Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (106 page)

C
HAPTER 59

T
he light from the room swept the dark closet as the door opened. Tricia’s scream was like the frantic squeal of a rabbit being butchered. Parker thought of how repulsive his face must look. She huddled defensively against the back of the closet with her knees up to her cheeks and jabbed toward him with a blood-covered wire coat hanger in her injured right hand, breathing from her open mouth, jaw trembling. Her red and white gingham dress was shredded on one side and blood spotted her ankle-length white socks and white canvas sneakers.

Parker knelt. “Tricia,” he said in his gruff, low voice as he reached for her.

She looked at the outstretched hands and her ripped apart doll, then looked up to Parker’s eyes.

She squinted. The fear drained from her face, leaving it blank and emotionless. It looked as though she recognized a good friend dressed in a hideous Halloween costume. Her lips quivered into a familiar tight grin. She dropped her weapon and shot up and grabbed Parker around the neck, hugging him firmly. “I knew you’d come, I knew it!” she cried.

Parker dropped the doll and walked out of the room with her, holding her just as tightly. He walked down the steps and, taking care to shield her from the bloody scene in the living room, out the front door.

An ambulance pulled up across the road and another approached along with several highway patrol and sheriff’s patrol cars, all with lights flashing. Parker walked swiftly. It seemed the monster trying to control him had been temporarily tranquilized by the relief he felt when finding Tricia. But he knew it would return soon. This time, the rabies would not release him. It had just been playing with him like a cat toying with a mouse. The last episode was so overpowering, so traumatic. The next time, he would not be able to fight it. He knew he would succumb. But there was still one thing he must do, one last thing he had to find out before he gave in to the raving disease inside.

“It’s all right, now,” Parker tried to assure Tricia as he handed her to the young man and woman attendants running up to meet them. They helped by prying her arms from around his neck, and the young woman took his place with her arms wrapped around the girl. “You’ll be okay,” he said.

A familiar sound came from behind. Parker stood still and listened, then looked up into the tree in the Bumfield’s front yard. The tree was shadowed in stripes by its own limbs from the many bright lights of the gathering vehicles.

He heard the cry for help again, a faint mewing, then spotted the little gray kitten, looking down from a large branch.

“Someone take care of the kitten,” he shouted in his gravelly voice to the EMTs, pointing with bent finger into the tree.

The officers were pulling up now, and they’d be after him. He had to escape. Parker ran behind the Bumfield’s house, then around their neighbor’s backyard fence and behind the hedge trees. He ran along the row and past the sheriff’s car, still parked in the same spot on the road. Sheriff Warren leaned with his back against his patrol car, his hand still pressed to his neck. Two officers assisted him as an ambulance pulled up nearby, and an attendant rushed over. They couldn’t see Parker in the darkness, and he passed by with only the trees separating them.

A highway-patrol chopper suddenly roared overhead, its searchlight beam wagging along the ground. Parker hunkered down against a hedge tree, avoiding its brightness, and something caught his eye in the ditch just six feet away. It was Jack’s gun. He crawled out quickly, snatched it up and ran up to the road to where his truck was parked. He slipped in quietly, easing the door shut.

With all the yelling and other noise, no one heard or noticed Parker’s truck engine start. He drove slowly, with lights off. When he made it to the intersection an eighth of a mile down, he could speed away. Parker watched in the rearview mirror as he crept along. After only a few yards, the sheriff looked up and waved his free arm.

“There he goes! There he goes, get him,” he ordered. Several officers appeared from the darkness, some ran to their cars, others ran down the road after Parker’s truck with firearms drawn.

Parker put his foot in it and his truck fishtailed as he accelerated. But within a hundred feet from the intersection, he began to feel faint and suddenly blacked out, succumbing to the demon inside. His face smacked into the steering wheel. The truck slipped into the muddy ditch but swerved halfway out and stopped, perpendicular to the road.

Parker came to as the windshield shattered. Bullets struck the truck as the officers found their target. Cracks, snaps, and zips filled the air as the bullets flew around and through the truck. A bullet struck the rearview mirror, and it fell from the fractured windshield and into his lap. Another bullet glanced off the windshield wiper and ricocheted across Parker’s left shoulder, laying his shirt open and leaving a bloody line three inches long.

Parker cranked the steering wheel and floored the accelerator. The truck swerved away, tires throwing gravel violently as he sped for safety.

The pain was back full force. The end was very near, and the tremendous hurt and confusion made him want to give in; after all, death was inevitable. Still, there was one thing he must do.

CHAPTER 60

T
he phone was a scream of terror, and Julie woke, startled, in Nick’s small bed. She slipped out, taking care not to disturb the kids, and ran to the phone in the master bedroom. She caught it after the third ring and looked at the clock radio beside the waterbed. It was five thirty-five a.m.

“Hello.”

“Is this Mrs. Parker?” the voice asked.

“Yes, who’s this?” Julie asked, knowing the call would be concerning Tony.

“This is Tyrone, down at the dispatcher’s office, Mrs. Parker. Sorry to bother you in the middle of the night.”

“That’s all right, Tyrone, what’s wrong? Is it Tony?” Julie remembered Tony had talked to Tyrone just before leaving.

“Well, yes. So he must not be there, huh?

“No, Tyrone. I haven’t seen him since he left after talking to you.”

“Everyone’s looking for him. There’s some people with anxious trigger fingers, too.”

“What happened?”

“They claim that he’s got—rabies.”

Julie bit her knuckle. She knew it had to be true. It made sense. That was why he’d been acting so strangely. It was that skunk bite.

“According to the sheriff’s office, he attacked several officers and drove away in his truck. You wouldn’t happen to know where he is, or where he would go, would you?”

Julie thought a minute. Tyrone was silent.

“Maybe. Maybe, I do,” she said.

“Where?”

“I don’t think I should say. Tell everyone to back off. I’ll bring Tony into the hospital, but everyone has to back off!”

“Okay, Mrs. Parker, but be careful. In the state they say he’s in, he may not recognize you.”

Julie hung up and slipped into some jeans and a shirt. She gathered up the kids and loaded them into the minivan without waking them. There was no place to take them at this hour. Surely, he wouldn’t be violent. He would recognize his own children.

* * *

Only a handful of stars still sparkled above the riverbank, yet to be extinguished by the orange dome birthing on the eastern horizon.

A dark, filthy figure rested on its haunches among the spirea bushes, mulberry trees and sapling cottonwoods beneath the forty-four foot copper sculpture of an Indian. It was a human form, a man, or at least resembled what once had been. He breathed from his mouth, heavy and labored. His half-open eyes blinked, wincing from an occasional dewdrop that found its way through the thick branches. Clear, syrup-like mucus oozed from his nostrils down the whisker stubble of his top lip. His tongue, swollen and thick, stuck out past his lips. Saliva foamed from the corners of his mouth, then dripped in strings down his ragged blue shirt. His clothes were ripped and stained as if tie-died in dark crimson. A plastic badge hung from a torn piece of his shirt. It was scratched, chipped and spotted with blood.
T. PARKER
, it read in large white letters engraved on a black background.

The pitiful figure clenched his teeth hard. It felt as though his skull was cracking open, exploding as it throbbed. A large demonic rat nested inside. Its name was rabies. It raked its sharp, thin teeth across the tissue of his brain. With each gouging bite, he winced. The rabies monster tortured him—the disease, the demon. It would eat away at his brain until he would have none left. He would have no more thoughts. His skull would be empty, except for the rabies.

The pain subsided, leaving only a tingling numbness. He tried to remember what had taken place, but it made his brain throb with the intensity of a gong. Was it a dream, or was the terrible carnage that flashed through his mind real? Was he a murderer?

A boy played in his memory, a boy that called him daddy. With the boy was a woman with high cheekbones and a big smile. She held a baby with golden curls and large, happy, blue eyes.

The hurt returned, spears piercing his entire body. He drew his head to his chest, held his eyes closed tight and coughed out a pain-ridden groan.

Now, he remembered blood and ribbons of flesh—the woman’s throat exploding with blood, flesh ripped away. Now, the boy’s. And now, the baby’s.

The pain subsided again, and his mind went blank. He opened his eyes part way and sat for a moment in a lethargic stupor. He focused on his bloodstained clothes. His mind reactivated, but he knew the pain would return soon. He saw the injury on his wrist: the deep punctures and torn skin. It meant nothing, as if it weren’t a part of him. He picked at the wound with clumsy fingers, dried blood packed under his nails, until finally pulling away a four-inch strip of his own flesh. He raised it to his mouth. Blood raced into the gap left in his forearm and dripped to the ground, but no pain ensued. With his tongue too swollen to allow enough room, he soon fingered the unlikely morsel from his mouth.

The blood. He remembered blood, a lot of blood. Bodies soaking in it: men, women and children. Was he responsible?

The torture struck again, racking him.

There had been guns. He remembered pulling the trigger. Shooting. Policemen screaming in pain. Bullets snapping by his ears. An old Indian man, smiling. A round Indian woman. “Tony, oh Tony,” she’d said, smiling wide. Now he remembered her severed head in his lap. It was a dream.
It must be!

His mind blanked, and he fell back into the numbness. A few seconds passed, and his eyes focused once again. He stared down at his groin. He had an erection. The monster, rabies, did this. This was only one of the things it did when it took over a man’s body. He pushed it down with his fingers, and it throbbed back in unimaginable pain.

An involuntary scream pushed out from his constricting throat, and his face wrenched with hurt.

He remembered a woman, young and beautiful. Blonde hair. Firm body. He had taken her. He had grabbed her breasts and bitten into her tender skin. She’d screamed. He remembered her lying before him, bloody, flesh ripped.

He groaned in response to the memory, then brought his fist down twice to the offending member in his blue jeans.

The expected pain didn’t come, only numbness.

Shuffling came from the dirt path along the riverbank. It was a muffled, irritating noise echoing inside his head. Someone was out there. Were they looking for him? Had they come to hurt him?

T. Parker watched through heavy eyelids. A man stumbled and staggered—a drunken man, a wino. He wore a dirty red stocking cap and had a scraggly beard. The wino stopped and looked out at the river while fumbling with something in front of him. A tinkling, leaking, water-being-poured noise came. The annoying sound clawed at

T. Parker’s brain. He held his palms over his ears, pushing hard, but it did no good. The noise intensified inside his head. It seemed to go on and on. Would it ever end?

He could take no more. He rose to his feet, body throbbing, every joint stiff and aching.
This irritating noise causes my pain!

T. Parker edged toward the drunkard, and the man turned, eyes

widening. “No! No, please, my God, no!” the wino pleaded.

Parker leaped.

He grabbed the man by his open fly and shirt collar, raised him without pause above his head as urine streamed down his arm, then screamed out in a hideous laugh.

“No, please, don’t kill me,” the drunk begged once again. “I ain’t got no money. I ain’t got nothin’!”

He didn’t consider the man’s plea. The words were only meaningless, abrasive sounds. He thought of how he had done this before; how he had raised a body over his head, then brought it down across his knee, breaking its backbone.

He looked out over the river, and it distracted him. The water bothered and frightened him. His throat convulsed. The pain was razor blades, honing out his neck. His thirst became unbearable and demanding, but he knew he couldn’t drink. It would be impossible to swallow, torturous to try.

He brought the man down to his head, then heaved him at the river, the horrible, pain-inducing water.

“
Glaaau-hau-hauuu!
” he howled in a wild, raging keen as the wino splashed into the water and began swimming the seventy-five yards to the opposite bank.

T. Parker quickly turned away. He stood stooped over, panting hard and raspy. A noise mingled with the wino’s splashes, and he stiffened, considering it.

Hurried footsteps on the sidewalk above the riverbank
.

More people were coming. He must hide. He turned and ran, stiff legged, back to his haven in the clump of small trees and bushes.

He sat, trying to quiet his heaving body. The pain impaled him again, and he wanted to scream. He had to remember. It was the only way to make sense of this. He had to remember quickly, before the monster inside his head gained complete control—before they discovered and killed him—or he killed again.

He thought of a black man, tall and well built. The memory caused a warmth in the center of his chest, and tears pooled in his eyes, yet he recalled fighting with the man, fists flying as they rolled on the ground.

“Stupid, bastard nigger!” he barked out in distorted words as the pain shot through his brain.

He could remember the black man’s face, filled with terror as he’d pleaded for his life.

“Stupid, bastard—
Jack
!” He beat his temples with the heels of his hands while tears streamed down his dirt-caked cheeks.

Now, he remembered the black man lying in front of him, blood oozing.

“Jack,” he repeated, sounding as if his mouth were full of sand. “No, Jack. Sorry, Jack.”

T. Parker continued beating his head in answer to every excruciating throb. Little time remained. Soon he would be unable to think. Soon he would be overcome. He had to fight it. He couldn’t give up. The rabies would win as it always does, but he had to fight. The memories offended and threatened it. What had happened? What had he done?

He remembered being bitten on the neck, and he raised his hand to feel of it. The wound was older than the others, swollen and scabbed. He picked at it until the scab lifted, leaving a dime-sized hole deep into his neck that welled up with liquid.

Now, he remembered holding a doll in his hands, its bloodstained cloth body torn in two. “Raggedy A-yun,” a little girl’s squeaky voice had said. “Raggedy A-yun, A-yun, A-yun,” it echoed in his skull.

Another man flashed through his memory. He was terribly disfigured. He wore a black patch over one eye. He blew a silver whistle.

The thought of it made T. Parker’s ears ring. It rang louder and louder until it blared like a siren, a train whistle blasting in his ears. He cringed and beat his temples then shook his head to stop the terrible noise, but it did no good. The siren only became louder.

There had been dogs. Dogs everywhere. They had bitten at him and attacked others, tearing at their bodies, ripping flesh.

The ringing—louder.

He recalled one dog in particular. He had breathed life into its mouth. He had pumped life into its heart. The thing had stood huge and black. Tremendous fangs—
Jezebel!

* * *

Julie drove the short six blocks down to the Mid-America All-Indian Center by the river and parked in the parking lot. She could see the top of the
Keeper of the Plains
statue over a hundred yards behind the building.

If Tony were to go anywhere besides home, it would probably be here, especially with Doc and Jack dead. Years ago when they all had more time, they used to picnic by the statue. Tony used to meet Doc there on an occasional Sunday afternoon to talk, fish and relax. They mostly talked. Tony and Doc talked a lot together. After all, Doc had been like a father to him after Tony’s own father died. He was sure to be missing Doc, and this is where he would come if there was still a Tony left.

If Tony did have rabies, Julie knew it was a death sentence. He would die, and it would be soon. She began crying. She was frightened and worried. She couldn’t lose Tony, she just couldn’t. He was such a good husband and wonderful father. She knew this thing with Sarah was just a passing thing and whatever happened must have been magnified, if not brought on, by the rabies. It wasn’t his fault. Sure, he had flaws, and they were numerous, but still, he was a good and caring man.

Julie sat with her window down, debating how to approach him if he was out there.

A roar, a kind of yell came from the river. A splash. Someone had fallen in. It might be Tony. He could be drowning. Julie sprang from the minivan and slammed the door shut behind her, not considering it might wake the kids. She ran down the concrete path around the building and toward the
Keeper of the Plains
.

Julie slowed as she approached the statue and looked out onto the river. She saw a man splashing frantically as he swam toward the opposite bank. It wasn’t Tony. She wondered why this man would be swimming, and so insanely, in the middle of the night. He must have been frightened.

Julie looked around warily. She looked at the bushes that lined the riverbank. Nothing moved. She was alone. The sidewalk led to the statue and ended, then a small path led down the bush-filled, sloped banks eight feet to the river. No one there.