Terror Town (28 page)

With his heart pumping fast and his hands clenched into fists, Holbrook followed the instructions and stood in front of the Dodge Charger.

Nicolas grinned. “Now lay down.”

Holbrook hesitated; he opened his mouth to object. Something cold swelled inside his heart, and for a moment he thought about funerals. Or more specifically––pine boxes. He looked at Mandy and decided to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t like where this affair was leading, and felt compelled to say so. But he kept quiet all the same.

Holbrook dropped to his knees for the second time in two minutes.

Nicolas pushed the gun against Mandy’s head harder than before, squeezing her neck forcefully. And as her face pinched into an expression of pain, Holbrook placed himself belly down on the road.

“Nicely done,” Nicolas said. He wrapped his hand around Mandy’s throat. “I was going to put a bullet into this girl because of you. But you were smart. You kept your mouth shut and did what I said. I wonder if you’ll be smart enough to follow instructions again.” Nicolas chuckled. “I’ve got to be honest with you, Holbrook. I wanted you to disobey me, I really did. I wanted to put a bullet into this girl’s head, see? Want to know why? Because the very next thing I’d do is shoot you two assholes. I wouldn’t kill you though. I wouldn’t kill either one of you fudge-packers. I’d make sure you lived, in pain… with your kneecaps and your elbows destroyed. Might put a bullet in your back, too. Not sure yet. Still trying to figure it out.”

Nicolas squeezed the girl’s neck tighter and shook her more violently. Her hands slapped at him; her feet began kicking. The barrel of the gun was digging into her skin now, and a small line of blood ran along her check. Mandy couldn’t cry, not with her throat being squeezed shut. But she wanted to start howling and as soon as she was able she’d do just that.

Holbrook made an expression that was hard to read. It seemed like he was trying to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ at the same time, like he was trying to wake himself from a terrible dream.

“I can’t hear you.”

“Yes, yes,” Holbrook said, almost moaning. He wanted Nicolas to stop shaking the girl, stop strangling her. Her face was turning white, her hands were getting weak and her eyes were glossed over. Soon they would be rolling into the back of her head. He knew it. He could tell. “I’ll do what you say! Just stop it! For crying out loud, stop it!”

Burton felt his entire body quiver. He wanted to jump up and save his daughter. But could he do it? Could he get off his knees and run across eight feet of road before the man with the gun pulled the trigger?

The answer was no.

Just as Nicolas was about to fire a bullet, Holbrook crawled across three feet of gravel and rammed his face between the tire and the road. He was under the car now; the smell of oil and rubber was strong.

Nicolas heard a siren buzzing in the distance. Ignoring it, he whispered, “Oh yes I do. I’m going to give you to the count of three, fuck-nut; then your daughter is going to take a pair of bullets in the teeth. I promise you. I’ve done it before and I’ll gladly do it again. Ready? ‘Cause I’m about to start counting. One. Two. Three.”

Nicolas threw Mandy to the ground.

Mandy landed on her back and elbows. She gasped for air as her eyes rolled in their sockets. She wondered what happened, and was surprised to find that her simple little life had turned tragic and unpleasant.

Burton’s eyes popped open and his hand grabbed the car keys. His wrist turned; the car started. He couldn’t believe the situation he was in, or what was expected of him, or what he was currently doing. But he was doing it; oh Lord above have mercy on his soul, he was doing it.

Nicolas pointed the gun at Mandy’s face.

Holbrook, with his nose crammed against the wheel’s treads, flinched at the sound of the car starting. Not wanting to be run down, he pulled his head away from the tire just as Burton threw the car into gear.

Nicolas pulled the trigger twice. Both bullets entered the Mandy’s skull, just beneath her left eye, causing the back of her head to vomit onto the road and her body to convulse like a fish out of water.

Burton slammed on the brake.

The tire crushed Holbrook’s head, making a POP sound. Bone, blood and brains splattered in every direction. A moment later, one of Holbrook’s hands became a fist that pounded on the tire twice, even though his head had been flattened. Then the fist dropped to the earth, opened and trembled.

Burton screamed and jumped out of the car, which was parked on Holbrook’s head.

Nicolas turned the gun towards Burton and pulled the trigger twice more. The bullets caught Burton in the heart. Burton didn’t feel pain but he couldn’t breath and his legs were no longer responding to his mind’s commands. He staggered, thinking his last thoughts, thinking about his baby, about the man that shot his little girl, about killing for revenge. Dark blood bubbled through the hole in his shirt as he crumpled against the car. If he’d been granted one final wish he’d scoop Nicolas’ eyes out with a fork.

In the distance, the sound of the siren grew louder and louder.

Nicolas Nehalem, knowing that time had grown short, grabbed Mandy by a pigtail and lifted her head. Hair, matted with dirt and blood, clung to the gravel road valiantly. Thick liquid ran from her skull to the ground in a rope. He slid both hands into the girl’s wound until his fingers were red and wet. He put his hands to his face and smeared the blood across his cheekbones like war paint.

It wasn’t enough.

He took off his glasses and sat them on the road. With a grunt he turned the girl over; then he got onto his hands and knees, pushed his face into the opening in her skull, and snorted her juices like a barnyard pig. After his face and hands were soaked he rubbed her blood into his hair, and onto his shirt, and onto his pants. When he was finished washing himself he dragged her towards Daniel’s car, lifted her up, and stuffed her into the backseat. Blood drizzled from his chin like rain.

Mandy’s head rolled from one shoulder to the next, like her neck had been broken. Her mouth hung wide. A chunk of brain hung from her skull. Her face was pale, except around her eyes. The area around her eyes was swollen black and purple.

With blood dripping from the scruff of his chin, Nicolas put his glasses back on, lifted Burton up, and plunked him into the driver’s seat of the Charger.

“You pissed me off, fella,” he said. “You know that? Did ya?”

The siren grew louder.

He walked to the far side of the car and opened the passenger door. He sat inside, closed his eyes and concealed his smile, pretending to be dead.

31

Tony Costantino killed the siren and parked behind Holbrook’s Corvette. “Four cars,” he said. “Four, not two.”

“Let’s take a look.” Joel Kirkwood stepped onto the road. He waited near the hood of the car for his partner to join him. The night seemed terribly quiet. And dark.

Tony walked past.

The men removed flashlights from their utility belts and turned them on. Beams of light scored the air in long funnel-shaped tubes. Joel allowed Tony to gain some distance; then he walked to the far side of the street, towards the car in the ditch.

“Hello,” Tony said. He listened. There was no reply. Pointing his flashlight inside the Corvette he found nothing.

Now it was Joel’s turn to speak: “Is anybody here?”

“Look,” Tony said, approaching Burton’s charger. “There are two dead bodies in here, nope, wait… three dead. Someone’s in the backseat.”

“And here,” Joel said, pointing his flashlight into the minivan. “Oh God. Come look.”

Officer Tony Costantino stepped towards the minivan. He didn’t know what he expected to find, but two people with their heads blown off wasn’t it. And when he looked in the backseat, and he saw the splattered remains of the newborn, he turned away horrified.

“Oh man,” he said, putting a hand to his mouth. “This is terrible.”

Pointing his flashlight towards the big lump of meat beneath the Charger, his eyes widened, his face flushed white and his stomach turned against him. His hands began shaking. The world became blurry and he realized he was stumbling. Didn’t fall though. Somehow he managed to stay on his feet.

“There’s another one,” Kirkwood said. He walked around the minivan and took a good long look at the corpse beneath the wheel. “This guy’s head is beneath the wheel. What’s going on here?”

Costantino was the veteran, not Kirkwood. He was forty-eight years old; Kirkwood was only twenty-seven. Yet it was Kirkwood handling himself like a chief. Costantino was almost ashamed. On top of that, he was on the verge of being physically ill.

Kirkwood said, “Let’s go back to the car, Tony. It’s okay. Let’s just sit and collect ourselves a bit, shall we? We’re can’t help these people now. Whatever happened, happened. These people are dead.”

Costantino may have been overwhelmed, but he knew what needed to be done. He said, “We need to check pulses, make sure they
are
dead. We need to call it in, and search the area and look for survivors. We need to check license plates, block off the road and notify the F. B. I. We need, we need…”

His voice escaped him. It was replaced with a quivering lip and tears in his eyes. He always considered himself a tough guy, a guy that could take anything. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“And we will, Tony. We will. But right now we need to breathe again, okay? Do you know these people? Do you recognize ‘em?”

“Have you looked inside the van, Joel… or beneath the car? How do you recognize that, huh? How do recognize someone with a head beneath a tire? I’ve been on the force twenty-three years, Joel.
Twenty-three!
I’ve
never
seen anything like this.”

Kirkwood nodded. “‘Kay then. How’s this? You take a minute; do what you have to do. When you’re ready, verify the license plates and call ‘em in. I’m going to check pulses and see if we have any survivors.”

“Okay,” Kirkwood said, looking over his shoulder. He felt a strong sense of nervousness that simply didn’t exist before Costantino stated the obvious. And it
was
obvious, that was the funny thing. Joel Kirkwood had been viewing the scene like it was an accident. Then when circumstances suggested otherwise, he assumed they were standing in the aftermath of the event. But he didn’t know whether this was the aftermath or not. He had no reason to assume the bad times had finished. No reason at all. It was a terrible thing to consider, but what if this
wasn’t
the aftermath? What if it was a break in the conflict? And somebody was watching? It seemed possible.

Kirkwood drew his weapon, slowly and nervously, like a first time gunslinger. He stepped away from Costantino.

“Don’t go crazy there, Joel,” Tony said with a bead of drool on his lower lip. His nerves began to stabilize. He could see his partner’s fear now, and somehow that helped. “I’m just saying be smart. We don’t know what happened here.”

Joel heard the words but he didn’t acknowledge them. The area had changed somehow. This was no longer a street he had been up and down a million times. This was a horror movie, a setting straight from the pages of
Creepy Magazine
. And it
was
creepy. Nighttime in these parts was creepy as hell, when viewed in a certain way. It really was. And exactly, how was he viewing things now that Costantino stated the obvious?