Red Rain: A Novel (32 page)

Monday will be the first hard day, Samuel knew.

We should rest up and enjoy our new home for the weekend. We should make sure that all the new minds are set. That the new followers are clear about the goal.

But no. Daniel had his other plans.

Pa had seen too much. Pa knew too much. Pa could ruin everything.

And so, it was important to keep Pa busy. Very busy.

And that’s why it was so urgent and important to kill Autumn Holliday.

T
he twins found Autumn’s house easily, on a street just off Dune Road near Hot Dog Beach. Set back on a small square of grass, it was a squat, two-story redbrick with white trim and white columns on either side of the front door.

The house was old and not very well kept up. One side had darkened, the bricks rutted and cracked. The paint was peeling from the two columns.

“Let’s be quick, boyo,” Daniel said. “We don’t want to neglect the newbies, do we?”

They climbed onto the narrow stoop, up to the screen door. Samuel pushed the doorbell and they heard it buzz inside.

Footsteps. Then Autumn pulled open the door and stared through the screen at them.

“Huh? You two? Really?” Blue eyes wide with surprise.

“Hi,” Daniel said shyly, smiling so his dimples would flash.

“Did you boys come all this way to see me? How did you find me? How did you get here?”

She pushed open the screen door before they could answer. Samuel followed Daniel into the small front room. He sniffed. The stale air smelled of coffee and cigarette smoke.

The brown leather couch on the back wall had a duct tape repair
on one arm. He saw two folding chairs, a small flat-screen TV playing a cooking show. Fashion and gossip magazines were strewn over the low coffee table. A huge landscape painting of grassy sand dunes covered the wall over the couch.

“Not very fancy,” Autumn said, as if reading his thoughts. “Not like
your
house. Oh, this stuff isn’t ours.” She gestured around the room. “My sister and I are renting the house just till we figure out what our lives are going to be about. Oh, wow. I wish Summer was here. I’d love for her to meet you guys. I’ve told her all about you. But she’s in the city this weekend.”

“Your sister’s name is Summer?” Daniel asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. Autumn and Summer. Do you believe my parents? Good thing I don’t have a brother. Spring is such a bad-news name for a guy.” She giggled.

She’s a beautiful girl. Too bad. Oh lordy, too bad.

Autumn’s white-blond hair was like a smooth helmet, parted in the middle and cascading down to her shoulders. She wore a blue midriff top that matched her eyes and revealed several inches of creamy white skin, down to the red short shorts that showed off her long, slender legs.

Samuel’s eyes stopped at the red shoes. They were velvety with red straps at the top, had tall spiked heels, at least four or five inches high, and thick platform soles.

“You’re a giant!” Samuel blurted out.

She giggled again. “Are these
awesome
? I was just trying them on when you arrived.” She pointed to the shoe box on the floor beside the coffee table. “They’re sooo expensive.”

She did some awkward strutting. The heels made tiny round imprints in the faded brown carpet. “This takes practice. It’s like being in the circus. You know. A balancing act.”

“They’re pretty,” Samuel murmured.

Daniel glared at him. They had a job to do.

“How did you boys get here?” She ruffled her hand through Daniel’s hair as she made her way to the couch, tilting one way, then the other. Finally, she dropped onto the edge of the brown cushion.

“Bus,” Daniel said, smoothing his hair back into place.

“Do your parents know you came all this way by yourselves?”

“I don’t think so.” Daniel’s reply.

Autumn fiddled with the straps on one of the shoes. “So why did you come? Just to visit? For an adventure? That’s so nice of you.”

“No. We came to kill you.”

Subtle, Daniel. Always the subtle lad.

Autumn let go of the red straps and raised her eyes to Daniel. “What did you say?”

Samuel clenched his jaw tight and started the fire in his eyes. He felt the warmth immediately. The light changed as if he were viewing the room through a filmy red filter. The warmth washed down his neck, his back, a rippling heat that swept over his whole body.

“We came to kill you,” Daniel repeated, his face blank, eyes trained on hers.

Autumn giggled. “Why would you kill
me
? Is this a game? Something for school? No. A war game?”

“You did bad things with Pa,” Daniel said, taking a step toward her. “We saw you.”

Autumn didn’t giggle this time. Her face creased as she narrowed her eyes at Daniel. She was beginning to realize he was serious.

“You—you two were watching us?” She stood up, awkwardly on the tall, spiked shoes. Grabbed the taped arm of the couch for support. “Really? You’re serious? You were spying on us?”

Samuel blinked as the red before his eyes pulsed and began to sizzle.

“We saw you,” Daniel said quietly. “You did a bad thing with Pa.”

Autumn’s mouth curled in anger. “That’s none of your business. How is that your business? You’re a kid. You don’t know anything about grown-ups. Did you really come all the way here to tell me you were spying on me?”

“Now we have to do a bad thing to Pa,” Daniel said.

“Listen, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Autumn told him, hands on the waist of her shorts. “You’re just a kid. You don’t have to worry about any of this. You got yourself all stressed out over nothing.”

She started to walk past him toward the front door. “I think you two have to leave now. And don’t tell your parents—”

She stopped midsentence when she saw Samuel’s eyes, and her mouth dropped open. Startled, she stumbled and backed into the wall.

“Samuel? What’s wrong? Your eyes—”

“We have to do a bad thing to Pa,” Daniel repeated. “It’s important. You have to burn.”

“No—wait! What’s going on? What are you
doing
?” She pressed her back against the wall and raised her hands as if preparing to fight as Samuel moved close.

He raised his eyes to her and steadied his fiery gaze on her throat.

She uttered a cry. Grabbed her throat with both hands.

“Stop it! That
hurts
! Are you fucking
weird
?”

She pressed her hands around her throat. Samuel raised his eyes to her forehead. The heat crackled like electric current.

Still gripping her throat, she ducked her head. Slid down against the wall, struggling to avoid the painful attack.

“Stop! You fucking weirdo! Damn it! Damn!” She sank to the floor, covering her face.

Samuel aimed the red beam at the top of her head.

Beside him, Daniel watched, unblinking, his smile gleeful, hands balled into fists, thumping the air as if cheering his brother on at some kind of sports event.

“Damn! Damn! You’re
hurting
me! Damn it! Stop! Fuck you!”

Samuel the Punisher, the Fire Man, Samuel the
Avenger
aimed the beam at the part in her hair. He saw a line on her scalp darken, saw the hair along the part blacken in the scorching heat. Saw the darkening skin start to peel open.

So sorry to make a big hole in such a pretty head.

Autumn, you are the prettiest one yet. So sorry it didn’t help you survive.

You were so pretty and so bad.

Rolled into a tight ball, Autumn had stopped screaming. When she made her move, it was a blur of motion to Samuel. He stared
down at her through the thick, pulsating curtain of red. He could see vague shapes and the direction of his heat beam. But he didn’t see clearly enough when Autumn suddenly untucked herself.

Grunting like an animal, she made a wild grab at her foot, slapping at it, fumbling frantically. With a hoarse cry, she tugged off one of the red shoes.

Then she rose to her feet, her hair smoking, thrusting the shoe above her head.

“Look out, boyo!”

Daniel’s warning came too late.

Samuel’s vision was a blur of red.

Eyes wild, hair burning, Autumn lunged toward Samuel. She gripped the shoe by the toe with the spiked heel pointing out.

Like a sword blade.
That was his thought as she swung it down on him. Plunged it down with all her strength, aiming for his eye.

He saw the long spike driving toward his face. And then felt Daniel push him, shove him back. He stumbled.

The heel missed his face—and she drove it deep into his chest.

Samuel saw it in slow motion. Saw it puncture his shirt. Felt it dig into the skin. Felt it. Felt it. Felt it slice into the tender spot just below his rib cage.

He dropped to his knees. The red curtain faded from his eyes. Everything went black for a moment, then his vision quickly returned.

The shoe hung tight to his chest. The spiked heel had been driven all the way in. He gripped it in one hand and watched Autumn stumble to the front door, staggering on one shoe.

Daniel made a grab for her. Missed. She hurtled through the screen door and dove screaming into the street.

The screen door slammed behind her.

Daniel started to the door, then thought better of it, and turned back to his brother, Samuel on his knees on the carpet. Daniel’s eyes were wild. His whole body trembled.

“Sammy, what are we going to do? She got away.”

“N
o, she didn’t,” Samuel told his brother. “No one escapes me. She’s as good as dead, boyo.”

He saw the panic on his brother’s face. He knew he had to be brave, put on a good front. Daniel had never encountered failure. It frightened Samuel to think how his twin might handle such disappointment.

Samuel could still hear her screams out in the street. He motioned with his head to the shoe. “Help me.”

Daniel hesitated for a moment, his face locked in horror. Then he wrapped his hands around the heel of the shoe—and pulled it out of his twin’s chest.

It slid out easily, making a
sssllliick
sound like pulling a spoon out of a jelly jar.

Daniel tossed the shoe across the floor. Then he smoothed down the front of Samuel’s T-shirt. “Afraid you’ve got a hole in your shirt, bruvver.”

Samuel jumped to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“Whistle while we work,” Daniel said. He whistled a short tune.

Daniel being Daniel.

They burst out through the screen door together. Jumped off the
stoop. Samuel saw Daniel remove something from his jeans pocket and drop it beside the steps.

The morning sun was high over the shingled roofs of the little houses that lined the street. Houses not much bigger than cottages. Each with a trimmed square lawn. An SUV parked in the driveway.

Not a fancy Hamptons neighborhood,
Samuel thought as they took off running in the direction of the shrill screams.
This is where the workers live.

Saturday morning and everyone must be sleeping in, for there was not a person in sight. Oh, yes. A man in khaki shorts watering his flower garden with a hose in the next block. A small brown dog sniffing around him.

Samuel saw Autumn pounding frantically on the front door of a small brick house down the block. No one answered. She leaped off the front stoop and, screaming all the way, fled into a sandy, pebbly alley lined by wooden fences that snaked behind the houses.

“Nice of Autumn to scream like that and let us know where she is going,” said Daniel, trotting beside his brother, eyes straight ahead.

“She’s a nice girl.” Samuel’s earnest reply.

They caught up with her behind a stack of blue and yellow boogie boards tilting against a wood picket fence. The boards formed a low tent. Autumn probably thought she would be hidden by them.

They found her huddled behind the boards, her body hunched and shaking, her breath coming in loud wheezes.

Panting like a dog. Like a cornered dog.

Samuel set his eyes to glowing. He felt anger now and new dedication to the task. No hesitation.

Did she really think she could wound the Avenger? The Heater? Punish the Punisher?

“Please . . . Oh, please . . . please . . .” She was begging now. Actually wringing her hands in front of her. She climbed to her feet. “Please?”

Samuel trained his gaze on the white skin of her tummy between the top and her low-riding shorts.

She shrieked in shock and agonizing pain as he cut a long line
across the bottom of her stomach. Reflexively, Autumn grabbed at the deep opening in her skin and spread both hands over it.

But she couldn’t keep her insides from spilling out.

The twins watched in intent silence, as if watching a medical demonstration, as her intestines came sliding out over her hands and poured like long pink sausage links to the ground.

She made a hoarse choking sound, grabbing frantically at the waterfall of shiny wet organs spilling out. Spilling out of the deep slit across her belly. A gusher of pink and yellow sausage oozing through her fingers.

She choked and gagged until her eyes rolled up and her knees folded and she slumped face forward with a loud
splaaat
into the still-throbbing puddle of her insides.

The twins gazed down at her in solemn silence.

Samuel waited for his eyes to cool. Then he stepped back, let out a sigh, and called down to her, “Oh, poor Autumn. Lassie, where are those beautiful new shoes now?”

Daniel laughed and gave him a shove. “You’re a poet.” He stared down at the young dead woman. His smile faded. “You know, bruvver, we don’t have to worry about Pa now.”

That made Samuel laugh. “I think Pa is deep in trouble,” he said softly. “Come on, bruvver. Let’s find our way back to the Harbor of Sag.”

“A poet,” Daniel murmured. “My bruvver is a poet.”

It was a beautiful morning, just starting to warm up, the air so fragrant and fresh. White butterflies danced over a flowering hedge. A soft breeze tickled his skin and cooled Samuel’s hot face.