by Meg Gardiner
The monkey skittered across the roof, pounced down onto the hood, leaped from the truck, and ran toward the open door of the Cadillac. Skunk spun in the street, howling and wiping his hands over his face.
Jo grabbed Sophie's hand.
It was dark; they were by themselves. They were in a broken city.
They were half a mile from the police station.
They were on her turf.
This was her neighborhood. A house of cards, perhaps, but it hadn't yet come down around their ears. Victorian apartments, cable car tracks, weird alleys where tie-dyed flower children hung Age of Aquarius banners from their fire escapes. Where they could slip away into the dark.
It was a big boulder problem, a series of cracks and holds, and a woman on foot might make it through the fissures, whereas a man in a Cadillac never would.
She held Sophie tight. "Now. Run."
Gripping Sophie's hand, Jo sprinted along the street. Behind them the Cadillac made a wallowing U-turn and came after them.
Fifty yards up the sidewalk, Jo found a narrow footpath between two buildings. She cut through it. She pulled Sophie along in the dark. It was difficult to see their footing, to know whether anybody or anything was around.
How had Mr. Peebles turned up? The monkey must have followed them out Ferd's front door and scampered into the bed of the truck before they left.
She heard a dog bark. They came out the footpath onto another street. A cable car was stuck dead in the middle of the road, derelict. She led Sophie around it.
At the corner, the Cadillac appeared.
Shit. He'd seen them cut through the alley. She reached the far sidewalk and hurried along it. Lights rose in the night: The Cadillac's headlights were trailing them. She saw a path between two houses. She pulled Sophie toward it and stopped, hearing growling. The Cadillac's headlights illuminated the eyes of four dogs on the path, tearing into food scavenged from a garbage can.
Jo spun around. There. In the middle of the block, a flight of stairs. She dashed to it, grabbed the railing, and started down. Behind her she heard the Cadillac roar away.
"Sophie, you just have to hold on for a few minutes. The police station is—" How many blocks? Ten? A light-year? "It's this way."
"That man's coming after us."
"We're going to hide from him. He can't come down these paths."
They ran down fifty steps. When they got to the bottom Jo's legs were shaking. They lurched out to the street. The Cadillac was idling directly ahead of them.
Skunk knew they were headed for the police station. Jo looked around. In the dark, momentarily, she felt disoriented. The darkened buildings looked eerie and unfamiliar. Then she realized she was only two blocks from Java Jones. She was half a block from the reconstruction project, the old apartment building that was being gutted and rebuilt. If they cut around the back of it, they might be able to slip past Skunk and make it to the next block.
"Come on. This way."
She pulled the girl with her into the shadows and backtracked. Her legs were burning, her lungs aching. Sophie was game, but running ragged. They came out near a corner.
Her heart leaped. Across the street, she saw a bonfire in a trash can. Men were standing around it warming their hands.
"Hey." She ran into the street. "I need help."
The men ignored her. She got close enough to see them. Oh no.
They were homeless men, they were drinking, they were close to fighting among themselves over who got priority heat from the burning garbage in the trash can. They were people who brandished their schizophrenia and a two-by-four. One of them looked at her. In the firelight, his eyes said that if she came close they'd surround her, but not to help. She veered away again.
Sophie was hanging on to her. "I can't keep running."
"Then walk fast."
All they could do was keep going toward the police station. She found another alley and led Sophie down it. When they came out on the next block, Jo looked both ways. She saw no sign of Skunk. She did see the alley continuing on the other side of the road. She dashed into the street.
Down the block, the Cadillac's headlights flashed on. They caught Jo in the middle of the road. The Caddy roared at her. Fighting a scream, she hauled Sophie across the road, aiming for the alley.
Behind her tires squealed to a stop. She looked back and saw Skunk jump out of the car. He was close. Oh, God, he was going to see them. She ducked into the alley, aimed for a group of trash cans and pulled Sophie down behind them. Crouching low, she peered between them at the street. Skunk was standing in the road looking for her.
The alley was dark. He couldn't see where they'd gone. He inched away from the car, peering into the night.
A new idea jumped in her mind. She leaned close to Sophie's ear and whispered, "Ssh."
Feeling on the ground in the dark, she found a rock. Please, Lord, grant me one major-league pitch. She picked it up, twisted, and hurled it down the alley. It hit. Glass rang to the ground.
Skunk spun and ran after the sound. Crouching behind the trash cans, Jo saw his legs go past at eye level.
She pulled Sophie to her feet. "Come on. Fast."
The Cadillac was idling in the center of the road.
The Cadillac was facing downhill on a steep grade, with the driver's door open. Jo shoved Sophie inside and jumped in after her.
The car was as big as a 747. The interior was like a 1950s travesty—a malt shop, underwire bra, shiny chrome nightmare. Scarlet leather glowed under the dashboard lights. Jo felt as though she were sitting in a wet red mouth. She grabbed the gearshift on the steering column.
Christ, how did you put this whale in gear?
She pulled, she twisted, yanked, felt the gearshift move. She stomped on the gas. The car leaped forward.
Straight at the curb. She spun the wheel and straightened it out. Behind her, she heard Skunk shouting. Then she heard the back door open. Sophie started sobbing.
Skunk was in the car. Or half in the car. She drove, veering down the street, heard him grunt with effort, heard his hand smack hold of the bench seat right behind her shoulder. Beneath the growl of the engine she thought she heard his boots scraping on the asphalt as his legs dragged out the door. She jammed the pedal down.
Like an oil tanker, the car gained speed. With a hard groan Skunk pulled himself all the way in. Then he started to climb over the front seat. Sophie sobbed wildly.
Jo shouted, "Sophie, on three, jump out and run."
She heard shrieking again. A little outbreak of the collective unconscious, the id rising to scream its will. In the rearview mirror Jo saw the monkey spring at Skunk. Its tiny hands clawed into his hair.
"One, two—" She braked, screaming to a halt. "Three."
The car slewed to a stop. Skunk slammed against the back of the bench seat and bounced around. Sophie jumped out. Jo hit the gas again. In the rearview mirror she saw Skunk right himself and rise up to lunge for her.
Mr. Peebles was clinging to Skunk's head. He had one small hand on an eye, the other in Skunk's nostrils. Skunk was clawing at the creature. Jo floored the car, opened the driver's door, and thought, If I break something I'm cooked . . .
She rolled out.
Hitting asphalt at thirty miles an hour, even rolling, hurt like a mother. The breath clapped out of her like she'd been hit broadside with a door. She rolled to a stop facedown and lay there stunned. Then she breathed.
Junkyard dog, mutt. This was no worse than losing your grip on a boulder problem and hitting the dirt. Get the hell up.
She pushed up. Her hip killed. Her knees killed. Her entire left arm was abraded raw, and she knew gravel was embedded in it. She struggled to her feet.
The Cadillac sailed down the street. The dome light was on and she saw Skunk, still trying to get over the seat.
The car reached the lip of a steep hill and flew past it, an out-of-control white whale. The hot-nozzle taillights dropped out of sight.
Chest heaving, Jo staggere
d down the road to the cusp of the hill. The Cadillac was racing toward an intersection at the bottom. Its headlights caught the scene that awaited it. Power lines were down at the corner. A telephone pole had fallen and was hanging by the wires. The top of it was aimed this direction, about four feet off the ground, like the barrel of a cannon.
God. She knew what was coming and couldn't look away.
She heard Skunk scream.
Full speed, carrying two tons of momentum, the Cadillac speared the telephone pole. It skewered the windshield of the car like a roasting spit. With a cacophonous crash, the Caddy slammed to a halt. The tail humped into the air and slammed down again.
Silence.
Jo stood motionless for a moment, staring. Through the open driver's door, Skunk's arm flopped limply. It hung like his neck and head were maybe pinned someplace in the backseat. She was too far away to see clearly, but something dark began dripping onto the street.
She backed away. Turning, she saw Sophie standing near the curb, hands balled and pressed to her mouth. Her zombie costume glittered in the moonlight. She was shivering. Jo limped to the curb and put her arm around the little girl.
"We're all right."
Sophie was rigid under her embrace. Jo hugged her, hoping to warm her and to thaw her terror enough to get her to move.
In a tremulous voice, Sophie said, "The monkey."
Jo looked at the lip of the hill. "I know."
"Is he okay?"
"Hope so."
Sophie's fists shuddered against her mouth. "Poor little guy."
Jo rubbed her hand up and down Sophie's back. "Yeah. Come on. We need to get to the police station."
Gently she turned Sophie and got her walking back along the sidewalk. Jo's entire left side was throbbing. This might be a little worse than hitting the dirt without a crash pad. In the morning she was going to look like a raw steak.
But right now she could still move. "Let's go."
She held tight to Sophie and limped along the sidewalk. The buildings around them remained bleakly dark. They neared the construction site, and for once Jo wished for hooting carpenters with heavy tools, and a big F-150 pickup to ferry her and Sophie down the hill.
She saw that much of the building's scaffolding had collapsed in the quake. The site was a mess.
"It's only about six blocks from here," she said. "And when we get to Columbus Avenue, there'll be people. Maybe even a cab."
Sophie said nothing. This Halloween was no treat. Just a dirty trick to play on a kid.
"The police will be able to contact your dad on the radio. We'll talk to him."
A freakish noise set all her nerve endings alight. Sophie jumped. The noise came again, from the dark behind them. Jo's hair was standing on end. It was an electronic buzzing. High-pitched, inarticulate, simian. An artificial robotic voice.
She turned around.
From a doorway behind them, Mr. Peebles teetered into view, walking upright. He had a device in his hands. He shook it, turned it around, and put it to his mouth. When he shrieked, so did the device.
It was an electro-larynx. A voice synthesizer.
They stared at the monkey, petrified. Slowly Jo looked over her shoulder.
Pray was standing on the sidewalk fifty feet behind them.
Jo pushed Sophie behind her and began backing up. Pray stared at
them.
She knew it was Pray even though he was little more than a darkened form on the sidewalk ahead. The height, the gaunt figure, the slack angle of his shoulders. How had he found her? He had to have been riding with Skunk. They had followed her from her house. He must have gotten out of the Cadillac before Skunk sideswiped her. He'd been trailing them, silently and on foot, ever since.
He walked toward them.
Behind her, the voice synthesizer screeched. It sounded like Mr. Peebles was contacting some egregious monkey mother ship. Jo walked backward.
She whispered, "We have to get out of sight. Have to hide. Lose him."
Sophie walked raggedly. Jo had the feeling that if she let go, the little girl might just drop to the concrete. She estimated their chances.
If she let go of Sophie and ran out into the street, would Pray follow her? Or would he go after Sophie instead?
They backed past the corner of a Victorian building. She saw a pathway, running between it and the construction site. It dimmed into a collapsing darkness only five feet from her.
She whispered, "Fast."
Shoving Sophie ahead of her, she darted into the pathway. It was narrow and overgrown with weeds. Her hip and knee were throb-
bing. Sophie ran, bless her heart, what a kid. Jo pummeled behind her, hands out, feeling blind. She heard feet running behind her. She looked back and saw a shadow on the street.
She heard a scuffle, and the monkey squealing.
She kept running.
Sophie said, in a terrified little whisper, "We can hide in there. Please."
Barely able to see, Jo said, "Where?"
Without explaining, Sophie ducked through a break in the chain-link fence that guarded the construction site.
"Come on, hide. Jo, we should hide. Come in here."
"Sophie, no—"
The girl disappeared into the dark.
Pray appeared at the head of the path. There was the slightest edge of light behind him, blue-gray rather than black, and she could see him silhouetted. He was feeling his way, hands outstretched, searching for them.
For a moment Jo watched him come. He was about fifty yards away. She didn't think he had seen Sophie duck through the fence. She didn't think he could have seen it, that he even suspected it, or that he would be able to spot her in the tar darkness beyond the chain link.
Jo could duck in as well, but at this point even if Pray didn't see her do it, he would hear her, and he'd follow. She could turn and keep running down the weed-strewn path to the street at the far end. But doing that would mean leaving Sophie alone in a hazardous area. Dammit. Damn everything to hell.
Her breath was coming faster and faster.
She could draw Pray away from the little girl. And maybe she could stop him. But if he caught her, Sophie would be completely on her own. She didn't know where the police station was. The streets were dangerous. The building site was dangerous.
She felt like she couldn't breathe.
Pray kept coming.
She couldn't duck through the fence without him seeing it. And she couldn't let him know that's where Sophie was. She tried to fold herself into the shadows as she backed toward the far end of the path.
She saw him come past the opening in the fence.
He was waiting for her to run out the far end of the path onto the street. He couldn't see her right now. But if she stayed where she was, he would run right the hell into her.
There was a clatter from the other side of the fence, inside the construction site. Metal rods crashing, wood splintering, a whole cascade of noise. It sounded as though something had collapsed. It sounded like an avalanche.
And mixed up in the noise was a little girl crying out.
Her heart seized. Pray spun toward the noise. He was between her and the hole in the fence.
Shadowy movement was all she could see on the path in front of her. From the construction site, someplace deep in the half-torn building, she heard a fearful moaning.
The electronic voice spoke. "Give me the information and I'll let you go find her."
He'd grabbed the voice synthesizer back from Mr. Peebles. Could he see her? Was he only guessing that she was still on the path?
"The names. Give them to me. If you don't, I'll take them from you, kill you, and leave her to die."
She didn't move.
"Fine."
He ran at her.
Jo went up.
She grabbed the fence and climbed. Six feet off the ground, she spun and grabbed the rain gutter of the apartment building on the other side of the skinny sidewalk. Please God, let it hold.
The gutter was cold and covered with rusting paint. She stuck to it like tape and inched up it. Her leg hurt like hell.
Pray stopped beneath her, breathing heavily. Jo climbed another three feet, feeling the gutter creak on old brackets. She looked over the top of the fence. Dynamic, she told herself.
With a huge breath, she pushed off and sailed over the top of the fence into the construction site.
She landed hard on the dirt, crashing to all fours. The pain in her leg fired off like a Roman candle, so sharp she almost heard it hiss into the sky. Spots flashed in her eyes. She grit her teeth and clambered to her feet.
The building loomed in front of her like an empty skull, windows dark, doorway a gaping mouth. Inside it, the front hall was a throat. Her skin constricted. She couldn't see a thing inside it.
But she could hear Sophie crying. The sound was coming from deep in the building.
Outside the chain-link fence, Pray's mechanical voice rang out. "Bitch."
Jo ran up the front steps and through the door of the building. The darkness was like a velvet curtain. There was sawdust and debris beneath her feet. She kicked something, a nail or bolt, and it bounced into the wall with a bright ting.
Outside she heard the fence rattle. Pray was coming.
The names, the names . . . He and Skunk were fixated on the idea that she'd obtained the names of the people he was hunting. They thought she now had them.
The bridge. Skunk with his hand out—
The suicide note.
Was that what they wanted? Did they think Southern's note contained Pray's hit list?
She felt her way along the wall. She had the smothering feeling that Pray thought she was the final target in their hunt.
Sophie's crying was closer now. Jo knew she had to feel trapped, completely cut off—and she couldn't call out to her without drawing Pray's attention. Her jaw ached from clenching.
Her hands were sweating. She wiped them on her jeans. With every heartbeat, her vision spiked. In the dark, it created the optical illusion that the hallway was throbbing. That it was undulating, getting ready to swallow her. She looked up. The ceiling was solid. But this building was half torn down, and the scaffolding along the side had collapsed in the quake.
Sophie, what have you done?
