Bad Men

by John Connolly

  “We need to get off the island.”

  “There’s no way you can get away from here until this snow thins out some more,” he said.

  “We can’t wait that long.”

  Jack said nothing. She understood that he wanted more from her.

  “Danny,” she said, “go inside and lie down for few minutes.”

  The boy did not need to be told twice. He passed by the old man and headed for the couch, where he instantly fell asleep.

  “I’ve told some lies,” she said when she saw her son curl up with his eyes closed. “My husband isn’t dead. He was put in prison. I betrayed him to the police so that Danny and I could get away from him. And…I took money from him. A lot of money.”

  She opened the knapsack and showed Jack the wads of notes. His mouth opened slightly in surprise, then closed with a snap.

  “I’m not sure how he got it all, but I can guess, and so can you. Now he’s here on the island and he’s brought men with him. They’re close. I heard shots.”

  She reached out and took the painter’s hand.

  “My car is dead, but you have a boat. I need you to get us away from here, even just to one of the other islands. If we don’t leave, they’ll find us and they’ll kill me and take Danny away.”

  She paused.

  “Or they may kill Danny too. My husband, he never had any love for Danny.”

  The old man looked back at the swing door of the kitchen, beyond which the boy lay sleeping.

  “You told Joe Dupree any of this?”

  Marianne shook her head.

  “He’ll help you, you know that. He’s different.”

  “I was afraid, afraid that they’d put me in jail or take Danny from me.”

  “I don’t know enough about the law to say one way or the other, but it seems to me that they’d be a little more sympathetic than that.”

  “Just take us off the island, please. I’ll think about telling someone once we’re away from here.”

  Jack bit his lip, then nodded. “Okay, we can try. This all your stuff?”

  “It’s all that I had time to pack.”

  Jack took a bag in each hand, then kicked the knapsack and said: “You’d best look after that yourself.”

  They entered the living room, Jack leading. Marianne was so close behind him when the shot came that Jack’s blood hit her in the face before he fell to the floor. There was a wound at his shoulder. He clutched it with his hand, his teeth clenched as he trembled and began to go into shock. Danny awoke and started crying loudly, but she could not go to him. She could not move.

  All that she could do was stare impotently at her husband, even as Dexter frisked her and took the gun from her coat. He raised it so that Moloch could see it.

  Moloch grinned.

  “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just not happy to see me?” Moloch asked.

  He stepped closer to her and struck her hard with his right hand, sending her sprawling on a rug. She lay still for a moment, then crawled across the floor to Danny and gathered him in her arms.

  “You’d better make that last,” said Moloch. “You don’t have much time left together.”

  Moloch stared at his reflection in the painting, his face seeming to hang suspended above the dark waves that the old man had painted, the twin arms of the outcrops like horns erupting from his head, almost touching above his hair. He moved on to the next, a watercolor filled with blues and greens, before returning to the first. The waves in this version were very dark, almost black, white peaks breaking through, like the pale bodies of drowning men. A sliver of moonlight cast a weak silver glow across the skies above. There were no stars.

  “I like this one,” he said.

  Jack, seated on the floor, his hands bound before him with a length of clothesline, peered up at the intruder. He was deathly pale, apart from a smear of blood across his cheek. In the murk of the room, the blood appeared black against the pallor of his face, creating a strange resemblance between the artist and the work of art before which Moloch now stood.

  “You go away and you can have it for free,” said Jack.

  Moloch’s mouth twitched, the only sign he gave that he might be enjoying the joke.

  “Something I’ve learned,” he said. “You get nothing for free in this life. Although I can say, with some certainty, that if you fuck with me, money is never likely to be a worry for you again.”

  Dexter stood behind the couch. The appearance of the woman and the money seemed to have concentrated Moloch’s mind some. He was no longer rambling. Dexter began to experience a faint hope that they might somehow get out of this alive. His hand rested on the back of Danny’s neck in what might have been almost a protective way, were it not for the fact that the tips of his fingers were digging painfully into the boy’s skin, almost cupping his spine.

  “Make him stop,” said Marianne. “He’s your son. Make him stop hurting him.”

  Moloch walked toward the boy, who attempted to shrink back but found himself anchored to the spot by the force of Dexter’s hand. Moloch reached out and touched the back of his hand to the boy’s cheek.

  “You’re cold,” he said. “If you’re not careful, you’ll catch your death.”

  He glanced at Marianne.

  “He doesn’t look much like me. You sure he’s mine? Maybe he’s something that you and that dyke bitch cooked up between you with a turkey baster. She’s dead, by the way, but I suspect you knew that already.”

  Marianne’s eyes blinked closed. She bit her lip to try to keep from crying.

  “Actually, I got to tell you that a lot of people are dead because of you. Your sister, her husband, fuck knows how many people on this island, all because you were a greedy bitch who screwed over her own husband. You try that out for size, see how it fits on your conscience.”

  He turned to Dexter.

  “How long have we been here?”

  “Ten, fifteen minutes, maybe.”

  “We can’t afford to wait any longer for the others, but now that we have a boat a little closer to home”—Moloch kicked Jack’s leg, causing the old man to flinch—“it looks like I have some time to kill, in a manner of speaking.”

  He reached out to Marianne, lifted her up by the arm, and started to guide her toward the bedroom. Danny tried to hold on to her, but Dexter’s hand kept him rooted to the couch.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time to see you again,” he whispered. He grabbed her left breast and squeezed it painfully. “Look upon this as a conjugal visit.”

  Marianne tried to pull away from him. Instead he thrust her forward, sending her staggering into the hallway.

  “There was a time,” said Moloch, “when you used to beg me for what I’m about to give you.” He pushed her against the wall, the length of his body pressed hard against her, and clasped her cheeks in his hands, forcing her mouth into the shape of a kiss. He composed his own features into an expression of sadness.

  “Maybe you’ve just forgotten the good times,” he said. “You know, I can promise you that in all the years we’ve spent apart, I’ve never been with another woman.”

  He forced his mouth over hers. She struggled, making small moans of disgust against his lips. Then her body began to relax, her mouth now working along with his. His hand relaxed its grip upon her cheeks.

  Marianne bit him hard in one single movement of her jaws, almost severing his bottom lip, her teeth meeting where they cut through the flesh. Moloch howled. He hit her across the side of the head with his fist and she tumbled to her right, falling against a small table and sending a bowl of fresh-cut flowers crashing to the ground.

  Danny screamed.

  Moloch held his hand to his wounded mouth, cupping the blood that was pouring from the cut. He stared at himself in the hall mirror, then looked down at Marianne. His words were distorted as he tried to talk without moving his ruined lip, but she understood. They all did.

  “I’m going to cut you for that,” he said. “A
fter I’ve fucked you, I’m going to cut you to pieces. And then I’m going to start on the boy.”

  He took his knife from his belt, flicked the blade open, then advanced on her. He caught her by the hair and began to drag her down the hallway, Danny screaming all the time, Jack struggling against his bonds.

  Then the sliding doors exploded and blood shot from Dexter’s chest. He tried to turn, and a second shot sent him sprawling into the fireplace. He rolled away from the red glow of the ashes. A third shot hit him in the small of the back, and he finally lay still.

  Willard entered through the ruined glass, shards crunching beneath his feet.

  “Y’all look surprised to see me,” he said.

  Joe Dupree was almost within sight of Jack’s house when he heard the shots and the shattering of glass. Marianne’s house had been empty. He figured that she must have taken Danny over to Jack’s. He was approaching the house from the west, so the big windows were on the opposite side and he could not see what was transpiring inside.

  He tightened his grip on the shotgun and began to circle the house.

  Moloch smiled at Willard.

  “I knew you’d make it,” he said.

  Willard looked confused.

  “You told them to kill me.”

  Moloch shook his head. “No, that was Dexter’s decision, and he didn’t tell me about it until we were in trouble. I wanted to kill him for it, but by then I needed all the help I could get. There’s something on this damn island, something that wants us all dead, and we need to stick together if we’re going to get off it alive.”

  Willard looked at the older man, and Moloch could see that he wanted to believe him. Whatever love Willard had for anything in this world, he had for Moloch.

  “You hadn’t killed Dexter, I’d have killed him myself once we got to land. I won’t shed tears for him.”

  Despite the agony of his lip, Moloch tried to seem compassionate and concerned about Willard’s own pain. It appeared to work. The gun, trained on Moloch, wavered, then fell.

  “Thank you, Willard,” said Moloch.

  Willard nodded.

  “Where we at?” he asked.

  Moloch shook Marianne hard, by the hair. “My wife and I were about to make love, but now I’ve decided to go straight to the afterglow.”

  “What happened to your mouth?”

  Moloch smiled, his teeth red. “Love bite,” he said, then looked to Jack. “You got a first-aid kit?”

  “In the kitchen, under the sink.”

  Moloch inclined his head toward the kitchen. “Go in, see what you can find for my mouth,” he told Willard.

  Willard took one last look at Dexter, lying unmoving on the floor, then headed for the kitchen, tucking his gun into his belt. The only sign of doubt he exhibited was his reluctance to turn away from Moloch. He was still looking back at him as the kitchen door swung closed on its hinges, hiding him from the view of those in the living room, and Joe Dupree’s great hand closed around his throat. Willard tried to reach for his gun, but the giant’s left hand plucked it from its belt and laid it gently on the top of the refrigerator.

  Willard’s feet began to rise from the ground. He tried to make a sound, but Dupree’s grip was too strong. He kicked out with his feet, hoping to hit the walls or the door and alert Moloch, but the giant held him in the very center of the large kitchen, away from anything that might allow Willard to give his presence away. Willard stretched for the giant’s face, but his arms were too short. Instead, he dug his nails into the Dupree’s hand, tearing and gouging, even as he felt his eyes bulging from his face, his lungs burning. Spittle shot from his mouth, and he began to shudder.

  Then the giant’s grip tightened, and the small bones in Willard’s neck started to snap.

  Outside, Moloch’s head turned sharply toward the kitchen.

  “Willard?” he called. “You okay in there.”

  He discarded his knife. Keeping a grip on Marianne’s hair, he drew his own gun. He pressed it hard against her temple, moving her slowly toward the living room. He saw Jack look to his right, the boy too. Moloch risked a look around the corner.

  The female cop was standing at the ruined window. Her gun was raised. She fired. The glass on the painting closest to Moloch’s head shattered.

  At the same instant, Dupree emerged from the kitchen, his great bulk filling the doorway as he crouched slightly to enter the room. Moloch instantly drew Marianne up to her full height and forced her against him, using her body as a shield, the barrel of the gun now pushed hard into the soft flesh beneath her chin. Only Dupree could see him. Macy stood uncertainly at the window. Moloch adjusted his line of sight so that he could see the hall mirror and Macy’s reflection in its surface.

  “Peekaboo,” he said. “I see you. You stay right there, missy.”

  Dupree remained still, the shotgun pointed at Moloch. The two men confronted each other for the first time, brought together by forces neither fully understood, and bound together by circumstances barely recognized: their shared knowledge of the woman who stood between them; their links to the island and its strange, bloody heritage; and finally, their own curiously similar situations, for they were both men out of place in the world and only Sanctuary could hold out to them a promise of belonging.

  “Let her go,” said Dupree. “It’s over.”

  “You think?” said Moloch. “I reckon it’s just beginning.”

  “Your people are all dead, and you’ll never be allowed to leave this place. Let her go.”

  “Uh, no. I don’t think that’s going to happen. My wife and I have just been reunited after a long absence. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

  Moloch jerked Marianne’s head back and, despite the pain that it caused him, kissed her cheek, leaving a bloody smear on her skin.

  “I bet she didn’t tell you about me. I’m shocked. People got to be honest right from the start, otherwise what hope is there for two lovers in this world?”

  Marianne kept her eyes away from Dupree, afraid to look at his face. To her left, she could see Macy, her gun moving as she waited for Moloch to make himself a target for her.

  “Yeah, I know all about you and my wife. I don’t like a man who milks through another man’s fence, no matter what he’s been told, but I’m inclined to forgive you. After all, she used you.”

  Dupree couldn’t hide his confusion.

  “What did you think, that she was attracted to you, you fucking freak? This isn’t beauty and the beast. This is real life. She took us both for a ride, but hey, don’t beat yourself up over it. She’s smarter than I gave her credit for, and there’s no denying that she’s a looker. Not for too much longer, maybe, but right now most men would give a lot to split this particular piece of white oak. She used you, used you as a lookout, an early-warning system so she could take off with my money when the time came.”

  Marianne tried to speak, but the gun pressed so hard into her skin that she felt sure it would push through into her mouth. Now, at last, she allowed herself to stare into Dupree’s face as she tried to communicate with him, to express her shame, her regret, her fear, and her feelings for him.

  They’re lies. He’s telling lies. I never wanted to hurt anyone, least of all you.

  “She’ll try to deny it, but it was there in her head. I know her. Hell, I was married to her for long enough, and she still fucked me over. Maybe she even thought that you might protect her if things went wrong. Well, she was right about that much at least, because here you are.”

  In the mirror, Moloch saw Macy attempt to move off, making for the front door to cut off another line of escape. “Missy, I said I could see you. You move another fucking inch and I’ll blow my bitch wife’s brains all over the ceiling.”

  Macy stopped.

  “Put the shotgun down,” Moloch told Dupree. “You can get rid of the Smith on your belt as well. I won’t even waste my time counting to three.”

  Dupree, against all his instincts, did as he
was told, laying the shotgun down gently on the floor, followed by his Smith & Wesson.

  “You too, missy,” said Moloch. He kept his back to the wall so that he could see Macy clearly. She didn’t move.

  “You think I’m fucking with you? Do it!”

  Macy began to lower the gun slowly as Moloch’s attention flicked back to Dupree.

  “Look at you,” he said. “You’re a freak, a giant pretending to be a knight in shining armor. But you don’t read your fairy stories, Mr. Giant.”

  The gun moved suddenly from Marianne’s face, its barrel now pointing at Dupree.

  “At the end of the story, the giant always dies.”

  He pulled the trigger, and the policeman’s throat blossomed like a new flower.

  It seemed to happen slowly for Joe Dupree. He thought that he could almost see the bullet as it moved, tearing a path through the cold air. It entered his skin in tiny increments, fractions of inches, ripping through flesh and bone, exiting just to the right of his spine. He fell backward through the kitchen door, coming to rest close to Willard’s body. He tried to breathe, but already his throat was flooding with blood. The kitchen door was held open by his feet and he saw Marianne spin and strike at Moloch’s injured mouth, then throw herself against him in an effort to dislodge his gun. He saw Macy moving through the living room, her gun extended, her face turning in horror toward him. He watched Moloch push Marianne away, then run for the door, firing as he did so, his wife scrambling for the cover of the corner as the bullets sent plaster and paint flying from the walls.

  Then he was gone, Macy uncertain whether to follow him or tend to her wounded comrade. She ran to Dupree, limping slightly, favoring her right foot.

  “Stay with me, Joe,” she began. “We’ll get help.”

  He reached out, took her shirt in his hand, then pushed her away.

  Still she paused. He could not speak, but he pointed his hand in the direction of the fleeing man. She nodded and headed after Moloch, stopping just once to look back at the dying policeman.