The Dead Run (14 page)

 

CHAPTER 23

S
herry Richards's scream filled more than just the cavern. It filled the world, the heavens, the hollow space inside where her soul should have been. Only minutes earlier—as she'd steeled herself for revenge, felt herself grow hard with resolve—Sherry had been sure that she had nothing else to fear, nothing else to lose. After all, what could be worse than discovering her mother's headless body?

Here was the answer.

Seeing her mother's severed head. Suspended, by its hair, from the hand of her mother's murderer.

He returned it to the bag from which he'd pulled it, but Sherry kept on screaming. The noise blotted out reality, a little bit. Postponed whatever came next.

The rope the monster had thrown lay before her, coiled like a snake. He was speaking now, over the full-throated wail emanating from her. His voice boomed, louder somehow than the sound of her own despair.

Even this, denied her. Sherry could not compete.

She closed her mouth. He waved his gun.

“Come up now, or I shoot your friend.” He spread his arms. “That's it. That's the whole enchilada.”

Eric was behind her now, his breath hot against her ear. “Go,” he said. “I'll be right behind you.” And ever so gently, he eased the gun out of her waistband and stuck it in his own.

Numb to all sensation, Sherry plodded toward the rope, took hold of the thick, bristly thing. Thought of her mother's ponytail. Forced the thought away.

“Wrap your legs around,” the monster instructed. “I'm gonna pull you up.”

“Wait!” Eric stepped in front of her. “Me first. So I know you won't just leave me here to rot.”

The monster looked down at them, his face inscrutable.

“Fine,” he said at last. “But if you try anything, I'll kill your whole family. Slow as I know how. You get me, pretty boy?”

Eric didn't respond, just nudged Sherry out of the way and grabbed on. He gave a tug, testing, and the slack straightened right out.

“Here I come,” he said, and Sherry watched as he pulled himself up, hand over hand. The monster retreated from the precipice, backed up until Sherry could no longer see him.

The thought of hiding flashed across her mind. Find a crevice, a corner, a hole, and wedge herself in, as far as she could go. If she wouldn't come up, he'd have to come down. And when he did—the gun.

The gun she'd given Eric.

Fuck.

His torso disappeared above the ledge, and then his feet. A moment later, Eric was standing above her, voice echoing into the pit as he called her name, told her he was safe.

“Start pulling,” the monster intoned, unseen, and Eric seized the rope. Sherry did the same, gripping with her arms and thighs, and felt the earth fall away beneath her.

Raptured to heaven,
she thought deliriously.

The progress was jerky and incremental, Sherry's knees and elbows banging against the sheer wall as the rope swayed. Then Eric's hand-over-hand rhythm began to slow, and she could hear his breathing grow labored.

“You've gotta take over,” he panted. “I'm not strong enough.”

A few seconds of silence. Sherry pictured the monster sizing Eric up, wary of tricks.

“Fuckin' pussy,” he growled at last. “Stand over there, and don't move.”

Sherry looked up just as the monster's hulking mass darkened the world, blocked out the light at the cavern's mouth as surely as a boulder. And then Sherry began to ascend, fast. The ledge came into focus, just above, and her breathing accelerated.

He needs me alive,
she told herself.

And I need him to die.

She imagined clawing his eyes from their sockets. Falling on him, the moment she reached solid ground. A kick in the balls was supposed to take any man out, wasn't it? That's what she'd always heard. But for how long? Was it even true?

Suddenly, the rope stopped moving, with a wrenching jar that sent her body bouncing off the cliff wall and then arcing out through space.

Before Sherry could look up, it slipped, and she plummeted a terrifying three feet before her descent was arrested with a teeth-rattling jerk, the rope gone taut again.

A scream caught in her throat, and Sherry craned her neck, trying to see what was going on. She couldn't, so she started climbing—finding purchase against the rock as best she could with the flimsy rubber soles of her flip-flops, angling her body until it was almost parallel to the ground.

Hand over hand. Once, twice. Three times. Four. Finally, Sherry's torso breached the ledge, and she could see what was going on.

The monster still held the rope. But Eric stood behind him, arm rigid, her father's gun fisted in his hand. The muzzle hovered inches from the back of the killer's head.

You wouldn't have known it from looking at his face.

“Don't move, or I'll blow your fucking head off.”

The monster stood motionless, looking for all the world like a man chiseled of granite.

“Do it!” Sherry shouted. “Eric! Pull the trigger!”

“Get up here,” he called back, and Sherry remembered where she was: at this height, and this angle, a fall might break her back. Open her skull. She made for the ledge, fast as she could, hand over hand.

And then the monster let the rope go slack, and she dropped back to where she'd been, her eyes just high enough to see the smile on his evil face.

Buchanan. That was the monster's name.

In a rush, it all came flooding back. The compound. The fear. The stories, told in sobs and whispers when the lights went down, and the stories strangled by silence. The Rod of Correction.

“I said don't move!” Eric shouted, and the monster cackled.

Eric darted forward. In one fluid motion, he snatched the gun out of Buchanan's holster and threw it, backhand, into the abyss. Sherry heard it tumble down an outcropping of rock, then bang against the floor.

She imagined herself doing the same, tightened her grip on the rope, and started climbing again.

“Fucking kill him!” she called, panting. “Don't worry about me.”

Hand over hand. Sweat popping from her pores.

And again, the monster reversed her progress, sent Sherry sliding backward just far enough to keep her in limbo.

Too far to climb. Too far to fall.

Sherry tried again, bending her knees as deeply as she could, then crouching and springing with all the strength left in her legs. Reaching upward until her arms ached from overextension.

Again, she crested the ledge.

Just as Buchanan turned his head to stare at Eric, and at the gun.

The monster's grin widened, and Sherry's stomach dropped.

“Your safety's on,” he said, and then everything happened at once.

His hand flew off the rope and knocked the gun from Eric's hand.

It clattered to the ground.

And they both dove for it.

And the rope went slack.

And Sherry fell and flailed and scrabbled.

She found the ledge with the fingertips of her right hand and swung her left arm up to join it just as the gun went sailing past her, disappeared.

Pulled herself up and over, just as the last of the rope shot past and followed the gun into the inky blackness, a wet noodle slipping off a tabletop.

Just as Buchanan threw a roundhouse left that smashed the right side of Eric's face to pulp.

He was unconscious before he hit the ground, landing shoulder-first with a loud snap and then a dull thump. Buchanan was on him in a flash, straddling Eric's prostrate form.

The monster bent forward, grabbed Eric by the hair, lifted his head a few inches. With the other hand, he reached for Eric's chin.

Sherry knew what was about to happen. He was going to twist. Break Eric's neck. Kill the only person she had. Again.

Buchanan was focused on his task with a sadistic singularity of purpose; he hadn't noticed that she'd failed to hit the ground with a dull thump of her own when he'd let go of the rope.

Frantically, Sherry cast around for a weapon—a rock, a stick, anything. But there was nothing there except the sack, the terrible sack, lying forgotten between them.

It would have to do.

A prayer raced through her mind, unbidden, as Sherry raced forward and grabbed the sack by the neck, whipping it behind her head like a softball pitcher and charging forward.

Forgive me, Mom.

And then:
Help me, Dad.

Buchanan heard the footsteps, turned.

Crack.

Melinda Richards's head connected with his, full-on, and the monster's eyes rolled back into the recesses of his skull. He staggered back a pace, legs going mushy; tripped over Eric's torso; and went down. Hit the cave floor in a dead fall, and lay there. Unconscious.

Sherry rushed to Eric's side and shook the boy by his shoulders.

“Eric? Eric!”

He woke up howling in pain.

 

CHAPTER 24

G
et in the car!” Jess shouted, pinwheeling his machete at the others as he dashed toward the old station wagon. The box was tucked under his arm like a football.

And the blitz was on.

Thank god it was a slow one. The quintet of dead girls heading for him didn't appear to be in any rush. Maybe the need for speed faded when your heart stopped pumping, or maybe they couldn't grasp the possibility of an automotive getaway—hell, some of them might have been long gone before the internal combustion engine was even invented.

Or maybe there were so many of them out there that a set of wheels was no escape at all.

These hearts are my only sustenance,
Cucuy had said. Galvan thought about that—the years, the numbers—and felt the flames of panic lick higher.

He pushed them back, reached the car, and slid behind the wheel.

Travel as men did in ancient times
,
my ass. Sorry, Cucuy, but all bets are off. The Righteous Messenger might have to go on foot
,
but seeing as I ain't him no more
,
I'ma outpace these fuckin' things by any means at my disposal. If that throws a monkey wrench in your plans, well, so much the better.

Payaso claimed shotgun a moment later, slamming the door and cranking up the window.

“Get us the fuck out of here, homes.”

“There's an idea.”

Galvan fingered the key, and looked over his shoulder. Britannica was chugging toward them with the two teenagers they'd liberated in tow, one hand clamped around each girl's wrist.

“Hurry up, old man!” Payaso called. He squinted out the back windshield. “Those muchachas look like they're coming back around. Drugs must be wearing off, eh?”

He was right. The placidity on their young faces had turned to terror, and they kept twisting to look over their shoulders, gauging the distance between themselves and animated, walking death.

Themselves, and the fate they'd narrowly avoided.

Hell of a time to rejoin the world.

“Here,” said Galvan, handing the machete to Payaso. “I gotta drive. Think you can use this thing?”

Payaso weighed it in his hands, then wrapped both fists around the hilt, held the weapon out in front of him. “Claro que sí, carnal. If I have to.”

“Muy bien.”

Galvan could hear the heart thumping through the metal, quick and steady. Apparently, it held him to a different set of criteria than the Virgin Army did.

Thank god for small miracles.

Britannica and the girls neared the car, huffing and puffing, and Galvan reached back, jacked open the rear door. The priest or not-priest hustled his charges inside and dove in after them.

“Let's go!” he panted.

“You're all so full of great advice,” muttered Galvan, firing up the engine. To his shock, it turned over without protest. 'Bout time they caught a break.

He shifted into drive, high-stepped the tear in the floor, and mashed the gas. The car belched out exhaust and bucked forward like it couldn't wait.

Thing might have been a shitbox, but they sure didn't make shitboxes like this anymore.

Detroit, baby. In the house.

“Seat belts!” Galvan ordered, spinning the wheel and slamming the gearshift into reverse—then realizing, half a second late, that he could have just swung the boat around in a broad U-turn, saved a few crucial seconds.

Galvan checked his mirrors before executing the final third of the maneuver—pure force of habit. And there they were, framed neatly in the pitted driver's-side glass: the five dead girls, moving in a tight formation, as if controlled by a single brain.

Thank god that brain seemed disinclined to make them run. He tried to picture Cucuy's wife, their puppet master. Maybe she got off on stalking her prey, making her husband's minions suffer. They were at war, after all. Supposedly.

Yeah, Jess. Try to get inside the mind of a woman who's been dead five hundred years. Real helpful, you fuckin' mope.

“See you in hell, ladies,” Galvan grunted, throwing the car back into drive and realizing he'd neglected to factor a small, universal truth into his exit strategy.

Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear.

A fist shattered Payaso's window, and then the ponytailed un-girl dove through it, made a headlong grab for the box.

Jess swerved, instinctively, and felt the car broadside the other four girls. They disappeared from sight, a tangle of limbs and dust.

Which was of little fucking comfort, considering the monster clawing her way toward the prize.

“Payaso! Do something!”

Galvan jerked the wheel again, trying to toss her from the car, but this one was too strong. She kept coming. Galvan threw an errant, sightless punch, felt his fist meet the mushy flesh of her cheek, knew he wasn't doing any good.

“Cut her fucking head off!” Britannica bellowed, reaching forward and grabbing a fistful of ponytail. He pulled it forward, baring the back of her neck. “Do it!”

The machete was too big for the space. Payaso's upswing embedded the knife's tip in the ceiling upholstery. He yanked it loose, tried again. The downstroke was awkward, foreshortened, but the blade was sharp. It disappeared into the flesh with a sickening squelch-and-crunch, but the girl kept coming like she didn't even notice.

Galvan pressed himself as close to the door as he could without taking his foot off the gas. “Goddamn it, Payaso! Finish her!”

The lean muscles in Payaso's forearms bulged as he struggled to free the blade from the girl's spinal column so he could take another hack.

“No, no—just push!” Britannica lunged forward, dropped the full weight of his body atop the machete.

Off came the head, in a torrent of curdled, purple-black blood. The thing rolled beneath the brake pedal, and Galvan reached for it with his left foot, spun it toward him, tried to stomp it down through the hole she'd clawed in the floor.

“Ah, fuck!” Galvan brought his leg up, knee banging against the underside of the wheel. “Son of a bitch. She bit me!”

He bent, grabbed her by the ponytail. The eyes flashed, and she snarled at him. Galvan stared back for a moment, mesmerized, then came to his senses and flung the head out Payaso's smashed-in window. It hit the ground and bounced, picking up speed as it disappeared down a low hill.

The body, meanwhile, was still moving—flailing at the box in Galvan's lap as if it hadn't noticed the sudden weight loss up top.

“Throw her out!” Galvan demanded, and Payaso complied, managing to shovel the body backward through the window. The thump it made when it hit the ground was deep and satisfying, and they drove in silence for a moment, relishing the feel of the road beneath them, the wind on their faces.

Galvan went so far as to attempt a sigh of relief. It died in his throat.

Everywhere he looked, across the whole breadth of the land, more girls were emerging.

The secret was out: a Righteous Messenger no longer protected the heart. It was open season.

The un-girls wanted what was theirs. What had been taken from them.

When he thought about it that way, Galvan couldn't say he much blamed them. Which was the aggrieved party in this centuries-old dispute? The megalomaniac who'd murdered his wife, or the innocent woman who'd been his conduit to power?

“Look out!” Payaso wailed, and Jess swerved to avoid a girl standing directly in his path, missing her by a hair. Ahead were two more, and he steeled himself to slalom between them or mow them down. What kind of impact the wagon could handle, he wasn't sure, and didn't want to find out. The fucking thing was built for family vacations, not carnage.

Though, if memory served, family vacations were their own special kind of carnage.

Galvan's tender reminiscences were interrupted by a flying snarl of hair and limbs as an un-girl he hadn't even seen dove across the hood, obscuring his vision. She reared back, preparing to smash the windshield, and he yelled to Payaso for help.

The kid cleared the shards of glass from the window ledge, balanced himself on it, and hacked at her with the machete. He managed to wedge the blade into the back of her thigh and sweep her off the car.

“Incoming!” Britannica clarioned, and then two more were on them, flanking the car on either side, Galvan hip-checking one with the bumper and sending her hurtling from the road, Payaso war-whooping and lashing out with the machete, hacking off three fingers as the other tried to grab ahold of his door. She fell beneath the car, and their heads banged against the station wagon's ceiling as the tires rolled over her.

“Get inside,” Galvan ordered, reaching out just in time to grab Payaso by the leg, save him from tumbling out the window.

And here came more.

Britannica leaned forward. “They won't cross water,” he said, pointing ahead of them. “If we can get to the other side, we're safe.”

Sure enough, the great river glinted in the distance, and Galvan realized that the sound in his head wasn't the frenzied rush of blood and adrenaline, but the rush of water.

“Already?” he heard himself say. He looked down at the speedometer, realized he was pushing eighty.

It was as hard to gauge the distance as the speed, impossible to know whether the water—the border—was five hundred yards away or five thousand.

Especially with so many bodies in the way.

They'd veered badly off the route Galvan knew; he only crossed where the water was calm, predictable. Even from here, he could tell they'd have to broach the swollen, maelstroming middle. And if anything took more lives than thirst out here, it was water.

Water, and dead girls.

“Incoming!” Britannica called again as two more charged at them, from the passenger side.

Payaso climbed back onto the ledge. “I got this, homes,” he said, lifting the steel.

He sliced the first girl throat to waist, and she spun away into the dust. Lightning-quick, he raised the blade again and with a backhand sweep thrust it through the stomach of the next attacker.

“You don't know who you're fucking with!” he crowed, pulling the blood-slicked blade back out as she, too, ceased to be a threat. “Come on, who's next? I
got
this!”

And for a moment, Jess believed. For a moment possibility surged through him, and the river seemed inches away, and the image of his daughter's face filled up his mind.

He smiled.

Almost home.

Then the station wagon hit a pothole the size of Delaware, and Payaso lost his balance. The kid teetered for a moment, all four limbs flailing. Galvan reached for him, grasping at air, and they locked eyes.

But it was too late.

Payaso fell three and a half feet, to his death.