Waking Lazarus (18 page)

‘‘They’ll want to know about me—’’

‘‘I’ll tell them Ultra Man saved us.’’

Jude smiled. ‘‘Ultra Man. My son likes Ultra Man. I think he wants one for Christmas.’’

‘‘Are you?’’ she asked.

‘‘Am I what?’’

‘‘Ultra Man.’’

‘‘No. I’m just a janitor.’’ He ran his hand through her hair but stopped when he heard an engine, ramped up high and approaching fast. ‘‘I think the police are here,’’ he said. He hurried to the living room and peeked out the window where he saw the headlight beams of an approaching vehicle.

He went to the door and started to open it. Odd that the police didn’t have their sirens or emergency lights going, but maybe they wanted to . . .

Jude’s insides seized up when he realized the approaching vehicle wasn’t a police cruiser. He slammed the door shut, vaulted back to the window, and peered out.

It was a blue pickup with a dented front-end.

Sohler’s pickup.

25

CHOPPING

Fresh terror juiced through Jude’s veins as he sprinted back to the room with the kids.

He had to free the girl. Jude had already looked around the house and hadn’t been able to find a hammer or anything else that would make a good weapon. He’d have to use his fists, probably, give Sohler a big haymaker when he walked into the house. If he stood behind the door and surprised . . .

No. He couldn’t chance that. What if he missed, or screwed it up somehow? What would happen to the kids? He had to stay with the kids, protect them.

Jude closed the bedroom door, trying to appear calm and collected. He didn’t want to panic them. His lungs felt as if they were filled with spun fiberglass; each breath, more and more difficult to take, made his whole chest itch and tingle.

He turned the lock on the door, then backed away and cleared his throat. ‘‘Let’s just stay in here until the police come,’’ he said, hoping his voice sounded calm. Of course Sohler would be knocking at that door soon, but he wasn’t sure what else to say to the kids yet.

He heard a squeak, the flap of the screen door, then footsteps on the hardwood floor. Four or five steps later, he lost the sound. But, was that another door squeaking open? The basement door? And of course, Sohler would have seen the broken glass of the front door instantly.

A bellow rang through the house and leaked in beneath the locked bedroom door: ‘‘Where is he?’’ The voice sounded pinched, guttural, panicked. Insane. The boy made a quiet moan, and Jude could barely keep himself from echoing it.

More footsteps, pounding across the living room floor and coming closer. Jude saw the shadow of shoes breaking the light under the door.

‘‘Tiffany?’’ the voice outside yelled. ‘‘Where is he?’’ The doorknob jiggled wildly but held. ‘‘Open this door right now.’’ The door shook as he pounded, then shuddered when he put his shoulder into it. ‘‘You don’t want to make me come in there. You know that.’’

Tiffany, her name was Tiffany. Jude turned his head to look at the young girl and saw tears starting to stream down her face. She stared back at him, her eyes asking what she should say. Jude softly shook his head and put a finger to his lips. No need to try and talk with the man; what would it accomplish?

‘‘Okay,’’ Ken’s voice outside the door said. ‘‘I just want you to remember one thing, Tiffany. When I get in there, I’m gonna have a special surprise for you. A real. Special. Surprise.’’

Tiffany started to sob. Jude put an arm around her, pulling the boy close with his other arm. And at that moment, as he sat with his arms around two helpless children, something inside him clicked.

He had no idea what else was about to happen, but he knew one thing with cold, bitter certainty: Ken Sohler would not touch either of these kids while he was alive. If Sohler managed to get the door open, he’d be in for a ‘‘real special surprise’’ himself.

Boots slid on the wooden floor of the hallway, receding down the hall. A few seconds later the screen door on the front of the house slammed. Sohler had gone outside. Probably to get something, and all the somethings Jude could think of went from bad to worse very quickly.

He scanned the room, his gaze stopping on a sliding window above the bed. If he could just get Tiffany unchained from the bed, he might be able to boost the kids through the window. As he again studied the chain wrapped around the bedpost, it came to him:
take
the bedpost
. It was a metal bed frame, but the wooden posts themselves didn’t seem too sturdy.

Jude pulled the bed away from the wall. He tested the post, pushing a bit, and it wiggled.

The screen door slammed once again. Footsteps, hurried. The bedroom door shuddered, and a few splinters fell to the floor. Outside, Ken’s voice, more shrill, filtered through. ‘‘Oh, little pig, little pig.’’

Another blow, and more splinters. The chipped edge of an ax blade jutted through a small crack. Tiffany screamed, while the boy fixed his gaze on the door.

Jude stepped back, then kicked at the bedpost. It loosened. He kicked again, bending it out. Another kick snapped it away from the frame.

The ax bit once more, and now a large chunk of the door toppled to the floor. Jude jumped onto the mattress and looked outside. Bare ground below the window, covered by a thin layer of larch needles. Good. He motioned for the kids to join him as he tried to slide open the window, but it was stuck. Painted shut, most likely.

He hesitated a moment, then put the wooden bedpost through the glass. Carefully he punched out all the jagged edges with the post before he boosted the kids up and out: first the boy, and then Tiffany.

The ax hit again, and more wood broke loose. Jude had been scared the sound of shattering glass would bring Sohler around the back of the house, but it seemed Sohler was making too much noise to hear. Or maybe Sohler just didn’t care.

Jude snaked both of his legs out the window and sat on the sill, then turned around to look behind him. An arm squeezed through the hole in the door, searching for the doorknob. They wouldn’t have much of a lead. Thirty seconds, maybe. Fifteen seconds, more likely. Jude pushed himself out the window, then rushed the kids several yards away. Tiffany was dragging the loose bedpost now, still attached to her chain, and that gave him an idea. He stopped her and slid the chain off the end of the detached post. He pointed the kids toward a nearby stand of aspens, and they started running again.

The kids weren’t going to outrun a maniac with an ax. That left him only one choice. Jude hefted the bedpost from hand to hand and took a deep breath. Then he turned back toward the house.

Warm, buttery light spilled from the broken window and illuminated a small patch of the dark lawn. Sohler’s head appeared in the window frame, popping up like some twisted jack-in-the-box. He pulled himself up into the window, and Jude immediately saw he had missed his best chance: if he had been back by the window, waiting, he could have hit Sohler with the bedpost as the man struggled out of the opening.

But now it was too late. Sohler, heavy ax glinting at his side, was coming toward him.

Jude wanted to run, but he stopped his feet. (
The kids, keep him
away from the kids
.) And then Sohler was in front of him, swinging his ax in a wide arc like a baseball bat.

Jude hit the ground, feeling the air whoosh by as the weight of the heavy axhead forced Sohler to finish his swing. Sohler’s rage was boiling over, his face constricting into a deathly grimace.

Jude rolled to his right and came to his feet again. Sohler had regrouped and was raising the ax above his head. No more home run swings to throw him off-balance.

The ax started to swing forward, and Jude knew the momentum would commit Sohler to another full arc. He stepped to the left this time. Sohler buried the axhead in the ground, and its thick oversized head stuck there. Sohler dropped his shoulders, trying to work the ax free, wanting to prepare another swing.

But it wasn’t a swing Jude would let him take. Jude raised the broken, splintered bedpost and swung it as hard as he could. Still trying to free his ax, Sohler took the blow across the crown of his head. The wood cracked with a hollow, sickening peal; a stray splinter sliced down Sohler’s forehead and right cheek, creating a red gouge on his face.

Sohler stood and looked at Jude, blood streaming down his forehead and into his eyes.
This wasn’t supposed to happen,
the eyes seemed to say as he took a stumbling step forward. He let the ax slide from his fingers and brought up his arms in a lunge, reaching for Jude’s neck.

But Jude was ready. He shuffled back, planted his right foot, then swung his right fist toward Sohler’s temple in a vicious hook. The punch connected, and Sohler went down.

Jude stood panting for a few seconds. He wiped the sleeve of his shirt across his forehead, watching for any movement from the unconscious form at his feet.

There wasn’t any.

Something caught Jude’s eye. Two beams of light, streaking across the aspen grove where the kids were hiding. Headlights.

Jude turned and sprinted for the trees. In a few moments he found the kids hiding behind a fallen log. Crouching beside them in the brush, he turned to look at the home. He saw the back of the house where they had escaped, but he couldn’t see the front from this angle. Did he imagine the headlights? Was his mind playing another trick on him, making him think the police were here?

A commotion erupted from inside the home: a slamming door, the sounds of muted voices. A silhouette appeared in the light of the broken window, then a flashlight clicked on and found the dazed body of Ken Sohler in the grass, now regaining consciousness.

Jude tapped both of the kids, and they worked their way around the side of the house, staying safely hidden in the aspens. Soon after they moved, Jude saw the flashlight’s beam combing the trees, searching the area where they’d just been.

As they paralleled the house, the front of the home came into view. A police cruiser was parked behind Ken’s blue pickup. Its lights weren’t flashing, but Jude saw the cherries on top of it. Next to the car stood an officer, his face partially obscured by the two-way radio he was speaking into.

Jude looked down to the two kids. ‘‘See that policeman?’’ he whispered to Tiffany. She nodded. ‘‘I want you two to walk over to him right now. He’ll take care of you.’’

Tiffany nodded, then abruptly put her arms around him and hugged. She grabbed the hand of the boy and stepped out into the yard, dragging the chain behind her. Jude moved farther back into the brush and trees but didn’t move out of sight until he saw the kids talking to the officer. The officer opened the back door of his car and was starting to put in the kids when Jude finally turned and ran.

In a few minutes he was back at his car. He slid into the front seat and turned the key, then slowly drove out of the driveway and turned back toward Red Lodge.

While passing the driveway to Sohler’s house, he again saw the parked police cruiser. This time its lights were flashing, alternately painting the trees blue and red.

26

VISITING

Chief Odum glided down the hall of the local Carbon County Hospital, running his hand across the textured wallpaper. Odum was a tactile person: he liked to touch, to feel, to get a physical sense of everything around him.

It was dark outside, and visiting hours were long over, but not for him. He turned a corner at the end of the hall and walked into the room registered to Ken Sohler. Docs wanted to keep the guy overnight; the next morning they’d release him into Odum’s custody.

But Odum wasn’t in the mood to wait until morning.

‘‘Good evening, Mr. Sohler,’’ he said as he sat down next to Sohler’s bed. Sohler looked as if he’d been through a meat grinder. His bandaged head was obviously swelling—somebody coldcocked him good—and a deep gash was puffing his right eye closed. ‘‘Guess things weren’t all that tidy around your house, were they?’’

Sohler looked at the floor, didn’t answer.

‘‘What say you and I have a little chat about that?’’

Sohler didn’t move.

‘‘Tell me about Janet,’’ he said.

Sohler’s eyes lit up. ‘‘She’s . . . beautiful,’’ Sohler croaked. ‘‘I—’’ Sohler caught himself and stopped talking.

‘‘How long’s she been gone?’’

Sohler shrugged.

‘‘Three years, I think you said,’’ Odum prompted.

‘‘Maybe.’’

‘‘What happened when you went home?’’ Odum motioned to Sohler’s head. ‘‘Somebody cheap-shot you? You know him?’’

‘‘Never seen him before.’’

Odum leaned back in his chair. ‘‘What about Tiffany and—what’s the little boy’s name?—Joey.’’

Sohler looked away, then shrugged again.

Odum felt a rage welling inside him but only let it creep through as a mean grin. ‘‘Well, now, I guess we’ll find that out soon enough, won’t we? But if I remember correctly, you said you were the only one in that house, and that doesn’t seem to be the case.’’ He stopped, watched Sohler squirm a bit in his hospital bed. ‘‘So you don’t exactly have a good track record with me.’’

Odum stood up. ‘‘Get a good night’s sleep, Mr. Sohler. And think good and long about any other secrets you have hidden. Because by tomorrow morning, I’m gonna know all of them.’’

Odum turned and walked from the room. He stopped outside the door to chat with Jeff Barber, the officer who would be guarding the room overnight. Odum had kept the whole thing quiet so far; no press had caught wind of this night’s developments. But he was only a few hours into this ordeal, and he knew soon—probably as early as the morning—he’d have all kinds of reporters and photographers infesting his town like termites.

By then, of course, Sohler would be in his custody, and Odum could control access. Until the doctors released the man, he felt a bit twitchy about leaving Sohler here. Too many variables. No way he could keep the termites out for long. So, here was Officer Barber, a bit too big for his uniform, sitting in an ancient orange chair and guarding the entrance to the room. Not the ideal situation, to be sure, but it would have to work. He patted Barber on the shoulder, then turned and went down the hall.