual means. According to a police spokesman, a young man named Jonathan Parker had a dream about the killer, a dream that proved to be correct. Was it ESP, extrasensory perception, or was it blind luck? In either case, it gave Maryville’s police department the first solid lead in what previously had been an unsolvable case.”
Jonathan looked up glumly at Alison. “Swell,” he said. “Now I’m famous all over again. Do you suppose anybody wants my autograph?”
Alison shrugged. “That’s doubtful, but I think you ought to be careful from now on. If that guy is still around he might …”
Jonathan cocked his head. “Might what?”
She shrugged again, feeling sheepish and stupid. “Might try to … get you.”
To her surprise, Jonathan did not laugh. Instead he nodded. “I suppose it’s possible. But this morning I have football practice, at least. I think a couple dozen guys could nail the creep if he shows up.”
“Practice?” Alison said, disappointed. “I wanted to cook you a good breakfast.”
He got out of bed. “I can’t eat before a practice, or else I get queasy in the old tum-tum.”
She smiled. “All right, Jon-Jon. Tonight I’ll make you a fabulous supper.” She turned toward the doorway.
“Hold on a minute,” Jonathan said. “Before you disappear into the bathroom, never to be seen again, I’ve got something I want you to see.” He bent down and fished a small black jewelry box from the floor, then handed it to her. “Happy birthday, Alison.”
Her jaw almost dropped wide open. “You didn’t forget? Even with everything that’s been going on, you remembered?”
“Looks that way.” He gave her a wink. “If you don’t like it, please spare my feelings. I’m easily wounded.”
She flipped the lid up. Inside was a delicate gold chain with a small heart at the center. In the morning light flooding through the room’s single window it seemed to sparkle like golden fire. Even the smell drifting out of the open box cried money. Alison felt tears welling up in her eyes. Not many of her previous boyfriends had been so thoughtful.
“Well?”
She smiled, and let the sheet fall away. “Put it on me,” she said, lifting her hair with one hand. “I swear I’ll wear it forever.�
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“Good deal,” Jonathan said, accepting the box. He lifted the chain out and hung it around her neck, fought a brief battle with the clasp, then adjusted it so that the heart hung below her throat. He stood back, admiring her from head to foot, obviously more interested in her feminine charms than the charm itself.
Alison giggled. “You seem to be growing, Jon.”
He looked down. “Happens to the best of us now and then. Care for a quickie?”
“Quickie what?”
He rolled his eyes. “Ah, these young ladies nowadays. Do you want to bear my children, or not?”
“Not right now. Remember the bad breath?”
“I’ll wear my gas mask.”
“I’m still sore from last night.”
“I’ve got Band-Aids.”
“Funny.” She wrapped herself back in the sheet. “You’d better use the bathroom first. I have to take a shower.”
He grinned at her. “All right. We’ll save ourselves for tonight. What time is it, anyway?”
“You’re the jerk who set the alarm for eight. When does your practice start?”
“Nine-thirty.”
“Why so early, then?”
He pointed to the window. “Have you seen my car lately? It only starts every other Thursday. That’s why I had to run in the rain when Don called about—”
She pressed two fingers to his lips. “Let’s let the past go for now, Jon. What’s done is done.”
“Sure,” he said, a little too quickly, a little too quietly.
Alison put her arms around his neck and pulled him close, enveloping both of them in the bed sheet. “Here’s my version of a quickie,” she whispered, and gave him a peck on the cheek.
“Jeezo,” he barked, pulling away. “Attack of the killer breath germs! Get thee hence, woman, and brusheth your teeth! Yucko!”
She made a face at him. “Forget tonight, bozo. You just made me mad.”
“Mad like angry, or mad like a dog?”
“Both.”
“Well then,” he said, “I guess this won’t hurt.”
He grabbed her and planted his lips over her mouth. She felt his tongue slip between her teeth in an apparent effort to tickle her tonsils. This time she pushed him away, laughing when he bounced on the bed and flipped over to the floor.
“Still want to race?” she asked.
He shot to his feet. “Damn right.”
She chuckled. “Oh, Jon?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re shrinking on me.”
He clutched his crotch with both hands and darted for the door, hopping from foot to foot.
Alison sat on the bed, laughing into her hands and the sheet that still smelled of last night and things they had done in the dark. “Jesus,” she whispered to herself. “Jesus God, I think I’ll love him for the rest of my life.”
She was right.
By nine o’clock Jonathan was dressed and gone, Alison was alone and pleased to be that way, wanting only to take a shower, put on her old stale clothes, and get home to change. Then she would go to the college and watch the football practice and its star, one Jonathan Parker, flanker headed for the pros and sure stardom.
She was singing in the shower, some old song that had popped into her head, Dire Straits, Sultans of Swing, or some such. Where the words were lost to memory she hummed, glad to be here in this dinky apartment Jonathan called home, already anxious to see him again, wondering if his medicine cabinet held any deodorant that was fit for a woman to use.
When she was done and snagged a towel off the chrome bar outside the tub, dried her face and shook the water out of her hair, then stepped out, making a nice wet mess on the ceramic-tile floor while she dried herself off. In a stroke of sudden panic she wondered if the bathroom contained a hair dryer, because her hair had a disgusting tendency to curl and frizz if it dried too slowly. She dried her feet off, hung the towel over a shoulder, and began to scout through the bathroom cabinets. The air was thick with heat and steam. And, perhaps, something else.
She found the dryer after a minute, found a brush that seemed usable, plugged the dryer in, then went to work on her hair. The dryer was some ancient thing Jonathan must have purchased in junior high, a made-in-Korea job that made more noise than a 747 jet taking off. Bending and swaying, she allowed the alien dryer to do its work, wishing it made more heat and less noise.
Over its jet-engine howl she heard something outside the bathroom. She clicked the dryer off, straining to hear as its Korean motor wound down to nothing. In the silence a voice drifted through the door.
“I thought I was getting my clothes clean, until my best friend told me the truth …”
Commercial on television. Nothing more.
She pulled the door open and went to the TV. Some registered idiot was frothing and foaming over a new laundry detergent. She turned the TV off.
She went back into the bathroom. She turned the dryer back on, grimacing at its outrageous screeching howl. In the mirror she noticed how beautiful the necklace was, noticed the way it caught the light and sent it shooting in multiple directions, a tiny heart made of fresh love and the possibility of marriage.
You’re going nuts, she told herself, not quite believing it, not exerting any effort to tame the emotion.
“I’m in love,” she told her reflection in the mirror. “How’s that for fast action?”
Something moved behind her, almost too fast to see in the reflection of the mirror. She tried to turn around, tried to, but a huge cold hand mashed itself over her mouth. In the steamy mirror she could see only the glittering eyes of a madman behind her, a creature full of insanity and hate, its eyes slitted like the eyes of a dragon. She saw tattoos on the back of his hand, but then her need to breathe overcame her fright, a hugely powerful need to get fresh cool air inside her lungs, and she squirmed uselessly under the madman’s grip.
He dragged her to the bathtub. Her heels squeaked briefly on the tiles.
He lifted his hand to let her breathe. She scooped lungfuls of breath into her mouth, quaking with fear, thinking vaguely of rape, and torture, and murder.
She was aware of the man bending down to close the drain in the tub. She was aware of water splashing into the tub. She was aware that she was very naked, and as helpless as a man tied to a firing-squad stake.
Time passed, just a little time, just enough time to let the tub fill up, and then Alison was busy with other pesky problems, topmost on the list a screaming desire to stay alive.
Sometimes wishes never come true.
By late afternoon Jonathan was dodging a tackle on the field of trampled grass the university liked to call the stadium, when he saw Coach Cooper on the sidelines talking to his father. Without Alison around to divert him, Jonathan had done remarkably well today, catching passes, outdodging the big man Rhino and his sidekick Bruno, mostly fulfilling his job as the team’s brightest hope. Though he had looked into the stands again and again between plays, there had been no sign of Alison. A small knot of worry gripped his stomach, but then he decided she had gone home and fallen asleep. The night had been extremely hard on her.
Jonathan laughed at himself. Hard on. Somebody call Henny Youngman.
Coach Cooper let out a shrill blast on his whistle, indicating break time. Most of the players wandered toward the snack shack, pulling their helmets off and wiping the sweat off their hair, talking and laughing. Jonathan stuck his helmet under his arm, looking around once more for Alison. No such luck. The worry threatened to grip him again, that gnawing bit of certainty that something terrible was waiting to happen. He tried to will it away but it hung on just the same.
The coach motioned him over. Jonathan broke into a trot, feeling his guts clench tight as he looked at his father’s face and saw the grimly determined eyes of a man who has horrible news to break. Jonathan’s trot became a run; now the coach looked pained, as if someone had been so kind as to hit him over the head with a blunt object. Jonathan came to a halt in
front of them, already knowing, already knowing.
He swallowed hard. “Is she—is she—”
Don Parker seemed about ready to collapse. He put a heavy hand on Jonathan’s shoulder pad. “I swear,” he said. “I swear if I could change what happened, I’d …”
But Jonathan was already running toward his car, his mind a whirlwind of panic and dreadful certainty.
For a change his battered Chevy started on the first try.
There was an ambulance parked in front of his apartment. There were three police cars, their lights flashing and pulsing with today’s red and blue bad news. A group of spectators had assembled on the lawn, a football huddle of gawkers and snoops. Jonathan jammed both feet on the brake to stop with a scream of old tires and a cloud of burned-rubber smoke. He dived out of the car and was running again, dodging cars, dodging people, dodging cops. A blueshirt tried to stop him at the front door but he charged through him, sending the cop skidding on his back through the hallway. Jonathan burst into his apartment where last night he and Alison had made love, where he and Alison had shared secrets, giggled in the dark, talked of college and life and the secrets their combined futures might hold. All of that was now memory and nothing more.
A few cops were blocking the bathroom door. An ambulance attendant dressed in whites was leaning against the living room wall, casually picking his fingernails. Somewhere, water was splashing. The carpet was dark with it.
“Alison!” Jonathan screamed, startling the cops. He ran between them, knocking them aside, managing to skid on the bathroom tiles and crash against the sink, where his trusty Korean hair dryer was bellowing its foreign music into the drain. He pushed himself back, stupidly thinking that Alison had decided to paint the bathroom red. Please God let it be that. But no, the walls were smeared with blood the way a child in some mad kindergarten spree might smear red paint on the walls, paint that dripped and ran, blood that dripped and ran. The smell of it was heavy in the air.
Someone grabbed him from behind. He noticed the familiar smell of the after-shave Don Parker used, and struggled to get away, gurgling obscenities, ready to kill anyone who would dare keep him from …
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