She caught just a glimpse of his inappropriate suit when he exited the house, but that was enough.
Before she let herself do anything else, Libby took a tour of the house, potato peeler still in hand, locking all the doors and windows and pulling the drapes tight. By the time she’d finished, her heart had slowed to normal speed and she could breathe regularly again, but she still felt dirty and more than a little scared.
Stupid. She had nothing to be scared of. He hadn’t actually done anything except slobber and feel her up a little. Besides, she’d fought him off, kicked him in the nuts and broken his nose, for God’s sake. If anything, she should have felt powerful, proud.
She didn’t.
In the kitchen, she replaced the unused potato peeler and retrieved the water-damaged book from the floor where she’d dropped it. Later, she could press the book under some heavy dictionaries and blow dry it to keep it from warping too badly, but it would never look quite normal again.
Hopefully, she thought, neither will Marshall.
She wondered why he’d done it, what he’d actually expected to happen. Marshall had always seemed a little strange in a nerdy sort of way, but until today she’d thought of his sometimes-odd behavior as eccentric, unconventional. She’d never realized he was crazy. Did he think he’d woo her with his cheap flowers and his rumpled suit or win her over with his use of archaic coffee terminology? Maybe he’d been on drugs.
Libby shivered and returned to the staircase where she’d left the beer and the rest of her bath gear. The ice in the plastic bucket had melted a little, but not as much as she would have expected. How long had Marshall been here? It seemed much longer than it probably had been, seemed like hours.
She wasn’t sure she still wanted the bath. How could she ever expect to relax after what had just happened? But at the same time, she needed the bath. She felt like she’d swum through a sea of slugs and dried off with a couple of dirty diapers. Plus, her body was still tense from her experience at the mall.
God, what a day.
She gathered her book, her candles, and her beer and climbed the stairs. From the bedroom, Paul McCartney sang a love song, and although it should have seemed ironically inappropriate, Libby found it soothing.
She hurried toward the music and away from any thoughts of what had happened downstairs.
TWENTY-TWO
Trevor had just locked himself in his daddy’s workshop when he heard the screaming. Long, terrible screams. Like somebody had just dumped a truckload of bowling balls into a room full of people with no shoes on. On top of that, the barks, almost as loud, coming from what sounded like a pretty big doggy.
Trevor wondered if he should go back, maybe take one of his daddy’s tools and use it to attack the man who’d come through their kitchen window. But he knew if his daddy was hurt, he wouldn’t want Trevor to come back, and he wouldn’t want him messing with his tools. Trevor would probably only end up cutting off his own hand or shooting a nail into his head, and what good would that do?
He would stay, obey Daddy, and try to pretend the screams weren’t happening. Only he wished he knew why he couldn’t turn on the lights. It was so dark in here, darker than under the covers with the lights turned off and your eyes closed, and tables and machines and bits and pieces of Daddy’s furniture were all over the place. He walked with his hands held out in front of him, the way the zombies and the mummies did on the late-night movies his daddy sometimes let him see, although Mommy said they would warp his mind. He wasn’t exactly sure what it meant to get your mind warped, but he was pretty sure his was still in its regular shape because his head hadn’t changed at all, and how could your mind warp if your head stayed the same?
A teeny bit of moonshine came in through one of the garage windows—one of the only ones not covered all the way up with Daddy’s things—enough light that Trevor could eventually make out some of the shadowy shapes. He found the table where his daddy put holes in the furniture pieces and crawled underneath. Sawdust covered the floor, and although it felt soft under his hands and knees, it also made him sneeze and got into his mouth. Trevor wanted to spit the stuff out, except then he might crawl into his own loogie, which would only make things worse. Instead, he settled for pulling his shirt away from his neck and licking his tongue across the inside. It didn’t get off all the dust or all the bad taste, but it was a little better at least.
He tried to flip himself into a sitting position and ended up bumping his head on the bottom of the table. For a second, bright sparks flashed in his head, and he thought someone must have turned on the lights after all, but then the lights disappeared and Trevor realized they were only the pain lights you saw in the cartoons, except not in the shapes of stars or little birdies.
He rubbed his head, which felt worse than the time he’d fallen out of the tire swing in the back yard, scooting deeper beneath the table as he did so and feeling the sawdust slide beneath his bottom.
Would the man in the kitchen window warp his mind? He didn’t know. The movies hadn’t done it, but the kitchen man was a lot scarier than the zombies or the mummies or the werewolves.
Trevor heard another bark and jumped.
Maybe the guy was a werewolf, come to bite him and turn him into a werewolf too, or maybe just use him for food, eat out all his guts. Trevor wrapped his arms around his knees and waited for something to come crashing in after him, probably with long furry arms and claws for fingers and his daddy on its breath.
Dave kicked the boy’s knife across the room. It slid beneath the bed frame and clinked against the baseboard on the bed’s other side. The knife wound in his chest wasn’t bad—he could tell just from the feel of it—but it might require some self-applied stitches later and would certainly sting for a while. Still, he supposed the boy could have found a gun.
He turned to Georgie, surprised to find him standing fully erect, his fists at his sides and his chest puffed. He would have expected crouching and crying, blubbering, streamers of snot dangling from the nose. He supposed by now he should have counted on more from the boy, although he wondered if the original Georgie would have done the same thing. A small boy against a grown man with two wickedly sharp knives. He supposed Georgie would have—otherwise, how could this one be his replacement?
Still, Georgie wouldn’t have stabbed his daddy. Georgie loved Daddy, and Daddy loved him back.
He stared Georgie down for another few seconds, not knowing what to think, and then made a sudden decision.
At the girl’s house, where he’d been boarding Manny, the hostage ploy had worked like a charm. It was funny what some people would do to save the lives of perfect strangers. Funny and sad. And pathetic.
Dave hurtled himself at Georgie, circled around behind him before the boy could blink, wrapped an arm around his chest, and brought one of the knives to his jugular.
The man at the window, Pullman, holding his hip and grimacing, threw out a splay-fingered hand and groaned. As if he could reach us, Dave thought, grinning at the helpless helping hand.
“I know you don’t know this boy,” Dave said, though he actually knew no such thing, only assumed. “But I also know you don’t want his blood sprayed across your bedroom and his guts in a puddle at your feet.”