Crucifax (45 page)

"Brubaker…" J.R. warned.

Mace said, "You don't need that, Mr. Brubaker. Anyone here who wants to go can leave now. No problem!" He grinned and opened his arms a moment, looking around, then let them slap to his sides.

Silence pulsed through the building for a moment. A long, dreamlike moment. Erin watched her children, sweat seeping between her fingers as she clenched her fists.

All at once, as if they had rehearsed it, the parents on the staircase rushed down to the pool room calling their sons and daughters, some pleading, some shouting disciplinary threats.

The teenagers behind them pleaded with their friends and siblings to leave, to get away from Mace, and their voices mixed with those of the parents around them until they were all indistinguishable.

Lifting his hands above his head, Mace shouted, "Please, people! This is not a white sale at Macy's. Let them decide."

A silence thick as mud oozed through the room until only the whisper of the sewer below and the shuffling of feet on the floor could be heard….

As Jeff watched his mother he felt something change in him, felt some of the fog clear behind his eyes.

"Mom," he said softly, but in the silence, his voice seemed louder than it actually was.

Erin took another step toward him, her eyes moving from Jeff to Mallory and back again.

"Did you hear me?" Mallory whispered. "She's a
whore,
Jeff, and a liar."

Erin sobbed as she moved a bit closer, and Jeff watched a tear roll down her cheek.

"Please don't say that, Mallory," she said. "I didn't know you would be so—so hurt, or I never would have—"

"How do you know she's not lying again, Jeff?" Mallory hissed.

Around them, voices rose from the crowd, timidly calling out to parents and friends, sounding weak and confused. One of the teenagers, a boy with short, spiky blond hair, stepped forward, reaching out a trembling hand.

Others came forward, shouldering their way to waiting parents who sighed their children's names with relief, taking their hands, hugging them, leading them to the stairs with cautious whispers.

"… yes, let's go now, let's just go…."

"… go home and talk, your sister will be so happy…."

"… everything's going to be fine, now, honey, just…"

But not many decided to leave.

"Any more?" Mace called finally. "Anyone else want to go? It's up to you. You know what you're in for better than I."

His gun still raised, Brubaker said, "Okay, enough of this bullshit. None of these kids're staying here, got it?"

"You want to take them, Mr. Brubaker?"

"Damn right, and I'm starting with you, Wayne. Get your ass over there to your mother."

"Fine," Mace said. "You take them. But I… am leaving." Raising his voice to a booming shout, he said, "Anyone who wants to come with me will have to come now."

"And just where the fuck're you going?" Brubaker demanded.

Mace ignored him and began speaking in the same lulling manner he had minutes ago.

"There will be no pain," he said, "only a sudden relief, an immediate escape from the life you know now, the life you've tried so hard to leave behind…."

"No!" the reverend shouted from the staircase, hurrying down to the floor.
^u
Don't listen to him, he's
lying.
Think about what he's saying, what he's asking you to do!"

"… you'll be free of the demands made upon you, the love denied you…"

Jeff felt dizzy because suddenly too many people were speaking at once.

The reverend was shouting, pleading….

Mr. Brubaker was cursing Mace, moving the gun closer to his head, insisting that he shut up….

J.R. snapped at Jeff as he tried to move closer, Erin at his side….

An unexpected voice called from the staircase.

"Jeff!"
Lily screamed. "Don't! Remember Nikki! You think she's happy now? Get up here, get Mallory and get up here!" Even in the poor light, the white of her knuckles was visible as she clutched the rail.

Others were shouting unfamiliar names from the staircase, some pleadingly, some angrily.

Jeff turned to his mother again.

Her eyes were open to their limit, her mouth gaping in horror as she tried to push toward them unsuccessfully, helplessly slapping J.R.'s shoulder and pointing at Mallory, screaming.

Jeff felt a small, soft hand on his bare arm, and he turned to Mallory as the blanket fell away from her naked body. She put her other hand between her breasts and closed her fingers over the Crucifax, slowly lifting it—

—and he suddenly became deaf to all the other sounds and voices in the room, could only hear his lungs filling with air as he sucked in a breath to shout at her, make her stop.

Jeff reached for her wrist as she spoke, but no matter how fast he tried to move, he couldn't move fast enough. Her soft voice seemed piercing in the blanket of silence that engulfed him:

"Please come with me, Jeff."

He thought he heard the tearing of her flesh as she pulled the Crucifax across her throat, the liquidy gush of blood that spurted from the gash and cascaded over her breasts and gathered in thick black-red droplets on her erect nipples.

The Crucifax dropped from her hand and splatted onto her bloody chest as she tried to gurgle his name, her hand clawing the air. Her grip on his arm tightened a moment, then eased up as her body began to sway.

When Jeff finally screamed—it was a long, ragged scream that seemed to tear the inside of his throat—the noise around him returned with a vengeance. Jeff heard his mother's wail and J.R.'s strained curses, but could not take his eyes off Mallory. Her blood spattered his face and chest as it continued to shoot from her throat in dark, wet strings. Jeff became dizzy and grabbed her shoulders, both to keep her from falling and to hold himself up. But he was still weak from the drugs, and his hands slipped through all the blood. Mallory fell forward, and she tried once again to say his name, but only more blood poured from her mouth.

She toppled into the deep end of the pool, landing with a muffled thump on the blankets and cushions. As she kicked and writhed in her last moments of life Mallory hit the uncovered kerosene lantern with a blood-streaked arm, knocking it on its side and spilling flames over the blankets.

By the time Mallory's hair began to burn, she was dead….

Reverend Bainbridge saw Mallory Carr slash her throat seconds after he reached the floor of the pool room. An instant later, Wayne Brubaker did the same, spraying his father with his blood. Mr. Brubaker came apart; he dropped his gun, held his head in his hands as he stepped back, and began shrieking like a child as he watched his son die.

"We're leaving
now!
"
Mace shouted, lifting his arms as if about to embrace the teenagers around him. "Don't let us be separated! Go now!
Now!
"

"Noooo!" the reverend screamed, his eyes filling with tears.

Smoke began to rise from the pool as Bainbridge pushed through the crowd, desperately looking for familiar faces, hoping to stop them, but knowing, as blood showered him from every direction, that he was too late.

He screamed the names of those he knew, pleading with them to stop, but their throats were already open, and their blood mingled with his tears, dribbled onto his lips and into his mouth. He tripped over the legs of a girl twisting on the floor and fell on top of her, trying to cough away the slick, coppery taste in his mouth, retching as more blood rained down on him.

Mustering his last ounces of faith, the reverend closed his eyes and prayed, hoping against hope that if there was a God—and there had to be some presence, some power, something, even if it was not the God he'd thought he was serving for so many years—He would have some feeling, some sympathy, for the kids.

As he began to pray—

Dear God, if You 're there, if You have anv feelings for us at all—

—one voice rose above the others and cut through the reverend's thoughts—

—
please, please make this stop now before we lose any more of them
—

—a voice that first made a flame of anger flare reflexively in the back of his mind, then brought a shadow of guilt—

—
if
You would just give me the strength to help them, to help just one of them, just one
—

—Jim's voice. Jim, who had loved so much to write and whose work Bainbridge had torn up and thrown away. His voice—

—
Jim, let me help Jim, Lord, let me redeem myself, please…
.

—was growing louder, closer…

Bainbridge opened his eyes and sat up on his knees, saying Jim's name aloud as the boy's voice became even louder, and the reverend looked up into a screaming face of fire. The smell of sizzling flesh filled Bainbridge's nostrils as the flames fell on him, engulfed him, sucked the breath from his lungs.

The reverend's final thought as Jim's fiery arms embraced him was a silent plea for forgiveness, but it was not directed at God….

J.R. gripped Erin's shoulders and shook her hard as she screamed again and again, her body trembling violently as she tried to push him aside.

"Erin,
stop
it, Erin!" he shouted. "You've gotta get out of here! Do you hear me? Listen to me!"

She pummeled him with half-clenched fists, screaming "Malloreeee! Malloreeee!"

"You can't help her, Erin, you've got to go now while you still can, before the fire—"

"Juh-Juh-Jeff, my God, where's Jeff?" Erin suddenly clutched his chest, her eyes darting around the room.

The stench of blood was beginning to cling to J.R., curdling his stomach; he thought he could feel it as well as smell it, like grease in the air, and he curled his nose against it, narrowed his eyes, and tried to swallow down the rebellious contents of his stomach.

The room was becoming bright with fire, glowing a bright pumpkin-orange, the light shimmering, writhing, as if in its death throes. Over Erin's shoulder, J.R. saw a squat, overweight boy hacking at his throat with a Crucifax, blood spraying from the opening like warm, foamy beer from a shaken can. J.R. tried to keep his eyes fixed on Erin's face. He felt his mind beginning to numb, felt parts of it shutting down like overworked machinery, unable to function in the face of all the violence around him, and he tried to keep his attention off the bloody, convulsing, and burning bodies, tried to shut out the wet, sputtery screams of the dying and the mournful wails of their survivors.

Everyone was running madly around the pool; those who were not dying were confused by the blood and the fire, dashing blindly in fear, crying out for their children or friends.

"I'll find Jeff!" J.R. shouted at Erin. "I promise I'll bring him out with me if you'll go now!"

"And Mallory? You'll bring—"

"Mallory's gone, Erin, she's—"

"You'll bring Mallory?"

Reason had left her eyes, and they shone only with tears now; her face had lost decades and was now that of a child begging for promises and reassurances.

"I'll bring Mallory, I promise," he said. "Just go."

As he turned her toward the stairs a rusty-haired freckle face fell between them, and J.R. reflexively caught him in his arms only to be showered with warm, sticky blood that shot from the boy's mouth and throat.

Erin clutched handfuls of her hair as she stepped back, screaming, and J.R. lowered the dying boy to the floor as a ball of flames screeched by inches from his body. J.R. watched it as it scurried between feet, catching pant legs afire, burning shoes, spreading the flames like a disease from person to person, and J.R. realized it was one of those creatures trying to run from its pain. Through the legs that stood around him like small trees in a miniature forest, he saw others, some burning, some madly chewing on the bloody bodies that littered the floor.

J.R. stood quickly, reaching for Erin, but her back was to him now, and she was moving away from him, arms outstretched and reaching for Jeff, who stood only a few feet in front of her.

"Jeff-reeeee!" she called. "Jeff-reeeee! It's time to go home now, Jeff-reeeee! Come on, it's time to go home!"

Behind Jeff, flames roared from the pool like a giant bonfire, and smoke was beginning to blacken the air, but J.R. could still make him out, could still see his dazed, blood-splashed face, and he could see the Crucifax in Jeff's hand, poised at his throat….

"Please, Jeffrey," Erin coughed, staggering toward him, "let's go now."

J.R. grabbed her, held her to him to keep her away from the fire, and tried to get Jeff's attention as the smoke thickened. But the boy seemed oblivious to everything but the Crucifax, which kept slipping from his bloody hand.

As if from nowhere, Lily was suddenly at Jeff's side, pulling at the leather cord around his neck, sobbing and coughing at once. She lifted it over his head and threw it into the smoke.

"Jeff?" she shouted into his face. "We're getting out now. Just walk with me."

"I… I've gotta—gotta find Mal-Mallory," he babbled, shaking his head.

Lily's shoulders sagged with an invisible weight, and she bowed her head a moment, crying, then stood up straight, filled her lungs, and screamed, "She's dead, Mallory's dead. Now, goddammit, we're getting out of here!"

She began pulling on him frantically, pulling his arms, his neck, the belt loops of his jeans, until finally he began to walk with her.

J.R. put his mouth to Erin's ear and tried to sound comforting as he told her to go with Jeff.

"You'll bring Mallory?" she whimpered.

"Yes." The word felt like a rock in his stomach.

The stairs were packed with people hurrying out and littered with the bodies of those who had taken their lives on the steps. A heavy woman leaned over the rail, screaming, "Michael! Where are you?"

A man behind her wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back, shouting, "There's nothing we can do now; we
have
to
go!
"

Pressing his wet, blood-spotted coat sleeves to his mouth and nose for protection from the thickening smoke, J.R. turned away from the staircase to find Reverend Bainbridge.