Cold Heart (21 page)

The snow chilled her left cheek and she focused on that rather than the stink of the two bears’ breath, steaming in her nostrils.

Then she felt the sow licking the back of her neck.

She opened her eyes in time to see the cub's long black tongue slap her cheek.

It tickled.

She fought down laughter, feeling her tortured diaphragm wanting to howl.

Salt.

They liked her sweat. Like two giant puppies licking their master's face. The tickling sensation and the absurdity of her situation were almost more than she could stand.

W
ELL SOMEBODY MUST HAVE
gone batshit crazy.” Stan's face was white as a sheet but he had come back inside and at least Marty wasn't having to listen to him heaving into the snow anymore.

Marty knelt beside Terry's body. He had lit one of the mantel lamps and placed it on the counter but from that position it threw jagged black shadows that made the ugly scene even more macabre. Terry's torso looked as though someone had decided to make sushi out of it and the floor was thick with sticky blood. Marty turned up his nose at the smell of urine and feces that he knew was the inevitable result of violent death. He had never been this close to a human victim, though.

Howard lay crumpled beside the woodstove like a wet towel. There wasn't nearly so much blood around him as there was around Terry. But the wide swath that led back to the door showed just how much blood the old man had lost. Marty stood up and tried to stop himself from shaking.

“El did this,” said Stan, swallowing the huge lump in his throat. “Man. He's fucking crazy.”

“Yeah.” Marty couldn't quite get his voice to work.

“He cut their goddamned eyes out!” Stan's own eyes were wide as saucers.

“We're going to have to kill the son of a bitch,” said
Marty. He noticed that Stan's knuckles were white on the grip of his rifle.

“Oh, yeah,” said Stan.

“Calm down, Stan,” said Marty.

“Yeah,” said Stan. “I'm calming down, now. Getting calm.”

“Breathe.” Marty took a deep breath and let it out loud enough for Stan to hear.

Stan took one deep breath. Then another. A little color seeped back into his cheeks.

“We ought to cover them up,” said Marty.

“Yeah,” said Stan. “Right.”

But there was nothing inside the cabin to cover the bodies with. They went outside and shuffled around, finding first a sheet that wasn't bloodied and then a blanket. They placed the blanket over Terry, gently draping it from her feet to her head, then put the sheet down over Howard.

Stan was clearly in a hurry to get back outside. But when Marty moved over beside him, Stan didn't budge.

“What?” said Marty, waiting patiently.

“I don't know. I just feel like we shouldn't leave them in the cold like this.”

Marty knew what he meant. He and Stan were both in shock. Their minds weren't working right. Actually, the best thing to do would probably be to let the bodies get cold.

“We should build a better fire before we leave,” said Stan.

“No,” said Marty. “We don't have time. We don't know where El is or who else is alive. And, besides, they can't feel anything.”

But Marty could tell by Stan's body language that this was going to be another sticking point.

“It isn't right we leave them here like this,” insisted Stan.

Marty considered shoving Stan out of the way and just leaving. He knew that Stan wouldn't stay long in the cabin by himself. The trouble was he agreed with Stan. It didn't feel right to just leave them like this. He knew that it was insane, stoking a fire in the stove for dead people, but reason didn't have anything to do with it. Dead people didn't appreciate the flowers at their funerals either. But you still put them on the casket.

“All right,” said Marty, leaning his rifle beside the door. “Let's get some wood.”

D
AWN HEARD THE FRONT
door open and close and felt a draft slip beneath the bed. El had gone outside.

She knew that he wasn't tricking her. For one thing, she was reasonably sure that he didn't know she was inside the store and, for another, she'd heard him still mumbling to himself when he shut the door behind him. She clasped the radio tight against her cheek and whispered into it.

“Micky, are you there?” She had the volume turned up just high enough that a mouse wouldn't have been able to hear it five feet away.

But there was no reply.

She wondered if the other radio had gone dead. Hers hadn't been on very long, but she had no idea how long the batteries were good for. Or perhaps Micky had moved somewhere out of range. Or she'd set the radio down and gone off to do something and now she couldn't hear it. Whatever the reason, Dawn had now lost contact with the only other human being in the village she'd been certain was alive—other than El.

The gray light of afternoon was barely able to cut through the thickening snow and filter down to the floorboards. Her entire world was gray. She stared at the coiled
springs in front of her face, smelling the age-old dust that felt so much cleaner in her lungs than the things she had been smelling all day.

What if something had happened to Micky?

I need to know what El's doing now.

If he's leaving, maybe I can get away.

But wasn't she better off just staying where she was?

After all, El hadn't found her and it seemed as though he wasn't going to. He probably still believed that he had wounded her and she was out in the woods somewhere, hurt or dead. Better to stay where she was and wait for help to arrive.

But when would that be?

And who?

Marty or Stan?

She didn't know the pair that well but what she did know of them didn't fill her with hope. They were like an old married couple, always bickering. They acted more like comedians than heroes. And they were probably all tucked away in their cabins, waiting out the storm beside their woodstoves, happily ignorant of what was going on.

Who then?

Micky?

She'd put all her faith in Micky and now Micky wasn't answering.

Damon?

Damon hated guns and, besides, she hadn't seen him in days.

Aaron?

The old man was more enigma than person, and he, too, lived far up the valley and didn't show himself much. And he was old. Real old.

Rich, the mail pilot?

He wouldn't be arriving for hours and El might murder him too.

She thought that she could probably make it through the night under the bed.

But what if El decided to spend the night in the store?

What if he slept in Clive and Rita's bed?

What if she lay awake all night, listening to El breathing, terrified to let herself drift off, lest she make some small
noise and awaken to see him leaning under the bed, staring at her with those cold eyes? She wondered if he slept in his sunglasses.

She pictured him like that, lying back, sound asleep, no way to tell if his eyes were open or shut. That had to be why he wore them. Not to protect himself from the sun or the glare of the snow. Not to pretend to be anyone that he wasn't.

He wore the glasses like a mask.

So that he'd always look like he was awake.

Like he was always watching you.

It was no good waiting for the mail plane. El planned to kill everyone in McRay. Dawn knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had plans for Rich. And, so far El's plans seemed to have gone off without a hitch. All except the one he'd had for her.

El was outside somewhere and she had to find out what he was doing. If he left the store, she was going to look for some other place to hide. Better to bundle up and stay in the woods than here. She didn't want to think about hiding in one of the cabins, never knowing if El was going to show up and beat the door in.

With the day growing darker by the minute, Dawn once again forced herself out of her hiding place.

M
ICKY CLOSED HER EYES
and prayed that Dawn was okay.

The cub's saliva had chilled enough that a paper-thin layer of white was stinging her skin. The layer underneath melted slowly from body heat, and trickled infuriatingly in an icy stream down her cheek. The sow had stopped licking the back of her neck and had begun snuffling at her, shoving her muzzle into Micky's ribs. Several times Micky felt the sharp pressure of a claw point through her clothes.

But there was no tearing sound, no agonizing ripping through her flesh. The sow was just testing.

Micky opened her eyes again, just a slit, and saw that the cub was sitting on his haunches, regarding her and his mother curiously. He saw Micky's eye open and for just an instant Micky feared that he was going to tell his mother. She managed to squelch a chuckle—any movement or noise on her part might be all it took to turn a funny moment into a tragedy.

The radio had been silent ever since Dawn's last harrowing message. Micky hoped that the girl was well hidden and had the sense to remain where she was and stay off the radio. But she knew what it must be costing Dawn that no one had responded. She remembered her own helplessness at Dawn's age. Wondering if anyone would ever come.

Feeling betrayed.

And alone.

Feeling hunted.

Micky remembered staring out through louvered closet doors in her parents’ store, as the man in the ski mask stalked her. The minutes like hours. Sweat dripping into her eyes. Breathing through tight lips. Everything seemed out of focus that day except his mirror glasses.

That and the odd way he held the shotgun.

For some reason the kid kept his middle finger on the trigger.

She didn't remember mentioning that to the police. In the chaos of the moment and her grief, it had probably slipped her mind.

But she could see it now as though she were viewing the scene through high-powered lenses. Focused tightly on the man's hand on the gun.

Her memory was a strange amalgam of uncontrollable images. The killer's finger. The flowers around her father's corpse. The smell of mums and chemical extender. Her parents’ screams as they died. The rhythmic slapping of tennis shoes, padding room by room behind her as she crept on her hands and knees through the darkened shop. Wiping blood from her hands onto the tight weave of the carpet. The black-and-white lines of shadow and light thrown against the closet walls by the louvered doors. Like prison bars.

The wind died down and the snow fell in giant starfish flakes, so thick that everything beyond the cub's back was a kaleidoscope of white. Early May and McRay was in the middle of a blizzard. She knew that it might go on all night, or it might stop and the snow could melt under the blast of warm winds in hours, even minutes. The storm was as strange as the day.

She had no idea what to do now.

People around McRay were always talking about bears. But now it seemed all the advice she had been given on grizzlies wouldn't fill a decent paragraph.

Don't feed them. Don't get between a sow and her cub.

Make lots of noise and they'll usually leave you alone.

If one charges, play dead.

But she couldn't remember anyone ever mentioning what to do after you played dead or how long you might have to do it.

What's the attention span of a bear?

And why the hell are they still interested in me?

It occurred to her again that it would be very bad for her to be lying on the ground outside El's house if El returned home.

It was at least a fifteen-minute walk to the store, probably more in the snow. But El had Clive's four-wheeler. He could be anywhere by now.

How long has it been since Dawn called? Five minutes maybe?

The fact that the girl wasn't using the radio intensified Micky's fear for her. If Dawn wasn't talking, it probably meant that El was too close.

Would Dawn have time to make a final call if he caught her?

Is there anything I could do to help her if she did?

Micky tried to remember everything she had ever learned about hostage situations. But that mostly amounted to calling for superiors who would bring in professional negotiators and El wasn't taking hostages anyway. There was nothing she could threaten him with or promise him.

What do I do if the call comes right now?

Reach for the radio and risk having my arm ripped off?

Why was God doing this to her?

Micky promised herself an answer for that one sometime in the future. Someone was going to tell her why. She wasn't going to accept Milquetoast explanations from some psychiatrist. She was going to demand to know what kind of God would send three killers for the same woman on three separate occasions. Three men with dead eyes and powerful guns intent on killing someone they had never met.

Well, she had met El. If you wanted to call it
meeting.
But, really, she didn't know him any better than she had known either of the other two and that brought her full circle to her obsession with the repeating gunman.

Although it was impossible, her mind kept telling her that the exact same terror was happening again. That it was the same man behind all the killings. Just as she had known
in the hospital that the gunman in the bar was the same man who had killed her parents.

Could he have gotten out of prison?

No way.

Did God have that sick a sense of humor?

Sure.

The same man.

Over and over.

Wasn't there an old saw about that?

Whom the gods would kill, first they make insane.

“I'm getting really tired of this shit,” she said.

It was only when the cub snorted and fell over backwards that she realized that she had spoken out loud. A heavy slap on the back of her neck stung her and her head rocked enough to send a shooting pain down her spine.

But what she took at first to be the sow growling in surprise was actually the snarl of Clive's four-wheeler, somewhere off in the distance.

T
HE COZY FIRE WARMED
Terry Glorianus's woodstove. Terry and Howard were tucked in beneath their shrouds. And Marty and Stan were halfway up the trail to El's cabin.