Deadfall

by Robert Liparulo

  Dillon pushed his foot into his sneaker and began sheathing it with his sock. His face expressed his confusion.

  Hutch bent toward him. “Inside,” he whispered, “it will dampen our footsteps, and we don’t have to carry our shoes. Outside, it will help mask our footprints, and we won’t have to worry about stepping on something sharp.”

  Dillon smiled in understanding.

  What he didn’t tell Dillon was that if they had to make a break for it while still in the building, their socks were probably the worst possible things to have on their feet. They would slip and slide and run in place like characters in nightmares he’d had as a kid: running and running without moving as some hideous beast with a mouth exactly the size of Hutch approached. But they were going to get out quietly with no special need for traction.

  Dillon finished first and stood. He slid his feet over the tiles and pretty much figured out what Hutch had not told him. Hutch tucked his pant legs into his socks, which would not win him any fashion awards but would keep his feet warm and prevent his cuffs from snagging on low-lying obstacles. He stood, slinging his bow over his shoulder. He reconsidered and pulled it off again. Holding it in his left hand, he nocked an arrow and, as he had done in the tree, held the shaft in place with one finger. He moved to the open door and peered into the corridor.

  They would turn right out of the break room to head toward the front of the building. They would pass the office, off of which was the storage room where Dillon and Laura had been held. He didn’t know the layout beyond that except that logically there would be more offices on the right and the corridor would open up to the vestibule on the left. At the terminus of the corridor, in that direction, was a restroom.The door was partially open, and though the light was out, he could see a white porcelain sink. He reversed his gaze to see the fire door at the other end of the hall, still buckled and jammed into the walls.

  He turned to signal Dillon. The boy was closer than he realized, and his elbow struck Dillon in the head. Dillon lost his balance and fell against the break room door. The door handle banged loudly against the cabinets. Hutch grabbed Dillon, stabilized him, and lifted him off the door. They listened.

  From the next room, the office with the storage room, came the groan of somebody waking up. The screech of a chair on tile told Hutch someone was coming.

  Dillon blocked his way back into the break room. There was no time to quietly maneuver out of sight. Hutch already had one foot in the corridor. He swung out his other foot and stood facing the break room portal. He stretched his left hand, gripping the bow, toward the office door. With three fingers of his right hand, he hooked the bowstring. In two seconds he could pluck the string and send the arrow flying. His lips pantomimed a shhh sound to Dillon.

  A man stepped into the hall.

  30

  It was the hefty one, Pruitt. Cecil B. DeMille.

  He had not glanced in Hutch’s direction but came shuffling out of the office and headed directly for the bathroom. His slight weavingand- plodding gait indicated he was still mostly asleep. Hutch held a bead on a spot just below the man’s left scapula. Precisely where his heart was. He wouldn’t scream the way Bad had. He would be dead before he hit the floor. In fact, the most noise this kill would make would probably be the tink of the metal broadhead—protruding from his chest—striking the floor as he fell facedown.

  No! Leave without bloodshed.

  His molars crunched against each other. He wasn’t a killer. Still, the images of David exploding, of the severed foot in the street, of Dillon sad and afraid—each was a dry log thrown onto the fire of his fury.

  This kill would make one down, he thought, reprising the conversation he’d had with himself while hiding in the tree. One less adversary to worry about. But why stop there? There were five more within these walls. Only three deserved his arrow; he did not think he could or would even need to shoot Julian or the girl. But Declan, Kyrill, and Bad—he could do that.

  Could I? What am I thinking?

  End it here. Shoot them as they sleep. One after the other. David would be avenged. The townsfolk held hostage in the other room would be free.

  Hutch’s arm began to shake at the proposition of killing a man. No, that wasn’t it. He could kill . . . just not this way. Not by shooting his enemy in the back or slaughtering them in their sleep.

  Pruitt reached the bathroom and stepped in. The clink of a toilet seat rising to strike the tank. Then a waterfall.

  Hutch realized he had pulled back on the bowstring a couple inches. Slowly, he relaxed the tension. He closed his eyes. He had been so close to doing it, he felt almost as though he had. It was like not quite touching your skin, but feeling the heat, the static electricity, the pressure on the air between fingers and flesh. That close.

  He stepped into the break room.

  Immediately he wondered if he’d made the right decision. Something primal deep down warred with his humanity. After all, these punks were killers. Their deaths would save lives—his own, Dillon’s, Laura’s,Terry’s, Phil’s. How could they leave anyone alive? The entire town had witnessed their crimes.

  Wait, wait, wait.What about only Declan?

  The head of the snake. Cut it off, and the rest is harmless. He could do that. He could kill Declan, here and now. He fantasized about it: finding the man sleeping, standing over him, arrow drawn.

  He’d clear his throat, and when Declan’s eyes sprang open, when he recognized Hutch and realized he had been beaten, Hutch would let the arrow fly into his chest. It would penetrate through and through to bury its tip in the floor. No one would blame him. He would never see the inside of a courtroom, not after the media and the district attorney discovered that Hutch had not killed a man, but a beast.

  Dillon touched his arm, and he jumped.The boy’s face showed an eagerness for reassurance. Hutch smiled and realized he could not go after Declan or anyone else in Dillon’s presence. If something went wrong, if Declan got the upper hand, if the others came to his rescue or to avenge him, Hutch would not be able to hold them off. He would be responsible for Dillon’s death.That was unacceptable.

  The man stopped peeing and padded down the corridor toward them. Hutch expected him to return to the office. But in case he did not, he stepped back and held his fingers to the bowstring once more. He stood like that, pointing the arrow at the open doorway until he heard the sound of the chair scraping the floor . . . followed by silence.

  Again he relaxed. And waited. He and Dillon stared at each other, the boy anxious, afraid, but quiet.

  After a few minutes Hutch moved into the hall, Dillon right behind him. His first few steps were slow, methodical examinations of the tiles’ stability, of the quietness of his own tread, of the way the corridor’s illumination cast his shadow. He walked in the center of the corridor to avoid bumping a wall. After each step he stopped, listened. Dillon’s following footstep would softly sound . . . then silence. On the other side of the wall to his left, where two-hundred-some-odd townsfolk slumbered in captivity, someone coughed. It was a muffled, quiet sound that their captors had probably grown accustomed to. As Hutch approached the first door on his right, he heard the rhythmic breathing of sleepers. He looked in.

  By the light from the corridor and an illuminated banker’s lamp on a desk, he saw two cots. Julian was sleeping on his back. A folded hand towel that had evidently covered his injury was now crumpled by his ear. His forehead was swollen and the color of a Saskatchewan sunset. A crusty ridge ran its length. Someone had put six or eight stitches into it. Beside Julian, on top of a blanket, was Hutch’s arrow, the one the boy had retrieved from the field. His hand rested over the shaft. It seemed to have become a keepsake, a lucky charm. The broadhead pointed toward the foot of the cot, about even with Julian’s knee. Still, it could slice him a good one if he rolled onto it or moved it in his sleep. Hutch hoped that wouldn’t happen.

  Bad lay in the second cot.To observers he would appear to be just a guy catching some Z�
�s, until they noticed the hand-sized circle of red over his leg and a matching splatter glistening on the floor directly beneath. Pruitt sat in a chair, his arms and head on the desk. The steady rise and fall of his back said he’d returned to the dreams his bladder had interrupted.

  Hutch turned away, took a step, and stopped. He gazed back into the room, to the objects on the desk.

  You’ve got to be kidding, he thought.

  On the desk were scattered papers, soda cans, food wrappers, and a laptop computer tethered by cable to Pruitt’s camera. What interested Hutch was something else. There, by Pruitt’s hand, was a key ring connecting two objects: a key and a fat metal H. Hummer. Hutch stood there. He could think of no reason to pass up this chance. He considered the logistics of reaching that key and realized his knowledge of Dillon’s hunting experience was already bearing fruit. Dillon would be able to maneuver between the closely spaced cots better than he could, if he could at all. Also, Hutch could provide cover, whereas Dillon could not.

  He signaled for the boy to back up several paces, then he leaned to his ear and told him the plan.Without hesitation, Dillon nodded. Hutch moved into the doorway, yielding just enough space for Dillon to slip in.The men and boy slept heavily, deep breaths in and stuttering exhalations. They did not appear ready to end their slumber, unless something startled them. The air was stale with body odor and bad breath.

  Hutch aimed the arrow at Bad. Of the three, Hutch considered him most dangerous, despite his injury.

  Dillon positioned himself at the foot of the cots and sidestepped his way between them, faster than Hutch would have thought possible. He reached the desk and reached for the key. Before he grabbed it, he looked back to confirm this is what the man wanted.

  Hutch nodded. And thought of something: If Dillon picked up the key by its ring, when he lifted it off the desk, the key and the metal Hummer logo would slide down and clink against each other. That close to Pruitt, it would sound like a rattling chain or, more accurately, an alarm clock. He wanted to warn Dillon but could say nothing.

  Dillon plucked up the key chain. He grabbed it by the Hummer logo so the key flipped down to bounce silently against his thumb. He grinned at Hutch, but all Hutch could think about was the fist that was pounding on the inside of his chest. It was at this moment that Pruitt would seize the boy’s hair in his left hand while revealing a pistol in his right. He would say, “Aha!”

  But that didn’t happen. Dillon sidestepped back between the cots. His right foot cleared them; his left foot kicked Bad’s cot.

  The fist pounded more insistently, thumping against Hutch’s sternum and ribs. Every muscle tightened as he prepared to pull back on the bowstring, straighten his fingers, and release the arrow.

  Bad moaned. His head rotated on a thin pillow. His arm flopped off his chest and bridged the gap between his cot and Julian’s.

  Hutch realized that had Dillon bumped the head of the cot instead of the foot, resulting in the same movement of Bad’s arm, Dillon would have been imprisoned by two cots, a desk, and Bad’s arm.This time, though, luck was on their side. Dillon had frozen when his foot struck the cot; now he moved again. He passed in front of Hutch, under his taut arrow. When Dillon reached the hall, Hutch eased the tension on the bowstring and returned it to a ready-but-not-firing position. He backed into the hall. Boy and man found each other’s eyes.They communicated more in that glance than they could have in an hour of talking. Hutch took the lead once again.

  They reached a spot in the corridor where the left wall opened up in a wide arch. The vestibule was as large as a theater’s. Its front wall contained two sets of double doors, which Hutch was sure opened to the outside, to the town’s main street. Directly opposite was a wall that separated the vestibule from the building’s main room, probably a combination gymnasium-theater-meeting hall. Two more sets of double doors allowed access to this area. Both sets were heavily chained and padlocked. The archway leading into the vestibule was on Hutch’s left; on the right was a closed door. Another office, guessed Hutch. Another resting place for Declan’s gang. Probably Declan himself.

  Knowing he shouldn’t, unable to resist, he reached for the door handle. If he witnessed Declan sleeping in there, would he, could he do it? He did not know, but the stakes were too high not to find out. To be this close to ending this evil episode . . . He had to know if he had the chance and whether he would take it.

  The handle felt cold on his palm. He tightened his fingers around it, trying not to rattle the hardware. He turned it and envisioned Declan on the other side watching it turn. Then it turned no more. The door was locked. He did not know for certain that Declan occupied the room on the other side; even if he did know, he would not have kicked the door open, not with Dillon here. He turned the door handle back into position and released it. He had his answer: the opportunity was not his to take. Not yet anyway. He moved into the vestibule, cocking his head to catch Dillon in his peripheral vision.

  The chained doors opposite the front entrance seemed hideous to him, like the gangplank of a slave ship or the holding pens of Rome’s ancient coliseum. At that moment, he gladly would have traded the Hummer key for one that fit those locks. But that was not the hand dealt him. The best he could hope for was to fight for these people another day. The same frustration and hope etched lines in Dillon’s young face. Hutch set his jaw and offered the boy a firm nod. He would come back. If God allowed him to, he would come back.

  They padded to the closest set of double-entry doors. Push bars opened them.Wanting to take more care than he could have with one hand, and refusing to give up the readiness of his bow, he whispered to Dillon, “Go ahead.Very gently.”

  Dillon seized the push bar with both hands and slowly pushed it down and in. The latch clicked out of its receptacle. The door angled open into the predawn blackness. A cold breeze blew in.

  That’s when the alarm bells sounded.

  31

  Declan vaulted out of his cot fully alert. He had expected something like this: a breach. He assumed the townsfolk had found a way to open an auditorium door. Declan’s intel had informed him that the auditorium itself had been wired into the building’s alarm system to attract antique, art, and gun shows to the town. It was one of the reasons they had chosen this building, though its size alone made it the most logical venue. If not an auditorium door, then an external door had opened. Considering the hunters’ bold approach and assault on Bad the night before, it would not have surprised him to find that they were the source of his disrupted sleep.

  He unlocked and opened his room’s door. Another door clanked shut; he recognized it as one of the front entrances. Kyrill came out of his room to Declan’s right, Pruitt to his left.

  “Julie,” Declan called. “Get out here.You too, Bad. Don’t pretend you can’t walk.”

  He quickly scanned the vestibule. No immediate threat. He rushed to an entry door and pushed through. The Hummer squealed away from the curb and banked left onto the first side street. He turned around to face his crew. Kyrill and Pruitt at the door, Cort just coming out. Behind them, Julian shuffled slowly, his hand on his head, looking pale, tired, and in dire need of a couple of Percocet.

  Declan showed them his palms. “Who had the car keys?”

  No one fessed up. He pushed through them and headed for his room.

  “All I have to say,” he called, “is it’s a good thing one of us had the foresight to keep a couple town vehicles for our own use.” At the archway to the corridor, he turned. “Someone turn that alarm off!”

  Bad hobbled toward a wall-mounted keypad.

  “All right,” Declan said, checking his watch. “We’ll be online pretty soon. We can use the cameras to find them.” His dead eyes panned the group. In a tone of perfect boredom, he said, “Let’s go get them.” Then he called over his shoulder. “Bad, you better be in the car when I get there, or you’re going to walk home.”

  Laura woke to the alarm clock,s waa-waa-waa. She came out of a drea
m as a pearl diver rises from the pressure and darkness of deep water to finally break surface. Groggy, she tried to distinguish her waking life from sleep. Grief returned to her, and she remembered that Tom’s loss had not been imagined. Then an urgency washed over the grief, and she remembered Dillon. She sat up in bed, and everything came back.

  She hadn’t set a clock, and it wasn’t a clock that woke her. She threw back the covers and leaped over Terry on the floor. He was starting to stir.

  At the window she pushed back a drape. Directly across the street was the community center. The sound emanated from that building. The front doors were shut and nothing appeared amiss, as long as you ignored the smoking building next to it and didn’t know that an entire town’s population was being held against its will inside.

  Movement snagged her attention. A figure ran around the rear of the Hummer, which had been parked in the street in front of the center. She recognized Hutch, the man who had been with her son. She slapped her palm repeatedly against the pane.

  “Hey! Hey! Wait!”

  He climbed into the driver’s seat and shut the door. Frantically she looked around for something to shatter the glass. She grabbed a lamp from a dresser and yanked its cord out of the wall. She reeled back to hurl it through the window when she saw the door across the street open. Declan stepped out, and the Hummer squealed away. She dropped the lamp.

  “What’s going on?”Terry said, peering over the bed.

  She kept her eyes on Declan as he turned to face a gathering crowd in the doorway. She was four feet from the window in a dark room. No way anyone over there could see her.

  “What?”Terry repeated.

  “Just a sec.”