Saturday blossomed hot, and the sun reached across ninety-three million miles to beat him like a child. He fell asleep from exhaustion in the middling shade of a scrub oak, but, an hour later, awoke in a panic of hot needle stings that were everywhere. Ants! He was covered in them. They were biting his face; they were in the crotch of his jeans; their mandibles clung to the dried blood of his many cuts and scratches. He hurdled through the shrubs to the blackwater depths of Morris Lake and — gators and snakes be damned! — plunged in. For the rest of the day, he holed up in a fetterbush in the lee of a dune. No one came in after him.
Well after dark on Saturday, he emerged from the bush — famished, dehydrated, mud-slaked, bug-bitten, and now ravaged by poison ivy — to make his way up ten miles of beach to Destin. If he came across late-night beach strollers or kids out crabbing, he would hide in the surf up to his chin and wait until they had passed.
Around three o’clock Sunday morning, Sparrow reached his truck.
The Sunday evening TV news said Oakley was in the ICU in a coma and that some waiter identified as Robert something-or-other was dead (good riddance) and that a girl — apparently a victim of a violent assault — was in critical-but-stable condition and was expected to recover but couldn’t remember anything about what had happened. There was no mention of a fourth party, but Sparrow knew that the cops don’t release the full story.
They’d come for him or they wouldn’t. Oakley would live or he would die. Sparrow could accept that. Life was bigger and more agile than he was.
Around nine o’clock, Sparrow heard a car door slam and then footsteps on the iron steps that led up from the driveway slab to the kitchen door of their mobile home. Marlene and little Jonquil were back from Waycross. Sparrow, slathered in Neosporin and hydrocortisone cream, was sprawled on the couch in a pair of boxers.
Marlene dropped her suitcase when she saw him. “John,” she cried, “what happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
Hesitantly, she asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
Jonquil came in behind Marlene and clutched her mother’s leg. “Is Daddy John hurt, Mama?”
“No, darling, he’s okay. Go put your things in your room. Mama will fix you some supper when she gets unpacked,” Marlene told her daughter, turning the child toward the rear of the trailer. “You want another beer, John?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re sure about ‘nothing’ happening to you?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okay, then,” she said as she headed for the kitchen.
Sparrow looked at the TV but it wasn’t much in the front of his mind. Marlene wouldn’t ask about it again. This was the way it was among their kind.
Doug Allyn
An Early Christmas
from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
Jared snapped awake to the sound of laughter. On the bedside TV, Jay Leno was yukking it up with a ditzy blond celeb. Jared sat up slowly, dazed and groggy from too much brandy, too much sex. Fumbling around, he found the remote control and killed the tinny TV cackling, then looked around slowly, trying to get his bearings.
A bedroom. Not his own. Sunny Lockhart was sprawled beside him, nude, snoring softly with her mouth open, her platinum hair a tousled shambles. At forty-nine, Sunny had crow’s-feet and smile lines, but her breasts were D-cup and she made love like a teenybopper. Better, in fact.
Gratitude sex. The best-kept secret in the legal profession. After settling cases involving serious money, clients were often elated, horny, and very, very grateful to the guy who made it happen.
Thanks to Jared’s legal expertise, Sunny Lockhart was financially set for life, a free and independent woman of means. Unfortunately, she was also crowding fifty. Too old for Jared by a dozen years. And he had to be in the office to meet with a client at nine sharp.
Damn. Time to go.
Stifling a groan, Jared slid silently out of Sunny’s rumpled bed and began gathering up his clothes.
Roaring down the shore road in his Mercedes SL500 through a gentle snowfall, Jared set his radio on scan, listening to the momentary snippets of songs flashing past. Mostly Christmas carols or country. Finally caught a tune he liked. “Back in Black,” AC/DC. Cranking the volume, he slapped the wheel on the back beat, getting an energy surge from the music.
Couldn’t stop grinning, wondering if he could arrange a weekend getaway with Sunny. Getting hot and bothered again just thinking about it.
He paid no attention to the rust-bucket pickup truck rumbling down the side road to his left. Until he realized the truck wasn’t slowing for the stop sign. The crazy bastard was speeding up, heading straight for him!
Stomping his brakes, Jared swerved over onto the shoulder, trying to avoid a crash. Knowing it was already too late.
Blowing through the intersection at eighty, the pickup came howling across the centerline, sheering off at the last second to slam broadside into Jared’s roadster, smashing him off the road.
Airbags and the windshield exploded together, smothering Jared in a world of white as the Benz plowed through the massive snowdrift piled along the highway, then hurtled headlong down the steep embankment.
Wrestling through the airbag’s embrace, Jared fought the wheel, struggling to control the roadster in its downhill skid. He managed to avoid one tree, then glanced off another. For a split second he thought he might actually make it — but his rear fender clipped a towering pine, snapping the car around, sending it out of control, tumbling end over end down the slope.
Bouncing off tree trunks like a pinball, the Benz was being hammered into scrap metal. The side windows shattered inward, spraying Jared with glass fragments. For a heart-freezing instant, he felt the car go totally airborne, then it slammed down nose-first into the bottom of the gorge with stunning force.
A lightning strike of white-hot agony flashed up Jared’s spine, driving his breath out in a shriek. Freezing him in place. Afraid to breathe, or even blink, for fear of triggering the godawful pain again.
Christ. He couldn’t feel his legs. Didn’t know what was wrong with them, but knew it was serious. Total numbness meant his back might be broken or—
“Mister?” A voice broke through Jared’s terrified daze. “Can you hear me down there?”
“Yes!” Jared gasped.
“Hey, I saw what happened. That crazy bastard never even slowed down. Are you okay?”
“I — can’t move,” Jared managed. “I think my back may be broken. Call nine-one-one.”
“Already did. Hang on, I’ve got a first-aid kit in my car.”
Unable to risk turning his head, Jared could only catch glimpses in his shattered rearview mirror of a dark figure working his way down the steep, snowy slope, carrying a red plastic case. Twice, the man stumbled in the roadster’s torn tracks, but managed to regain his balance and press on.
As he drew closer, the mirror shards broke the image into distorted fragments, monstrous and alien... Then he vanished altogether.
“Are you there?” Jared gasped, gritting his teeth. Every word triggered a raw wave of pain.
“Almost. Stay still.” The voice came from somewhere behind the wreck. Jared couldn’t see him at all.
“You’re Jared Bannan, the real-estate lawyer, right?”
“Do I know you?”
No answer. Then Jared glimpsed the twisted figure in the mirror again. Climbing back up the track the way he’d come.
“Wh— where are you going? I need help!”