Animosity (21 page)

I glared at my neighbors.

They glared back.

No one moved.

“I tried to warn you, Andy,” Ben said then. Softly. With a tone of sincere regret. “I told you, you should just pack up your things and leave. But you wouldn’t listen.”

“Ben,” I said, “For God’s sake… why don’t you
tell
them? Tell them they’re talking crazy. You know I could never—”

“It’s much too late for that, don’t you think?”

“You people wrecked my car,” I said. “You killed my dog. What else do you want from me?”

They did not reply. They just stood there glaring at me, the last weak rays of the day’s setting sun tinting their flesh an eerie amber color. Their shadows stretched slowly across my lawn.

“Whitmire!” I shouted at the burly cop in the middle of the mob. “What about you, man? Do something. Are you gonna let them get away with threatening me like this?”

Officer Keith said nothing. A smug grin stretched across his stubbled face. He used the end of his billy club to scratch at an itchy spot near his left nipple. Then he crossed his arms, shrugged.

I’m off the clock,
the bastard’s expression seemed to say.

“Fuck you, then. Prick.” I turned to head back inside. “I’m calling the real police.”

But I hesitated a second too long. My neighbors did not disperse as I expected.

They called my bluff.

The mob suddenly surged forward.

I fumbled with the storm door, fighting to get it open. Their footsteps made snake-like hissing noises in the grass as they surrounded my porch.

“Stop,” I said, holding one hand out toward my neighbors in a placating gesture. “Dammit, wait—”

They raised their weapons in the air.

“Eat shit, dirtbag!” barked a gruff male voice.

And that was when someone threw the beer bottle at me.

I never saw it coming. It shattered when it struck my forehead.

The world went fuzzy. Blood filled my eyes. For those next few seconds, that high-pitched crash of breaking glass rang through my skull like a sustained note of agony drowning out everything else.

“Agh, God…”

The porch tilted vertically beneath my feet. I held both hands to my leaking scalp, fell to one knee.

“Take that, Short Eyes!” Floyd Beecham’s voice came at me from somewhere beyond my veil of pain.

I stood, faltered, nearly fell again as more bottles flew my way in a brutal barrage of colored glass.

A liquor bottle bounced off my chest with a hollow
thonk
. Another exploded at my feet. An antique Coca-Cola bottle zipped past my left ear, busted against the house.

“Dance, boy, dance!” cackled Sal Friedman from within that tornado of hatred seething on my lawn.

A few seconds later, a hail of heavy gray stones joined their storm of bottles, pelting my flesh from every direction.

I felt one thud into my crotch, but I barely had time to react before another lanced across my right temple. I shielded my face with both hands, but that did not help at all. Another rock struck my shin… my stomach… my collarbone… like furious, rapid-fire stings from a swarm of giant wasps.

A fat red chunk of brick missed my head by only an inch or two. It shattered the glass of my storm door, and the crowd cheered as if whoever had thrown it had accomplished some monumental feat.

“Jesus!” I cried as another brick slammed into my stomach.

I whirled around, staggered for the door, jerked it open as more bottles, rocks, and bricks pounded against my spine and buttocks.

Finally, I dragged myself inside. Slammed the door. Locked it.

Hot blood gushed into my eyes. I wiped it away with the back of one hand, but immediately a fresh river of gore trickled down from the gash on my forehead like crimson saliva from a drooling demon’s mouth.

“Jesus…”

I knew I needed stitches. But that was not an option for me at the moment.

All over my body, a million cuts and bruises sang out for medical attention as I limped into the kitchen.

My heart sank. The pieces of my shattered cell lay in front of the refrigerator, where I had hurled the phone earlier that evening. It was destroyed.

“Fuck!” I shouted. Then my voice cracked as I recalled, “There’s still the land-line.”

Gripped with panic, I ran into the bedroom. Fell to my knees in front of the old rotary phone on the nightstand.

As I brought the receiver to my ear, a prayer fell from my lips. The dial tone was the sweetest sound I had ever heard.

But a second later, it ceased. Like the pulse of a murder victim abruptly cut short.

“No.
No!
”

My neighbors were a step ahead of me. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

They had cut the phone line.

A second later, the lights went out.

I was trapped. A prisoner in my own home.

Outside, more bottles and rocks and God-knew-what-else thundered against the house’s façade… the sound of my sanity crumbling bit by bit.

A pounding at the front door, shortly after midnight. Faces at every window.

“We see you in there, Short Eyes!” Floyd Beecham shouted. “You’re only prolonging the inevitable!”

A smattering of applause and cheers of agreement echoed through the night.

“We’re comin’ for you, pervert!” That sounded like Valerie Pearson.

Their pounding grew louder. They no longer pummeled the house with rocks and bricks; from the sound of it, my neighbors were now beating at the doors and windows with their fists and palms, in an almost tribal sort of rhythm. It started at the front door now, moved to the side of the house, then around to the back.

They were tireless. It continued for hours. Never letting up.

***

“Fuck this,” I heard a male voice exclaim shortly after two in the morning.

It was their pet cop. Keith Whitmire.

“What are you gonna do?” another man asked him.

“I’m tired of waiting. I’m going in.”

A woman squealed, “Woohoo!”

“Save some for me, Keith!”

“Sorry, Ned. Can’t make no promises.”

Drunken laughter. Cheers.

A new cacophony of thuds, thumps, crashes and booms reverberated all around me then, louder than ever. Like the sounds of war, right here on a once-quiet suburban street in middle America. It made me think of a crowd at some intense sporting event, a multitude riled-up to the point of no return, stomping their feet and making as much noise as humanly possible.

I had to protect myself. They were coming for me. I had to do something
now…

I ran into the kitchen, turned on the stove, the MagLite leading my way.

Somewhere toward the front of the house, glass shattered.

I grabbed a pan out of the cabinet, slammed it down on the stove.

“I’ll show you,” I mumbled as I worked. “I’ll fucking
show you!
”

I found a box of matches. Lit the gas stove with hands that shook like those of a man twice my age. My scalp throbbed, but it was a dull ache now. The least of my worries.

I flung open a cabinet door, found a fat bottle of vegetable oil. There wasn’t much left in the bottle, but I poured it all into the pan.

“What’s he doing in there?” I heard Mona Purfield ask from the back step. It sounded as if she were right there in the room with me.

Another crash from the front of the house. More breaking glass.

“Fuck!” I cursed, running to see what had caused it.

Like some dark creature stepping out of a nightmare into the real world, Keith Whitmire was making his way into my home through the shattered living room window. He moved slowly, so as not to cut himself on the broken glass, but he was inside. Almost.

I just stood there staring at him in disbelief for a moment. Then I snapped out of it.

Behind me, the oil on the stove cracked and popped.

I ran to the kitchen, grabbed the pan. Rushed back down the hallway with it.

“What’s going on in there?” Floyd Beecham called to Keith. “Talk to us, man!”

“I’ve got him!” Whitmire yelled back at Floyd. When he spotted me standing a few feet away, he pointed a finger at me and growled, “End of the line, Holland. Nowhere to run.” His eyes were wild, his teeth bared like those of a wild animal.

His hand went to the gun on his hip.

I took two steps forward, shined my flashlight’s beam into his face, and swung the pan of hot oil at him.

It made a grotesque sizzling sound as it splashed across his flesh.

He fell back out of the window, onto the porch, and his screams filled the night.

“What happened?” Donna Dunaway cried. “Oh, my God, what happened?”

“Burned me! Gaaa!
Son of a bitch burned me!
”

“Holland!” Donna shrieked at me through the shattered window. “You monster!”

“Jesus, it hurts!
It hurts!
”

“Bastard got the drop on Keith,” said Floyd Beecham. “Shit! I think there might be somebody else in there with him!”

I smiled evilly, and quickly backed out of the living room, into the shadows of the hallway.

“What do we do now?” I heard Gabe Pearson ask. “Keith needs medical attention.”

“Should I drive him to the emergency room?” asked Sal Friedman.

Ben Souther’s voice: “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Lorne, Freddy, you two help him over to McFarland’s place. Phil should be able to fix him up.”

“Where is the doc?”

“Last time I saw him, he was watching the street. Let’s put Ernie on that for now. Tell the doc to head home for a few hours, and take good care of our man.”

Floyd Beecham interjected: “But, Ben… McFarland’s not that kind of doctor. Don’t he work on lady parts for a livin’?”

“You got a better idea, Floyd? He’ll have to do for now.”

“Gotcha.”

“It’s not a problem, my friend. We’re merely forced to improvise. ‘
The only rigidity lies in our will, our conviction that we are on the right road and that our initiatives are most pressing
.' ”

“Okay.”

“Well, I say Holland’s gone too far,” said Joe Tuttle. “He’s taunting us now. Laughing at us! We oughta wrap this shit up for good.”

Floyd said, “I’m with Joe. We should storm the place. Bring him out in pieces, if we have to. He can’t hold off every one of us.”

“No,” said Ben. “We’re not gonna do that. For now, we wait. Who knows what else he’s got up his sleeve? We don’t want anyone else getting hurt. He has to come out eventually. And when he does, we’ll be here.”

Night turned into morning.

Nothing changed.

As the hours ticked by, my mind reeled with so many conflicting emotions—a torrent of wrath, sorrow, loss, regret, pain, terror, and everything in between. I felt smothered beneath an overwhelming sense of
restlessness,
an urgent desire to do something—
anything
—to get myself out of this. I wondered if I should just make a run for it, tried to calculate how hard it would be for my captors to hit a moving target. At least a million times over the next twelve hours, I asked myself why I had never owned a gun. How did I ever expect to wade through the sea of malevolence that engulfed my property, to fight my way to freedom armed with nothing but my own bruised and bloody fists?

So far, my neighbors had merely played a sick game of intimidation with me. They had destroyed my property, shattered my spirit. But after my attack with the hot oil they had shown no second effort to break inside. It was as if they were biding their time, toying with me. Or maybe… had I actually frightened them? They couldn’t be afraid of one man, could they? Then again, I wouldn’t have thought it possible that they would take things this far to begin with. When they were ready to end this, I knew they would win. I would fight for as long as I could, but I knew I would be helpless to stop them when they at last decided to finish their sick game. What did have? Nothing. I was out of oil. And although it saved me at the time, I feared that my attack with the oil—especially on a man like Keith Whitmire—had only served to throw gasoline on a fire that was already raging out of control. Now I had only my stupid spear. I was so tired, my brain so fried with a cocktail of panic and depression that I barely remembered making it. At some point I had apparently gotten creative, constructing the weapon out of a big butcher knife duct-taped to the end of a broken mop-handle. Now it looked silly in my hands. Like a child’s toy that would barely make a dent in someone if put to the test. But I held on to it harder than I had ever held on to anything in my life.