I passed where Flashlight Boy’s flashlights were hanging, bumped my head on one of his unique light fixtures as I went, came to the gap that led into the narrower tunnel, and headed toward the steps that led up to the exit.
Buck sat fully upright for a moment, said, “I think I need some coffee,” and then was silent.
As I neared the steps, a light hit my face, causing me to slam to a stop.
“It’s me,” Ronnie said. “I had to wait, Danny. I couldn’t leave you.”
“Jack’s behind me.”
“Get Buck up the steps.”
It was like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill. I would get Buck almost up and then I’d lose him and he would slide us backward. I had to back-skip to keep from being run over by the wheelchair.
On the third try I broke the curse and pushed him toward where a flash of lightning showed through the breach in the open door to the lake path. Blue needles of rain were briefly visible and then the flash was gone and the rest of it was guesswork.
When I got Buck to the doorway, I paused there, locked the wheels, and started back down the steps. I could see Ronnie’s flashlight shining, and then I heard Jack Jr. splashing in the water. A shot rang out from his direction, then another, and her light went out.
There was one more shot originating near me, and the shape that was Jack Jr. did a soft shoe shuffle to the left and hit the wall. The shape slid into the water.
“Ronnie,” I said, looking where her light had been.
Behind me she said, “I’m here.”
I turned and we embraced.
“I stuck the light in a crack in the wall,” she said. “I fooled the son of a bitch.”
“Certainly did.”
“I have a penlight too,” she said and produced it from what seemed to be Batman’s utility belt.
She put the light on Jack Jr. His mouth and eyes were open, but nobody was home. He had a hole in the middle of his forehead and blood was leaking out of it and running down his face. He had wet spots all over his robe where he had been stabbed by Flashlight Boy. His hand, still holding the gun, was by his side in the water.
“I was aiming for his chest,” Ronnie said.
“Same result. I think he was running on adrenaline. Flashlight Boy poked some serious holes in him.”
“Where is he?”
“Didn’t make it. He saved my life, and then you did. Again.”
“You just happened to be here.”
“Point taken. The evidence?”
“I’ve already put it in the cruiser. I came back to help.”
“Glad you did.”
* * *
I pushed the chair out of the gap and into the night. The rain on Buck’s face stirred him. He looked around; water cascaded off his head and ran down his cheeks.
“I’ve had a very odd dream,” he said.
I pushed Buck where there was no trail, trying to make a path to where Ronnie had parked her cruiser, because down below, the old trail was washed away and the water was rising. There was tangled wet grass, some water, lots of mud. It was like attempting to plow furrows at the bottom of the ocean with a cheap rototiller.
Ronnie helped me push the chair. We fought that damn thing and Buck’s big ass all the way to Ronnie’s car. I bet it took us over half an hour. When we got to her cruiser, the water had risen almost to the top of the hill. It couldn’t have been more than four feet from the car’s front tires. The wheelbarrow was parked beside the car and was full of water.
I managed to pull Buck out of the chair and onto the back seat. I left the chair outside. I looked out at the night. I couldn’t see the tops of the buildings anymore. I couldn’t see the bridge my father had driven through. Just dark water. I remembered what my father had said about dark souls crying and roaming the earth.
The rain made the windshield opaque. Buck had begun to snore. Ronnie started the engine and no sooner had we begun to drive out than there was a sound like a pistol shot and the world lit up bright as a spotlight on a circus act for a long, thrilling instant.
I turned and looked back and saw the trees on the higher ridge above the lake had been struck by that bolt of lightning, and a small fire was trying to rage in the treetops. The intense rain put it out almost immediately and a cloud rose from the trees like a little mushroom burst from a small atomic bomb.
On out of there we went, the windshield wipers going, the headlights fighting to give visibility three feet in front of us. The sides of the road were guesswork. The taillights behind us seemed nothing more than a red foam. Still we went on, Ronnie guided more by instinct than vision of the road.
We nearly went into water-filled ditches a couple of times, and then finally we rolled away from Moon Lake and the great patch of woods that surrounded it. It was a little brighter out there in the clearings, but along the road there were no lights from houses; not even the shapes of houses were visible.
Then, as if someone had turned off a faucet, there was a sudden cessation of the rain, and the clouds slowly rolled back like a terrier ripping the stuffing out of a teddy bear. A fragment of moon. A scattering of stars like damp glitter. The shapes of houses were now visible, but still without lights. The road shimmered as if it were a silver snake.