While She Was Out (3 page)

“Who's going to hear?” said Vinh. “Nobody can hear out here. Just us, and her.”

“That's the point. She can.”

“So what?” said Tomas. “We got the gun, we got the light. She's got nothin' but that stupid box.”

“We
had
Huey,” said Chuckie. “Now we don't. Shut off the blaster, dammit.”

“Okay.” Vinh's voice sounded sullen. There was a loud click and the rap echo died.

Della huddled against the rough bark of a pine trunk, hugging the box and herself. The boy's dead, she thought. So? Said her common sense. He would have killed you, maybe raped you, tortured you before pulling the trigger. The rest are going to have to die too.

No.

Yes, said her practical side. You have no choice. They started this. I put the note under the wiper blade.

Get serious. That was harmless. These three are going to kill you. They will hurt you first, then they'll put the gun inside your mouth and-

Della wanted to cry, to scream. She knew she could not. It was absolutely necessary that she not break now.

Terri, she thought, Tammi. I love you. After a while, she remembered Kenneth. Even you, I love you too. Not much, but some.

“Let's look up above,” came the voice from the gully. Chuckie. Della heard the wet scrabbling sounds as the trio scratched and pulled their way up from the stream-bed. As it caught the falling snow, the flashlight looked like the beam from a searchlight at a movie premiere.

Della edged back behind the pine and slowly moved to where the trees were closer together. Boughs laced together, screening her.

“Now what?” said Tomas.

“We split up. “ Chuckie gestured; the flashlight beam swung wide. “You go through the middle. Vinh and me'll take the sides.”

“Then why don't you give me the light?” said Tomas.

“I stole the sucker. It's mine.”

“Shit, I could just walk past her.”

Chuckie laughed. “Get real, dude. You'll smell her, hear her, somethin'. Trust me.”

Tomas said something Della couldn't make out, but the tone was unconvinced.

“Now
do
it,” said Chuckie. The light moved off to Della's left. She heard the squelching of wet shoes moving toward her. Evidently Tomas had done some wading in the gully. Either that or the slush was taking its toll.

Tomas couldn't have done better with radar. He came straight for her.

Della guessed the boy was ten feet away form her, five feet, just the other side of the pine. The lug wrench was the spider type, in the shape of a cross. She clutched the black steel of the longest arm and brought her hand back. When she detected movement around the edge of the trunk, she swung with hysterical strength, aiming at his head.

Tomas staggered back. The sharp arm of the lug wrench had caught him under the nose, driving the cartilage back up into his face. About a third of the steel was hidden in flesh. “Unh!” He tried to cry out, but all he could utter was, “Unh, unh!”

“Tomas?” Chuckie was yelling. “What the hell are you doing?”

The flashlight flickered across the grove. Della caught a momentary glimpse of Tomas lurching backward with the lug wrench impaled in his face as though he were wearing some hideous Halloween accessory.

“Unh!” said Tomas once more. He backed into a free, then slid down the trunk until he was seated in the snow. The flashlight beam jerked across that part of the grove again and Della saw Tomas' eyes stare wide open, dark and blank. Blood was running off the ends of the perpendicular lug wrench arms.

“I see her!” someone yelled. “I think she got Tomas. She's a devil!” Vinh.

“So chill her!”

Della heard branches and brush crashing off to her side. She jerked open the plastic toolbox, but her fingers were frozen and the container crashed to the ground. She tried to catch the contents as they cascaded into the slush and the darkness. Her fingers closed on something, one thing.

The handle felt good. It was the wooden-hafted screwdriver, the sharp one with the slot head. Her auto mechanics teacher had approved. Insulated handle, he'd said. Good forged steel shaft. You could use this hummer to pry a tire off its rim.

She didn't even have time to lift it as Vinh crashed into her. His arms and legs wound around her like eels.

“Got her!” he screamed. “Chuckie, come here and shoot her.” They rolled in the viscid, muddy slush. Della worked an arm free. Her good arm. The one with the screwdriver.

There was no question of asking him nicely to let go, of giving warning, of simply aiming to disable. Her self-defense teacher had drilled into all the students the basic dictum of do what you can, do what you have to do. No rules, no apologies.

With all her strength, Della drove the screwdriver up into the base of his skull. She thrust and twisted the tool until she felt her knuckles dig into his stiff hair. Vinh screamed, a high keening wail that cracked and shattered as blood spurted out of his nose and mouth, splattering against Della's neck. The Vietnamese boy's arms and legs tensed and then let go as his body vibrated spastically in some sort of fit.

Della pushed him away from her and staggered to her feet. Her nose was full of the odor she remembered from the twins' diaper pail.

She knew she should retrieve the screwdriver, grasp the handle tightly and twist it loose from Vinh's head. She couldn't. All she could do at this point was simply turn and run. Run again. And hope the survivor of the four boys didn't catch her.

But Chuckie had the light, and Chuckie had the gun. She had a feeling Chuckie was in no mood to give up. Chuckie would find her. He would make her pay for the loss of his friends.

But if she had to pay, Della thought, the price would be dear.

Prices, she soon discovered, were subject to change without warning.

With only one remaining pursuer, Della thought she ought to be able to get away. Maybe not easily, but now there was no crossfire of spying eyes, no ganging-up of assailants. There was just one boy left, even if he
was
a psychopath carrying a loaded pistol.

Della was shaking. It was fatigue, she realized. The endless epinephrine rush of flight and fight. Probably, too, the let down from just having killed two other human beings. She didn't want to have to think about the momentary sight of blood flowing off the shining ends of the lug wrench, the sensation of how it felt when the slot-headed screwdriver drove up into Vinh's brain. But she couldn't order herself to forget these things. It was akin to someone telling her not, under any circumstances, to think about milking a purple cow.

Della tried. No, she thought. Don't think about it at all. She thought about dismembering the purple cow with a chainsaw. Then she heard Chuckie ‘s voice. The boy was still distant, obviously casting around virtually at random in the pine groves. Della stiffened.

“They're cute, Della-honey. I'll give ‘em that.” He giggled. “Terri and Tammi. God, didn't you and your husband have any more imagination than that?”

No, Della thought. We each had too much imagination. Tammi and Terri were simply the names we finally could agree on. The names of compromise.

“You know something?” Chuckie raised his voice. “Now that I know where they live, I could drive over there in awhile and say howdy. They wouldn't know a thing about what was going on, about what happened to their mom while she was out at the mall.”

Oh God! thought Della.

“You want me to pass on any messages?”

“You little bastard!” She cried it out without thinking.

“Touchy, huh?” Chuckie slopped across the wet snow in her direction. “Come on out of the trees, Della-honey.”

Della said nothing. She crouched behind a deadfall of brush and dead limbs. She was perfectly still.

Chuckie stood equally still, not more than twenty feet away. He stared directly at her hiding place, as though he could see through the night and brush. “Listen,” he said. “This is getting real, you know,
boring.”
He waited. “We could be out here all night, you know? All my buddies are gone now, and it's thanks to you, lady. Who the hell you think you are, Clint Eastwood?”

Della assumed that was a rhetorical question.

Chuckie hawked deep in his throat and spat on the ground. He rubbed the base of this throat gingerly with a free hand. “You hurt me, Della-honey. I think you busted my collarbone.” He giggled. “But I don't hold grudges. In fact-” He paused contemplatively. “Listen now, I've got an idea. You know about droogs? You know, like in that movie?”

Clockwork Orange,
she thought. Della didn't respond.

“Ending was stupid, but the start was pretty cool.” Chuckie's personality seemed to have mutated into a manic stage. “Well, me droogs is all gone. I need a new gang, and you're real good, Della- honey. I want you should join me.”

“Give me a break,” said Della in the darkness.

“No, really,” Chuckie said. “You're a born killer. I can tell. You and me, we'd be perfect. We'll blow this popsicle stand and have some real fun. Whaddaya say?”

He's serious, she thought. There was a ring of complete honesty in his voice. She floundered for some answer. “I've got kids,” she said.

“We'll take ‘em along,” said Chuckie. “I like kids, always took care of my brothers and sisters.” He paused. “Listen, I'll bet you're on the outs with your old man.”

Della said nothing. It would be like running away to be a pirate. Wouldn't it?

Chuckie hawked and spat again. “Yeah, I figured. When we pickup your kids, we can waste him. You like that? I can do it, or you can. Your choice.”

You're crazy, she thought.
“I
want to,” she found herself saying aloud.

“So come out and we'll talk about it.”

“You'll kill me.”

“Hey,” he said, “I'll kill you if you
don't
come out. I got the light and the gun, remember? This way we can learn to trust each other right from the start. I won't kill you. I won't do nothing. Just talk.”

“Okay.” Why not, she thought. Sooner or later, he'll find his way in here and put the gun in my mouth and- Della stood up. -but maybe, just maybe- Agony laced through her knees.

Chuckie cocked his head, staring her way. “Leave the tools.” “I already did. The one I didn't use.”

“Yeah,” said Chuckie. “The ones you used, you used real good.” He lowered the beam of the flashlight. “Here you go. I don't want you stumbling and falling and maybe breaking your neck.”

Della stepped around the deadfall and slowly walked toward him. His hands were at his sides. She couldn't see if he was holding the gun. She stopped when she was a few feet away.

“Hell of a night, huh?” said Chuckie. “It'll be really good to go inside where it's warm and get some coffee.” He held the flashlight so that the beam speared into the sky between them.

Della could make out his thin, pain-pinched features. She imagined he could see hers. “I was only going out to the mall for a few things,” she said.

Chuckie laughed. “Shit happens.”

“What now?” Della said.

“Time for the horror show.” His teeth showed ferally as his lips drew back in a smile. “Guess maybe I sort of fibbed.” He brought up his hand, glinting of metal.

“That's what I thought,” she said, feeling a cold and distant sense of loss. “Huey, there, going to help?” She nodded to point past his shoulder.

“Huey?” Chuckie looked puzzled just for a second as he glanced to the side. “Huey's-”

Della leapt with all the spring left in her legs. Her fingers closed around his wrist and the hand with the gun. “Christ!” Chuckie screamed, as her shoulder crashed against the spongy place where his broken collarbone pushed out against the skin.

They tumbled on the December ground, Chuckie underneath, Della wrapping her legs around him as though pulling a lover tight. She burrowed her chin into the area of his collarbone and he screamed again. Kenneth had always joked about the sharpness of her chin.

The gun went off. The flash was blinding, the report hurt her ears. Wet snow plumped down from the overhanging pine branches, a large chunk plopping into Chuckie's wide-open mouth. He startedto choke.

Then the pistol was in Della's hands. She pulled back from him,
getting
to her feet, back-pedaling furiously to get out of his reach. She stared down at him along the blued-steel barrel. The pirate captain struggled to his knees.

“Back to the original deal,” he said. “Okay?”

I wish, she almost said. Della pulled the trigger. Again. And again.

“Where the hell have you been?” said Kenneth as she closed the front door behind her. “You've been gone for close to three hours.” He inspected her more closely. “Della, honey, are you all right?”

“Don't call me that,” she said. “Please.” She had hoped she would look better, more normal. Unruffled. Once Della had pulled the Subaru up to the drive beside the house, she had spent several minutes using spit and Kleenex trying to fix her mascara. Such makeup as she'd had along was in her handbag, and she had no idea where that was. Probably the police had it; three cruisers with lights flashing had passed her, going the other way, as she was driving north of Southeast Plaza.

“Your clothes.” Kenneth gestured. He stood where he was.

Della looked down at herself. She'd tried to wash off the mud, using snow and a rag from the trunk. There was blood too, some of it Chuckie's, the rest doubtless from Vinh and Tomas.

“Honey, was there an accident?”

She had looked at the driver's side of the Subaru for along minute after getting home. At least the car drove; it must just have been flooded before. But the insurance company wouldn't be happy. The entire side would need a new paint job.

“Sort of,” she said.