Phantoms Part 30

"You know him?" Copperfield asked. "He's calling your name-isn't he, Sheriff?"

Without waiting for an answer, the general ordered two of his men-Sergeant Harker and Private Pascalli-to look in the meat locker.

"Wait!" Bryce said. "n.o.body goes back there. We're keeping these coolers between us and that locker until we know more."

"Sheriff, while I fully intend to cooperate with you as far as possible, you have no authority over my men or me."

"Bryce ... it's me ... Jake ... For G.o.d's sake, help me. I broke my d.a.m.ned leg."

"Jake?" Copperfield asked, squinting curiously at Bryce. "You mean that man in there is the same one you said was s.n.a.t.c.hed away from here last night?"

"Somebody ... help ... Jesus, it's c-cold... so c-c-cold. "

"It sounds like him," Bryce admitted.

"Well, there you are!" Copperfield said. "Nothing mysterious about it, after all. He's been right here all this time."

Bryce glared at the general. "I told you we searched everywhere last night. Even in the G.o.dd.a.m.ned meat locker. He wasn't there."

"Well, he is now," the general said.

"Hey, out there! I'm c-cold. Can't m-m-move this ... d.a.m.ned leg!"

Jenny touched Bryce's arm. "It's wrong. It's all wrong."

Copperfield said, "Sheriff, we can't just stand here and allow an injured man to suffer."

"If Jake had really been in there all night," Frank Autry said, "he would've frozen to death by now."

"Well, if it's a meat locker," Copperfield said, "then the air inside isn't freezing. It's just cold. If the man was warmly dressed he might easily have survived this long."

"But how'd he get in there in the first place?" Frank asked. "What the devil's he been doing in there?"

"And he wasn't in there last night," Tal said impatiently.

Jake Johnson called for help again.

"There's danger here," Bryce told Copperfield. "I sense it. My men sense it. Dr. Paige senses it."

"I don't," Copperfield said.

"General, you just haven't been in Snowfield long enough to understand that you've got to expect the utterly unexpected."

"Like moths the size of eagles?"

Biting back his anger, Bryce said, "You haven't been here long enough to understand that... well... nothing's quite what it seems."

Copperfield studied him skeptically. "Don't get mystical on me, Sheriff."

In the meat locker, Jake Johnson began to cry. His whimpering pleas were awful to hear. He sounded like a pain-racked, terrified old man. He didn't sound the least bit dangerous.

"We've got to help that man now," Copperfield said.

"I'm not risking my men," Bryce said. "Not yet."

Copperfield again ordered Sergeant Harker and Private Pascalli to look in the meat locker. Although it was obvious from his demeanor that he didn't think there was much danger for men armed with submachine guns, he told them to proceed with caution. The general still believed the enemy was something as small as a bacterium or a molecule of nerve gas.

The two soldiers hurried along the rows of coolers toward the gate that led into the butcher's work area.

Frank said, "If Jake could open the door, why couldn't he push it completely open and let us see him?"

"He probably used up the last of his strength just getting the door unlatched," Copperfield said. "You can hear it in his voice, for G.o.d's sake. Utter exhaustion."

Harker and Pascalli went through the gate, behind the coolers.

Bryce's hand tightened on the b.u.t.t of his holstered revolver.

Tal Whitman said, "There's too much wrong with this setup, d.a.m.n it. If it's really Jake, if he needs help, why did he wait until now to open the door?"

"The only way we'll find out is to ask him," the general said.

"No, I mean, there's an outside entrance to that locker," Tal said. "He could've opened the door earlier and shouted out into the alley. As quiet as this town is, we'd have heard him all the way over at the Hilltop."

"Maybe he's been unconscious until now," Copperfield said.

Harker and Pascalli were moving past the worktables and the electric meat saw.

Jake Johnson called out again: "Is someone ... coming? Is someone... coming now?"

Jenny began to raise another objection, but Bryce said, "Save your breath."

"Doctor," Copperfield said, "can you actually expect us to just ignore the man's cries for help?"

"Of course not," she said. "But we ought to take time to think of a safe way of having a look in there."

Shaking his head, Copperfield interrupted her: "We've got to attend to him without delay. Listen to him, Doctor. He's hurt bad."

Jake was moaning in pain again.

Harker moved toward the meat locker door.

Pascalli dropped back a couple of paces and over to one side, covering his sergeant as best he could.

Bryce felt the muscles bunching with tension in his back, across his shoulders, and in his neck.

Harker was at the door.

"No," Jenny said softly.

The locker door was hinged to swing inward. Harker reached out with the barrel of his submarine gun and shoved the door all the way open. The cold hinges rasped and squealed.

That sound sent a s.h.i.+ver through Bryce.

Jake wasn't sprawled in the doorway. He wasn't anywhere in sight.

Past the sergeant, nothing could be seen except the hanging sides of beef: dark, fat-mottled, b.l.o.o.d.y.

Harker hesitated- (Don't do it! Bryce thought.) -and then plunged through the doorway. He crossed the threshold in a crouch, looking left and swinging the gun that way, then almost instantly looking right and bringing the muzzle around.

To his right, Harker saw something. He jerked upright in surprise and fear. Stumbling hastily backwards, he collided with a side of beef. "Holy s.h.i.+t!"

Harker punctuated his cry with a short burst of fire from his submachine gun.

Bryce winced. The boom-rattle of the weapon was thunderous.

Something pushed against the far side of the meat locker door and slammed it shut.

Harker was trapped in there with it. It.

"Christ!" Bryce said.

Not wasting the time it would have taken to run to the gate, Bryce clambered up onto the waist-high cooler in front of him, stepping on packets of Kraft Swiss cheese and wax-encased gouda. He scrambled across and dropped off the other side, into the butcher's area.

Another burst of gunfire. Longer this time. Maybe even long enough to empty the gun's magazine.

Pascalli was at the locker door, struggling frantically with the handle.

Bryce rounded the worktables. "What's wrong?"

Private Pascalli looked too young to be in the army-and very scared.

"Let's get him the h.e.l.l out of there!" Bryce said.

"Can't! This f.u.c.ker won't open!"

Inside the meat locker, the gunfire stopped.

The screaming began.

Pascalli wrenched desperately at the unrelenting handle.

Although the thick, insulated door m.u.f.fled Harker's screams, they were nevertheless loud, and they swiftly grew even louder. Coming through the walkie-talkie built into Pascalli's suit, the agonized wailing must have been deafening, for the private suddenly put a hand to his helmeted head as if trying to block out the sound.

Bryce pushed the soldier aside. He gripped the long, lever-action door handle with both hands. It wouldn't budge up or down.

In the locker, the piercing screams rose and fell and rose, getting louder and shriller and more horrifying.

What in the h.e.l.l is it doing to Harker? Bryce wondered. Skinning the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d alive?

He looked toward the coolers. Tal had scrambled over the display case and was coming on the double. The general and another soldier, Private Fodor, were rus.h.i.+ng through the gate. Frank had jumped onto one of the coolers but was facing out toward the main part of the store, guarding against the possibility that the commotion at the meat locker was just a diversion. Everyone else was still standing in a group, in the aisle beyond the coolers.

Bryce shouted, "Jenny!"

"Yeah?"

"Does this store have a hardware section?"

"Odds and ends."

"I need a screwdriver."

"Can do." She was already running.

Harker screamed.

Jesus, what a terrible cry it was. Out of a nightmare. Out of a lunatic asylum. Out of h.e.l.l.

Just listening to it caused Bryce to break out in a cold sweat.

Copperfield reached the locker. "Let me at that handle."

"It's no use."

"Let me at it!"

Bryce got out of the way.

The general was a big brawny man-the biggest man here, in fact. He looked strong enough to uproot century-old oaks. Straining, cursing, he moved the door handle no farther than Bryce had done.

"The G.o.dd.a.m.ned latch must be broken or bent," Copperfield said, panting.

Harker screamed and screamed.

Bryce thought of Liebermann's Bakery. The rolling pin on the table. The hands. The severed hands. This was the way a man might scream while he watched his hands being cut off at the wrists.

Copperfield pounded on the door in rage and frustration.

Bryce glanced at Tal. This was a first: Talbert Whitman visibly frightened.

Calling to Bryce, Jenny came through the gate. She had three screwdrivers, each of them sealed in a brightly colored cardboard and plastic package.

"Didn't know which size you needed," she said.

"Okay," Bryce said, reaching for the tools, "now get out of here fast. Go back with the others."

Ignoring his command, she gave him two of the screwdrivers, but she held on to the third.

Harker's screams had become so shrill, so awful, that they no longer sounded human.