Well, now, what do we have here?
–do a turn and maybe drift upwards a couple of floors hellbent on giving her a little nudge behind the knees.
She waited until the car went fully by, sounding as soft and smooth as her mother's old Singer sowing machine, barely ticking over. As it moved along, the woman must have let her attention lapse a little because the car veered a little too close to the next building along: there was a dull crunch and Sally watched as the car straightened up, moving slightly away from the building, and pieces of concrete dropped down onto the street in a flurry of noise and dust, and, seconds later, the car was gone, having turned down one of the side streets up ahead.
(27)
The first thing Rick noticed was the trunk of Daryl Engstrom's 1970 tomato-red Plymouth 'Cuda hanging out of the upper floor side of the station. If the situation had not been so difficult, the scene might have been comical, the car stuck onto the building's roof like a huge boil or an unsightly canker on the side of a favorite tree.
Rick had come up on the station from the woods, with the building taking shape from the top down behind the trees, etched against the steadily lightening eastern sky like an apocalyptic drawing sketched perhaps after the very same tornado that had taken Dorothy and Toto from the safety of Kansas to the harsh landscape of Oz had hit twenty-first century Jesman's Bend and the immediate area.
He sidled his way between trees and bushes, being careful to avoid disturbing the foliage. As the concrete aproned entrance and the adjoining garage door came into view he was glad of his stealth.
There were about half a dozen of them shuffling around at the main doorway into the station.
Two more – one of whom was Troy and the other Rick didn't… no, it was Gram Kramer – were wandering across to the garage door. Troy seemed to have been in some kind of accident – Gram, too, he saw. It was clear even from where Rick crouched that the heads and shirt fronts of Jesman's Bend's favorite deputy and gas jockey were covered in blood. Had there been some kind of fight? And if so, had it happened in town or here at the station? Rick feared that the latter was the most likely – he couldn't imagine the townsfolk beating each other up, and certainly not to the extent that Troy had been beaten.
A loud creak sounded from above the throng and Rick looked up in time to see Jennifer Bacquirez push open the 'Cuda's warped door and start to get out of the car. He felt a sudden urge to shout and tell her–
Hey, Jenny, don't do that!
–that the particular section of Daryl Engstrom's pride and joy she was struggling to exit was suspended some fifteen feet or more above solid concrete. Nobody else seemed to be paying any attention.
In fact, Troy was now apparently concentrating on the garage door, his head tilted to one side. He was listening for something.
A dull thudding crack snapped out as Jennifer Bacquirez fell to the concrete. Nobody turned around.
Gram Kramer wandered over to stand beside Troy and the pair of them started banging their heads–
Thuuuum! Thuuuum!
–against the garage door.
Now Rick understood where the blood had come from. He looked across at the station door and saw the dark stains – he knew what those stains were.
Gram lifted his arms and slammed them against the garage door, thrust his head forward and rammed it. Troy did the same.
On the concrete apron, the prone figure of Jennifer Bacquirez struggled to right herself. She was lying on her back, one leg doubled up beneath her and the other one – her left – thrashing up and down. She looked for all the world like an upturned insect trying to turn itself over.
Rick watched others from the group wander across to the garage where Troy and Gram had built up an obtuse rhythm. Sally Pennington and Grace Sheffield joined them and commenced to provide a counter-beat. Nobody was saying anything – stranger still, nobody was screaming at the pain they were inflicting on themselves. The same went for the smashed Jennifer Bacquirez, who still flapped arms and single leg from the concrete, groping around for some means of support. She was still wearing her dark glasses. And her gloves.
Rick glanced around at each member of the group. All had on their dark glasses and all were wearing gloves.
Now there were four of them banging away at the garage door with various parts of their anatomy. One thing above all else was starting to worry Rick: and that was the fact that, slowly and surely, their movement seemed to be improving.
Back at the spot where he and Geoff had been watching the people from town, their coordination had been more stilted. What he was watching now was still a far cry from complete coordination, but it was drastically improved and more fluid. Rick didn't think that was a good sign.
A loud crash sounded from inside the station.
Troy and Gram stopped their beating and tilted their heads until two more crashes rang out. Then they recommenced.
More crashes came from inside the garage. The activity could mean only one thing: Johnny and Melanie were inside the garage. The trick was how to get them out.
Then there was a loud shout and the sound of things falling and breaking, and a high-pitched scream which turned into Johnny's name. That was followed by more smashing.
A single clunk from the garage door stopped Troy and Gram and their activity once again, this time inspiring them to stagger backwards and stare at the door. It had moved. That meant that Johnny and Mel–
Rick looked across to his left and saw Jennifer Bacquirez holding something in the air. She had shuffled her way around so that she now lay on her side.
Sally Pennington and Grace Sheffield turned around and looked at Jennifer without Jennifer having said anything. Troy looked as well, and Gram. Jennifer moved the object in her hand towards her until she was holding it right in front of her glasses. She shook the thing, shook it harder, then tapped it – surprisingly gently – on the concrete. Then she switched hands, like a baby trying to figure out how her favorite toy worked, and–
clunk, rackerrackerrack–
–the door moved again.
Sammy Lescombe emerged soundlessly from the bushes over to Rick's right. Everyone turned to face him without Sammy having said anything. He was carrying an armful of thick branches which he proceeded to hand out to the people at the garage door. Now Gram walked up to the door and, with what appeared to be a superhuman effort, brought his arm back and swung his branch – a thick piece of tree bole – forward to crash against the door. It made a loud reverberation. There was a shrill scream from the other side of the door, followed by a chorus of crashes.
Troy followed Gram's example with his own stick.
Jennifer took hold of the object in both hands, held it steady and–
Clunk, rackerrackerrackerrackerracker!
–pressed.
The garage door was moving upwards.
Troy and Gram, Sally, Grace and Sammy shuffled forward, holding their branches menacingly.
It was now or never.
Rick burst from the bushes and headed for Jennifer and the remote.
Abby Buchanan stepped from the shadows of the station doorway even before Rick was onto the concrete, striding her legs by swinging them out and forward, like the knees were locked and wouldn't bend. She lifted her arms out in front of her and started pulling off her gloves.
On the floor, Jennifer Bacquirez stopped waving her arm around and turned her head to face in Rick's direction. Rick noticed that the banging on the garage door had stopped.
He reached where Jennifer was lying and stopped to glance back at the garage door. Troy had moved away from the door and was walking in Rick's direction. His movements seemed a little stiff but generally OK, certainly a lot better than the movements Rick had seen back at the clearing just a couple of hours ago.
Troy hefted his branch and did a trial swing with it. There looked to be a lot of power in those arms, and Rick didn't want to be anywhere near.
Gram stepped over near the door and just stood ther
e like a sentry on guard duty, his own branch resting in his arms like it was a rifle. Sally, Grace and Sammy fanned out into a horseshoe configuration making it so there was no way Rick could get to the garage door without encountering at least one of them. Sally removed her gloves and dropped them onto the floor. Grace did the same.
When Rick looked back he saw that Jennifer had pulled off one of her own gloves and was reaching the bare hand out towards Rick's leg. He kicked at the hand, felt it connect and watched her arm fly backwards behind her head. It was only a momentary retreat, though. Meanwhile, Abby Buchanan was shuffling her way to cover Jennifer's back.
Rick looked down and saw that Jennifer had switched the remote into her other hand, the one whose arm was pinned beneath her. She was holding the remote close to her chest – Rick saw the swell of her breasts, the slight point on the nipples, and realized that Jennifer was not wearing a brassiere. In any other circumstances, such a revelation would have prompted other thoughts, a drying up of saliva, maybe even an exploratory movement from behind his pants zipper. But now it didn't do diddly. He pulled back his foot again and kicked Jennifer in the face. Rick didn't pause to check the damage he had done – Jennifer had rolled over fully onto her back and old Abby was getting too close for comfort. He bent down, retrieved the remote which was now held very loosely, and turned around – just in time to see Troy making his swing.
How the hell had he gotten over here so fast?
Rick dodged backwards and sidestepped back towards the bushes.
Troy swung his branch – Rick heard it funneling the wind right in front of him – and adjusted his direction.
Abby had stopped to help pull Jennifer to her feet but as soon as she moved away the temporarily erect siren of Jesman's Bend slipped sideways on her ruined right leg and landed back on the ground. Abby paid her no more heed.
Rick looked across at the garage door, back to the side at the steadily-advancing Abby and then at Troy. There was nothing else for it. He needed something – anything – that he could use as a weapon and the only thing he could see was Troy's branch.
He slipped the remote in his trouser pocket and made like he was going to tackle Troy. The deputy swung the branch but Rick had already stopped. As the branch flew by, Rick jumped forward and slammed into Troy's belly, his head tucked down so that it crunched into deputy's chest.
They both flailed backwards a couple of steps and fell onto the floor before Troy could get his branch back in action.
Abby adjusted her direction and shifted around.
Sally and Sammy started forward from the garage door.
Rick pulled at the branch but Troy held it up over his head with one arm. He wrapped the other around Rick's back.
The hold was like a vice. Rick couldn't move. And there was the strangest smell coming from the deputy – a staleness, like old clothes that needed a wash or flowers that had been left too long in a vase whose water had evaporated in the heat.
Rick tried to push himself up but couldn't break Troy's hold.
Eventually, his left hand hit something solid amidst the cold shirt. Troy's holster. And in Troy's holster was–
Rick pulled the gun and jammed it into the deputy's side.
Abby was now just a few yards away.
In the other direction, Sammy and Sally were holding out their arms expectantly, stumbling forward, reaching for him.
Rick tried to pull the trigger but it wouldn't move.
Safety catch!
He snuggled in tighter to Troy's belly so that he could get his other hand around to the gun. If only he knew something about these things but he didn't. He arched his back, trying to make his middle narrower so that Troy's bone-crushing hold wouldn't be so intense.
Melanie's voice screamed from the garage, Johnny's name.
Rick found the catch on the gun, fumbled with it until it moved and then pushed it all the way.
Something dropped in the garage, echoing in the gloom.
Rick pulled the trigger.
A muffled explosion cut through the early-morning air.
Troy lurched and, from somewhere deep inside of the deputy's stomach, Rick heard a groan.
The hold relaxed, but only a little.
Sammy and Sally were now only a few yards away, their hands bare and clawing at the air greedily.
Rick pushed himself and the arm loosened still more. He pulled his arm from the side of Troy's belly and held the gun with both hands, pointing the barrel into the deputy's gut. "This is for Geoff," he whispered. The gun exploded and threw him backwards.
Something brushed his shoulder as he bounced back onto the ground. Right in front of him, old Abby was bent over reaching down to where he had been. He lifted the gun, both hands again, and fired into the old woman's back. She lurched forward, arms outstretched, and landed on top of Troy.
Rick rolled over and jumped to his feet. He looked down at the gun – three shots. He had fired three shots – which meant, how many were left? Three? Was it a six-shooter? He felt like an old-time gunfighter.
Over to his right, Sammy Lescombe moved to one side, covering Rick in case he ran wide back to the safety of the trees.
Sally Pennington widened her arms like she was about to try taking off.
Rick lifted the gun and fired at her.
The shot went wide.
He staggered forward, holding onto his back with his left hand, and held the gun as steady as he could in front of him. He pulled the trigger and Sally lifted from her feet and hit the ground skidding.
Rick started to run, the remote suddenly in his left hand, the gun still held in his right, heading for the garage door and for Grace Sheffield, standing with her arms held out to greet him.
Sally rolled over onto her side and tried to stand up. Blood was streaming down the front of her dress, running down the folds and onto her legs.
Sammy Lescombe turned around and started to close the gap between himself and Rick.
"Melanie!" Rick screamed. "I'm coming!"
(28)
The muted shuffling around the door leading back into the station was suddenly replaced by a loud crash.
"Oh, wonderful!" Johnny said. "They know we're in here."
There were two more crashes.
"And they're not using their hands," Melanie added. "They're trying to smash it down with something."
Johnny pulled open the Dodge's door so that they had some light. He pointed to one of the four inlaid wooden panels: it had splintered, a thick shard of wood bellying out at a right angle to the door. "And they're doing a good job."
"What do we do?"
"Fight for it?"
"How?"
Johnny walked across to the door and took hold of the key. "We open the door and–"
Another crash drowned out his words.
"And we charge them."
"We don't know how many there are out there."
Johnny nodded. He looked back at the car and then at the door.
Crash! Crash!
When he looked back at the door into the station, he saw the unshaven face of Daryl Engstrom peering through a wide crack in the left hand panel. The face pulled back and another crash took out the panel completely, the wood flying past Melanie's head and bouncing onto the Dodge's trunk.
"There's not much choice," he said. "There's no way out through the garage door, not without the remote. Got to do it before they have a chance to think about it."
Johnny breathed in deeply, smiling at Melanie's outstretched hand as she grabbed his arm. Melanie loosened her grip and patted his arm.
Johnny took hold of the key and turned it gently, making sure there was no noise. Then, with his hand on the handle, he pulled the door wide open.
There were three of them, Daryl Engstrom at the front with Jimmy James Poskett and little Elsie Weebershand flanking him. The most striking thing about them – aside from the fact that they were all holding either pieces of broken up chair or, in Daryl's case, the metal hat stan
d christened "Bullwinkle" by Rick – was the entire lack of anything even resembling personality on their faces.
Darkness Falling Page 26
