Halfway to the corner a car pulled over to the curb and the passenger door opened. He slowed and glanced in, and caught his breath when he saw Tar.
“Hey, Duck, does your mommy know you’re out?”
“Lay off,” he said glumly.
“Aw, poor Ducky. Hey, Brian, the Duck says to lay off.”
Pratt leaned over from the steering wheel and grinned. “Okay, Mr. Duck. Whatever you say.”
Don glared and moved on, and the car followed him slowly.
“Hey, Boyd,” Tar said in a loud whisper, “glad to see you found your jacket. Looks good. How’d you get the shit off?”
Don stopped, turned, but Brian drove on, his and Tar’s laughter filling the night.
He wanted to raise a fist, but it would have done no good and he would have only gotten into a fight. But it was them, and he groaned because his father would never believe it.
At the corner he stopped again, waited in shadow for a bus to pass, and in waiting considered heading down to Tracey’s. She’d be in bed but a pebble against her window might bring her out before her father woke up. He would talk to her. He would tell her. He would …
“Shit,” he muttered, and dashed across the boulevard, reached the park wall at full speed, and vaulted over without pausing.
A minute passed, and five before he got up from his knees and made his way to the central path. The park was so much his, he knew right away there was no one nearby, no one to overhear and question him, and take him back to the house.
He was alone.
And as he approached the oval and its curtain of white light he knew he was wrong.
There was something out there, out there in the dark.
Something familiar.
He slowed; he stopped; he sidestepped just before the trees fell away, and he squinted into the light.
There, he thought, craning his neck. It was over there, on the other side, not moving, only watching, and when his left hand reached around behind him he realized with a silent curse he had forgotten to bring the flashlight — he had nothing now he could use as a weapon.
Brian and Tar; it had to be them, back to make sure he understood their position. Beating the shit out of him; and when the police came, they would be sleeping soundly in bed and he would have to explain what he was doing in the park.
He backed away.
A hand rubbed at his mouth.
Crazy; if he wasn’t crazy before, he was sure crazy now for thinking of this stunt. The poster obviously had an explanation, the shadows were his nerves because of Pratt and his hatred, but this was complete madness.
A swift search of the nearest brush rewarded him with a four-foot length of dead branch. He hefted it, tapped it against his palm, and prayed frantically that he wouldn’t have to use it, though against what or who he didn’t know.
Then a voice behind him said, “Babyfuck,” and a hand grabbed his throat.
Don screamed without making a sound as his hand spasmed and the branch fell from his hand, and before he could attempt to break free, an arm banded hard across his chest, pinning his own to his sides. Brian! he yelled silently; Tar, for god’s sake, get the hell off me! But his head was forced back, and when he lowered his gaze from the spin of the treetops, he saw the tweed sleeve, the dried blood, and he knew.
Panic flared and made him hollow. But he was not going to die. Amanda was dead, and Sam was dead, and he was not going to die because he was not anyone else, not just a name on the news; he was Don Boyd, and Don Boyd didn’t die. Not yet. God, not yet.
The Howler was too strong to fight, and he had no choice but to let himself be dragged around the rim of the pond, his neck close to breaking, his breathing harsh and shallow, the back of his head hot from the breath that came from the monster’s mouth.
“Babyfuck,” said Tanker Falwick. “You sure are one stupid baby fuck, boy.”
Don swung one leg around and braced a heel against the concrete. The man grunted, and Don whimpered at the pain that blossomed along his spine, but progress toward the dark was momentarily halted.
Falwick whispered, “You wanna bath? Like the whore? You wanna bath, punk?”
A vicious kick to a calf, and Don went down, the fingers whipping away from his throat to grab a’ patch of hair. His eyes watered, and his left arm was taken by the wrist and bent up along his back.
“Look, you punk!” the man gasped in his ear. “Stop fucking around and look! See that dark shit there? That’s blood, pal. Blood. From the whore. Beautiful, ain’t it? Must be a gallon of blood there, at least a goddamned gallon. And you know something, punk? They can try for a hundred years, they ain’t never gonna get that whore’s blood outta there.” A cackling laugh, and Don’s face was pressed closer to the ground. “Hungry, boy? You wanna lick it, punk? You wanna—”
“Please,” Don managed.
“Oh, my, listen to that.”
He swallowed phlegm and acid, blinked away the tears, and wondered why he couldn’t have been built like Fleet or Tar so he could leap out of the man’s grasp, turn, and beat him to a bloody mess where Amanda had died.
Tanker forced his face even closer to the ground, and when his nose touched the cold cement, he shut his eyes tightly.
“Please,” he said, less pleading now than commanding.
“Aw, babyfuck, you getting mad at the old sarge? You getting mad at me, punk?”
He was. He didn’t understand it, but he was. He was terrified of what was coming, and enraged at his helplessness, and he didn’t want to die and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it, not a thing, just like always.
“I–I won’t say anything, honest I won’t.”
“Aw, the punk’s begging. Ain’t that nice. They all do, y’know, punk. They all beg at the end. They think they’re hot shit, but they all beg at the end.”
Not the end, he thought, suddenly contorting his body in hopes of breaking the hold. But his head shrieked at the pull of hair, and his thigh burst into flame when a heel jammed into it, and his jacket and shirt where the man had gripped them from behind closed around his chest and restricted his lungs.
“They all beg, the little whores, and it don’t do any good. Say good-bye, punk. You little white trash shit.”
Don gagged as his head was pulled back; his eyes opened and stared, and then he lashed his right hand around and caught Falwick on the biceps with an elbow. The man grunted his surprise, dropped the hold on his hair, and Don jabbed again swiftly, scissoring his legs until he was over on his back, his left arm still behind him but pinning Falwick’s arm there as well.
And he saw the man’s face.
The same hard-lined face, the same grubby man he had seen under the bleachers.
Falwick spit at him, clubbed the side of his head with a fist, and rose, dragging him up, releasing the bent arm and spinning him around. Laughing. Coughing. Four times around until he let go with a squeal and Don pinwheeled into the pond, landed sitting up and shaking water from his eyes.
A mistake! he thought jubilantly; and I can outrun him.
But first he had to outmaneuver him or distract him, and the man in the tweed jacket and fatigue pants was standing right there on the edge, watching him smugly, licking his lips and lightly rubbing his arm.
“You gonna run?” Falwick asked with a sneer. “You gonna try for it, boy? If you are, you better get up, or I’m gonna cut you where you sit.”