Got you, you son of a bitch! he thought, smiling fiercely, and a dark wave of malicious glee soared up through him. Got you!
He wondered what to do next. Later he would have to try and sort out what was going on with this nutcase in the wrecker, but for right now he needed to decide what to do next. Go! his instinct told him. Get the hell out of here. The wrecker was now between him and home. He needed to go get the cops. He needed to tell Crow. Would Crow be back from the hike he was taking in the woods with that reporter? Maybe Val would be home. He turned and looked into the darkness that stretched away from the wrecker. Val’s farm was pretty close, a couple miles. He could go there. All of these thoughts banged around in his head with all the noise and distraction of a silver pinball. Getting the hell out of there, no matter where he went, was the only smart thing to do, he knew that much.
But first…he had to go back up and look over the top of that hill. He had to find out what had happened to the wrecker. He had to.
This is stupid, he thought, and then said it aloud. “This is really stupid.”
Sweating icy rivers, his body aching, he nonetheless turned his War Machine around and pedaled slowly, carefully up the hill, all the time listening for the engine to start again. Nothing. Just silence.
Twenty yards to go, and he wondered if maybe the guy had really cracked up the wrecker. Maybe the guy was hurt. Screw him if he is. Maybe he was dead, that was something to think about. Mike didn’t want to be responsible for killing anyone, even if the guy was some kind of nutcase who liked to try and run down kids on bikes.
Get the hell out of here. Go. Now.
Ten yards to go, and he wondered—not for the first time—if maybe it was Vic himself in that wrecker after all. Jesus, is he really that crazy? Is it him up there? He felt terror grab at him, but he fought for control. No, he told himself, no. Vic is probably at home. Vic is home getting drunk and probably slapping Mom around. Or maybe doing whatever it was he did to her in their bedroom that made her scream like that. Mike knew that Vic did things—bad things—that made his mother scream and cry out at night, sex things that Vic wanted Mike to hear because he knew it would hurt to hear that stuff. But…was this him?
Five yards to go and he could see the glow of the wrecker’s headlights, pointing upward at a weird angle. Pointing crookedly at the sky. Mike frowned. No, Mike thought. Vic may be crazy, but this isn’t Vic. This is someone else.
Three yards to go and then someone leapt out of the shadows at him. Mike screamed as the huge bulk, a mass of shadows silhouetted by the wrecker’s headlights, sprang at him, huge hands reaching, his mouth shrieking with a sound that tore the night to rags. Mike jerked the handlebars hard to one side and leaned over them, throwing his weight to the left and down, kicking down on the pedals, mixing all his weight and muscle as he veered desperately away from the monstrous form. The hulking shape had only a few yards to cross and he’d have him, but Mike had a deep slope, the constancy of gravity, and the iron in his legs put there by total terror. Mike shot past him, down the slope that pointed back to town. It was way too close, though.
It was so close that as the demon fled down the hill Tow-Truck Eddie felt cloth and hair teasing the tips of his fingers; then there was nothing but cold dark air at the ends of his fingers and the demon shot away down the hill, picking up speed so fast that he seemed to shrink instead of go farther away. If it had been on flat land, Tow-Truck Eddie might have had him, but as he tried to run down the steep slope his bruised right knee buckled with each step.
Mike belted down the hill and up the next. He didn’t stop until he was nearly a mile away, and at that distant, lofty perch he finally stopped. He literally fell sideways off the bike and lay there, gasping, barely able to breathe. His chest was a howling red-hot mass of pain, his lungs were burned raw, and lights danced all around him in a mad fireworks display. Even at that distance, Mike could see the figure of the man. He appeared to be jumping up and down in place, tearing at himself in a fit of such awful rage that it scared Mike. He stared in shock and confusion, in growing horror at the realities of the situation. Who was this madman? He was too big to be Vic.
Then it hit him, and he could not believe that he hadn’t seen it before. A big man, a wrecker—both with ties to Vic. The man who had just tried to kill him had to be Tow-Truck Eddie.
Knowing it still didn’t help him make sense of it. Why would Tow-Truck Eddie be trying to kill him? It made no sense, none. Everyone knew Eddie as being super religious. And, besides he was a…cop. Mike lay there, unable to move, shocked to a vigilant stillness, watching the man dance with rage, watching as he sank slowly down to one knee, burying his head in his hands, becoming part of the shadows of the hill for a moment; and then saw the man throw back his head and let out a howl of such pure bloody rage that the whole night was torn by it. It rose above the hills and the trees and into the starfield above; it was a terrible thing to hear, and it struck some primal chord of fear in Mike that came near to choking him. The howl rolled over the hills at him, a cry of frustration as much as it was an awful promise.
Chapter 28
(1)
Val and Connie strolled quietly down the lanes between the corn as stars blossomed and wheeled overhead. It was dark, but Val had the pistol snug in the back of her waistband and Diego and two of the hands were still on the property, working one field away on a tractor that had broken down. The glow of lanterns and the hum of a portable generator where the men worked was a comfort to both women.
Mostly they didn’t talk, and when they did it wasn’t about Mark or the recent violence. The safest subject for Connie was a discussion of Val’s wedding plans. Connie warmed to that subject immediately and was filled with ideas for making the event the talk of the season. Most of Connie’s suggestions were frou-frou nonsense that would have had Val in too many layers of Italian lace with her hair in curlicues, but Val let her ramble. It was refreshing to hear Connie enthused about something.
Several times, however, she stole covert glances at her watch, wondering why Crow wasn’t back by now. If he’s fallen down the mountain and broken his damn leg I’ll break the other one for him, she decided. When her cell phone rang she looked at it, expecting it to be him, but frowned at the number on the LCD display. She flipped it open.
“Hello…Terry?”
“Val? I’ve been trying to call Crow all day but he’s not answering and I need to speak to him but he doesn’t pick up the—”
“Whoa, Terry, slow down. What’s wrong? Are you okay? Is something wrong with Sarah, the kids?”
Terry’s tirade ground to a halt and he barked out a dry, totally humorless laugh. “Wrong? Shit. What isn’t wrong?”
Val blinked, still surprised by Terry’s recent vocabulary shift. Back when they had dated he would never have used a vulgarity. “Terry? Jesus, what is it? Tell me what’s going on.” Connie raised her eyebrows to ask what was up but Val held up a hand for her to wait. “Terry, tell me what’s happening? Is it something with you and Sarah?”