“Courtney!
He had intended to remain silent. But now it seemed terribly important to call her name-as if the spoken word were a magic charm that would heal whatever the madman had done to her.
“Courtney!
No reply.
“Courtney, where are you?”
In the back of his mind, Doyle knew that he should calm down. He should shut up for a minute and rethink the situation, consider his options once more before making another move. He was not going to help either Courtney or Colin if he acted stupidly, precipitously, and got himself killed.
However, with the silent house pressing in on him, he was temporarily incapable of rational behavior.
“Courtney!
Bent for-ward like a soldier landing on an enemy-held beach, he ran up the main stairs two at a time. At the top, he grabbed the head of the banister to keep his balance, and he gasped for breath.
Along the second-floor hallway, all the doors were closed, each like the lid of a surprise package.
The guest bedroom was the nearest. He took three steps across the hall and threw that door open.
For a moment he could not understand what he was seeing. Boards, boxes, papers, and other junk were stacked in the middle of the room, a pile of rubble in the center of the nice new carpet. He took several steps forward, past the threshold, curiously disquieted by the incongruity of what lay there.
The thick, slow voice came from the doorway immediately behind him: “You took her away from me.”
Alex made himself fall to the left as he turned. But it was hopeless. In spite of that maneuver, the bullet slammed into him and knocked him all the way down.
The tall, broad-shouldered man stood in the doorway, smiling. He held a pistol quite like the one which Doyle had bought in Carson City - and had thoughtlessly left in the car when he needed it most.
He thought: it just proves that you can't turn a pacifist into a violent man overnight. You can pump him up with courage, but you can't make him think in terms of guns . . .
It was a ridiculous thing to be running through his mind just then. Therefore, he stopped thinking about it and gave himself up to the ruby-colored darkness.
When George Leland came back from a daydream about the farm and his father, he was sitting on the edge of Courtney's bed. He was caressing her face with one hand.
Her body was as stiff as a plaster statue as she strained against her bonds. She was trying to say something behind the adhesive tape, and she had begun to weep.
“It's okay,” Leland said. “I took care of him.”
She tossed back and forth, trying to shake off his hand.
Leland looked at the pistol in his other hand, and he realized that he had only shot Doyle once. Maybe the sonofabitch was not dead. He ought to go back and make sure.
But he did not want to leave Courtney. He wanted to touch her some more, maybe even make love to her. Feel her soft, warm skin gliding over the calloused pads of his fingers. Enjoy her. Enjoy being with her. The two of them together again . . . He spread his hands on her chest and pressed down with enough force to make her be still. He petted her face and sifted her golden hair through his fingers.
For the moment he had all but forgotten Alex Doyle.
He did not think of Colin at all.
The boy heard the shot. It was muffled by the walls of the house, but it was instantly identifiable.
He opened the door and jumped out of the car. He ran halfway down the drive, then stopped when he suddenly realized that he had nowhere to go.
Downhill, the houses remained dark, as did those uphill. Apparently no one had been awakened by the shot.
Okay. But he could still go wake them up and tell them what happened, couldn't he? Even as he considered that, he knew it was useless. He thought of the way Captain Ackridge had treated Alex. And while he knew that the neighbors would be friendly, he also knew that they would not believe him—at least not in time to help Alex and Courtney. An eleven-year-old boy? He would be humored, perhaps scolded. But never believed.
He turned and ran back to the car, stopped at the open door and looked at the house. No one had come outside.
Get on with it, he thought. Alex wouldn't hesitate. He went right in after Courtney, didn't he? You want to be an adult or a frightened child?
He sat on the edge of the car seat and opened the glove compartment, took out the small pasteboard box. He lifted out the pistol and put it on the seat, fumbled for ammunition. In his eleven years he had never handled a gun before, but he thought the loading procedure looked pretty elementary. The safety was marked by tiny letters which he could just make out in the dim overhead light: SAFETY ON-OFF. He pushed it to OFF.
Twenty-five
Alex stared at the broken crates, shredded newspapers, and other garbage for a minute or two before he realized where he was and remembered what had happened. The madman, with a gun this time . . .
“Courtney?” he asked softly.
When he moved, he triggered the pain. It came in waves and made him feel old and weak. He had been hit high in the left shoulder blade, and he felt as if someone had liberally salted the wound.
Missed the heart, at least, he thought. Must have missed everything vital. But that was only slightly comforting.
He got one hand under himself and pushed up to his knees, dripping blood on the carpet under him. The pain increased; the waves crashed through him with greater force and more speed.
He kept expecting to hear another shot and to be knocked forward into the boxes and newspapers. But he climbed laboriously to his feet and turned around to find the doorway empty, the madman gone.
Clutching his shoulder with his good hand, blood bubbling between his fingers, he started across the room. He was halfway to the hall door when he thought it would be a good idea to have some sort of weapon before he went looking for the man. But what? He turned around again and looked at the stack of junk, saw just what he needed. He went back and picked up a four-foot-long, three-inch-wide board from a broken wooden packing crate. Three long bent nails protruded from one side of it. It would do. Again he turned toward the doorway and crossed the room.
Those eight steps seemed more like eight hundred. By the time he had taken them, he needed to stop and rest. His chest was tight, and his breath did not come easily. He leaned against the wall just inside the door, out of sight of anyone in the second-floor hallway.
You've got to do better than this, he told himself, closing his eyes to block out the dizzying movement of the room. Even if you do find him, you won't be able to stop him from doing whatever he pleases to Courtney and Colin. You can't be this weak. It's shock. You were shot. You're bleeding. And you're suffering from shock. Anyone would be. But you have to overcome it soon, or you might as well sit down and bleed to death.
Leland pulled the tape off her mouth and touched her bloodless lips. “It's all right now, Courtney. Doyle is dead. We don't have to worry about him. It's just you and me against everyone.
She was unable to speak. She was no longer the golden girl, but was as pale as milk.
“I'm going to let you up now,” he said, smiling. “If you're good, that is. If you behave yourself, I'll untie your feet and hands—so that we can make love. Would you like that?”
She shook her head no.
“Sure you would.”
On the first level, toward the back of the house, a window broke and crashed across a bare floor.
“It's the police,” she said, not knowing for sure who it was, wanting to frighten him.
He stood up without untying her. “No,” he said. “It's the boy. How could I have forgotten the boy?” Perplexed, he turned away from the bed and started for the door.
“Don't hurt him!” she cried. “For God's sake, leave him alone!”
Leland did not hear her. He was able to fully perceive and think about only one thing at a time. Right now, that was the boy. He had to find the boy and kill him, eliminate this last obstacle betw
een himself and Courtney.
He left the master bedroom, went down the hall to the stairs.
When Alex heard the glass shattering downstairs, he thought that Colin must have brought help. But then he remembered that the front door was standing open. Why would anyone not use it?
He knew, at once, that Colin had not gone for help. Instead, the boy had taken the pistol from the glove compartment, the pistol Doyle had not remembered at the right time. Colin had distrusted the open front door and had gone around to the back of the house to find a way in. He was coming to the rescue all by himself. It was a very brave thing to do. It would also get him killed.
Doyle pushed away from the wall just as Courtney screamed, and he nearly tripped over his own feet in surprise. She was alive! Of course, he had been telling himself that she would be okay—but he had not believed it. He had expected to find a corpse.
He turned toward the door to the hall just in time to see the madman reach the top of the stairs and start down.
In the master bedroom down the hall, Courtney screamed again. “Don't hurt him! Don't kill my brother too!”
Too? Then she believes that I'm already dead, Doyle thought.
“Courtney!” He did not care if the man downstairs heard him. “I'm okay. Colin will be okay.”
“Alex? Is that you?”
“It's me,” he said. Holding the crude weapon tightly in his good hand, he went across the landing and down the steps, hurrying after the madman.
Twenty-six
Colin tried the kitchen door. it was locked. He did not want to waste time trying all the windows, and he was not about to walk through the front entrance which had so completely swallowed Alex. He hesitated only a second, then reversed the pistol, held it by the barrel, and used the butt to smash in one of the large panes of glass in the door.
He thought he ought to be able to get inside quickly enough to find a good hiding place before the madman reached the kitchen. Then he would come out of concealment and shoot the man in the back.
But he could not find the latch. He thrust one arm through the empty windowpane, scratching it on the remaining shards of glass, and he felt around on the inside of the door. But the lock mechanism escaped his fingers. There did not seem to be a lock switch.
He looked at the other end of the well-lighted kitchen, at the door the man would come through.
Precious seconds passed while he fumbled noisily, desperately for the unseen latch.
And, suddenly, he found it. He cried out, twisted it, and pushed the door open, stumbling into the kitchen with the .32 held out in front of him.
Before he could look for a place to hide, George Leland came through the other door. Colin recognized the man at once, though he had not seen him in two years. But the recognition did not freeze him. He pointed the gun at Leland's chest and pulled the trigger.
The recoil numbed his arms clear up to the elbows.
Leland moved in like an express train, roaring wordlessly. He swung one open hand and sent the boy sprawling on the shiny tile floor.
Colin's pistol clattered among the table and chair legs, out of reach. And the boy knew, as he watched the gun spin away, that his first and only shot had missed the mark.
Alex was halfway through the dining room, closing in on the stranger's unprotected back while the man was still unaware of him, when the shot exploded in the kitchen. He heard the madman shout, saw him leap forward. He heard Colin squeal and something overturn an instant later.
But he did not know who had shot whom.
Running the last few feet into the kitchen, he raised the spiked board over his head.
On the floor by the refrigerator, Colin was trying to get to his feet. Two yards away, the stranger raised his pistol . . .
Crying out in terror and a sort of savage glee, Alex brought his club down, swung it with all his strength. The three spikes raked the back of the other man's skull.
The stranger howled, dropped his gun, grabbed at his head with both hands. He staggered two steps and was brought up by the heavy butcher-block table.
Alex struck again. The spikes pierced the man's hands this time, briefly nailing them to his skull before Doyle jerked the board away.
The madman came around to face his attacker, his bleeding hands thrown up to ward off the next blow.
Alex met the wide blue eyes, and he thought that there was definitely more than a trace of sanity in them now, something clean and rational. The madness had temporarily fallen away.
Alex did not care about that. He swung the club again. The spikes grazed the stranger's face, furrowed the flesh, drew three red streaks across one cheek.
“Please,” the man said, leaning back over the table, crossing his arms in front of his face. “Please! Please stop!”
But Doyle knew that if he stopped now, the insanity might well return to those eyes quickly and with a vengeance. The big man might lunge forward and regain the advantage. And then he would show no mercy.
Doyle thought of what the sonofabitch might have done to Courtney, what he would have done to Colin. He struck again. And again. He struck harder and faster each time, ripping the nails into the man's arms, neck, the sides of his skull . . .
Doyle whimpered, painfully aware that he was now the maniac and that the man on the table had become the right man. But he went on anyway, slashing and tearing with all of his strength.
The stranger fell to the floor and cracked his head on the tiles. He looked sadly up at Doyle and tried to say something. Blood ran from a hundred cuts and, suddenly, it poured out of his nose like water from a set of faucets. He died.
For a full minute Alex stood over the corpse, staring down at his handiwork. He was numb. He felt nothing: not anger, shame, pity, sorrow, not anything at all. It did not seem right to have killed a man and feel no remorse.
Waves of pain spread out again from his wounded shoulder. He realized that he had been using both hands to hold the club, that he had put both of his shoulders into each brutal swing of it. He dropped the board on top of the corpse and turned away from both of them.
Colin was standing in the corner by the refrigerator. He was sheet-white and trembling. He looked smaller and skinnier than ever.
“Are you okay?” Doyle asked.
The boy looked at him, unable to speak.
“Colin.”
The boy only shook.
Doyle took a step toward him.
Suddenly crying out, Colin ran forward, flung himself against Doyle, hugged the man around the waist. He was sobbing hysterically. He looked up, eyes glistening behind the thick glasses, and said, “You won't ever leave us, will you?”
“Leave you? Of course not,” Doyle said. He grabbed the boy under the arms, lifted him and held him tightly.
“Say you won't leave us!” Colin demanded. Tears streamed down his face. He was shaking so hard that he could not be settled no matter how firmly Doyle held him. “Say it! Say it!”
“I'll never leave you,” Doyle said, squeezing him even tighter. “Oh, God, Colin, the two of you are all I have now. I've lost everything else now.”
The boy cried against his neck.
Carrying Colin, he went out of the kitchen and through the dining room, out to the main steps. “We'll go see how Courtney is,” he told the boy, hoping his voice would calm him.
It did not.
They were halfway up the steps toward the second floor when the boy began to shake worse than ever in Doyle's arms. “Are you telling the truth? You really won't leave us?”
“Truth.” Doyle kissed the boy's tearstained nose.
“Not ever?”
“Never. I told you . . . The two of you are all that's left. I've just lost everything else.”
Holding the boy against his chest as he went to see about Courtney, Alex thought that one of the things he had lost was the ability to cry as freely as a child. And right now, more than anything, he wanted to cry.
Table of Contents
[FRONT F
LAP:]
Shattered
Copyright © 1973 by K. R. Dwyer
To Lee Wright
MONDAY
One
Two
Three
TUESDAY
Four
Five
Six
WEDNESDAY,
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
THURSDAY
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
FRIDAY
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Saturday
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Dean Koontz, Shattered
(Series: # )
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