Mandibles (7 page)

*-CHAPTER TWELVE-*
Dustin looked around for something to use as a weapon, but somehow pelting the two psychopaths with Skittles didn't seem like the right approach.
Hack caught his eye and grinned. "You just stay calm and keep out of trouble. I'm not saying we _will_ start executing hostages, but it's definitely something to keep in the back of your mind."
"Are you seriously going to go through with this?" asked Dustin. "You've just murdered somebody in cold blood. The cops are going to take you out, I guarantee it."
"Is that so?" asked Hack. "Then I suppose there's no real reason to keep the three of you alive, is there?" He pressed the gun more tightly against the woman's head, making her wince. "What's your name?"
"Louise."
"Full name, please."
"Louise Youngman." Her breathing was so rapid that she sounded ready to hyperventilate.
"And your son? He is your son, right? You're not just his sugar momma?"
"Yes, he's my son."
"What's his name?"
"Gary."
"Well, Louise Youngman," Hack said, "would you mind so terribly much if I were to shoot Gary?"
Louise began to cry.
"Because your friend over there seems to think that I'm screwed, and if I really am in a no-win situation, I can't see any good reason to keep hostages around. What do you think, Louise Youngman? Am I in a no-win situation, or would live hostages improve my chances of getting out of this unpleasant little pickle?"
"Okay, you've made your point," Dustin said.
"Was I asking you? Are you always this rude?"
"All right, shut up, both of you," said Slash. The phone behind the counter began to ring, and Slash dragged Gary over to it.
"Don't let him step in the cashier's blood," Hack said. "I'm sure Louise paid good money for those shoes."
There had to be a way out of this, but Dustin was damned if he could see one at the moment. Sprinting for the door would do nothing but get him shot in the back, and he couldn't take any real action while the mother and son both had guns pressed to their heads.
The scariest part is that neither Hack nor Slash appeared particularly concerned about the presence of the cops outside. Did they have some sort of foolproof escape plan? That seemed unlikely. The lunatics weren't even wearing facemasks. From what Dustin could see, they didn't much care if they got away with the robbery or not, which probably meant that they didn't much care if anybody else got murdered or not.
It wasn't hard to imagine that the cashier was only the beginning of the body count.
Slash shoved the teenaged boy against the wall and kept the gun pressed against the back of his head, while answering the phone with his free hand. "Seth's Quik-Stop. Lowest beer prices in town. How many I help you?" He lowered the phone after a few moments. "Hey, Hack, it's the police. They seem a bit ruffled about something."
"Uh-oh. I suppose you'd better find out what displeases them so," Hack suggested.
"Yes, I suppose I should." Slash winked, and then spoke into the phone again. "Here's the deal. It's nice and simple, so don't worry about taking notes. We have three hostages, a mother, her son, and some nerd. We will kill them without hesitation, and if you consider this a bluff, you'd better put on a raincoat before chunks of brain start flying through the air. Got it?"
"I didn't give you permission to use my raincoat comment," said Hack.
Slash waved at him to be quiet, and then lowered the phone again. "I think they're going to need proof." He gestured toward Dustin with the phone. "Why don't you drag your dead friend out where they can see him?"
"No."
Slash rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't even pretend you're going to start some kind of power struggle with me. Let me rephrase the request. Drag the bloody, disgusting, gruesome, mangled corpse of the dead kid out from behind the counter, or I'll pull the trigger and then make you drag both bloody, disgusting, mangled bodies out from behind the counter."
"You forgot gruesome," Hack pointed out.
Slash glared at him, and then returned his attention to Dustin. "What do you say, nerd-boy?"
Without a word, Dustin walked behind the counter and knelt down beside the cashier's body. A large pool of blood had formed underneath him, but Dustin was able to simply grab his feet, keeping his hands clean as he dragged the surprisingly heavy body out to where the cops could see it from outside the store.
"See that?" Slash asked into the phone. "Not too pretty, is it? I'm guessing you don't want to see anything else like that, so I'd appreciate it very much if you'd do me a big favor and not mess up my request. We want a truck out front in five minutes. If it's not here in five, the nerd dies. If it's not here in ten, the brat dies. If it's not here in fifteen, his mother starts losing body parts. Got it?"
There were at least six cars and a dozen police officers out front by now, but Dustin noticed that several of them seemed distracted, as if something was going on to the left. What could be more interesting than a hostage situation?
"They've got it," Slash told the others. "Good," he said into the phone. "Five minutes. If there aren't any problems, you can have the nerd. The mother and son will stick with us for a while just to keep you on your best behavior. Talk to you later. Tell the wife and kids I said hi."
He hung up, and then pulled Gary closer to him. "Thank you for not making me shoot you, kid. Your mom should be proud."
"You think they'll try to screw us over?" asked Hack.
"It seems like a pretty strong possibility. But they'll be sorry if they do. I hate to overuse all of the references to shooting people in the head, but if they try anything funny, we'll have to shoot some people in the head."
"Amen to that," said Hack. He glanced outside and frowned. "What's going on out there?"
Making sure to keep Gary in front of him as a shield, Slash leaned over the counter and looked out. "No idea. That's pretty weird."
Three or four of the officers had left their spot outside the convenience store. Maybe there'd been a massive car accident, or a shooting, or something else that overshadowed a pair of lunatics with hostages.
"You think they're trying a sneak attack?" asked Hack.
"Nah. They're all panicked. What's their problem?"
A gunshot rang out from outside. Hack wrapped his arm more tightly around Louise's neck. "This is messed up, Slash. I don't think we're gonna get our car."
More of the officers rushed out of view, leaving only two of them stationed outside of Seth's Quik-Stop. The two cops were clearly trying to keep an eye on the situation inside the convenience store, but kept watching whatever was going on to the side.
"What do you think? Make a run for it?" asked Hack.
"Hell no! Just wait."
"It's creeping me out, man. Cops aren't supposed to act like that."
Suddenly a cop lurched into view, right in front of the door. He was covered with what looked like ants, except that they were far too big. The cop spun around in a circle, frantically trying to get the things off of him, then stumbled out of view again.
"What the shit was that?" Hack demanded.
"I don't know!" Slash shouted. "Shut up!"
Another gunshot went off.
And then Dustin noticed a few of the things crawling along the ground. They looked and moved like ants, but they were far too big. Regular ants were nowhere near as big as...
Just what kind of top-secret research had he been called here for?
"You have to let me go," he insisted. "I told you, I'm an entomologist. My specialty is ants. I need to find out what's going on out there."
"Yeah, right," said Slash. "Stay where you are."
The ant-covered cop stumbled into view again. This time he dropped to the ground, still struggling to get the ants off of him but with substantially less strength.
"It's a fake-out!" said Hack. "They're trying to make us panic and rush out of here."
"Yeah, that's what it is," said Dustin, sarcastically. "Need to take care of a tense hostage situation? Try simulating a fake onslaught of giant killer ants!"
"Shut up!"
More of the ants came into view. Many, many more.
"All right, Slash, this is getting way too bizarre for me," said Hack. "We've gotta do something besides just stand here."
"Well, what exactly do you suggest? You want to run out there and start pulling their legs off?"
"Oh, real funny. I wish I could be that -- "
A pair of gunshots rang out, and the lower half of the door to the convenience store came crashing apart in a shower of glass.

*-CHAPTER THIRTEEN-*
Gunther Clarke wasn't scared of anything. A guy who outweighed him by eighty pounds had once mugged him with a knife, and though the mugger did end up getting away with his wallet, Gunther had been proud of the way he'd remained calm and composed. He'd once fought off a rabid dog with his bare hands, never even breaking a sweat.
Only one thing truly scared him.
Dragonflies.
He couldn't quite figure it out. During a trip to Arizona, he'd picked up a tarantula and let it crawl along his arm, but dragonflies petrified him. Fortunately, he didn't see many of them, and was quite content to keep that little phobia to himself. As far as his friends and family knew, Gunther Clarke wasn't scared of anything.
However, the ants currently crawling all over his windshield were definitely a source of concern. He'd never seen ants that big. He'd once petted what the sign said was the World's Biggest Caterpillar, which probably wasn't, but he'd never seen an ant that was two inches long, let alone dozens of them.
Maybe this was God's way of telling him that parking outside his ex-wife's house in an attempt to catch her with her new boy-toy wasn't such a good idea. Or at least that he shouldn't fall asleep in the car while he was doing it. Either way, while he certainly wasn't scared of them, he figured he should at least find a car wash or something to get rid of these ants.
Margaret's garage door opened, and he forgot about the ants for a moment.
* * * *

"Isn't that your ex-husband's car?" asked Darren Metcalf, placing his hand on Margaret's bare leg.

"Oooh, your hand's cold!"
"Sorry." Darren quickly pulled it away.
"Yeah, that's his car. What a loser. Why don't you stick your tongue in my ear to make him jealous?"
"Seriously?"
"Nah, that would be mean."
"So, does he hang outside your place a lot?"
"Every once in a while, yeah."
"Don't you think you should call the police?"
Margaret shrugged. "He's harmless."
"Are you sure? It seems kind of spooky that he'd be stalking you. Maybe he was peeking through the windows or taking pictures."
"Then he caught a good performance."
"Thank you very much." Darren glanced in the rear-view mirror. "What's that on his car?"
"Dirt."
"No, it looks like bugs."
"I dunno. Is it love bug season?"
"Nope."
"Then I don't know."
"I guess it doesn't ... whoa, look out!"
* * * *

Ian Rush almost fell off his skateboard as the jerks in the car nearly ran him over, but regained his balance and skated back up onto the sidewalk. It wasn't even dark out yet. Drivers really needed to pay more attention.

There was something on the sidewalk up ahead. A dead squirrel, it looked like. Time to test his jumping skills again. His mom would freak if she knew he was doing jumps without his helmet or kneepads, but Ian figured that since he didn't smoke, drink, do drugs, cheat on tests, or knock up the girls at his school, he could at least be rebellious as far as personal safety was concerned.
Hmmmm ... there were a lot of things crawling around on the sidewalk next to the dead squirrel.
Were those ants?
Ian made the leap, but too early. The front wheels of the skateboard landed on the squirrel with a disgusting _splat_ and Ian flew forward, throwing out his arms to break his fall. He slammed into the sidewalk and slid forward a few inches, accidentally biting down hard on the side of his mouth.
He lay on the ground for a few seconds, moaning. He didn't have to look at his hands to know that they were raw and bleeding, and he could taste plenty of blood in his mouth. His birthday was coming up in a couple of months, and now was the time to start pestering his mother about a new, less crappy skateboard.
As bad as his hands hurt, the pain was nothing compared to the sting on his leg.
* * * *

At the end of the block, Ernie Rushton chuckled softly. "That dumb kid," he said. "Did you see that, Dent?"

Dent didn't respond, preferring to vigorously tug on his leash. Ernie could never figure out why the dog didn't choke itself to death.
One half of the dog's face was black, and the other half was a light tan. The two colors were divided almost equally down the front of its face, so Ernie had named it after Harvey Dent, the alter ego of Two-Face in the Batman comics. It was not the brightest dog ever to come into existence, but as long as it didn't eat its own feces in his presence, Ernie wasn't all that picky.
Dent continued to struggle against the leash. Ernie tugged the dog backward. "C'mon, let's go this way," he said. If they didn't take a different street, he'd probably end up having to help that dumb kid. As far as Ernie was concerned, kids who did tricks on skateboards deserved whatever injuries they received as a result.
Why was the kid rolling around like that? Some sort of temper tantrum? It was hard to tell from this distance, but it almost looked like things were crawling on him. Maybe he should go over there and check it out, just in case.
"Dent!" Ernie shouted as the dog's leash popped out of his hand. "Come back here!"
The dog, of course, didn't listen, and took off down the block toward the busy road.
* * * *

Adrienne Webster slammed on her brakes as the dog rushed out into the street. Her new car screeched to a halt just as the dog changed its mind and hurried back onto the sidewalk. A split second later, Adrienne jolted forward as another vehicle hit her from behind.

"Dammit!" she cursed. She was twenty-eight years old, and this was the first new car she'd ever been able to afford. Hadn't even had it for three weeks. It was insured, yeah, but now she had to deal with the frustration of filling out all that paperwork and having to fight with the insurance company and having the mechanic screw things up even more and having to bum a ride off her deadbeat boyfriend until it was fixed.
Well, maybe not. It was probably just a fender bender.
She pulled into the McDonalds parking lot and got out of her car at the same time as the other driver, a cute guy about her age. "What was that all about?" he demanded.
"A dog ran in front of me."
"So then you swerve, you don't brake. Or else run it over."
"Hey, just calm down," Adrienne told him. "It's not a big deal. Look, there isn't even any damage to your car."
"That I can see."
"Here, I'll write down my address." Adrienne dug into her purse, searching for a pencil and notepad. "I'll need yours, too."
"Nah, that's okay. I'm sure you didn't hurt my car."
"Well, you might have hurt mine."
"It looks fine."
"As far as I can see, yeah."
The guy looked at the ground. "Look, I kind of don't have insurance."
"You're not insured?"
"I _was_, but, no, not right now."
"Oh, well, that's just wonderful."
"But your car looks fine."
"Driving without insurance is illegal, you know. You'll probably lose your license."
The guy flashed her what he undoubtedly thought was a charming smile. "How about I take you out to dinner to make up for it?"
"Do you at least have medical insurance for when I punch you out?"
"That's a personal threat. I could sue you but I'm not going to. Now we're even." The smile broadened.
"You're not a tenth as cute as you think you are," Adrienne said.
"That still makes me pretty darn cute, though."
Adrienne started to disagree, but then looked over her shoulder. "Do you hear screaming?"
"What kind of screaming?"
"Shhhh."
They both listened for a moment. Then Adrienne began to scream herself.
* * * *