Chapter 26
“You okay, Mr. Coltrane?” said Viper as he reached his hand into the grave and pulled me out.
“You look like shit,” said another voice that I placed instantly. It was Greg Hoxey. He was holding a flashlight, aiming the beam at me. I fell to the ground, breathing furiously. I couldn’t get enough air. In-between breaths I managed to say to Greg, “How did you get here?”
“Viper called me.” Green dental floss dangled from the right corner of his mouth.
I looked at Viper. He shrugged and said, “I know you told me to call Perry Cobb, but he scares me and I trust Greg, so I called him. I hope that was okay.”
I turned to Greg. “It’s Nolan.”
“What’s Nolan?”
“He killed Brandy Parker and seven other women. And he’s got Quilla. He’s gonna kill her next. She’s in the house. The attic.”
Greg turned to Viper and said, “You help Del. I’ll handle Nolan.” Viper nodded and Greg ran about ten yards.
“Wait!” I said. He stopped. “Nolan’s got a gun.”
“So do I,” said Greg, then took off again for the house. Viper took me by the arm and with great effort guided me up the incline of the gully as we started back to the house.
“How did you find me?”
“I got scared being in the Funeral Parlor alone. You said you were going to Mr. Fowler’s, so I figured that I’d hook up with you here. When I got here and I couldn’t see your car. I figured I had the wrong house so I walked over to a couple other houses and I saw your car and figured you parked it there for a reason, then while I was coming back to Mr. Fowler’s house to look for you I saw his car pull in his yard. The next thing I know you’re coming outta his house and he’s pointing a gun at you, so I kept following. I watched him make you dig the hole. I remembered Quilla saying you had a cellular phone in your car, so I got it and called Greg.”
“You saved my life, Viper. I owe you, man.”
“Thanks. Think Greg’ll be able to handle Mr. Fowler alright?”
I was about to say, “I don’t know” when a shot rang out from inside Nolan’s house. Viper and I looked at each other. Then another shot cut through the night air. Working on adrenaline I stumbled as fast as I could to the house. Viper wanted to go in. I told him not to, then said, “Call 911. It’ll hook you up with the dispatcher at the police station. He’ll call Perry.”
Viper took off. I sat down on the grass in the dark, wondering who had fired the shots, hoping that Greg would either be leading Nolan outside at gunpoint or coming by himself with the news that Nolan had been shot. By now my breathing was back to normal, but my body ached with excruciating pain and cold numbness. I brushed away the clumps of dirt clinging to my clothes and face. As I was doing so I heard a grunting noise coming from the house. I slid a few feet further away from the rear door, trying to get totally out of sight. Within a few seconds Nolan came out of the house, carrying Greg’s lifeless body on his shoulder. Without hesitation he headed back towards the gully, no doubt to bury Greg alongside me. Nolan was walking at a steady pace, considering that a hundred and fifty pound man was on his shoulder. When he arrived at my grave he would go ballistic. To save Quilla and myself I would have to go in the house, get her and hope that Viper had reached Perry.
Again, reeling in all my strength, I stood up and dragged myself into the house, up the stairs and into the room with the bodies. Quilla was still asleep. I wondered what kind of drug he’d given her. I untied the leather straps and tried to pick her up. Under normal conditions she would have been light, but in my battered state it was like lifting five hundred pounds. I would have to drag her out and down the stairs, which I proceeded to do.
Things went smoothly until we got to the back door. Just as I was about to open it I saw Nolan running across his back yard towards the house. He had discovered that I’d gotten out of the grave. I thought about dragging Quilla back through the house and out the front door, but I knew I wouldn’t have the energy. So I decided to go down into the basement and hide until the police arrived.
As gently as I could, I dragged Quilla down the basement stairs, past Nolan’s workshop and into the utility room. We hid in the corner by the washer and dryer. We waited.
Nolan yanked open the back door and ran inside and up the stairs to the second floor. The house was so old and creaky it was easy to hear the pounding of his footsteps even though we were in the basement. Within seconds, I heard them pounding down the stairs, stopping, probably to look in a room or behind something, then starting again.
I was beginning to wonder if coming down to the basement was a bad idea, but I had no choice. I was exhausted. It was the only place left to go. Overhead I could hear Nolan’s footsteps as he walked towards the basement. Then came the sound of his shoes walking tentatively down the basement steps. I knew he knew I was down here. I placed the sleeping Quilla as far behind the washer as possible, then covered her with a dirty towel I grabbed from a pile of laundry.
“Del, I know you’re here,” he said. “I don’t know how you got out, but that’s not important now. What’s important is that we bring this to an end. You have to die. And the girl has to die. The only difference is that she has a chance to avoid extinction… like all my other girls. She may not be alive forever, but she can be here on earth… forever young, forever beautiful.”
Suddenly, Quilla moaned. It wasn’t so much the sound of a person waking up, but the gentle noise of someone tossing in her sleep. But it was loud enough for Nolan to know that she was in here. And if she was in here, he knew I was too.
In a second, Nolan was standing in the utility room. He flipped on the light and saw me crouched in the corner. I was sure he didn’t see Quilla tucked behind the washer.
“Where is she?” he snapped.
I looked over at Nolan’s makeshift embalming room. For some reason, I said, “In there.”
“She better be.” He waived the gun and gestured for me to go into the embalming room first. I did. He came in a few steps behind me. “Where?” he said.
“Perry is on his way here right now. You’ve already killed Greg. Perry’ll find the women. It’s over. To kill me or Quilla is unnecessary. Even if you did, this sad, maudlin world you’ve made for yourself will end. If you let us go…maybe…I mean, I don’t know the law…but maybe you can plead insanity and…”
“Where’s the girl, Del!?! I want to work on her. She’ll be the youngest yet. She has wonderful skin. It’ll be my biggest challenge ever.”
“Nolan, we’ve known each other for so many years.”
“She’ll be the last one. I promise. I’m an artist. I…”
Quilla moaned again. Nolan turned around in the direction of the washer and dryer. I decided to take a chance and go for his gun. I don’t know where my strength came from, but I leaped at him, knocking him over, causing the gun to tumble from his hand. Nolan fell on top of me, his fists flying wildly. I knocked him over. He scrambled towards the gun which was setting in a corner next to a container of formaldehyde. As Nolan crawled along the floor towards the gun, I stood up and frantically looked around the room for a weapon. Normally an embalmer has plenty of tools lying around, many with sharp edges, but here Nolan didn’t use his skills on a daily basis, so there was nothing at hand.
But then I saw the one thing I could use hanging from a hook on the wall. The trocar. As I grabbed it off the hook I looked at the eight-inch needle. It was used strictly on dead people, but I knew it was capable of making someone dead too.
As Nolan grabbed the gun, he spun around and prepared to fire. I was too tired to raise the trocar over my head like a spear, so with it firmly in my right hand I rushed towards Nolan, sticking the needle in his chest. He winced in pain, fell against the embalming table, lowered the gun for an instant, then raised it and with an unsteady hand pointed it at me. He seemed ready to fall over. Without thinking, I yanked the trocar out of his chest and shoved it in him again, this time in the stomach. He cried out, then dropped the gun and grabbed me. We were almost face to face.