Otherworld (43 page)

Rubbing the stars from his straining eyes, he glanced up toward a commotion. Looking down from the higher level, meeting his gaze, was a thin figure in the shadows.

“Dr. Bering? What's going on?” he called.

Mike didn't comprehend the meaning of the silver barrels of the shotgun tilting over the second-floor railing.

Boom.

Mike dropped, screaming, and threw a hurried glance upward to see his would-be killer sprawled on the floor of the landing. One sneakered foot poked out through the railing. An old voice said, “What do we do now, Black?”

Mike crawled away, his belly rubbing the floor. Reaching the den, he took another look back. His assailant, a young kid in black, was coming down the stairs quickly. At the top of the stairs, Mike saw Graham Lattimer enter the fray, a gun of his own pointed at the kid's back.

“Black, look out!” came the old voice again.

Mike saw Graham lowering his pistol and noticed that the kid froze for a moment, stunned, clearly shocked that it could end like this. Mike bolted for the front door, jiggled the knob, couldn't get it open in the frantic rush of it all. The old man lurched for Graham's legs and knocked them out from under him. The kid watched Graham tumble down the stairs toward him, an avalanche of bent limbs and flapping clothes and a short, jutting pistol, and then backed down the remaining steps.

Mike managed to open the door, and he sprang into the cold night, slipping on the slick sidewalk and sliding into the frosty grass. The kid was chasing after him—he could hear him bang against the doorway—and then came a loud voice shouting, “Stop!” But it was not the kid's.

The sheer surprise of the order stopped them both. Mike turned around to see Jimmy whirling around back into the house.

 

The kid brought the shotgun to ready one hundred and eighty degrees around and fired.

Shock hit Graham first. He had been standing at the foot of the stairs, pistol extended. The kid was quicker on the draw. Now Graham was on the floor wondering why and how. And what was wrong? He couldn't feel anything. He squeezed the trigger of his pistol, but nothing happened. He looked down to see his right arm was no longer there.

Jimmy pointed the gun at Graham's head.

 

In the upstairs room, Dr. Sutzkever cradled Dr. Bering, who was twitching and sobbing uncontrollably. “Help me, Leo; help me,” he kept saying. He leaned forward, a series of dry heaves lurching from his throat.

“Steve, resume your reading,” Sutzkever said.

Steve could see Pops through the doorway, but the old man appeared incapacitated, so he searched out the Bible. The gunshots below unnerved him, but he had come too far to distrust Sutzkever now. Something was welling up inside of him, something fresh, something—yes!—
youthful
.

“Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered,” he read. “And let those who hate Him flee before Him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish before God—”

“But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God,” Sutzkever interrupted, reciting from memory, “yea, let them exceedingly rejoice.”

“Leo, what has happened?” Bering asked meekly.

“Breathe, Samuel, breathe. We have expelled that creature. But you must renounce him for yourself.”

“Yes, yes; I renounce him.”

“Ask God to free you and forgive you.”

“Yes, yes; free me, God. Forgive me, God.”

 

Jimmy squeezed the trigger.

Click
.

Nothing.

Need to reload
, Jimmy thought.

Jimmy? Jimmy? The one's getting away. Get him, Jimmy. He's the one we want.

He turned his back on the cop and saw his previous prey outside skittering toward his car. The fleeing man slipped at the edge of the sidewalk and slid into the narrow crevice between the car and the curb. Jimmy ran for him. The man squirmed up and out, pulled himself across the hood, and scrambled for the driver's side door.

Unlocked!

The man quickly secured himself inside as Jimmy reached the car. The kid banged on it, pounded on the glass.

 

Inside the house, Graham was pondering the pool of blood quickly forming around him. He could hear footsteps descending the staircase behind him.

Be assured.

Pops reached him and grabbed his collar. Graham promptly turned and smashed Pops's face in with his left fist. The old farmer dropped hard and muttered something that sounded to Graham like “strudel.” Graham managed to pull his handcuffs from his jacket pocket and lock an age-spotted wrist to the banister. He began to calmly look around for his missing arm and, more importantly for the moment, the pistol at the end of it. He was trying to avoid shock, but as his adrenaline rush started to fade, his head lolled. Dizziness set in. He started to hyperventilate. The nerves at his freshly shorn shoulder sent waves of intense, debilitating pain through his weakening body. Stubbornly, he tried to overcome, to will himself forward.

 

Mike deftly plunked every lock he could reach down, and as he scoured the upholstery for his keys, his attacker was searching his pocket for something. Mike jabbed his numb fingers into the cracks of the seats. He jerked the glove box open, spilling an assortment of papers onto the passenger side floorboard. He flipped the sun visor down.

Glancing back up quickly, he could see the kid had a knife now.

Mike plunged his hand beneath his seat and discovered cold metal.
The keys!
He grabbed and withdrew. He glanced out his window. The kid was there, madness oozing from his oily skin, a glittering knife in his fist. Mike looked back down into his lap. He saw the word LLAMA gleaming back at him.

Before he could think, an explosion of glass shook the car. The kid's bloody knife-wielding hand swung in, swiping wildly. Mike leaned to his right, but the tip of the blade caught his left side, ripping a thin tear from his cheekbone to his jawline. He dashed into the passenger seat, holding the pistol firmly.

The kid pawed for the inside door handle. Mike raised the pistol. He could just see his predator's menacing face descending into view, the knife leading the way, when he impulsively, defensively, pulled the trigger.

Utter surprise struck the kid in unison with the forty-five caliber bullet. His chest caved in, and he fell limp.

 

So this is how it ends
, he would have thought, had he the mental capacity to philosophize. But he didn't, so he didn't. It ended with a bang. He ended with a whimper. He was dead before he knew it.

You blew it, Jimmy. Man, you blew it.

 

Mike screamed, dropped the gun, and screamed again as the door at his back gave way and an arm scooped him up. He toppled backward onto the icy cement and into the blood-soaked lap of the cop.

“Unloaded—it … it was unloaded,” Mike sputtered.

“I need an ambulance,” Graham said matter-of-factly.

The previous shots had already inspired the neighbors' calls. In the distance, the woeful warble of sirens pierced the air.