“Is she dead?” Cynthia asked.
“Yuh,” Old Doc said, lowering Marielle’s hand. “For whatever it’s worth, I think she ran out of chances fifteen minutes ago. She needed a trauma unit, not an old veterinarian with shaky hands.”
More screams. Shouts. Someone was crying out there, crying and shouting you should have stopped him, you should have stopped him. A sudden surety came to Cynthia: Steve, a guy she’d already come to like, was dead. The shooters were out there, and they’d killed him.
“Wass happen?” Gary asked for the third time. Neither the old man nor the girl answered him. Although he had been right there, kneeling in the kitchen doorway beside her when Billingsley pronounced his wife dead, Gary didn’t seem to realize what had happened until Old Doc pulled the brown corduroy cover off his couch and spread it over her. Then it got through to Gary, drunk or not. His face began to shiver. He groped under the couch cover, found his wife’s hand, brought it out, kissed it. Then he held it against his cheek and began to cry.
When Jim Reed saw rapidly approaching shapes coming up the path toward him, his excitement vanished. Terror filled the space where it had been. For the first time it occurred to him that coming out here might not have been a very intelligent idea.
If you see strangers in the woods, come right back. That was what his mom had said. But he couldn’t even move. He was frozen. Then there was a horrible growling sound in the undergrowth, the sound of an animal, and he panicked. He did not see Collie Entragian and Steve Ames when they burst into view; he saw killers who had left their vans to infiltrate the woods. He didn’t hear Johnny’s muffled yell, or see Johnny struggling to free himself from Dave’s clutching hands.
“Shoot, Jimmy!” Dave shrieked. His voice was a trembling, freaked-out falsetto. “Shoot, Jeezum Crow, it’s them!”
Jim fired and the one on the left went down, clutching for the top of his head, which blew back in a red film of scalp and hair and bone. The rifle the man had been carrying tumbled to the side of the path. Blood poured through his fingers and sheeted down over his face.
“Get the other one!” Dave cried. “Get him, Jimmy, get him before he gets us!”
“No, don’t shoot!” the other guy said, holding out his hands. There was a rifle in one of them. “Please, man, don’t shoot me!”
He was going to, though, going to shoot him dead. Jim pointed the gun at him, hardly aware that he was yelling at the guy, calling him names: cocksucker, bastard, fuckwad. All he wanted to do was kill the guy and get back to his mother. Him and Dave both. Coming out here had been a terrible mistake.
Johnny rammed both elbows back into Dave Reed’s stomach, which was trim and hard but unprepared. Dave let out a surprised Ooof! and Johnny tore out of his grasp. Before Jim could fire again, Johnny had seized his arm and twisted it savagely. The boy screamed in pain. His hand opened and David Carver’s pistol thumped to the path.
“What are you doing?” Dave yelled. “He’ll kill us, are you crazy?”
“Your brother just shot Collie Entragian from down the block, how’s that for crazy?” Johnny said. Yes, that was what the boy had done, but whose fault was it? He was the adult here. He should have taken the gun as soon as they were safely away from Cammie Reed’s fanatic eyes and dry orders. He could have done it; why hadn’t he?
“No,” Jim whispered, turning to him, shaking his head. “No!” But his eyes already knew; they were huge, and filling with tears.
“Why would he be out here?” Dave asked. “Why didn’t he warn us, for God’s-”
The growl, which had never really stopped, reasserted itself in the hot red air, quickly rising to a snarl. The man who was still on his feet-the guy from the rental truck-turned toward it, instinctively raising his hands. The rifle in them was a very small one, and the guy might be right to use it that way, shielding his neck with it rather than pointing it.
Then the creature which had chased them up the path sprang out of the woods. Johnny’s ability to think consciously and coherently ceased when he saw it-all he could do was see. That clear sight-more curse than blessing-had never failed him before, nor did it now.
The thing was a nightmare with a tawny brown coat, crooked green eyes, and a mouthful of jagged orange teeth. Not a cat but a misbegotten feline freak. It leaped, splintering the upheld Mossberg rifle with its enormous claws and tearing it away from the clenched hands which had held it. Then, still snarling, it went for Steve’s throat.
From Audrey Wyler’s journal June 12, 1995
It happened again-the daydream thing. If that’s what it is. 3rd or 4th time, but the first (I think) since I’ve been keeping this journal, amp; by far the most vivid. It always seems to happen when things around here aren’t going well, amp; oh God are things around here ever not going well!
Herb got up with Seth this morning, ran through the shower with him (saves lots of time), and when they came down Seth was sulking amp; Herb had. the start of a black eye. I didn’t have to ask him about it. Seth made him punch himself, of course, the same way he made him twist his lip when we got back from the ice cream parlor and Seth discovered his damned Power Wagon was gone. I looked at Herb amp; he gave me a little head-shake, telling me to keep quiet. Which I did. I’ve discovered you can always find something to be grateful for, in this case that making Herb punch himself was all Seth did (although it’s not really Seth who does the bad stuff but the other one, the Stalky Little Boy). Seth likes to stand by the bathroom sink and watch Herb shave in the mornings. The SLB could have popped out and made him cut his throat with his own Bic disposable, I suppose. Frightens me to write such a thing, but sometimes it’s better to have it out on the page. Like squeezing infected material out of a cut.
The Stalky Little Boy started in before I even had breakfast on the table-I always know when it’s him instead of Seth because his eyes aren’t dark brown but almost black. “Where my Dweem Fwoatah?” he asked.
“We haven’t found Dream Floater yet,” I said, “but I’m sure we will.”
1want my Dweem Fwoatah! he screamed, at the top of his lungs, and Herb kind of winced. I didn’t. At least when he’s screaming he’s not throwing things. “I want my fucking DWEEM FWOATAH!”
“Don’t you swear like that in front of your Aunt Audrey,” Herb said, and I was afraid at the look the SLB threw at him then, very afraid, but Herb’s look back never wavered. He is so brave. So simply, up-front no-bullshit brave. And it was the SLB who finally looked down.
“I want my Dweem Fwoatah,” he muttered in the sulky voice I hate most of all. “I want my Dweem Fwoatah, you find it.”
I made him French toast, usually his favorite, but he wouldn’t eat. Just walked off (sorry, stalked off) to the den. Pretty soon I heard the VCR, then one of his MotoKops tapes started. He’s got four or five, each with a dozen episodes on it. I have really gotten to hate those stupid cartoon voices, especially Cassie’s. Sometimes I wish No Face would kill her and dump her decapitated body in a ditch somewhere. God help me, I wish I was joking but I’m not.
When they were cackling away in there (he always turns up the volume, which is sometimes good) I asked Herb how he was going to explain his black eye when he got to work. He put his voice up to the falsetto range amp; batted his eyes and said, “I’ll just tell the boys I ran into a door, honey.” Trying to make a joke of it. It didn’t work.