“No, you won’t,” said Lewis.
“Don’t worry,” said Benny. “It’s a tranquilizer gun.” He smiled at Reid, and Reid grinned back.
Lewis looked at Mike and Mike shrugged. “She’s in danger.”
“If we can believe this happy crappy dappy.”
Mike gestured to Play Time, looming in the darkness behind them. “Do you believe your daughter was there?”
Lewis looked into Mike’s eyes for what felt like a long time, then he turned to Reid and gave him the same treatment.
“He does,” said Benny.
Lewis’ gaze snapped to Benny’s face. “I can speak for myself.”
Benny held up his hands, palms out. “Sorry, sorry. I’ve suppressed this for so long, it’s fun to let it out to play.”
2
They all thought they knew him—the crazy sniper fuck who didn’t want to fight up close and personal. He’d cultivated that belief for years, waiting…biding his time.
He’d awakened fifteen minutes before, the cool hand of Brigitta caressing his cheek. “The time has come. Be ready, my love,” she’d whispered in his ear. Then she’d disappeared.
Owen was dressed and ready. He’d wadded up his sheets and towels, winding them around his arms, shoulders, neck, and head. He’d used his foot-high stack of newspapers to wrap his abdomen, and he looked a bit like the Michelin Man. Newspaper and sheets didn’t make the best armor, but it would afford him a modicum of protection from clubs, and a lot of protection from those damn taser darts. He bounced on the balls of his feet, eager to kick some Tom ass.
He heard the shouting and caterwauling first. A weak-minded person would say blood-curdling screams, but to Owen, the screams sounded pleasant, like a concerto of classical music. Mozart, maybe. He wished he could see what was happening. What Brigitta was doing to those motherfucking Toms.
The first gunshots rang into the night, ricochets whining down the hall in front of his cell. Owen cackled like the insane idiot he’d pretended to be. It was time…he didn’t want to be standing there anymore, waiting. He sprinted around the edge of his small cell, leaping to his bed, running its length, leaping to the sink, then the commode, then back to the floor. Each time he passed the door, he leapt into the air and kicked at the glass view port. On his third circuit around the room, he realized he was yelling. “Come get me, babe! Come get me, babe! I want to play! I want to come out and play!”
Other inmates shouted and pounded on their cell doors, but they didn’t rise to the level of Owen’s notice. Somewhere in the building, fans of beautiful crimson splashed on the walls and puddled on the floor, and he didn’t want to miss it. He wanted to see the blood of Toms, to smell their fear, to hear their death rattles. “Let me out! Let me out!”
When his cell door clanked and then slid open on its automatic track, Owen laughed like a maniac and charged out into the hall. He looked both ways. To the left, the hall led to the showers and the laughable “yard” for the SHU—nothing more than a bunch of six by six cages outside, like that was worth a fuck, but they were out in the air and sun. To the right was the guards’ control room. The place where the fucking Toms sat on their asses and watched him with their fucking little cameras.
“Which way, babe? Which way, babe?” he shouted, laughing like a kid. “Oh, Tom, I’m going to stomp your shit runny!” Without waiting for a sign from Brigitta, Owen turned right and sprinted up the corridor.
As the doors of the other cells on the SHU flashed by him, Owen caught snippets of what his fellow inmates shouted at him.
“—out of here, Gray! I’ve got money—”
“—motherfucking ass-licking carpet-sucking mother—”
“—door! Open the motherfucking door! Open—”
“—trying to sleep here! Shut that goddamn—”
Owen laughed with glee and hopped a few dozen paces. He hugged himself fiercely and punched himself in the chest, psyching himself up. Those Tom motherfuckers are in for a surprise tonight! No more Mr. Nice-guy. No more weak little Owen. No more no more no more!
The emergency klaxon blared away into the night. As Owen neared the guard station, radios squalled and screamed in a perfect storm of static. He pounded on the bullet-proof glass of the guard tower with his fists. Blood painted the interior of the station red—the blood of that chief Tom motherfucker—but no body was visible. Owen kept running.
Both doors of the SHU airlock stood open, the door controller a smoking mess and Owen danced through them, pretending he was John Travolta in that disco movie. He looked up at the camera on the other side of the air lock, grabbed his crotch and pretended to skull-fuck someone. Let those Toms get a load of that!
“Babe!” he yelled. “Where are you, babe? Leave a bunch of these Toms for me!”
He slid around a corner, and his eyes lit up like roman candles. A rifle leaned against the wall. A rifle with a scope. “Oh, I love you, babe! You’re the best!”
Laughing like a kid at Christmas, Owen scooped the rifle up and kept running.
3
The nightmare held Shannon fast, and she couldn’t find her way out of it. An infinite nightmare, as soon as the damn thing ended, it began again. She wasn’t sleeping, not exactly. She was trapped in a shack by Red Bortha, she knew that even if she didn’t always believe it.
“Lizzy,” she called. “Come play with me.”
“No way, Shannon, you’re sick!”
The blister-like pox covered her face, it was true. It’s why she couldn’t leave Granny’s shack. That’s why Granny stood outside, guarding her. Keeping her inside.
“Cut out that racket, Shannon!” called Granny in a low voice that made Shannon think of a growling bear.
Shannon whimpered and backed into the corner. Squeezing as far from the door as she could.
Shannon forced her eyes open, blinking rapidly. She didn’t want these…these daydreams. She didn’t want to think about when she was nine.
Outside, a car fired up and idled, growling and snarling like a race car.
“Hey girl,” said a man’s voice. But it wasn’t like Mike’s voice at all. The voice creeped her out. It was the man’s voice. Shannon shook her head, trying to deny the man even existed.
“Hey there. Girl.” The car’s engine rumbled and gurgled, but she still heard the car door slamming shut when the man got out. “Hey,” he said.
Where is Mike? She screamed inside her head. I want Mike!
“Mike?” asked the man. “Who’s this Mike guy? You been stepping out on me, babe?”
“No!” Shannon screeched, shaking her head back and forth with a violence that made her sinuses hurt.
“Shut up,” snarled Bortha. The shack shuddered and boomed as he beat on the wall. “Just shut up.”
“I’m not supposed to talk to strange men!” she yelled.
“Shut—”
“And you shouldn’t,” said a woman. “But don’t worry, Owen’s one of the good ones.”
Shannon shook her head, pressing her hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut.
“It’s okay, Shannon,” said the woman. “We need directions.”
“I’m only nine,” yelled Shannon. The ground was cold beneath her buttocks, and the earth smelled of fertilizer and engine oil. “Leave me alone, I’m only nine.”
“Woman!” roared the monster outside. “Shut your damn mouth! You’re pissing me off, and that’s the last thing you want to do. Anyway, if you’re nine, then I’m the president of these fucking United States.”
“I don’t know where anything is!” she wailed.
“Not even Thousand Acre Wood?” asked the man. “I bet you know where Thousand Acre Wood is. Bet you know exactly where it is.”
“I hate that place,” hissed Shannon. “I’m never going back there again.”
“Wanna bet?” said the man. “But anyway, I told you you’d know the place we wanted to go.”
A tinkling laugh drifted in through the cracks in the shack’s wall
s. “Yes, you did, my love,” said the woman.
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop calling him ‘my love!’ That’s for Mike!”
The walls of the shack shook, and dust poured down on her from the ceiling. “The fuck? Are you having a goddamn fit?”
“Well, little Miss Shannon, I’ve got a crisp dollar bill for you for your help. All you have to do is come out here and take it.”
“I don’t want your fucking money, you…you…you asshole!”
The tinkling laugh floated through the air again. Beneath it, footsteps approached the door of the shack. “Aw, come on, Miss Shannon,” said the man. “All you have to do is come to the door.”
“No!” she screamed. “I’m not coming out!”
Outside, Red Bortha roared like a lion.
4
Drew pointed at the demon and then held his fist up in the air like he was some sort of special forces guy. The demon was getting agitated about something. Drew raised his tranquilizer rifle and thumbed on the holographic sight.
They were at the edge of Thousand Acre Wood, and the shack was almost in the backyard of the last house on the street. The creepy looking house stood at the bottom of a hill. That’s strange, he thought. Something about the place tickled the back of his mind.
The demon guarding the shack was a “weird.” It was bright red like a traditional might be, but it had three, triangular-shaped mouths and tentacles instead of arms. Its body drooped and ran like melted wax that had dripped into cold water and hardened. The demon wailed on the wall of the shack with his three tentacles, the single horn-shaped claw at the end of each leaving a long gouge in the old wood. Drew wanted to stay clear of those things at all costs.
“That’s Red Bortha, all right,” breathed Mike. “I’d recognize that big bastard anywhere.”
“I doubt I’ll forget him either. He’s old—I can tell by his size.”
“Okay,” said Richards.
“I’m going to load him up with M99, but it will take more than one shot…who can say how many to bring him down—ten or more is my guess. Once he’s down, you and Lewis should see the truth.”
Richards shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“He will come after me, and that’s okay. I know how to deal with these brutes. I’m going to run, to dodge, and keep plugging him full of M99. Once he has enough in his blood, he’ll go out, guaranteed.”
“What do you want us to do?” asked Trooper Lewis.
“Stay back. No matter what. Don’t let the demon see you or hear you. Who knows what he’ll do then—kill Shannon, or worse yet—”
“Hey! Fuck-face!”
Drew swept the woods with his night vision goggles, but he knew who it must be: Benny.
The demon stopped beating on the shack and turned, his honeycombed eyes sweeping the woods. Benny stepped out of the woods on the other side of the clearing.
“Fuck,” muttered Drew. He’d missed it when Benny crept away from him and the others.
Bortha roared, sounding very much like a pissed off lion, and charged across the clearing. Drew stood, snapped the tranquilizer rifle into firing position and pulled the trigger five times in rapid succession. Across the clearing, Benny took his eyes off the demon and looked at Drew, smiling.
“Run, you fool!” screamed Drew. He was ejecting his empty magazine and slamming a new one home. “Reload that one,” he said to Richards. “More darts in the bag.” Without waiting for a reply, he sprinted out into the clearing, raised the gun again, and fired five more darts into the demon.
The demon roared and, lightning-quick, spun to face him. Bortha’s tentacles writhed in the air, snapping out like striking snakes, rolling up like fiddlehead ferns, going straight and rigid, all without pattern. His mouths snapped open and closed. The demon’s honeycombed eyes snapped on Drew, and the three tentacles slapped together. When the horn-shaped claws met, they made a sound like hedge-clippers closing. Drew didn’t know anything about the demon or where it came from, but that gesture spoke to him anyway. “Come on,” it said. “Let’s dance.”
Drew ejected the empty magazine, flipping it over his shoulder, hoping it would land in the woods where Richards or Lewis could retrieve it. Drew slammed his last magazine home, hoping the demon would fall soon, or at least that the M99 would slow the thing—those weaving tentacles looked fast. Benny was still standing on the other side of the clearing, grinning like an idiot. When Drew looked back at the demon, it was less than five feet away, barreling at him like an insane sprinkler.
Drew dove to the right, rolling when he hit the ground. Three loud thwacks sounded just behind him—the sound of the clawed ends of the demon’s tentacles plunging into the earth. Drew came out of his roll on his feet and drove forward, away from the demon, pumping his legs with as much speed as he could. Every fourth or fifth step, he juked to the right or left, trying to keep the demon from guessing where he was going and coming in on an intercept course.
Sprinting into the woods, he threw out his arm, encircling the first tree he came across. He whirled in a half-circle around the trunk of the tree, eyes snapping back and forth, seeking the demon. He snapped his gun up into firing position, but the demon was gone.
“Down!” screamed Lewis.
Drew dropped to the ground as Lewis’ pistol went off—ka-BLAM, ka-BLAM, ka-BLAM! He rolled to his side and stared up into the demon’s ugly visage, drool from the closest mouth dripping down to spatter on his chest. Bortha’s tentacles arched high into the air above Drew, horn-like claws pointed down at him. Lewis fired three more shots, and each shot hit the beast in the torso but seemed to do nothing.
Drew whipped the tranquilizer gun up and fired point-blank into what served as the beast’s face. One of the darts hit the demon in the mouth, and the demon howled—but in pain or anger, Drew had no idea.
Tranquilizer gun empty, he tossed it toward Lewis and rolled away from the demon. One of the claws scraped across his back as he rolled, and the shallow cut it left behind burned like salt packed the wound. Drew screamed and forced himself up, running back toward the clearing. His only hope would be to keep the thing at bay long enough for Richards or Lewis to pump more M99 into the thing until it fell.
Drew dodged a tree, and, with a sound like a heavy axe striking wet wood, one of Bortha’s tentacles slammed into the tree hard enough to fracture the trunk. He dove into a forward roll. A scream of rage from the demon followed on the heels of the pfft-pfft-pfft of his tranquilizer rifle. Without pausing, Drew leapt to the side. He landed badly, his ankle erupting with burning pain.
The demon was close—too close, and Drew was almost out of tricks. He could hear the beast breathing, and it sounded heavy, somnambulant. The tranquilizer gun spat twice more in rapid succession, and the demon shrieked.
Drew rolled at random and slammed into the side of the wooden shack. Inside, a woman screamed. At least she’s still alive. He pressed his back against the wall of the shack and pushed himself up with his legs. The thin cut across his back burned.
The demon stood swaying in front of him, honeycomb eyes glaring down at him, tentacles hanging loose. Its three mouths worked, snapping open and closed, but without a sound. Drew jerked his arms up to cover his face, knowing one of those horrid claws could come at any instant.
The demon lifted a tentacle, but the spastic, writhing speed he had shown before was missing. The claw wavered and trembled as if the effort of holding it up was almost more than the demon could bear.
“Duck!” screamed Benny.
Drew didn’t think about it, he dropped to the ground. Above him, the claw thwacked into the wooden plank where his head had just been. The tranquilizer gun spat again, this time a rapid stream of five shots. The demon grunted, tried to lift its tentacles and fell against the shack.
“Don’t put me in the trunk with it!” screamed the woman inside the shack. “Gross!”
Drew scrambled to the side. Across the clearing Mike Richards stood, changing the magazine of the tranquilizer
gun. Behind him, Lewis was reloading an empty magazine. “Move!” Lewis hissed.
Drew took two giant steps away from the demon and then stumbled, his back burning and numb at the same time. Jagged fingers of ice stabbed down toward his waist and up toward his shoulders.
The demon was still on its feet, but it was staggering side to side. It glared at Richards and then heaved its bulk against the door of the shack. The door exploded inward in a shower of splinters and kindling. Richards sprinted toward the door, a look of abject terror on his face.
Drew took a step back toward the shack and fell, unable to feel his feet any longer. “Poison,” he breathed.
The woman inside the shack was screaming, Richards was bellowing, and the demon was hissing like a tea pot about to boil. The woman stumbled out the door, and her beauty struck Drew dumb.
“Toby?” asked Benny. “Are you all right?”
“Poison,” Drew mouthed through tingling lips. He looked up at the bearded man’s face, marveling that it seemed so familiar.
“Mike! Mike!” yelled Benny.
The shack shook with violence, dust and dirt flying off the roof in clouds, and it sounded like world war three had stepped off. Lewis sprinted to the door, his firearm drawn and ready. “Get down!” he yelled. “Get down, goddamn it!” He checked his fire—aiming at one spot, then moving the pistol to point at another.
“My love! My love! My love!” shrieked the beautiful woman. “Help him!”
A look of concentration slid over Benny’s face, and unconsciousness slid over Drew.
5
Smiling, LaBouche closed Scott Lewis’ front door. More than just sated, he felt full for the first time in eons. He imagined Scotty’s face when he got home and laughed, the cackling screech echoing down the street like bats. He thought of the bloody presents he’d left inside and grinned.
Whistling tunelessly, he jingled his car keys as he walked toward the Subaru.
6
Red Bortha glared at Mike, then threw his shoulder into the door of the wooden shack and exploded inside. Mike sprinted in after him, holding the tranquilizer gun at the ready. Bortha was either a real demon like the two crazies said, or the darts weren’t loaded with M99.
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