Endless Night Part 11

So she had decided to charge straight up the hillside.

Maybe not charge. Sneak.

Sneak so Andy doesn't wake up; sneak so the b.a.s.t.a.r.d waiting at the top, hunkered down with his back against the wall, won't hear me coming.

If he's even there.

Maybe n.o.body had stayed behind at all. Maybe they'd all raced off in their cars after setting Andy's house on fire.

If one of them had stayed, he might be anywhere.

The climb wasn't easy. Several times, Jody's feet slipped out from under her and she landed on her knees. In places, the hillside was so steep that she had to crawl. Here and there, she was forced to grab weeds or bushes or tree roots to keep herself from skidding backward.

After an uphill struggle that seemed endless, she made her way past a tree, got above it, and leaned back against its trunk. The way the tree slanted out from the slope, it took much of the weight off her feet.

She gasped for breath. Her heart thumped madly. Her skin felt very hot, and she seemed to be sweating everywhere. She wiped her eyes with a moist, slick arm. She blinked.

Almost there.

And then she saw thick piles of smoke clotting the night beyond the top of the wall. The smoke s.h.i.+mmered with a red glow.

It's the Youngman house, she realized. That's the one they set on fire. Not Andy's place, after all.

Unless maybe both.

Probably both.

No wonder all the sirens.

The ruddy light did nothing at all to illuminate Jody's side of the wall. The top of the wall was a straight edge, the night glowing above it, nothing but blackness below.

n.o.body's there, she told herself.

Yeah, right.

He could be standing with his back to the wall, straight above her, staring down at her right now.

But the wall, Jody guessed, was probably at least a hundred feet long. He could be waiting anywhere along it. (Or be long gone.) If he hadn't spotted her yet, and if he was a fair distance away to one side or the other, and if she was very quiet and very quick ...

She bent her knees. She started to scoot down the trunk, but its bark scratched her back and snagged I er nights.h.i.+rt, so she had to push away from it. Squatting, she scanned the slope and wall.

Probably no one's even there, she told herself.

She leaned forward. On hands and feet, she crept higher.

Really ironic if I get myself killed at this stage of things. Made it through so much, only to get nailed when I'm almost to the cops.

She had learned about irony in her English cla.s.s last year. Her English teacher, Mr. Platt, had explained that it was the flipside of poetic justice.

She believed in G.o.d.

She wasn't too sure about His merciful side, but one thing was very clear: G.o.d delighted in irony.

It would probably tickle him, she thought, to see me catch an ax just when I get to the wall, just when I think I'm home free.

Please, don't. Okay? It'd kill my dad. You already got Mom in one of your irony binges, so just try to control yourself this time, okay? Please? Amen.

The prayer had no sooner taken flight from Jody's mind than she thought, Oh, great way to talk to G.o.d. Now I've probably p.i.s.sed Him off and He'll kill me for sure.

She stopped.

Poised on her knuckles and the b.a.l.l.s of her feet, she stared straight ahead at the black wall. It was probably no more than two yards away, though she couldn't be sure. Too dark to be sure of anything.

She glanced both ways, but saw nothing.

Might as well get it over with.

The way her muscles were jumping and jiggling, she wondered if she would have enough strength to make it over the wall.

I'll make it, she told herself.

On the count of three.

One.

Two.

Three!

She sprangp and forward like a sprinter leaving the blocks, churned up the final piece of hillside, hurled herself toward the wall and leaped.

Even as her hands clamped the top, she heard quick footfalls rus.h.i.+ng at her from the left.

Part Two.

Simon Says.

Chapter Eight.

He blamed me. Mitch.e.l.l, that is. It was just after the girl and the kid got away from us. I'd gotten a hold of the girl's leg when she was trying to go over the wall, but she broke loose. That's when my troubles really got started last night, so that's where I might as well start this off.

It was my fault. I should've had her. What messed things up was that I had a hand way up high on her leg, and she wasn't wearing any panties. All she had on was this red nightie that was like a really big T-s.h.i.+rt. I got distracted, so then it took me by surprise when her leg suddenly kicked back. I lost hold of her ankle, and my other hand got mashed between her leg and the wall. So I lost her.

It beat up my hand pretty good, by the way. Raked skin off the backs of my fingers and knuckles. I even bled, but not much.

Anyway, I lost her. I should've had her twice last night, when it comes right down to it. The first time was in the front yard of the old bag's house-the house she and the kid finally got into. She'd tried to make a turn, but didn't slow down enough and ended up taking a slide across the gra.s.s instead. Which gave me the chance to catch her. I did, too. She tried to get up and get away from me, but I yanked her down by her hair.

I had her flat on her back. Her nightie'd gotten shoved up, so it was rumpled around her chest. I couldn't see her t.i.ts, but the rest of her was all laid out in front of me. That's when I first saw she didn't have any panties on. She was real slim, but not skin and bones. Her skin looked smooth and nice. She didn't look like she had any m.u.f.f at all, not till I was on my knees by her head, and then I could see how she had some hair, but it was so fine and wispy that you could look right through it.

I held her down on the ground by her head hair. What I wanted to do more than anything was ... a lot of stuff. For one, I wanted to give her a feel. I wanted to run my hands all over her. I wanted to get that nightie off her, too. And believe it or not, I wanted to take a good look at her face. I'd only caught a glimpse of it, and the light hadn't been any good, but what I'd seen gave me the idea that she had a real knockout of a face.

Anyway, those are things I wanted to do. I knew better, though. She wasn't here for me to play with, she was here for me to kill. And the quicker, the better. No time to enjoy her, just get it done. So I didn't touch her except to hold her down on the ground by the hair while I went for my knife.

Before 1 could pull my knife, she clobbered me with her f.u.c.king baseball bat. It wasn't hard enough to knock me out, but hard enough to hurt like h.e.l.l. I couldn't help but let go of her.

That's how she got away the first time.

The second time was when she was on the wall and I had her by the leg.

It was my fault that she got away both times.

When I lost her at the wall, Mitch.e.l.l said, "d.a.m.n it!"

"Don't worry about it," I told him. I jumped and boosted myself up. From up there, I saw what was on the other side-namely, a very steep slope-and that's when I knew we were in for real trouble. I jumped back down and shook my head at Mitch.e.l.l.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"It's a big drop-off back there. They're probably still falling."

"A cliff?"

"More like a hillside."

"The fall gonna kill 'em?"

"I doubt it."

"s.h.i.+t."

"We can't go down there, Mitch."

"Can't let 'em get away."

"I know, I know," I said.

That's when he told me to stay behind. He and the rest of the guys, he said, would take care of the exit routine: loading up the bodies and torching the houses and hitting the road. I should stay here to kill the girl and the kid.

For about half a second, the idea excited me. Without the others in my way, I'd be able to do everything I wanted with the girl.

Then the other half of the second hit and gave me an idea I didn't like at all; if they left me behind, the cops would get me. Almost for sure.

There I'd be, cops crawling all over the place, me on foot and miles from home, with nothing on except my shoes and my Connie kilt.

That'd sure be a sweet fix to be in.

It'd be especially sweet because of the fact that we aren't allowed to let the cops take us alive. If we get caught, we might talk. That's the problem. So we can't let ourselves get caught. We've either got to commit suicide or go down fighting.

The penalty for getting taken alive ... never mind, I'm getting sidetracked. The thing is, Mitch wanted me to stay and take care of the witnesses.

"You wanta leave without me?" I said.

He goes, "Somebody's gotta stay."

"Then let's all stay. Go on back and get the others, tell 'em what happened. If we all search, we might stand a chance of finding those two before ..."

"All right," Mitch said.

He'd said it awfully fast, as a matter of fact. But I was too relieved, just then, to let it worry me.

"You stay here," he said, "and start looking."

He turned away and started walking.

"Can you hurry?"

He twisted sideways and raised his arm and shook his old Rebel saber at me. "You better find her, man. You better find 'em both, or you're ..."

"Just get the others over here, okay?"

"Tom's gonna have your a.s.s."

"Oh, f.u.c.k off. I'm the only one who even got close enough to grab her. You and Chuck were useless."

Just when I said that, Chuck came out a back door of the house. He had his ax propped up against one shoulder and the old lady's body hanging over the other. He was b.l.o.o.d.y all over.

Mitch saw him and picked up his speed a little.

When they met, they said some things I couldn't hear. Then they turned around and went into the house.

I perched myself on the wall. Sitting up there with a leg hanging over each side, I'd be able to watch for the others to come, and I could also look down the hillside.

Nothing showed down there, just bushes and weeds and a lot of trees. The moon made some things look dirty white. A lot of places, shadowy places, were just plain black. At the bottom, the ground leveled out for a while. Then came a row of houses with big, fenced back yards. Plenty of the back yards had pools. Most of the houses were dark, but a few had spotlights. The pool of one house was all lighted up, but I couldn't see anyone swimming in it. Fact is, I couldn't see anyone anywhere.

Out past the fronts of the houses, there were some cars parked in driveways and also on the street. I could see a long stretch of the street between the ending places where it curved around the hill and vanished. Not a single car was moving on it. Not a person was walking on it. I did see a cat scurry across and hide under a parked car. Nothing else, though.

I sure couldn't see any trace of the girl or the kid. Couldn't hear them moving around down there, either.

Maybe if I kept still, though, they might do something to give themselves away. That's what I hoped for. Because if they didn't, our chances of finding them were slim to zilch.

The girl'd put in a call to 911, but she hadn't gotten through. She'd tried to fake us out, but Mitch checked the phone in the bedroom and it was still ringing at the cop end of things. So we're okay on that score.