What’s he doing in there?
“Andy?” she whispered.
No answer.
She didn’t dare turn on a light.
Bending over and sweeping her arms from side to side, she made her way carefully toward the bed. Her bare feet pushed into a soft heap of blanket on the floor. Her hands found the top sheet. Following the edge of the mattress, she sidestepped along the end of the bed, then up its side.
She sat down on the mattress. She reached toward the middle and lowered her hand. It settled on warm, bare skin.
Andy’s chest. She felt it rise against her hand as he inhaled. She felt his heartbeat.
What if it’s not Andy? What if it’s someone like ...
Of course it’s Andy, she told herself.
“Andy?” she whispered. She jostled his chest.
“Mmmm.”
“It’s me. It’s Jody. You’ve got to wake up.”
“Hmmm?”
She found his lips with her other hand. “It’s all right. Just don’t yell or anything.”
“Jody?” His voice sounded husky. “It’s you? It’s really you? Oh, man.”
“Somebody’s in the house.”
“What?”
“We’ve gotta get out.”
“Who’s in the house?”
“Some kind of—I don’t know. A maniac.”
“We’ve got a maniac in the house?” He sounded more astonished than alarmed. “You mean like Freddy or Jason or something?”
“I mean the real thing.”
“Where?”
“Never mind. Let’s go.” She gave his chest a gentle slap, then stood up.
“Jody?”
“We’ve gotta hurry.”
“Before the maniac comes for us?” She couldn’t see his face. From his tone of voice, however, she suspected that his initial confusion was gone. He sounded as if he might be aiming a sneer at her.
“I’m not kidding, Andy.”
“Yeah, sure. Man, you had me going for a second. Just for a second, though. Man. Thanks a lot. I’m really amused.” And then he bolted upright on his bed and shouted, “REALLY AMUSED, EVELYN. HA HA HA!”
Jody felt as if she had been kicked in the heart.
“Shut up!” she cried out in a hoarse whisper. “What’re you doing? You just got us killed!”
Chapter Two
“Oh, come on,” Andy muttered. “You can quit your little game. I’m used to Evelyn pulling junk on me, but I thought you were better than ...”
His voice stopped when Jody slapped the light switch. She whirled around.
Andy squinted against the brightness from the ceiling bulb. “Hey.” He was sitting cross-legged on his bed, covered to the waist by a white sheet.
“What’ve you got?” Jody asked.
“Huh?”
“A knife? You got a pocket knife or ... ?” She spotted a baseball bat propped against a comer near his window. She ran for it.
“Jody!”
“He’s coming!” Unless maybe he didn’t hear Andy’s yell. With the bedroom door shut and the music going down in the other room, maybe ...
“Who’s coming?”
“The killer!” She grabbed up the bat with both hands. A Louisville Slugger.
“Hey, come on. Cut it out.”
As she rushed for his bedroom door, she warned, “You’d better get up.”
“Oh, sure. I’m not wearing anything, in case my dumb sister forgot to tell you.”
She swiped at the switch. Darkness clamped the room.
“Thanks,” Andy said.
“Shhhh.” Jody raised the bat overhead. It was a good, solid bat, but not awfully heavy. Certainly not heavy enough to make the muscles of her arms tremble and flutter this way.
She listened.
To her heartbeat and fast breathing. To a sigh from Andy.
She heard no sound of music. She heard no footsteps.
Maybe he left. Maybe he left before Andy shouted.
But she didn’t think so. That would be too good to be true. Like waking up and realizing all this had been a nightmare. You’re not gonna get off that easy. This was bad stuff, worse than she had ever imagined possible, and she knew somehow that the worst was ahead.
If only I had my pistol. Just a little .22, but ...
“Evelyn’s gonna bust through the door in a mask, isn’t she? That spooky one she got last Halloween.”
What’ll it feel like, getting a spear through the guts?
This is what I get for trying to help someone, she thought. And then she felt ashamed of herself.
Dad does this stuff every day.
God, if only he were here now!
That’s just what Evelyn had said, she remembered. And a couple of minutes later, the spear had picked her up.
It got me, too, she realized. The same point.
Just a little poke. She could feel the wound now, a small sore place just below her navel and a little bit to the right.
Got me after going all the way through Evelyn.
“Jesus,” she murmured.
“What?”
“Nothing. You’d better get dressed.”
“I’m not moving. If I start to get dressed, you’ll turn the light on. Where’s Evelyn? What’s she doing, hiding someplace with a camera?”
He’ll lose his attitude fast, Jody thought, if I tell him she’s dead.
No, he’ll think it’s part of the gag.
Besides, she couldn’t tell him. She knew she couldn’t force herself to say the words.
What’s taking the goddamn monster so long?
Maybe he isn’t coming. Maybe he’s gone.
Fat chance.
What am I doing here?
Waiting and bleeding, she thought.
Correction, not bleeding. From the feel of things, the wound had quit leaking. There seemed to be a single strip of blood, no longer going anywhere but making her skin itchy underneath it. The strip went down from the wound to the hollow at the top of her leg, then ran along the hollow at a downward angle to her groin.
Now that she was thinking about it, the itch got worse.
She wanted to rub it and wipe the blood away.
Her hands were busy holding the baseball bat overhead.
Just my luck, the second I let go ...
The door swung slowly inward.
Jody caught a whiff of the death stink. She held her breath.
As the door opened more, a dim mist of light spread across the room. The edge of light found Andy’s bed, crept toward him, revealed him sitting cross-legged.
His mouth fell open.
His back straightened.
He began to make a quiet, very high-pitched humming sound, a soft whine of panic as if he ached to scream but didn’t dare.
A shadow blotted out the fan of dull light.
A floorboard in front of Jody creaked.
Go for broke, hon!
She chopped the Slugger down with all her might.
She’d played enough hardball with her dad to know the sound and feel of a good hit with the fat of the bat. This was a very good hit. This was a home run.
The thock of the blow was followed by a grunt, then muffled thumps which Jody figured were the man’s knees hitting the carpeted floor, then a softer sound which had to be his torso landing, then another thump—his face making contact.
Jody swept her forearm up the wall until it flipped up the light switch.
The man lay face down, motionless on the carpet. The top of his hairless head was a collapsed, bleeding gully.
Jody shut the door fast.
“Oh, God!” Andy blurted. He was standing near the foot of his bed, prancing on the mattress to keep his balance, clutching a pillow to his groin. “Oh, God, what’s going on? Look at him! Look at him!”
Jody stood over the intruder, holding her bat high, ready to strike again if he should move.
He had come in with a machete, not a spear. It was still in his hand. Its blade was
smeared with blood. Blood also speckled and smudged both his arms, his back and rump and legs.
“Hit him again,” Andy said.
“Shhh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” Jody whispered. “It isn’t him.”
“Huh?”
“It isn’t him. This guy’s skinny.”
“Look at his butt.”
“You look at his butt.” She stepped toward the machete. “The other one’s still out there. The fat guy.”
“It’s sewed shut.”
When Andy said that, she had to look. She looked as she crouched to pick up the machete, and saw a crosshatch of stitches up the center of the man’s rump. She thought, How does he poop? And then she saw the rumples in his buttocks and the backs of his legs. Then the ragged edges hanging around his ankles.
The rope of braided hair around his waist wasn’t merely an ornament. It was a belt.
She looked up at Andy.
“They’re pants,” he whispered. “They’re pants!”
Still prancing on his bed with the pillow clutched to his groin, Andy suddenly rushed to the end of his mattress, bent over and vomited.
The thick gush missed his bed, but splashed down on the head of the intruder. Jody stumbled backward to get away from it.
Suddenly, she was having a very hard time catching her breath.
Bat in one hand, machete in the other, she turned toward the bedroom door. She felt as if her heart and lungs were being squeezed by fists. She gasped for air.
Behind her, Andy coughed and sniffed. “Where’re Mom and Dad and Evelyn?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You said about another guy. A fat guy.”
“Yeah.”
He’ll smash through the door right now and pick me up with his spear.
She wished that the door had a lock.
Bedroom doors always have locks. In the movies.
Some bedroom doors in real life probably had locks, too, but she’d never seen one.
“Do you think ... Do you think they’re all right? Mom and Dad and Evelyn?”
“No.”
“Oh, God. Oh, Jesus.”
Jody turned around. Andy stepped to the floor and sat on a comer of his bed and hunched over, hugging the pillow, head down: “We’ve gotta get out of here,” Jody told him.
He looked up at her. His face was red, eyes squeezed almost shut, teeth bared.
“The other’s gonna come,” she said.
Lowering his head again, he muttered, “I don’t care.”
“He’ll kill us.”
“So?”
Jody went to him. She stepped between his knees. The hanging front of her nightshirt enfolded the top of his head. She moved forward until his head pushed against her. It pressed her lower than she had expected.
An odd bit of her mind thought how embarrassing this would be under other circumstances.
But she didn’t feel embarrassed at all.
With the knuckles of the hand that held the machete, she gently caressed the back of his head. His hair was dripping wet.
“We’re gonna get out of this,” she whispered.
“Is everybody dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m so scared.”
“Me, too. It’ll be all right, though.”
Andy lifted his head, but didn’t move it away. She felt the rub of his hair through the thin jersey fabric, then the pressure of his face. His face was so low that she couldn’t feel the push of his chin. “What’ll we do?” he asked. She felt his lips move. His breath was like hot steam against her skin.
Can’t believe I’m letting him, she thought. If Rob had ever tried to put his face there, much less his hand ...
This isn’t Rob. This is Andy and he’s just a kid and his family’s been wiped out and we’re probably gonna die ...
How do we not die?
There has to be a way.
Standing here with Andy’s face buried in her wasn’t accomplishing a thing.
Yes, she realized. It calms him down. Calms me down, too.
Her heart was no longer slamming. She could breathe almost normally.
“We’ll be okay,” she whispered.
He didn’t speak. His face moved from side to side. Maybe he was telling her no. Maybe he was just doing it to feel her.
“I sure wish you had a phone in your room,” she whispered.
“Mom and Dad have one.” His voice was muffled, his breath very hot.
“I know. But it’s in their bedroom. I’m pretty sure that’s where the fat guy is.”
If he isn’t about to crash through the door.
“Maybe we’d better jump out a window,” she said.
“They don’t open.”
“I know. We’d have to break one.”
His head shook again. This time, Jody was sure he meant no. “It’s awful far down. And it’s cement. We’d bust our brains out.”
That might be better than meeting up with the fat guy, she thought. Anything might be better than that.
“I wonder what he’s doing,” she said.
“The other one?”
“Funny he hasn’t come to check on this one.”
“Maybe he’s busy ... stealing stuff.”
“If he is,” Jody said, “maybe we can sneak right by him. All we’ve gotta do is get downstairs and outside, then we’ll be okay.”
“That’d be better than trying to jump.”
“Let’s do it.”
“Okay.” He nodded, his head rubbing up and down against her. And then he kissed her through the nightshirt.
The kiss made her squirm. “Hey!” she gasped, and back-stepped away from him. “Jeez!” Then she saw the look on his face. “Never mind. It’s all right. Let’s go.”
“I’ve gotta get dressed.”
“Do it quick.” She turned away. She glanced at the corpse just to avoid stepping on it or in the thick mat of vomit. The sight of the body made an icy snake come alive in her guts. She stepped past it and carried her weapons to the bedroom door.
She leaned her back against the door.
Andy, standing beside his bed, bent over to pull up his jeans. He hadn’t bothered with undershorts. His rump looked very white and smooth.
He didn’t know she was watching. When he started to turn around, she elbowed the light switch.
“Let’s go,” she whispered.
“I’m not done ...”
“All you need are your pants. Let’s go. Be careful you don’t trip.”
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“If the bat didn’t kill him, I’m sure your puke did.”
A strange, hushed laugh came through the darkness. “You’re weird, Jody.” He said nothing for a few seconds. Jody could hear him sneaking closer. “Maybe we can kill the other one.”
“We might have to try. Do you want the machete or the bat?”
“You keep the bat. You’re good with it.”
“Fine.” She lifted the machete up from her side, moving it slowly until it was straight out in front of her, its blade upright. “I’m holding it out,” she said. “Don’t cut yourself.”
Something in the darkness bumped her outstretched arm just below the elbow.
I hope that’s Andy.
“That you?” he whispered.
“Yeah.”
Both his hands found her arm. One held on while the other fingered its way to her hand. Jody let the machete go. When he released her arm, she reached out. Her hand met bare skin. She stroked him. His side, she guessed. Just a little down from his armpit.
“Are you ready?” she whispered.
“Not really.”
“Yeah. Me neither.”
“What’ll we do?”
“Whatever we have to,” she said. “We’ll sneak out if we can. But if he sees us, we’d better run like hell.”
“What if we can sneak up on him?”
“I don’t know. Depend
s, I guess. If it really looks like we have a good chance of taking him by surprise, I guess we should try it. The thing is to get out of here alive. That’s the only thing that matters, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Ready?”
“Will you hug me?”
“Geez, Andy.”
“Please? Everybody’s dead.”
“Okay. But watch the machete.” With her hand on Andy’s side to guide her, she stepped forward and pressed herself lightly against him. He put an arm around her back. It hardly touched her, though.
“I’ve always wanted ...” He went silent.
“What?” Jody asked.
“Something like this. To hold you like this. I mean, it really... it’s really nice.”
She kissed his forehead.
“I sure love you, Jody.”
“Hey.”
“I do. I love you so much.”
“Hey.” She bent her knees enough to slide her down to where Andy’s mouth was. Then she hugged him hard with her free arm, squeezing herself against him, kissing him.
With his free arm, he hugged her fiercely.
When she finished kissing him, he said, “I won’t let anybody hurt you, Jody. Not ever.”
She patted his side. “Just you ‘n’ me, kid.”
“I’m ready when you are.”
“Okay. Follow me.”
“No. I’ll go first. I’m the guy.”
“You’re the guy, fine. But I’m in charge. You follow me.”
“But ...”
“Shhh.” Taking his arm, she pulled him away from the door. She squatted at its edge herself, and rested the bat against her right shoulder. “Get behind me.”
She felt one of his knees nudge her rump.
“Here goes,” she whispered.
Reaching up with her left hand, she found the doorknob. She turned the knob and swung the door inward.
Chapter Three
Nobody stood waiting on the other side of the door.
Jody lowered her knees to the carpet and shuffled to the middle of the doorway. There, she leaned forward and glanced both ways.
The corridor looked deserted.
Light still glowed from the master bedroom near its far end, and the music had resumed. Now, the song was Billy Joel doing “Goodnight Saigon.”
Dad’s favorite song, Jody thought. And again, she wished he were here.
He’d been a platoon leader in Vietnam. Now, he was a sergeant with the LAPD. Out on the streets somewhere, right now, protecting the civilians.
Endless Night Page 2
