IN THE DARK, page 29
“Got it!” Jane blurted as her knife popped up through the top of the rope. “Let’s move, let’s go!”
Sandra pushed at the mattress. She sat up and stared at her legs. Then her lips stretched thin and twitched at the corners. “I can’t move them!”
“Don’t worry,” Jane said. She called over her shoulder, “Give us a hand.”
Gail nodded and hurried over.
Quickly, Jane slipped her knife under the belt at the back of her jeans. She set her pistol on the mattress by Sandra’s right foot. She scowled at it. She hated not having it in her hand.
Gail had to let go of her sheet, and she let out a quiet little whimper as it slipped off her body.
They each took hold of an ankle.
Together, they swung Sandra’s legs sideways and off the bed and lowered her feet to the floor. Then they took her by the upper arms and hauled her up. After she’d been standing for a few seconds, Jane said to Gail, “You got her?”
“Yeah.”
“Right back.” She let go and hurried to the end of the bed. With Gail and Sandra both watching over their shoulders, she picked up the fallen sheet, took out her knife again, and cut a straight, two-foot slash in its center.
“Neat idea,” Gail said.
“You want one, Sandra?”
“I guess. My legs are starting to… Oooo… Pins and needles… ow!”
Jane yanked the sheet off the bed and cut a slit for Sandra’s head. She put her knife away, picked up her pistol, and carried the sheets to the women. One-handed, she helped Sandra and Gail into the garments.
With Sandra in the middle, her arms across the shoulders of Gail and Jane, they hurried across the room and into the hallway. Jane had taken the right side to keep her gun hand free, but now she regretted it; she was nearest the bedroom doors.
Though she kept her eyes forward, her peripheral vision saw into Marjorie’s room, saw the remnants of the woman swaying in her harness above the bed.
“Hey!” Marjorie yelled, suddenly twisting and lurching.
“We’ll send help for you,” Jane called. And took one more step that put Marjorie out of view.
“No! You can’t take ‘em! Hey! Sandra! Sandra, you get back to your room! Gail! Come back!” Then she shrieked, “They’re getting away!”
With every shout from Marjorie, Sandra flinched rigid against Jane’s side as if she were being lashed.
“It’s okay,” Jane whispered.
“Help! They’re getting away!”
“Make her be quiet!” Sandra begged.
Sure thing, Jane thought. “We’ll be out of here in a minute,” she said.
“Linda! They’re getting away!”
Linda, at least, was staying quiet so far.
That’s all we’d need, Jane thought—both of them yelling like a couple of maniacs.
At Linda’s doorway, Jane looked in.
The bed was empty except for the plate and the gnawed hand. Jane swiveled her head to scan the room as she hurried by with Sandra and Gail. She saw no Linda.
“Where’d Linda go?” Gail asked.
“Who knows? At least she isn’t yelling.”
Jane realized that Marjorie had stopped yelling. From the room down the hall came growls and snarls of rage, mixed in with squeaks and creaks and groans from the leather harness, and buckle sounds that clinked and jingled.
“Marjorie’s going ape-shit,” she muttered.
Sandra gave her a quick, frantic grin, then looked back and yelled, “You won’t get my baby now, you crazy bitch!”
“That’s what you think!”
Sandra faced front. She quickened her pace, rushing Jane and Gail along with her outstretched arms. In an odd, very high-pitched voice, she said, “Shit?” as if asking a question.
“Should’ve kept your mouth shut,” Gail told her.
Realizing that Sandra had recovered the use of her legs, Jane said, “I’ll go first.” She dropped her arm from across Sandra’s back, slipped free and hurried ahead.
The two seemed to get along fine without her.
At the top of the stairs, she studied the area below. She saw the foyer and the front door, dimly lighted by the wagon wheel chandelier.
She saw nobody.
She considered a quick dash down the stairs and out the door. Such speed would be noisy, though. In spite of all the noise so far, she wanted silence now.
Besides, Sandra was enormously pregnant. Even with her legs recovered, she wouldn’t be capable of much speed.
So Jane made her way slowly down the stairs, treading lightly, sometimes glancing back. Sandra and Gail, just behind her, seemed to be doing fine. In their bedsheets, they looked like overgrown urchins dressed as angels for some sort of skid-row Christmas pageant. Battered, wingless angels who were sweaty and haggard and scared.
And I’m leading them to safety, Jane thought.
Did Mog send me here to save them?
Nobody’s saved yet.
At the bottom of the stairs, Jane hurried to the door and opened it and looked outside. The grounds looked the same as before: dark and empty.
She stepped back, swinging the door wide for Gail and Sandra. Then she followed them out onto the veranda and eased the door shut. “My car’s all the way at the bottom of the driveway,” she whispered. “It’s pretty far away. We’d better hurry. You go first, I’ll cover the rear.”
She waited, watching them climb down the veranda stairs.
Hurry!
At any moment, headlights might push a pale glow into the darkness at the top of the driveway. Or the door might be flung open behind them.
Who knows where the bastards might come from!
And chase us down.
And take us back inside.
And oh God I don’t want to think about it—just let us please make it to my car and get out of here—don’t let ‘em get us, please, please—as if God gives a rat’s ass anyhow or He wouldn’t let scum like these filthy bastards ever get born in the first place to do these things to people—or if they have to get born at least He should stop them and save all the poor innocent…
“Wait,” she said, and stopped at the bottom of the veranda stairs.
Gail and Sandra looked back.
With her left hand, Jane dug into the front pocket of her jeans. She brought out her car keys. “Catch.” She tossed them to Gail. “You two go on ahead. But watch out and hide if a car comes along. Get off the driveway fast. Hide in the trees. You’ll be all right as long as you aren’t seen. My car’s off to the right when you get to the bottom of the driveway. A Dodge Dart. Get in and wait for me, but if somebody else comes along, just take off—then get the cops out here as fast as you can. I shouldn’t be more than five minutes, though.”
“What’re you doing?” Gail asked.
“I lost my necklace.” She touched her neck. “I think I know where it happened.”
“Forget it,” Gail said. “Don’t go back in there.”
“Not for a necklace,” Sandra added. “They might get you if you go back in.”
“My name’s engraved on it.”
Gail moaned. “I’ll come with you.”
“No. Do like I said, okay?”
“I think they’re in there,” Gail said. “Their movie might be ending any second…”
“Then we’d all better hurry. Get going.” Jane turned away. At the top of the veranda stairs, she looked back and saw the sheeted women heading for the driveway. She hurried to the front door.
Locked.
Of course.
So she entered the house through the window she’d used before. There was no longer a need for silence. She wanted to be quick about this, get it done and catch up with Gail and Sandra.
Either they’re here or they’re not.
She raced through the ground level of the house, checking doors.
In the living room, she found a black door to left of the fireplace. She turned its knob, eased the door wide enough to see the darkness on the other side, then opened it a bit wider and slipped in and gently shut it.
She stood with her back against the door.
She wished her heart would slow down. She wished she could get a big enough breath. Gasping for air, she used a sleeve to wipe the sweat out of her eyes. This room seemed even hotter than the rest of the house.
On the giant-screen TV at the end of the room, Barbara Streisand was belting out a song in a movie that looked like it might be Funny Girl. The volume was terribly high, the voice blasting.
No wonder the guys hadn’t heard anything. Whether or not the room was soundproofed, the noise from their show would’ve been sufficient to overwhelm every other sound in the house.
Jane saw the silhouettes of three heads above the seat-backs of the front row.
Hail hail, the gang’s all here.
They took up the center three seats of the first row, leaving an empty seat at each end. Jane counted six rows. Seating for an audience of thirty.
But the Show Room appeared to be empty except for these three.
So-vile and his buddies, she supposed.
In the light from the TV screen, Jane could see that the heads were facing the front. They had short hair.
Clean-cut fellas.
None turned around as she walked down the aisle.
When she got closer, she saw that their shoulders were bare.
No wonder, it’s so damn hot in here.
She entered the second row of seats and crept in. From here, she had a fairly good side view of the three. They looked young, not much older than twenty. They looked ordinary. Though she could only see the left side of each face, she was fairly sure that she didn’t know any of these men.
Each had a can of soda, and they took turns reaching into a big bowl of popcorn on the lap of the man in middle.
She shot the middle one first, the muzzle of her pistol an inch from the back of his head.
The shot came at a quiet place in the movie.
The heads of the two other men started to swing around.
She shot one in the temple. She aimed for the temple of the other but his head was still turning and her bullet punched through his left eye.
It was over very fast.
The one in the middle was still pitching forward by the time Jane finished her third shot. He wasn’t wearing any pants. His soda can rolled toward the TV, flinging sudsy fluid. Somehow, the popcorn bowl positioned itself just right, so the top of his head jammed into it and he stayed that way on his knees with his butt in the air and his head in the bowl.
The one who’d taken the bullet in his temple simply slumped sideways as if to lean on an invisible companion in the neighboring seat. His can, up-ended on his lap, burbled soda onto his half-erect penis.
The one who’d been shot in the eye fell to the floor and landed on his side next to his friend. He looked as if he might be down there for a special perspective on his friend’s stunt with the popcorn bowl. He still held onto his drink. He suddenly spasmed, crushing the can so it shot out a gush of soda.
Jane was pretty sure that all three men were dead.
She shot each of them one more time, to make sure.
Then she thumbed the release and slid the thin black magazine out of her pistol. She clamped the pistol between her thighs. With the empty magazine in her left hand, she used her right hand to scoop cartridges out of the pocket of her shirt.
Both of her hands felt cold and tingly. So did her face.
She tried to thumb a fresh cartridge into the top of the magazine. She dropped it, and tried with another. This one slipped from between her thumb and forefinger, and she jabbed her thumb on a sharp metal corner of the magazine.
“Ow!” She stuck the thumb in her mouth.
Forget it. They’re all dead, anyway. I don’t need the gun.
So she dumped the ammo into her pocket, the .22s tumbling against her breast and dropping to click against the others at the bottom of the pocket.
She took a last look at the three men.
Did I really do that?
Then she said, “Fucking perverts,” turned away from them and walked to the aisle. There, she broke into a trot. She hadn’t been very long at this. She might be able to overtake Gail and Sandra before they could reach her car.
At the rear of the Show Room, she shouldered the door open. While wiping the knobs on both sides with the loose front of her shirt, she wondered if there were other places where she had left fingerprints.
Probably.
My prints aren’t on file, anyway.
What about hairs and threads and…?
The only sure way to destroy every bit of physical evidence would be to burn the place.
No way, she told herself.
Finished with the door knobs, she rushed toward the foyer.
Burning the house might be a great idea, but she’d need to take Marjorie and Linda outside first, and she never wanted to see either of those women again, much less touch them, try to carry them…
And then she did see Linda.
Linda stood on her one leg, her back to the front door, and grinned at Jane. In her only hand, she held a big, shiny meat cleaver. “Hi-dee ho,” she said.
Jane stopped. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve got the hungries.”
“It’s all over, Linda. I’ll be sending help for you and Marjorie as soon as…”
“We don’t need no help, Janey. We get along jusssst fine. Fact is, I was about to help myself to Marjorie, but she’s slim pickins at this stage, so… HAPPY TRAILS!!!”
As she shouted, she bumped her way off the door with her bare rump and lunged at Jane, hopping, hoisting the meat cleaver high.
Jane aimed the pistol at her face. “FREEZE!”
Though Linda couldn’t know the gun was empty, she squealed with delight. She kept hopping forward on her single leg, bouncing closer and closer to Jane, swinging her cleaver in circles overhead, flapping her arm stump up and down, kicking her leg stump back and forth, giggling as she hopped, her one breast bobbing and swinging under her grimy “I’M WITH STUPID” T-shirt.
Jane threw her pistol at Linda.
It seemed like such a dumb move. In every shoot-out she had ever seen on the screen, the bad guy who runs out of bullets throws his gun at the hero. The hurled weapon sails by. Or bounces harmlessly off the hero’s shoulder.
Jane’s pistol smacked Linda in the face. The blow knocked her head sideways and gashed her cheekbone. As the gun caromed off her face, her giggle changed to a cry of pain and she went backward—hopped a couple of times, waving her arm and swiping at the air with her stump. Then she slammed the floor with her back.
Jane leaped across her body and kicked her hand. The cleaver skidded away.
Linda flopped over onto her belly. She started to push herself up.
Jane kicked the arm out from under her.
Linda dropped hard, face striking the floor.
“Stay put!” Jane shouted.
Linda lay sprawled on the foyer floor, gasping and sobbing. Jane snatched up her pistol, then ran to the front door and jerked it open. As she used her shirt to wipe the inside knob, she said, “I’ll send help.”
She shut the door, wiped its outside handle, and raced for the driveway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
She was huffing and sweaty by the time she reached her car. She found Gail behind the steering wheel and Sandra stretched out across the back seat. Gail swung the door open for her, then scooted over. Jane climbed in. The pistol in her back pocket pushed hard against her buttock, but she didn’t feel up to doing anything about it. She fluttered the front of her shirt to stir some air against her hot skin.
“How’d it go?” Gail asked.
The engine was quietly idling. She shifted, and swung onto the road before answering. “Okay.”
“You found it all right?”
Found what? she wondered. Ah! My non-existent necklace. “Yeah. It was where I thought it’d be.”
“Did you run into anyone?” Sandra asked from the back seat. She sounded nervous.
“No. Thank God. Maybe the guys went out to a movie, or something. This is Saturday night.”
“Date night,” Sandra muttered. She sounded bitter.
“Like those bastards needed dates,” Gail said. “They had a houseful of fucking slaves. You gonna turn your headlights on?”
“Oh.” Jane put them on. “If we see a car come along, you’d better duck out of sight.”
“Don’t let ‘em get us again,” Sandra said.
“I won’t.”
“They wanted my baby. That’s why they took me. They were gonna dig a fire pit in the yard and do it like a pig—like…” She sobbed. “Like a… Hawaiian thing… a luau. Steve… that’s what he wanted to do, and Linda said she knew how, she’d lived on Maui and…” Then Sandra gave up trying to talk.
Jane glanced back at her, but quickly returned her gaze to the road. “I never heard any news reports about you.”
“They grabbed her in Reno,” Gail said. “That’s why. It didn’t make the news out here. They got Linda in Oregon and Marjorie in New Mexico.”
“You’re the only local gal?” Jane asked.
“Yeah. One of them got the hots for me. He used to watch me at the store, he said. The B. Dalton at the mall?”
“Yeah.”
“He said that’s why they picked me.”
“Are you all right back there, Sandra?”
The high, uncertain voice answered, “Yeah.”
To Gail, she said, “Where do you want me to take you?”
“Home?”
“Where do you live?”
“On Standhope.”
Brace’s street.
She was vaguely surprised to find that she could feel pain and loss through the heavy daze that seemed to muffle her mind.
“Do you know where that is?” Gail asked.
“Yeah. I used to have a friend… Maybe I should take you to the hospital. You could both use some medical care.”
“I don’t want a hospital,” she said.
“I wanta go home, too,” Sandra said.
“Do you have people in Reno?”
“My… husband.” She resumed crying hard.
Gail looked around at her. “You can phone him from my place, if you want.”
