by Strand, Jeff
The biker stepped in after him.
Warren heard a crack of metal against bone.
The biker stumbled out of the apartment, clutching his forehead. A woman, young and petite but holding an iron golf club, smacked him again, getting him right in the mouth. The biker spat out a couple of bloody teeth and then gasped as if he were choking on a couple more.
The woman struck him with the golf club again and again. Warren didn't know if her swing was proper golf form, but in terms of beating a human being, her technique was supremely effective.
After a vicious blow directly to the knee he dropped to the floor. She continued to hit him.
This was too much. She was going to kill him.
It was difficult to muster sympathy for somebody who'd just tried to bash in his brains, but when the next blow knocked the man's lower jaw five inches to the right, he let out a loud wince.
"That's good enough," Warren said. "He's done for a while."
The woman smashed the golf club into the biker's shoulder.
"You need to..." Warren trailed off. He'd almost forgotten why he was here. If the little girl could still be saved, it was ridiculous to waste time pleading for the biker's life.
The biker held up his hand to block the next swing of the golf club. He did stop it from bashing into his nose, but three of his fingers were now bent backwards, almost touching the back of his hand.
Warren left the poor guy to whatever tragic fate the woman had in mind for him, and ran back down the hallway until he reached what he hoped was the correct door.
He turned the doorknob. Unlocked, thank God. Breaking down a door through brute force was not part of his skill set.
The apartment was empty, but he could hear the woman's voice coming from the balcony, so he had the right one.
Now he needed a plan. He didn't really have one besides "try to talk her out of it." It wasn't like he could tackle her.
"Catch!" the woman shouted.
A little girl screamed.
Shit! Was he really two seconds too late?
He rushed into the dining room, now able to see the woman through the open sliding glass door. The woman heard him and spun around. The infant strapped to her chest began to cry.
"What the hell are you doing in my place?" the woman demanded.
The little girl continued to scream. She was still alive! Was she hanging on to something?
The woman stretched her arms out as if to grab Warren, even though she was still on the balcony and not close to being able to reach him.
Then she ran at him.
He didn't need to shout "Be careful! The baby!" She undoubtedly knew that she had a baby strapped to her chest. She'd just tried to drop her daughter four stories, so it was pretty evident that this mother was not right in the head.
Warren shouted it anyway. Then he got out of her way.
She ran a few steps past him, pivoted on one foot, and for a terrifying instant Warren thought that she was going to fall. But she maintained her balance and rushed at him again.
"Mind your own business!" she told him.
Warren wanted to call something out that would reassure the little girl that help was on the way, that she should hold on as long as possible, that he promised he'd pull her up to safety...but he couldn't, because suddenly the woman's hands were wrapped around his neck.
The back of his legs struck her couch, and he fell into a sitting position. She pressed her thumb against his throat.
You never, ever hit a woman. This had been taught to him from an early age, and it had always been a very easy rule to follow, both in an ethical and practical sense. But when a woman had tried to kill her child and was now trying to strangle him to death, it required adjustments to one's moral code.
Not yet, though. First he just tried to pull her hands away from his neck.
Couldn't do it. Again, the woman showed no evidence of superhuman strength, but the advantage still went to the strangler over the one being strangled.
So he punched her.
Her head popped back, and she let go of his neck.
She called him a shithead in a very loud voice.
She reached for his neck again, so Warren punched her a second time. He'd known, cognitively, that punching somebody hurt a lot worse in real life than it did in the movies, but he still wasn't quite expecting a level of pain where he thought he might have shattered the bones in his hand.
This blow seemed to stun her a bit. She blinked a few times, lost her balance, then toppled over.
"No!" Warren shouted. He grabbed her shirt, and as her arms flailed helplessly, he managed to twist her around so that she fell directly onto her back.
"Why are you trying to hurt the baby?" Warren asked.
"I'm not! You punched me, shithead!"
Warren realized that the little girl was still screaming outside. She hadn't fallen yet!
He got up off the couch and tried to run for the patio, but the woman grabbed his ankle with both hands and he fell, crashing onto the floor and nearly hitting a glass coffee table.
The woman, fingers curled into claws, dove at him.
Had there not been a baby strapped to her chest, it would have been pretty easy to kick her in the stomach, which would probably resolve the situation. But all Warren could do was frantically scoot backwards, trying to keep away from her.
"You're going to hurt your baby!" Warren said. This was not new information, and there was no reason to believe that this particular comment was going to change her mind, but it was an infant child strapped to her chest. He had to keep trying to talk her out of this insane behavior. She couldn't possibly want to hurt the baby, so maybe something would finally get through.
That comment wasn't the one, though.
Warren struck a recliner. The cushion didn't hurt but it startled him. He pushed himself up, took another swing at the woman that missed completely, then rushed into the kitchen.
The first thing he noticed was all of the children's drawings on the refrigerator door. The second thing he noticed was the wooden block of knives.
He slid on the tiled floor and almost fell, but he kept his balance and grabbed a carving knife out of the block.
He spun around, thinking for another heart stopping instant that the woman was going to run right into the blade, baby-first. Fortunately, she stopped.
Warren knew that he couldn't really stab a mother, but as long as she didn't know that, he might be able to end this without anybody dying.
"Gonna stab me?" asked the woman. "What kind of coward needs to use a knife?"
"Can't you hear your daughter?" Warren asked, though he was unnerved to realize that he couldn't anymore. "You have to let me save her."
"If I wanted you to save her, I wouldn't have dropped her."
"Look at you. You've got a baby. You need to get medical help. There's something wrong with you. It's not your fault, but there's something wrong, and if you don't let me call an ambulance you could end up hurting your child or yourself."
Speaking of which, where was the ambulance? He supposed it could just be driving around the general vicinity, the paramedics hoping to luck out and speed past a little girl dangling from a balcony, since he hadn't been able to give a real address.
Or, if the scope of this nightmare was beyond what he and Julia had encountered, the city's emergency resources might be otherwise occupied...
"I'm not going to hurt myself," the woman said. "What do you think I am, incompetent?"
"No, no, not at all. It's just...you don't think this is normal, do you?"
The woman shrugged. "Why should I care what's normal?"
"Do me a huge favor. Take off the baby sling."
"You want me to drop Ginny on the floor?"
"No!"
The woman smiled. "I was kidding, you stupid fuck. You don't even get when people are joking. That's pretty sad."
"What's your name?"
"What's yours?"
"Warren."
"Yes. Exactly like the commission."
"That's a dumb name. It sounds weird when you say it out loud. Warren. Warren."
"What's your name?"
"You already asked me that."
"You didn't answer."
"Cheryl."
"Nice to meet you, Cheryl. Now please take off the baby sling."
Cheryl shook her head.
If he thought there was any possible way he could rescue the little girl while Cheryl was attacking him, he'd run right out to the balcony. But there was no chance of that working.
"Take it off and we'll talk."
"I don't want to talk. It's not like you were invited in here. You're trespassing. That's a felony."
Warren lunged forward with the knife, not coming anywhere close to hitting her, but hopefully scaring her a bit. "Put the baby on the floor, or I'll have no choice but to stab you."
Cheryl placed her hand gently on the baby's head. "Maybe I'll jab my thumb into the soft spot in the back of his head. How about that?"
"I'm serious. I'll do what it takes to save your kids."
"Yeah?"
"Yes." He looked her in the eyes, trying to convey how deeply serious he was, even though he didn't truly believe that he'd be able to stab her.
Cheryl let out a snort of laughter. "Not scared at all. Not even a little. Nice try, though."
There was a loud shriek of terror from outside.
Not from the balcony. From ground level. Julia.
Warren waved the knife at Cheryl. "I'm going onto your balcony. You follow me and I swear to God I'll jam this right into your face."
He took a step away from her. She took a step toward him.
"I mean it!"
Another scream.
Suddenly Cheryl looked furious. "Oh, damn it! Damn it!"
Warren glanced over to see what had set her off. The little girl was standing just outside of the kitchen, trembling as she softly cried.
So she'd pulled herself up to safety. That was one hell of a kid.
Cheryl clenched her fists together in rage. "You were supposed to fall!"
She ran at the little girl. Warren, having no choice, immediately stepped between them, still holding the knife.
* * *
When the woman dropped the girl, Julia thought that her heart was going to shoot right up into her throat, and from there jettison out the top of her skull.
After the girl actually managed to grab hold of the bottom of the rail, Julia's sense of relief was so intense that she wanted to sob. The relief lasted for about half a second, though, as she quickly realized that the girl was still almost certainly going to fall, and there wasn't a damn thing that Julia could do to help her.
A fire engine might come by with one of those trampolines (though she didn't think they even used them anymore), or Warren might make it to the balcony in time, but otherwise, what could Julia do? Shout words of moral support? "You can do it, little girl! No splattery death! No splattery death!"
There had to be some way to break her fall. A mattress from somebody on the first floor, maybe...?
A jeep rounded the corner, tires squealing. It blasted the horn as it pulled up behind Warren's car, but came to a stop instead of swerving around the vehicle.
Three guys, college-aged and dressed for a night of partying, got out of the jeep. One of them, redheaded and freckle-faced, ran over to the sidewalk next to Julia. He quickly took out his cell phone.
The little girl had managed to lift her foot enough to brace it on the bottom of the balcony. Julia almost shouted something encouraging but didn't want to distract her. She turned to the redheaded guy.
"You, me, and your friends...if we all group up, we might be able to catch her if she falls."
The redhead nodded as he tapped the screen of his phone. "Yeah, yeah, we can do that." He gestured to his friends. "What are you guys doing? Get over here!"
"Ah, let the tiny bitch fall," said one of the guys.
"You think that's funny?" the redhead shouted back, putting the phone to his ear. "That's funny to you? What the hell, dude?" He looked up at the girl, who continued to pull herself up.
"She might be okay," said Julia, hardly able to believe it.
"It says all circuits are busy." The redhead lowered his phone and turned back to his friends. "Hey! What's the matter with you assholes? Get over here!"
The other two guys were grinning. One of them whispered something to the other, and they both snickered.
"Maybe they should just stay with the jeep," said Julia.
"I don't know what's wrong with them. I swear to you, I wouldn't be friends with guys who acted like such douchebags."
One of the guys took out his own cell phone and held it up toward the building.
"Are you recording this?" the redhead asked, absolutely horrified. "He's making a video of this," he said, so quietly that Julia wasn't sure if he was speaking to her or himself.
"Hey, Steve!" said the guy who wasn't recording. "You gonna bang her or what?"
Shaking his head in disbelief, Steve returned his attention to the little girl. "C'mon," he said, "you're almost there."
Julia wondered what had happened to Warren. He should've been on the fourth floor long before this. Maybe he was trying to break down the woman's door.
It was hard to take her eyes off the little girl, but Julia glanced back at the other two guys. The one was still recording, and the other one licked his lips and winked at her. Then he went around to the back of the jeep and popped open the rear door.
"Damn it," said Steve. "Still no answer at 911. Is every kid in the city dangling off a balcony or something?"
"I don't think there's anything we can do to help her," said Julia. "We should go."
"Go? What do you mean, go?"
Steve's friend had taken a tire iron out of the back of the jeep. He slapped the end against his palm, clearly trying to look menacing.
"Are your friends on drugs?" Julia asked.
"No! I've been with them all night! We don't do that stuff! I don't know what's wrong with them!"
"Okay, they aren't the only ones who've gone nuts. We should get out of here."
"Hey, Steve!" said the guy who was recording the little girl. "I'll bet you ten bucks you can't hit that kid with a rock! Ten bucks! Three tries to knock her down!"
"I'll kick in another ten," said the guy with the tire iron.
"You're right," Steve told Julia. "We should get out of here."
The little girl climbed all the way over the rail and safely onto the balcony floor.
Steve and Julia ran.
Julia didn't look back to see if the other guys were following, but she sensed movement behind her and to the left, and then in her peripheral vision she saw the guy with the tire iron running down the street. He was one hell of a sprinter, because he'd already almost caught up to them.
As they ran, he threw the tire iron like a javelin.
Tire irons were not meant to be thrown in that manner. It didn't sail swiftly through the air, but rather did a lopsided spin. It landed on the pavement, bounced end over end, and struck Steve's leg.
He pitched forward, doing a faceplant so brutal that blood shot from both sides of his head.
"Woooo!" his friend shouted. "Did you see that? I couldn't repeat that throw if I tried!"
Had he been aiming for Steve instead of her? Were things even more out of control than she thought?
For a split second Julia was seized with indecision. Keeping running or fight back?
She went with "fight back."
She spun around and lunged for the tire iron. Steve's friend had been too busy doing a victory dance to reclaim his weapon, and by the time he realized his mistake, she was already brandishing it in both hands.
Steve rolled over onto his side, revealing the grisly mess of his face. He tried to say something but his words were incoherent.
"C'mon, throw it back," the guy
said to Julia.
"Just go," she said. "You don't want to be here when the cops arrive."
The guy shrugged. "I dunno. Might give me the chance to kill some cops. Life's all about having new experiences, right?"
He stepped forward.
"Come any closer, and I will slam this through your neck," Julia warned.
He came a step closer. Julia slammed the tire iron through his neck.
He dropped to the pavement, making a gargling sound as blood poured down the front of his shirt. Julia knew that if she took the time to be properly horrified by what she'd done, the last guy would have the opportunity to do her harm, so she wrenched the tire iron free and held it, dripping, in front of her.
"That's fucked up," the last guy said, seeming amused by his mangled friends. "You've got to be some kind of she-demon to do that to a person."
Julia swung the tire iron a couple of times. "Get out of here."
"Or else what?"
"Or else I'll crack your skull open."
The guy stroked his chin, as if in deep thought. "That is a deterrent. I guess there are plenty of other people to kill. I'll find one who doesn't have a tire iron. No reason to get myself hurt, right?"
He turned around and began to walk away.
"Wait!" Julia called after him, knowing this might be a terrible mistake.
He glanced over his shoulder.
"What's happening?" Julia asked. "Why are you doing this?"
The guy shrugged. "Feels like the right thing to do."
"But why?"
"I bet you'll understand soon enough."
He walked away.
* * *
Oh my God I stabbed the baby I stabbed the baby I stabbed the baby...
The carving knife was in the woman's chest, buried to the hilt. Warren couldn't tell how badly he'd cut the baby, but there was already blood on the left side of its light blue onesie.
The woman started to tumble forward. Warren grabbed her under the shoulders and tried to ease her to the floor, but she quickly slipped out of his grasp.
Shit shit shit...
