by Garton, Ray
He did not want any trouble with the police, but at this point, it was inevitable. Ollie could not remember ever making a bigger mistake than he’d made by bringing his men here to rescue a bunch of homeless people. It didn’t seem so at the time, of course, but now? It gave new depth to the term “cluster fuck.” And now, they were going to have to kill the people they’d come to rescue.
He was in a bad dream. But he wasn’t dreaming.
But it didn’t end there. Now somebody had stolen Dr. Corcoran’s Jeep and it looked like the thief drove it through the gate. Ollie wondered if it could have been one of the test subjects. That was a frightening thought and he wondered if it had occurred to either Dr. Corcoran or Dr. McManus. Just in case, he’d bring it up when he went back inside.
While he would like to be able to blame all of this on Dr. Corcoran and his team from Vendon Labs, Ollie could not sidestep his own responsibility. He had gotten too wrapped up in his cause and had not been practical enough. He hadn’t thought it through. He hated to admit it, but Ivan had been right about it being a mistake. It was worse than that. Ollie had fucked up by allowing his anger about the ends to cloud his judgment of the means.
A thin figure rammed the driver’s-side door of the car with his head. Ollie recognized it as a Humboldt County Sheriff’s car—white with green and black stripes. He saw another darker figure emerging from the night just beyond the car. He was black and carried a large, heavy tree branch.
The first figure crawled away from the car, then turned around and charged again, bashing his head into the window.
It was a struggle to walk across the parking lot. Ollie heard a lot of cracking and popping all around him and assumed it was the sound of trees losing branches or coming down under the violent force of the storm.
It was like the planet was throwing a tantrum. It seemed much too angry to be mere weather.
Ollie drew his gun when he got to the gate and figured he was close enough. He was surprised when the first shot put the attacking figure on the ground. He thought the storm would be more of an interference.
The black man started beating the trunk of the car with the tree branch, then the side as he made his way to the driver’s door.
Ollie moved in even closer and aimed his gun. He fired once, and when the man kept pounding the car with the branch, he fired again.
The second shot took him down.
Ollie continued toward the car, but stopped when it spoke to him.
“Stop! Do not come any closer! Put the gun down!”
Ollie stopped walking and stared at the car.
He was happy to go back inside and let the cop fend for himself, but there was no way in hell he was putting his gun down while there were test subjects running around on the premises. When no further instructions came from the car, Ollie decided to keep advancing. As he drew nearer, he heard something else.
The man at the wheel was screaming.
Ollie hurried the rest of the way as best he could and found the window in the driver’s-side door gone. The beam of his headlamp fell on the bleeding face of Sheriff Mitch Kaufman.
Ollie resisted the urge to curse loudly. He and Sheriff Kaufman did not get along. He was pretty sure Kaufman had disliked him from the moment they met and had not altered that policy since. Ollie had nothing against the man personally, even though he was a goddamned liberal and a Roman Catholic, which, he supposed, was neither here nor there, but as a sheriff, he was as useless as tits on the pope. Ollie had expressed that opinion generously in Kaufman’s presence, which might have had something to do with the sheriff’s opinion of him.
But none of that mattered right now because the man had a face full of glass shards, which probably had something to do with that test subject bashing his head into the window.
Ollie reached in and put a hand on Kaufman’s shoulder and the sheriff jerked away, frightened. “Sheriff, it’s Ollie Monk,” he said, shouting to be heard through the wind. Kaufman stopped screaming. Ollie glanced over his shoulder and saw that his men had followed him. “We need to get you inside. Can you walk if we guide you?”
Kaufman tried to pull himself together and absorb the pain. He made an affirmative sound.
“Okay, I’m gonna open the door and help you out. Can you handle that?”
He made another sound that seemed to say, Just do it.
As Ollie helped ease him out of the car, Kaufman sucked air through his teeth sharply. Once he was standing, he bowed his head—Ollie was sure that the rain being blown into his swollen, bloody face was painful.
“Kill the engine,” Ollie said to the others, “then use the keys to open the trunk. Bring in any weapons you find.” He nodded toward the nearest body on the ground. “And make sure he and the other one are dead.”
“There’s another one,” Kaufman said, his voice thick and shaky. “I ran over him coming in. I don’t know if he’s dead.”
“Get to it,” Ollie said. “Leave the bodies where they are and come in when you’re done. I’m taking him inside.”
Once they were inside, Ollie wasn’t sure where to take the injured sheriff. The only place he knew of where Kaufman could lie down was the couch in Dr. McManus’s office.
As they approached the office, Ollie heard a sound—the slapping of bare feet on the floor moving around them, avoiding their light, and fading away behind them.
The couch was already occupied by Dr. McManus, whose face was bruised and swollen. She was reloading her revolver.
Test subjects, Ollie thought, I’ve gotta remember that. Test subjects. Test subjects.
It made them easier to kill.
“Oh, my God,” Dr. McManus said, getting up from the couch and putting her gun and box of ammo on her desk. “Put him on the couch.”
Once Kaufman was stretched out on the couch, Ollie said to Baker, “He’s gonna need some first aid.” Then he turned to McManus and said, “Where should we put the dead bodies?”
“Dead bodies?”
“The test subjects. There are at least two outside, and we’ve got others scattered around. I don’t know how many. But what do you want us to do with them?”
“Put them in the hydrotherapy room. It’s at the other end of this corridor on the right.”
Ollie watched Corcoran, who was quietly pacing and smoking.
“What’s wrong with him?” he said.
“I’m . . . not sure. Could we step outside for a minute?”
They left the office and stood just outside in the dark, windy corridor.
“Earlier,” she said, “Dr. Corcoran said we were in for an unpleasant surprise. Before that, he was talking to someone on the phone. I think it was someone from Vendon Labs.”
“What do you think he meant?”
“I don’t know, but I think we should keep it in mind. If Vendon Labs decides to step in and clean this mess up before it gets out . . . well, that probably wouldn’t be good for us.”
Ollie needed no encouragement to believe that Vendon Labs would do anything it needed to do to protect itself and its relationship with the government. He nodded slowly and said, “Thank you for telling me that. Smart of you. I think you know as well as I do, don’t you, Dr. McManus, that if they have the chance, Vendon Labs will come in here and make all of this disappear.”
“Yes. That’s why I mentioned it.”
He smiled behind his mask. “Nice to know we’re on the same page when it comes to Vendon. Got any ice for your face?”
“I think we used it up after you hit me.”
“Too bad. You need to learn to duck.”
He left her in the office and went to join his men in the hunt.
6
Andy kept his hands on Donny’s shoulders as he stood rigidly near the living room’s entrance, watching the others. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but tension filled the air like an odorless toxic gas. They did not belong there. Andy had the sickening sense that something bad was about to happen. He had to get Donny out of there a
s soon as possible, but he had no idea where to go.
Everyone in the living room became silent as they stared at the doorway through which Ram had just passed, waiting tensely for . . . something. Then the moment was shattered by Ram’s voice from the kitchen, which somehow sounded at once happy and menacing.
“Well, what the fuck have we got here?”
The question was chilling because from the sound of Ram’s voice, he’d found something bad but not unexpected.
Latrice, the black woman seated in the recliner, got up slowly and walked through the living room. She suddenly broke into a run and grabbed her coat before rushing out the front door.
Donny watched her go, then looked up at Andy curiously. Andy shrugged.
Voices argued in the kitchen and heavy footsteps stomped over the floor.
“I can’t handle this shit,” Giff said as he stalked into the living room.
“Where the hell you think you’re going, Giff?” Ram said, following him. He reached out and grabbed the upper part of Giff’s left arm to stop him and turn him around.
Giff roared like a bear as he pulled away from Ram and spun around, instinctively reaching with his right hand to grab his injured arm. When he did, he only hurt himself more and instantly pulled his hand away. But he continued to wail, bending over for a moment, then walking in a small circle as the features of his face all pulled toward the center in a mask of pain.
“Uh-oh, got a little owie, there, Giff?” Ram said, grinning like a little boy given free reign of a toy store. “How’d that happen, huh? Is it bad?” He stepped over and punched Giff’s wounded arm in an amiable fashion.
Giff screamed as he dropped to his knees, then fell forward and propped himself up with his right hand on the floor, arm rigid. He held his left arm close to his body.
Andy could not stay here and subject Donny to this sadism. They could at least go outside and sit in Ram’s car. They’d be out of the wind and rain and away from this horror show. It suddenly occurred to Andy that he could use the radio to call for help.
Mia stood up from her seat on the couch with the children and said firmly, “He’s sick! Stop hurting him.”
Ram turned his grin to her and his eyes glared for a moment. “Well, if he’s responsible for the bloodbath in the kitchen, then, yeah, you’re goddamned right he’s sick.” Ram hunkered down beside Giff. “Did you do that? Huh, Giff?”
Giff was groaning and whimpering, head hanging low from his shoulders.
Ram spoke louder, nearly shouting, when he said, “Did you finally get around to killing your daddy like everybody in town’s been waiting for you to do, Giff? Huh? Is that what you did?”
While Ram was still speaking, Giff’s groan became a growl.
“He’s got a fever,” Mia said. “He needs to be in bed.”
“What are you, his doctor?” Ram said as he rose to his feet. “This boy won’t be goin’ to bed, he’ll be goin’ to jail because he’s under arrest. In fact, everyone in this room is—”
Giff roared like a bear as he lunged forward on his knees, mouth open wide, and closed his teeth on Ram’s crotch.
Ram’s scream was shrill as he stumbled but instead of letting go, Giff moved forward on his knees, his teeth hanging on to the crotch of Ram’s pants. He finally let go as Ram fell over backwards.
He had not yet hit the floor when Marcus jolted from his chair. As soon as Ram was down, Marcus bent over and took his gun from its holster.
Andy leaned forward and whispered into Donny’s ear, “We’re going back out to the car now.” He kept an arm around Donny and hurried him toward the front door. There was nothing but screaming and shouting behind them, and he wanted out before it turned into gunfire.
“It’s going to be windy,” Andy whispered as he reached for the doorknob, “so hang on.”
The door flew open before Andy could reach the knob and it thwacked his hand before hitting the wall with a bang. Andy pulled Donny backwards as pain exploded in his hand.
Latrice stomped into the house almost at a run, shrieking at the top of her lungs as she swung a fist and connected with Andy’s cheekbone.
The world flashed white and the house turned on end and the floor flew up and crashed into Andy. He quickly tried to get to his feet, but the house would not stop tilting and swaying as the room rapidly grew darker.
Andy suddenly found himself on his back staring up at the ceiling. Had he lost consciousness for a moment? Longer? Probably not long. Nothing had changed. He could still hear Ram bellowing, and now Giff was shouting a long stream of obscenities and threats, and Latrice was still screaming, and all he could think about was getting Donny out of there.
Donny! he thought as he sat up. He was still a little dizzy, but he tried to ignore it as he looked around for Donny.
Latrice’s hands were on Donny’s throat and she had him pinned to the wall with his feet a couple of feet off the floor. He tried to kick his legs, but she was standing too close, pressing her body against him to hold him to the wall. His face was red and his eyes were bulging as they turned to Andy and silently begged for help.
There was a frenzied storm raging inside Latrice’s head that was every bit as powerful and chaotic as the one battering the house outside. It was made up mostly of directionless rage that swirled like a tornado inside her, looking for some outlet, any outlet, and some of it flew into her hands as she squeezed the throat of a small eight-year-old boy, pressing him against the wall with her body, a stream of profanity-laced gibberish coming through her clenched teeth. As she squeezed his throat, she pounded the back of his head against the wall.
In the very center of the storm that was erupting inside Latrice’s head stood Latrice herself, calm and confused and isolated from the world by the swirling, roaring tempest. But there was a moment when the inner Latrice had a window on the outside world and she saw Donny’s small, frightened, discolored face, mouth open, tongue sticking out, bulging eyes rolling around in their sockets, and in that moment, when the inner Latrice saw what the outer Latrice was doing, she connected with that inner self in a galvanizing instant of awareness and horror.
In that instant, Donny’s face melted into Robert’s.
She released her hold on the boy.
He dropped to the floor in a gasping, coughing heap.
Latrice was paralyzed for a moment and stared at the wall as the horror of what she had been doing dug into her with barbed hooks.
Someone standing close was shouting at her: “—him alone you fuckin’ nigger what the fuck you think you’re—”
Latrice turned to see yet another gun pointed in her face, this time by Marcus, who was shouting at her.
Then a hand came down on the gun and shoved it downward as Miguel said, “Don’t we have enough fucking trouble as it is? Shut up and calm the fuck down!”
“Did you see what she was doin’ to that kid, Miguel? Jesus Christ, what the fuck am I supposed to—”
“Give me that goddamned gun and go sit the fuck down.”
“Why do I gotta give you the gun when she’s the one who was—”
Miguel grabbed Marcus’s wrist with his left hand and wrestled the gun from him with his right, shouting, “Will you shut the fuck up and go sit the fuck down now!”
Latrice was vaguely aware of her own relief that the gun had been taken from Marcus, but she was too sick and confused to care much and part of her wanted nothing more than to lie down and give her aching muscles a rest.
She turned enough to scan the room with her eyes and found that, other than Giff and the sheriff’s deputy struggling and shouting on the floor, everyone else had left the room.
Marcus looked at Miguel with slack-jawed shock. He looked betrayed for a couple of seconds, then his expression hardened as he nodded slowly and said, “Yeah, okay, I see how this works, I see how this works. It’s the spic lookin’ out for the nigger. Yeah, sure, why not, it’s happenin’ all over the fuckin’ country, so why not here, huh? You people come
to this country and we give you everything, and you decide you wanna take the fuck over!”
With a look of disgusted contempt, Miguel said, “I was born in Yakima, Washington, you dumb fuck.”
Marcus’s eyes widened and he smiled and nodded faster as he pointed a finger at Miguel, poking it repeatedly in his direction, and he opened his mouth to say something, but he didn’t get it out.
Something black and heavy swung through the air and struck Marcus’s face with a sharp crack and blood erupted from his forehead and flowed from his nostrils as he fell backwards. When he hit the floor, his legs began to kick spastically.
It was the iron shovel from the set of fireplace tools on the hearth and Mia held it in both hands like a baseball bat, already drawn back and ready to strike again. But Marcus had gone down. She dove for him as if he were a pile of money and started pounding with the shovel.
“Jesus Christ, Mia, what the fuck are you doing?” Miguel shouted.
As Latrice watched Mia bludgeon Marcus with the shovel, then turn the shovel so that she was stabbing him with it like a knife, she began to regain her bearings and that inner storm surged once again, isolating her from herself. She felt rage consume her, as if it were a substance pumping through her veins.
The inner Latrice had just enough of a connection left to wonder if Donny was safe from her. She turned to the place where he’d collapsed on the floor after she released him. The spot was empty. She turned toward the front door just in time to see father and son hurrying out into the storm.
She was relieved to see him getting away. The hurricane was safer for the boy and his father than the storm that was going on inside Latrice.
And inside Gifford Clancy’s house.
7
After plucking the last piece of glass from Kaufman’s face—the last piece she could find in such poor light, anyway—Fara set her tweezers on the end table. While she had been sitting in a chair beside the couch removing the shards of glass, Ollie had been standing beside her holding his headlamp on Kaufman’s face and catching the sheriff up on everything that had been happening there. He had finally removed his ski mask and the headlamp was centered in his forehead like an alien eye. It wasn’t the best light for the job, but the headlamps were the brightest they had.
