The Rules

by Nancy Holder

  “No problem, Thea,” Mick assured her. “Larson and I can go. Or…more of us, if we have volunteers.”

  He looked at Robin. She was doing something in the shells beside her boot, running her finger though them purposefully, but when he glanced at her hand, she stopped and turned off her flashlight.

  “I’ll go with you, Mick,” Beth announced.

  Robin nodded. “You guys go do that, and Kyle and I will try to find Morgan and August and Hiro. We need to be ready to go once the phone is charged.” She put her hands in the pockets of her jeans and threw back her shoulders, like a video game character getting ready to take it to the next level.

  “I want to stay with you, Robin,” Praveen said softly.

  Thea shook her head. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I’m too scared. I want to stay in the car. I can take care of Inky.”

  She’s really losing it, Mick thought. Fine by him if she stayed well away with her noisy crying.

  “Not by yourself,” Robin said, but then Kyle put his hand on Robin’s forearm and smiled at Thea.

  “You’d lock the doors, right?” he asked her. “And…maybe we can leave the tire iron with you.” He looked at Robin. “We need to give Mick the knife so he can cut the hoses off for the siphons.”

  Robin opened her mouth to protest, then shut it. Mick could see the wheels turning as she decided that the best course of action was to yield on this one.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “Thea can stay here. Mick, Larson, and Beth will check on the generator. Kyle, Praveen, and I will try to track down Morgan, August, and Hiro.”

  “Or whoever the killer may be,” Kyle said. He cleared his throat. “Because I hate to say this, but…those three might be dead.”

  Robin nodded wanly, and Kyle put his arm around her.

  “Okay,” Mick said. “If we get the generator to work, we’ll signal you by turning on some lights in the warehouse. If you find the killer…kill him. Or them.”

  Robin handed him the knife and glanced over at Praveen, who stepped over to her. Two teams. Two missions.

  “Okay, then, good luck,” Mick said to Robin’s group.

  Beth hugged Robin tightly. “We’re going to pull this off,” Beth said. “No one else is going to…to…We’re all going home soon. I can just feel it.”

  “Me too,” Robin said. “Get in the car, Thea.”

  Kyle handed Thea the tire iron and she got into the backseat. “Lock the doors and lie down on the floor.”

  Mick’s back was already turned when he heard the car door click shut. Then he, Beth, and Larson headed toward the building Thea had indicated, and he went in first.

  “Every time I walk into a building around here—” Beth began, and Larson mildly shushed her.

  They kept looking. And looking, with Mick’s flashlight moving across a wasteland of filth and destruction. He began to wonder if they should have let Thea off so easily. But really, what good would she have been?

  He heard Larson exhale. Dude was in pain. This was all so screwed up. He took the rooms on the right side and Larson the left. Beth’s job was to quickly recheck each room after each guy gave up. No one spoke much. Everyone was scared.

  And then Beth screamed.

  Mick ran over with Larson shuffling right behind. She was aiming her flashlight at what appeared to be a moving mound in the corner of one room.

  “Dude, what is that?” Larson asked.

  “Rats. Lots of them,” Mick said, wrinkling his nose. “It looks like they’re eating something.”

  “They’re…they’re…oh no.” Beth lurched and fell against the wall. The flashlight in her hand made flaring shadows, but Mick could now see what she had seen. Shiny curled hair, splayed out on the floor. Crawling with rats.

  Lots of rats. Swarming, tearing, chewing.

  They had finally found Morgan.

  —

  It took time to pull themselves together and more time to find the room with the fish skeleton and the tubes. The things Mick had to do to clean them out so that he could use them didn’t even faze him.

  The rats were working on Morgan, cleaning her like buzzards cleaned a kill. He could hear them. He drifted like a sleepwalker back to the car and got the gas, nodding dully at Thea as she sat up and waved at him. He stared at the faces of people who, after only a few hours, no longer looked recognizable to him. He felt surrounded by a bubble that bobbed him along, keeping out sounds and sight. Everything was becoming a blur.

  He handed Larson the knife when they got to the generators. The one closest to him was the one that hadn’t blown when Stacy had knocked the contents of her travel tumbler into the amp.

  Except maybe she didn’t, he thought. Most likely she didn’t.

  He opened the gas cap, then looked around for a stick to measure the generator fuel tank, and saw none. So he dipped one of the hoses into the gas tank and pulled it out. His hands were shaking so badly he could barely keep hold of it. He aimed his flashlight, examining a dark spot about a quarter of an inch from the bottom of the hose. There was hardly any gas left. So the generator really had run out.

  Better news, he thought.

  “Hold the flashlight,” he told Beth.

  Very carefully, he angled the bucket over the mouth of the tank and poured the gas in. So far, so good. He wondered about the impurities from the bucket, the hose. But what could happen from pouring the gas in? If something was going to happen, it would be when he turned it on, right?

  “Mick?” Larson asked. “Is everything okay?”

  Beth reached out a hand to pat him, then pulled it away. Frowning, she got up and stepped back with Larson.

  Gee, thanks, guys.

  He set down the bucket and grasped the rope to start the generator, giving it a pull. Nothing. He pulled it again.

  The generator rumbled to life, and Beth sucked in her breath. Larson stepped forward and clapped Mick on the shoulder.

  “Oh my God, yes, yes,” Beth said, bursting into tears.

  He knew it was great, but he felt nothing. Then he realized he should put the gas cap back on.

  Mick picked it up, dropped it. “Here, man,” Larson said, handing him the cap. Mick placed it over the threads as Larson tapped the can with the tip of the knife.

  Metal touched metal touched metal touched metal.

  There was a spark.

  ROBIN’S RULE #11: Don’t hurt others.

  As Robin, Kyle, and Praveen skirted the “fish guts” building, Robin used her flashlight to examine the bit of fabric she had found beside Jackson’s car. It was a shiny green color that looked familiar. She thought it might match Praveen’s top, but it would be difficult to be certain by flashlight. It would be very close, though. She didn’t know what to think about that. Maybe Praveen had crossed that section of the cannery grounds before Jackson had driven to that exact spot. But the likelihood seemed remote.

  Praveen was trudging along like a mummy and Kyle was watching Robin with an expression of curiosity. She held out the fabric and murmured, “I found this by the car.”

  He looked from it to Praveen and back, and wrinkled his brow. She knew he wasn’t making the same connection she had, so she waved her hand, indicating that they should drop the subject.

  Robin stepped onto the blacktop. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized they had found the road Jackson must have come down. Despite how exhausted and thirsty she was, Robin broke into a trot, and Kyle did the same. Even Praveen picked up the pace.

  The road rose steeply, just like the other road at the opposite end of the property. Robin’s calf muscles ached but she kept hiking; then, at the top of the hill, the moonlight drifted down on double gates identical to the ones that read ZUL on the other side of the property.

  She burst into a run. She wanted to get to the road, flag someone down—

  “Hey, wait,” Kyle called after her. “Do you hear that? Wait!”

  She didn’t hear anything. She wasn’t going to wait. She was going to run.
She was almost at the gate—

  “Keep away from it!” Kyle shouted.

  An object flew past her head. It slammed into the scrollwork of the gates, buzzing before falling to the ground. Startled, she stumbled to a stop.

  The gate was electrified, and the thing Kyle had thrown at it was his flashlight. She hadn’t heard the hum. When she turned her head to thank him, he grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her body.

  “I didn’t even hear it,” she said against his shoulder,

  “Your dad taught us how to listen on the lacrosse field,” he said. “So we could hear the coaches and our teammates even when there was cheering going on.”

  The mention of her father was like a hand clamping around her heart. She wished she’d gone to say good night before she’d left for the party. Wished she was home playing Clue with Carter and that Kyle and Beth were with them, too, and none of this had ever happened.

  “Is there a way to turn the gate off?” Praveen asked.

  “We probably can turn it off,” Kyle said, “but we know two things now. One, no one stopped us. And two…” He looked at Robin. She was so relieved that tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “There’s power. We can charge the phone,” she said.

  There was a groan in the bushes to Robin’s left. She dashed over and parted the branches, to find a figure lying on his back, one arm slung over his head. Kyle’s beam revealed August, the side of his face bleeding, his lids fluttering.

  “Fence…electrified,” he managed to say.

  “Thanks. We know,” Robin said. Clearly, he had found out the hard way.

  Robin leaned forward and clutched one of August’s arms with both of hers. Kyle was beside her, taking August’s other arm, and together they helped him to his feet. He staggered and swayed, hanging on to Kyle.

  “Thanks, man,” he said. “Oh my God, I thought I was dead. Praveen, don’t touch it.”

  Praveen was staring at the scrollwork on the gate with her hands tucked under her chin. Shock and longing warred on her features as fog curled around her ankles and blew through the gate as if mocking her: it could go wherever it wanted.

  “Whoa,” August said. “I thought my heart had stopped.”

  Praveen looked at him suspiciously. “Really. Aren’t you going to MIT to major in electrical engineering?”

  “Right,” August drawled sarcastically. “So I powered up the fence, ran into it, and nearly electrocuted myself to make you think I’m not the murderer. Damn, Praveen.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “How do we know you did run into it? You were just lying there.”

  A small rectangle was glowing beside August’s shoe. Robin bent down and picked it up. It was a shattered cell phone, the back crisscrossed with flaps of reflective duct tape.

  “August?” she said, showing it to him.

  “You’ve had a cell phone all this time?” Praveen shrieked. “So you could call the other killer?”

  “No, no, that’s Jacob’s,” August said quickly. “I would know that odd phone anywhere. I found it on the ground behind the warehouse. It’s broken.”

  “Jacob?” Kyle said. “He didn’t come.”

  “Well, he texted me that he wasn’t coming,” August said.

  Kyle took the phone from him and examined it. A vast spiderweb of cracks prevented anyone from seeing the display.

  Robin was stunned. Her mind began to work. Was August lying? She’d been back there, too, and had never seen it. Had he been holding out on them?

  Was Jacob Stein the killer?

  The look Kyle gave her said he was thinking the same thing.

  “Why are you up here?” she asked August.

  He huffed. “Mick and Hiro were staggering around with that idiot crowbar. They kept stopping and arguing and Hiro said forget it and he started down toward the beach. And Mick stomped around and then he yelled and I totally bailed.”

  “You didn’t tell them about the phone?” Kyle said.

  “I don’t know them,” August shot back. “And I found it after I peeled off. I thought about going after them but I got distracted trying to make it work. Hacker, remember? Then I saw the gates in the moonlight and I went up to check them out. And I nearly died.”

  Wordlessly, Robin pulled the piece of green material out of her pocket and held it up to August’s shirt. It looked like a match.

  “I found this next to Jackson’s car,” Robin said.

  Praveen and Kyle leaned in for a look. Praveen caught her breath, and Robin could see comprehension dawning on Kyle’s face about why she had shown him the fabric in the first place.

  “You bastard!” Praveen shrieked, throwing herself at him. He stumbled and fell and she fell on top of him. Grabbing him by the neck, she pressed down hard with all her weight, hollering, spit flying everywhere.

  “Praveen, stop!” Robin shouted. She tried to yank Praveen away by her shoulders. Then Kyle pushed Robin, sending her tumbling into sticky, thorny bushes, and he hoisted Praveen up around her waist. She kicked and flailed. He set her down as Robin freed herself and scrabbled over to August, helping him up.

  “Kill him, Kyle!” Praveen shouted. “He’ll kill us! You know it’s him!”

  Kyle shook August by the collar, shoving his face into August’s. “What did you do, you sick freak?”

  August thrashed, arms, head, feet. “Nothing!”

  Praveen pounded on Kyle’s back. “Kyle, throw him against the fence. He’s the killer, I know it.”

  “No, don’t!” Robin cried, pushing herself between August and Kyle. Then she was shoved out of the way a second time as Kyle bulldozed August toward the fence. Praveen was helping. Together they backed him up and he grunted, struggling against them like a football player trying to hold the line.

  “Robin, help me!” August pleaded. “Oh my God!”

  Robin glommed on to Kyle again and tried to yank him away. The powerful muscles in his arms and shoulders moved beneath her fingers but he stayed as he was, on the verge of murdering August.

  Praveen just hissed, pounding on August’s chest with her fists. “The cell phone! Your shirt!”

  “Look at my shirt! Look at it!” August begged them.

  “Let him show us!” Robin yelled.

  Kyle let go. August snaked his hands down his sides and pulled the ends of his shirt out of his dirt-encrusted tuxedo pants. Robin took the flashlight and ran the light along it. There were no rips.

  “So, okay? There’s nothing wrong with my freakin’ shirt. I can’t believe you people,” August said. His voice was shaking. “So, what’s it going to be, Praveen? Kyle? The sun rises and you’re the last ones standing?”

  Praveen turned away. “Shut up. Just shut up.”

  “Or what? You’ll electrocute me?”

  Fresh screams tore through the darkness.

  “They’re dead!” Beth shrieked. “They’re dead!”

  A resonant whooshing sound was followed by a sudden, intense flare that rose through the darkness, so bright Robin had to shield her eyes.

  She lowered her hand.

  On the roof of the warehouse, huge, flaming letters flickered:

  DIDN’T FOLLOW THE RULES

  DOWN FOR THE BODY COUNT

  ROBIN’S RULE #12: Bad things happen to good people and there’s nothing you can do about it.

  Beth’s voice rang out over the brick and stone and shell as Robin started down the hill. When Kyle tried to take her hand, she stuffed them both into her pockets. He had almost killed August and she just didn’t want to touch him for a little while. They jogged, keeping pace with each other, as August and Praveen trailed slowly behind them.

  Beth was hunched over sobbing. Robin wanted to rush forward but Kyle grabbed her wrist, nearly dangling her like a string puppet, and forced her behind him. He went up to Beth.

  “It was the generators. They’re…they’re…” She completely lost it, sobbing. Robin tried to get around Kyle, not to comfort her but to make her be quiet.

&
nbsp; Flashlight on, August darted over to the two black shapes. He bent down beside one and reached out a hand. Then did the same to the other.

  “What happened?” August asked Beth. She kept crying. “You have to tell me,” he said sternly. “Now.”

  After she explained, he shook his head. “They were wired. The gas cans. So when Mick put the cap on…and Larson had the knife…”

  “So they were electrocuted,” Kyle said.

  “August!” Praveen shouted, but Robin whirled on her.

  “Back off, Praveen,” she said.

  Praveen’s eyes grew huge. She stared at Robin as if she, not August, was in her sights.

  “And Morgan. We found her….Rats were eating…” Beth couldn’t get out the rest before dissolving into more sobs.

  AUGUST’S RULE #3: Do unto others as they did unto Alexa.

  Shit, August thought.

  The flames on the warehouse roof lit up the scene: Beth crying, Praveen spinning herself back up into a frenzy, and Robin very carefully retrieving the knife from beside Larson’s body. The fire gave off thick, oily smoke, but as far as he could tell, there was no blazing inferno. The warehouse was mostly brick, which was fortunate, as August realized that all their stuff was inside. Wallets and purses had not been on anyone’s mind, and probably weren’t on anybody else’s but his.

  “We need to figure out where the electricity is located,” he said while Robin worked to calm Beth down. The group moved well away from the generators and the corpses. “That was used to do this.”

  “You already know,” Praveen shot back. “There’s a fence up there,” she told Beth. “It’s electrified. August did it.”

  Praveen aimed her flashlight straight at him, like she could kill him with it or make him disappear or something. All he could see was the brilliance of the light. He tried to wave her off but she kept doing it.

  “I didn’t electrify the fence,” he said. “God, who do you think I am, some supervillain? Listen to me. There’s working electricity here in the cannery. This is huge. We just have to find the source.”