Run (21 page)

Tal's expression showed that he didn't think much of that fact.  "Some people don’t change that much."

"But this guy didn’t change
at all
.  And when I saw him a few days ago, he was still the same.  It’s been over thirty years, Tal."

Tal’s face grew hard.  John could see the Sheriff didn’t believe him.

"It sounds nuts, I know.  But get this: when I saw him in Iraq, I saw him die.  He got blown to pieces."  John looked down at his coffee, studying it as though its murky liquid might hold answers to the insane night’s unasked questions.  One accusatory thought kept surfacing in his mind, though he did not voice it aloud: "Maybe I'm crazy."

As if in answer to his silent self-doubt, John heard the distinctive click of a gun hammer being pulled back.  He looked up and saw Tal aiming his police special at him. 

The look on his face hadn’t been disbelief, John realized in the milliseconds before acting.  It had been that same hard look that shone in Devorough’s eyes. 

Right before he tried to kill John.

Again, instinct took over.  As Tal’s finger whitened on the trigger of his gun, John hurled his coffee at the man.  The burning liquid hit Tal in the eyes, scalding them, perhaps permanently damaging them.  John hoped not, Tal was - well, not a friend, exactly, but a good acquaintance.  John taught Tal’s brother Joey some years back, and liked the whole family.  But there was no time for friendly remonstrances.  Tal was trying to kill him.

The sheriff shrieked as the brown spray hit him in the eyes and the gun went off.  John heard the frightening zing of a bullet going by - like a supernaturally speedy wasp that had been lit on fire - and the wall behind him thudded. 

John took advantage of the other man's momentary incapacity and jumped at Tal, who was still clawing at his eyes.  He took the sheriff by surprise, boxing both the officer’s ears and then punching him in the crook of his arm.  His aim was true: John hit the nerve ganglion near Tal's elbow, and the man's gun hand opened spasmodically.  John caught the gun before it even hit the ground.  In one smooth action it was up and pointed at Tal’s face.

The sheriff’s visage was frightful.  Bright red tissue surrounded his eyes where the coffee had splashed.  But worse than that was his expression, which looked as though he were fighting some horrible internal war with himself.  He kept mumbling something to himself, and John couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. 

"Tal," he said.  "It’s me.  I taught your little brother, for Heaven’s sake."

Abruptly, Tal stopped mumbling and bent over to pull up his pants leg.  An ankle holster hung there, like a dark vampire bat hanging from a tree, waiting only for the night before emerging to do bloody work.

"Tal.  Tal, don’t touch that gun."

Tal popped the latch on the holster.  John’s finger tightened on the trigger of the police special, but he couldn’t do it.  This wasn’t a war, at least not like the one he’d been in.  Nor was it a sudden attack.  He had a moment to think, and discovered that he couldn’t just shoot Tal cold-bloodedly, however necessary it might be for John’s own well-being.

Tal, on the other hand, apparently
could
shoot John.  As the ankle pistol came out, John threw himself through the door to the prison.  Luckily, it wasn’t locked, or his trip might have ended then and there in a flurry of point-blank shots.  But no one was in the cells tonight, so the door to the small empty cell-block was open and unlocked.

John landed on the hard concrete floor of the prison, a small cry escaping his lips as he landed on his tailbone, still bruised from his encounter at the Devorough place.  He covered his head with his hands as gunfire ricocheted off the door and its frame. 

Then the fusillade halted for a moment, and John looked around, taking stock of his surroundings.  Three cells, no hiding places.  One back door, but John knew that it was locked, double locked, and made of stainless steel.  There were keys, of course, on Tal’s belt.  But somehow John didn’t think the Sheriff would just relinquish them.

Click.

Click.

Click.

John heard the Sheriff reloading.  He cocked his own gun, chambering the next bullet.  "Tal, you’re my friend, but you come around this corner and I’ll kill you."

He didn’t know if he actually would or not.  He doubted it.

He looked around again.

Click.

Click.

Nothing.  He ran down the short hall to the back door, but as he expected, it was locked.

A heavy bootfall sounded behind him, and John faced the open door, gun aimed at it. 

At the same moment a tinkle sounded, the bell above the front door ringing brightly as someone entered the Sheriff’s office.

DOM#67A

LOSTON, COLORADO

AD 1999

7:25 PM MONDAY

Tal turned.  His thoughts were fuzzy. 

Can’t think.  Can’t concentrate.  Can’t think.

He knew he held a gun.  He knew he had fired it.  But he couldn’t remember why. 

Go into the prison.  Use the gun again.  Shoot something.  What?
 
Don’t know.

When the door tinkled, he turned.

"May I help you?" he said to the four people who entered.  His voice sounded strange, even to him: emotionless; dead and dry as a petrified stick.  He held the gun in front of him, regardless of what the visitors’ reaction might be.

The one in front - an older man - brought up a gun of his own.  Tal saw the man smiling as the man fired.  He felt a shell hit him in the chest and explode and heard the new arrival say, "We’d like to report shots fired."

Tal slammed into the wall next to the prison door.  He slid to the floor, leaving a wide swath of blood smeared down the wall behind him.  His eyes rolled back, and when everything went dark he wasn’t sure if it was because his eyes were closed or if he had just forgotten how to see.

Just the perfect way to end my day, he thought.  Figures.

            And he died.

***

John heard the report, heard the terrifying explosion, and heard something slam into the wall.  He hurried to the door that led to the office, knowing that the slam he’d heard was Tal, probably dead now.  One more corpse in a night already packed with death and fear.  John hoped that Tal was close enough to the door that he’d be able to grab the Sheriff’s key ring and escape out the back, for he was sure that the crazies he had encountered at Devorough's house were responsible for the gunfire he’d just heard.

Who are they? he thought.  But he had no time to find out now.  The question would have to be answered later.  If he survived.

He risked a glance into the office, darting his head through the doorway.  Tal’s body lay within inches of him, but before he could grab the keys he saw them - the four crazies.  They saw him as well, and opened fire.  John ducked back into the prison as the shots hit the wall, micro-explosions ringing loudly.  The wall buckled but didn’t disintegrate, its steel core holding up against the flurry of gunfire.

"Where is she?"  The older man’s voice ricocheted into the prison like one more bullet, pinging against John’s ears harshly before imbedding itself in his mind.

"What the hell are you people talking about?" John yelled back.  "Why are you doing this?"

He checked the gun he still held to make sure it was fully loaded.  One shot already gone, only five remaining in the cylinder.

Another round of gunfire sounded, and bullets hit the door.  One rammed its way through the frame, missing John by inches and leaving the doorway permanently open. 

John could see Tal’s foot through the doorway. 

The exit lay beyond the open door, on the other side of the hall.  He’d have to cross their line of fire to get there.  Assuming he could even get the keys without dying.

"Don’t play stupid, bit!"  It was the blonde girl’s voice.  "Where’s Fran?"

John paled.  Thoughts of Fran and his date had flown from his mind in the course of the last half-hour.  But now they rushed back, her name triggering intense fear - not for himself, this time, but for her.  How was she involved in this?

***

In the office, Todd waited impatiently for the answer.  Where’s Fran?  The question hung over them like a guillotine, sharp and potentially deadly to their cause.

No answer came, and Malachi nodded.  The four spread out a bit, heading for the door, guns ready.  Todd noticed Tal’s feet begin to twitch, and was about to signal to Malachi that they had to take care of that problem.

Before he could, though, he saw their quarry’s hand poke around the doorframe.  The hand ended in a pistol, and before any of them could move it had pumped every round into the air around them. 

One of the bullets caught Todd in the neck.  It exploded through his windpipe, and for a sharp moment he felt the strange sensation of his own blood filling his lungs, then he knew no more.

***

Click.

The gun was empty.  John had heard a thump through the gunfire, the characteristic noise of a body hitting the floor.  It was a noise John had heard before, but not one he had ever hoped to hear again.  Unfortunately, tonight was refamiliarizing him with all sorts of things he had thought were behind him.

He hoped he’d dropped the crazy bastard who’d killed Devorough.  John would equate that with personally killing the devil.

He dropped the gun and grabbed Tal’s foot, pulling the Sheriff’s body into the cell with him. 

Tal’s foot was twitching.  The reflex action gave John the willies, but he pried Tal’s ankle gun from the sheriff's dead hand.  It was a 6-shooter, small but effective at close range. 

John hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

He focused on Tal’s belt then, searching for the keyring.  He found it and yanked it off.  A belt loop on the Sheriff’s pants snapped.

"Come out, bit!"  The voice startled John.  It was the older man.  Not dead, then.  John focused on the open doorway, wondering if he should risk running across now, or if he should pump another bullet or two into the room.

"Come out or it’ll go harder on you!" screamed the voice.

"You need to go home and tell them to increase the dosage!"  John hollered in return.  It was stupid, a stupid thing to do, giving away his position in the hall, but John had to give voice, to speak, to tell the lunatic in the office that he was still alive and planned to remain so.

By way of answer, a shot zinged in through the open door.  John dropped and rolled away as the bullet’s impact showered bits of plaster into his hair.

He sat up.

And found himself inches away from Tal.

Who was sitting up as well.

Alive.

"Oh my God," said John.  He watched in shocked horror as Tal reached for his gun.  He was breathing, even though he had a hole punched straight through his chest.  John could see blood pumping out of the meaty crater, as though circulating through arteries, then veins, returning to the place where the heart should be.  There was no heart, though.  It had to be gone, splashed against the wall of the office.

Tal, his eyes staring blankly into John, seemed to realize his gun was gone.  He flung himself at John, going for him with his bare hands.

The movement snapped John into movement, and nearly snapped his sanity.  "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod," he said as he threw himself backward, crabwalking convulsively away from the dead man.  Tal’s hands snapped like lobster claws only millimeters away from John’s foot.

John threw himself across the open doorway, expecting to be taken in mid-flight by a hail of bullets.  He made it unscathed, running to the door.

He turned, and saw that Tal had made it across the doorway, too, on his feet, hands reaching out for John.  Blood - his own - dripped from his hands in cascades, a macabre vision from the most dire chapters of the Bible seeming to come to life before John’s eyes.

John screamed, holding onto sanity’s last thread with a grasp that grew ever more tenuous.  He brought up the gun and emptied it into Tal, blowing great bloody holes through the sheriff, who stepped back with each shot but
didn’t fall
.  John almost wept with fear as he saw blood pour from each new wound, yet each new wound failed to topple the man who had converted to an undead monster from beyond nightmare.

The last bullet hit Tal solidly in the temple, snapping back his head and forcing the sheriff to take a single step back.

He stood framed in the open doorway to the office.

***

Jenna fingered her weapon silently. 

What do I do now? she thought.  Todd is dead.

The words ran bitterly through her head, almost a chant of confusion and despair.  She had loved Todd for years, ever since she had met him, in fact.  He was in love with her, too, and had told her so.  They could not marry, they would never bear children.  Attempting to bring more children into the world would be a fool's game, not to mention acting against their beliefs. 

After all, if God had decreed that all must perish, then to bring a child to light would be sheerest blasphemy.

So no children.  Only work, and toil, and the cause.  And love.  She cried, looking at his body, lying still and damp on the floor of the office of this hateful place.  The weeping was silent, though, turned inward so only she could hear the wailing sounds of mourning. 

I loved you, she thought.  Go in peace, my darling.

Then Jenna raised her eyes from the body of her love and saw the man - the
thing
- in the doorway.  She screamed and opened fire.  It was the sheriff, not the one who had killed Todd, but the gunfire drowned out the pounding ache that erupted in her heart when she saw her love die.  Todd was gone, but fire remained.

She screamed, and the scream came from the base of her soul, a primal cry to expunge the pain of her loss.  Todd was gone, but the cause lived, and to serve it the things of this place must perish. 

Malachi and Deirdre also opened fire beside her, their combined gunfire deafening in this confined space.  But the noise was welcome music to Jenna, for as long as she heard the sing of the weapons, she could not perceive the cries of her heart.