And Norman had been damn happy to do it.
It was during the third week of scrubbing toilets and dipping fry baskets that he’d finally gotten a glimpse at the strongbox containing the day’s take. Norman noticed Stan went out the door at a quarter to four each afternoon carrying his oversized briefcase. He hadn’t realized it contained the metal box he now clutched in his hands—he thought Stan was one of those nerds who carried his lifelong belongings in an attaché case so people thought he was important. Until then, for all Norman knew, the briefcase contained the latest video game catalogues. That would have been Stan’s speed.
But Fryer Number Six, the one for the chocolate raspberry crullers, had clogged up and jam was leaking everywhere. Norman tried to stop it from spreading but felt like the Little Dutch Boy—he would fix one hole and another would spring up. Finally, he had to shut down the machine manually. Norman wiped his hands clean and walked into an office the size of a shoebox to report the problem to Stan. The Donut Man was startled to see the raspberry jam-covered Norman standing there and immediately thrust the metal strongbox he was holding into his briefcase.
Stan proceeded to lambast Norman for the breakdown. Norman took Stan’s tirade in stride because he now knew where the cash was going and it was only a matter of time before he could leave Donut World once and for all.
Bang!
Norman knew the cops had broken through the door. This was confirmed by the stampeding of feet inside the window and a voice calling out.
“Norman King!”
Was there one frikkin’ cop in town who didn’t know his name?
Jeez.
There was no way in hell when he was sitting with Cletus and the others around the breakfast table that morning that he could ever have imagined things going to shit so quickly.
Three forty-five? Norman had asked.
That’s when he leaves each day, Cletus replied.
Norman nodded as they scarfed down fried eggs and tons of bacon.
It was simple, Cletus pointed out. He would drop by to visit Stan and see how Norman was working out. Only natural, seeing how Cletus had put Norman up for the job. Cletus would just happen to be in the neighborhood around three-thirty. It would be easy enough to distract his old friend Stan long enough for Norman to slip into the office, grab the strongbox out of the briefcase, and beat it out the back door.
It ran smooth as clockwork.
Well, the first part.
Cletus walked through the door at precisely half past three. Stan, Stan, the Donut Man was genuinely happy to see him. He even sang Norman’s praises. (Not that this gave Norman second thoughts about ripping the man off. Stan was docking ten dollars a week off Norman’s already measly paycheck for the raspberry cruller debacle). Cletus asked for a tour and Norman gladly stepped out of the fry room when Stan wanted to show off Donut World’s inner workings by himself.
Norman headed directly for Stan’s office. He saw the briefcase on top of the desk.
He opened up the case and no sooner touched the strongbox when all hell broke loose.
The bell was so loud one would think that there had been a prison break at Sing Sing.
Leave it to a damn cruller-shaped nerd to booby-trap a strongbox with an alarm.
No wonder Stan had just left the briefcase sitting on the desk. The box was triggered to go off if anyone beside Stan touched it.
A lot of good it did Norman to know that now.
He heard Stan yelling in the back of the store. Then Cletus was screaming, followed by the sounds of machines crashing, and what might have been a small explosion.
Norman didn’t stick around to find out. He dropped the box back in the briefcase, hoping that if he weren’t holding it the alarm would shut off. But the bell continued to blare and was joined by an even louder ring roaring through the entire building.
Norman figured he was screwed anyway, so he grabbed the strongbox back from the briefcase and made a run for it.
Going out the front door wasn’t a possibility—too many customers who could identify him, and one might even try to get brave and stop him. So he beat a path down the corridor for the back door, all the while trying to ignore the screams coming from the fry room. Norman lunged for the back door handle and found it didn’t budge.
Obviously, the alarm had triggered some kind of panic switch that shut down the exit.
How the hell was he supposed to know that Stan, Stan, the Donut Man was some kind of Electro Wizard?
Norman ducked into the stairway leading up into the building above Donut World. He climbed ten flights of stairs till he got to the roof door—Stan had told him there was a garden on top—figuring that, once outside, he could escape across the street’s rooftops like Spider-Man.
But that door was also locked. It was then Norman remembered Stan bragging that only those with badges at Twist status or above got roof key privileges.
Which led him back down below, frantically trying every door looking for a way out. He finally found an empty office on the sixth floor. Within seconds he locked the door (which ended up keeping the cops out for all of five seconds and one good kick), climbed out the window, and found himself on the ledge he presently occupied.
“Come on inside, son. There’s nowhere for you to go.”
A cop leaned outside the window. From his grizzled look, gray hair, and calm voice, Norman got the impression he wasn’t this man’s first leaper.
“I could always jump,” replied Norman.
“And what’s that gonna do except leave us one big mess to clean up?”
Norman gulped and looked around. Assessing his situation. No fire escape in sight. Down below the crowd had grown larger—more than half itching to see if he would actually leap.
And then there was that pink-shirted fat-fuck techno-bastard Stan, Stan, the damn Donut Man. He was still shaking his doughy fist up at Norman, screaming.
“I want my money!”
Yeah, I bet you do.
Suddenly, a wacky thought darted through his brain.
He wants his money? Why not give it to him?
Before the cop in the window could react, Norman opened the strongbox.
It was filled with cash. Norman actually gasped. Boy. Donut World really sold a shitload of donuts in a day.
“What are you doing?” yelled the cop out the window.
“Giving the man what he wants,” Norman answered.
He turned the strongbox upside down and out poured the money. Most of it fluttered down, with a few bills getting caught in an updraft of wind.
“You’re crazy!” the cop called out.
“And not holding any evidence!” cried Norman. He tossed the box into the air.
Meanwhile, down below, the crowd screamed with delight.
Stan was bowled over by the rubberneckers, who immediately started to push and shove each other aside as they grabbed for the descending dollars.
Norman grinned until the cop called out again.
“You’re still going to jail, son. Your prints are all over that box.”
Norman frowned. It was hard to think of everything.
The cop had his gun out and pointed it at Norman. Then he lowered it and looked up in the sky.
Norman noticed the screams down below had changed.
They were no longer filled with greed and excitement.
Voices were laced with panic, confusion. And horror.
The rubberneckers were also looking up past Norman at the sky.
He glanced up to see what they were all staring at.
“Whoa.”
Norman had barely gotten the word out before everything was blasted with blinding purple light.
5
Sayers held the old Coke bottle underneath the rubber tube and squeezed the tube for all he was worth. It took a while, but eventually some musty amber liquid dribbled out the end. It was slow going, and he was able only to halfway fill the bottle.
He held it up to the light that filtered i
n through the metal-slatted window above him. Sayers tapped the bottle slightly and watched the sediment in the liquid shift. Thankful to see only minerals and nothing else moving, he sighed, tilted his head back, and tossed half the concoction down his throat. Stifling the urge to regurgitate, he let the warmth spread down his throat and into his shrinking stomach.
He longed for the days when he could belly up to a bar and nurse his favorite Scotch while a bartender chewed his ear off. Loquacious barkeeps were usually an absolute bore, but at least they made for conversations with adults. Not many of those these days—visitors were few and far between.
He stared at the still. He had put it together using everything he could find, including, literally, pieces of the kitchen sink. Liquor was the first thing people looked for after The Seventh Day; Sayers wasn’t the only one who found the need to drink his troubles away. One would be more likely to dig up dinosaur bones than a pint of vodka these days.
Sayers remembered a television show in which a bunch of madcap doctors got through the Korean War by building a still in their barracks. Inspired and desperate, he decided to make one for himself. After a lot of aborted and distasteful attempts (including one in which he had to pump his own stomach), Sayers was able to put those chemistry classes to practical use. His creation wasn’t going to win a Good Housekeeping award, but there wasn’t anyone to bestow it on him anyway.
Most importantly, it did the trick.
Sayers was about to finish off the bottle with another swig when he heard a loud clattering. He wondered if he were having one of his hallucinations; this particular batch of homemade rotgut had been doing nasty numbers on his head. For all he knew, he was about to be besieged by a battalion of beetles straight from his lubricated imagination. He placed the Coke bottle on the old dining table, thinking he really ought to start cutting down anyway. He knew he was being unfair and selfish.
The clattering got louder and the trailer began to shake. It got so violent that the Coke bottle tipped off the table and smashed to pieces on the floor. A sad commentary on Sayers’s state that the first thing to run through his fuzzy brain was that he should’ve finished off the drink.
Fairly convinced what he was hearing was real, Sayers decided to investigate. He crossed the narrow trailer, a burned-out Winnebago he had turned into a one-room-does-all arrangement. It was part kitchen with pots and an old dining table; part living room with two easy-like chairs that he’d put together from old car wrecks (despite his excessive drinking, Sayers was still damn good with his hands); and part bedroom with a pair of mattresses shoved into opposite corners.
By the time he got to the trailer entrance, the clattering had abruptly stopped. Sayers carefully opened the door and immediately backpedaled.
Three of the largest men he’d ever seen came through the door.
One of them, with jet-black hair and a beard to match, was carrying a fourth in his arms. Blood dripped from the comatose man’s wounds on the trailer floor. The black-bearded man was sweating and had the eyes of a rabid dog.
“Afternoon, Doc.”
Sayers might have been seeing the world through an alcoholic haze, but his mind was clear enough to comprehend he wanted nothing to do with these men.
“You must have me confused with someone else.”
“Is that right?”
The black-bearded man, clearly the alpha dog, eyed the still in the center of the room. He nodded at the other two men and they quickly started to search the trailer.
Sayers began to protest. “What do you think . . .?”
The black-bearded intruder cut him off with a stare that could slice a coconut. “Stay.”
Sayers watched as they turned a mess into a disaster area. One man finally called out. “Primo.”
The leader glanced over to see his cohort holding a pair of unused syringes that Sayers had used to connect the pipes in the still.
“So, Doc. . . . ”
Sayers swayed back and forth, completely nauseous. “What do you people want?”
Primo motioned to the third man, who was as big as a grizzly bear. “Secundo. Help me with your brother.” The giant assisted Primo in carrying the wounded man to the dining table.
Primo turned back to face Sayers. “This is my baby brother Quattro. I want you to fix him.”
Sayers took one look at the gaping wounds in the man’s lower extremities. What he wouldn’t give for the rest of that drink—or to be a thousand miles away.
“I want you to fix him,” repeated Primo. “Or we’ll have to fix you.”
Sayers didn’t even want to think about what that meant.
The strawberry-haired girl continued to fawn over the gray mare. She alternately scolded her for running off and lavished her with so much love that the horse was putty in her hand. Joad asked again if the mare was okay. The girl assured him she was fine.
“Macy just has a mind of her own sometimes, and just runs off.”
“No big deal,” said Joad.
“The way you caught her—that was the most incredible thing I ever saw,” she told Joad with an instant case of hero worship.
“Lucky leap.”
“I’m Laura.”
“Joad.”
Fixer frowned, a little hurt. “Sure. Go ahead and tell her your name right away.”
Joad ignored this. He kept his focus on Laura. “Far away from home, aren’t you?”
“Just down the road a bit, actually.”
Fixer brightened. “Any spare horses there?”
Joad threw him a dirty look.
“Can’t hurt to ask,” muttered Fixer.
Laura didn’t seem to be bothered in the slightest. “No, sorry. Just the one. Me and my stepdad share it.”
Joad nodded at the machine parts that Laura clutched under her arm. “What you got there?”
“Trying to build myself a radio,” Laura said proudly. “Thought maybe I could find someone to talk to.”
“Lotsa luck with that,” said Fixer.
“I don’t give up easily.”
Joad looked at the girl with admiration. “Good for you.”
“Where are you headed?”
Joad indicated the purple-tinged mountains rising into the gathering clouds, miles in the distance. “The Fields.”
For the first time, trepidation crept into her eyes. “I was always told to steer clear of there.”
“Can’t get where I’m going without passing through them,” said Joad.
Laura still looked unnerved. “Anyone who’s gone up there has never come back.”
“I’ll have to be extra careful, then.”
Joad offered up a slight smile that lit up the girl’s face like a Christmas tree from another time.
“Maybe you want to stick around and hang with us. Me and my stepdad have managed okay for a while now. Nothing exciting but at least it’s safe.”
“Thanks, but I need to get going,” said Joad.
Fixer jumped in. “Going? It’s been seven years already.” He turned his attention to Laura. “I keep telling him, what’s the big rush? So, it’s seven years and a month. Two months. . . .”
Joad cut him off with a look.
Fixer revised. “Guess we’re going.”
But Laura was true to her word: she didn’t give up so quickly. “Well, seeing as how you went and rescued my horse and saved me a long walk home . . . can I at least offer you a hot meal before you take off?”
“That isn’t necessary,” Joad said.
This time Fixer actually jabbed Joad in the shoulder. “She said a meal, Joad. A hot meal.”
He glared at Fixer, then turned back to Laura, who hadn’t taken her eye off him from the moment he’d leapt onto her horse and into her life. He finally gave her a nod and patted the gray mare on the rump.
“I’d keep my eye on your mare if I were you,” Joad said.
Laura noticed Joad looking at Fixer when he spoke. The wiry man grumbled. She winked at Joad, and threw him a smile that would
certainly break a whole lot of hearts down the line.
“Gotcha.”
It was a bloody mess.
The only consolation for Sayers was that it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been sober, on a six-week drunk, or Doctor of the Year. Quattro was practically a dead man before he was carried through the trailer door.
He tried to sterilize a few kitchen knives he’d collected through the years by holding them over a fire. But none were meant for use as surgical tools and he hadn’t cut on an actual body since taking a rotation back in medical school—and that was a few lifetimes ago. Sayers tried to tell Primo he had been a pediatrician; before The Seventh Day, he had spent his days handing out lollipops with his diagnoses.
Primo didn’t want to hear any of it. He urged Sayers on, screaming at him to save Quattro. Sayers begged Secundo and Trey (he had no idea which was which) to reason with their eldest brother, but they too were cowed by the man.
Sayers tried to staunch the blood flow from the victim’s legs, sweating bullets the size of cannonballs all the while. Each time he thought he was making progress, blood would spurt from a different spot.
Suddenly, Quattro gasped and his eyes fluttered open.
Primo instinctively pushed toward his brother. “Quattro. . . .”
Sayers shook his head. “No. . . .”
Too late. Primo reached out and Quattro’s body shifted. An artery burst and blood gushed in every possible direction.
“Oh God! He’s hemorrhaging!”
“Then stop it, damn it!” Primo yelled.
Sayers tried to wipe away the blood spraying into his eyes. “I’m doing the best I can!”
Suddenly Primo’s hand was wrapped around his neck. The oldest brother raged at Sayers. “Do better!”
Somehow, Sayers mustered enough strength and anger to shove Primo away. “I can’t do anything unless you get your fucking hands off me.”
The Seventh Day Page 4
