Chapter 24

 

The screen door groaned, and the bolt of the inner door rattled. Steve looked at Cat. She looked at him. The back door popped open, and Steve could hear someone crying.

"Someone is inside," Steve said. He rose from the couch, reached toward the knife, frowned, and left it.

Moving past him, Cat called out, "Brianna? Heidi?"

Steve touched her shoulder, but she shrugged his hand and moved forward, where window light gleamed along her slim, sweat-slick arms and glinted along the butcher knife in her hand.

A girl’s face, badly battered and framed in a tangled, brunette disarray, emerged from the darkness of the mudroom. She stared, her right eye nearly closed with swelling, dark circles of smudged mascara making her look both hunted and haunted. Beneath her nose, snot pink with blood fanned across her trembling lips and chin.

"Heidi," Cat said.

Heidi backpedaled. Then she stopped, left eye wide.

Cat reached out her empty hand. "It’s okay, Heidi. It’s me, Cat."

Heidi kept staring. Her eyes flicked to Steve.

"This is my friend Steve," Cat said. "We’re okay, Heidi. You’re safe."

Sure, we’re okay, Steve thought, but is Heidi? He saw no green slime around her mouth or anywhere else, and she wasn’t attacking them, but she didn’t look exactly sane, either.

Heidi leaned her back into the doorjamb and slid to the floor, where she hugged her knees and sobbed.

"You’re okay," Cat said.

Heidi lifted her head. She was a good looking girl, Steve realized, if you ignored the shiner and the snot. Her shirt, stained with blood and ripped most of the way open, revealed large breasts barely restrained by a white bra. Long, deep scratch marks oozed red across her upper chest, and Steve noticed one of her earrings was missing, the earlobe torn and bloodied.

Outside, a lunatic cackled, sounding close.

Heidi turned toward the noise and shuddered. "He’s coming."

"Who?"

"He’s been following me forever."

Cat crouched and drew her into a hug. "You’re okay now."

Was she okay, though? Steve wondered. It was the sort of lie we told at the worst of moments. Guaranteed at least one well-meaning asshole fed Humpty Dumpty the same line.

Hang in there, Humpty old boy, everything’s going to be a-okay.

The laughter started up again. If that guy had anything to say about it, Heidi would be very un-okay. Shit, it sounded like the guy was in the house with them…

Then it hit him. Heidi was so out-of-her-head scared she’d forgotten to close the back door. He grabbed the knife, hurried past them, half expecting to meet the crazy there in the darkness, and soon saw his initial suspicion had been correct: the back door was wide open. Through it, he could see the small, patchy yard, a scraggly pine tree, a crazy looking bastard all covered in blood, sitting in the wading pool, chewing the broken end of a beer bottle…

Steve shut and locked the door, making as little noise as possible. Had the crazy seen him? Heard him? He pulled the curtain an inch to one side of the mudroom window and risked a glance. The pool was empty.

Returning to the kitchen, Steve set the knife on the counter and scanned the room for a more comfortable weapon, something he could trust himself to use without hesitation. His eyes moved along the culinary terrain. Food processor, Garfield cookie jar, toaster… He grinned, imagining himself holding onto the cord and spinning the toaster overhead. He opened the closet.

Boots, coats, a shovel, rock salt. There. Field hockey sticks. Two of them. He grabbed both and carried them into the living room, where the girls sat on the couch and Heidi was telling her story.

"We were at Troy’s party, me and Lindsay and Brianna, and we were running late because, well, we were waiting for Brianna, you know, so then we got over there, and some people were outside throwing this Frisbee around, one of those ones that light up? And we were heading down into the basement, that’s where the party was, and then this kid yelled and threw the Frisbee at me. Troy’s brother? The cute one, from IUP? From the Halloween party?"

Cat nodded.

Heidi rattled on, her talker on autopilot. "So he said, ‘Hey, you want to get high?’ And I said all right, a little, so we went inside, up to Troy’s room, and we were up there for a while, smoking and stuff, he’s a pretty nice guy." She stopped for a second and looked over at the kitchen cabinets, then resumed her story. "So then all this noise started, and we didn’t know what was going on. It sounded like some big fight or something, so we went outside and…" Her eyes went wide, and Steve knew she was seeing it all again. "They were crazy. Everybody. They were fighting. People were coming out of the basement, and everybody was screaming and yelling, and this one kid, I saw him smash this other kid’s face right through a window, and then Troy’s brother was like, ‘We gotta get out of here,’ and I said, ‘What about my friends?’ and he said there wasn’t anything we could do, and he grabbed my arm, and we ran around the house, and people were fighting there, too, and out front, and across the street at this other house. So then he asked me where I thought we should go, and I figured I’d bring him here and you know, wait for Lindsay and Brianna, but then we were crossing the street, and the car hit us."

"What?" Cat reached out and stroked Heidi’s hair. "A car hit you?"

"Him, really," Heidi said, and now she was crying again. "It just came out of nowhere, you know? It was so loud, and then the boy was just gone, and I got knocked over, and that’s when I hit my face. I looked back, and the boy was in the road, and he looked so bad. It was so weird. I mean, he wasn’t all right, you know? He was all twisted, and his one leg was up behind his back, and his one hand was just tapping on the ground, and all this…all this stuff was coming out of him, and then I saw red lights, and the car was backing up. He backed right over him! Then he kept backing up, and he rammed right into the car in front of me. I ran. But I guess the guy hopped out because I heard him running after me and shouting and laughing. It was awful." Grabbing hold of Cat’s arm, she said, "We have to get out of here."

"What?" Cat said. "Where? Get out of the room, or—"

Heidi laughed. It sounded unnatural, awful. "Out of this town," she said. "Now."

Steve figured he’d better flick that plan out of her head before she fully committed. He could see by Cat’s expression that she wanted nothing to do with it, and he sure as hell didn’t. Here, they had doors, locks, food, running water. Out there, shit…out there, it was a madhouse.

"I don’t think that’s such a good idea," he said.

Heidi glanced at him then just as quickly turned back to Cat. "We’ll pack our things. Just do a quick job, though. Do you think we should wait for Lindsay and Brianna? No. No, we can’t. We don’t have the time. I mean, I wouldn’t expect them to wait for us. Could you be ready in ten minutes?" She paced the floor, twisting and untwisting her hair.

"Where would we go, Heidi?" Cat asked.

"Anywhere. If we stay here, they’ll find us."

Steve said, "And they wouldn’t find us out there?"

Heidi gathered her hair in both hands. "Cat, please tell this asshole to shut the fuck up."

"Look," Steve said, "if you want to split, go for it. Truly. But I’m staying here." There. Let her have it straight.

"Fine," Heidi said. "Cat and I are leaving."

Steve turned to Cat and raised his brows.

"Heidi, we can’t go out there," Cat said. "The whole town’s one big slaughterhouse. It would be suicide."

Heidi lost it. She paced faster than ever, throwing her arms around and shouting again, all incredulous. She couldn’t believe this shit. She thought they were friends. And then, pointing to Steve, she said, "Who the fuck is this asshole, anyway?"

Steve kept his mouth shut. He’d had his say. Now he’d let them hash it out. He watched and listened. It was obvious Cat wasn’t going to budge, and he wondered what Heidi was like on a good day. Not bad looking, but Christ, no brains at all.

Cat said, "Heidi, we need to sit tight and chill out."

Outside, as if to prove her point, another pack of lunatics ran past, hooting. In the back, the giggler cackled again, one psychotic bird answering the call of a passing flock.

"That’s him," Heidi said. "That’s the guy from the car." Looking more afraid than ever, she reached out, obviously intending to pull Cat from the couch. "We have to go."

Cat shook her head. "We’re safer here. We’ll keep the doors locked, the lights out, the weapons close."

Heidi started laughing. It was horrible. "You don’t get it."

"We do," Cat said. "We came through town. Look at me, Heidi. Open your eyes and look at me." She spread her arms, showing just how blood-soaked she was.

"Are you deaf or something?" Heidi shrieked. All her manic laughter was gone now, replaced with fury. "He’s coming for us. We have to get the fuck out of here!"

Her shrieking got the giggler started up again. By the sounds of it, he could be next door, Steve figured. "We have to keep the noise down," he said, patting the air.

Heidi gave him the finger.

Steve kept his voice level and calm. "You’ve been through a lot tonight. You’re not thinking straight. If you’ll just settle down for a second—"

"Fuck off, Dr. Phil," Heidi said, still aiming the finger at him.

Steve wondered if he could swing a hockey stick fast enough to knock that finger off. A tempting thought, but probably not the best idea. Instead, he extended the other bat in her direction. "You should take this," he said, figuring it might redirect her, give her something to do, make her a part of the department of home defense.

Heidi shook her head and dropped her hand. "I don’t want the fucking thing. I’m not going to hit anybody. I’m getting out of here."

Steve felt his face growing hot. Fuck this. He had absolutely no loyalty to this girl. None. And here she was, bitching and flipping him off and screaming so loud she might as well go out back and ring a dinner bell to call all the crazies. Steve tossed it on the coffee table. "Fuck it. Stick it up your ass for all I care."

Heidi started up with her loud, humorless laughter again.

"Take the stick," Cat said. Steve could tell she was losing her patience, too. "You have to defend yourself."

"Are you a fucking retard or something, Cat? I already told you! I don’t want it!" Heidi shouted.

Outside the giggler yelled "Woo-eeeeet!"

Hissing, Steve motioned with his palm. Quiet down, quiet down.

"Don’t hiss at me, cocksucker!" Heidi shouted.

Steve clenched his teeth and tightened his grip on the stick. This bitch was going to get them killed if he didn’t shut her up.

"Look, Heidi," Cat said, taking her firmly by the arms. "You have to knock off the shouting. You can’t shout anymore."

"Get your hands off me, bitch!" Heidi shouted. "You always have to do shit your own way and you never give a shit about anybody else. You’re just a quitter. First, you quit school, and now you’re quitting Lindsay and Brianna."

Cat laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Lindsay and Brianna, they have to watch out for themselves now. We can’t help them. We have to help ourselves."

One of the mudroom windows shattered.

Heidi shrieked, ran across the room, and crouched inside the closet, where she buried her head in her arms.

More shattering glass. A giggle.

"Shit," Cat said. "Sorry, Steve."

He managed a smile. "Stay here. If anything happens to me, if there’s a bunch of them, run out the front door."

"Fuck that," she said and started toward the back of the house.

"Wait," Steve said. Shit, this girl was too tough for her own good. He pulled her shoulder and moved into the lead, holding the stick in both hands across his chest, like a quarterstaff. There wasn’t a lot of room in here.

The giggler came out of the shadows, filling the room with laughter, and sprinted face first into Steve’s kick. Steve had played some soccer as a kid—before he realized getting high and getting laid were much more fun—and his kick blasted the guy, sent his head back over his shoulders. The rest of him followed, pitching him onto his back. Steve gripped the stick like a Louisville Slugger, and when the asshole sat up, Steve let him have it just over the left ear.

Home run. The stick thocked on impact. The guy slumped sideways and didn’t move.

"Good job," Cat said.

"Shit, is he dead?" Steve said, poking the guy with the stick. The guy didn’t move. "Did I kill him?" He really didn’t want that on his conscience.

"No, he’s breathing. Be careful. He might be playing possum. Let’s see." She flicked out a quick jab that sunk an inch of steel into the guy’s leg.

Steve winced.

The other guy didn’t.

"If he’s acting, he deserves an Oscar," Cat said, wiping the blade clean on the guy’s pant leg. "We need rope. There." She pointed at a hanging basket.

"Smart," Steve said. He pulled the plant off its hook, worked the basket free, and handed Cat the twisted nylon.

"Help me roll him over," she said.

The guy wasn’t very big or very old. Probably a high school kid, Steve figured.

"Guys?" Heidi called.

"Shut up," Steve called back. "We’re okay." No thanks to you, you crazy bitch. Things had been rough enough without her, but now? She was loud, vicious, irrational. She had drawn the giggler to them and refused to defend herself. Fuck her. With Heidi around, he could kiss the Vespa goodbye, and worse still, it meant he wasn’t getting laid. Sure, that might have been a bullshit thing to worry about right now, but it was real, just as Cat had been real—real and warm and firm—under his hands.

The thought of splitting flickered into his mind but couldn’t find a place to root. Glancing at Cat, who worked the rope now, winding it around the guy’s wrists and tying them to the belt at the small of his back, he realized they had been through way too much for him to ditch her now. He really liked her, and he wanted to see where things would go after all this crazy shit was over, even if she needed months of counseling before they got around to sex. He really dug her. He wondered vaguely if she would want to go somewhere with him, start over. There’d be time for all that later, assuming there was a later.

Heidi stepped into the doorway, quiet again, afraid. For as much as he’d wanted her to shut her mouth earlier, Steve wasn’t sure he liked this change in her.

Cat slapped the kid on the ass. "That ought to slow him down." She’d tied the kid’s shoes together, too, and even in his adrenaline-addled state of mind, Steve had to grin at her ingenuity; that little grade-school trick would work just as well as leg irons.

"Something’s going on out front," Heidi said. "I heard people on the porch."

At the front of the house, the door banged open. Cat cursed

"See?" Heidi said, coming into the mudroom.

Steve heard voices, female, more than one. A male voice, too. Just one? He couldn’t tell. "Come on," he said.

The kid on the floor moaned. Then he came to, straining against his restraints, and turned his head so that Steve could see one open eye and half a green grin. He started giggling again, and in the hall, in reply, high pitched laughter sounded.

"Go!" Steve said, and Cat shot out the door and into the backyard.

Heidi didn’t budge. "What if it’s Lindsay and Brianna?"

"Move!" Steve said. He grabbed her arm, swung her in front of him, and pushed her through the door. They were halfway across the yard when the kid they’d trussed started screaming. It was an awful sound, an impossible blend of laughter and shrieking that forced Steve to look. A pair of girls crouched over the kid, arms rising and falling as they stabbed him with something. All the kid could do was lie there and take it.

Steve shuddered. Shit, I should have killed the bastard after all.

Then his mind said: In a way, you did.

Bullshit. Get your head straight.

The door banged open, and a tall guy, stark-fucking-naked, came gibbering out of the house. He saw Steve, whooped, and sprinted toward him, his erection wagging back and forth as he charged, holding what looked like a bent barbecue fork overhead.

It’s the Naked Chef Gone Wild, Steve thought and, deciding he didn’t really want to fight some big, naked bastard with a hard-on, ran after the girls. They disappeared down a narrow strip of gravel between a garage and a brick building. Steve ran as fast as he could, but he heard the naked guy coming up behind him. Fast. He heard the guy already hitting the gravel.

At the end of the garage, where the narrow path opened into a paved lot, the girls cut left and ran toward a shadowy bank of houses. Good, away from town. Instead of following them, he cleared the gravel path, swung left, and flattened himself against the garage.

Forty feet away, Cat stopped at the edge of the houses, looking back and calling his name.

Steve wanted to shout to her, tell her to keep running, but then the guy was coming through the opening, and Steve stuck the stick out at knee level, ready for the jolt as the crazy tripped over it.

The jolt never came.

Instead, the naked guy whooshed past, leaping the stick, never breaking stride as he charged the girls.

"Hey!" Steve yelled and took after him.

The guy either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He was all about the girls. And he was a lot faster than Steve.

Cat crouched, knife out. There was nothing Steve could do to help her.

The crazy let out another war cry, lifted the fork overhead, leapt at Cat. For a terrible moment, he eclipsed her. Steve watched in horror as the crazy crashed down on Cat. She screamed. The crazy screamed. Steve screamed, closing the distance in a full sprint. He saw Cat fall to the ground. The crazy stiffened and rolled away, then stood and staggered backward a few steps, roaring down at the knife jutting from between his ribs.

Cat made it to her knees, shrieked, and turned away, raising an arm defensively as the crazy swung the fork. It looked so stupid, so pitiful, when Steve had first seen it, a fucking barbecue fork, for crying out loud, but no longer seemed laughable when Steve saw the tines sink into Cat’s arm. She cried out, falling, and the crazy followed her, raising the fork overhead again.

Then Steve was on him, swinging the field hockey stick down with both hands like he was splitting firewood. The first blow thudded hard into the crazy’s back, knocking him flat across Cat’s legs. Steve hit him again and heard a rib break.

"Fuck!" Cat screamed, and Steve realized the guy was biting her leg. Cat hammered punches into the crazy’s head, but it did no good. Meanwhile, Steve switched grips and used the stick like a tamper, driving it into the guy’s head, targeting the eye, the ear, the hinge of the jaw, over and over, watching divots of flesh calve away, blood mixing with green foam.

When the crazy finally let go of Cat, he launched, snapping and foaming, at Steve. It happened quickly. With so little time and space, Steve could make only a short jab. The crazy bit the jabbing stick, locked it in his teeth, and yanked so hard the stick tore free of Steve’s grip, spun through the air, and clattered on the ground several feet away.

Steve took a deep breath and put up his fists.

The crazy hitched forward, drooling more than green now, dark blood draining from both corners of his mouth. Just move on him, Steve thought. Just stick and move, and let that knife wound do its magic.

The crazy leapt forward lashing at Steve with the fork.

Steve ducked the blow, spun sideways, and turned just as the return stroke drove the fork into his gut.

He felt the tines enter him. He folded with the blow, fell. Pain exploded in his stomach, and the crazy followed him down.

The next thing Steve knew, he was on his back, and the crazy was choking him. The big, crazy bastard was kneeling on top of him and choking him to death, leering down with wild eyes and a huge smile oozing green. Steve grabbed at the crazy’s wrists, but it was no good. He swung wild punches, but they just hammered off the bone-hard body with no effect. Panic filled him as he struggled, choking, suffocating, dying…and he was vaguely aware of Cat, kicking the crazy with no effect.

Then, as from a distance, he heard her whistle.

Ten feet away, Cat was blowing kisses. "Come on, baby. Come over here." She lifted her shirt and bra, and squeezed her breasts together. "Come on over here and fuck me."

Air rushed into Steve’s lungs. The crazy sprung to his feet and started for Cat. At the last second, Steve lashed out, caught the crazy’s ankle, and yanked it backward. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. In mid-lurch, the crazy tripped, fell forward.

Cat rushed forward, and Steve scrambled to his knees.

The crazy had gotten onto all fours, too, but then Cat chambered her knee to her chest and stomped down hard. The stomp crushed down on the top of the crazy’s head, and he fell again and rolled to his side. As he rolled, the knife handle came into view. Steve dove for it.

He landed on the crazy’s legs, and his fist hammered down on the knife handle, hard, once, twice, and then Steve palm-heeled it up into the body of the crazy, who squealed and stiffened. Everything was wet and warm, a gusher of hot blood geysering up and out of the crazy and hitting Steve full in the face so that he was forced backward, swatting at it.

Rolling away from the spray, Steve wiped at his eyes and watched and listened as the crazy completed a short series of convulsions. By the time Steve had wiped the rest of his face, the geyser had played out, and the seizure had slowed to small twitches and sporadic jerks. The crazy growled. One arm stiffened skyward, its hand clawed and gripping nothing, and then, with dreamlike slowness, the crazy rolled to his side and lay still.