She didn’t want to think about going in search of a house.
Maybe later.
For now, she was well hidden and safe. She felt very lucky to be alive. She sure didn’t want to jeopardize herself by venturing out into an unfamiliar neighborhood.
The thing to do is find Andy, she decided.
Gritting her teeth, Jody pushed herself up to her hands and knees. Though her hurts flared, she didn’t allow the pain to stop her. On her feet, she pulled at the twisted damp rag of her nightshirt, unwound it, and drew it down her thighs.
To her right, she saw the hillside that slanted up, heavy with trees and bushes, toward the rear of the Youngman house. She couldn’t see much of it. She certainly couldn’t see the wall at the top. But nothing seemed to be moving down toward her through the darkness.
To her left, she saw more trees and undergrowth. Splashes of moonlight, but no light from houses or streets. How odd. They had to be there. She’d visited the area often enough to know that every hillside had a road curving around its base, that every such road was lined with houses.
Houses on the hillsides always had houses somewhere below them. Being at the bottom of a hill, she must be fairly close to the back of someone’s place.
So where are the lights?
Maybe a power failure, she told herself.
She didn’t like the idea of that. Not one bit. A power failure might’ve been caused on purpose by those men to give them darkness.
What if it wasn’t just the guys I saw? What if they’re all over the place? Hundreds of them. Like The Night of the Living Dead, or something.
No, that’s crazy.
This whole thing’s crazy and sick. I don’t need to make it worse by going nuts with my imagination.
She knew there hadn’t been a power failure as of five or ten minutes ago; the Youngman house had still been lighted up the last time she’d seen it from over by the wall. Besides, if that bunch had wanted to knock out all the lights in the area, they certainly would’ve done it before starting their attacks.
I bet there isn’t any power failure, she thought. I just can’t see the lights because of all the trees and stuff. Fences, too. Almost every house was likely to have a solid fence of wood or cinderblocks to protect it from the wilds at the base of the slope.
Probably no way to reach a street without running into a fence.
More climbing.
I’ll need to give Andy another boost.
Have to find him first.
She listened again for sounds of anyone approaching. They’re long gone. They’ve gotta be.
“Andy?” she called softly.
She stood motionless, listening. No answer came.
“Andy!” she called more loudly.
She waited.
Maybe he’s out cold.
He had dropped from the same wall as Jody, must’ve tumbled down the same slope. Even though they’d started at almost the same place, however, he certainly hadn’t ended up in the creek bed with her.
It seemed likely that he’d stopped short, somewhere up the slope.
How far up?
She hadn’t seen or heard him rolling down the slope. Maybe he’d landed by the wall and stayed there.
What if they got him?
“Jody?”
She whirled toward the slope. “Andy?”
“Where are you?” The faint, fearful voice of the boy came from above and off to her left.
“I’m on my way,” Jody called.
Chapter Seven
It took only a few minutes to find Andy. He lay in the darkness beneath an overhanging lip of rock. Jody could only see the dim gray of his torso and face. His jeans made him invisible below the waist.
As she approached him, he propped himself up on his elbows.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. What about you?”
“Fine.” She sat down beside him. The ground was springy with weeds. They were damp and soft. They felt a lot better than the rocks of the creek bed. She leaned back, bracing herself on stiff arms, and stretched out her legs beside Andy’s. “You didn’t tell me there was a cliff behind that wall,” she said.
“Yeah, well. They didn’t get us, did they?”
“Not so far. Have you heard anything from up there?”
“No. You?”
“Huh-uh.”
“I think they went away.”
“Sure hope so,” Jody said. “I think we’d better stay here, though. How’s the old knee?”
“I don’t know. I’m not so sure it’s broken anymore.”
“What, you think it healed?”
“I don’t think I broke it. Maybe it’s just twisted.”
“It better be broken after you made me drag you all over creation.”
He was silent for a few moments. Then he said, “You saved me, Jody.”
“Yeah, well. Glad to be of service. You were pretty good yourself, pal.”
He sank against the ground and rested his hands over his hips. He sighed.
“Are you okay?” Jody asked again.
“Sure.” A while later, he said, “They got everyone, didn’t they?”
Jody lay down beside him. She pulled his arm and he rolled onto his side. They scooted toward each other until their bodies met. She held him. “It’s all right,” she whispered.
Like hell, she thought. They killed them all. His mom and dad, Evelyn. His whole family.
“Everything’ll be all right,” she said.
Andy didn’t say anything.
After a while, he began to cry.
Jody squeezed him tight against her while he wept with his face pushed against the side of her neck.
Soon after he stopped crying, the sirens began. There seemed to be one at first, then many, their wails rising and overlapping and dying.
The night was still filled with sirens when Jody murmured, “Good God. I haven’t heard anything like this since the riots.”
“Sure sounds like a lot of cops,” Andy said.
“Not just cops. Fire trucks.”
“Do you think so?”
“Yeah.”
As the noise of the sirens diminished, Jody heard car doors thudding shut, voices shouting, other voices tinny and amplified by loud speakers, others broken, crackling with static.
“Do you think my house is burning down?” Andy asked.
“It might be. I hope not, but ..”
“Do you think they’re in it?”
“Oh, Andy.”
“They are, aren’t they?”
“I don’t know.” She pressed her mouth against the side of his head. After a while, she said, “We oughta get up there. The sooner we tell the police what happened, the better.”
She started to ease away, but Andy tightened his arms around her.
“Come on,” she whispered.
“I don’t wanta.”
“I’ll help you walk.”
“That isn’t why.”
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
“Stay here.”
“Do you want me to go up and bring someone ... ?”
“No! You’ve gotta stay, too.”
“Andy.”
“Please. We gotta just stay here.”
Jody relaxed in his arms. She gently stroked the back of his head. “Are you afraid those guys might be up there?”
His head moved beneath her hand, nodding.
“They didn’t come down after us,” she said.
“They might be waiting.”
“I don’t think so. They probably started the fire on purpose, you know? It’s a great way to destroy physical evidence.”
“Fingerprints and stuff?”
“Yeah. All kinds of things. So they probably started the fire and then took off. They sure wouldn’t want to be here when the fire trucks and cops showed up. They’re probably miles away by now.”
“Maybe.”
“They’d be nuts to stick around.”
Andy was silent for a few moments, then said, “You think they’re not nuts?”
“Okay. I should’ve said ‘stupid.’ They’re nuts, all right, but they aren’t stupid. Those two didn’t jump off the balcony, for instance. They knew they might get hurt. And they didn’t come down here. Must’ve figured it’d be a waste of time, and too risky. Or maybe my trick with the phone worked. If they really thought I’d gotten through to 911, they had to figure the cops would be showing up in five or ten minutes. They didn’t want to be around when the cops arrived.”
“I guess not,” Andy admitted.
“Which means they’re gone, right?”
“I guess so.”
“They’re gone.”
“Okay.”
“So let’s get out of here.”
He shook his head and hugged her very hard.
“Andy.”
“What if they’re waiting for us?”
“They aren’t. Come on, we just went through this.”
“Maybe they all took off like you said, but maybe they left just one guy behind to hide and wait for us and ambush us when we come out?”
Jody hadn’t thought of that. “That’s crazy,” she said.
“Yeah.”
She could see the ax man crouching in the dark. Waiting. Knowing she and Andy would be drawn up the hill by the promise of safety in the hands of the police.
They knew it’d be awfully tough to find us down here.
One guy could stay behind easily enough. The rest of them drive off, and he stays. Millions of places to hide. He hides and waits and just when we think it’s all over he jumps us and that’s all she wrote.
Oh, man. It made sense..
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Remember what you said to Mable?” He must’ve detected that Jody was starting to see the matter his way. His voice sounded quick, almost eager, and he relaxed his hold on her. “You said they had to kill us because we’re witnesses.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“They aren’t gonna just let us get away. They’ll leave a guy behind to jump us the minute we show ourselves. I know they will.”
“I guess ... they might.”
Right now, she thought, there must be bunches of cops up there. Cops and firemen. We’ll be fine once we get to them. If we wait too long, though, they’ll be gone. Then we’ll be on our own.
“I don’t know what to do,” she muttered.
“Let’s just stay here.”
“We can’t stay here forever.”
“Till morning. If we wait till morning, nobody can sneak up on us. We can see him coming, you know?”
“He might see us before we see him. And by then, the cops and firemen might not be around anymore.”
“We oughta wait till morning.”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s stay.”
“I’ve gotta think about it.”
Andy snuggled against her.
She stroked his hair and caressed his back and tried to think. She wanted very badly to be with the cops who were probably all over the place in front of the Clark house. As much as she wanted that, however, she hated to do what would be necessary to make it happen.
Waiting for dawn would be a mistake, though.
She asked herself what her father would do in a situation like this. And the answer came fast.
She didn’t have to wait long for Andy to fall asleep. As soon as his breathing changed and his body relaxed against her, she began to ease away from him. She moved very slowly. She paused often. At last, their bodies were untangled. She rolled over, got to her hands and knees, and stood up.
Andy lay on his side, head cushioned on one bent arm, his other arm resting along his side, his legs back.
Definitely asleep, Jody told herself.
But she feared that he might wake up the instant she looked away—as if her gaze was the only power that kept him sleeping. So she watched him while she crept sideways.
What if this is the last time I see him alive?
What if I come back with a cop and he’s dead, all bloody and hacked and ...
He’ll be okay.
She began to climb straight up the slope.
After making up her mind to go for the police by herself, she had considered the best way to do it. The sensible course would’ve been to make a major detour—head off to one side or the other, or actually move away from the hillside, climb whatever fences might be in the way, and cut through someone’s yard to whatever road might be down here.
A lot of directions to choose from. One crazy lunatic, left behind to finish the job, couldn’t cover every place.
A detour might be safer than the direct route, but it would sure take longer.
She wanted to reach the cops fast and get back to Andy fast.
So she had decided to charge straight up the hillside.
Maybe not charge. Sneak.
Sneak so Andy doesn’t wake up; sneak so the bastard waiting at the top, hunkered down with his back against the wall, won’t hear me coming.
If he’s even there.
Maybe nobody had stayed behind at all. Maybe they’d all raced off in their cars after setting Andy’s house on fire.
If one of them had stayed, he might be anywhere.
The climb wasn’t easy. Several times, Jody’s feet slipped out from under her and she landed on her knees. In places, the hillside was so steep that she had to crawl. Here and there, she was forced to grab weeds or bushes or tree roots to keep herself from skidding backward.
After an uphill struggle that seemed endless, she made her way past a tree, got above it, and leaned back against its trunk. The way the tree slanted out from the slope, it took much of the weight off her feet.
She gasped for breath. Her heart thumped madly. Her skin felt very hot, and she seemed to be sweating everywhere. She wiped her eyes with a moist, slick arm. She blinked.
Almost there.
And then she saw thick piles of smoke clotting the night beyond the top of the wall. The smoke shimmered with a red glow.
It’s the Youngman house, she realized. That’s the one they set on fire. Not Andy’s place, after all.
Unless maybe both.
Probably both.
No wonder all the sirens.
The ruddy light did nothing at all to illuminate Jody’s side of the wall. The top of the wall was a straight edge, the night glowing above it, nothing but blackness below.
Nobody’s there, she told herself.
Yeah, right.
He could be standing with his back to the wall, straight above her, staring down at her right now.
But the wall, Jody guessed, was probably at least a hundred feet long. He could be waiting anywhere along it. (Or be long gone.) If he hadn’t spotted her yet, and if he was a fair distance away to one side or the other, and if she was very quiet and very quick ...
She bent her knees. She started to scoot down the trunk, but its bark scratched her back and snagged I er nightshirt, so she had to push away from it. Squatting, she scanned the slope and wall.
Probably no one’s even there, she told herself.
She leaned forward. On hands and feet, she crept higher.
Really ironic if I get myself killed at this stage of things. Made it through so much, only to get nailed when I’m almost to the cops.
She had learned about irony in her English class last year. Her English teacher, Mr. Platt, had explained that it was the flipside of poetic justice.
She believed in God.
She wasn’t too sure about His merciful side, but one thing was very clear: God delighted in irony.
It would probably tickle him, she thought, to see me catch an ax just when I get to the wall, just when I think I’m home free.
Please, don’t. Okay? It’d kill my dad. You already got Mom in one of your irony binges, so just try to control yourself this time, okay? Please? Amen.
The prayer had no sooner taken flight from J
ody’s mind than she thought, Oh, great way to talk to God. Now I’ve probably pissed Him off and He’ll kill me for sure.
She stopped.
Poised on her knuckles and the balls of her feet, she stared straight ahead at the black wall. It was probably no more than two yards away, though she couldn’t be sure. Too dark to be sure of anything.
She glanced both ways, but saw nothing.
Might as well get it over with.
The way her muscles were jumping and jiggling, she wondered if she would have enough strength to make it over the wall.
I’ll make it, she told herself.
On the count of three.
One.
Two.
Three!
She sprangp and forward like a sprinter leaving the blocks, churned up the final piece of hillside, hurled herself toward the wall and leaped.
Even as her hands clamped the top, she heard quick footfalls rushing at her from the left.
Part Two
Simon Says
Chapter Eight
He blamed me. Mitchell, that is. It was just after the girl and the kid got away from us. I’d gotten a hold of the girl’s leg when she was trying to go over the wall, but she broke loose. That’s when my troubles really got started last night, so that’s where I might as well start this off.
It was my fault. I should’ve had her. What messed things up was that I had a hand way up high on her leg, and she wasn’t wearing any panties. All she had on was this red nightie that was like a really big T-shirt. I got distracted, so then it took me by surprise when her leg suddenly kicked back. I lost hold of her ankle, and my other hand got mashed between her leg and the wall. So I lost her.
It beat up my hand pretty good, by the way. Raked skin off the backs of my fingers and knuckles. I even bled, but not much.
Anyway, I lost her. I should’ve had her twice last night, when it comes right down to it. The first time was in the front yard of the old bag’s house—the house she and the kid finally got into. She’d tried to make a turn, but didn’t slow down enough and ended up taking a slide across the grass instead. Which gave me the chance to catch her. I did, too. She tried to get up and get away from me, but I yanked her down by her hair.
I had her flat on her back. Her nightie’d gotten shoved up, so it was rumpled around her chest. I couldn’t see her tits, but the rest of her was all laid out in front of me. That’s when I first saw she didn’t have any panties on. She was real slim, but not skin and bones. Her skin looked smooth and nice. She didn’t look like she had any muff at all, not till I was on my knees by her head, and then I could see how she had some hair, but it was so fine and wispy that you could look right through it.