Slash, page 20
Jerry holstered his gun. “Then we better give it a look. You want to lay odds on my finding a way out, Bill?”
“I don’t like to think of the odds in this place.”
Todd didn’t blame him. Every minute they were still down here, he felt their chances of getting past the Wraith and Heather to medical help slipping away.
Vince cradled Heather in his arms and backed away so Jerry could jump down.
“You first,” Jerry said to Sharon.
“Why me first?” Her arms were folded defiantly across her chest.
“Because I don’t want you at my back for even a second. And because I’m a cop and you’re a murderer and I said so. Capisce?”
She gave him the finger.
“You’re not helping,” Todd said to her.
“You’re not the one being threatened by this asshole and dragged to jail.”
Todd stepped close to her, so close he could smell her hairspray. “If you keep wasting time, none of us are going anywhere. That man out there doesn’t give a shit about your pain and how angry you are. He’ll kill you, and us, just the same. Now go.”
He stopped short of pushing her to the edge. She had nearly shot him and Jerry was right.
“Bunch of candy asses,” she said. She made the small jump and kicked something away from her. “You see him, you shoot him.”
“You see how well that worked before,” Jerry said. He landed right beside her.
“Should we wait up here in case that’s a no-go?” Bill said.
“Probably a good idea. Vince, give Todd the gun,” Jerry said.
Todd bent down and took the gun from Vince’s outstretched hand. This .38 had been passed around like a hot potato all night. Having his prints on a murder weapon was slightly disconcerting.
He saw Jerry’s light dance toward the pool divider, knowing Sharon was a few paces ahead of him.
“Did Heather wake up?” he called down to Vince.
“No. She’s really out.”
All for the better, Todd thought. The last thing she needed was stress and anxiety, something they were all experiencing in abundance.
Bill said, “I swear, once we make it out of this, I’m giving up gambling. I never want another adrenaline rush for the rest of my life.”
“And you’ll have enough money for the therapy you’ll need to wipe this night out of your head,” Todd replied, feeling sorry all over again that his big mouth had brought them all here.
Bill had a hard time standing still. “Not enough money in the world to make that happen.”
Todd turned back to ask Vince to see if Heather’s wrist was still bleeding when he heard Bill let out a gurgled gasp. He spun around to find Bill struggling against a child-sized life preserver wrapped around his neck.
“What the hell?”
Bill’s hands frantically clutched the edges of the preserver. He stumbled backward and lost his grip. Todd saw the rope attached to the preserver vibrate as it was yanked hard. This time, Bill lost his footing and hit the ground with a dull snap. He gasped for air and was dragged away, his legs thrashing in futility.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Somebody help me!” Todd shouted.
He lunged for Bill, just missing his feet as he was pulled farther away. Todd’s flashlight went out when it cracked against the tile floor.
Bill’s choking became more frantic.
Todd reached out for him again and wrapped his arms around his friend’s legs. They were both dragged as if they were made of feathers. He crawled up Bill’s body and felt for the preserver. Lifting it off him proved impossible. Bill gasped, splashing Todd’s hands with hot spittle.
There was only one way to get Bill free.
As he went for his gun, Bill’s body was given a hard tug, flipping Todd off him. The scraping sound of Bill’s body being rapidly dragged into the pitch black made it impossible for Todd’s hands to work properly. For the life of him, he couldn’t get his finger around the trigger.
Bill let out a final cry and went sickeningly still.
Todd couldn’t see a damn thing in the dark without his flashlight.
“Bill! Bill! Where are you?”
He heard the rush of feet coming up behind him, saw the flickering of their lights against the floor and walls.
One of the beams brushed across Bill.
Todd’s mouth dropped open.
In the flash his friend became visible, he saw that Bill’s feet were well off the ground. The preserver held him aloft, his neck at an angle that told Todd it had been snapped.
A rushing image of Ash hanging in their basement, her head tilted to the same side, nearly dropped him.
“Todd! Bill!” Jerry shouted behind him.
And then he saw him. Or at least the shadowy outline of the man who had hanged Bill.
Without hesitation, Todd lifted the gun and fired. The shadow jerked back as one…two…three bullets punched home.
“In here,” Todd screamed. “I shot him! I shot him!”
He was on the verge of collapse.
I just killed a man.
The fact that he’d shot a monster who had just strung up his friend didn’t soften the razor-blade realization that he had taken a human life. At least not yet.
Sharon was the first to reach him. She saw Bill and said, “Holy shit.”
“Give me your light,” Todd said, ripping the flashlight from her hand before she could pass it to him.
They both gasped in horror when the beam painted the back of the man. He was tall with broad shoulders and a back that could double as a billboard. His head was bald and chalk-white, the left side of his cranium appearing as if it had been caved in at some point.
Todd was too stunned to shoot again.
I know I hit him. Three times. How is he standing?
He might have been on some drug and didn’t feel it. Todd shook the fog from his brain and aimed. Before he could pull the trigger, the giant man took off running.
“Shoot him,” Sharon screeched. He took off after him. Just like when they’d first seen him, the man proved to be unnaturally fast, especially for someone so large and wounded. Todd knew there was no way he could keep up with him.
However, sooner or later, the man, the Wraith, would come to a dead end. Todd knew he wouldn’t hesitate to finish him off. With Sharon beside him, he pushed his exhausted legs to the limit. They passed the game room and down a corridor. Jerry called after them, but he was too far behind for them to wait for him.
The hulking Wraith bashed through a door, the sound of it breaking from its hinges like cannon fire. Sharon had a hand on Todd’s back, urging him to move faster. They had to leap over scattered bits of furniture to keep from falling. The Wraith merely plowed through them like a cattle catcher on a steaming locomotive.
Todd fired wildly, the bullet ricocheting off the wall. He instinctively ducked, almost losing sight of the Wraith.
“There! There!” Sharon shouted, pushing him to the left. They spilled into what looked to have been an employee lounge. Round tables, most of them on their sides, and plastic chairs filled the room. There were empty counters, though one was supporting a family of squirming rats, alarmed by the sudden intrusion.
I’ve got you now, fucker, Todd thought when he saw where the room ended.
Keeping his back to them, the Wraith dipped to his left. Todd aimed the flashlight to see where or what he was up to. He lighted upon the double doors of a service elevator.
“Take this,” he said, handing the flashlight to Sharon.
He wanted these shots to count.
“It’s out of service,” Todd said, pulling the trigger. The gun kicked and his shot went high, bringing dust onto the Wraith’s head.
The Wraith dug his fingers into the crack between the doors and slammed them open in one mighty shove. He leaped into the shaft.
Todd and Sharon ran to the open elevator.
Perfect. He was even more trapped now.
Sharon shined the light above, catching sight of the Wraith hauling himself up the cables, one hand over the other. He scaled the cables as if he were lighter than air. The speed he was ascending was remarkable. Todd didn’t have time to waste.
He stuck his arm in the shaft and emptied the .38, the single shot making his ears ring.
Any second, he expected to see the Wraith’s body plummeting down the elevator shaft.
Instead, the crunch of metal echoed down to them. They looked up in time to catch the final glimpse of the Wraith extricating himself from the shaft, jumping out several floors above. His footsteps thundered for a few seconds and like the sirens outside the resort, simply stopped.
“How is that possible?” Todd said.
“Did you see how fast he went up there?” Sharon said, hugging herself. For the first time that night, she seemed afraid.
“Yeah.”
They stood there, looking up through the empty shaft, in stunned silence. Only Jerry’s arrival was able to break the spell.
“Did you get him?” He was limping badly and his face was coated in sweat.
“I…I thought I did.” Todd let the gun tap against his thigh and felt the burn of the sizzling barrel but didn’t react.
“You must be the world’s worst shot,” Sharon said, her words as defiant as ever but her tone sounding as if she was far, far off.
“I know I hit him back there. I saw his body fly backward. And there’s no way I missed him in the elevator. He’s so big, he almost took up the entire space.”
Jerry took the gun from Todd and checked the cylinder. “Well, you definitely didn’t leave any behind. Where did he go?”
Sharon said, “I think the third or fourth floor. But you had to see him.” She tried tugging one of the doors closed. The rusted elevator door wouldn’t budge. “He made opening this look like it was on greased tracks. And, and he pulled himself up those cables like he was fucking Spider-Man.”
Jerry looked up the shaft. “I know it seems that way when your blood is running high and you’re chasing a perp. Everything kinda speeds up.”
Todd shook his head violently. “No. You don’t understand. This guy, he took at least three bullets and moved around here like…like…like he wasn’t even human.”
“I have to go up and find him,” Jerry said. He didn’t look like he could take another step, much less hobble his way up the rotted stairs.
“What about Bill?” Todd asked. Saying his friend’s name aloud made his chest hurt. Bill had never hurt anyone in his life. When they were kids and a fight broke out, Bill always found a way to extricate himself. Some kids called him a coward. He would respond that self-preservation was a virtue, showing bravery in the face of the worst of all childhood indignities – losing face.
Jerry bit his lower lip. “He’s gone, Todd. There’s nothing we can do for him now except kill the fucker that did that to him.”
“We have to at least cut him down,” Todd said.
“There’ll be time for that later. Stay down here and get everyone outside. Maybe I’ll still have a career if I catch the Wraith.” He took two stuttering steps and had to lean against the wall for a moment. “Probably not. But if I’m going to have to hand in my badge and my gun, I want to make sure I hand it in empty.”
He left the room at an unsteady trot. Todd wanted desperately to go with him, but he refused to leave Bill hanging and he had to help Vince get Heather to help.
He tugged on Sharon’s sleeve. “Come on.”
They left the room, but not without a lot of backward glances, each expecting to see the Wraith erupt from the elevator shaft.
As they walked down the narrow corridor, she said, “I’m real sorry about your friend. No one should ever have to die that way.”
He thought of her sister Sheri and how she’d been mangled almost beyond recognition. That night had forever altered the course of Sharon’s life, bringing her right back here, wounded and damaged, faced with the possibility of suffering a similar fate.
“No. No they shouldn’t.”
Todd found it near-impossible to look at Bill. His body slowly turned in the makeshift noose.
“How are we gonna get him down?” Sharon said.
There was no delicate way to go about it. They had to find something to cut the rope. Bill’s dead weight would most likely be more than either of them could manage.
He shined his light around until he found where the rope had been tied off around a beam. He picked up a jagged hunk of rock and gave it to Sharon. “Use this to saw through the rope. I’ll hold onto Bill.”
She took the rock and waited for him to get a grip on Bill.
As Todd got closer, he smelled that Bill had shit himself as he died. His body was physically repulsed at the mere thought of having to get this close, but his mind rode herd over his atavistic response. Wrapping around his arms around Bill’s waist, he said, “Okay.”
The rope vibrated as Sharon hacked away. Todd tried breathing through his mouth, the side of his face mashed against Bill’s belly.
“I’ve got you, buddy. I’ve got you.”
It felt like it was taking forever for Sharon to cut him down. Not that she had the best tool to work with. Like the Wraith, they had to use what the Hayden provided.
The final fiber of rope finally snapped and Bill’s weight came crashing down on Todd. He fell on his back, Bill mashing him down like a wrestler going for the pin. Todd was completely winded, his arms and legs scrabbling feebly to free him from the oppressive weight.
He didn’t hear Sharon run over and loose a savage grunt as she tilted Bill’s body to the side. Todd jerked up, gasping. His flesh crawled and his mind reverberated with a trapped scream. Sharon’s hand was on his back making soothing circles.
It took him a good minute to get his breath back so he could talk. He looked over at Bill with tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
Sharon disappeared, returning with a stained, crinkling swath of plastic. She placed it over Bill.
Todd knew there was no way he was going to be able to carry Bill out of the Hayden. Even if he wasn’t hurt and exhausted, he wouldn’t have been able to bear the weight. It pained him to leave him, facedown on the filthy floor where rat and other feces peppered the bare concrete.
“We have to go help Heather,” Sharon urged him. He looked at her as if she’d appeared out of thin air and nodded.
“Yeah. Yeah. Help me up.”
Heading back to the pool, he kept an ear out for Jerry and the Wraith. In the silence of the dying resort, he thought he’d be able to hear them moving about with clarion clarity. The utter stillness ratcheted up his unease.
“Where’s Jerry. Is Bill okay?” Vince said. Heather was in his lap, still unconscious.
Todd jumped into the pool, the pain rocketing through his legs and settling in his hips. He took a deep, steadying breath. “Bill’s gone.”
“What do you mean Bill’s gone?”
“He…he hanged him. Broke his neck.”
“Oh my God.” Vince hugged Heather tighter.
“I shot him.” Sharon landed next to him. “I know I shot him. But…but he kept on going. Jerry went after him. We have to get Heather out of here. There has to be someone who can help her. I’ll come back for Jerry.”
“I’ll see if there’s a way out,” Sharon said, taking a flashlight to the refuse piled up at the end of the pool. There was a lot of clanging and crashing as she tossed things aside, seeking a clear path outside.
Vince rocked Heather. “I can’t believe it. How can Bill be dead? How is any of this happening?”
Todd checked Heather’s bandage. Once again, the bleeding had stopped, but for how long? If the wound opened up again, she might not have enough left to keep her alive.
“I don’t know,” Todd said, hugging Vince. “The Wraith must have followed me here. I never should have opened my mouth on that goddamn podcast, but I was so angry. And I never should told you guys about this.”
Vince’s silence cut deep.
What bothered Todd even more was the creeping assumption that the almost superhuman man the world had called the Wraith was, in fact, Otto. As impossible as the concept of a supposed-dead Nazi coming back to wreak havoc on anyone who dared to enter the Hayden’s forbidden ground seemed, there was something about the killer that defied the absurd.
He’d shot the son of a bitch practically point-blank. There was no way a man could get shot like that and proceed to run and climb his way to freedom.
But there was one way to know.
“You making any progress, Sharon?” he called over.
“I think I see a way out. Just need a few minutes.”
He patted Vince on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back. Mind if I take Heather’s flashlight?”
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“I…I have to check something before we leave. Trust me, it’s important.”
“You still have the gun, right?”
Todd showed him the weapon. “Sure do.”
“Good. Don’t take long.”
“I won’t.”
Todd lifted himself to the pool’s edge. It was better to let Vince think the gun was more than just a paperweight. Something told Todd he wouldn’t have the need to use it now even if it was loaded.
The Wraith…or Otto…was out there, waiting for them, but just as he’d done to Ash’s friends, he would take them one by one, always one step ahead.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Todd had to pause when he found Bill’s body. The plastic sheet was splattered with splashes of paint and filth. It was a horrible thing to cover him with, but it was all that was available.
Where were you when I shot you?
It was hard to get his bearings in the dark confines of the pool and rec area. With everything in ruin, it all looked the same. Todd searched for any marker that would seem familiar.
